Chapter 12
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ount Nikolayev Vasily Petrov stood naked in front of the large mirror and stared at his reflection. His lower lip was swollen, and there were scratches across his chest and shoulders. A wicked bruise discolored his upper thigh. He leaned forward and stuck out his tongue, examining the welt left by his own teeth. Biting it had been accidental. The girl had been going for his eyes, but thwarted by his hands locked around her wrists, she'd brought her head up beneath his chin. Nikolayev counted himself lucky she hadn't been taller. She might have broken his nose.
She'd fought like a wild animal, trying to keep her virginity. Stupid girl! Didn't she realize she had given it to him the moment she crossed the threshold to his roomâno, before that even. It was lost the moment he made the decision to take it. She ought to have been honored that he would even consider putting his cock inside her to begin with. He had expected a token show of resistance, nothing more, but she had refused him with a violence that he'd been unprepared for. A violence that he found . . . exciting.
Lulled into the role of a lazy lover, Nikolayev was used to women who meekly lifted their skirts, spread their legs, and gave themselves to him. But this girlâthis peasant girlâactually believed she had the right to refuse him! Her insolent defiance had dazzled him, made him want her more, and heightened his passion into a brutality he'd not felt before.
He walked over to the bed and stared down at her. In the pale light of early dawn, it was hard to imagine such a slight figure offering anything in the way of defiance.
The girl lay on her back, sprawled across the furs. The sharp, acrid mix of blood and sweat and sex hung in the air. It was a scent Nikolayev found intoxicating. Feeling no remorse, he continued to gaze down at the slim figure. He felt no sense of shame at seeing the livid, purple welts that discolored her pale skin. No disgrace at knowing the bruises that marked her face and neck and arms and legs were from his hands. No guilt stirred his conscience at the blood and semen now dried on her slender thighs. Why should it? She was a peasant and, as such, his property. He could do with her as he wished, save take her life, but even if that was his pleasure, who would dare to stop him? And who would question his account if she were to perish at his hand?
Idly, Nikolayev ran his fingers over the marks on his chest where she'd raked her nails. In the end, his superior strength had worn her down. A more experienced woman might have recognized the connection between the struggle and the swell of excitement rising within him. A more experienced woman might have become passive, stopped fighting, and submitted to the inevitable. A more experienced woman would not have fought him to begin with.
But this girl was not experienced, and Nikolayev had never been so aroused. Even now his cock was stirring at the memory of how it had felt throbbing inside his clothes, wanting to be free and buried inside her.
He had finally been forced to knock her to the floor, pinning her beneath him. His breath had been nothing but a series of ragged, uneven gasps. Blood was smeared across her lips, making them unnaturally red; a bruise was beginning to discolor one cheek, but the light of rebelliousness continued to burn in her eyes. Even then, knowing that she could not prevent what was going to happen, she refused to submit willingly.
Placing his hands around her slender throat, Nikolayev began to squeeze. Small fists pummeled frantically against his arms, but he easily ignored them. She clasped her hands around his wrists, trying desperately to break his hold, but the attempt was futile. As he steadily applied more pressure, Nikolayev felt her movements grow weaker until finally she went limp beneath him.
Quickly he stripped off her clothes, revealing a body dancing on the cusp of change. She was younger than he'd thought. Her breasts were small and pink-tipped, and her hips, though showing a hint of feminine roundness, were still boyishly slim. Coltish legs splayed out before him, and what little hair grew at the juncture of her thighs was fine and silky. Nikolayev wondered if she was yet to have her first bleed, and then quickly brushed the thought away. Such matters were of no concern to him and made no difference. For what he wanted, she was old enough, and knowing he would be her first filled him with an almost brutal excitement.
The girl regained consciousness when he got on top of her, and he watched as awareness and fear darkened the pale blue of her eyes. Pushing himself between her legs, Nikolayev roughly stretched her wider in order to accommodate him. She tried to punch him in the throat, but he slapped her back with enough of a sting to momentarily daze her. Power surged through him as he reveled in her helplessness. She tried to roll away when he lifted his hips, but the weight of his body bearing down on her prevented it.
She screamed when she felt him push his fingers inside her.
Shrill and piercing, her terror merely served to enhance the thrill running through him. He took his hand out from between her legs, positioned himself at her entrance, and drove himself into her, violently shattering her innocence.
Her screams were desperate, agonized cries. Her face, awash with tears, became contorted with pain. Each brutal thrust must be excruciating, but her voice only inflamed his lust. Stretching her wider, pushing himself deeper, Nikolayev continued to pound into her small, frail body. Splintering her with the violence of his onslaught until his spine clenched, he exploded, sending himself to ecstasy and throwing her into the bowels of hell.
Barely aware of his actions, he was not sure how many more times he took her. Everything around him merged into a red haze, but he made certain she bore the marks of his displeasure for having the temerity to defy him. And now he was done.
Nikolayev sighed. His father would have been displeased. Not that taking the girl's virginity wasn't his right, but the previous count had always insisted on compensating the family for the loss of a daughter's maidenhead.
“Our fortune is tied to the land, and those who work it,” his father had told him. “Better the loss of a few rubles to a girl who has stirred your lust than have the harvest suffer because of shame and dishonor.”
But Nikolayev was not his father. He saw no need to pay for something that was his to take by right. What did he care if a girl's value as a bride was diminished because she was no longer a virgin? Wasn't it preferable for a husband to have a wife already familiar with the expectations of the marriage bed? And having found favor with a member of the nobility was its own form of status.
Pay for taking her virginity? The idea was preposterous! And just how was he supposed to compensate her anyway? Give her a pearl necklace? Ruby earrings? A gold bracelet set with precious stones? Would she even understand the value of such a gift? No, the more he thought about it, the more convinced Nikolayev was that his father's thinking had been wrong in this regard.
Opening the door, he beckoned to his personal manservant, who waited outside.
“I want a hot bath and something to eat,” Nikolayev told him as he slipped on a robe embellished with his family crest and trimmed with luxurious fur at the collar and cuffs. He poured himself some wine, wincing a little when he pressed the goblet to his bruised mouth. “And get rid of that,” he ordered, waving his free hand at the figure now moving beneath the bed coverings.
Standing before the window, Nikolayev observed the view through the glass. It had snowed in the night, and now the land was covered by a blanket of white. If he were a poet he could no doubt find some fanciful symbolism between the girl's loss of virginity and the unspoiled landscape. But he abhorred poetry and found no meaning or beauty in the transformation of the world beyond his window. To him it was a monotonous landscape, broken only by the trees stretching their stark limbs upward. He glanced at the sky. The somber color was a promise of more snow to come. If he was going to survive the bitter cold of winter, he had better travel to St. Petersburg, where the distractions were wide and varied. Besides, he had left his wife alone for long enough. It was time she did her duty and provided him with an heir. Only her connection to the tsar had prevented him from breaking down her bedroom door when she'd barred it to him. Perhaps it was time to teach her that he didn't need a bed to claim her body. How else did the woman think she was ever going to give him a son?
He paid no attention to the noises coming from behind him. The manservant, long accustomed to his master's habits, was dressing the girl with a practiced, efficient hand. Experience had taught him that keeping the girls warm was the key to recovery, which explained the blanket he had thought to bring with him and which he now draped across her shoulders.
They were almost at the door when the girl stopped. Shaking off the manservant's hand, she addressed her rapist. “You will pay for this,” she said in a voice that was filled with contempt. “You will be made to answer for what you have done to me.”
“And who is going to make me answer?” Nikolayev smirked. Like all the peasants it had been his misfortune to come across, she was no doubt fervently religious. “Do you imagine God will strike me down? If he didn't save you last night, why should he bother with you now?”
“No, not God.” Something in her voice said her faith had been shaken and would never be as strong again. “My brother will make you pay.”
“Then perhaps you'd better tell me his name so I will know him when he comes.”
“Aleksei . . . his name is Aleksei.”
* * *
Aleksei was more than halfway down the rutted track when he saw Konstantine coming in the opposite direction. Though the path was wide enough for two men on horseback to pass each other, it did not offer the same accommodation when one of them also had a cart. At another time, he might have chanced it, but not today. His horse had already stumbled in the newly fallen snow, and Aleksei was silently praying he could get the animal back to the barn without completely laming it. So he stood to one side, waiting patiently for the old man and his cart to pass him, as both he and his horse blew clouds of steam into the cold air.
“Good day to you, Konstantine,” he called once the man was close enough to hear him. It was as much self-preservation as anything else. Everyone in the village knew Konstantine's horse had the better eyesight these days. Seeing the old man jerk his head up at the sound of his name, Aleksei frowned.
“Aleksei?” The old man's voice was querulous and his lined face troubled. “What brings you home so soon?”
“Stumbled in a rabbit hole,” he answered, lightly jingling the reins he held. “You would think, as often as we have traveled that path, this old nag would not only know where all the holes are, but would have the sense to avoid them!”
“Everything looks different in the snow,” Konstantine offered, to which both Aleksei and the horse snorted. Each for different reasons.
“So, you had business with my mother?” Aleksei asked conversationally. There was only one reason to explain being on this particular path.
“Yes,” Konstantine said, hesitating a little, “I brought Larissa home.”
Aleksei pulled his brows together and sighed. “What did she do this time? Put too much salt in the count's soup?”
Beneath his thin coat with its frayed collar, Konstantine's shoulders shrugged. “I cannot say,” he mumbled quietly, keeping his old eyes fixed firmly on the rough board between his feet.
“Has she been dismissed?” Aleksei asked. Seeing the old man's apparent reluctance to offer any further information, he softened his tone. “It's all right, you can tell me. Lord knows, I never wanted her to go to the dacha in the first place.”
“Then why give your permission?” the old man snapped uncharacteristically.
Aleksei blamed age and the fact Konstantine lived alone for the sharpness of his tongue. When you had no one to converse with, it was easy to fall out of practice. Feeling charitable, he forgave the accusatory tone.
“I couldn't fight both her and my mother,” Aleksei said with a heartfelt sigh. “The opportunity presented itself and, well . . .” He brushed the bottom of his ears with the tops of his shoulders.
In truth, Aleksei had never been at ease with the idea of Larissa serving at the dacha. When she had first asked his permission to work at the country home of Count Petrov, his first instinct had been to say no, using her age as his reason for doing so. His mother, ignoring his ridiculous statement that Larissa was too young, reminded him about the poor harvest. One less mouth to feed at their table could make all the difference if the winter turned harsh. Aleksei didn't know it was possible for a winter to be anything but harsh, and unable to fault his mother's argument, he reluctantly agreed.
But now it would appear that Larissa had been dismissed. He had been joking about too much salt, but it wouldn't surprise him. Whatever the reason, he was secretly pleased. Of course, he couldn't let his sister know that, at least not right away. He would have to put on a show of being disappointed, angry even, but then when they had all forgotten she had ever been away, he would forgive her. Poor harvest or not, there would be no hungry bellies at their table. He would make sure of that.