Chapter 1

1

August1812

“I will bed you tonight.”

The baronet’s voice was rough, commanding, and stern, and Emma squeezed her folded hands so tight her knuckles hurt.

Determination hardened her husband Sir Jasper Bardsley’s puffy face in the semidarkness of the carriage, the bright light of the warm day never reaching his features. The floor of the shabby carriage rattled and dipped under her feet, then rose again sharply, making Emma’s stomach drop and causing a momentary onslaught of nausea. The upholstery on the ceiling was torn and hanging, sheep’s wool protruded from holes in the seats, and the brown paint on the door was chipped.

“I’m not feeling well,” she said.

It was true. The thought of having her husband of one year touch her intimately or otherwise made her feel ill.

“Let me guess.” He crossed his arms over his round stomach and stretched his thin, buckskin-covered legs until his fashionable riding boots touched the bench she sat on. “You have your courses?”

She inhaled sharply, worry making her chest rise and fall quickly. When had she used that excuse previously? Could it have been a month ago?

“I do,” she said.

His boots hit the floor with a thump, and he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. His expression was menacing. “My dear, you said the same thing just two weeks ago.”

He’d caught her. They both knew her excuses for refusing him into her bed the past six months were just that…excuses.

As a small girl, the eldest daughter of a poor but perfectly respectable gentleman, she had dreamed about a happy marriage. She didn’t need a rich man or a man with a title. All she wanted was a home full of children with a husband she loved and respected.

Instead, she’d married Sir Jasper Bardsley.

“I need an heir, Emma,” he said. “You must give me one. That is your duty as my wife. And so far, you have not been a good one. You disobey, disrespect, and defy me. The entire week we spent at Cross Manor, you never paid me a moment of attention, and yet you happily chatted with every person in Sir Lionell’s company.”

Helpless frustration boiled in Emma’s stomach. The walls of the carriage shrank around her, and it felt tiny. Like a dark prison cell with no way out. Her chest constricted as she struggled to breathe.

Craving air, and needing a moment to compose herself, she looked out of the window. They were passing through a small village with a lively market square called Clovham. Cows, goats, horses, chickens, geese, and even dogs were being sold. Booths were bursting with vegetables and other produce.

In about four more hours, she’d be back in the prison of her domestic life in Bardsley House, and she’d be able to wash the grime of the road off herself together with the humiliation she’d experienced the whole week they had spent at the house party at Cross Manor.

“You are not a great husband, either, Sir Jasper,” she said without looking at him.

He scoffed. “That is so unfair. I give everything to you. You have a good house, an income, and I am the one suggesting you renew your wardrobe according to the latest London fashion.”

She glared at him, feeling her chest heave, barely able to contain her anger. Of course she’d refused renewing her wardrobe. He was happy to frivolously spend money on his clothes while their estate crumbled around them from lack of funds. She grasped the edge of the upholstered bench, her fingernails scraping the fraying textile.

“That means you want to parade me with my breasts out there for everyone to see.”

“Why not? Lady Kinlea does it, and you have almost as pretty a bosom as she does.”

Emma’s cheeks blazed. She had never felt as small and insignificant in her life.

She had a lot to say about Lady Kinlea, a pretty and elegant member of fashionable London society, who had three beautiful children Emma had adored. Lady Kinlea couldn’t stop flirting with Sir Jasper, right in front of her own husband and Emma. Though why Lady Kinlea would want Sir Jasper’s attention, Emma had no notion.

“Women tell each other things they don’t tell men,” he said. “I asked you to make friends with her and find out the latest London gossip so that I can make useful connections and invest wisely. Instead, you ran around with her children. You embarrassed me.”

Emma stopped a gasp. “I embarrassed you?”

Just three days ago, Emma had seen a disheveled and flustered Sir Jasper and Lady Kinlea leaving a rosebush. She wasn’t surprised Sir Jasper had a lover. He probably had more than one. But she didn’t feel a stab of jealousy. Or a pinch of hurt. On the contrary, she was light with relief. If he found his satisfaction elsewhere, chances were he wouldn’t bother her for some time.

But Sir Jasper ignored her question. His round, perfectly shaved cheeks reddened with anger, his small gray eyes glistening with malice. “Will you let me into your bed tonight, madam? Yes or no?”

She’d be damned if she let him ever touch her. She looked out of the window again. In the midst of crop stubble, farmers and their children worked the fields, collecting the hay and throwing it onto stacks. Occasional bushes and trees split fields. Sheep and cows grazed on pastures, and the scent of manure and freshly cut grass reached Emma. She would happily give up her station and work in those fields to escape her brute of a husband.

She’d married him to help her family, of course. Her papa’s small estate brought barely enough income to make ends meet, and none of the four daughters had much of a dowry to speak of. When Sir Jasper Bardsley expressed his interest in Emma at one of the country balls, despite her poor prospects, Emma saw hope bloom in her mama’s and papa’s eyes for the first time in years. Quite unusually, instead of expecting a dowry, Sir Jasper had offered her father ownership of some of his lands, which would bring income and better marriage prospects to her sisters.

How could she refuse such an offer, even if it meant giving up her dreams of marrying for love?

When would another gentleman with a good name make an offer that would actually add income instead of demanding a dowry?

But one year later, she cringed at the thought of her husband’s touch, and her father was yet to see the deeds to the land owed to him. She knew now that he never would…

Her husband expected her to cower. To submit. To let him dictate everything about her. Legally, as a wife, she was his property.

Only, she’d never let him crush her, never show him the hurt his words caused.

Therefore, she smiled. “As I told you, I have my courses. You cannot bed me tonight.”

She saw the exact moment Sir Jasper snapped. He snarled in a helpless rage. His teeth bared, then he stared out of the window.

“Even they look happier than you make me,” he said, and Emma followed his gaze. They were approaching a pigsty where a swineherd and his wife were chatting as they shoveled manure out of the hog pen.

Sir Jasper kept talking. “You are a bad wife. You fail to do your duty—obey and make your husband happy. You’re ungrateful. You’re also, no doubt, frigid. Why else would you deny something so many women are more than happy to indulge in with me? I bet a hundred pounds you would come to value your husband if you tried that life!” He pointed at the couple and grew silent, his eyes alight.

“In fact, that is what you need,” he said with a spiteful grin. “A lesson.”

With his walking stick, he knocked on the wall behind Emma, and the carriage stopped right in front of the pigsty.

Emma’s stomach churned with nerves. “Whatever can you mean, Sir Jasper?”

He got out and threw over his shoulder, “Come with me.”

He headed towards the swineherd and his wife.

With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Emma followed him. She had no reason to be alarmed, not yet. The grass was soft under her shoes as she walked, and she laid her hand over her bonnet as a strong, cool breeze blew, bringing a pungent stink of pigs and manure. She suppressed a gag.

An unassuming dwelling house with walls of rough stone and a thatched roof stood a few feet away, with small windows and a weather-battered door. There was a wooden shed twenty or so feet away next to another stone building with a large gate, clearly for animals. The whole farm was surrounded by a wooden fence. The grunting and oinking of two dozen pigs was loud in the air.

As she approached Sir Jasper, he talked to the couple. They were both in their forties, and their tired, weathered faces were dark from being exposed to the sun and had dirty smudges. The woman’s cap was old and patched, and her uncombed, grayish hair was blown about by the wind.

“How much would you like for your clothes?” asked Sir Jasper.

“Why do you need their—” started Emma, but Sir Jasper interrupted her.

“Would two pennies be sufficient?” Sir Jasper asked.

Two pennies would buy them two pints of milk. That couldn’t be all that those clothes were worth. Sir Jasper was a miser.

“Beg your pardon, my lord, whatever for?” asked the man, scratching his uneven beard.

Emma clasped at her neck. Sir Jasper had said something about a lesson…and now he wanted to buy their clothes, stinking of manure and caked in dirt.

“It is for the market in Clovham,” said Sir Jasper. “We just passed it by and I saw they sell cattle.” Sir Jasper looked her over and grinned nastily. “Do they hold to the old English tradition and sell wives there, too?”

A chill ran through Emma’s limbs.

“Sometimes,” said the swineherd, narrowing his eyes in confusion. “The farm folk does. Three years ago, the cowherd sold his wife to the blacksmith. He’d been unhappy with her and found her sinning with the blacksmith. The children stayed with the cowherd, of course.”

A look of triumph had Sir Jasper straightening his shoulders as he looked at her. “Excellent. Lady Bardsley, you don’t find your happiness with me. Perhaps you’ll find it with a blacksmith.”

The mouths of the swineherd and his wife fell open. Emma’s skin tingled, and cold hit her core. The most unladylike bark of laughter escaped her throat. “You are not serious, Sir Jasper.”

“I assure you, I am.”

She held the gaze of his pallid, rodent-like eyes. She saw it then. The bluff. The fear behind his triumph and contempt. He’d never really sell her. He was a baronet, not a peer, but his title was hereditary. He needed her, a properly raised gentleman’s daughter, to give him an heir.

His threat was empty. He simply wanted to teach her a lesson. It was quite an effective method, she thought, as her stomach sank with worry. “Very well, Sir Jasper. Sell me to a blacksmith, then.”

Sir Jasper nodded, and then everything was a blur. The woman, who introduced herself as Harriet, led Emma and Sir Jasper to the house.

“Would you like something clean, my lady?” Harriet asked, eyeing her sideways.

“No,” Sir Jasper answered for her. “I want her to smell as foul as you do.”

Emma changed inside the house, the underdress and the dress and apron feeling dusty and hard against her skin, the smell of pig’s manure clinging to her so that she struggled to inhale fully. For a complete disguise, Sir Jasper donned Freddie the farmer’s clothes.

Standing in front of Freddie’s horse and cart, which Sir Jasper had rented so that they might arrive to Clovham like a real farmer and his wife, he put a rope around Emma’s neck.

“Tradition,” he said, tying the noose. “A wife must be led for sale like cattle. Serves you right.”

Her chemise itched. It was too short for her height, and her bare ankles were exposed. The rope scratched her neck, a suffocating reminder of her husband’s ownership over her.

The evil triumph on his face made bile rise in her stomach. “This will show you what an excellent husband I have been. Try the life of a real swineherd’s wife, Lady Bardsley.”

Looking satisfied at her humiliation, Sir Jasper told her to hop onto the cart, then sat on the driver’s seat and drove her to Clovham. When he stopped near the market square, he jumped off the cart and came to fetch her. As he helped her to descend, a look of excitement was added to his triumphant expression.

He pulled her after him by the rope. “Sir Jasper, would you finally stop?” she asked.

Without replying, he tugged harder, and she practically fell forward.

They walked among a few booths with bundles of herbs, jars of honey, jams, and jellies, as well as candles, cakes of soap, and beeswax. Other merchants placed crates with carrots, parsnips, potatoes, cabbages, fish, fresh game, and meat right on the dirt-packed ground of the marketplace. There were also cows and sheep and donkeys for sale. The market was by surrounded by neat stone cottages with white-paned windows where various shops tempted townsfolk and those who had come from nearby farms and villages; ribbons, hats, and gloves could be seen through the glass, as well as fabrics, porcelain cups and plates, and other goods.

The square was loud with merchants calling, people negotiating, laughing, chatting. Sheep bleated, cows mooed, donkeys brayed. It smelled like manure, herbs and vegetables, and fish. As Emma walked, her stomach squeezed as curious glances landed on her. Some people stepped aside as she passed by, their faces wincing in disgust. No wonder. She stank.

An empty cart stood in the middle of the square, and Sir Jasper climbed onto it and pulled Emma up behind him. They stood taller than everyone else, for the whole market to see.

Sir Jasper turned to her and said, “Say you will take me back to your bed, and all this will be over.”

She straightened her back. She refused to be coerced into sexual relations with anyone, even her husband.

When she said nothing, he filled his lungs with air and yelled, “Wife sale! Wife sale! Bidding starts at one penny. For the cost of a pint of milk you can have her!”

Embarrassment heated her cheeks as dozens of pairs of male eyes landed on her. And then it turned to cold horror when a crowd of butchers, farmers, herdsmen, fishermen, and laborers gathered around the cart, interested and agitated.

And the bids began.