Read Online Falling in Love Again by Cathy Maxwell - Free Book Online

he mean? And why did his words and the deep, appreciative timbre of his voice start a dizzy little humming deep inside her?
    Mallory clutched her hands together in fists, questioning her sanity. John had had his chance. She’d waited over six years, playing the role of dutiful wife to her roving soldier husband. She’d expected a note, a visit, something when he’d returned from the war. Being ignored with such finality hurt. Trusting him in spite of all evidence to the contrary and losing her home had made her incensed with fury.
    â€œI want a divorce, John. I do not want to go to your home, especially in light of what happened at—” she discovered she didn’t want to say Lady Ramsgate’s name, “—back there. Please convey me to the Red Horse Inn. My mother is waiting for me there, and since I’ve been gone several hours, she will be anxious.” There. She’d said it—and very well, too, she thought. This was as she’d pictured the meeting between them, a moment of dignity and grace, in spite of the somewhat scandalous circumstances.
    He made an impatient sound. “There will be no divorce.”
    Mutinously, Mallory refused to answer. There most certainly would be a divorce…or a separation. She’d sue for private separation in the ecclesiastical courts. It was what Hal had encouraged her to do from that start.
    John frowned. “You’re upset over what happened this evening. I’m sorry I embarrassed you, but after you stormed into my mistress’s house, publicly announced yourself, and slapped me, I felt that removing us in the most expedient manner was the best solution—and no, I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks.”
    All her outrage welled up again. “I’ve never been manhandled in such a manner….” Her voice trailed off as words failed her. Unfortunately, she also felt an annoying sense that he was right in some measure.
    Her mother had begged her to stay at the inn and wait for John to respond to one of the many notes Mallory had sent him that day. However, when she hadn’t heard from him after hours of waiting, Mallory’s temper had got the better of her. She’d marched over to John’s house and badgered the one-legged brute named Richards, her husband’s butler, for John’s whereabouts. The real insult had been that Richards hadn’t believed his lord was married.
    â€œCouldn’t we just have walked out the door?” she asked. “Or do you make it a practice to pick up any woman you see and carry her off whenever you are bored?”
    John answered her with a smile that was sowickedly tempting it had the power to charm even her, a woman who believed herself impervious to the fatal appeal of scamps and bounders.
    And that was what she’d married, she reminded herself—a rake. An infamous rake.
    â€œWe can’t divorce,” he said, almost apologetically. “First, there’s the scandal a divorce would create. A stigma on both our family names.”
    She gave an unladylike snort. “Since when have you worried about our family names?”
    â€œDo you mean, when have I worried how my actions affect the family name or about propagating the family name?” His grin turned wolfish.
    â€œYour actions!” Mallory snapped. “I’ll not let you close enough to think of the other.”
    â€œOh, I’m thinking of the other already,” he assured her, and there was something in the warmth of his voice that turned her stomach to jelly. But his voice was businesslike. “Besides, I can’t see you leaving your precious Craige Castle. After all, you are the last of the true Craiges.”
    His words washed all good humor out of Mallory. “Craige Castle is gone. Your creditors evicted my mother and me last week.”
    â€œYou’re joking!” He sat up.
    â€œDo you believe I would joke about such a thing?