Page 39 of Brutal Serpent

Do everything you can to prevent it.

And what, exactly, would that be? I wondered irritably.

I had no say in the matter. How was I supposed to prevent him from breeding me when and how he liked?

“Enjoying your correspondence?” St. Erth asked, and I jumped to hear my husband’s voice right next to me.

I tried to crumple the letter in my hands, but he plucked it with his strong fingers and straightened it out again.

“Another letter begging for money?” he asked mockingly, but he drew his brows together angrily as he read the pages.

“How dare they tell you not to bear my heir!” he hissed, stalking angrily over to the fireplace and throwing the letter in.

For a moment he stood in front of the fire, watching the letter crumble into flames. The fire lit up his skin and the broad width of his shoulders as the fine fabric stretched across them.

“Theyare the ones who forced me to marry you!” I cried in some pique. “And now they regret it.”

St. Erth turned around and there was something almost supernatural glowing in his bright cornflower blue eyes.

“I’mthe one who forced you to marry me,” he said coldly. “It was my will alone, Kitten.”

I dropped my eyes in confusion at the look in his and only added lamely, “I guess they fear that they will lose Wendover House and be destitute if I have a child.”

“Theywilllose Wendover House and be destitute,” St. Erth corrected me. “Your father’s and brother’s gambling debts are too much and they’ve exhausted the land around them. The land around Wendover House has been almost as poorly managed as your grandfather did the land around Rosewood Manor.”

“Oh?” I asked uncomfortably.

“Once you bear an heir, it’ll probably take some tremendous sum to get the land around Wendover House back to even part of its previous utility.”

“Oh,” I said, digesting this information. I felt embarrassed by my family’s actions. I had been used to think that it was just the cards were always against Papa and Millward and soon their luck would change. But maybe it was worse than that.

“Do we. . . are we getting low on funds?”

St. Erth flashed a quick glance at me, and I couldn’t read the expression in those sharp blue eyes.

“No, brat,” he said. “We aren’t getting low on funds. I am a very rich man indeed. Now go into the library.”

I didn’t feel like fighting him, so I turned around and headed for the library, listening to the satisfied hum he made as I obeyed him.

He turned around and folded his arms.

“I’ve just gotten some pamphlets from London,” he said. “Your humors might be out of balance, and that’s why you’re being a brat. Now get up on that table.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked uncertainly.

St. Erth struck like an adder, gripping my chin with his hand. “It doesn’t matter, does it Viscountess? Whatever it is, you will do it.”

I clutched at his hand convulsively, feeling his fingers move to lightly surround my neck. There was a heat to his skin that felt like it radiated to my own.

I got up on the table, settling on my back nervously.

He pulled at the curtains, ripping a few of the cords out, then strode over to me and began to tie my hands together, stretching them high above my head.

I began to panic, pulling anxiously at the cords. “What are you doing?”

My husband ignored me and moved to my feet, wrapping a cord around each one of my ankles and securing the excess length to the table leg beneath.

I was fully trapped, my legs spread before him, my hands stretched tight above my head.

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