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now. She will come cheaper.”
    The air left Grace’s chest. Blood thundered inside her head. Her father was taking money for her. He was selling her as if she were a head of livestock or a bushel of grain.
    Fentington speared a look at her father that simmered with fire and brimstone. “She’s used, Portsmont. Tainted. The devil only knows who all has had her.”
    Her father turned on her. “Who, girl? Who is it?”
    Grace backed up until her legs hit one of the two matching leather chairs in front of the desk. Her father reached for her again, but this time she twisted to the side to avoid him. He kept coming after her.
    “Father, stop! What are you doing?”
    “Who is it, girl? Who have you been laying with?”
    She knew he wouldn’t give up without an answer. “You don’t know him.”
    Her father looked at her as if he couldn’t believe her, as if he thought she might be lying. “It doesn’t matter who it is, Fentington. Who it is can’t be of importance.”
    “Doesn’t matter! The girl can’t even assure us she isn’t carrying.”
    Her father’s head jerked back to her. “Are you? Are you carrying some man’s bastard?”
    Grace placed her hands on her stomach. Of course she wasn’t carrying his child. They’d only been together one night. The odds were his seed hadn’t taken hold. It had taken each of her sisters months of trying before they conceived. But she couldn’t let Fentington know that.
    She held her hands against her abdomen as if protecting something very special, then looked into her father’s face. What she saw stole her breath. There was hatred there, a repulsion and disgust she’d never noticed before.
    “Are you?”
    She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
    His arm swung out and he slapped her again. She tasted blood and touched her fingers to her mouth.
    Her father drew back his fist again, then stopped as if he realized it was too late. The damage was done. He faced the baron squarely with his head high and his shoulders braced. “We can come to an agreement, Fentington. I know she’s far past her prime and not nearly as pretty as the other six, but she’ll still serve you well.”
    “Father, no!”
    “She can be taught subservience. With you to guide and mold her, she can be an exemplary wife. She still has a few years of breeding left to give you the heir your other wives were unable to give you.”
    Fentington snorted a repulsive sound. “She’s too old to be molded, Portsmont, and she’s given herself as a whore. Any fool knows once a woman’s gone down the path of sin and degradation she can no longer be trusted. You keep her. She is of no value to me.”
    “No. She still has value. Tell him, Grace. Tell him you’ll be exactly the kind of wife he wants.”
    “Father!”
    “Tell him!”
    Grace felt the floor shift beneath her. “I’d rather rot in hell than let such a contemptible monster as Fentington anywhere near me. His sadistic penchants are so vile and revolting that even if half of the horrific stories about him aren’t based on fact, the ones that are true are enough to send him to hell for eternity.”
    Fentington staggered back as if her words had been a physical attack. The loathing in his glare suggested an underlying evil that frightened her. Then he smiled. The sneer on his face was the most sadistic grin she had ever seen. “Perhaps it would be my Christian duty to wed your daughter to save her soul.”
    “Yes! Yes!” her father agreed.
    Grace’s blood turned to ice. “Like you saved your last wife’s soul? Do you think there is even one person in all of Herefordshire who doesn’t know she took her life to escape you? That death was preferable to living with you?”
    Baron Fentington pursed his lips, grinding his teeth so loudly she could hear the grating noise in the deafening silence.
    “It would serve you right if I married you and brought you down a peg. You need that viperous tongue stilled and that high-handed attitude subdued.