Face Down among the Winchester Geese Read Online Free Page B

the inclination to coax her opinions out of her.
    "I must try to help Diane,” he said. “I doubt she has many friends in England."
    "Doubtless she will soon find new ones."
    "I met her on a mission for the queen,” Robert reminded his wife, hating the defensive tone in his voice. “'Tis my duty as a loyal subject to pursue this matter."
    "A hardship, certes.” Susanna no longer tried to hide her sarcasm. She knew that if he went to the Fakon Inn, he would stay the night. And what if he did? It was not as if Susanna made him feel welcome in her bed.
    Only a matter of weeks, he reminded himself again.
    Turning his back on his wife, he left the solar without saying another word.

Chapter 4
    Susanna threw her needlework across the room.
    What a fool she was! After all these years she should not care what Robert did. Much of the time she did not.
    But today his behavior was surpassing bothersome. Meeting another woman who might be his mistress, the second in less than six months, seeing how beautiful they both were, upset her. Combined with Susanna's growing sense that she was being used in some way, that she'd been ordered to London for some nefarious purpose, a purpose Robert refused to share with her, Diane's visit had left her feeling both irritable and frustrated.
    "Bodykins,” she swore softly when she heard a door slam below. Robert had left the house.
    It was not Susanna's way to indulge in self-pity, but just this once she allowed regrets to consume her. She despised waste. As a true partnership, what might she and Robert not have accomplished? Theirs could have been an intellectual union as well as a marital one.
    But Robert valued the body more than the mind. He craved physical variety and condemned her that she could not share his enthusiasm. Worse, although he was quick to claim credit for solutions she reasoned out, he made no secret of the fact that he resented her intelligence.
    More than once in the early days of their marriage, the women in the duke of Northumberland's household had advised Susanna to bend her will to her husband's, to let him lead her in all things, to hide the fact that she was better educated than he. Just fascinated enough by her handsome new spouse to try, she'd succeeded in naught but making herself miserable and unhappy.
    It was not that she disliked physical union between them. That act had proven to possess its own compensations, once the first messy encounter was over with. When Robert began to stray, she'd believed the fault lay with her. But with the passage of time, Susanna had realized that her husband was the sort of man who would never be content with one woman, not even one he loved.
    Love had never been part of the bargain.
    Leigh Abbey had won his heart. And the lands and revenues that went with it. He did not disdain the earnings from Susanna's herbals either, though he'd had naught to do with producing them.
    She still remembered, with some bitterness, the reaction he'd had to her second venture, The Great Herbal, a compendium of herbs and their uses. On this one, her name had been listed as compiler, along with the names of three other women. A mistake, Robert had said. What man would respect a scholarly work if he knew it had been written by females? Better, he'd claimed, to remain anonymous, as she had with her first book, A Cautionary Herbal .
    Better, she'd said, to have taken full credit for that one. She was proud of the work she'd done to warn housewives and cooks of the dangers of using certain plants in food and medicines. For all she knew, Susanna thought now, Robert had convinced her to use initials so he could claim he was “S. A.,” author of a book on poisonous herbs.
    Disgusted with herself for dwelling on such thoughts, knowing that regrets availed her nothing, Susanna abruptly left the solar for her bedchamber. She called for Jennet as she went, to help her change her clothing. There was work still to be done in the garden, hard honest work that