by T. Massey
Ben realized now why his father had explained his mother's story to him, "Did you know that my mother was poor?"
Florence shook her head, "No, but that doesn't really change anything. I'm not from an upper class family, my blood lines aren't pure. I'm from a farm town, I'm from a working class of people."
"My mother was a thief. She was from an orphanage, and my father caught her trying to steal from him. They were married for twenty five years before she died from her horse throwing her. I saw the love they shared, and not a day goes by that my father doesn't miss her. That's the kind of love I want to share with my wife. Blood lines don't matter to me, your history doesn't matter to me. I know what kind of person you are. You're good, and kind and honest." Benjamin told her and took a step towards her.
"No, I haven't been honest with you. I've kept something from you," Florence told him, feeling guilty that he had her on this pedestal in his mind, not realizing that she'd kept something very important from him.
"What is that?" Benjamin asked her, stopping, giving her a chance to speak.
"I'm pregnant," She told him and looked away, feeling worried that she told him the truth.
"Is it mine?" He asked her, his face paling.
Florence was tempted to say no, to see if he'd still want her, but she didn't' want to directly lie to him, "Would it matter if it wasn't?"
"No, I would love you and the baby regardless. I told you, I want you, if that includes a baby, I want the baby too." Benjamin told her honestly, realizing that he meant every word.
"It's yours. I just didn't want you to be trapped or feel obligated." Florence told him.
"Florence, when are you going to understand that you can't protect everyone else? You deserve to be happy too, don't be afraid to be with me because you don't want to get hurt," Benjamin bridged the gap between them and pulled her into his arms.
"I'm not worried about me, it's you I'm worried about," She admitted.
Benjamin dipped his head and kissed her until she melted in his arms and kissed him back. "Let me worry about me. Just say yes to marrying me, this baby deserves an intact family, and I won't let you say no."
Florence tilted her head to look at him, and realized that everything that had felt wrong with Roscoe, felt right with Ben, and she couldn't say no to him without breaking her own heart.
She may be a poor country girl, but she wasn't stupid.
"Okay Ben, I'll marry you." She told him and rested her head on his jacket, right before the smell of cigars sent her gagging into her bucket again.
Ben looked down at his jacket and then took it off. "Okay, I'll avoid smoke while you're pregnant."
Florence looked up at him from where she was hugging the bucket and looked grateful, "Thank you."
"Don't thank me Florence. That's what you're supposed to do for the woman you love. You make compromises." Ben told her, "And when you feel better, I'm taking you home with me. My family is expecting you."
"You told them?" She asked him and shut her eyes, waiting for sickness to pass.
"Yes, Victoria is very excited, and my father is the one who told me not to take no for an answer." He grinned at her. "But, we won't go until you're stomach's doing a little better."
"Okay, thanks. I need to tell Kath," Flo told him, thinking for a moment how her life would change.
"If you need a job, there's plenty of things you can do," Ben said, reading her face and assuming that she was worried about her job.
"No, I'll just miss Kath. I like her. I'm feeling better now, just let me grab another piece of ginger and I think I can travel then." Flo told him, setting the bucket down and swishing some water around in her mouth before picking up another piece of ginger to chew on.
"Good, this will be the start of the rest of our lives together Flo, I won't let you down." He promised her and squeezed her hand.
"I believe you," Flo told him and she really did.
VAMPIRE ROMANCE
The King's Wonderful Bride
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1 – The Embrace of Darkness
Chapter 2- A Force of Will
Chapter 3- The King at Last
© Copyright 2015 by Lorie Gilbert - All rights reserved.
No parts of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including emailing, photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.
Disclaimer
While all attempts have been made to verify the information provided in this publication, neither the author nor the publisher assumes any responsibility for errors, omissions, or contrary interpretations of the subject matter herein.
This book is entertainment purposes only. The views expressed are those of the author alone, and should not be taken as experts instruction or commands. The reader is responsible for his or her own actions.
Adherence to all applicable laws and regulations, including international, federal, state and local governing professional licensing, business practices, advertising, and all other aspects of doing business in the US, Canada, or any other jurisdiction is the sole responsibility of the purchaser or reader.
Neither the author nor the publisher assumes any responsibility or liability whatsoever on the behalf of the purchaser or reader of these materials.
Any perceived slight of any individual or organization is purely unintentional.
Warning disclaimer: This eBook contains some explicit sex scene and adult language. This eBook is for sale to adults only. Please ensure it cannot be accessed by under aged readers.
This book is a fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
Introduction
Chantal Moreau is a simple peasant girl residing in a small town in 18th century France. She is reeling from her lost love Edmond and trying to find her own path in this world. Her loving family has no reservations about her getting married off soon to a wonderful suitor but Chantal is not so sure. After her heart has been broken by her dear Edmond, she is wondering if she will ever love again. She is a beautiful girl who has her pick of several suitors, but she knows that deep down she will only be happy with a man of exceptional worth and status.
But there are more pressing concerns to deal with for her family and the townspeople as of late. In the past month there have been several murders. All Young women all being drained of blood with a single gash to the neck. The police feel a wild animal is on the loose and have issued a curfew for the towns people. No one is allowed out after dark.
So when Chantel falls asleep in a meadow on her way back from a nearby farm with eggs and milk, she awakens to a retreating sun and a terror that lurks in the dark.
This terror is insatiable and it is on the loose tonight. But Chantal is about to find out the truth about this terror.. It is dark, it is dangerous, and it is what she may be looking for..
Cause sometimes the darkest side of the world is also the sexiest and most passionate…
Chantal is about to learn that lesson the hard way..
And hard is the way she likes it..
Chapter 1 – The Embrace of Darkness
Paris, France
1745
Chantal Moreau awoke from a deep sleep with no memory of falling under the spell of slumber or the desire to even close her eyes even a distant concept in her mind. Yet, somehow she found herself lying on the hillside staring up at the final streaks of a beautiful sunset moving slowly across the sky. For a moment she was in awe of the magical canvas that Mother Nature was bringing to life before her eyes, as if applying the perfect shapes and colors to the final touches of a masterpiece of art. But as she stared at this beauty she was reminded by a startling thought: Darkness was fast approaching and she was still f
ar from home.
She had walked through the woods to the local farm earlier to fetch some groceries for her mother, but had somehow sat down to rest and allowed sleep to overtake her. When she had sat down the sunset was still at least two hours away, but now it would be completely dark within minutes.
Chantal quickly picked up her basket of groceries and began to run down the hill towards the woods. She would never make it before dark but she was overcome by a burning desire to get home. Her body was being flooded by adrenalin and she was surprised to see how fast her legs were moving. She hadn’t run this fast since she was a kid, but she hadn’t been this scared since then either.
Chantal was not afraid of the dark. She was afraid of what might be in the dark lurking for her. And she had good reason to be. In the past month there had been six unsolved murders. Six young women all about her age of 20. Their throats had been ripped open and their bodies completely drained of blood. The local Constable figured there had to be a wild animal on the loose. The Constable had led several of the local town’s men on a search party for this mysterious creature, but nothing had been found and the bodies kept turning up.
The Constable had enacted a curfew for everyone to be inside their homes after dark. Since the curfew the attacks had stopped for about a week. Until two days ago. The body of Celia Shepherd had been found just on the outskirts of town. Her body had been drained of blood like the others, but she had been found before any critters had gotten to her. Her body was fresh and the only wound found was the gash on the neck. It was very bizarre that a wild animal would be so clean and meticulous about the method of kill.
The Constable didn’t dare mention the thought that was going through most of the townspeople’s minds-the murderer might be a man. This sort of thought would drive most of the town to panic, so the Constable tried to put a stop to any of these rumors as fast as he could. But Chantal knew that such a man could exist. It was not beyond comprehension that the one they were looking for could be right amongst them. It was the thought that had kept her awake most nights since then and was most likely to blame for her excessive sleepiness that brought her to this predicament.
She was now entering the woods. The branches of the trees cutting the small amount of sunlight still sheening in the sky into tiny little slithers of light. She followed these branches of light on the ground with every step that pounded the ground jarring the basket she was carrying like a ship on the ocean in a big storm. She held onto the basket as tightly as she could, but if she lost some eggs she would be ok with that. Right now all she could focus on was getting out of these woods. At the pace she was running the edge of town would be visible within five minutes. She just had to keep up the pace.
Her legs were getting tired and her lungs were burning with the enforced gasps of air that her body demanded to fuel this grueling feat of endurance that she was not prepared for. She tried to pump her arms harder but the pain in her shoulders resisted the workload. The pain reverberated through her shoulder blades into her back with a rhythmic sharpness that was very steady but more painful with each thrust forward. The bag was getting to be twice as heavy as when she first started running. But her fear would not let her ease up for one second. She had to keep running.
She knew her family would be worried about her and she knew her father might even whip her for causing them concern. She was 18 years old but that didn’t matter to her father. He believed that until a young lady had a husband to reprimand her she would be punished by her father. She wondered if there was a world where she would not be parented by anybody, but she didn’t see this happening anytime soon.
Her steps were becoming harder and harder to see as the last bit of light eased itself out of the sky and over the horizon. She could not make out the tree branches that slapped her hard in the face and were tearing small gashes in her arms, but she preserved anyway. She continued to push herself. Her body was essentially out of energy, but somehow she was able to push on. She actually felt like she was moving faster, as if she had passed a hurdle of pain and now her body was in a state of perpetual motion that she had very little control over. Her legs were operating independently of her own will and that was just fine with her. It was as if her mind and body separated for this time being and her mind was able to take a quick rest while her body continued to work on its own. Years later scientists, would label this an endorphin rush or “runner’s high”. For Chantal, she just felt scared shitless.
Then she was being struck hard in the face.
Chapter 2- A Force of Will
She immediately thought she had run into the trunk of a tree, but then she realized that the tree had grass on it. She also became immediately aware that she was no longer moving and her basket was apart from her hand. Something had tripped her and she was on the ground. For a second the thought that she had been attacked flashed within her mind. She started to jolt to her feet but her foot was caught on something that dragged her swiftly back to the ground. Blades of weeds and fallen branches poked against her skin as she began to writhe on the ground.
Something had her! She screamed and kicked at the vile thing that was wrapped around her ankle. It had her gripped tightly and was not letting go an inch. Chantal squealed and kicked as hard as she could several times. Her arms reached for the closest tree trunk trying to gain some leverage to pull herself away from her attacker.
Then she was free. Her leg slipped free just as quickly as it had been entrapped and she leapt to her feet. Her heart was pounding in her temples amplifying a thousand times in her brains. She could hear nothing and she could barely make out the shape of the weeds that had entangled her foot. She let out a huge breath and wiped the beads of sweat from her forehead. She wanted to laugh at herself but the fear was still preventing her from allowing even a chuckle to escape her lips amidst the heavy panting she was currently occupied with.
She quickly grabbed up her basket and began to run. It was then she noticed the pain in her ankle as her leg gave out and she began falling towards the ground once again. She dropped the basket and thrust her arms out to steady herself against a tree. But her ankle began to scream out at her in pain. She had twisted it when she fell. This had occurred once before on the same ankle when she was a kid and she remembered this was why she didn’t run so much anymore.
The fear became more intense as total darkness now engulfed her. The last remaining shards of exquisite sunlight had evaporated from the France sky. She was alone in a world of darkness with an injured ankle. And she was still far from home. She tried to steady her breath that forced itself in and out of her body in rapid fire gasps of panic and mind numbing fear. If the creature (or man) were out here, she was a goner. She would be dead instantly and probably never even get a good look at what attacked her. This was the single thought that kept her adrenaline flowing through her body enough to shrug off the pain and keep moving forward, painful step after painful step.
She was now aware of just how much louder every single sound of the night was now that there was no light to justify its purpose. The mind automatically amplified every falling leaf, or hooting owl, or broken twig beneath her wounded feet. She tried to quiet those panicky breaths, but to no avail. The entire world at that moment seemed a symphony of terror that under normal conditions she would have found beautiful, and possibly romantic. If she had the right guy.
She thought about Edmond. The boy she had been courting just this summer. He was a handsome young man from a good standing family. His father was the town doctor and it was deemed likely that Edmond would follow in his footsteps. Chantal knew the romance would never last. It was just a fleeting summer fling, but a part of her had hoped that beautiful, sweet Edmond would have been the one. She had other boyfriends in her life before Edmond.
They ranged from experimental kissing and fondlings when she was fourteen, to her first sexual encounter at sixteen( which had made her sore for days) to her passionate affair with the shoemaker’s son-that was her first attempt
at oral and with practice she had gotten so good that he would climax within five minutes. She didn’t enjoy the taste, but she enjoyed the power that she was discovering was in her grasp over men. It was an intoxicating feeling knowing that she could make men do whatever she wanted. But not Edmond. He was so focused on his career and his ambitions that she felt she could not pin him down. Maybe that was why she missed him so and had wanted him forever.
Edmond was the first to do everything with her. Edmond’s sexual appetite was voracious and he would not be denied entry into her mouth, her vagina, or her anus. And she had loved them all.
Then Edmond had left to the University this fall, as she knew he would. He was going to follow in his father’s footsteps and be a doctor. He would not be attached to some poor Seamstress in a small town. He was destined for better things and he was on his way to achieve them.
Chantal often wondered if Edmond would return to their town after he graduated from Medical school, or if he would be good enough to be offered a job in the big city. There he would no doubt fall in love with a noble girl from a noble family and Edmond’s political aspirations would be nurtured. She longed to be that girl that he would come home to at night. She longed to be his wife and mother to his children, but often she cried herself to sleep at night knowing this day would not happen. She would have to settle for some commoner like her father. She hated to think of this and hated herself more for thinking of her father as a commoner.
This made her feel like a commoner herself and also made her ashamed for thinking ill of her loving father. He did not have financial means to spoil her with, but there was no child in all of France who was more spoiled with love than Chantal.
