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She’d married him to help her family, of course. Her papa’s small estate brought barely enough income to make ends meet, and none of the four daughters had much of a dowry to speak of. When Sir Jasper Bardsley expressed his interest in Emma at one of the country balls, despite her poor prospects, Emma saw hope bloom in her mama’s and papa’s eyes for the first time in years. Quite unusually, instead of expecting a dowry, Sir Jasper had offered her father ownership of some of his lands, which would bring income and better marriage prospects to her sisters.

How could she refuse such an offer, even if it meant giving up her dreams of marrying for love?

When would another gentleman with a good name make an offer that would actually add income instead of demanding a dowry?

But one year later, she cringed at the thought of her husband’s touch, and her father was yet to see the deeds to the land owed to him. She knew now that he never would…

Her husband expected her to cower. To submit. To let him dictate everything about her. Legally, as a wife, she was his property.

Only, she’d never let him crush her, never show him the hurt his words caused.

Therefore, she smiled. “As I told you, I have my courses. You cannot bed me tonight.”

She saw the exact moment Sir Jasper snapped. He snarled in a helpless rage. His teeth bared, then he stared out of the window.

“Even they look happier than you make me,” he said, and Emma followed his gaze. They were approaching a pigsty where a swineherd and his wife were chatting as they shoveled manure out of the hog pen.

Sir Jasper kept talking. “You are a bad wife. You fail to do your duty—obey and make your husband happy. You’re ungrateful. You’re also, no doubt, frigid. Why else would you deny something so many women are more than happy to indulge in with me? I bet a hundred pounds you would come to value your husband if you tried that life!” He pointed at the couple and grew silent, his eyes alight.

“In fact, that is what you need,” he said with a spiteful grin. “A lesson.”

With his walking stick, he knocked on the wall behind Emma, and the carriage stopped right in front of the pigsty.

Emma’s stomach churned with nerves. “Whatever can you mean, Sir Jasper?”

He got out and threw over his shoulder, “Come with me.”

He headed towards the swineherd and his wife.

With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Emma followed him. She had no reason to be alarmed, not yet. The grass was soft under her shoes as she walked, and she laid her hand over her bonnet as a strong, cool breeze blew, bringing a pungent stink of pigs and manure. She suppressed a gag.

An unassuming dwelling house with walls of rough stone and a thatched roof stood a few feet away, with small windows and a weather-battered door. There was a wooden shed twenty or so feet away next to another stone building with a large gate, clearly for animals. The whole farm was surrounded by a wooden fence. The grunting and oinking of two dozen pigs was loud in the air.

As she approached Sir Jasper, he talked to the couple. They were both in their forties, and their tired, weathered faces were dark from being exposed to the sun and had dirty smudges. The woman’s cap was old and patched, and her uncombed, grayish hair was blown about by the wind.

“How much would you like for your clothes?” asked Sir Jasper.

“Why do you need their—” started Emma, but Sir Jasper interrupted her.

“Would two pennies be sufficient?” Sir Jasper asked.

Two pennies would buy them two pints of milk. That couldn’t be all that those clothes were worth. Sir Jasper was a miser.

“Beg your pardon, my lord, whatever for?” asked the man, scratching his uneven beard.

Emma clasped at her neck. Sir Jasper had said something about a lesson…and now he wanted to buy their clothes, stinking of manure and caked in dirt.

“It is for the market in Clovham,” said Sir Jasper. “We just passed it by and I saw they sell cattle.” Sir Jasper looked her over and grinned nastily. “Do they hold to the old English tradition and sell wives there, too?”

A chill ran through Emma’s limbs.

“Sometimes,” said the swineherd, narrowing his eyes in confusion. “The farm folk does. Three years ago, the cowherd sold his wife to the blacksmith. He’d been unhappy with her and found her sinning with the blacksmith. The children stayed with the cowherd, of course.”

A look of triumph had Sir Jasper straightening his shoulders as he looked at her. “Excellent. Lady Bardsley, you don’t find your happiness with me. Perhaps you’ll find it with a blacksmith.”

The mouths of the swineherd and his wife fell open. Emma’s skin tingled, and cold hit her core. The most unladylike bark of laughter escaped her throat. “You are not serious, Sir Jasper.”

“I assure you, I am.”