Chapter Five #2
He barked out a short laugh, shaking his head.
“You know what, on second thought, don’t answer that question.
It’s obvious that you think I’m very stupid.
No, I didn’t give you any fine clothing or jewelry, because you haven’t done what you promised, either.
Tit for tat, Remigius. Until our marriage is consummated, it’s not legally valid, and you aren’t entitled to a single gold crown of mine. ”
The contempt in his voice cut deep, lodging like a barb somewhere under my ribs.
How could I possibly be hurt by his opinion?
I didn’t know him. What I knew, I despised.
And yet. This man had married me believing me to be so morally bankrupt that I’d league myself with my father’s murderer, spread my legs for a man I meant to betray, and do it all for nothing more valuable than money.
And the urge to defend myself, to justify my actions, rose up so powerfully I nearly fainted from suppressing it.
“If this is how you speak to whoever it is you pay to share a bed with you, I’m not surprised your companions require payment in the first place,” I choked out. “I want to please you. I was frightened. I’ll—I promise next time I’ll please you!”
I panted to a stop, a handful of the cassock clutched in my sweaty, clenching fist. It’d be more than shabby by the time we arrived. It’d be damp and crumpled. Perhaps they’d believe my husband had been ravishing me in the carriage after all.
Lord Stefan’s lips parted, and he blinked at me. And blinked again, golden eyelashes sweeping up to reveal a shockingly open look in those dark eyes.
That expression struck me in the solar plexus and stole what little breath I had. The carriage gave a sudden jolt as the wheel under me hit a lump in the road, and in my momentary frozen distraction, I was flung against Lord Stefan with a startled yelp, my face mashed into his chest.
My ass slid over the leather seat and caught up with the rest of me an instant later, putting me practically in his lap.
My hands flew up to catch myself too late, fumbling their way under his coat, and I found myself groping his chest, muscles firm under my fingers even through the luxuriousness of all his satin and linen and lace.
Before I could even lift my head, big hands landed on my hips, lifted me, and almost flung me back the way I’d come, my shoulders knocking into the side of the carriage and my feet flying.
“I told you not to try this on me,” he rasped.
I caught myself on the edge of the seat as I began to slide again, my head spinning and my tailbone bruised.
“When I fuck you to make this marriage legal, it’s not going to be because you batted your pretty eyelashes at me.
It’s going to be because we have to. I don’t give a bloody fuck whether you’re the next best thing to a virgin or you’ve bent over for the entire Calatrian army.
I’d rather stick my cock inside the burrow of a venomous snake than into you, and yet here we are, so stop playing games with me. ”
All the blood rushed to my head, my face glowing and my scalp tingling. Red spots danced in front of my eyes.
“And I’d rather lose my virginity to the entire Calatrian army at once than to you,” I snarled. “Or to that snake.”
Lord Stefan barked out something like a laugh and muttered a few sarcasm-tinged words that could have been about my supposed virginity. Bastard. I ought to have been grateful that he didn’t believe me; I’d just contradicted the Lord Chancellor, too angry to think straight.
But I didn’t have a single drop of gratitude in me. I hated him, in that moment, more than I even hated his father, a burning deep under my ribs.
The carriage slowed to a smooth stop, the coachman calling softly to the horses and the footman jumping down with a bounce.
As the carriage stilled, I found my equilibrium and looked up at Lord Stefan, meeting his eyes.
They gleamed in the light of the lamp on the outside of the door.
His set jaw and the flush along his cheekbones didn’t give him the look of a happy bridegroom.
Oh, Ennolu. The heat of my fury and hurt faded to a bone-chilling anxiety.
The Lord Chancellor would see how completely I’d failed to soothe and satisfy my husband. And the footman would open the door at any moment. I had only a few seconds to rectify the situation.
If I’d really been that immoral creature who’d lie and seduce and betray his family, himself, and his new husband for a life of wealth, I might’ve been able to formulate a better strategy, and a better set of tactics to implement it.
But I had only one—hopefully loose-lipped and gossiping—footman as a potential witness, and only one way to muss Lord Stefan enough to make it appear, once we left the carriage, as if we’d been engaged in marital pleasures.
And so I shoved off the side of the carriage again and lunged at him, ignoring his flinch and curse as I flung my arms around his neck and kissed him hard on the mouth.