Page 80 of The Bastard's Iberian Bride
Chapter 16
Paulette proppedherself up on one arm. “You’ve had other women.”
The battle on Bink’s face made her want to laugh.
She put a finger over his mouth. He didn’t have to lie. It wasn’t that sort of marriage. “You don’t have to tell me. I’d rather you said nothing than lie to me.”
“I’m not quite the man of the world.”
“But you’re not a virgin.”
“No. But I haven’t been with a woman in a very long time.”
“Why not? Every inn maid you meet wants to bed you.”
“They just like to flirt, most of them. They see how safe I am.”
If he believed that, he was lying to himself. She let it pass.
“So why no lover? No mistress? Even stewards have mistresses, or affairs. Maybe especially stewards. All the lonely widows in the county.”
He rolled her to the side and cuddled her, his fingers stroking through her hair. His eyes looked heavy. “Must we have this talk now?”
“You’re sleepy.” No doubt he was that after two days in the saddle.
“Yes.”
“But I would like to know. Else thinking about it will keep me awake.”
His sigh rumbled up from some deep unhappy place. “I’m careful. Always. I’m a bastard.”
His frown deepened, freezing his jaw and locking it in place, and all of her senses alerted, waiting. He was deciding whether to tell her something more interesting.
“And you should know there are bad things in the world. Diseases that can pass from a man to a woman or a woman to a man. Not a pretty sight, what it does to a body. One thoughtless tumble can leave a man stricken for life, and his wife, if he has one, and any lovers, and even his children.”
She raised up on an elbow. “The pox?”
“Yes, and other ailments. And London is crawling with all of them. When I returned there with the Major—Lord Hackwell—it was as bad there as it had been on the Peninsula.” He swiped a hand over his brow. “No, it was worse. There is no war in England, and yet women spread their legs for their next meal while great lords gamble away fortunes.”
He turned a fierce look on her and her courage wavered.
Anger burned in him. Too much anger for a man running away to India, which surely could not be any better of a place for disease and such.
“I’ve married a radical,” she whispered.
“No.” He pushed her hair back, his eyes even more aflame.
She’d seen his temper with Agruen, had she not? That night in Hackwell’s library, Bink’s anger had flown into his fists and been just as quickly dispersed. Once Hackwell appeared, he’d shown no signs of ire.
Tonight he held this flare-up with a control that might slip any moment.
But his hand on her cheek was gentle.
“I saw first-hand the results of a bloody revolution, remember?” His tight jaw worked. “Never. Never that here. I favor changes, with order. With sense.”
“So why go to India?”
“I thought I couldn’t do any good here.”
