“God damn it!” Alex turned away from her abruptly. His fingers were shaking with the urge to hit her, but he had never hit a woman, not even Maria. “Aren’t you going to scream back at me?” he demanded. “Maria was another whore like you, but at least she proudly stood up for herself! But then she didn’t enjoy herself as much as you do. Or did you fake that whole performance, those little cries, the way you faked being so afraid? God, I should have known the minute you responded to me like that. No lady acts the way you did. I never heard of a lady begging for it, panting, the way you did!”

Charlotte was shaking all over. He was right—or no, he was wrong; she wasn’t a whore. But voices clamored in her head, rules learned almost unknowingly from Lady Sipperstein at Lady Chatterton’s School for Young Gentlewomen. Ladies don’t wiggle their bottoms; ladies speak only in quiet voices; ladies never display too much exuberance or strong emotion. Lady Sipperstein always said that Charlotte wiggled too much when she walked. Alex was right: She wasn’t a lady. It didn’t take much imagination to think of what Lady Sipperstein would think of a woman who screamed out loud and begged….

Color stained Charlotte’s cheeks. Her eyes filled with tears as she looked down at the floor. She was the picture of guilt.

“Why did you do it?” Her husband was walking toward her again; through her tears she could dimly see his large form looming down on her. “Why did you do it?” he hissed, emphasizing each word. “Were you so desperate for a husband? Or was it just that I was the best on the market? Why not poor Braddon? Didn’t he seem like a better risk? Poor Braddon. He’s such a block that he probably wouldn’t ever have realized that you were just another trollop, no virgin. He would have been perfectly happy with his tainted bargain. My, my,” he said savagely, “I think you made a mistake. Because I already married one slut, and so I’m pretty familiar with the breed.”

Charlotte couldn’t even take in his words by this point. She clapped her hands over her ears, her whole mind and body protesting against the hatred that vibrated in her husband’s voice.

“No!” she said loudly.