The Heir - Catherine Coulter [54]
Arabella still didn’t move. She only stared at him, not really seeing him, not wanting to see him, for that would burn into her soul what he had done. He believed her capable of such deceit. It made no sense to her, but he believed it. It had made him cruel, brutal.
He said to her with empty bitterness, “Don’t look at me like that. It isn’t any of my doing. I merely did what I had to do to secure my inheritance. I did not rape you. I used cream.” He plowed his fingers through his hair, standing it on end. “Damnation, so I was wrong about your virginity. That came as a big surprise. How very nobel of the damned comte to leave you intact for your wedding night, to grant me the honor of deflowering you. Did you convince him to leave you intact? Did you tell him that I wasn’t that big a fool? Or perhaps he was the one who didn’t want me to guess that I wasn’t your first man? He was afraid I’d kill him outright?”
His gray eyes narrowed. His voice continued bleak. “I want to kill the little bastard. I am thinking hard about what I shall to do him. Of course, there are certainly other ways. You have fooled me yet again, but now I understand. There are so many other ways, are there not? Did he sodomize you? Yes, very probably. And, of course you pleased him with your lovely mouth. A man—a Frenchman in particular—enjoys that as much as coming inside a woman.”
What was he talking about? What did sodomize mean? What did he mean about her mouth? She was shaking her head. Words still seemed beyond her. She felt so very cold, so very empty.
He laughed. A raw laugh that turned back on himself. “Well, now that your husband has claimed your maidenhead, you can take your lover in more conventional ways. My thanks, dear Arabella, for this mockery of a marriage.”
She felt his deadly fury, winced at his damning words. Yet, they were meaningless sounds to her. How could he believe that she had a lover? She’d made her decision to wed him; with that decision, she’d given herself to him, only him. This made no sense. Nothing made sense, nothing except the pulling soreness inside her body. She felt curiously numb, blessedly detached from the pitiful woman who lay there, naked, legs sprawled, listening to this man who hated her.
Her silence was a confession of guilt to him. Infuriated he grabbed up his dressing gown, flung it on. “That you betrayed me makes me want to kill both you and him. But I can’t kill you, can I? If I did, I would lose everything. You have made me pay dearly for my inheritance, an inheritance that you wanted for yourself. I only ask, dear wife, that in future you conduct your affairs with more discretion. I filled you with my seed this time. I will not do it in the future. You will have no child by me. If you do become pregnant, I will not claim the child. I will announce to the world that you carry another man’s babe—a Frenchman’s wretched get—that you are filled with another man’s seed. Believe me on this.”
He turned on his heel, and without looking back, strode into the small adjoining dressing room and very quietly closed the door behind him.
The gilt-edged ormolu clock on the mantelpiece ticked away its minutes with time-honored accuracy. The orange embers in the fireplace crackled and hissed in their final death glow, eventually succumbing to the invading chill of the room. The hideous grinning skeleton, mouth agape, eternally suspended on The Dance of Death panel, silently taunted the motionless figure on the bed.
Lady Ann broke her habit and took Mrs. Tucker quite by surprise by appearing at the inordinately early hour of eight o’clock at the breakfast parlor door. It was really rather a foolish thing to do, for in all likelihood the newlywedded couple would not emerge for hours. Yet Lady Ann had awakened with a vague sense that something was not quite right, and in spite of the comforting warmth that tempted her to snuggle down in her bed, she had swung her feet to the