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I take her wrists because there is something so sexually charged about this ritual. Something darkly arousing. “Kneel, Isabelle. Face your witnesses and kneel.”
She glances over her shoulder at them, at the wooden device and I turn her, walking her toward that silk cushion. She resists all along as Santiago approaches and lifts the heavy top of the pillory.
“On your knees,” I tell her as she looks at him.
She’s shaking, pulling into me as she drags her gaze to mine. “You’ll do it?”
Is she taking comfort in the thought that it will be my hand doing the marking?
“You?” she asks again. “Not him? Not them?”
“Yes,” I tell her, confused.
Two tears slide down her face, one on each cheek. She nods. She’s steeling herself.
“Then you’re finished? It’s over?”
I don’t reply.
She studies me, a wrinkle between her eyebrows. “It’s not, is it?”
I wait.
“You’ll bleed me,” she says, forcing herself to stand tall in this show of resistance. She and I both know she will submit. It’s the only choice she can make. “My blood will stain your sheets.”
I don’t reply, just keep my gaze locked on hers. She’s right.
“I won’t forgive you any of it, Jericho St. James. Ever.”
We remain like that for a long moment, silence between us, but so much to say. I only speak one word though. The only one that matters for now.
“Kneel.”
She lowers her lashes, then turns from me and kneels on the cushion.
She leans forward, she sets her wrists into their holes then extends her neck and bows her head, settling into place like a condemned prisoner offering her head to the executioner’s block.
Santiago lowers the heavy wooden bar, the sound of him locking it reverberates off the stone walls. He steps behind her to my side.
I look down at her, my supplicant bride. I glance around the room at the men watching the display, no whispers now, everyone is riveted. And I want to clear the room, but I can’t. This has to happen, and it has to happen this way. The fact that she won’t forgive me can’t matter. And she has accepted her fate with more grace than I expected.
But it’s not over yet. It’s barely begun.
Santiago extends his hand, and someone places a leather folder in it. His wedding gift to me.
I draw my chair closer and take my seat behind her, noting how her bare feet show from beneath the dress, how strangely complete the sight makes this. With two fingers I slip the pearl button from its loop and spread the dress open, baring the entirety of her back. The dress is especially made for a Society wedding by a Society dressmaker. They know what is expected. But it’s not quite enough and I take the two sides in each hand and rip the dress a little farther.
Isabelle gasps and I see her hands clench and un-clench.
“Lift up,” I tell her and remarkably she does so I can tuck the top of her panties underneath her to expose the cleft of her ass.
Santiago crouches down, runs two fingers over the scar along her spine.
Isabelle stiffens. Can she tell the hand is not mine? And can he feel my aggression as he touches her?
He then lays the flat of his hand on her back. I know what he’s doing. He’s measuring. And a moment later, once he’s satisfied, he nods and steps away.
I clean her back, feeling her shudder at the cold press of alcohol.
