The horror culminated in a spike of pain.
She was horrifyingly aware that the guards, Shaz, the reverend, and David could hear even if they could not see. “Rusty!”
“Sophia Rosalind…” The rapid, piercing blows did not relent. “You have finally… pushed me… far too far.”
She continued to shout less-than-quiet protests.
She lay pinned beneath his rapid blows and hated him.
And yet alarming spasms like pleasure shot throughout her, feelings such as she had never felt. She had felt them sparked in David’s presence, but never experienced them in any kind of fullness.
Her best friend was spanking her. The shock drowned out even the shame.
And in her breaking heart’s eye she envisioned David doing something like this to her. And… why was it the most chilling, thrilling thing she had ever imagined?
His hand stopped its assault on her vulnerable bottom as abruptly as it had begun.
The shrieking at him and the pounding of his hand halted, and the only sound was a mutual heavy breathing, distraught on her part, only half-spent infuriation on his.
“Rusty,” she sobbed finally. “If you don’t let me go to him, I will never forgive you.”
Slowly, his grip loosened. He released her.
She scrambled to her feet like a deer released from a hunter’s snare.
“Sophia... what do you think you are agreeing to? Do you know what you are agreeing to?”
“Rusty. You can do… whatever you want to me… as many times as you want.” She breathed heavily. “But you can’t stop me.”
“Sophia…” He stood, and she cringed, thinking he might seize her again. But he only stared at her. “Sophie…”
He could form no words. He really did love her, she realized, his eyes aching to someway exert enough control over her to keep her out of harm’s way, somehow keep her at his side and out of David’s clutches.
“I know… I cannot truly… force you to stay.” He seemed to swallow bile, and perhaps some of his fury with it. But his clenched, trembling fists said that he more than ached to.
He said her name one last imploring time. “Sophia, if your mind is so thoroughly made up I know there’s no restraining you. So I am going to be sitting right outside of the door. And you are going to scream if you feel the least bit afraid. Can you abide by me in that one simple thing at least? Please?”
She numbly nodded.
“And if he touches you, I will kill him.”
She again nodded, though tears.
He gripped her hand, like he could grip her forever. “And you must know... before you go in there... that I...”
“I know,” she whispered. “And you know.”
There was unfathomable pain in his eyes. But he gave one slow, broken nod.
As she turned the corner her eyes instantaneously connected with David’s. Both Grave and Shaz were gripping him, and it looked as though it had been in a fierce restraint.
Their eyes spoke volumes, and nothing at all.
Chapter 9
She wanted to send for her favorite dress, for her perfume, for something pretty to wear in her hair, for her lacy underthings – but that would cause questions to arise at home. So, she stepped into the chamber wearing the warm grey dress she had worn all the day, and her coral sweater.
It was her favorite color, but not quite the attire she had imagined for this night.
There were windows, but only to the wide open out of doors, and curtains were drawn over them, only moonlight sifting through. Chairs and a sofa encircled a piney hearth. There was a bed tucked into one corner. The simple sight of it was enough to draw a burning heat to her cheeks.
He was stunning by firelight.
“Sophia—”
He was clean, and he had never been alone with her without bars between them. Straightaway, she swept towards him and dissolved into his grasp. The smell of him without the stench of prison was... warming. Overpowering.
The exhaustion and the horror of what had just befallen her at the hands of Rusty and the horror over everything in general seeped into her bones like an instant disease, and she crumbled in his arms. Sobs escaped before she could stop them.
“Dear beautiful girl,” he whispered, no chiding, only clutching her closer. “Sophia, straightaway, I want you to know that my intent is not to do anything to sully your name. We could request guards at the windows. Perhaps we should.”
“I trust you,” she whispered, choking on tears. “I know you wouldn’t ask anything of me I couldn’t give.” Even if she wanted him to.
There was a momentary pause.
His voice was gravelly as he said, “Don’t speak so soon.”
She gazed up into his gaze of blue.
He took her hand, and sat her upon the sofa of the small chamber, sitting beside her. “Beautiful girl…” He tugged at a few of her stray curls, and then restrained himself. “I’ve been thinking,” he cleared his throat, “I’ve been thinking things I perhaps should have thought of sooner, this being the end of my earthly travails.”
He would not look at her, and her heart, even without an inkling of what he was to say, was rampant.
“You see, Missy already receives a portion of my fortune, each month, more than she is willing even to take, and more than enough for her to live comfortably on. In all my traveling, I have amassed a decent enough fortune. Enough to where... let’s just say Missy will receive 40 grand in gold coins each year, for sixty years. And I find that cut too menial.”
Her mind scattered with numbers. That was well over two million gold coins over the course of her lifetime, wasn’t it? “You aren’t serious?” 40,000 coins was double her current salary. “A millionaire? I didn’t think you could be any more charming.”
He laughed, swallowed again, and lingered long over what he wished to say. “I never had reason to spend my bounties. It sort of just… amassed. Sophie, I’d like to leave the rest to you, and your family. Then you needn’t serve as an active knight, if you didn’t want. You could travel, or serve as a guard for the temple. You could do whatever you liked.”
“David!”
“It is too soon for my lawyer to get here, to take care of all the legal proceedings. The guard says the easiest... most direct way to secure my means... would be for us to marry.”
Great. White. Stag.
“I wouldn’t treat you as a wife tonight, Sophia, I swear it. It would be a tie of name and exchange of property only. I wouldn’t be taking anything…” he swallowed, “physical, in return. Only your company.”
“Why wouldn’t you?” she asked, before she could stop herself. “Consummate the marriage?”
Not on her first day of knighthood had she felt this queasy with delight and terror.
He stared, horrified. “What if I got you with child? And in all practicality – though I know that nothing about this is practical – you have only known me a day.”
“You don’t feel you know me well enough,” she realized.
“It’s not about me, Sophia. It’s simple civility, I can’t. I would like nothing more than to...” He faltered, and could not conclude. “But if life was about what I liked, I wouldn’t be dying on the morrow.”
He looked to the floor, at the cold recollection of that. “I couldn’t leave you to the possibility of a lonely motherhood.”
“Rusty would forcibly marry me and raise the child as his own. And I would carry your legacy. And you cringe at Rusty’s name, because you love me.”
“I do,” said he, simply, resolutely. “So I won’t.”
He drew her closer. “Oh Sophia… if they had not held me, I would have torn around that corner, and killed him.”
They held one another’s eyes.
And as ever, her wretched curiosity spat out words she would wish to take instantly back. “But did you at all envy him?”
She nearly cringed at her childish idiocy once the words were out.
But he uplifted he
r downcast chin. “I have never envied a man so much in my life. Oh, I would have you be willing – even if not entirely – ultimately I’d have you consenting, and trusting. But yes. I envied him. Working his hand across your little bottom – I have never been so envious.”
She swallowed. And dared to form more words she was terrified to say. “If this is to be the only night we are to spend, we should—”
“I would spend it in good conscience, able to kiss and cuddle you and speak my heart to you, and happy with that.”
Why was she prodding? He was so good. He was also, she gathered, the most resolute human being she had ever encountered. Fatherly in his ways, almost. Certainly an older brother sort of person, while she was certainly a youngest child.
“I’m sorry. I’m...” Her face heated with shame. She felt a sniveling brat.
“No. I know,” he whispered, taking her hand, the lone touch chilling her. “But I must think of the sort of world I will leave behind.” He leaned closer. “Don’t accept my offer out of pity for me. But… if you at all savored the privilege of getting to know one another as I have… I would like to leave you something.”
“I don’t want your money,” she whispered. “I want to give you one last night of happiness.” She, of course, could not dare hint again at what she wanted that to entail. “And if it will make you happy, I will marry you, David Gates.”
And that was all the response that he needed. He went to his box, which was sitting in the corner. From it he removed... his mother’s opal ring. He slid it onto her finger. “Sophia Rosalind, I wish I had chance to give you the sort of ring and proposal you deserve. But will you marry me?”
Her response was to step into his arms. “Yes. Right this minute. Yes.”
* * *
Shazrad was forced to physically restrain Rusty from breaking into the room, as they opened the door to allow the reverend entry, with Grave for a witness.
Rusty cursed loudly through the doors. “Sophia Rosalind if he touches you I will tear him apart! Sophia, what are you thinking?”
“If there is one thing I have learned about that lass, my lad,” she heard Shaz say coolly, “It’s that what she has in looks, she lacks in good sense. Heaven help you dissuade her.”
She somberly ignored them, and the door was shut, muffling Rusty’s curses and cries.
She, of course, had not envisioned a wedding with her best friend cursing and pleading desperately outside.
But then, she hadn’t envisioned her groom as a temporary love, and a condemned criminal. A stranger. A guard posted outside. A grey dress. A most unhappy reverend.
Still, she gripped his hand as any bride anywhere might cling to her groom, held onto him like holding onto hope and home.
The reverend was, of course, less than delighted. “This is unheard of,” he muttered, as he flipped through his book of occasions and ceremonies.
“David Butcher-Lad Gates, whatever you go by. Do you take Sophia, the-obviously-insane, to be your lawfully wedded wife? To have and to hold from now until you die in the morning?”
Sophia glared at him.
But David only said, “I do.”
“Sophia Rosalind the-obviously-sickly-deluded, do you take David, ahem, Butcher-lad, to be your lawfully wedded husband? To ravage you ‘til he dies on the morrow?”
“I do,” she hissed in defiance.
“Then I pronounce you husband and wife. Congratulations. Rice. Confetti. All that.” He muttered, “Unheard of!” once more, before thrusting the marriage certificate at them for both to sign.
And then they were alone.
She could not quite look at him, now that they were husband and wife. And they’d never kissed.
She turned slowly towards him, and instantly his arms were around her. “What of your horseback ride?” she whispered.
He laughed softly into her hair. “This is an infinity better.” He tucked his finger beneath her chin, and lifted her face to his. He kissed her.
She had never dreamed her first kiss would be so world-shattering as this.
Painful and beautiful.
Chapter 10
How to pack a lifetime into a night?
They lay close. He was trying, direly hard, to fight off exhaustion. She had a feeling that exhaustion steeped from a well-stifled last-night terror.
“I can’t sleep,” he whispered, smothering his face in the pillow. “I simply can’t. Do something to keep me awake.”
“We could...”
“NO.”
“We could... only do a little.”
He released a bitter noise like a laugh. “No, Sophia. I don’t know that I would stop.”
He did desire her.
She had needed to know that. She didn’t know quite why, but she had needed to. Oh, she had to admire his resolution. His... strength. She saw increasingly through the night that it took strength, perhaps strength she couldn’t imagine. He would be staring into her eyes, and then stare briskly away, at the hearth, at the drapery, at anything but her.
“You could sleep for a moment,” she whispered. “Just enough to get you through the night. A few minutes. And then I will wake you.”
“I don’t want to miss a minute.” He tucked one hand beneath her cheek.
She kissed his cheek.
And he whispered, “You wouldn’t know how exhausting waiting for eternal sleep is.”
“Don’t speak like that,” she hissed through tears. “Sleep for a moment. Enough to enjoy the rest of the night.”
But a moment should give her sufficient time to make her escape.
She couldn’t imagine leaving him. Wasting one precious moment. But... if there was even a chance...
He nearly ruined her plans for escape by kissing her again, and thereby instantly overwhelming her with the desire to stay beside him.
“No. I won’t be sleeping tonight.”
She stood abruptly. His eyes followed her as she stormed across the room and stared into the fire, arms folded. Her mind flurried a mile a minute, but he watched her only with calm curiosity. Unsuspecting.
“You don’t want me,” she said suddenly, though in her mind, the fear had been discounted. He did not need to know that.
“Of course I do, Sophia. I have already told you why I can’t.”
“Yes. You’re afraid you’ll impregnate me. Haven’t you ever heard of—”
“Stop it,” he snapped, firmly, before she could let any vivid sort of suggestion slip past her lips.
But she persisted. “It is your last night on earth, David Gates, if you haven’t been told. And it is the only night I will ever get to spend with you as my husband. And as for preventing a child, if I even were to end up with child—”
“Don’t prey upon that Sophia. I am very well aware my time is running out.” He took one shuddery breath, as though to rein in a sudden seizure like panic. “But it’s not just the possibility of a child. It’s the principle. This is my last night on earth. Do I want to spend it selfishly desecrating a noble, beautiful woman, with no thought to her heart, and her tender flesh, and her future? Do I want to spend it deflowering a virgin? Is that what I want to do just before I face judgment?”
He swallowed hard, and she saw the true terror behind the words. “Standing on the threshold of eternity puts things in a very, very different light, Sophia.”
She folded her arms in a pout, and turned away.
“But I am fixing up to warm you another way,” he muttered.
A chill of fear tore through her, but she kept her arms stoically folded. “So you wouldn’t spend your last night deflowering a virgin. But pounding on her would be fine?”
He laughed a wry laugh at her, and for but a moment, stopped looking at her. He stared up at the ceiling. “I’ve wanted to spank you from about the moment I met you and that hasty tongue. Wanted to hold you too. Doesn’t mean I am going to do either.”
“I’m not a child, you know.”
“No. But you’re not a wom
an either. You are an innocent young woman whom I won’t force to grow up all in a night. I do think we are having our very first marital spat, Mrs. Gates.” He smirked that charming wry smirk at her, and her stomach plummeted.
Oh, she adored him.
“Then you ought not to have married me, Mr. Gates. I didn’t do it for your fortune. Your fortune will be a burning reminder to me, all the rest of my life, that you were in it. You think I’d ever be able to spend a coin apart from thinking about you? I don’t want your money. I want you.”
He came to her side. “And that makes you a rare, wonderful woman, Sophia Rosalind. Chasing your passions over a pocketbook.” He kissed her head gently. “Lady Knight…”
She shrugged away. It pained her to do it. But she needed him to sleep. So she needed to exhaust him, one way or another. Already she was exhausting him emotionally, she could tell.
He sighed, “Sophia, please, don’t make this difficult for me. It is my last night.”
“That is what I have been trying to tell you.”
His eyes were pained. “Sophia this is childish to the infinite.”
Forcing the words past was like forcing up bile, but she kept fiercely on. “You’re treating me like a child, so I don’t see how else you’d expect me to behave.”
“Do you want me to spank you?”
The words came out a hoarse rasp. “More than anything?”
And their eyes connected in a glint that was pained but also… in some way… knowingly playful.
He extended a hand for her, making it evident. If this was to happen, it was to be her mutual choice.
She willingly gave hers.
He squeezed her hand in a brief, tight clutch, to give courage, and then drew her to the bed. Sitting there, he patted his lap. No forceful tugging like Rusty.
It was, again, to be her choice.
She lingered for a moment, partly reviled by, partly reveling in, the delightful thrill that was tumbling in the core of her. Thrilling and chilling her down there.
It was like life manifest in a moment. Pain and pleasure all at once. It was bitter. It was delightful.
She placed herself trustingly across his lap.
The Lady Knight And The Dungeon (Blushing Books 12 Days of Christmas 10) Page 6
