Read Online Sapphire - Book 2 by Elizabeth Rose - Free Book Online

sound of skin against skin echoed loudly against his
freshly shaven face. He jerked backward, surprised, and his hand
went to his cheek. He looked vulnerable in this stage and also so
alluring. And that only made things worse.
    “Was that foreplay?” he asked her with a smile
that proved he had dimples at the corners of his mouth when his
lips turned upward, as well as the dimple on his chin.
    “I am a married woman,” she reminded
him.
    “Aye, and you’ve gone to extremes to point out
how much you hate your husband.”
    “I am also a lady!” Her arms folded across her
chest.
    “Of course.” He ran a hand through his wet
hair and let out a sigh. “I’m sorry. Sapphire, I got carried away.
I just can’t stop thinking about last night.” He looked down to his
aroused form and added, “as you can see.”
    “Then do something about it,” she told
him.
    “I thought that was what I was doing when you
slapped me.”
    “Not that,” she said. “I mean, do something
about getting me out of my marriage to the baron.”
    “It isn’t that easy, sweetheart. The church is
highly against annulments, and very strict about it as well. And as
you know, there is no rule against how a man treats his wife or
about how many mistresses he takes to his bed.”
    “And as you
know, there is a
rule saying any man finding his wife has coupled with another man,
has the right to see to her punished as he wishes – and no eyelids
would bat if he decided the punishment to be
death.”
    “You should have thought of that before you
ever made love with me, sweetheart.”
    “I assure you, I never intended for that to
happen.”
    “Well, what did you think would happen when
you showed up at a place like the Bucket of Blood wearing the
clothes of a whore and being unescorted?”
    “I didn’t know.”
    “You are naïve, darling, and I think I will
have to teach you the ways of the world.”
    “Roe, the meal is being served,” came his
mother’s voice from outside the curtain. “Is someone in there with
you?”
    “Now, mother, why would you think I would take
someone to my bath?” he called out.
    “Because I thought I heard Sapphire’s voice,
and I can see shadows through that curtain and I see her
gown.
    Roe turned quickly, his hands covering his
groin at her words. Sapphire found herself giggling from his sudden
modesty from his own mother.
    “Find a way to get me out of this marriage,”
she whispered. “Because if you don’t, you may have to sentence me
to death. Because I would kill the man by my own hand before I ever
let him touch me again.”
    She whisked out of the tent to find Roe’s
mother standing there.
    “Lady Katherine, it’s not what you think,” she
said with a forced smile.
    “And what is it, my dear that I would be
thinking right now?” Lady Katherine arched an eyebrow as she
spoke.
    “That I was in there sufficing your son’s
needs – because I wasn’t.”
    “My body can vouch for that, mother, so
believe her,” called out Roe’s deep voice from inside the
tent.
    Lady Katherine looked around quickly, making
sure no one was watching, and then she put her arm around Sapphire
and whispered into her ear.
    “I wish you had married my son instead of the
baron,” she told her. “I would love for you to be my daughter by
marriage and bear many grandchildren for me.”
     
    Roe parted the curtains of the tent and
watched as his mother walked away with her arm around Sapphire. He
had heard every word she’d said.
    “I wish that as well, Mother,” he said softly,
his heart aching as he watched them head toward the castle. “I wish
that as well.”

Chapter 6

     
    Sapphire sat at the dais for the midday meal,
with Roe at the head of the trestle table on one side of her, and
the priest from the village, Father Geoffrey on her other side. Had
her husband not been away on business in town, he would have been
sitting next to her instead. Sapphire was grateful for his
absence.
    Roe’s mother sat at