The Libertine (Taskill Witches 2)

“You were not concerned about your reputation when bringing a mistress into our home?”

The cold, dismissive look he gave her was tempered only by a wry, almost smug smile. No, such infidelities only added to a man’s reputation. A woman was damned if she dared to do the same. Even if the marital bed had turned cold, it was not the woman’s place to find passion and comfort in the arms of another, but it was a man’s right to do so. The tension she felt built. She had hoped he would find her suggestion agreeable at this point. She had no idea where she would go and what she would do, but she could no longer continue to live this sham of a marriage. “Under the circumstances, I cannot stay.”

Gavin shifted in his carved wooden chair. Pushing it out from the table, he crossed one leg over the other. “I forbid you to leave.”

That smug smile was back, and the way he had moved his position meant he was ready to pounce.

Her heart thundered in her chest. This was so wrong.

She stood up, pushing her chair back so quickly it crashed to the floor behind her. Even as she turned away he was on his feet and in pursuit. She almost reached the door and he snatched her from behind, grabbing her by the arms and hauling her away from the door.

“You will stay and you will bear me an heir,” he barked into her ear. His hands tightened on her arms, straining her shoulders and forcing her to arch her back.

“I would prefer that your mistress took on the task.”

It flashed through her mind in that moment, what Lennox had suggested to her. What if it were not her that was infertile, but her husband? There was no guarantee the child his first wife had carried was his. Could it be true, that his mistress had not borne him a child, either? If she had given birth he would already have announced it. Chloris felt the rage at her back intensify, and realized that she had stumbled upon the truth—that his mistress had not fallen pregnant by him, either. Was that his purpose on having the woman installed in their home, to fulfill his dream of an heir? If he had been successful, would she have been banished to Saint Andrews forever?

His grip on her arms was viselike, and then he shook her, violently, bending her arms back as he did so. Chloris bit back a scream, for the pain in her shoulders was immense. For a moment she thought he intended to break her arms, and then he pushed her harshly against the wall, where she slumped.

She turned to look up at him.

“If she falls pregnant before you, you are out on the streets for all I care. But I forbid you to bring humiliation upon me by leaving before there is good cause.”

She gripped a nearby chair and her feet scrabbled beneath her. Pushing herself up against the wall she stood up straight, facing him. “I already have good cause to leave you.”

The hard, brittle character she saw in his eyes intensified. “I have warned you before. I will have you weighted and drowned before dawn if you deny me my rights as your husband.”

He had threatened her with it before, but Gavin had men that would take on the unsavory task, the brutal types who protected him when he went amongst his tenants demanding rents.

“Do so. I care not to live under these circumstances.” It was the truth. In fact she’d rather drown herself than carry on in this manner.

“Ungrateful bitch. I have given you a home and comforts any woman would be happy with.”

“Aye, and most of it bought with my dowry.”

He ignored that. “If you fail to fall pregnant before this summer is over, you will be out in the gutter, worthless and abandoned. You would do better to open your legs and pray that you are not barren.”

“I would rather be in the gutter than receive you in my bed again.”

“You will receive me, even if I have to bind and gag you.”

The threat did not surprise her. He was at best coldhearted and selfish, and now he was threatening to force her. However, in the old days it would have made her tremble in fear, now it only made her angry. “I take it your mistress has not provided you with a bairn as yet.”

That enraged him. He slapped her across the face.

It was such a harshly delivered blow that her neck twisted, her head knocking up against the wall. The pain was extreme only for a moment, then it turned to a slow burn. Her eyes smarted but Chloris held her head high, using the pain to reinforce her determination. She saw it all clearly now, saw the way he had channeled his disturbed emotions into her, making her feel guilty and ashamed because she had not produced an heir. He was the desperate one here, not her.

His eyes turned blacker than she had ever seen.

He lifted his arm again.

Once she would have cowered and begged him for mercy. But Chloris suspected that only incited him. She straightened her spine and shook her head. “You will not hit me again, Gavin.”

He looked at her with outrage, with hatred.

None of it moved her. She had become whole, a woman fulfilled, a person in her own right. She’d grown stronger, flourished in ways far more immense than she ever imagined when she went to Somerled that fateful night.

Continuing to fix him with her steady gaze, she leveled with him. “Only a coward beats a woman.”