The Sergeant's Lady Read Online Free PDF Page B

beneath her booted feet as Sebastian seized her by the shoulders and shoved her against the wall.
    Alec appeared in the doorway.
    “Arrington, get out,” he said.
    “This isn’t your concern,” Sebastian spat, digging his fingers harder into Anna’s shoulders.
    “My cousin will always be my concern.”
    “A cousin is far less to a woman than her husband.”
    “That depends upon the husband. I am also your commanding officer, and your behavior while we are guests in someone’s home is indubitably my concern,” Alec added with a pointed glance at the porcelain shards scattered across the floor. “So you will leave this house until you are prepared to comport yourself as a gentleman within it.”
    Sebastian’s face still blazed red with fury, but he was not one to disobey a direct order. He unclenched his hands from Anna’s shoulders and stalked from the room without another word.
    Anna’s knees wobbled and her eyes burned, but she would not let herself weep or faint. She took a deep breath and tried to speak, but no words came out.
    Alec hurried to her side. “Are you badly hurt, lass?”
    She shook her head. “No, no. It’s nothing.”
    “Nothing!”
    He lifted a hand as if to touch her sore cheek, and Anna turned her face aside.
    “What are we to do with you?” Alec asked.
    “I’m sorry,” she said.
    “You’ve nothing to apologize for. I rue the day you met Arrington, that’s all.”
    “So do I,” she said. “So do I.”
    “Come along, lass. You won’t stay here tonight. You’ll sleep with Helen and the children, and I’ll guard the door.”
    “Surely that isn’t necessary,” she said, though she obediently followed him out of the room and down the corridor to the slightly larger chamber where he and Helen were quartered.
    “Better safe than sorry.”
    An anxious Helen awaited them at the door, and Anna was obliged to submit to her embrace and to accept a cool, damp cloth to press against her stinging cheek. “Where are the children?” She strove for normalcy.
    “María took them downstairs to have a bath, so they didn’t hear any of that, thank God.”
    “But everyone else did,” Anna said gloomily.
    “Not exactly what was said, but we couldn’t help hearing that you were quarreling.”
    “It’s more than quarreling if it ends with you bruised and shoved against a wall.” Alec stalked to the window and stared out at the dusty street. “You can’t go on like this, lass.”
    Anna sighed and removed the cloth from her cheek as Helen led her to a chair and urged her to sit. “I know. But what am I to do?”
    “Go home with the next courier or convoy,” Alec said, “and seek a separation. All the family will support you. You must know that.”
    “I do. But it feels like giving up. I—I wanted to have a normal marriage, and I thought if I just kept trying…” Now she couldn’t hold back the tears, and Alec and Helen sat on either side of her, patting her shoulders and soothing her. She wished she could push them away. If only she could be alone, but solitude was so rare with the army as to be almost nonexistent.
    “You did try,” Alec said. “None of this is your fault.”
    “Of course it isn’t,” Helen said stoutly. “And once you’re gone, if we can just catch Sebastian with another woman, we’ll testify of his adultery and cruelty toward you, and you can get a divorce and be free to marry again.”
    Anna laughed shakily. “If only it were so simple.” If Parliament granted every woman with an unfaithful husband who’d slapped or shaken her a divorce, it would actually be a common state.
    “With your money and your family, it can be.”
    “I didn’t want this to happen,” Anna said.
    “We know,” Helen said. “But you need to go home, for your own safety. Alec is right. You can’t go on like this.”
    Anna’s cheek still smarted, and she couldn’t think . “I don’t know.”
    “Well,” Helen said kindly. “You need to eat, and rest. We can