Read Online Fairchild's Lady (Culper Ring Series) by Roseanna M. White - Free Book Online

you better than this, Julienne. For three years you have held me at arm’s length, quoting your morality. I did not respect your wishes all that time for this .”
    “I…” No other words would come. What could she possibly say that wouldn’t make things worse?
    He snatched up a vase and sent it to its death against a wall. “Faithless woman!”
    Faithless? He called her faithless when he was the one who hadwanted to make a mistress of her while his wife lay dying? She surged to her feet. “I am not! These three years I have never looked at another man, have certainly never dared speak to one lest you overreact.”
    “But you toss yourself into one’s arms now?” He grabbed her and pulled her flush against him. His fingers bit into her arms so hard they would surely leave their marks upon her flesh, and he shook her. “Why?”
    When trying to pull away failed, she instead threw herself against his chest again so that at least he could shake her no more. Though when she looked up into his face, she knew well her eyes were not the empty windows she usually gave him. “Perhaps I fear you, Remi. Perhaps I fear what a life with you will mean.”
    His smile was more a sneer, the hand he slid into her hair more threat than comfort. “Do as you should, ma chérie , and you will have nothing to fear.” His fingers fisted around her curls, and again he used it to tilt her face up. “You are willful. You have hidden it well all this time, but there it shines from your eyes. Rest assured I shall break you of it, ma belle .”
    From where did the courage to smirk come? She didn’t know, but it felt like a sort of victory upon her lips. “Would it not be easier to simply lay claim to a more docile female? That is your practice when your current one fails you, is it not? Simply choose another. And you are in luck this time, Remi, for we are not yet wed. You need not wait for me to die to find a better mademoiselle.”
    Her victory turned to ashes at the smile he gave her. “You think that is all you are, Julienne? A replacement upon whom I decided, like a pair of boots when I saw the need for them? Non . From the first moment I saw you, I knew you were mine. Mine, mon amour , no matter your ridiculous fiancé or my weak-minded wife.”
    Ice blew over her blood. “You did not even know me when I was still betrothed to François.”
    His chuckle lit fear anew within her, which crackled and flicked to life when he locked his other arm around her waist. “Know you? Non . But I saw you. I had just sent my wife to the château after her diagnosis, was just coming to grips with how she had failed me, when there you were in the gardens. A vision of beauty unlike any I had ever seen, with those eyes that could pierce a man through. I knew then I must have you, that you were made to be mine.”
    Her throat constricted at the terrible confidence in his eyes. “But…”
    “But there was your precious François? Oui , a truth which caused me no little irritation at first. How fortunate he was so clumsy in the woods, non ?”
    He could not be implying… non , that was too terrible, too low even for him. To dispose of an enemy who had wronged him, oui , that she expected of him. But a man who had done nothing but choose a woman he later decided he wanted? She shook her head—or tried to, though his grip allowed for little movement. “ Non , Remi, it was not fortunate. It was a terrible tragedy.”
    “Come now.” He leaned forward and nipped at her ear before pressing his lips to her throat. The shiver that overtook her was far, far different from the one that had danced down her spine when Isaac had kissed the same spot not fifteen minutes earlier. “I could hardly allow an insolent pup like him to remain between us.”
    Non, non …her eyes slid shut, but the horror would not be blotted out so easily. “But Remi, he…he was not between us. He had ended our betrothal just that morning. He planned to marry my friend