How she wished her problem now was so small! Unfortunately, because of her dear friend Rachel's watchful eye on her behalf, she knew exactly who it was that was in there with him, and it was no one good.
She'd met the man in question only once. He didn't tend to haunt the same parties she went to—not that he couldn't. He was certainly invited to them, being who he was and unattached at that—everyone seemed more than willing to overlook his common tendencies, considering his title and his bank balance. He just preferred to work, apparently, rather than attending balls and soirees or even country weekends of hunting, which was a strange enough compulsion to make him a bit of a cultural oddity.
It was an unremarkable introduction, given when he had appeared at the Holyoake's opening party of the season a few weeks ago. She was standing next to Evan in a small crowd of their friends, his arm draped casually about her waist, when the man himself materialized at Evan's elbow, dwarfing everyone in their little circle—the same way he did pretty much everyone else at the ball.
He shook hands with the men and bowed politely to the women—all except her.
Evan, who knew him vaguely from Eton, introduced her. "And may I present my fiancé, Lady Marielle DeVane."
Mari expected that he would bow to her as he had to the other women, but instead, he stepped neatly into the small gap between her and Evan, taking her hand and kissing the back of it—and not just the air above it; his lips touched and even lingered a bit on the back of her hand.
And what was worse was that it made her tingle in a manner that no one else ever had.
Even Evan.
She knew that snatching her hand back before he had a chance to release it was considered bad form, but Mari did it anyway, and no one else seemed to notice.
Except him. When he rose, he gave her a softly indulgent look that said, somehow, that he knew exactly how he had made her feel, and that he understood she wasn't comfortable with it, while at the same time promising that this would not be the last time he did that to her.
Her instinct was to flee the premises—he had upset her so completely. But she knew she couldn't, so she stood her ground, leaning her body into Evan's in a way she hadn't before, surprising him a bit and prompting him to look quizzically down at her as she gazed adoringly up at him.
Eventually, he politely took his leave of them, nodding at the group in general by way of good-bye, but then saying goodbye to her by name, which gave her a shiver, even though she tried to hide her reaction by rolling her eyes at his obviousness.
Now, she had found out via Rachel that he was cloistered with her father in his study, and she had a dreadful feeling of foreboding about it that she couldn't seem to shake.
Finally, she stopped pacing and advanced towards the door—not exactly sure what she was going to do when she got there, but she had to do something.
It was when she'd reached for the doorknob that she saw the big keyhole beneath it, bending down to squeeze one eye shut, not really seeing anything no matter how she moved herself around...
And suddenly, she found herself lifted high into the air, and she had to stifle a scream of alarm.
Whoever it was who had picked her up didn't give her a chance to really even begin to protest his highhandedness, but proceeded to prop his foot up onto the cushion of one of the ornate chairs that her mother insisted on strewing about the hallways—just creating clutter, as far as Mari was concerned. And, apparently, providing an easy way for gentlemen to discipline their ladies.
Before she knew it, she found her skirts throw up over her back and knew that whoever this was—and she could only hope that it was Evan or her brother playing a very distasteful prank—was staring down at bloomers that were, because of her position, pulled tight across the flesh of her backside.
And then she felt it—the man's palm crashing down onto her bottom.
Mari drew in a breath to scream, then thought better of it, knowing it would just cause a scandal. But, blast it, he was hurting her! And after only a few spanks, she was mortified to realize that her eyes were full of unshed tears at the horrible way his hand was roasting her tender flesh.
Who in the hell was this who thought he had the right to do this to her?
After about twenty sharp swats, during which it became harder and harder to stifle squeals and moans she wanted to give voice to in response, she heard his voice and knew immediately who it was.
"A lady ought not to be caught peeping through keyholes. Besides the fact that it's highly impolite and smacks of bad breeding—and lack of discipline—she also might not like at all what she saw on the other side, Miss Mari."
With that, he tipped her up and deposited her on her feet, his arm hard around her for long seconds to steady her before he withdrew it, wearing an insufferably self-satisfied smile. She intended to wipe it off that face, drawing her hand back to crack it soundly across his face in a way that wasn't too different from how he'd just smacked her bottom.
Instead, she found her wrist encircled by his fingers, and she realized with a start that she couldn't even begin to move it, much less complete the powerful swing she'd intended.
No, any illusion she had of physical power evaporated, right then and there. This man—she swallowed hard—this man, on the other hand, was the very embodiment of power, in more ways than just physical, but that was all he needed right now. She felt like a doll in his hands as he moved to drop a hard kiss on her lips, easily holding her in place for it before letting her go and stepping back to open the door to her father's office.
"It's about time you got back. Did you get lost on the way to the water closet?" Mari recognized her father's voice.
Con turned and caught her eye deliberately as he shut the door, winking broadly at her as he closed it, saying, "No, I had to make a bit of a correction along the way."
Mari remembered the butterflies she had in her stomach, for days afterwards, about what he'd done to her. Butterflies that were sometimes more like rabid bats that she didn't want or need, especially since she'd immediately recognized the fact that Evan had never once inspired anything like either response in her.
Then there was the day not long after when she'd found herself in that room with the two of them as well as her mother, and they had told her what they were doing—"for the good of the family". She hadn't given them the chance to make any kind of explanation to her, because knowing the reasoning behind their decision—which she could kind of guess anyway and Rachel confirmed for her—didn't change anything for her. She was still going to have to give up the love of her life and marry a man that she didn't know, didn't want to know, but knew she disliked in the extreme, who had already revealed to her—if not anyone else—his very dominant tendencies.
As she reminisced, she reached out to play with the toast on her tray, scoffing that she had thought she had any idea about what he was really like back then. She knew so much more now that she would have been just as happy not knowing.
Especially considering that she'd had to come face to face with her own culpability in regards to the bad blood between herself and her husband. In her own defense, she was used to getting what she wanted. And this was a very big thing—being able to choose her husband, to choose the man with whom she would spend the rest of her life, and having been allowed to think that it would be the man she wanted—the man she had loved and adored since she could remember.
Instead, she found herself married off—with great haste, because precious Geoff's creditors were becoming less and less patient—to a complete stranger. It was Geoff's problem—why didn't he have to marry a strange, well-to-do woman to make things right? Why was she the sacrificial lamb at the altar of her brother's weaknesses?
When she looked back now at her wedding day—that she could still scarcely believe she'd had—she could see that Con was trying, anyway. He had to like her at least a little—he'd paid a bloody fortune for her. She knew now that—until the fiasco of Evan in the crowd—for which she'd apolo
gized—and been made to feel devastatingly sorry about—he had held himself in check in deference to her innocence much longer than most men would have.
Most of them would have had her in the carriage on the way back from the church.
And if she hadn't been such an idiot, he would probably still be treating her that way—gently, with kid gloves, as if he actually cared about how she felt and wanted her to be happy. She could still feel the wonder of the first orgasm he had brought her to—how scared she was of it, of the unknown, of the concern that—despite what he'd said to reassure her— perhaps all of this pleasure had nowhere to go, and she'd have to live with it bottled up inside her for the rest of her life.
But his desire to treat her as something he prized, something he treasured, seemed to have dissolved when he'd had to rescue her from her own delusions like that.
She didn't think that he said more than two words to her throughout the two-hour carriage ride they'd embarked on afterwards from Calais to Paris. He didn't sit next to her as he had earlier that day. He didn't touch her or even look at her, that she saw. Mari had spent her time staring out the window at the French landscape, wishing she was anywhere but where she found herself at that moment.
When they finally stopped, he exited the carriage before her, letting the footman help her down, when before, it was as if he couldn't bear the thought of anyone else touching her and he'd lifted her down himself. He led the way into the hotel and up to their room, where he bathed, changed, and left, all in silence.
Since Danvers was well behind them, Mari had undressed herself, donning a satin and lace nightgown from her trousseau that the dressmaker had said would inflame the lusts of any man alive, which only made her giggle madly before she crumpled onto the bed and cried herself to sleep.
Later, much later, near to dawn, judging by the amount of natural light coming through the window, she awoke to find her husband lying gloriously naked before her, half on, half off the bed due to his size but also his position. He was lying between legs that he had already parted around him, her wrists caught and held on either side of her hips. He awakened her deliberately, so that he could catch her eye and make her watch him as his head descended between her legs, his knowing lips latching unerringly onto that same place that only he seemed to know she possessed. She thought she would lose her mind from the sheer bliss of it, although her mind still fought what her body had already capitulated to, and she tugged at her hands, hips moving restlessly beneath his eager ministrations as if she intended to disrupt him, somehow—knowing full well that doing so would probably kill her outright.
Con ruthlessly stilled her movements, doing so with depressing ease, without really missing a beat of that slow, sensual torture, his tongue lapping at her lazily, then using it to press it flat atop the most delicate, sensitive point to swirl and lick and flick it—and then begin again.
He had deliberately driven her crazy. It was only her second sexual experience in her life, but he unleashed himself on her nonetheless, even going so far as to press two fingers against her entrance, finding out for himself just how tight and untried she was. But he was determined—ruthless, really, telling her he knew that it hurt a bit, but that it would soon feel so good she would beg him for it.
And he was right.
She felt the sharp pressure, she felt how her flesh resisted him as he ordered—rather than coaxed—her to relax. Somehow, it worked, and she yielded to him access to her secrets, feeling him possess her, for the first time allowing someone else into her body, feeling vulnerable and opened and half-hypnotized and half-driven insane by what his tongue and lips and fingers were doing to her.
Con knew exactly what he was doing, though. He brought her right to the brink, then stopped and sat up, ordering, "Get me my belt."
Mari froze, but knew she couldn't do so for long, so she began to inch her way off the end of the bed, found where he'd left his pants in an uncharacteristically untidy heap right where he'd taken them off, and freed the expensive leather from the loops that were holding it.
She brought it to where he was now standing next to the bed, one small step at a time, and placed it in his outstretched hand, whispering—and fearing at the same time that humiliating herself like this would do no good, or worse, would anger him, "You don't have to do this. I feel horrible about what I did. I'm sorry."
But she didn't beg him, and throughout whatever he did to her, she would do her best not to debase herself as badly as she had before, although she had a feeling that it was going to get much worse than she could ever imagine.
"Bend over the end of the bed."
She wished she could think that he was drunk—she'd certainly come to recognize the symptoms by the shining example her brother had provided—but he didn't sound it, and she smelled no alcohol on him at all.
He was, apparently, stone sober.
So Mari stepped around him and did as he commanded.
"Pull your nightgown up around your waist."
No emotion whatsoever, just flat, sharp orders, which she knew she had no choice but to obey, since she didn't want to make this even harder on herself than she thought it was already going to be.
"Arms out from your sides, and don't even think of moving them."
She lay there, exposed, shivering—but not from cold—feeling the looped end of the belt she had given him dangling against her bottom threateningly.
Con stood there for a good long while, watching her trembling increase as he did so, but having a hard time going through with what he was quite certain a few minutes ago that he wanted to do. He had told her that he was going to punish her, and he didn't intend to renege on it. He always did what he said he was going to do.
So, successfully ignoring the persistent lump he felt in his stomach at what he was about to do, he flexed the leather in his hands, snapping it once and watching her jump, then raising his arm high in the air in preparation for the first stripe.
Chapter 6
He then brought the belt down hard across those two cringing cheeks, making her scream and shriek and twist and try to hide that beautiful target by crushing her hips into the end of the bed, but there was nowhere for her to go.
There was no escape.
Hardening himself against her reactions, against what he knew to be her very real pain and fear, he brought that stiff leather down again unmercifully, watching it bite into her, seeing the angry red swathe it left behind, parallel to the first, nearly covering all of the skin that was available to him before he really got started.
He glanced up. Her arms were still out, but they were much lower as if her agony had caused them to migrate.
"Arms," was all he said, and they resumed their former position instantaneously.
Not that it saved her from feeling the kiss of his belt again, this time down the middle of the two previous strikes, marrying that stark red together. Mari had thought she was out of her mind when he brought her that strange pleasure, but she now knew that was nothing in comparison to this. There was nothing of her but this, no life outside him standing over her, the same fingertips that had brought her to ecstasy earlier touching the small of her back as if to hold her still, just above the area he was disciplining.
And again, across all three of them at once, top to bottom diagonally, expertly keeping it from wrapping or even so much as touching any area other than her bottom.
Then he threw the leather away from him as if it offended him and went to sit on the side of the bed. "You can put your arms down now," he said tonelessly.
Mari was too far gone to do it, though, just in case he changed his mind, until he finally reached down and gathered her to him, not giving her a choice but to be pulled up against him as he stretched them both out on the bed, facing each other.
After a long while of kissing her tears away with surprising tenderness, he confessed roughly, "When I saw you were gone, I had only one thought."
Mari's mind was slowly returning to her, although mos
t of it was still occupied trying to come to grips with the state of her bottom, but she figured that she probably knew what he'd been thinking at that point—that he wanted to throttle her.
But she was wrong.
"I have never been so afraid in my life, and I've stared into the eyes of pirates who were trying to kill me and my crew and board my ship. I've never been much afraid for myself or anyone else, beyond my friends or family, and even that had nothing on the way my heart hit the ground when I looked down and you weren't there. The things that ran through my head—I just hoped against hope that I would see you again alive. I know you have no idea what goes on in places like that, but I am intimately acquainted with them. You could have disappeared—kidnapped just as easily as not in those short minutes, sold to a whorehouse or into slavery...your virginity and your perfect little body would bring a huge price."
She had to admit that none of what he was talking about had occurred to her when she'd gone after that mirage of Evan she'd seen. She just...ran. Away from him, towards something she knew she wanted, some semblance of a dream she once had that no longer applied to her life.
"I'm sorry," Mari whispered, staring down at nothing in particular, trying to avoid looking at his muscled chest.
But he wouldn't let her avoid him any longer. She found her face tilted up so that their eyes met, and despite his tender words, she saw no mercy there. "And then I realized why you'd run, who you thought you were running towards, and I wondered if it might not be better for me to give you up, if you were that determined to have him and get away from me. But no. You're mine, and you're always going to be mine." He tugged her gown up and over her head. His eyes wandered over her possessively, pausing at her breasts, then the light thicket between her legs as he began to move down her body, back to where he'd been when he'd interrupted himself to punish her. Putting her back into the same position she'd been in, trapped and held by him, his mouth latched onto that scrap again as if he'd never left it.
Man and Wife: A Sweet Historical Love Story Page 6