The Rogue Prince Read Online Free PDF

she been so inadequate in the bedchamber that he’d had to seek gratification elsewhere? Of course. She’d been a consolation wife, the girl no one else had wanted, and Julian had been too lazy to bother courting one of the more sought-after young ladies. Her heart sank to the pit of her stomach.
    â€œHere. Drink this,” Victoria said.
    â€œNo, thank you,” Maggie replied, turning down the brandy her friend had hastily poured. “I must—”
    She didn’t know what she must do. Go, she supposed. Back to Julian’s town house where her children waited. Back to the life that was a complete and total sham. She and Julian had never spoken of marital fidelity. Maggie had just assumed their vows meant something. Had wrongly assumed…
    â€œLook here, Maggie. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Julian is dead and gone,” said Victoria, Maggie’s very proper friend. No doubt it had been immensely difficult, having to give Maggie such distasteful information. “It’s been over two years since he drowned. And you’ve been up at Blackmore Manor ever since the accident. Nothing has changed now that you know. Julian cared about you—”
    â€œDon’t!” Maggie cried, her voice a ragged rasp of pain. She stood abruptly. “I—I know you mean well, Victoria, but…Please do not speak to me of caring.” She shook her head, speechless now. With a husband like Ranfield, who was mad about his wife, Victoria couldn’t begin to understand the depth of betrayal Maggie felt.
    In a haze of utter shock, Maggie gathered her things and went to the front door, allowing the butler to help her with her pelisse. She refused Victoria’s offer of her carriage or even a footman to escort her, and walked down the steps, barely conscious of her maid, who followed right behind her.Absently, she rubbed her aching thigh, the site of the old fracture that had never healed correctly.
    After the Chatterton debacle, Maggie had taken pains to please her mother, to be a dutiful daughter. And when Beatrice insisted that marriage was less about caring than it was about family alliances, titles, and fortunes, Maggie had squelched her hope for a match based on affection and perhaps even attraction. She’d married Julian and tried to be the best possible wife to him.
    Apparently, it had not been enough.
    Needing to walk and clear her head, Maggie proceeded forward like an automaton, completely unconscious of the discomfort in her lame leg, unaware of the carriage traffic on the street or the passersby who nodded and tipped their hats. She had been an exemplary spouse, managing her household, giving her husband children. She’d visited Blackmore’s tenants far more often than Julian ever had, fretting over sickness and bad harvests without him, while he tended to business in Town.
    Business, indeed.
    She brushed away her tears of hurt and embarrassment as resentment and anger rose within her. Perhaps she should have an affair or two of her own. Or even ten! No one could argue that she had not been a virtuous wife, then a properly mournful widow these past two years. Now that she knew Julian had not respected their vows during their marriage, Maggie did not know why she should do so, either.
    She did not understand how she could have been so blind. Julian might never have spoken of undying love, but she had thought they’d done well enough together. They’d had two children, for heaven’s sake, and he’d spoken of wanting another after Lily’s birth. Another son, he’d said.
    And yet he’d shared intimacies with another woman. Women , if Victoria was correct.
    She shuddered as disgust roiled through her. Who was Julian to soil their wedding vows? How could he taint the sanctity of their marriage with the obvious precedence of other women in his life, in his heart and mind? How could he come to her bed at Blackmore Manor and touch her