The Marriage Bed Read Online Free PDF Page B

strangled, as if the words choked him. He looked down at the glass of brandy in his hand. "However much I might wish it were otherwise."
    Viola turned to give the other woman in the library a pleading glance, a glance that impelled her sister-in-law to speak. "Is there nothing you can do, Anthony?" Daphne asked her husband. "You are a duke, after all, and have enormous influence."
    "My influence is useless in this situation, my dear. Hammond has legal right on his side, and even I cannot protect Viola from that."
    His glass in his hand, Anthony rose from his chair and crossed the room to sit beside his sister on the settee. "If I were to gainsay Hammond and prevent him from taking you, he could bring action against me in the House and force your return to him by legal decree. If you wish me to fight him, I will. But I will lose."
    It was so tempting to beg him to try anyway, despite the certainty of the outcome. "It would be quite a scandal, wouldn't it?"
    "Yes, and you would be the one blamed, Viola, not he. What with his appearance at Kettering 's ball the other night and the news of his cousin's death, the gossip is all over London ."
    "What are people saying?"
    Her brother did not answer, but he did not have to.
    "No doubt, Hammond is being applauded for finally bringing his recalcitrant wife to heel," she said, fuming at the unfairness of it all.
    Anthony did not confirm nor deny her conclusion. Instead, he handed her his glass of brandy. "Here. Drink this. You look as if you need it."
    Viola stared down into the fiery liquid that was the exact color of her husband's eyes. After a moment, she set the glass on the table beside her. "I don't need brandy. What I need is a divorce."
    "You know that is impossible."
    "I know, I know." She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and clasping her hands together. "What am I going to do?" she whispered, feeling almost as if she were saying a prayer. "What am I going to do?"
    Anthony muttered an oath and rose. "I'll go down to the drawing room and talk to him again," he said. "God knows, Hammond has taken my money in the past willingly enough. Perhaps I can bribe him to go away."
    Her brother left the library, and his wife crossed the room to take his place on the settee.
    "Oh, Daphne," Viola mumbled against her clasped hands, "how I wish I could go back and undo the past. What a stupid girl I was."
    Daphne, always a good listener and loyal friend, said nothing. Instead, she put a comforting arm around her shoulders. "You have never been stupid."
    "Oh, but I was. Anthony tried to warn me all those years ago," she went on. "He told me Hammond was stone broke. He said I was too young, and he wanted me to wait. He tried—in the most delicate terms, of course—to tell me about Hammond 's reputation with women. He was just like his father, Anthony said, a scoundrel and a rake. But I was so in love with Hammond , so determined to marry him, I could not see reason. I was relentless, and Anthony gave in. Why did I not listen?"
    Daphne's arm around her tightened. "Don't do this. Dearest Viola, do not berate yourself for the past, do not torture yourself with what cannot be undone."
    Viola turned and looked into Daphne's violet-blue eyes, the eyes that had so enslaved her brother's heart three years before. In a small way, she had helped to bring Daphne and Anthony together, and she had been delighted to see them fall in love. Yet there were times when she could not help but envy her sister-in-law. To have the honest, true love of one good man must be a wonderful thing indeed. She had always longed for it. She once thought she'd gotten it. How wrong she had been.
    She forced herself to smile. "You'd best go down and make certain Anthony doesn't kill Hammond ," she advised, and stood up. "They are none too fond, you know."
    Daphne hesitated as if unwilling to leave her alone, then nodded. "We will not let him take you against your will," she said and rose to her feet. "We will fight