“Is it so wrong that I should crave legitimacy with you?” I asked pleadingly. “That I should want to sleep at night with you and then take breakfast with you? That I want my own babies with you to raise in a house where I don’t have to butcher rabbits for my own supper?”
“Mary, I am wedded to this woman. I do not understand how you think we could have this life. It is too late for us to be married to one another. It is simply impossible.” His voice had become filled with annoyance and it hurt me gravely.
“We could run away, George,” I offered, slipping out of bed to stand before him, hoping that my nakedness could convince him, as it did once before. “Start a new life far from here.”
He looked at me disbelievingly. “And what of my children, Mary? What happens to them in this fantasy ?”
“We would have children, George, and you’d have Iris!” as the words left my mouth I knew that they were falling on deaf ears and his unwillingness to move heaven and earth to be with me was proof that our love was unequal.
“I cannot leave my children, Mary,” he said quietly, his head down. “I’m sorry.”
Overcome with sorrow, I quickly slipped on my clothes, hiding my face so that he could not see the anguish he’d inflicted upon me. As I stared blankly into the corner, willing away the rage and frustration he came up behind me and attempted to stroke my hair. I moved away briskly, with him following close behind me.
“Mary, please, how can I repair this? Would money help? I can give you a monthly stipend, my sweet,” he cooed lovingly.
My breath shallows as I parse his offer, fury rising in my chest, choking me with its intensity. “I am not your whore!” I scream, bending down and throwing his breeches at him.
“Of course not, my love,” he said quickly, his eyes desperate to cool my umbrage, as he threw words out hoping some may assuage me. “It appeared as though you were unsatisfied with your level of comfort here. I could afford you a servant, supplies, horses and anything that you may want.”
“I was forced to be little more than a concubine to my husband for years, and I will never do it again,” I raged, my voice hot with frenzied indignation. “My mother died after being forced into prostitution. I will NOT be your whore, George. Damn you to the devil for this.”
“How you choose to look at it is your own affair, Mary,” he says, irritation coating his tone as he backs away. “You want to be married to me but then liken marriage to prostitution.”
“Marriage to Mr. Worthe WAS. I gave him my body in return for hope that he’d stop beating me, and for coin for basic necessities,” I trembled, looking at George’s face trying to see the tenderness I’d thrived on all these years, but it had been replaced by exasperation.
“And Sarah depends on me for the life she enjoys daily. What, pray tell, is the difference in your estimation, Mary?”
“She enjoys your attention,” I sobbed, as I sank to the floor, my rage spent and my only desire to see adoration in his eyes once again. “No doubt she craves you in her bed, and then she is further rewarded by your children, George.”
Wordlessly George falls to the floor as well, holding me securely in his arms, kissing my hair and soothing me as he had after Mr. Worthe’s beatings, after word of my mother’s death and after losing Malvina, and while this was the first time he was the cause of my sorrow, he also washed it away.
We spoke no more of it that day, or for months, but still the discontentment niggled away at me, spreading like a cancer that would go into remission in his presence, but rage on in his absence.
Little by little I began to obsess about it, sure that the answer to my unhappiness was unfettered access to George. One evening I found myself clutching Malvina’s forbidden tome, wrestling with myself as I beheld a spell to remove free will. The stark black ink blotted the page enticingly, boldly calling my notice. Such a simple spell for such a complicated moral quandary.
I reasoned that I could just influence him enough to run away with me and once we were married in another town with different names I could release him from my thrall, knowing that he would be devoted once the obstacle of fear had been removed. Once he was bound to me by something greater than just copulation.
In the firelight I closed my eyes and thought of Malvina. I knew with every fiber of my being that she would not approve of this, and with a frustrated grunt I hid the book once again and let my mind wander to less magical means of snaring him.
Like with rabbits I figured the simpler the trap, the more effective, and burying my shame, I stopped taking my herbal insurance against pregnancy, feeling my fertility every time he lay with me.
It only took two months to find myself suffering the same sure signs of life forming in my belly, and with satisfaction I sat in my chair, waiting for George to arrive.
Once he walked in, he rushed to my side, clasping my hand as I sat hunched, feeling exhausted from the ravages of early pregnancy. “Mary, are you well? You seem ill.”
“I am with child, George,” I told him bluntly, searching his eyes and seeing confusion swirled with crushing fear. “Your child.”
“No,” he whispered, letting go of my hand and remaining in a squat next to me. “All this time I assumed you could no longer bear children.”
“But I can, George,” I told him, attempting to grab his hands again,
