Page 98 of The Captive
Strong and bracing, like the man giving her such a broody perusal.
“He was doting at first,” she said, without intending to say anything, “or as doting as a pompous old man can be. I did not know what to expect on my wedding night, except for my mother’s admonition that if I submitted quietly, it would be over quickly, and it would hurt only the first time.”
He clearly didn’t like what he heard; neither did he interrupt her.
“It hurt rather a lot, and I cried and begged him to stop. He slapped me for it. Repeatedly.” She paused and took a sip of her tea, wanting to recite rather than remember. “I did not at first comprehend what he was about.”
“Your pain and humiliation aroused him.”
Six words, but they were so astonishingly accurate Gilly left off staring at her tea.
“Yes. I did not understand on my wedding night, and not for a long while thereafter, but he couldn’t…he couldn’t finish, and when I cried, and he could become violent, it allowed him to achieve…to reach…”
“To spend.”
“Yes, to spend inside my body, or in his own hand. If that happened, he’d beat me for it, say I caused him to waste his seed.”
“And you put up with this for eight years?”
“The last few years he wasn’t as apt to try,” she said. “I think the ignominy of not being able to perform even when he raised his hand to me overcame the pleasure he took from the beatings. And he was never…he wasn’t like you.”
Dark brows drew down fiercely. “In what regard?”
“He wasn’t…firm. He was soft, until he started whacking at me, and then he’d grow a little firmer, but not like you.” She took another sip of tea and dared glance at Christian again. “I never inspected him closely, if that’s what you’re wondering. I have no idea what his male parts looked like. I didn’t want to know.”
And yet, she was glad to know what Christian looked like, felt like, tasted like, smelled like.
“Bloody hell.” He scrubbed a hand over his face and turned a scowling regard on her. His hair was in disarray around his shoulders, his face dark with an inchoate beard, and she could not guess at his reaction. “Didn’t the servants hear you? He must have taken a riding crop to you.”
“A driving whip, usually, a riding crop sometimes. Greendale chose his moments for the servants’ half days, and the late nights when all were abed. He’d accost me at other times and ask me to speak to him privately.”
“He’d wake you up from a deep sleep when it pleased him to?”
She nodded, once. How could Christian know that?
“And he’d turn up sweet at odd times too,” Christian said, his grip on his teacup appearing perilously tight. “And you’d begin to hope, to think maybe the horror was behind you and things could be different.”
“Only for the first year or so.”
“Eight years.” He made the scrubbing motion with his hand again, as if something were getting in his eyes. Then his head came up, and he regarded her with a piercing, blue-eyed stare. “And the servants never heard you, not once?”
“They did not,” she said, finding her tea was finished. She set the cup on its saucer. “But they guessed. I could hardly move some days for the way he hurt me. He was full of casual tricks too. He’d accidentally step on my slipper when in his riding boots, then apologize for an old man’s clumsiness. He’d kiss my hand and beg my forgiveness.”
“I am going to be sick.” Christian glanced around the chamber, as if genuinely searching out the chamber pot; then his eyes came back to her. “Your hand, the little finger. Did he do that to you?”
“My hand?” She brought her left hand up, with the slightly crooked little finger. “I was playing my flute, and he took exception to the noise. Usually, he was careful not to risk injury where an evening gown might reveal it, but he took my hand and held it to the hearthstones, then started beating at it with his cane. He was particularly angry that time, and I wasn’t fast enough.”
“The tea? You didn’t spill it on yourself, did you?”
“He spilled it on me, and again apologized very prettily while the footmen looked on.”
Christian grew silent, his hand propped on his chin, and Gillian felt something inside her going cold with dread. And then when he did speak, his voice was very hard. “You blame yourself for what befell you.”
“Of course not.” She lifted the teacup to her lips, only to recall it was empty. “Of course I didn’t blame myself. I am not an imbecile.”
“You were seventeen, and your parents were powerless to help you, so they ignored what they’d done to you for the sake of gaining a title to boast of. By sacrificing you, they kept the familial coffers sufficiently lined that your cousin could snabble a tiara. Fromme. You were the only one who could have stopped your wedding to Greendale, and you didn’t.”
He spoke quietly, the same voice she’d heard from him when he was newly back from France, unable to take much sustenance and jumping at any loud noise.
