by Lilia Ford
Damian took her chin and forced her to meet his gaze. “Genevieve, no one would ever punish you for breaking a rule you knew nothing of. It is different for a man who has made use of such women to speak of them like that—with contempt. Declan believes very strongly, and raised us to believe, that all women should be treated with respect, and those driven to such straits are if anything owed more consideration because they unfairly bear all the blame for a sin that requires both a male and a female to participate.”
She made a shaky nod.
“To address your implied question, I was not a virgin, nor have I been for some time. I thank the queen of light for it. Indeed, you could spare a moment’s pity for the poor woman who initiated me and suffered having her breasts slobbered over and pulled about like taffy, all for the fifteen seconds of pleasure I was able to give her.”
Genevieve snorted. Damian gave her a ridiculously wounded expression. “Cruel girl to laugh at my humiliation! I think it was at least a year before I was able to last more than a minute.” Brushing her hair away from her face, he said seriously, “I can say this of my past, darling. I treated every woman I was with as well and fairly as I could under the circumstances. I swear upon my honor that I never formed any attachments—not so much as a schoolboy’s crush. And Genevieve, I will never, ever cheat on you.”
She leaned over and kissed him gently on the lips. “Thank you, Damian. I would never cheat on you either.”
He gently stroked her cheek. “I know you are incapable of deceit, Genevieve,” he replied. “Now hold out your wrists!”
“Damian, you’re not serious!”
“Genevieve, there is nothing on this earth with greater power to arouse me than the sight of you bound and helpless in my bed,” he explained as he buckled the cuffs onto her wrists.
Genevieve couldn’t help but feel her own desires stirring as well. He pushed her down onto the bed and reached for the chains and attached them to the gold rings on her cuffs. He kept them loose so that her arms might be comfortable, but she was well and truly bound there.
From the smile he gave, she couldn’t doubt the truth of his words. He leaned down and whispered in her ear, “And we both know that it arouses you as well, so for the next three days, and whenever the mood strikes me, you will submit to this.”
Chapter Seventeen
Finally after breakfast the second morning, Damian announced that Genevieve would be allowed to see the house. For the first time, he opened the other small door, revealing a large dressing room. “Get dressed,” he whispered and then rubbing her rear said, “No drawers, darling. Put on nothing under the dress.”
“Damian, I can’t do that!” she protested automatically, realizing it was a little absurd after the things they’d done.
“Try disobeying and see what happens,” he said hopefully. More seriously he added, “It’s only us—no one else will come near the house.”
She grunted and went into the dressing room, which was the size of the bathing chamber. One side was filled with her things, which had been delivered during the wedding celebration and put away by some helpful soul, and the other half was full of Damian’s things. She ignored the new dresses she and her mother had prepared as a trousseau and selected an old favorite, a plain, light-blue muslin dress, well washed and soft. Thank Titania she no longer had to wear white.
Once she’d put it on, she couldn’t resist the chance to examine Damian’s things. His side of the dressing room bore traces of his scent, definitely oakmoss, which had an instant effect on her. She ran her hand over the shirts and trousers, looked at his uniform jackets, at the row of tall leather boots, shined to soldierly precision—it was all so masculine, she thought.
Then she laughed at herself: what else would it be?
Before she left, though, something caught her attention. Lying on the shelf below Damian’s coats was a leather riding crop. For some reason Genevieve froze when she saw it. It was nothing, she reminded herself. He was a rider; of course he would have a crop. He must have forgotten to leave it in the stable as he came in one day.
Oddly it didn’t look used, and there was something about the handle….
Suddenly she felt dizzy and swayed. To her surprise, strong hands gripped her, preventing her from falling.
It reminded her of when Damian caught her the day they met—at the picnic. She gasped for breath, feeling her chest tighten. Suddenly she was seated with her head hanging down below her knees as Damian massaged her neck. She kept telling herself it was absurd, but she was finding it impossible to calm down.
How could she behave like this!
Genevieve’s face was white as she sat up. Damian felt little better himself. He’d taken the crop from her heartwood box and left it lying in the dressing room as if by chance, wondering if she’d even notice it. He wanted a distraction while he was showing her the house, lest Genevieve become angry about the way it was designed.
If he’d known she’d react this way….
He cursed himself again for being unprepared. Promising to return in a second, he fetched a glass of cold lemon-water from their room. She gulped it down, her face desperate.
“I’m sorry…. I don’t know what came over me…. I’m sorry.” Her continued glances at the crop gave the lie to her words.
“Genevieve, you’re apologizing,” he said gently.
“Because I am sorry, Damian!” she cried out. “I don’t know why I act this way.” In a small voice she mumbled, “It makes me so ashamed.”
He knelt and took her hand in his. “You will learn, darling, as you come to know me better that there are things that I think you should apologize for, contritely: lying, putting yourself in danger, not taking care of yourself. And then there are things that need no apology—ever. I would know what you are feeling, at all times, Genevieve. And truly, darling, I like that you lose composure—not that you’re distressed, but that you don’t hide it from me.”
“I don’t understand why I feel these things,” she said.
Wise girl. She grasped that her distress came from a hidden place within her, full of desires that frightened her.
“Fair enough,” he said. “But that is different from feeling you have done something wrong requiring my forgiveness.”
“I can’t bear that idea.”
Damian gripped her tightly to him, wishing to hide his own face, which had blushed as red as hers usually did. He was forced to admit to himself that part of the reason he’d left the crop out was to test Declan’s theory. He should have known his sire would never have spoken if he weren’t certain. With Damian, the crop aroused fear, not desire. But putting aside the trouble about that blasted crop, he hated that Genevieve feared losing his love.
When he felt better composed he gripped her by the shoulders and kissed her nose affectionately. “Darling, is it possible that your fear of my anger comes from you and not me—from some fear you carry with you, rather than something I’ve done or said?”
Genevieve shrugged, looking tired and irritable. His suggestion meant nothing to her. Well enough. Time to move on. “Are you still up for our tour of the house?”
That roused her. “Yes!” she said snappishly. “I am ready to be released.”
He kissed her forehead, helped her to stand, and said, “Hold out your wrists.”
Genevieve looked about to explode but settled into a scowl when he took her right hand and unbuckled the cuff, followed by her left. “I told you, darling, only in this room.”
He tossed the cuffs over to the bed. He debated leaving the crop where it was but then decided it would serve the purpose he’d intended. Appearing casual, he picked it up and slashed the air a few times, the way all males fooled about with riding crops.
He gave her his blandest smile—causing her eyes to narrow with adorable suspicion—and finally unlocked the door to their room.
Damian gave her a highly edited description of the property, preferring to leave Genevieve to discover the house’s d
istinctive feature—perhaps she would notice, perhaps not. Their wing, the back half, had been modeled after the private apartments of Queen Titania to provide the queen maximum protection and privacy without requiring the invasive presence of guards.
As far as Damian was concerned, the front part of the house was nothing but a decoy, though of course it had not always been this way. The front followed the design of a traditional manor house, with a curved drive leading up to a large columned portico covering a grand entrance.
Once inside, one found the expected entrance hall, with an elegant marble staircase leading upstairs. On the first floor there was a formal receiving room and dining room, the master’s study and a library. Upstairs there were lavishly decorated bedrooms that his brothers would use and on the third floor, the expected servants’ chambers, though he’d decided that no servants would live in the house.
But except for a single, heavily reinforced door in the kitchen pantry, which was now disguised by shelving, there was no connection between the front and Genevieve’s half.
If Damian had his way, Genevieve would never enter the other part of the house—would barely know it existed.
When his parents were alive, the two sections had been left open to each other. There had been a lull in the hostilities with the Reavers for some years, which must have led to a relaxation in everyone’s vigilance. His mother, the most gentle, sweet-tempered woman who ever lived, had used that part of the house and even received guests there.
It had been two “guests,” really Reavers in disguise, who had violated the laws of hospitality to murder both his parents, and would have murdered two-year-old Derek as well, but for Declan’s unexpected arrival.
Damian, with Declan’s concurrence, had decided that no one but the family and a handful of trusted servants would ever enter this house—and Declan had laid wards to make sure of it.
Damian did not anticipate any objections from Genevieve on that topic today, nor any about a part of the house she had no reason to enter, but in fact, her half possessed another feature that she would notice soon enough, and he knew well that it would require all of his authority to make her accept.
Damian wouldn’t stop with that infernal crop—swishing it through the air, making it whine, playing with it. When she tried to go through a door that led to a closet, he put the crop in front of her as a barrier, drawing it up so it scraped her breasts. She thought about grabbing it from him and breaking it across her knee, but something in the idea repelled her. She didn’t want to touch it, think about it, but Damian was being so distracting.
She was having trouble paying attention to her new home. It was the bride’s house, he explained, but had stood empty for more than twenty years. Damian emphasized how safe the house was: Declan had laid spells protecting it from fire or any kind of attack—wards he called them. They would live here instead of the fortress where all of their soldiers and retainers lived.
From his tone, he made it sound like a cottage instead of an enormous manor house, though only the four of them would actually live here. He pointed out two empty bedrooms on their corridor and added, “for now,” with a wink that told her he was thinking of the children they would have.
There was one other furnished room on the corridor, which to Genevieve’s surprise contained only a narrow bed and an enormous rack holding what seemed like an army’s worth of grisly-looking weapons. She looked at him in inquiry, and Damian explained that those times when he must be absent, Derek would sleep in that room. Genevieve just stared in astonishment.
“I know he’s difficult, darling, but I promise he won’t bother you at all.”
“In the first place, your brother has demonstrated that he has no compunction about bothering me—or have you forgotten every meal I‘ve shared with him? In the second place, why on earth would Derek leave his own bed to sleep here?”
She was discovering that Damian had a tendency to pretend obtuseness when he preferred not to explain yet another of his family’s infuriating customs. It didn’t help her temper that he would not stop fiddling with that crop.
“You will be protected at all times, Genevieve,” Damian said in his iron tone. “That is not subject to debate.”
“Protected or guarded?” she muttered sullenly, remembering the way Donal had sat outside the door to her room—while she’d been locked inside!
She was startled by a little snap on her buttocks, which elicited an embarrassingly shrill yelp. He’d hit her with that blasted crop!
“Temper, darling,” he said, his eyes blazing with humorous challenge. “And the answer is both—I must always know where you are and that you are safe.”
Damian had a hungry expression on his face, as if he yearned to hit her a few more times with that… that… thing in his hand. Her breathing shallowed.
“Shall we continue?” he asked blandly, offering her his arm.
They continued down a narrow stair, which opened into a square room, twice the size of her parents’ parlor, completely empty of furniture. Apparently, the Blacks had rooms this size to serve as vestibules or anterooms. On the wall facing the staircase was a set of oak double-doors, and on each of the adjacent walls was a regular door.
Damian opened the right-hand door to reveal a wood-paneled dining room that was reassuringly small and cozy. Though the room was larger than her parents’ dining room, the round table was smaller, seating only four comfortably. A dish hutch against the far wall held ordinary Blue Willow china that might be seen in any house in the village.
Genevieve breathed a sigh of relief. The idea of being a great lady was so outlandish, she had never even contemplated it, but certain offhand remarks and frippery like that nightdress made it clear that Damian had vastly different assumptions about money than her family. She’d half feared she would be eating every meal in some enormous, majestic hall at a table that seated twenty.
Next on the tour was the room opposite the dining room, which Damian called the “study.” The walls here were plain stone and covered with tapestries featuring gruesome scenes of soldiers battling demons. The room was dominated by a large, carved desk. Because one must face it as one entered the room, just being in there made her feel like a guilty schoolgirl being called to task by a teacher. The room was obviously masculine, and she knew instinctively that this was not her domain. She was relieved to exit.
That left only the double-doors. Luckily, Damian seemed to have put down the crop. He looked a little nervous as he threw open both doors with a slight flourish. Genevieve stepped inside and was stunned. Too many details were bombarding her, but they all gave her the same message—hers.
The room was in two parts—a sitting room that connected to a glassed in conservatory. The sitting room was plastered instead of stone, with nary a tapestry in sight. Two walls were covered with bookshelves. Plump chairs and sofas were set in front of an ordinary (to her) hearth, which unlike the others in the house was decorated with pretty delft-tiles instead of gigantic rusticated stones, and was three feet instead of seven-feet tall.
Opposite the hearth, there was a deep bay window with a long, cushioned window-seat that could be curtained off—the perfect place to curl up with a book on a stormy day.
If she’d tried to imagine a perfect room, somehow it would look like this. Even the walls—they were painted moss green. In fact, it was precisely the shade of the quilt in her old bedroom. She’d always thought the color soothing but also mysterious—the color of some hidden nook in a forest where she could hide or daydream.
She noticed then the scent of fresh paint and looked at Damian in amazement.
He seemed slightly abashed. “I’m sorry about the smell. It was only painted two days ago.” He went to open the doors leading out to the conservatory. “Blame Donal. He noticed the spread on your bed, and I kid you not, after breakfast that morning said I must have the room painted this shade. The scoundrel actually cut a piece from your quilt so our men could match it. I’d thought to leave it e
mpty so you could decorate it, but Donal overruled me. He rode up here the night before the wedding and told the steward what furniture should be moved in. I did suggest the rug and the desk, but you can change them if you wish.”
She looked at the rug, and her heart leapt—she loved it. It was a plush Persian carpet, obviously quite old and large enough to fill almost the whole room. The mix of dark blues, oranges, and greens on a mostly red background perfectly complemented the green walls.
The desk too was wonderful: it was an old apothecary’s table, crafted from a lovely rose-wood, filled with a multitude of little drawers—practical but somehow whimsical as well. And unlike the massive pieces in Damian’s room, which were so heavy they must require a dozen men to lift, this desk looked light enough that she might have it moved to the conservatory without feeling hopelessly troublesome.
To her dismay, her eyes were tearing up—why must she do this!
“Darling,” Damian said, taking her in his arms. “Why the tears? You won’t hurt my feelings or Donal’s if you wish to change it—not in the slightest. The cost would be trifling, and the work could be done in a day. Do you believe me when I say that my dearest wish is for you to make the room exactly how you like?”
Genevieve let out a shuddering breath and put her hand up to his mouth. “It’s perfect, Damian—so perfect. You can’t imagine…. Thank you so much. I don’t want to change a thing.”
As usual she felt mortified for allowing herself to be so overset. How could she explain what the room meant to her? It barely made sense to her.
Just being in here was like suddenly discovering that she’d been trying to live without something vital, as if she were an ocean creature who’d been trapped in a small fresh-water lake its whole life and was suddenly thrust into the sea and finally understood that it couldn’t truly live without the cold, salty vastness.
This room felt like it was hers—like she belonged there. She loved her parents so much, but the relentless cheer of their cottage often made her feel like an ill-omened interloper. She’d kept her own room empty to provide some relief from all the pink and yellow, but she realized now that the sterile white walls offered no actual sustenance.