He trudged to a chair before the fire. “Will you help me pull my boots?” he asked.
“No,” she said, pushing farther back. The blue velvet curtains nearly swallowed her.
“Why not?” He collapsed into the chair and leaned his head back, staring at the beams of the ceiling.
“I think it is better that we not touch.”
He looked like a man who had gone ten rounds in a boxing match. She held fast to the cushion of the seat to prevent herself from going to him.
“Now, why, I wonder,” he said flatly, speaking to the ceiling, “would it bebetter, on the day I learn of my brother’s death, and the day I go toe to toe with an uncle who would like to see me dead,andon a day I’ve been shouted at, and complained to, and challenged by desperate families in my care—why, at the end of that day, would I be better offnotbeing touched by my wife? I ask you. Please tell me. Because the prospect of touching you, honestly, Willow, has been the only thing that has seen me through this day.”
Tiredly, he raised his head and looked at her.
She shrank back. “Make me out to be cold and heartless if you must, Cassin, but—”
“Call me Brent, for God’s sake,” he said, dropping his head back.
“I will not call you Brent,” she said, coming out from the curtain. She edged to the lip of the window seat. The malaise and self-pity of the day transformed, somehow, into angry energy. “I will not pull your boots. I will not be your source of comfort, Cassin, on this terrible day when you so desperately need it—when I so desperately need it—because it will only make matters worse, more wrenching.”
“Forgive me if I cannot see how things could become worse than they are.” He sat up and began to work off his boots. “I suppose if Stoker’s brig sunk, and we lost our payload. That would be worse. But let us not invent challenges. We have enough actual problems at the moment.”
“True,” Willow said, carefully stepping from the window. She did not trust herself not to go to him. “Which is why I will not prolong the intimacy that we have shared as husband and wife. The longer we are intimate, the more difficult it will be to separate. At least for me. As I said, I’ve only remained in your room because I didn’t know where else to g—”
Cassin was out of his chair and across the room before she could finish. He took her up by the arm, bringing his face within inches of hers. “Do not evenpretend,” he growled, “that we will end this marriage, madam. Do not.”
Willow pulled on her arm, but he would not let her go. “I’m not pretending,” she said, unable to stop a rush of tears. “I won’t remain married to you when I cannot provide you with an heir.”
She jerked her arm again, and he released her. She staggered back and then skittered to the other side of the bed.
He stalked her. “You believe me to care more about an heir than my wife? I don’t even care about my uncle, if it comes to this!”
“Comes to what?” she cried. “You have a home and a family that you love. Now that you have shown it to me”—she gestured frantically around her—“I can see why. You have a responsibility to the families on your land, and you take this seriously, as you should.
“Likewise,” she went on, “you require a wife who can bear you healthy sons who will keep Caldera from the hands of your uncle. I will not be the reason that you cannot prevent his aggression—not when literally any other woman in the world could bear children for you. In time, you could come to love another woman.” Willow’s throat burned around the words.
“Explain to me what you intend,” he said cruelly. “You would divorce me?”
He rounded the bed and reached for her, but she dove. She landed in the center of the bed and skittered across it.
“No, an annulment,” she said, panting with the exertion, “I had hoped you would annul the marriage. If you tell the judge that you’ve only just learned I am barren, he will grant—”
Cassin caught her by the ankle and pulled, dragging her back across the bed. She closed her eyes and let herself be dragged. His strength exceeded hers. He was so angrily opposed to her suggestion—so much more opposed than she had predicted—and in the pit of her stomach, deep down below the knot of fear and hurt and the thousands of sharp, heavy pieces of her broken heart, a very tiny spark of hope had begun to flicker. And the stronger, and bigger, and angrier he became, the brighter it shined.
“Listen tome, madam,” he said harshly, flipping her over, “and listen very well, because I’m already bone tired and emotionally spent, and I haven’t the power for another battle today. A battle with you, of all people. There will benoannulment; there will benodivorce. You are my wife, despite the known fact—known within a day of making your acquaintance—that you will never bear children.”
“But Cassin,” she cried.
“Brent,”he growled.
“Butyour lordship,” she corrected, the flicker growing into an earnest flame, hotter and hotter.
Cassin growled again and reached for her right foot, drawing her leg up. She’d been dressed for dinner, and she’d wore silk slippers beneath a pink gown. He ripped the left slipper from her foot and threw it across the room.
“You will spend your life building Caldera to be the estate and castle that you want it to be,” Willow cried. “Safe for your tenants. Home to your mother and sisters for as long as they like, just as you said today. And for what? So that your cousins will take it over and boot them all out when you die? I won’t do it,” she said, kicking him in the shoulder with her bare foot. “I won’t do it.”
“And what care have I,” he shouted, taking up her other foot and ripping off the slipper, “for what happens afterI’m dead, if I’ve been forced to live my life without you? What could I possibly care, Willow?”
He dropped her legs back to the bed and fell over her, holding himself off her with his arms on either side of his head. She stared up and saw that his eyes had filled with tears.
