Rose Bride (36 page)

‘Are you drunk, Virgil?’

‘Yes.’

‘I have made you angry somehow, and you cannot forgive me for it.’

It was a strong wine, coarse on the tongue, and had helped soften the edge of his mood after dinner. But it could not mask the truth of her accusation. He hated himself, and seemed to enjoy wallowing in the feeling. He hated that too, loathed his own weakness. She must despise him, he thought, and wished she would go away.

‘Why?’ When he did not answer, Margerie came to kneel between his thighs, gazing up at him. It was an intimate position. ‘Why are you angry with me?’

His hand trembled a little as he raised the cup to his lips again. Alarmed by the symptom, he drained the cup, then set it down on the floor before she could notice, straightening with his head still turned away.

‘I do not know why,’ he admitted, staring into the fire rather than at her, his jaw clenched hard against the ache behind his eyes.

Because I am hurting you with my coldness. Because I do not deserve you. Because it is easier to be angry with you than with myself.

Now, where the hell had that come from?

He turned his head and regarded her sombrely. ‘You should be in bed,’ he managed accusingly.

‘Willingly,’ she whispered. ‘Come with me, sir.’

His cock twitched and stiffened inexorably as their eyes locked. God’s death. The tinder was dry, so dry. And she was holding that flame so close.

‘Wanton,’ he said deliberately.

‘I am your wife,’ she countered. ‘Is it wanton for a wife to wish her husband to join her in bed? It is late, past midnight. Perhaps tomorrow we could—’

‘I must return to court tomorrow,’ he told her harshly, and this time she flinched.

‘So soon?’

‘Master Greene has written to demand my return. I have been away from court nigh on a month and cannot tarry any longer. I stayed only to persuade my mother to move back to Applegate as your companion. I failed, which I suppose was predictable. Now Christina has married that ruffian, Delacour, and my mother is refusing to leave her side in case the oaf hurts her.’ He clenched his fist until his nails cut into his palm, knowing himself on the edge of some foolishness and needing the pain to steady him. ‘You know I do not wish to leave you alone for your confinement. But I cannot remain here any longer. Not when the queen is with child.’

‘I am with child too,’ she reminded him.

He looked into her beautiful face, scourging himself with self-hatred even as he insulted her again. ‘I have no proof of that. Only your word, and Master Greene’s early examination. It does not show yet, does it?’

‘A very little,’ she murmured.

His gaze caught on hers, and he drew a shaky breath, caught in the web now, struggling against temptation. How far could he let it go and still pull back from her? It was a challenge to his self-imposed discipline. That was what he told himself, at any rate.

‘Show me.’

His voice had been curt, almost cold, and for a moment he thought she would refuse. She
ought
to refuse, he told himself.

Her eyes had widened at the command, then Margerie rose to her feet, staring down at him, and slowly bent over. Grasping the hem of her white shift, she raised it slowly past her thighs and the reddish triangle of her sex, then to her white belly, holding it bunched below her breasts, the loose material falling at the back to cover her hips and buttocks.

‘You see?’ she whispered, and curled a hand about her lower belly, where a small bump could be seen protruding. ‘I am with child.’

He stared at the exposed body of his wife. Her soft belly, so pale and smooth, and below it . . .

Heat flared along his cheeks in a flush of lust. He was painfully hard now, his cock pressing urgently against his codpiece, his balls heavy and taut. Could Margerie see his arousal? Did his wife know what she was doing to him with this shameless display?

It had been nearly four weeks since their wedding night, and his forceful consummation of their marriage. He had not dared go near her since, fearing a repeat of that dangerous rush of emotion . . .

‘But whose?’ he heard himself say coldly, and could not quite believe it was his own voice. Who cared whose child it was? It was Margerie’s, and he would love the child regardless, provide for it regardless, as though it had been his own. Which it might yet be.

She dropped the shift, concealing herself again. Her face was very pale. ‘If I could assure you that it was your child,’ she began, stumbling over her words, ‘that it could not possibly be Lord Munro’s—’

‘A brave attempt,’ he sneered, and shook his head. ‘But a fantasy, all the same. Let it go: I do not wish to punish my wife for a lie. Come, sit on my lap and serve me.’

She took a step backwards to the door. Her lips moved soundlessly, then she managed the word, ‘No.’

‘I am your husband, Mistress Elton, or have you forgotten the vows you spoke but a bare month ago? You will obey me, or feel my displeasure.’

‘I would prefer you did punish me than buried your anger beneath your lust,’ she said frankly. ‘Let it out, rather. Let me see and feel your anger. Then it will be done, and we may start our marriage afresh.’

Virgil stared at her, his eyes narrowed on her face, not understanding. ‘You
want
my anger? You
want
to be punished?’

Margerie hesitated. He laughed, not believing her.

His mockery seemed to snap something in her, for she gasped, a little colour in her cheeks at last, and wrenched her white shift up again. Only this time she pulled it past her breasts, so that they bounced enticingly, then off her head, discarding her nightgown without a second glance.

He forced himself to look at her nakedness, though he could scarcely breathe. He wanted her so badly.

‘You are angry, sir, though you say you do not know why. But your anger hurts me, whether you exercise it or not on my person. So I say, chastise me for whatever wrong I have done you, whether it be lying with Lord Munro, or not pleasing you enough as a wife, or bearing a child you cannot be sure is your own.’

When he did not reply, Margerie licked her lips, watching him. ‘And when my punishment is done, it will be over. You may never again accuse me of those things. Do you agree?’

She was a beauty, his green-eyed, red-haired wife. And so passionate, her gaze searing and intense. He had dared to look, and now could not look away, the silence in his study suddenly unbearable, tense with expectation. So it must feel, he thought dizzily, to stand on the very edge of a cliff, looking down at the waves below . . .

‘What kind of punishment?’ he asked hoarsely.

She came towards him on bare feet, her skin all white and rose, curves and straight lines, nude and breathtakingly perfect. She bent, looking into his face where he sat in his high-backed chair, and slowly undid the fastenings of his codpiece.

He did not move to stop her but watched instead, his pulse racing. She tugged at the codpiece, fumbling a little. Not as confident as she looks, he thought, almost with relief.

Then his cock was out, thick and rigid, veined with desire, and he was breathing hard, his eyes on her face. He should call a halt now. The cliff was crumbling beneath his feet. He must not, could not fall.

Dear God though, he could not stop now.

She had straightened. ‘Now, sir,’ she whispered, her own voice breathless, like a scared girl’s, ‘you will chastise me with your hand. As long and as hard as you wish, sir.’

He watched in frozen desire as she stepped round, then bent forward across his lap, carefully arranging herself face-down over his lap. She stretched out her hands to the floor and balanced herself on her fingertips, then straightened her long legs out behind, her rounded white arse presented like the most perfect gift of all.

He swallowed hard, still holding himself in check.

‘You have done this before,’ he stated flatly. ‘For some other man.’

She turned her head, her cheeks lightly flushed now, rose on white, her eyes bright. ‘Never, sir.’

He did not believe her. He sat in agony, imagining Lord Munro chastising her like this, the young nobleman’s hand on her bare flesh, branding her for his pleasure.

‘Never,’ she repeated.

He moved then, unable to resist. His right hand cupped her buttock. It was so smooth and warm, living alabaster. He remembered stroking under her buttocks as they coupled at court, pulling her forward, plunging into her deep and hard, her cries of pleasure.

Pressed against her belly, his erection throbbed.

His hand relaxed, stroking her, first one buttock, then the other, listening to the catch of her breath, hearing his own heartbeat increase, thudding now in his ears.

‘Spread your legs wider,’ he muttered, and she obeyed.

As long and as hard as you wish.

He did not want to hurt her. She was a woman, and his father – his true father, the good and gentle scholar who had given him the poetic name Virgil – had taught him that men should protect women from harm.

All except their wives, he thought drily. For a man could chastise his wife as he pleased and no other man would call him to account for it. Yet she was right. He was angry, though he could not be sure of the source, and his anger lay between them like a sword. Would it release something in both of them if he were to raise his hand to her?

Yes, his body told him, his cock aching fit to burst.

But how to control his anger? How to be sure he did not lose himself in the chastising of this woman, and do her some lasting harm? It was what he feared was at the heart of him, a cruelty and coldness inherited from his stepfather, the desire to hurt and brutalise that Master Tulkey had shown him in spadefuls, beating after beating, starvation and imprisonment. If he broke through that hardness, cut cleanly through it and pushed beyond, what would he find?

His heart
.

He gritted his teeth and raised his hand, then brought it down sharply.

‘Virgil!’ she cried out in a high voice, her buttocks jerking, the shape of his hand showing red and cruel on her white skin.

‘Silence,’ he ordered her. He struck her again, cleanly across her other buttock, and she remained silent this time, only her breath hissing out.

His cock had never been so thick and swollen, he realised, striking her again, the sound of the blow sweetly satisfying to his ears. She shook, her soft belly pressing into him. Yielding to his authority, pure woman, strong and yet pliable, surviving both his anger and his love.

He wanted to stop and plunge into her, his whole body trembling with the need for sex, only inwardly; outwardly he was upright and unmoved, a man. He suddenly thought that he had never known true sexual excitement until this moment. Everything before had been juvenile, shallow, incomplete in comparison with this raging heat in his blood.

God’s death, what was he thinking? This was all poetry, it made no sense. She was his wife, his possession, his chattel, that was all, and he was chastising her.

But for what? For being his wife. For unmanning him with her beauty and softness and her fascinating green eyes, for the life in her belly that would make Applegate a home again at last, for the love that was building inside him with every blow . . .

He struck again and she moaned.

It was a sound he recognised. His cock twitched. He struck again, harder this time, sharper, and heard his beautiful bride moan again, deeper and more soulful.

‘Yes,’ he muttered, as though she had spoken.

He struck again, then again, then again, her body writhing beneath him, his hand rising and falling in a rhythm all its own.

Virgil could no longer remember his anger, none of that foolishness or heartache. All he knew was how beautiful his wife was in her nakedness, how yielding and open and wet she was, the perfect offering, the ultimate submission.

Her buttocks were a bed of roses now, glowing red and white, shockingly scarlet in patches, as though scratched by thorns. Margerie was writhing against him, rubbing her rounded belly back and forth on his hard cock, panting and moaning freely, the sound bubbling up out of her throat as though she could no longer control it . . .

He spanked her again, and Margerie shook under his hand, hard and demanding, her face so hot she felt she might burst into flames.

He was ruthless. He was her husband. And his breathing was harsh, his cock superbly erect under her belly.

She had thought him broken and out of reach when she came to his study tonight. Virgil had been sitting alone in the dark, no candles lit, not reading or writing as he used to do at court, but staring into the fire. His shirt and doublet carelessly unfastened, a wine cup balanced on his thigh, his face grim, unreadable.

The way he had looked up as she came towards him . . .

No, he had been broken tonight. And drunk, taking solace in wine. A long way beyond her reach. The clever, charming physician she had grown to love at court was lost to her, buried somewhere in there under a sea of ice. These days, all he would ever let her see was the dismissive, unloving cruelty he had shown her on their wedding night.