Red Snow Bride (Wolf Brides Book 2) Read Free Page B

weak woman who’d stared hollowly back at me?
    I dressed for sleep behind the door where passersby in the hallway wouldn’t be able to see me. If my husband hadn’t been able to bear the sight of my body, I sure wasn’t sharing it with complete strangers. The walls were thin, and the sounds of crying children and harried mothers could be heard through the night, but somewhere in the darkest hours, I found sleep.
    ****
    “Do you know how difficult it was for us to track you down, Mrs. Delaney?”
    “Ahh!” I screamed at the man whose face was much too close to mine for comfort. I threw the covers over my night dressed body and sat up. “Who are you and what do you want?” My quaking voice didn’t sound quite as brave as it had last night.
    “We are Mr. Delaney’s lawyers. I’m Michael Fitz and this here,” he said gesturing to a stout, balding man by the door, “Is Mr. Gerald Herbert.”
    “Why are you in my room at such an early hour, sirs?”
    “Why, Mrs. Delaney, it’s nearly nine.” He pulled a stack of papers out of a leather handled folder and tossed them upon my lap. “You were supposed to be at Hell’s Tavern where your husband had arranged,” he said in a tone that rivaled Father’s when he was disappointed.
    “That place was dreadful,” I said as I lifted the top page. “No honorable man would send his wife to such a dangerous place.”
    “An honorable man wouldn’t be charging you with divorce either, my dear. Honor has nothing to do with any of this, I’m afraid.”
    “Then why are you representing him?”
    “Because he’s paying us handsomely,” he said with an air that suggested the answer should’ve been obvious. Indeed honor did not play a part in my downfall. “You’ll need to sign all the places I’ve marked and then you’ll be done with this trying matter.”
    “I won’t be done, sir. I’ll be ruined.”
    His slack face didn’t seem too impressed with my claim to destitution. “As it stands, it’s going to happen whether you like it or not. You left his bed cold and without a way to provide an heir.”
    “But that wasn’t my choice,” I argued. “I want to give him a child but he won’t come to my chambers.”
    His thin lip pouted out. “Maybe so, but that’s not what it’ll look like to the masses. You’re the talk of the town this morning, dear—the butt of many a joke. Now sign this and be done with it. Mr. Herbert and I have more appointments to make today and you’ve already put us far behind schedule.”
    My glaring at Mr. Fitz wouldn’t save me from the scandal. It only drew out the time these horrible men cluttered up my room. I snatched the pen from his outstretched hand and signed the papers as fast as I could.
    I wouldn’t cry, I wouldn’t cry, I wouldn’t cry. That horrible man I thought I’d loved didn’t deserve my tears. He didn’t deserve for me to mourn the decimation of a marriage that consumed every important corner of my life. Remorselessly, I prayed one of his many mistresses would give him the pox.
    I tried to slam my door after those horrible lawyers left, but it only bounced back and almost struck me in the face.
    Last night, I’d somehow managed to undo all of the pearl buttons that fastened the back of my prim gray dress, but putting it back together was a different matter. A soft knock on the door stopped my grunting and growling, and I faced it so my visitor wouldn’t see my half done up outfit.
    Analise peeked her head in. “The Countess has sent me.”
    “Oh. Well, come in and shut the door. I’m changing.”
    She stood awkwardly in the tiny space of the room not taken up by me and the furniture and watched my undulations with an arched eyebrow. “You need to be wearing simpler dresses now, Ms. No one’s going to be helping you dress anymore.”
    “Yes, well I wasn’t thinking about that when I was fleeing my house in the dead of night.” My arms were tired and I flung them to my sides.
    Analise sighed