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By Root 1202 0

Hall. She was sulking, enjoying a truly royal snit, he knew, and it made him smile. He’d informed her in no uncertain terms that they had to return to her father’s home, that he had to make things right again. She’d pleaded and begged; she hated her guilt and didn’t want her nose rubbed in it. She’d even cried on his shoulder, immensely beautiful crocodile tears, he’d observed aloud to his new wife, who had then promptly flown into a passion. He’d laughed. Outraged, Melissande had thrown one of her hairbrushes at him but he’d simply thrown it back at her. She was so stunned at his retaliation, she was dumbstruck. He left the room, telling her to be downstairs in ten minutes. Another hairbrush had struck the closing door. She’d come down in eleven minutes and he’d looked at his watch and frowned at her. He said nothing. She had obeyed him. She would accustom herself, in time, to obeying him without scenes and tantrums and without using any extra minutes.

They rode in a private carriage Tony had rented from a stable in Harrogate to take them to Gretna Green. This was the second day of his marriage and in an hour he would have to face his new papa-in-law, who would doubtless want to strangle him. But he had to return. It was the right thing to do. There was no choice. Besides he’d written to the duke that he would return to discuss the marriage settlement and to make amends as best he could.

He smiled at his bride’s altogether lovely profile and didn’t question that he wanted her very much, right this instant. He had but to touch her hand and he wanted her. He had but to hear her voice from another room and he wanted her. He had but to see her flushed with anger and yelling at him and he wanted her. Having her so close to him was more than he could bear.

He turned and said, “Take off your pelisse.”

Melissande was in the throes of guilt, embarrassment, fury with her new husband for treating her with no consideration at all—he’d actually thrown the hairbrush back at her! “What did you say?”

“I said to take off your pelisse.”

“I’m not at all too warm.”

“Good.”

She frowned at him, then unbuttoned the pelisse. He helped her remove it, tossing it to the other seat. He lightly touched his fingertips to her chin, caressing her, holding her head steady. He kissed her, lightly, not parting his own lips on hers.

“Tony!”

“Hush. Now, dear one, remove your bonnet. I can’t kiss you properly with that nonsense on your head. Also it flattens your beautiful hair. Black as the most sinful night, your hair. I want to feel it cascading through my fingers.”

Since his order also contained a very nice compliment, Melissande, mollified, removed her bonnet, tossing it atop her pelisse.

“Now,” Tony said. His long fingers began on the long line of buttons that marched up the front of her gown. She gasped and slapped at his hand. “We’re in a carriage, Tony! It is in the middle of the day! Goodness, you must stop, you can’t do that, you—”

He kissed her again, pulling her onto his lap. His right hand was beneath the hem of her gown, moving up her leg, higher and higher until he touched the bare soft flesh of her inner thighs. She was squirming on his lap, and he knew it was from embarrassment, not coyness. It didn’t matter. He wanted her and he fully intended to take her, right here, in the carriage, with her sitting on his lap, facing him, and he would come deep inside her. He nearly moaned aloud with the thought.

She continued to struggle and he said into her mouth, “You will be quiet now. You are my wife, Melissande, and you will learn, very soon now, that you will obey me. I want you and I intend to have you. I haven’t taken you since last night because you were a virgin and thus sore from that plowing. But you have had time to recover. I will go easily with you. I want to see your breasts, to fondle them, to taste them with my tongue. You will leave your gown on and I will come into you after you’ve lifted your skirts.”

She stared at him in disbelief, so adrift in uncharted seas that she could find nothing to say. The previous evening,