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“She’ll live a life like yours, I suppose,” he continued ruthlessly. “She’ll grow old living with her mother—you. Except there won’t be very much money, especially after your mother dies and the dower estate reverts to your father’s cousin.” He didn’t feel good about what he was doing. She still hadn’t said a word, but he remembered something else that had to be said.

“And don’t think that Mayne will obtain an Act of Parliament to marry you,” he added. “Even if he stayed with you through the divorce proceedings. The man may be rich, but he’s slept with most of the wives of the men sitting in the House of Lords. They’re just waiting for some miserable cuckold to up and shoot the man, and believe me, they’ll pardon the offence as justifiable.”

“Why?” she asked between white lips. “Why would you do such a cruel thing, Rees?”

“Because I want you in the house,” he said coolly. “You’re my wife.”

“I’m not your property!”

“You’re my wife,” he repeated. “It’s that simple. You merely need to decide how much you want that child. We made a dog’s breakfast of our marriage, but we can surely pull ourselves together long enough to get this taken care of.”

“You just want me to be wretched,” she said flatly. “You must be out of your mind to even come up with this plan. Never mind my feelings about the matter: my reputation would be ruined!”

A great surge of resentment rose in his chest at the very mention of reputation. “Of course, your name is all important to you. It remains to be seen whether it’s more important than having a child. And may I point out, Helene, that your reputation will also be ruined if you have a bastard with Mayne? All the ton will watch the two of you like hawks on a pair of frolicking mice.”

She seemed to be huddling in her chair, and Rees had a terrible feeling, as if he’d wounded a bird in flight. He stood up to go, but he couldn’t quite make himself leave. She looked like a wounded sparrow, all shorn of its feathers now that she’d cut her hair.

“This bombast on your part doesn’t explain why you want me in the house alongside that woman,” she said, looking up at him. “If indeed you want an heir, get rid of her.”

“No.” Rees knew he was being stubborn, but he didn’t care.

“Then you wish it merely to force me to live in a house of sin due to some perversion in your character. You’re a devil, Rees.”

“It’s no house of sin,” he said brusquely. But he could feel a wave of guilt coming. “Tom arrived yesterday. We have our own resident vicar.”

“Your brother Tom? What does he think of your domestic arrangements? And did you even dare to tell him of this scheme?”

Rees’s lips twisted. “He’s worked up some sort of idea that blames my father for all my excesses. He didn’t seem to mind Lina too much, but he said you wouldn’t come to the house.”

“He’s right!”

“And I told him,” he continued, staring down at her with that fierce look he had, that seemed to look into her very soul, “that he had no idea how desperately you want that baby. Or am I underestimating you, Helene?”

“You’re mad,” she said, standing up. “You were always odd, and now you’ve gone stark, raving mad. I’m actually glad that we didn’t manage to create a child yesterday, because I wouldn’t want to pass on any sort of dementia.”

“We didn’t?” he asked, staring at her. “You already know?”

“Yes,” Helene said, glaring back. She had gone from shock, to rage, to despair, and she was back to rage again. But threads of rational thought were stealing back into her mind. He was bluffing. He had to be bluffing. It wasn’t truly in Rees’s nature to act in such a cruel—nay, almost wicked—fashion.

He took her arm, stopping her from leaving the room. “How much do you want a child, Helene?”

“Enough so that I accepted the fact that it may look like you,” she said coolly. “And enough to know that you’re not the only man capable of making one.”

“You would condemn your own unborn child to bastardy. She will hate you someday, when she has no one to marry except the local cowherd. Let’s face it, it’s not as if you and I would particularly enjoy being next door to each other anyway. Did you really want me able to enter your room at any hour of the day or night and slip between your sheets?”

She spat it at him. “Absolutely not!”

“Right. The chamber on the third floor is easily larger than my mother’s room. You can fit a piano in there.”

“That’s not the point! I do not wish to spend even a moment under the same roof as your doxy, a fact which should be clear, even to a person with your perceptive nature.”

“All right,” he said. “We’ll compromise. You live in the house until we conceive the child. You can come in secret, so there won’t be any scandal. And then you can take the child and raise it elsewhere. Here, with your mother, if you wish. But I refuse to continue trailing around after you and stripping off my pantaloons in public.”

“You could come here on occasion.”

“I’m not going to waste my time flitting around to balls, and to my mother-in-law’s house, trying to find my own wife. I have work to do.”

“I don’t spend my time flitting around to balls!” she retorted. “You know as well as I do that I spend most of each day here working on my piano. You could come here.”