his shoulder. Then he turned, his face as black as thunder. ‘I want honesty in my wife,’ he bit out. ‘Decency. A woman I can respect. Not a painted doll who uses her beauty to get what she wants. You did that with me just now, didn’t you?’
‘I—I wanted you to... care for me, to help me,’ she jerked out.
‘Sure. You let me have you because you wanted something,’ he said, his mouth curling in contempt. ‘Now I do believe the stories about you.’
Dispassionately, he studied her for long, interminable seconds while she fought the tears and her total exhaustion. She had to get up, run to him, love him into realising that everyone had misunderstood her and put her into a mould of their own making, not hers.
‘I am innocent, Leo,’ she said, wondering if she could ever crack that icy regard, the look of hauteur which reminded her forcibly that he was The Honourable Leo Brandon, born and bred with pride.
‘Like hell! I should have seen it coming. I can’t entirely blame you. That’s the kind of world you entered when you were too young to prevent your slow corruption. I know what goes on, Ginny. But we Brandons prefer to protect the honour of our wives, if only to keep the blood line pure. You’re right. Our worlds don’t mix. Pack your things. You’ve got an hour to be out of here. leave nothing behind to remind me of a very bad mistake I made. We’re finished, Ginny. I’m divorcing you.’
A harsh, guttural wail ripped out from deep inside her. But he’d gone, in a storming, door-slamming rush. Ginny slowly lifted her head, tilting it back, and closed her eyes in despair. Her white-blonde hair swept down her naked back and she registered that the tightly secured chignon had been dismantled by Leo’s hands, by his wild lovemaking. She blushed, at a loss to understand quite how a strictly brought-up woman could have abandoned herself so completely to the devils within her.
No wonder he’d been shocked. She was too, merely thinking of what they’d done, red stains working their way up from her slender feet to her mortified face. So she’d ruined her chance to show Leo that they could be lovers again by revealing an untamed and uncontrolled side of herself that he must have hated.
After all, she thought mournfully, everyone adored her Grace Kelly manner. They loved her serenity, her calmness. Leo had said that he liked the fact that she always behaved like a lady. Some lady. But that was what he’d wanted—a woman who’d project an image of breeding. And now she’d ruined that.
Her body quivered with the pleasure that had rippled through it in great roller-coaster waves. Over and over again they’d crashed through her and physically she felt totally sated. Emotionally, however...
Her perfect white teeth snagged her lower lip. It was bruised and swollen and she touched it with her finger, wondering whether Leo had always known what real, uninhibited sex was like and if she’d been a disappointment to him before because she’d never given her whole self. Till it was too late.
But he’d wanted her. Desperately. Beyond all his rigidly imposed self-control. He’d been arazy to have her and he’d hated her for that because he would have preferred to take her with cool ruthlessness and fling her aside.
Perhaps she could build on his desire. A ragged breath shuddered through her and she stood, quickly dressing. It was the only hope she had. Hastily she searched for enough of the scattered hairpins to do her chignon again and had to give up, combing the silken hair with her fingers instead. She paused as Leo’s words came back to her, jolting her with their intensity.
Divorce... Life without Leo. Cold horror iced her body. He was all she had! The only man she’d ever loved. She wouldn’t, mustn’t lose him! Especially now that she’d given her whole self to him, abandoning a lifetime of restraint to show him what he meant to her.
Frantically she ran out of the library and began to search the rooms downstairs, then hitched up her tight skirt and raced up the wide stairs two at a time.
Relief flooded through her when she heard the shower running in their en suite bathroom. Thinking of nothing else but convincing him, she went straight to the cabinet, opened the door and walked inside.
‘Leo! Listen to me!’ she begged, water plastering her hair to her scalp.
‘What the—? You’re fully clothed, Ginny! Get out!’ he said with an irritable frown.
But she held him, her arms wrapped around his waist. And instantly he became aroused. Relief burst into her mind. She had a chance. ‘Don’t turn me away, Leo,’ she said softly, lifting her face to his. ‘I can’t imagine life without you—’
‘You’re already living it without me,’ he muttered, wrenching her arms away and flinging open the shower door.
She stood there, saturated, dazed. Don’t give up hope. Try again, she told herself. Try again. Stripping off her jacket as she spoke, she said, ‘Everything is good except for the problem of my work and Castlestowe.. We can discuss our differences and compromise. Change things—’
‘One thing’s changed. You’ve become a spectacular lay,’ he said crudely. ‘But I don’t want a tramp for a wife or for the mother of my child.’
‘I’m not a tramp,’ she insisted quietly.
‘The stones—’
‘Are only stories. They’re not true,’ she cried desperately, easing off her soaking skirt.
‘I’ve heard the details.’ His eyes flashed. ‘Confirmed by several people—’
“They’re repeating the same lie that someone’s circulated!’ she cried, beginning to fear that her protestations would be in vain. ‘I can’t prove my fidelity, Leo! But surely you must give me the benefit of the doubt?’
The lines around his aristocratic mouth were deep with pain. “How can I when you so brilliantly display a sexual expertise you never had before? When you respond to me with such devastating sensuality that I—? Oh, Ginny!’ He threw his head back in a gesture of helplessness. ‘I stood up for you. I looked everyone straight in the eye at my club when they whispered behind my back. But now I’m sure I’m a cuckold. And I sure as hell won’t stand for that!’ he snapped. ‘I want a divorce. I must remarry. Time is running out—my grandfather is ninety. I would like him to see that I have an heir to the earldom before he dies.’
‘Leo! Is that more important than our marriage?’ she faltered, naked now and grabbing a thick towelling robe and slipping into it.
‘Having a child is an important part of marriage for me,’ he growled. ‘It always has been. That—and having a loyal wife.’
Ginny’s anguished eyes watched him stride to the mahogany linen press. French. Priceless. Louis the something, she remembered, and inherited with a castle full of French furniture after one of the earls had married into the French aristocracy in the eighteenth century. France and Scotland had always been linked in the past. She thought of the castle, sitting on the windswept crag, all turrets and drawbridges, narrow windows and vast, draughty halls, and shivered.
It was an inheritance she didn’t understand and didn’t want to be part of. It had been a mistake for them to marry. She’d been naive to imagine that their marriage could be ordinary. Leo had expectations she couldn’t meet however much she loved him.
‘I love you,’ she said quietly, sadly.
He
