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The room was dark. The sheets were turned down on her great, tall bed, but it was empty. He scanned the room, and discovered a faint glow of candlelight shining from within the curtained window seat. He ducked under the pleated silk panels concealing the recessed space. Aurelia curled in the furthermost corner of the right bench, her knees pulled up to her chest. A lace-edged dressing gown pooled around her on the pillows. Its bright, floral-patterned embroidery contrasted with her miserable expression. As she turned to look at him, her gaze communicated dread.
“I see you’ve found yourself a little mouse hole,” he said. He sounded crueler than he meant to.
She didn’t answer, only drew her arms more tightly around her knees. He sat on the left bench, across from her, the gilt silver dinner tray balanced on his knees. His gaze strayed up to the curtains, then past the flickering candle on the sill to the black night outside.
“I’m happy if you like this place,” he said with careful softness, to make up for his earlier tone. “I used to hide in here as a child, when I visited my great-aunt Emma. In the daytime you could see the neighbor’s park, with intersecting paths and diamond shaped topiaries. I wonder if they’re still there.”
“They are,” she murmured.
“I’ve brought you some food. Have you eaten today?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Aurelia.”
She seemed to shrink within herself, a miserable, fragile huddle in his window seat. In his house. His wife...and she wouldn’t look at him, wouldn’t smile or even attempt to make basic conversation.
He deserved it.
“I suppose we’ll learn to tolerate one another eventually,” he said. “I expected no more from this marriage.”
“I don’t want to be married at all.” She shifted, leaning her forehead against the smooth, leaded glass. “I want to go home.”
“This is your home now. You’re married to me, and after last night, possibly pregnant with my child. We’re bound forever, whether you wish to be or not.” He sounded petty, pedantic, like some blasted schoolmaster. So tedious, this being-a-husband nonsense. “I want you to eat something,” he said. “And before you say no, pray remember the consequences of disobedience. I won’t hesitate to spank you again.”
She gave him a look of such burning hatred it might have singed the wool off a sheep, but she unfolded herself from her protective huddle and sat up across from him, pulling her dressing gown tighter across the curve of her breasts. He nudged the tray closer.
“It’s only...” She stared down at the artfully arranged dishes on the tray’s lace doily. “I’m not well. Perhaps you ought to call a physician.”
He felt a frisson of alarm. “A physician? Whatever is the matter?”
“Last night, after you coupled with me, there was...blood.”
The anxious pounding in his temples diminished. “There’s supposed to be blood. You were a virgin, weren’t you? It’s an unpleasant business, but I’m told most virgins bleed.” He sighed. “Eat something, whether you’re hungry or not. Even if you starve yourself to a skeleton, I’ll still take you to bed. I have no other choice. There must be an heir.”
He sounded like a scold but he didn’t know how else to go on. She set him on edge, this listless mouse hiding in his home. She feared him, and he wasn’t sure that was a good thing anymore. She began to eat, the tiniest bites that could still qualify as actual consumption of food. Her hair was half up, half down, a disarranged style that made her appear more luscious than she probably wished to.
“Coupled with you,” he muttered under his breath. “You make it sound so dispassionate. So stiff and cold.”
She continued to eat, not glancing up from her plate. He’d spoken low enough that she could pretend she hadn’t heard him, but he said the next words loudly enough to be clear.
“I want you to know that if you continue to bar the servants from your rooms, I’ll have your doors removed. That would make it interesting when we coupled, wouldn’t it?”
Her fingers tightened on her silverware. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would.”
“Am I to have no privacy then?”
“If I wish it.”
She took another miniscule bite of pheasant, chewing it for so long it must have turned to liquid in her mouth. She had magnificent lips. Fine, straight teeth. He wanted to put something quite a bit larger than a bite of pheasant into her mouth. Eventually, he’d try it.
Of course, she’d fight against him and refuse, and take to her bed in a fit of vapors like any well-bred lady would. Perhaps he wouldn’t bother to try. He doubted it would be worth all the outraged whining and crying he’d endure in return. There were a dozen ladies at Pearl’s who could perform exotic miracles with their tongues and lips, for a generous enough fee.
He looked away when he realized he’d been staring at her mouth. He was rigid, aching to push her back on the cushions and fuck her right here in her private, velvet-cushioned mouse hole. Perhaps she realized the bent of his thoughts, for she began to eat with greater intent. Pheasant, potatoes, roasted vegetables, and occasionally, a great drink of wine. Anything to delay the impending bedding, he thought drily. This marriage would kill him within the week.
He had no idea how he’d manage to live with her. He could send her to his country estate, leave her there and go on about life as if she didn’t exist, but that wasn’t an option until he had at least two sons in the nursery.
“Are you finished?” he asked as she picked at the assortment of cakes. She took a little taste of each, although she appeared to crave more. Why demolish the entire plate of pheasant and vegetables in self-preservation, and then leave the cakes? “You may eat all of them if you like.”
She glanced up at him guiltily. “A lady mustn’t overindulge in sweets.”
“Or she’ll be too fat to land a husband? Well, you’ve got a husband, so you needn’t worry about that anymore.” He wanted her to eat the cakes because he thought it would make her happy, and she was so unhappy about everything else. But she didn’t, and after she wiped her lips and hands, he put the tray aside on the bench.
“Before I take you to bed, Aurelia, I think I’d better inspect your bottom and make sure there’s no lingering damage from last night’s spanking.”
As he expected, she went beet red and pulled her dressing gown more tightly closed. “There’s no lingering damage. None at all.”
“I wouldn’t be a very good husband if I didn’t make sure. I doubt you can inspect yourself as closely as I can.” He put a hand on her arm and drew her resisting figure over his lap. “Come now. Don’t make a fuss or I’ll be forced to give you another spanking, and we’ll be right back where we began, won’t we?”
“It’s only—”
“It’s only what? That you didn’t learn your lesson about resisting me last night?”
She went still across his lap. While she let him draw up her dressing gown to bare her bottom, she vibrated with tension. Fury? Fear? Her reluctance aroused him, as did her ample, porcelain bottom cheeks dappled with two or three scattered bruises from the night before.
“You’re not fat, you know,” he said as she trembled beneath his fingers. “You’re perfect as you are. A man wants curves for pleasure. Nothing worse than a skinny, bony derrière.”
Aurelia lay tense and silent over his lap as he ran his palm over the sensitive skin of her bottom. Horrible, to know he stared at her nakedness. He handled her as boldly as he pleased, his full staff straining against his breeches. She could feel it against her hip. Was it true that he found her “perfect”? She’d always imagined herself plump beyond measure, and not attractive at all. She certainly didn’t have a bony derrière. If she had, she wouldn’t have had any padding at all when he walloped away at her.
Oh, she didn’t ever want that to happen again.
He kept her splayed over his lap for three minutes or more, groping and fondling her under the pretense of “inspecting for damage.” T
he only thing damaged was her dignity, because her husband had spanked her last night, and now forced her to submit to this lewd inspection. Now and then the edge of his thumb drifted between her bottom cheeks, and she jerked away from him. He only pulled her back and resumed his task.
At last, when her face flamed with humiliation, he released her. “Your bottom looks fine. It’s nice to know you can take a decent spanking if the situation warrants. Although I trust we’ll not have an encore performance tonight?” He raised an eyebrow as he took up the candle and gestured her to go out. “To the bed, my dear. Heirs don’t make themselves.”
She preceded him, thinking how terribly awkward and businesslike this was. If she’d wed Lord Warren, she was sure there would have been tenderness, even romance, between them.
But she hadn’t wed Lord Warren.
Lord Townsend lit a few more candles as she climbed into the bed. The sheets had been changed, the bloody evidence of their marriage’s consummation whisked away by a blushing maid as Clement clucked in a soft, pleased voice about honor and becoming a woman.
