Page 104 of To Pleasure a Prince

He scowled. “And your solution is to let her stay here?”

She breathed easier. At least he was no longer dismissing everything out of hand. “With us. If you tell her the situation, I’m sure she will behave herself perfectly for the rest of the season. Especially after I speak to Simon—”

“Not a chance. You are not to speak to that man, do you hear?”

So much for his not dismissing things out of hand. “Someone must tell him that he can no longer—”

“I will deal with Foxmoor myself. You and Louisa can clearly not be trusted around the man—he gets round you both every time. So you will leave him to me. I forbid either of you to see him.”

Her pulse began to pound. “Let me see if I understand you correctly. You are forbidding me to speak to my own brother?”

The icy tone in her voice seemed to give him pause, but he stuck doggedly to his position. “Yes.”

“Ever?”

His face grew shuttered. “You won’t have a chance to speak to him anyway. We’re returning to Castlemaine tonight with Louisa.”

She gritted her teeth. “Even if it sets the gossips to wagging? Even if she never gets to enter society again?”

“That is my decision. We are not staying in London, no matter how much you prefer society to being with your husband in the country.”

“That’s not true!”

“Isn’t it? You’ve been chafing to return practically since we left. Complain all you want, but I won’t indulge your whims—or Louisa’s—as my father indulged my mother’s. I refuse to watch my wife and my sister follow the same path—”

“As your mother? You couldn’t stop your mother from choosing Prinny over her responsibilities as a wife and a parent, so now you mean to lock up me and Louisa before we can become just as reckless. Is that it?” Her own temper rising, she stepped nearer. “Louisa is nothing like your mother. And neither am I.”

“Damned right you’re not. You’re ten times the woman she was, ten times more beautiful, ten times more alluring, ten times more good—”

“Then why don’t you trust me, drat it?”

“It’s not you I don’t trust, but all your damned sycophants. You’re also ten times more irresistible than my mother was. Those scoundrels are out there waiting to get you alone, now that you’re married and don’t need a chaperone.”

In light of what he’d told her about his mother, she understood his fears. But that didn’t mean she had to put up with them. “It takes two people to commit adultery. As long as I don’t agree to it, it doesn’t matter if a thousand men try to get me alone.”

“With some men, it matters. You have no idea what lengths some men—”

“Spending the past few days teaching me to read a children’s primer has clearly made you forget that I am not a child. I know how to handle men. I have spent the past several years successfully fending off their advances.”

“You didn’t fend off mine.” His eyes glittered. “You indulged your taste for adventure, which is precisely why we ended up married.”

“And now you mean to punish me for it?” Tears welled in her eyes as she lifted her hand to caress his cold, hard cheek. “We ended up married because I fell in love with you, you dolt. I would not have married you otherwise, no matter what ‘adventures’ you offered me.”

For a moment, he only stared at her, stunned. Then he covered her hand with his. “If you love me, you’ll return to Castlemaine and forget about London.”

He might as well have slapped her. He wouldn’t offer her words of love, but he would try to use her own love to control her?

“How dare you!” She jerked her hand back, fighting to suppress her tears. “I will not be your prisoner, Marcus. Your wife, yes. Your lover, certainly. But never your prisoner.”

A thunderous scowl crossed his features. “You’re my wife. You belong with me. And I say we return to Castlemaine. So you might as well resign yourself—”

She backed away from him, shaking her head. “I shall not let you lock me away, no matter how pretty your prison. If you couldn’t endure three days locked away, how do you expectmeto endure a lifetime?”

He stalked her like some mythical beast. “You will do as I say.”

“You promised me I could come to London when I wished. You swore it!”

“And your brother promised not to pursue my sister. He broke his promise, so I can damned well break mine.”