The Changeling Bride (10 page)

She began to step away, and he reached forward and dragged her bodily onto the mattress, and had her flat on her back before she could muster more than a short shriek of protest.

He lodged one thigh between her legs, pressing against her through the thin layers of silk. He lay half over her, her right arm pinned beneath him. With her free hand she pushed at his shoulder, and he easily took hold of her hand, kissing the back of it before pinning it above her head.

“You said you wouldn’t force me,” she squeaked.

He could feel her heart beating against his chest. “And I shall keep my word.” He bent to trace a feathery trail
of kisses up the side of her neck to the base of her ear, where he paused briefly—not touching her—his face close enough so that she could feel the heat of his skin, the warmth of his breath.

She was holding her own breath, and only released it when he touched her again. He used his tongue this time, lightly painting circles on that tender skin. She squirmed, her movement pressing her against his thigh.

His left hand held hers above her head, and his right slipped through the opening of her robe along the side of her ribcage. His palm moved up to just below her breast, the pad of his thumb softly brushing the underside in slow strokes. Her back arched, inviting him to do more. He bent his head to capture her lips.

Deep inside he smiled to himself in satisfaction, even as he moved to explore the planes of her face with his lips. He had allowed her her protest, her arguments. She could feel that she had not given in without a struggle. Her pride would remain intact, even as she submitted.

She was young and inexperienced, he knew, and at heart she would want to be told what to do, no matter the defiance she showed him. It was his own response to her that now surprised him. He wanted to sink his fingers into the softness of her hair, to explore the gentle contours of her body, and to discover whether the warmth of her coloring extended into the heat of her passions.

He moved his hand up over her breast, gently teasing the nipple between his fingers. She strained against him, seeking more contact, and he knew he could release her hand and she would not fight him. He held it, though, allowing her to pretend to herself that she had no choice.

She opened her eyes as he pulled back to untie her robe, then pushed it open to gaze upon her hardened nipples, showing through the silk. He bent and took one aureole in his mouth through the cloth, the wetness soaking through the fragile fabric. He heard her suck in her breath, and felt her muscles tense, then relax. He reached
down to pull up the hem of her chemise, grazing her leg on the upward journey. His own robe came open, and he let the raw heat of his arousal nudge against her.

She reacted as if he had pressed a knife against her. “Nooo!” she wailed, and jerked her hand free from above her head, and before he could stop her, she had rolled out from underneath him and off the bed. She backed away, pulling her short robe closed, covering the wet fabric over her breast. She stumbled into a chair and stopped, her breathing loud and ragged.

“I can’t do this,” she said, almost pleading. “I can’t.”

He sat up and looked at her, his body throbbing with lust that was quickly turning to angry frustration, which he fought to keep from leaking into his voice. “You can, and you were enjoying it. Sooner or later you will have to give in, Eleanor. Make it easy on yourself, and do so now. You cannot escape.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It should have been someone more suitable that you married, someone ready for all this. I’m not the right woman, no matter what they think.”

“Is not an earl good enough for a merchant’s daughter? Do not think you are going to escape this marriage by putting me off on our wedding night. The bargain was made, and I intend to seal it.”

“Then you’ll have to force me to do it,” she said flatly.

He heard the finality in her voice. No challenge, no uncertainty. She meant every word of it. He felt the blood pound in his head as he realized that she was going to win this round, and for the briefest moment wanted to throw her to the floor and take her, to have it done with and let her know for once and for all that she could not have her way in this. She was his wife now. He quickly smothered the thought. He was not his father, to use violence to win his way.

He forced his hands and jaw to unclench. This was but
a single battle lost. To show her that she had affected him as deeply as she had would be to risk losing the entire war. Control of the self led to control of the situation.

He got off the bed and went over to the table with the fruit and wine, picking up the small knife provided for cutting the fruit. “I cannot have you claiming our marriage was unconsummated, halting the transfer of all those funds and properties to my name,” he said with false calm, his voice free of the emotions that boiled within. He sliced a small nick in his thumb.

He pulled the covers back from the bed, then let spill a drop of blood into the center of the exposed sheet. He pressed his thumb into the spot, smearing it slightly, then brought his thumb to his mouth to stop the bleeding. When he was finished he turned to her.

“Rather artistic, do you not think? Just enough to serve the purpose, and not so much as to make the maids believe you suffered unduly. Of course, you could always have a doctor check whether your virginity was indeed intact, but I would not suggest it, given the doubts that have already been cast on that subject.” He paused to rein in his temper. “So you see, my darling Eleanor, there is no escape for you. There is no point in fighting when you will inevitably lose. Give in, before you make a complete and utter fool of yourself.”

“No power on earth can force me to stay married to you. I’ll leave, and you’ll never figure out where I’ve gone.”

“Well, it will not be home. Your father would never accept you back. You have not a penny to your name, and nothing to sell but your body, so unless your lover is waiting to spirit you away, which, really, he should have done before now if he was serious about it, you are out of options.”

“You don’t know half as much as you think you do.”

“I will warrant it is half again as much as you. Come
to bed, and I shall not touch you. Your supposed
virginity
has already been lost upon the sheets, and I will not take it a second time tonight.”

“I’d rather sleep on the floor. Bodies have a way of rolling together in the middle of the night.”

“And you would know.” He peeled blankets and the top sheet from the bed and tossed them on the floor. It was beyond his ability to graciously offer her sole use of the bed. If she had a wish to sleep on the floor, let her suffer the consequences of having it granted.

“By the time we pile those back on the bed in the morning, they’ll think we had a wild night of it.”

He stared at her. “They will have no idea.”

Chapter Eight

Elle spent several hours lying tensely on the hard floor, listening to each and every move of Henry on the bed. Was he even her husband, legally? She had married him under a different name. She had a feeling, though, that it was the person who mattered, considering that it was a personal vow made before God.

If she made it back home, she’d be a widow, Henry having long since died and rotted down to bones and a few silver buttons. She didn’t like to think of him that way, for all that she had never had a more infuriating encounter with a man. Or a more erotic one.

She’d liked it when he’d pinned her to the bed, liked feeling his lips on her skin, his thigh between her legs. She’d never been intimate with a stranger before, and had had no idea how the excitement of it could course through her body. It was only when she’d felt his arousal against her bare skin that she’d realized the danger she was in.

It could take just once to get pregnant. A few minutes of pleasure was not worth the risk.

Tatiana got up from her corner and came to join her on her makeshift bed, and the comforting weight of the dog against her legs had a soothing effect. When she woke up she’d probably be home again. She’d fulfilled her side of the bargain, and married the man. Her eyes eventually drooped closed, and in short order the exhaustion of the day carried her to sleep.

In the early hours of the morning the door to the chamber silently opened. Sibilant whispering, almost beyond the range of human hearing, came from the two slender fairies that cautiously eased into the room. Tatiana awoke abruptly, ears forward to catch the sound. Her nose twitched at a familiar scent, and she left the blankets and her mistress to investigate.

The two figures, faintly glowing, separated. Mossbottom went to the far side of the room, giving a whistle like the high call of a bat, and dangled with distaste by two prim fingers a jointed bone with gobbets of flesh still attached. Tatiana trotted to the familiar fairy, leaving the way clear to Elle where she slept on the floor.

The second fairy stepped quickly to the sleeping woman, bent down, and brushed her hand across Elle’s forehead, leaving a phosphorescent dusting of powder that quickly faded. She straightened, then gestured to Mossbottom, who gladly gave up the bone to Tatiana and ran to the door. They slipped out, the two sleeping humans none the wiser for their presence. Tatiana watched the door for a minute longer, then dropped the bone with a thunk on a spot of bare flooring and lay down to gnaw it.

That clank of bone on floor was enough to wake Henry, who had been but dozing lightly. He pushed himself up on his elbows, wondering what had awoken him, then noticed the dog off in the corner chewing. He lay back down and moved to the edge of the bed, rolling
onto his side to peer over the edge at where his wife lay sleeping. Moonlight faintly glimmered on her forehead, making her look ethereal in her humble bed. She reminded him of one of the fairy tales his great-grandmother had loved to tell him as a child, the one with the princess who dressed in servants’ clothes and slept outside the door of her beloved’s room.

He slowly shook his head. She was no princess, and he most certainly was not her beloved. Still, almost in spite of himself he found he was somewhat intrigued by her. She was intelligent, which surprised and pleased him, given her shallowness at their first meeting. She had the courage of her convictions as well, not backing down despite all that was against her. There was the possibility she could make an adequate wife and countess, once she was brought to order.

He grinned in the darkness, watching her sleep, thinking of that day. From all signs, she would make a lusty bed partner. Perhaps there were more advantages to this marriage than he had thought.

She shifted in her sleep, a small moan escaping her lips. Her head rolled from side to side, a frown drawing down her brows. Henry continued to watch her, his own smile fading. She looked as if she was having nightmares. He hoped it was not his own face that tortured her in her sleep.

Elle was dreaming. The pink husband coupon was in her hand, and she was once again waving it at the dripping firs, spouting her demands for an arranged marriage. The landslide came, then the cave with her dead replica, and the confusing whisperings of the glowing fairies. It was all familiar, a replaying of the past, and then it changed.

She dreamt now of her brother, Jeff, his face gaunt and ashen, walking down a tiled subterranean hallway. A white and steel room waited at the end, lined with the ovenlike doors of a morgue. An attendant opened one of
the square doors and pulled out the shelf inside with a low rumble. He pulled back the sheet over the mound of the body, and Elle watched over Jeff’s shoulder as the face came into view.

Elle woke screaming, with the vision of her own face vivid before her. She did not hear Tatiana barking in alarm, or Henry’s anxious voice. She could only scream, and push her hands at the darkness, warding off that grotesque image.

Warm arms surrounded her, lifting her up onto the bed. Her head was pressed against a broad chest, the rich reverberation of a heartbeat below her ear. It was that which calmed her, more that than the hand that stroked her hair or the low voice murmuring soothing words. A heartbeat meant life, and she drowned herself in that sound, shutting out all else. She was not dead.

Still, she could not shake the power of the dream. That was not her on a slab in the morgue, but it could have been. It might have been, if she had not agreed to come here.

With sudden, eerie certainty, Elle knew that it was Eleanor Moore she had seen lying there, and that somehow she had been allowed to witness what had become of her life to everyone she knew and loved at home. No one was going to come take her away from here: The switch was meant to be permanent. She now belonged to a man she neither knew nor particularly liked. She was helpless. She was married. She was alone.

“What was it?” Henry’s soft words finally penetrated her despair.

“I saw myself dead,” she whispered against his chest, not caring for this moment that she was pressed so intimately against him.

Henry felt a chill run along his spine. The fine hairs on the back of his neck rose, and he glanced uneasily out the window at the night beyond, inexplicably feeling that there was a presence watching. He tightened his arms
around her, the instinct to protect strong. He pulled her unresisting with him under the covers, never releasing her from his arms.

“It was just a dream. No one is going to hurt you.” She did not struggle against his hold, but neither did she relax. He could feel tremors run through her, then short gasping breaths as she began to sob. She pressed her face to his shoulder, one hand fisted on his chest. She clung to him until the sobs devolved to hiccups, then slow deep breaths. He felt her relaxing, then to his astonishment realized she had cried herself to sleep, her mouth slightly open on his shoulder.

He lifted his head to look at her, but from the awkward angle it was mostly her nose that was visible. A beautiful, Grecian nose. Even in her sleep it suggested that she was not a person to be trifled with, no matter that she had just wept like a child over a bad dream.