Authors: Rexanne Becnel
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #General, #Medieval
The Maiden Bride (10 page)
Angry at this farce he played with her, Linnea snaked a hand around his neck and angrily pulled his head down to hers.
Their mouths met roughly, but she determinedly pressed her lips against his. Almost at once one of his arms circled her waist and hauled her flat up against him so that she felt the entire imprint of his body against hers. But she also felt his mouth stretched into a smile over hers, and she could not mistake the undeniable shake of his laughter.
He was laughing at her!
As if stung, she twisted her head away. But when she would have pulled free of him, his implacable grip kept her still against him.
“My, you are the eager bride. But have a thought, wife. ’Twould be easier by far if first we removed our clothing. Did your grandmother neglect to tell you that such is usually the first step?”
When he released her she stumbled backward, her face red with shame. She knew he mocked her, yet still it flustered her to think how foolish she must appear to him.
“Perhaps I should instruct you, Beatrix, so that there will be no misunderstanding between us. Come here,” he said, gesturing to her to follow him as he crossed to sit in one of the heavy chairs near the window. He settled in the chair, his legs stretched carelessly before him, his elbows on the chair arms, his hands loosely woven on his stomach.
“I require but three duties of you.” He held up a finger. “First you must care for my clothes personally. Mend them, see them cleaned, and kept in good order.”
He held up another finger. “Second. You and you alone will prepare and minister my bath. See that a large enough tub is kept in here before the fire, and good soaps as well. Third,” he said, and his expression altered. “Third. You will share my bed—or any other surface I would have you upon—willingly, and often.
“These three things and no others, save that you keep yourself clean and sweet smelling. Can you do as I demand? Willingly?” he added, piercing her with his granite-hard gaze.
Some men want a woman willing, her grandmother had warned her. And so it seemed that was to be her lot, Linnea realized. She must pretend to be willing—to
convincingly
pretend to desire what he would have them do together.
convincingly
pretend to desire what he would have them do together.
She should be pleased he would not treat her cruelly. But somehow what he demanded of her was even more frightening than the threat of violence. She began to tremble under his unwavering stare. Only the reminder that she did this for her beloved sister—and the rest of her family—gave her the strength to respond to him.
“I can,” she vowed, hating the tremble in her voice.
He studied her another long moment, then leaned back even farther in the chair. “Well enough, then. ’Tis no cause for alarm that you know nothing beyond kissing. You will learn the rest in goodly time.”
He stretched out his booted feet and gestured her nearer. “Come stand before me, wife, that I may begin your lessons.”
Was there ever so difficult a course for Linnea to traverse than the short walk across the lord’s chamber? She feared at first she could not do it. But then she recalled Maynard and the wounds he’d suffered for his family, and somewhere she unearthed the courage. Seven steps it took. She stopped just beyond his reach.
A mocking half-smile lifted one side of his mouth. “Closer, wife. Come closer.”
She took another step, albeit a short one. It brought her within the span of his large, booted feet. “Shall I remove your buskins?” she asked, wanting to keep her distance from him as long as she possibly could. It was a hopeless and foolish whim, she knew, for what was to come was inevitable. But she couldn’t help it.
“If that is where you wish to start, then do so. You remove my boots, then I’ll remove something of yours—say, your gown.” One of his dark brows slanted up as if in question. But it was no question and she knew it. He was tormenting her, plain and simple. And she must endure it.
“We’ll proceed in that manner,” he continued. “Each removing the other’s clothing until both of us are naked. Then we’ll move on to the next lesson.”
Linnea knelt on the floor. She hated him in that moment, more completely than she’d ever hated anyone in her life. But she feared him just as much. The next lesson. She couldn’t bear to think about that.
Her hands shook as she grabbed the low heel of one dark brown boot. It was warm, but she ignored that. She pulled hard, without any regard for his comfort. She just wanted it off as fast as possible so that she could back away from him.
Once both boots were off, however, he wiggled his feet. “The stockings, wife. Remove my stockings too.”
She wanted to spit on him, but she didn’t. She peeled off his stockings instead, relieved that they came off easily. But the sight of his bare calves and ankles, so strongly muscled and dusted with dark hairs, sent a strange jolt of mixed-up emotions through her. Though she should not, she felt an obscene curiosity about him. About men in general, she corrected herself. Men were hairier than women. Would he have hair … everywhere? A stain of hot color rose in her cheeks at the thought.
“Now ’tis my turn,” he said. He leaned forward, and with a hand on each of her arms, he drew her to stand before him. Then he stood also and without warning lifted her completely off her feet. As if she were as light as a down pillow, he turned and deposited her on the chair. He kept his hands on her waist, but now he looked up at her, not down.
“’Tis my turn,” he repeated to her shocked face. Then his gaze lowered from her eyes to her lips, and then farther, to her breasts.
Beneath her heavy gown and whisper-light kirtle Linnea’s entire body tautened in fearful anticipation of what was to come. No! her mind protested. She tried to pull away, but she was trapped on the chair.
“I’ll take this girdle first,” he said, unfastening the brooch that held the silk cording around her hips. “Now the gown.” His eyes raised back to hers while his hands found the lacings at her sides and made short shrift of them.
He must have felt how she trembled, for he paused a moment and looked up at her face once more. “You said you were willing,” he reminded her. “Have you changed your mind?”
Linnea clenched her teeth. She would not be a coward. “I have not changed my mind, but …” She looked away, unable to meet his astute gaze.
“But you are untried and afraid,” he furnished for her.
When she refused to answer, his eyes narrowed. “I wonder,” he said after a moment or two, “exactly how willing you will be.” His hands began to slide up and down her sides, a burning sensation that was not dampened at all by the heavy gown that yet shrouded her body. “Methinks you plan to lie still as a corpse beneath me in the bed, not recoiling, but not responding either. But I say to you that to behave so is not to be considered willing. So, let me explain better what I expect from you.”
He reached down and began to draw her gown up, past her knees and thighs, baring her hips and belly and breasts in the nearly sheer kirtle. He pulled the gown over her head, then tossed it unceremoniously aside and returned his hands to her waist.
Linnea feared she might faint. When he began lightly to stroke her hips and down her thighs, then up again, approaching her breasts, she began to tremble as violently as if the cruel wind outside did buffet her.
“No doubt you will resist me. A daughter of Edgar de Valcourt could do no less. But you are de la Manse now, whether either of us would have chosen to make it so. I will conquer you, Beatrix de la Manse. I will crush all your resistance and rouse you to a desire that you may very well hate. But I
will
make you willing. And I will make you revel in your own wantonness.”
will
make you willing. And I will make you revel in your own wantonness.”
His hands curved around to cup her buttocks and he hauled her up against him. Her belly crushed against his chest. His face pressed into the softness of her breasts.
“No!” she gasped, clutching his shoulders and trying to shove him away. But he had her caught and in her struggles she managed only to fit them more intimately together.
“Be still, sweet wife,” he ordered, nuzzling his face between her breasts.
“This … this is not … not seemly,” Linnea gasped.
“Between a husband and wife everything is seemly. Tell me the truth, bonny wench. Do you like this?” He rubbed one of his broad palms beneath her buttocks and she flinched in shame.
“Or perhaps this will rouse you better.” He began to kiss her breasts through the linen, wetting the nipples with his tongue. She shoved again at him, but he was stronger. When his teeth found her taut nipple in a soft bite, then he sucked it fully into his mouth, she let out a groan of dismay. His palm continued its wanton motion against her bottom and his mouth tortured her pebbled nipples until her fear and anger were muddied by an even more powerful emotion. He was doing something to her. She knew not what—No, she knew. It was like the wedding kiss when his tongue had roused a tiny, wicked part of her. He was doing that again now—and she was letting him.
With a mighty effort she wrenched free of his ungodly embrace. She toppled backward, but he caught her before she fell, and in an instant she was lifted high in his grasp. One of his arms supported her back; the other held her beneath the knees. Her kirtle billowed beneath her, exposing her legs and much more for anyone to see.
But Axton was the only one there to see. When he laid her down on the black fur pelt that covered the bed, then stepped back and ripped first his tunic, then his chainse from his body, she knew she was foolish to deny him anything. He would take it anyway.
Linnea struggled for control as he disrobed. But the sight of his wide chest and powerful torso was too much. She scrambled backward on the thick bear pelt until she was up against the headboard, her knees at her chest, her arms wrapped protectively around them. When he removed his braies, she closed her eyes too. She didn’t want to see.
A chuckle broke the silence, then the bed dipped as he sat on it. “This must go,” he said, tugging at her kirtle. Like a stone carving she sat there, eyes clenched shut, allowing him to lift this arm, straighten that leg—whatever was necessary to remove the last of her garments.
Only when she felt his fingers in her hair, spreading it over her bare shoulders and arms, did she at last lift her lashes to view him.
“I will not begrudge you your maidenly fears,” he murmured, surprising her with the seriousness of his expression. He separated one long, golden strand from the rest and wove it between his fingers. “But I will not allow my wife to stand with my enemy. I will make you mine in every way, Beatrix, bring you to heel—break your spirit, if I must. Do not think to oppose me,” he warned. “For you will not like the consequences.
“Now,” he said, tugging slightly on the tendril. “I will teach you the pleasures of the bed.”
She would not fight him, she told herself when he gripped her ankles and slowly pulled her down the bed. Beneath her naked flesh the great bearskin caressed her skin with an obscene sort of pleasure. Above her his eyes did the same. She twisted to one side, ashamed to be seen so. But he rolled her onto her back, then held himself above her, poised on his knees and outstretched arms.
“This first time will hurt,” he said as he nudged her legs apart. “But we dispense with that now so that you may more quickly find the pleasure of it.”
So saying he sat back on his heels and began to run his hands up her legs to her hips and stomach. It was very odd to have him touch her so. A part of her was outraged; another part terrified. But a different part of her admitted that his touch was … it was interesting. He gentled her as she might do to a nervous cat or a restless pony.
Her eyes moved over him again, venturing past the pronounced planes of his face and down to his incredible chest with its pattern of dark hair and his hard-ridged stomach with its ripples of muscles. Then her eyes halted in horrified fascination at the straining muscle that reared between his legs.
He will grow it larger, her grandmother had warned her. But
that
large? she wondered, her eyes round with shock.
that
large? she wondered, her eyes round with shock.
Before she could react, one of his hands moved down to the place between her legs, where that was meant to lodge. He stroked something and her eyes jerked back to his. He stroked it again, and Linnea felt as if a long banked fire inside her had suddenly been blown into flame.
A small flame, to be sure. But when his finger then slipped deeper and right up into her body, she nearly came off the bed.
“No! Don’t!” She tried to clamp her legs together but his knees blocked her efforts. She tried to scramble backward, but one of his hands held her hips steadily in place.
“The first time I will do it fast,” he told her, moving over her once more. “Just hold on and it will be done. Then afterward …”
Linnea did not hear what he said afterward, for that huge part of him fell heavy onto her belly, like a burning log might fall onto the hearth. He pushed back a little. Then she felt the thick tip prodding her where his finger had been.
“Wait—No!” she began as panic drove away all thoughts but of escape. “You have the wrong—”
“I have the right of it,” he countered hoarsely in her ear, halting her before she could confess, in her panic, to her true identity. Then he pushed himself wholly into her.
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