Page 46 of An Inconvenient Vow

“I did. My father was forced to provide for the girl and her babe, as to my shame, Miles would not. My mother was far from happy, of course. She was inclined to make excuses for ‘poor Miles’ and was convinced he would ride over the next day with his tail between his legs. She said that not all men can keep their passions in check and that we women should be understanding of their weakness. I was forced to tell her the things Miles had said about my father to finally harden her heart against him.”

Jeffree was silent for a long time. He almost jumped when Sabina spoke again, this time her voice was small and there was a thread of emotion running through her words. “Later, Isemay told me that Miles had cornered her once when they were alone in a room together. She had been terrified. She had confided in my mother, but Mother had advised her not to tell another soul and simply never to let herself be alone with Miles in the future.”

Jeffree was appalled. “Hendry attacked her?”

The pillow rustled and he guessed she was nodding. “She assured me it did not go far before a servant interrupted them and he was forced to release her. He kissed and pawed her and tore her neckline. But I think he gave my sister a disgust of men which has lasted with her to this very day. I think that the reason she has only ever consented to marrying a man as old as the Duke of Bethencourt.”

Jeffree was silent as he digested this. He had thought Isemay’s acceptance of his uncle had been for purely mercenary reasons. He had done her a disservice it seemed. “And after that?” he asked, unable to stop himself.

Sabina sighed. “After I returned to Tipton Hall, Miles spent the next twelve months drinking and carousing to excess. His reputation started to suffer, and people started to talk darkly about him in the village. In a way, his carrying on so blatantly did me a favour, as less folk were willing to call me an unnatural wife or an undutiful woman because of it.”

She gave a bitter laugh. “If he had only provided for the child, then he would not have been judged so harshly. Delia is a pretty girl and I… I have only ever been passable at best. The Selwyns have lived in Little Ganford longer even than the Burrells. Miles was an outsider, a latecomer to the district. He was bound to be viewed askance, at least locally.”

“Also,” she continued evenly. “Everyone knew it was my father who had been forced to provide coin to the Selwyns and not Miles. That told against him, however much he might claim to all and sundry that I was a wayward shrew.”

Jeffree felt an almost overwhelming impulse to go and haul Osborn out of his makeshift bed and kick the wretch in the seat of his pants for the piss-poor job he had done uncovering gossip on his new mistress. Had Osborn received his hearsay straight from the spiteful mouth of Alfred Hendry himself?

“I suppose that must have been when Miles started drinking his wine cellar dry and shooting arrows into his wall-hangings,” she concluded matter-of-factly.

Jeffree grunted in agreement. Well, he did not have much to live up to. There was that. No wonder Sabina dreamed of living at Morecotte without the hindrance of a husband.

She was the first out of them to fall asleep and Jeffree lay quietly listening to her breathing. Something uncomfortable tickled away at the edge of his consciousness.

Sabina had told him the most painful and humiliating thing that had ever happened to her in her life. She had been the source of gossip and scandal in her small community through no actual fault of her own. Her first husband had been a disgusting and unprincipled lecher.

Jeffree frowned. He had listened and asked questions, but perhaps—a dim suspicion dawned in a vague recess of his mind—his response had been inadequate. Should his role have been to attempt to console her, somehow? He rolled onto his side and pondered this. How did one comfort a woman? He imagined patting her head. That might be tricky with her bareheaded as she had been at the time. His hand would have been perilously close to her glossy braids. Suppose he had not been able to avoid the temptation to touch them?

It was not just her braids that was a temptation in her current state, he thought, disgracefully aware of the proximity of her warm body lying close to his own. He realized, with embarrassing certainty, that as soon as he fell into sleep, he would be all over her again. It felt like his body was already straining toward hers and resisting the impulse was giving him an almost physical ache. An ache that concentrated in one prominent and suddenly ungovernable part of his body.

Jeffree had always considered himself a disciplined man of reason with a cool head. He had lived his life ruthlessly suppressing any wayward or ignoble inclinations. He went to bed early and rose punctually, practiced his drills without fail, bathed frequently in cold water and avoided intoxication, over-indulgence, and lewdness at all costs.

It was true, that every once in a while, he had to take himself in hand to assuage certain physical urges, but he did so with a ruthless efficiency, never dallying inordinately over the business but exercising as much speed as possible to reach the desired endpoint.

He absolutely did not close his eyes and allow himself to dwell on things like Sabina Burrell telling all and sundry that she had played the whore for him and warmed his bed. A certain part of him was doing more than stirring now. He almost groaned again. Why, oh why had he allowed such a thought to pop into his head? Now he could not stop thinking of it!

In his mind’s eye, she was not wearing her confining headdress when she said it. No, she was bare-headed with her long braids hanging down to her waist and gleaming in the candlelight. She walked toward him as she said her inflammatory words, and she reached right down between Jeffree’s legs and—damn it. He half sat up, stifling an exclamation. What the hells was he thinking?

He blinked into the darkness, drawing ragged breaths in and out. My gods. If he was not careful, he was going to spill his seed all over the sheets in a shameful display of unbridled lust. Jeffree collapsed back against the mattress and lay there like a stunned fish.

There was no question of seeking relief from the almost painful throbbing between his thighs. He could scarcely lie here beside her and stroke himself to completion. It would be disrespectful to her and was frankly beneath him.

He wished something else was beneath him… namely his wife.

The realization was startling in its clarity and knocked the wind right out of him. He drew in another shocked breath. He wanted that? His mind immediately flooded with a hundred images of Sabina Burrell that he had not even registered noticing. The defiant tilt of her jaw, the way she narrowed her eyes, that mole above her top lip, the feel of her.

Because his traitorous mind chose to remind him at this point, that he knew exactly how she felt. Not only had he woken hard, pressed up against her full, round backside that morning, but she had fallen forward the night before and he had felt her sprawled across him. For one moment, he had felt her cushiony soft body pressed right up against his corresponding parts. And it had been glorious. For one terrible moment, he had been unable to release her.

Jeffree was wholly unable to resist reliving the moment now in his head, only this time he did not release her. This time, he took her mouth with his and… Oh gods, not again. He shut his eyes and squeezed them tightly together as he strove to get his rampaging thoughts back under control.

Because apparently, yes, he wanted her like that. On her back. On top of him. On all fours, gods help him. He wanted her any way he could get her. Despite the fact Sabina had, not half an hour ago, poured out her bitterest disappointment in life, he, Jeffree, was lying next to her now, rampant and unsatisfied, and prey to licentious thoughts, all featuring his wife in the role of his seductress.

Gods. Every time he touched himself from now on, he would think of her, he thought with horror, swallowing with a suddenly dry throat. And that was wrong… He had never imagined a particular person before, just the vague idea of it. Surely it was an unpardonable liberty to take, picturing a certain person while you sought release?

Then he remembered… she was his wife after all. Surely that put a different complexion on things? For the first time in his life, Jeffree considered what it meant to have a wife in his bed. The wheels turned in his mind and something clicked into place. Men were supposed to slake their lust on their wives, after all. He was just pondering this monumental point when Sabina started softly to snore.

Of course, there was the added complication of his vow. He frowned ferociously. How was he to navigate his way around that? His whole life, Jeffree had prided himself on the strength of his will. His word was his bond. At the age of eighteen, he had pledged himself to a life of chastity, duty, and knightly pursuits. The wife he had deemed worthy of the honor of the De Crecy name had been denied to him; therefore, he had renounced all women.

Perhaps, he had been a little hasty, he now acknowledged; but at that time, he had not expected the fates to saddle him with a spouse like Sabina Burrell. No one could have foreseen such a thing.