Read Online Glitter Baby by Susan Elizabeth Phillips - Free Book Online Page A

a hilltop covered with wildflowers, dining on a potée filled with fresh chervil, tarragon, and chives that Alexi had purchased in the neighboring village. They ate it with bread crusted in poppy seeds, a runny Saint Nectaire cheese, and a raw young country wine. Belinda picked at her food, then tied her cardigan around her shoulders and walked along the hilltop to escape Alexi’s oppressive silence.
    “Enjoying the view, my sweet?” She hadn’t heard him come up behind her, and she jumped as he put his hands on her shoulders.
    “It’s pretty.”
    “Are you enjoying being with your husband?”
    She curled her fingers over the knot she’d made in the sweater. “I always enjoy being with you.”
    “Especially in bed, n’est-ce pas ?” He didn’t wait for her answer but pointed out a vineyard and told her which grapes it produced. He began to seem like the Alexi who had shown her the sights of Paris, and she gradually relaxed.
    “Over there, chérie. Do you see that collection of gray stone buildings? That is the Couvent de l’Annonciation. The nuns there run one of the best schools in France.”
    Belinda was more interested in the vineyards.
    “Some of the finest families in Europe send their children to the nuns to be educated,” he went on. “The sisters even take babies, although the male children are sent to the brothers near Langres when they are five.”
    Belinda was shocked. “Why would a rich family send away its babies?”
    “It is necessary if the daughter is unmarried and a proper husband cannot be found. The sisters keep the babies until a discreet adoption can take place.”
    The talk of babies was making her nervous, and she tried to change the subject, but Alexi wasn’t ready to be distracted. “The sisters take good care of them,” he said. “They’re not abandoned to spend their days in cribs. They have the best food and attention.”
    “I can’t imagine a mother turning over her baby to someone else’s care.” She untied her sweater and slipped it on. “Let’s go. I’m getting cold.”
    “You can’t imagine it because you still think like the bourgeoisie,” he said without moving. “You will have to think differently now that you are my wife. Now that you are a Savagar.”
    Her hands closed involuntarily over her abdomen, and she turned slowly. “I don’t understand. Why are you telling me this?”
    “So you know what will happen to your bastard child. As soon as it’s born, it will go to the sisters at the Couvent de l’Annonciation to be raised.”
    “You know,” she whispered.
    “Of course I know.”
    The sun drained from the day as all her nightmares sprang to life.
    “Your belly is swollen,” he said, his voice laden withcontempt, “and the veins of your breasts show through your skin. The night I looked at you standing in our bedroom in that black nightgown…It was as if someone had ripped the blinders from my eyes. How long did you think you could deceive me?”
    “No!” Suddenly it was all more than she could bear, and she did what she’d sworn she never would. “No! The baby’s not a bastard! It’s your baby! It’s your—”
    He slapped her hard across the face. “Do not humiliate yourself with lies that you know I will never believe!” She tried to pull away from him, but he held her tight. “How you must have been laughing at me that day at the Polo Lounge. You trapped me into marriage just as if I were a schoolboy. You made a fool of me!”
    She began to cry. “I know I should have told you. But you wouldn’t have helped me, and I didn’t know what else to do. I’ll go away. After our divorce. You’ll never have to see me again.”
    “Our divorce? Oh no, ma petite. There will be no divorce. Did you not understand what I was telling you about the Couvent de l’Annonciation? Did you not understand that you are the one who has been trapped?”
    Fear gripped her as she remembered what he’d said. “No! I’ll never let you take away my