His staff skidded between her slippery fingers. It was as hard now as the phallus of carved wood that the ladies-in-waiting had shown her when they explained the mysteries of the marriage bed. He will tear your maidenhead open to plant his manhood inside you. This. This is what it will look like.
And she had refrained from saying, I know. And his is bigger than that.
The hand at the nape of her neck tightened to a knot, tugging her hair, as his other brought her stroking to a stop. Eloise found her head tipped back and she caught her lip in her teeth. He held her by her hair as he shifted round to kneel behind her on the mattress, and then tore the last rags of her dress from about her hips to bare her. Still no words. She wanted to scream. Then he pulled her back between his spread knees, until she was almost sitting upon his lap—except there wasn’t a lap, there were only hard uncomfortable thighs and a thick bar of insistent flesh that rubbed the seam of her sex. She couldn’t tell if it was his oil or her moisture but everything down there was as slippery and hot as melted butter. He cupped a hand over her pubic mound to hold her while his other hand, clasping her against him, squeezed her breast and rolled her trapped nipple.
Bending his head, he licked her neck. Eloise squirmed, but she had no purchase on anything. He was easily strong enough to hold her, to lift her and move her just as he wanted, and that strength made her feel all the weaker, as if her body was falling open and apart. His fingers broke the puffy split of her labia and circled her clit, making her whimper under her breath. The head of his cock slithered through the furrow of her sex, fore to aft and back again. It took very little—a lift, a shift of his hips, a push of his fingertips—for his cock to find the mouth of her maiden passage and press inside.
Her spine arched.
He took her.
What horrified her above all was how little it hurt. That honor she had guarded so long, that precious and unique token she brought to marriage, that thing which had ruled and defined her life—it was gone in a moment, with a hot, tearing flash. The pain was nothing, nothing compared to the agonies Severin had put her through for so long. Her tight passage was no match for the hardness of his cock; soon he was inside her and he was working her farther and farther down on to it with every thrust of his hips and every rub of her clit. She could feel his panting breath in her ear and feel the sweat slicking their skin where they touched. Her whole body was trembling with strain, but the effort was all his. Her breasts quivered and her hips writhed and the soft cheeks of her rump ground against his crotch.
She burned to cry out—it was not approved of. She wanted to speak—it was not permitted. Nothing about her was of any import but her open cunny. She felt herself begin to dissolve on the impaling stake of his cock, on his slithering fingers. All of a sudden she was falling apart. The armor she had worn close about her soul for so long, which had kept her whole—the armor of her blind and desperate determination—fragmented into a thousand molten shards. Orgasm was jagged and ugly and completely unstoppable.
She bit down on her cry.
She was stronger than she realized. In her throes she wrenched out of Severin’s grasp and pitched forward onto her elbows, face to the coverlet. His thrusts did not let up, in fact he was ramming deeper into her now, leaning over her. As she drew her first breath the words trapped in her throat and breast for so long burst out—but not as words, for with long captivity they were formless and broken too—and she began to sob.
Chapter Two
Eloise had met Baron Severin de Meynard for the first time almost nine months previously, when he came to escort her—the King’s betrothed—to the mainland for her wedding. She was to be Queen of Ystria, and all the little earldom of Venn rejoiced that its lady had been raised to such favor.
What she herself felt about the subject was something she could hardly decide from moment to moment. Pride, certainly, at the honor done to her father and her isle. Excitement. A great deal of trepidation—and some puzzlement. She couldn’t help wondering if the King of Ystria had somehow made a mistake and meant to pick someone else altogether.
Eloise had met King Arnauld himself only once, a few months previously during the Spring Ball arranged in honor of his twenty-seventh birthday. She had seen him several times from a distance, of course, but her only personal contact was a single dance at the ball in the palace of Kingsholme. He was, in her opinion, a pleasant, handsome man. He’d made small talk and shown no sign at all that his interest extended to the matrimonial. That decision had been laid upon her father by vellum letter at a later date. Undoubtedly it had had little to do with Eloise’s prowess at dancing, because she’d been so flustered that she’d fallen over her own feet.
Severin de Meynard’s talents did not extend to dancing, or to small talk. He was by all accounts a man of great reserve. He stood proxy for the King during the betrothal ceremony in the chapel of Venn Keep, and his black eyes rested on Eloise briefly as he slipped the ring upon her finger, without emotion or interest. She squirmed inwardly then, all too aware that she was holding the hand, and pledging herself in the presence of, the wrong man.
Of course she knew about him. His reputation among the upper echelons was considerably less charitable than simply one for being taciturn. Everyone knew he wasn’t of noble breeding but of merchant stock and foreign blood to boot, yet he’d found favor with Arnauld as a childhood companion and been granted a baron’s title. Certainly, in a land where the men tended to fair and ruddy countenances his sallow looks marked him out. The hair that hung to his collar was absolutely black, as was the small beard that framed his mouth in the fashionable style. His clothing was all somber grays and the frock-coat that brushed the back of his ankles was the color of midnight. He had a habit of standing with his arms folded across his chest—to hide, said his detractors, the hole where his heart was missing. He was the King’s own man—a deal-maker, a messenger, a voice of warning and, when necessary, a ruthless assassin. It was de Meynard who had arrested the Earl of Arrendale for treason, and de Meynard who had caught up with Arrendale’s fleeing son and had him butchered on the spot, along with all his party. He had Arnauld’s absolute trust. Others called him the King’s Viper.
Eloise didn’t think that he was quite as offensive as he had been painted by the Court gossips. While certainly possessed of too much gravitas, at least he didn’t irritate by bragging or ordering people about, and while the betrothal feast roared to its height he remained sober. He was handsome in his own saturnine way too. It was his coldness that repelled people, she thought—an aura of palpable disdain and disinterest. Who could tolerate being looked at like that? His smile—which was rare, and cynical—was marred by eyeteeth that were noticeably pointed, giving him a predatory air. And he used his eating knife in his left hand, which was markedly inauspicious. Most people with sinister leanings did their best to hide the fact, not flaunt it.
The King’s Left Hand—that was the other name they had for him. The right hand of a man was open and honest, whether in war or in friendship. The left hand did things one did not boast about, in secret.
She sought him out briefly before the ladies’ official retirement from the hall. He was listening to a message relayed by a pageboy, and nodding his approval.
“My lord baron?”
He diverted his attention to her, dismissing the lad. “Good news, my lady. Our ship is readied and the captain says she can sail on the high tide at noon tomorrow.”
“So soon?” She was dismayed, though the betrothal feast had been days in preparation and she’d had sufficient time to pack such of her trousseau as would not shame her in Kingsholme. But now that the day was upon her, she was nervous at the thought of leaving Venn and all that was familiar.
“There’s bad weather coming down from the north, apparently, and the captain wants to be home before it strikes.” His gaze was already wandering out across the assembly.
“I see. I must bid farewell to my father then.” Earl Ailwyn would not be sailing with them to the wedding,
but following in another vessel. A seafaring people, the Venn islanders had long established it as a rule that the earl and his bloodline heir should never travel together by boat, for fear of losing both together—even if that sole heir was only a woman.
De Meynard nodded.
Eloise waited for him to make some compliment about how well he had enjoyed his time on Venn, but realized it was not forthcoming. “You said…you had a private letter for me from the King?” she asked after an awkward silence.
“Ah. Yes.” He reached into his coat, next to his heart, and retrieved a folded piece of paper. For a moment in her hand it still carried the heat of his body. She glanced at it, noted the royal seal and cracked the wax with her thumbnail. Scanning the first line, she read, My most esteemed and beloved lady Eloise, inasmuch as it has fallen to me to make this choice—
It went on in the same vein for some time, thick with politesse but devoid of content. “Why did he choose me?” she asked. The general hubbub afforded them a space as private as silence.
“Pardon?”
“You’re close to his majesty, they say. What made him choose me for his queen, out of all the women at the ball?”
“Your beauty enchanted him, my lady.” He said it dutifully.
“You flatter me.” Her words came out sounding more disbelieving than modest.
De Meynard blinked, perhaps surprised. “And the Isle of Venn will revert to the Crown upon your father’s death,” he answered baldly.
“Ah.” Eloise bit her lip.
“In addition, you’re young, you’re not ugly, and you will be—he hopes—as fertile as your lands. He desires above all an heir.”
Not ugly? Eloise felt the blood rise in her cheeks, despite her professed abhorrence of flattery. De Meynard lifted an eyebrow.
“Although your father rather gives the lie to that theory. Which was not mine.”
Was that intended to be an insult? She felt the urge to defend the earl and snapped, “My mother died very young.”
“Then he should have remarried,” de Meynard said, then added, “Though he must not now, of course. That would be a terrible mistake. No matter how much he misses his only daughter.” His unblinking eyes, as black and empty as those of the sharks Venn’s fishermen occasionally hauled out upon the docks, coldly drove the point home.
“Of course,” Eloise muttered. She could feel hot anger rising in her breast, but she didn’t want him to see it. “I will make sure he knows that.”
He nodded, and a half-smile crooked his lips. “You are a dutiful daughter, my lady. May you make as excellent a wife and queen.”
* * * * *
By the time they sailed the seas were choppy and running swift under a north-west wind and a gray sky, and the Kingsholme captain was arguing with local men as to the wisdom of putting out into open water. Half a day later the storm-front hit them, driving them south into gathering darkness.
* * * * *
Eloise was clinging to the pillar that ran through the center of her cabin, wondering if she was going to be sick again before she drowned, when the wood shuddered against her and a great grinding squeal ran through the timbers of the ship. The boards that had been heaving beneath her feet went still, and just for a moment it was a relief, until the significance struck her storm-addled mind.
They had run aground.
Moreover, the pillar was the foot of the foremast. Even though the sails had been reefed, there was a good chance now that it would be toppled by the wind. Quickly she turned to the womenservants huddled miserably in the angle of the narrow room.
“Get up on deck,” she gulped. “It’s not safe down here.”
The ship shuddered again.
“Get up!” she shouted, regaining her voice. She swayed across the room and began to pull at their wedged bodies. Just then the cabin door flew open and Severin de Meynard fell through. There was a brandy barrel under his arm.
“We’re on rocks.” His voice was forceful but cold. “Get upstairs.”
Eloise cast one look at him and then went back to pulling at the women who’d served her all her life, and now seemed incapable of anything. She didn’t realize he’d closed on her until his hand gripped her arm hard enough to make her cry out in pain.
“Out.”
He pulled her. He wasn’t a particularly bulky man but he was strong; she fell in his direction. At the same time two of her women grabbed at her skirts. De Meynard adjusted his grip and aimed a solid kick at the woman who’d nursed her through infancy and fever and nightmares. Old Edith squealed in pain and let go. Eloise shrieked in anger, but de Meynard bundled her by main force through the cabin door into the hatchway.
“Get upstairs!” he roared as saltwater spray crashed around them. His fist knotted in her clothes and he thrust her up two steps of the wooden ladder. She scrambled the rest of the way and onto the deck and into a vision of hell. The ship wasn’t kicking and plunging beneath them anymore, but it was listing badly. In the dark, little was visible but the white surge of breakers bounding over the gunwales. Rain lashed down from above. Men blundered past in every direction. Loose canvas and the ends of unsecured ropes whipped about. And over everything, even the crash of the waves and the roar of the wind in the masts, came the great horrible groan of a ship having its belly torn open.
“We’re holed!” a man shouted, his voice faint in the tumult.
De Meynard, staggering onto the deck behind Eloise, pushed her into the lee of a bulkhead. She clung to the wet and slippery wood. She didn’t understand what he was up to, why he’d uncorked the small barrel and was tipping the contents out onto their feet—the smell of brandy briefly pungent before being whipped away in the storm—why he’d re-corked the barrel and thrust it into her arms and was sawing at a length of stray rigging with his knife—not until he started lashing the barrel to her with turn after turn of the rope. It bit into her flesh.
“We’re going down?”
He tied off without answering and pulled her to the side of the vessel. The deck was listing so much, and the boards so slippery, that it was hard to keep their feet. He wrapped his arm round her and pulled her up onto the boarding step, clinging to anything that would grant support. “Look!” he shouted in her ear. “Dark water!”
She looked down. Most of the sea’s surface was running white with foam, but there was a black patch that heaved like an evil heart. “Yes!” she shouted back.
“That’s deep water, not rocks. You understand?”
She couldn’t reply this time, a blast of salt spray had taken her breath away. She nodded wildly.
“Then jump!”
“Jump?” she shrieked.
He picked her up bodily, braced one foot on the side of the ship, then cast her forward as he leapt outward.
* * * * *
Severin woke face-down with his muscles aching and his mouth full of sand. He spat, tried to sit up, slumped back on his face with a groan, and lay there quietly while he recovered his strength and focused his eyes. He felt so weak he wasn’t sure he would be able to stand ever again.
There was a flap and a gull with yellow feet like heraldic shields plopped down onto the sand near his head. For a moment Severin was only distantly curious. It was a big bird with a gray back and a pale yellow beak. He rather admired it. The creature was alive, and dry, and had a fine breast of warm feathers. Even when it started strutting back and forth toward him he didn’t react. Then the thought washed over him like a cold wave, They go for the eyes first.
He heaved onto his hands with a noise more like a groan than a roar, but the gull took sufficient fright and hurried away. Once partly upright he could collect his breath and his wits and look around him properly.
It was dawn, very shortly before sunrise by the looks of things. The sea lay calm, the sky was a pearly white, and the sand between the rocks of the shoreline was as smooth as the face of a blade—except where it was broken by dark and tumbled jetsam. Gulls were patrolling the beach warily. He
looked both ways along the foreshore but there was no sign of any habitation, just coarse grasses rising to scrub and low hills.
It took him a long time to get to his feet. He was wet through, shivering with chill and parched by salt. But he was intact and, except for bruising, uninjured. His boots were still laced to his feet, though his sword-belt was missing and he had a confused memory of pulling at the belt to loosen it as he fell through black water. Even the memory was enough to bring a rush of bile to his throat, and he spat salt water. He wished he could lie back down in the sand and sleep, and not have to face the task ahead of him. But he stayed on his feet.
He had to find the King’s betrothed. That was his purpose here.
There was no sign of any ship out to sea, though loose spars floated black against the gray water. A second study of the tide line revealed the wreckage to be more spars and barrels and a broken crate. And there—down at the waterline—the first obvious body.
In the end he walked that way along the beach because he had to start with one of the bodies. This first corpse was that of a sailor very much broken by the rocks, and the gulls were already busy at him. Severin shooed them off, then took the man’s belt, which had a knife still strapped to it. It was good working knife with a heavy single-edged blade that lay horizontally across the small of the back when sheathed, in sailor’s style, so as not to catch on ladder rungs.
The second man, who wore a leather jerkin that Severin took to keep the wind from his wet skin, groaned and twitched when rolled over. Severin slipped the new knife into his throat and sliced open his jugular with a turn of his wrist. That was one less man to talk about where they had been headed and with what passengers, to anyone who came to question survivors. And somebody would come, most assuredly.
He wiped the blade clean on the man’s shirt, grimly.
His progress down the long shoreline was punctuated by very few such necessities. Most of the bodies were beyond either use or slaughter. He began to despair of finding the Vennish woman. Her damn dress, he told himself, he should have taken the time to get her out of it. It had been of heavy brocade with gilt thread and pearls sewn about the cuffs; she’d probably sunk like a stone.
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