The Scorsolini Marriage Bargain (18 page)
“It is a difficult role, but my wife has always been more than equal to the task,”
She turned to face him and for several seconds the other occupants of the room seemed to fade away. There was just her and
For no reason she could discern, tears burned the back of her eyes. “I cannot regret marrying you.”
“It is not my intention that you ever shall.” Then he leaned forward and did something he had never done before.
He kissed her softly and full on the lips right there in front of his family. Afterward, he straightened and began talking to his brothers as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
But
Dinner was a convivial meal, but as time wore on, it became more and more difficult for her to mask her pain. She stopped eating more than a bite or two from each course after the soup. The cramping was getting very bad again, almost debilitating. Probably because she had taken nonprescription pain meds all day, not wanting to be so loopy she could not fulfill her obligations.
Perhaps she should have taken some before dinner, but she hated zoning off in the middle of conversations. And her sisters-in-law were very astute women. They would have noticed something was wrong…unlike
Trying to find a more comfortable position, she shifted in her chair for the third time in ten minutes. Rather than make the pain more tolerable, the shift made it more acute and she had to stifle a gasp. She couldn’t quite mask her wince though.
Tomasso frowned. “But dessert has not been served.”
“We are both tired and need our rest.”
He reached for
She knew she had no chance and therefore did not argue.
“That is not a bad idea,” Tomasso said, but the look he was giving
Liar. For it was exactly what she wanted.
“Put me down,” she protested nonetheless. “I can walk.” But it was so nice not to have to. “What if one of your brothers comes out and sees you carrying me like this, or one of the servants? There will be speculation.”
“I never realized you were so afraid of gossip.”
“I’m not.”
“Then explain why all of your doctor appointments have been secret and in the States.”
“I was avoiding a media frenzy.”
“Gossip.”
“Are you saying you aren’t worried about it? You wouldn’t care if the papers got word of my infertility tomorrow? I remember how upset you were with me for going to the hotel’s hot tub rather than staying in my room when I took
“You were inviting gossip then over something quite innocent. It is different to feel the need to hide a very real health problem for the sake of appearances.”
“I wasn’t hiding it for the sake of appearances.”
“Were you not?”
“No. I just…I didn’t want it to come out before we divorced. It would have made you look badly in the eyes of the public. The average person just doesn’t understand what it means to be royalty.”
“Since there will be no divorce, your concern was not justified.”
“You’re being foolishly stubborn and I don’t care what you say. I don’t want your family getting all worried over nothing.”
“Your condition is far from nothing, but as for your current agitation. Calm yourself. Any servant who saw me carrying you like this, or my brothers for that matter, would assume I was in a hurry to have my wicked way with you.”
“That’s not on.” Not that she didn’t want him…she always did, but pain was a strong deterrent from making love.
He stopped halfway up the marble staircase and glared down at her. “Do you really believe I would try to seduce you in your current condition?”
He looked thoroughly put out with her.
She grimaced. “No, of course not. I don’t know why I said it.”
She really didn’t. She knew in the very depths of her being that he would never willingly hurt her physically. She remembered the pains he’d taken with her virginity and felt a familiar lump of emotion form. He was such a good man and the last thing she wanted to do was let him go.
She’d spent months shoring up her defenses against him, enumerating his faults in her mind so that she would not be tempted to fight for her marriage, but all those defenses were crumbling. It was going to hurt so much to walk away from this man that she loved.
“Good, because only a selfish bastard would ignore both your period discomfort and pain to try something like that.”
“I never said you were those things.”
“Perhaps not in so many words…” he allowed, but the implication was clear that she had convinced him she thought that.
She stared in shock at his granitelike features as he resumed his climb up the stairs. “I have never implied I believe that about you.”
“What do you call assuming divorce was the only option when you discovered you had endometriosis?”
“Practical. I call it practical.” The only solution that made sense. Particularly now that she knew he had grown bored of her. Had come face-to-face with the reality that her only value to him was a sexual one. Only, even knowing that to be true, part of her heart rebelled at it.
Part of her…the very foolish part…simply refused to believe.
He said nothing, but his expression was not pretty.
Once they reached their apartments, he carried her straight through to the bedroom. “I will get your pain pills.”
He laid her on the bed and then turned to get her meds. He shook two out into his hand and gave them to her. Then, like the night before, he helped her swallow them, sitting beside her and putting one arm around her shoulders for support.
She took the pills.
“Is this your version of coddling?”
“Do you feel coddled?”
Regardless of her pain, she smiled. “Yes.”
“Then, yes.”
“Thank you.”
“Do not thank me. This should be your right.”
“So, you’re being so careful with me out of duty?”
“Tell me something,
“Yes?”
“Until recent months, your response to me in bed and generosity with your body were all that a man could wish for.”
“So you’ve said.” He had valued her for them.
“Were they the result of doing your duty?”
“No, of course not. How could you ask me that?”
“As easily as you now ask if what I do for you is from duty alone.”
“You don’t love me,
“I care for you. I have always cared.”
“I thought so, too…in the beginning.”
“What changed?”
“I don’t know. Maybe nothing.”
“But still you became convinced I do not care.”
“You said you were bored with me.”
“I was angry. It was a lie.”
She didn’t believe him, but bent over in an acute attack of pain before she could say so.
He lowered her to the bed. “
The tightening in her lower abdomen relaxed some and she straightened, breathing shallowly to manage the pain.
“Is it very bad?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“The hospital?”
“No.”
“You are not reasonable.”
“Arguing does not help me control the pain.”
His jaw clenched. “We should not have gone down to dinner.”
“Is that the royal we? If I recall, you were proposing I stay here to eat off a tray, not you.”
“But naturally, I would have stayed with you.”
There was nothing natural about it. In fact, this whole coddling thing was unnatural in their relationship. “Why?”
“You are ill.”
“And you have obligations to your family.”
“Which I was content to dismiss in favor of obligations related to my office for the past week. I was here at the palace for you.”
“I don’t understand why.”
“You are my wife.” He said it as if that should explain everything, but it didn’t. Not by a long shot.
“I was your wife two years ago when I had the flu as well, but you didn’t stay with me then. In fact, you had me moved to another room for convalescence so there was no risk of passing the bug on to you. I was your wife last year when I had a cold and you left me to the tender care of servants while you flew to Italy on business.”
He looked at her like he did not understand the correlation she was trying to draw. “Those circumstances were different.”
“In what way?”
“You were not in excruciating pain and we knew each ailment would run its course.”
“And duty precluded you offering anything resembling tender loving care.”
“Did you want me to become your nursemaid? I did not see that desire in you at the time. You are a very independent person when you are ill. But then I think that for all your quiet gentleness, you are an extremely independent, not to mention stubborn woman all of the time.”
“Thank you for not mentioning it,” she said sarcastically. “And I’m not independent.”
“Oh, but you are. So independent that you have taken it upon yourself to make decisions about our marriage without consulting the other primary partner first.”
“That’s why I went to
“A demand for a divorce is not a consultation.”
“I wasn’t going to start it that way, but you put me on the defensive the way you jumped down my throat for coming at all.”
“I leaped to a false conclusion and was cruel to you because of it. I am sorry.” He said it stiffly, like he was embarrassed, and she remembered his comment before dinner.
“What false conclusion?”
“I would prefer not to get into that.”
“Too bad…just wondering what could make you look so uncomfortable is taking my mind off my cramps.”
He said something she didn’t get, but there was no mistaking the irritation in his manner as he scooted to sit back on the bed with his back against the headboard.
At her questioning look, he shrugged. “If you’re going to grill me, I want to be comfortable.”
She hid an unexpected smile. He sounded so surly.
“Tell me about your false conclusion.”
Chapter 10
“It was a conclusion that made sense at the time.”
“You’re stalling. Tell me about it.”
“I believed you had found someone else.”
“What?”
A dark burn washed across his sculpted cheekbones. “I became obsessed with the idea you had fallen for another man. Your demand for a divorce clinched it.”
“Why?” she asked in stunned amazement.
“I could conceive of no other reason you would ask for a divorce.”
“But—”
“You had started rejecting me sexually. I did not understand it.”
“It hurt.”
“But you did not tell me that. I had to draw my own conclusions.”
“And that was that I’d taken a lover.”
“I did not go that far—I could not imagine it.”
“Thank you…I think.”
“You had started zoning out during conversations…like you were thinking about someone else.”
“My medication.”
“Yes.”
“I thought you didn’t even notice.”
