Page 92 of The Truth Serum
“A seat in the House of Commons. He’ll help me with that, you know.”
“No, no,” she said, waving a hand in front of her face. It was so hot. Her clothing was so tight. And Fletcher’s answer hadn’t been the little boy’s answer. “Is it money?” she asked. She knew Henry had put limits on Fletcher’s funds. “How will my marrying the baron get you money?”
“He has a business that he will share with me,” Fletcher said. “Business that is very profitable.”
Oh dear. Didn’t he see the contradiction? “No man shares what he doesn’t have to. Not even with his wife.”
Fletcher touched her cheek, pulling it toward him. Had her head been lolling to the side? She blinked, trying to get her eyes to focus. It was a struggle. Everything seemed to be in multiple layers. And at the deepest layer of Fletcher was an unhappy child.
If she squinted, she could almost see it.
“Don’t you think I know?” Fletcher asked.
“What?”
“I know how clever you are. I know all your secret tricks.”
Rebecca blinked. “You do?”
“I do,” he crowed. “That is how I know you will make him help me. Just by being your difficult, devious self.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He will not get your beautiful breasts unless he shares with me. I will make sure of it.” He grinned. “It is part of the marriage contract.”
Truth.And the coldness of his statement shook her.
“But I do not want him,” she whispered. She swallowed down any words about who she did want.
“You do,” Fletcher said. “You must.”
Lie.
“No,” she said.
His grip on her chin tightened painfully. “You will obey,” he commanded.
She flinched, not from the pain but from the memory of those words. The harshest beating she’d ever had followed those words. Her father had told her to obey. She’d said, no.
That was her first and only time she’d experienced cracked ribs. At least her own. Because after that, she never openly defied her father again. And in her confusion, in her dosed state, she said the words she’d meant to ask her father.
“Why? Why don’t you love me?”
“I do love you!” he said.
Lie.
“Fletcher, I protected you. Henry and I both did. We stood between you and our father.”
“You kept him from me,” he rasped.
Truth.At least as far as Fletcher understood it. But maybe it was true from her own perspective. Each of them had worked to stay in their father’s good graces one way or another. And when Father was being kind, she certainly hadn’t wanted her moody brother around.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I suppose I did want him all to myself”
“You bitch!” he rasped, jerking her head around again. “You bloody bitch!”
“Fletcher!”
