“Well, of course I do,” she answered, raising her chin another notch, secretly smiling at the look of indignation plainly visible on his handsome face. “That’s why I have not left your side these last four weeks. That’s why I sat up all night, every night, for two weeks while you raged with fever. That’s why I bathed you, changed your bandages, took care of your personal needs, fed you, wept over you, and pleaded with you to not give up, begging you to fight the fever until you returned to me. That is why, until today when I called on the physician you refused to see, I have not stepped foot out of this house since the accident. I did all that because I take so very much pleasure in your pain.”

He had the grace to look ashamed, but it wasn’t enough. The time had clearly come for him to make the decision, and by God, if he didn’t make the right one, she’d make it for him.

“I will not go through the nightmare of having to pick out and train another husband,” she told him, poking him in the chest as she did so.

“Train?” he snarled. “Do you liken me to an animal that must be trained to be made habitable?”

“I liken you to a man who is extremely pigheaded and obstinate, and hasn’t a clue about what really matters in life. Until you realize just how blessed you are to have me as your wife—”

“I do realize how blessed I am…was,” he shouted back at her, his face flushed with anger. “You are the loveliest, most amazing woman I know, dammit! I love you!”

“Then you had better start acting like it!” she said in a volume that a less-refined person might label as yelling.

“God damn you, woman, how can I? I’m crippled! Near blind! I’m worthless in every bloody respect! I have no money, no title, no social standing left to me, and now the last thing I had—a body worthy of worshipping you—has been destroyed. The only way I can show you I love you is to rid the earth of my pitiable presence and leave you free to marry a man who can give you what I can’t.”

She slapped him again, not very hard, but hard enough that he tensed his jaw, narrowed his eye, and grabbed at her wrist to keep her from repeating the action. She had to admit she greatly enjoyed shocking him out of his attack of self-pity. “How dare you! How dare you insinuate that the only reason I married you was for your money or title or social standing or your handsome face!”

He leaned forward until his hot breath fanned her face. “Can you honestly say you didn’t marry me for those things?”

“No, of course I can’t! What woman in my position wouldn’t marry for money or title or handsome looks?”

A familiar look of resigned confusion came over his face as he released her wrist to rub his forehead. “You’re saying you did marry me for the very same things I can no longer give you, and yet you’re offended when I point that out?”