The Offer (Baron 2)

After some moments the door slid cautiously open and a frowning maid’s face appeared.

“What do you want?”

“I want my husband,” Sabrina said coldly, and shoved the door open, knocking the maid aside. She was standing in a square entranceway. On one side she could see into a small drawing room. Straight ahead of her was a slightly winding staircase that led to the upper floor. She heard a light, tinkling laugh from above, and without further thought, she grasped her skirts and rushed to the stairs.

“Oh, Gawd, wait, miss, wait! You can’t go up there.”

“You just watch me,” Sabrina said over her shoulder, and began running up the stairs. She followed the sound of a woman’s lovely husky voice from inside a room. The door stood some inches open. She stood for an instant, indecisive. At the sound of Phillip’s low laugh, she pu

shed the door open and rushed inside. She drew up short, panting.

She stood inside a large bedchamber, dominated by a huge bed. Upon the bed a woman lay upon her back, clothed in nothing but alabaster skin. In an instant, Sabrina took in every detail of her exquisite body. She looked like a painting, damn her.

But it was Phillip who quickly captured her attention. He was standing next to the bed, his cravat hanging loose, his coat flung over a chair. At least he wasn’t naked, but it didn’t matter. He would have been as naked as his mistress in another three minutes.

The brief frozen tableau suddenly turned into furious life.

Phillip, who had been laughing at Martine’s verbal baiting of him, turned to see his wife burst into the bedchamber.

He stared at her openmouthed, incredulous, disbelieving. Then he yelled, “What the devil are you doing here?”

38

“My goodness,” Martine said, rising on her elbow as she slowly pulled her peignoir over her lovely self. “I hadn’t expected this.”

Sabrina looked again at his now nearly naked mistress, and yelled back at him, “I wish the plaster had fallen on your head while you were making love to her, you bastard! How dare you even be here? It makes me want to slay you, Phillip. Damn you, you’re my husband!”

“What are you yammering about plaster? Oh! So you were eavesdropping, were you? Not a very ladylike thing to do, Sabrina.” He stopped. He’d never felt such a fool in his life. Dammit, this couldn’t be happening, not to him. It was more worthy of a farce in Drury Lane. He took several furious steps toward her.

“Ladylike! You rotter, you’re mine, yet you won’t even give me a chance.”

“It’s true that you’re my wife, and as such, why the devil aren’t you at home, where you belong?”

“It’s your home, you faithless bastard, not mine. I don’t belong there, I merely reside there. She could reside there as well. It wouldn’t matter to you.”

“Dammit, Sabrina, that makes no sense at all. I won’t tolerate any more of this. Go home now. I’ll deal with you later.”

“Later? You mean after you’ve bedded her? Then perhaps you’ll have time to spend with me? How kind you are. My heart nearly expires with the joy of it.”

“What I do with her is none of your business. You’re the one who offered me my freedom, freedom I told you I already had and always would have.”

“You dared to accuse me of flirting with Richard Clarendon and all the while you have a mistress. A mistress!” Sabrina waved toward Martine who was sitting on the side of the bed. “How dare you do this to me? Do I mean so little to you that you don’t hesitate to humiliate me? Does our marriage mean so little to you?”

“Enough of this idiocy. Listen. Our marriage, madam, was meant to provide you a home and the protection of my name. You wanted that, don’t you remember? You offered me marriage, don’t you remember? You offered me my freedom.”

She actually shook her fist at him, yelling, “That was then. This is now. I love you. You’re my husband. I won’t allow you any more freedom unless the freedom is with me!” She looked over at Martine to see the woman smiling at her, nodding. It made no sense. It didn’t stop her. “I know that she is beautiful and much more nicely put together than I am, but she didn’t get ruined, I did. You didn’t have to marry her, you had to marry me. So it’s done. Accept it, damn you.”

“Accept it like I did when I saw you take Richard Clarendon into that very private little room of yours?”

“Will you forever play that same tired song? It’s absurd, and you know it.” Then her eyes narrowed, her hands were on her hips. “Well, perhaps you weren’t wrong. Perhaps Richard is so pleasing to me that I just might go see him right now while you remain here to enjoy yourself.”

“You won’t take Richard Clarendon as your lover. You won’t take any man as a lover.”

She stared at him, unable to believe his perversity.

He smote his forehead with his palm. “Ah, you’re driving me to the brink of madness. Go home, Sabrina. I won’t take any more of this. Get out of here. By God, you’re ranting like the lowest trollop in Soho.”

“You bastard,” she screamed at him. “I catch you with your mistress and you have the gall to call me a trollop?” She ran at him, pounding on his chest with her fists with all her strength.