The Daughters Grimm

by Minda Webber

  Eyeing the hem of her gown, Rae hedged a moment longer. “I don’t know if you are aware, but a husband’s duty—”

  Fen snorted again.

  She glanced up quickly, then hurried on. “A husband should listen to his wife before he shouts at her. If she’s sincere, he shouldn’t shout at her. Even if she tells him something he doesn’t like. A man should cleave onto his wife. And…and you didn’t come and tell me of your arrival. I had to hear it from the butler.”

  Fen’s self-congratulation faltered. Perhaps she wasn’t as enraptured by his body as he’d thought. She had some other agenda here. He replied in a tone harsher than before, “You’re right. I should have let you know when I returned. How much have you spent?” She’d likely come to tell him she’d spent his money—and to get more. But if Rae thought the minute he turned his back she could make promises to shopkeepers and live on credit, she had another think coming.

  “Spent?” Rae gasped. “I have no access to any money!”

  He paused, again stumped. “Then spit it out, Rae. What has you so upset? Has something happened in the past few nights that I need to be made aware of?” His wife was acting strangely; he could sense her anxiety. If she hadn’t spent his hard-earned coin without permission, what was wrong? “Is it the children?”

  “Of course not.” Rae hedged again, though the time had clearly come to talk of these things—things such as men at work, men without heads (or hats), pumpkins, and that the kids were ultimately all right. “But, now that you mention them, I do recall that they did me another vile turn. So I decided to—”

  “Again?” he interrupted, vexed both at his children and his new wife. Couldn’t she manage the scamps for a few nights without his help? What good was a wife who only stirred up trouble in the home?

  “Yes, again! And you shouldn’t sound so surprised.”

  “What on earth have you done to cause such animosity toward you?” He knew his brood could be a handful, but she was supposed to be their stepmother. Surely they weren’t as bad as she made them out to be. They might be a trifle rambunctious, slightly sly and crafty at times, but there was generally a reason for their shenanigans.

  Taking her eyes off his chest, she frowned. Verily, her simmering temper came to a rolling boil. The dratted man! “What have I done?”

  He interrupted before she could go off on a tirade. “Yes. Tell me truthfully, and no ifs, buts or ands. No silly excuses.”

  “Silly excuses?” Rae asked.

  “Ja. I’ve noticed that you ramble at times, often when you are trying to make a point.” He began to soap his chest, trying to remain calm.

  “I don’t ramble! I get to the point exceedingly fast, at least when there’s a need. However, since there is rarely a need, I sometimes might take an indirect route in some points I might be making. I’ve been known to talk about things in a roundabout fashion when there are other things to discuss that border the subject at hand.”

  Dropping the soap in the water, Fen shook his head and laughed. “I rest my case. Now, what have my little darlings done to you this time?”

  As he slicked the soap over the taut muscles of his chest, Rae again grew fascinated. Then he rinsed, the water trickling down his flat abdomen. Just covered by the bath, she could see something large bobbing, the head breaking the water’s surface every now and then.

  She swallowed.

  Hard.

  Blinking, she finally managed to regain her wits. As her annoyance cooled, she remarked, “It would be easier to tell you what they haven’t done. Peas in my sheets, ash-traps scattered hither and yon, and a ghostly haunting. Your ingenious, impudent imps, led by the lad Nap, dressed up as a ghost and frightened me half to death. Next in this line of heinous happenings, Alden bit my ankle. Again. Do you know how disconcerting it is to glance up from your teacup and see Death looking you in the eye? Those children want to do me in.”

  “You exaggerate.”

  She held up her hand. “Only a bit. They probably wouldn’t do me in, but only because it would raise questions eventually. At least, I think you would begin to wonder if you never saw me again. Then again, with your nightly absences, you might not notice.”

  Fen couldn’t mistake the annoyance in her tone, but it was a welcome annoyance. Rae had, unbelievable as it seemed, missed him. “I must do my best to avoid further absences,” he remarked.

  She wasn’t sure what he meant by the words—whether he wanted to be around to protect her, or if he simply wanted to notice when she disappeared—but the suggestive look in his large, gray eyes made her throat suddenly very dry. She looked away to the flames dancing in the fireplace. “My, isn’t it rather warm in here?” she asked.

  Fen snorted. His wife couldn’t seem to make up her mind. She seemed enraptured by his body, and he ached to have her touch it, but she also acted shy. With every advance he made, often against his better judgment, she started acting skittish. One wrong move and he was afraid she’d turn tail and run. Not that he wouldn’t enjoy the view; she had a very nice tail. And he still knew that bedding her would be pure folly; madness. Regrettably, he had to get her to leave.

  “I must give the little urchins points for imagination!” he remarked. “A ghost in the castle. What will you believe next? Perhaps they’ll persuade you to spin straw into gold. I could use some extra coin.”

  Rae seethed. Instead of listening with sympathy, this maddening man was berating her? “I can see the little savages take after you,” she snapped, momentarily forgetting her guilt, her desire to be a wonderful wife and wander her hands over those big, manly body parts, all wet and glistening. Dragging her eyes back up to his face, she shook her head. “I was terrified. I do not wish to live my life in a house of chaos and pranksters. Neither do your servants, I might add.”

  Rae hesitated. Her conscience urged her to tell him the truth, now, while she was righteously indignant; yet she couldn’t quite do it. She began to fan herself rapidly, her breathing stilted. Once, twice and again, she fanned herself, pondering if it was rather inopportune that her husband was bathing. Or was opportunity knocking, waiting, bobbing just below the surface of the water?

  Fen propped one shoulder against the tub and folded his arms across his very manly chest. “Rae, stop your fanning and listen to me. I’ll speak to Nap. He will be punished. But this you must heed: life with children means mayhem. Nonetheless, the little scamps lift our spirits and our hearts. They spur our creativity and double our dreams. They are always a blessing, though sometimes a curse. I wouldn’t give them up for the world.”

  “Of course not,” she snapped. “But, then, they are not playing cold-blooded tricks on you. However, you have no need to punish them. I took matters in hand.”

  He sat up straight in the tub and stared at her. “What did you do?”

  Twisting her hands, she summoned all her courage. “Fen, I had to do something, because doing nothing wasn’t working. So I devised a scheme. Some might say it was a tad harsh, but none that live within these walls. If you ask the servants, you’ll—”

  “Rae, quit dallying!”

  She opened her mouth and then closed it again. “First, promise me that you won’t dismiss any of the servants.”

  His gray eyes turned to dark smoke, smoke from the ire burning intensely within. “What foul plot did you hatch?”

  With great trepidation, Rae began at the beginning and explained. Fen’s scowl grew, and his jaw muscles clenched. “How could you do this? My children could have been seriously injured or worse!”

  Trying to regain some aplomb, Rae swallowed. Her husband was very angry, his large hands knotted on the edges of the tub.

  He raged on, “I should dismiss the servants involved in this and give you the annulment you requested. Your prank was heartless, and if Quinn or Poppy had been seriously hurt, there would be no safe place for you on earth!”

  “As if I wanted them hurt!” Rae shot back. “And if you would discipline them, I wouldn’t have had to r
esort to drastic measures! The servants are helpless against your brood, and things are completely out of hand.” She swallowed hard again, calming herself. Glancing back at her husband, she found him sitting still as a statue, his jaw muscles clenched. “What?” she asked.

  “I’m afraid if I get out of this tub I’ll strangle you, or at least put you over my lap and give you the paddling of a lifetime.”

  By all means, then, he could sit there forever. She hoped he grew gills. But she couldn’t help but add in her defense, “Don’t forget I saved Quinn’s life.”

  “I would be eternally grateful—if you weren’t the one who’d risked it in the first place.”

  “Well, the hooves didn’t strike him. For that I’m eternally grateful. I would have done anything to save him.” After a moment, she was overcome by a small pain, and she had to ask a new question. She just had to find the right way to ask. “You know as well as I do that accidents happen. What about when your children were chasing me around the tower? What if one of them had fallen? Would you deny your forgiveness to them—those children who were involved in the accident? It would have been their fault, seeing as they were the ones playing the pranks.”

  Staring into her eyes, he thought hard. “I would have been very angry, but I couldn’t withhold my forgiveness.”

  “But you would withhold it from me, the woman you took to wife before both God and man.”

  Rubbing his face in annoyance, he shook his head. “I don’t know, Rae. You are a grown woman and should know better.” Glancing into the distance, he finally said, “Nein. I don’t wish to hold it against you. But you must promise to do nothing like it again!”

  Rae nodded, feeling tremendous relief. He might still be angry, but he no longer looked as if he wished to strangle her. “Fen, I didn’t play the jest to be cruel. I just wanted to show your children how it felt to be on the receiving end of such a prank. And it is true, I am human and make mistakes. I did it in part for revenge. But never would I have intended to hurt them. Never. Most especially Quinn, Merri and Poppy. But your brood needs borders. They lack discipline. They are growing up wild and unruly, without thought to how their actions hurt others.”

  He started to argue, but with a fierce determination she continued. “I know you felt helpless when your first wife died. You and the children loved her greatly. Grief-stricken, you barely managed to get by. But eventually the children began to experience life again, as children do after great tragedy. Yet their pranks continued to grow, becoming at times mean-spirited and hurtful. Feeling guilt at their loss, you hesitated to punish them; it’s understandable. But the time has come for change, before they grow too wild to control.”

  “You’re a fine one to talk about hurting others. You, with your shallow ways. How dare you tell me how to raise my children? Especially after what you did. Their mother never had any problems with them. She would never have put them in danger. She would never have been anything like you, you greedy, grasping—”

  Rae gasped, and the baron realized he had gone too far. The hurt in her eyes was like a punch in the gut.

  “Perhaps your children are right. There is a ghost in this castle after all,” she said. Then, she seemed to summon all her strength. “I’ve asked you to help me. Instead, you’ve hindered me with your lack of interest and lackadaisical discipline, despite your children’s pranks and how they speak to me.” Tears filling her eyes, she stormed to the tub. Taking a bucket of water seated on the stool, she threw its frigid contents all over her large, manly, yet very insensitive husband. “Are you going to love only a memory forever, or your true wife?” Then Rae made for the door.

  Gasping, Fen rose from the tub like some god of old, like Neptune coming to life. Leaping out of the tub, he reached her in two strides, sweeping her against his chest. He had not wanted her to wife, but now that he had her, his willpower weakened to the point of collapse. In his arms, she was irresistible. He would not, could not, spend years ignoring her ample charms. Thus, being the honest man that he was, he silently lowered his head and kissed her with all the pent-up passion he’d been feeling for weeks.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Sleeping with Beauty

  If all the kisses in the world were only one kiss, what a great kiss it would be—and it would be just like this, Rae mused in amazement. She gasped as the baron’s hot, searching lips claimed hers yet again. His was a kiss that made her senses spin.

  As the kiss deepened, she felt her blood turn to fire and a place between her thighs began to ache. “I…,” she managed to gasp out between kisses. Her gown was wet in the front, since it was plastered to his deliciously dripping body. “My…” She trailed off as another assault left her breathless. Fen certainly knew how to kiss! “You’re not mad anymore?”

  Fen stopped momentarily, staring down at her swollen lips, and thought he had never seen anything lovelier. His foolish plan to ignore her in the bedchamber had been the height of folly. He had two choices. He could either continue to avoid her bedchamber, which in his opinion had been rather a trying experience so far: two nights of walking in the freezing snows to cool his ardor. Or he could bed her most thoroughly and nightly, resolving that even after bedding her, he would not let her run roughshod over him.

  “Rae, I do know my pack can be an unruly bunch at times. I’m sorry. It’s just that they’re all I have left.”

  Rae traced his angular jaw with a finger and stared into those remarkably expressive gray eyes. “You have me now.” And she meant what she said. “We’re in this together.”

  Cautiously he leaned back and studied her face. Seeing the sincerity reflected there, he smiled. “That would be good, very good.”

  His boyish grin caused her heart to catch. Why, her husband was quite the charming rogue when he chose to be. She ran her hands up and down his arms, her fingers tingling from arousal. “My gown’s wet. I take chills very easily.” Her body corroborated, and she began to tremble with passion.

  “Never let it be said that I don’t take care of my own.” So saying, the baron swept her up in his massive arms and laid her gently on the bed. He rapidly divested Rae of her clothes and lay down beside her, carefully moving her flow of long thick hair so that he would not lie upon it and cause her pain. She was breathtaking. The golden glow of her hair surrounded both head and body, a silent moonlit sheet. “You are truly one of the most exquisite creatures I have ever seen.”

  Vanity made her ask the question even as he was leaning over to kiss her: “Even more than your first wife?”

  He halted a breath away from her tempting mouth. “You are exquisite. Yet she was truly beautiful, both inside and out. I cherished that all the more. For a beautiful face is God’s present at birth, but a lovely character is something hard-earned and hard-won.”

  The words not only stung Rae’s vanity but her heart, touching a place unknown before her trip down the aisle. “Oh.” Lying with her husband for the first time and seeing the desire in his eyes without the love was crushing. But she did not give up. “Fen, I promise I shall do better as both wife and stepmother. I have come to realize that I’m not the woman I should be. I can be more, and I will be more, not only for you and your family, but for my own sake as well.”

  He smiled down at her, heartened to see the sincerity in her eyes. Apparently she could be reasonable, which was unexpected yet welcome. “I would be honored to have such a wife.” He had been so furious with her only a short while ago, but upon reflection her words rang true. He had let his brood get away with more than they should have.

  Pressing a kiss against her neck, he reminded himself he was a just and good man. Yet, he had failed not only his children but his bride. He had punished Rae for the compromising situation he had found himself in. He had ignored her because he feared his desire for her. He had been too lax with his children, resulting in beastly manners and reckless pranks. He had let his children, his servants and his wife down. Guilt bit him hard with teeth as sharp as Alden’s.


  He considered another aspect of the situation: Although Rae could have caused his children great harm, she hadn’t. Instead, she had risked her neck to save Quinn. It was a brave thing to do, especially when the children could have harmed her as well. Change could come to anyone who sought it out. He would nurture this goodness, and make something strong and solid grow.

  “Rae, I’m sorry, too. I have not been the best of husbands.”

  Head tilted back, she stared at him with starry eyes. “We shall both improve and grow together. I’ll soon be deep as any abyss.”

  He laughed. Leaning down to kiss her thoroughly, Fen felt his heart expanding along with his world. He savored the sweet taste of her mouth and the subtle scent of lilacs. “And I shall plumb those hot and silky depths.”

  As their kiss deepened, Fen began to murmur sweet words of love—or at least Rae thought they were loving words, since she still couldn’t speak German. Words such as leiche, which he later explained meant body, and messe, which meant fair. But the best one as far as Rae was concerned was liebchen, which meant sweetheart. Silently she vowed that she would learn German…and then forgot her good intentions as he caressed her.

  He’d done something unexpected. He’d traced a pathway down her chest with his mouth and found her nipple. Rae gasped as she felt a sharp, fiery tingling, almost like a pain, shoot through her body, increasing the dull ache between her thighs. His free hand moved to touch that heated spot. Fingers stroking, he found the center of all her sensation and brought forth dew with a lazy touch.

  “Oh, Fennis,” she moaned.

  “Call me Fen.”

  “Oh, Fen. This is wonderful. I never knew.”

  All talk was suspended as he continued to suckle her breast while moving his hand between her plump white thighs. It was delightful, how he felt her passion catch fire. She clutched at his back and began to move her legs back and forth. His little wife was a passionate thing, especially for an innocent. And if she could stir his blood this way as a virgin, she would be a terror between the sheets when she was more experienced. That particular thought had him hardening even more, which he’d believed impossible.