Free Heaven in His Arms by Lisa Ann Verge Page A

Marietta and she told me you'd planned to keep me there until you returned. But I did not come to Quebec only to be abandoned by my husband. ..."
    "I didn't abandon you." He snapped the words and turned away from her. The candle sputtered in the corner on the desk. A sheaf of papers balancing precariously on the edge of the bed slipped off the pile and swept over the floor. "I left for a voyage already long delayed. I made arrangements—"
    "For my burial."
    Guilt twinged at him. Damn it. His gaze swept over her, from the jiggle of her curls to the hem of her skirts, and anger started at a slow burn, sizzling away from the guilt. All Frenchwoman . .. worse, all aristocrat. The breeding showed in her long, white neck, her delicate skin, her pointed chin and cheekbones. He'd noticed the signs in her sickness, and now, in the full of health, she stood before him the embodiment of the one kind of creature to whom he wanted no commitment.
    A woman like this didn't belong in his world. He couldn't protect her, he couldn't keep her safe.
    "You didn't look like this when I last saw you," Andre argued, raking his hand under his wig. "I made arrangements for you to stay in a safe place in a warm house with people I trusted, in the closest thing to civilization you'll find in this country."
    "For how long? Forever?"
    "Didn't Philippe tell you my plans?"
    "Which ones? Burial or slavery?"
    He frowned. She'd been too sick to remember her own name at their wedding, let alone understand his plans, and he had been too busy making arrangements for his voyage to check on her at the Hotel-Dieu. He'd told Philippe to take care of everything— including explaining his intentions to his new wife. Philippe, with his usual distaste of unpleasant tasks, had delayed this one too late. Marietta had probably down into a rage when this woman appeared on her doorstep, most likely seeing to it that she was on a boat to Montreal within minutes of her arrival. He crossed his arms in front of him, steeling himself for the inevitable confrontation.
    "You've come a long way to hear what Marietta could have told you."
    "I wanted to hear it from the coward's own lips." She looked him up and down, her nose wrinkling in an aristocratic sneer. "I also wanted to know what kind of swine would abandon his wife so quickly."
    "You won't be my wife for long."
    Something murderous in his eyes must have given her pause. She stepped back, stumbling over one of his abandoned shoes. "If you touch me, I'll scream so loud that every man in this inn will come running—"
    He cut her short with a jerk of his hand. "I'm a fur trader, not a murderer."
    "How comforting," she snapped, kicking away the offending shoe and giving him a view of a slim, booted ankle beneath a muddied froth of skirts. "Fur traders don't kill their wives. They only abandon them after they get their trading licenses."
    "Then you know about Talon's ruling."
    "You're not even going to deny it!" she sputtered. "How noble! A brigand who's honest about his treachery."
    "This marriage is a convenient one for both of us."
    "It isn't convenient for me to care for someone else's children, in someone else's house, or wait nine months for my husband to return from God knows where to tell me what he plans—"
    "If I hadn't married you, someone else would, and you'd have very little choice in the matter."
    "I had no choice in the matter when a ruthless lecher plucked me off my deathbed."
    "I'm giving you a second chance. Come summer, when I return to Quebec, I'll have our marriage annulled. Then you'll be free to marry again. ..."
    "So you will get rid of me." She tossed her head of curls and crossed her arms snug under her breasts. "I thought as much. What do I do between now and summer . . . other than give you horns?"
    His jaw tightened. He had no doubt she'd find a dozen willing men to quench her desire in his absence, and briefly he wondered how a daughter of the petite noblesse had managed to cultivate such passion,