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"I’ve never lied to you, daughter, and I won’t lie now You married a duke but I’rotesquely advanced age of mine If there was an appropriate duke, I could htened up and patted one last blue ribbon in place
"My point," she said, "is that you’re a fool to even think of leaving your husband What will you gain? You won’t be free until he dies, and he doesn’t show any sign of that"
Poppy thought it wasof her ood health But then her own father had given up and died fairly shortly after ht that was the natural way of things "I don’t want Fletch to die," she pointed out
"Then why leave him? Explain that, Perdita I see absolutely no reason for the two of you to part You should sio yours…" She paused, with a frown "Is it a matter of the bed?"
Poppy had the oddest sensation that her mother had been struck by a h, her ht have been coe of the bed "I know it’s disgusting I reet the pain and indignity of it"
"It wasn’t--"
But her ed instru in every way…it ht there in the roohed and proceeded It’s hard to believe now, but it took th to bar your father from my bedchamber"
Poppy had never heard that before "You barred hiht you said Father visited you once a week"
"Oh, he did, after I readh--he didn’t take ine?"
Poppy shook her head It was hard to i her mother seriously
"I crowned hi!"
"And I had had my monthly," her mother said with satisfaction "I planned it so"
Poppy felt as if she, too, were going to throw up
"The point is that once I readmitted him to my presence, he was chastened and understood precisely what his role was in the bedroom," her mother said "I allowed him to visit me once a week until you were conceived Then since his land wasn’t entailed, and you could inherit it all, I told hian to touch anized her features into so like a smile
"I can see that your husband would likely be not as easy to tahtfully
"I--"
"I have not been thinking enough of you, child"
Poppy just stopped heropen Her mother patted her on the shoulder "How often does he visit his mistress?"
Poppy shook her head "I don’t believe Fletch has a asped "Surely you don’t mean that you’ve been forced to ser vice him all these--how many years is it?--by yourself?"