Against Her Will

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

Time seemed to drag on as Temperance sat in her room awaiting her punishment. She knew it would be a bad one.

Emerson was dead because she had fought against him. She had overstepped her bounds and forgotten her place. She had allowed Tanner to touch her arm and had made the mistake of looking at the man a few too many times with Trevor watching....

She hadn't looked intentionally; her eyes were simply drawn to Tanner. He was the first true help that she had had--the first person to truly stand up for her in over a year and Temperance had been too shocked to focus on anything other than that.

Now she was going to pay the price for that.

Two hours passed before she heard foot steps outside her door and she took a deep breath to steady herself as the door opened and Trevor stepped in.

"Come here," he ordered.

Temperance was quick to jump to her feet and go to him, not wanting to anger him any further by keeping him waiting. She stood before him and stared down at his feet. Trevor's breathing was slow and calculated and she could feel his eyes boring holes into the top of her head.

"The punishment you deserve is a severe one, dear wife."

"Should I have let him force me then?" Temperance whispered, not quite knowing what had come over her to cause her to speak out of turn. "Would that not have gone against your rules if I allowed another man to lay with me?"

"Do not speak in such an insolent tone to me!" Trevor hissed as his hand closed around her upper arm and squeezed painfully. "Something is different about my brother and until I decide what to do about it you are to behave yourself. I will get one of the other women to serve him meals; you are to stay away from him. We are a loving husband and wife and you will take to sleeping in my room as to not arouse suspicions."

"No, I won't," Temperance shook her head and met his gaze. "I'm tired of being forced, Trevor...."

His hand fell sharply across her face and the burning sting silenced her. "You will do as I say and I will take what I want. You breathe a word to my brother and I will kill him and then you, do you understand?"

Temperance nodded quickly. Trevor pointed to the bed. "You'll stay in this room for the rest of the day and tonight I'll come for you and you'll spend your first night in my bed. As my wife that's where you should be."

Temperance watched him walk out the door and close it quietly behind him. She bit her lip to stop tears from falling. She was tired of crying over that man and the hell he put her through. Now the rape would be nightly and she would be forced to sleep with him curled up beside her..... She wasn't sure she could!

Trevor seemed genuinely worried about Tanner... could Tanner be her way out of here? Could he be the one to help bring down Trevor and save herself and all the others on this ranch from the other man and his thugs? Temperance wasn't sure how the man could in his current state but she had to find a way to talk to him. She had to know if he was truly friend or foe. If he was foe and he told Trevor about their conversation the worst Trevor could do was kill her.... And honestly death didn't sound so terribly bad.

***

Temperance was not given the chance to speak to or even see Tanner over the next week. She was a virtual prisoner of Trevor's bedroom. She was only permitted to leave twice a day to relieve herself and that was only with Trevor as an escort.

Her meals were brought to the bedroom but at least she was given three a day. It was a nice change from only have one, and the laziness of being cooped in a room once putting weight back on her bony frame. She was starting to once again resemble the well proportioned shapely woman she'd once shown promise of being.