Chapter Two
1212 Words
Chapter Two
“My, my, aren’t you a lovely thing. All fresh washed. Did they remove that dastardly chastity belt?”
“Only so I could pee, sir. And to wash, of course. And who are you?” She eyed the splendid man with some degree of interest. His brown hair flowed to his shoulders and his beard was trimmed, not scraggly like so many men she’d seen in Ilusia so far. A pair of sharp, cinnamon-hued eyes peered at her from under his cunningly arched brows. He was a lean man of average stature, and though his clothes were unremarkable—leather britches and a simple muslin shirt—he wore his body, and his attitude, and even his humble attire with some suggestion of nobility.
He eyed the flaxen-haired maid with a degree of deference, slight as it might be. And yes, there was that haughtiness in his aspect she’d come to expect from Ilusian men. He was a bit of a scoundrel, Charlotte decided.
“Ah, yes, we haven’t been introduced, have we?” he was reminded.
“No, sir. I was led to this room with no explanation. In fact, I’ve had no explanations of anything. No answers to my questions. I’ve been forced to remain in a paltry room, in this frightful chastity belt for two days with no company at all.” She stopped her strident complaint abruptly, asking again, “So, who are you?”
“I was told you were impertinent, and so you are. Quite so.” He chuckled. “But that will change.”
Charlotte took offense at that remark. “I am myself and will always be so, no matter how you or anyone else attempts to mold me.”
The fellow stroked his chin thoughtfully, pacing about the wondering woman as Charlotte followed him with her eye, finally turning herself.
“I am your husband, Mountbane,” he finally announced.
She was speechless. Eyes, ears, mouth, feet—aye, even her heart, frozen.
“Cat got your tongue?” Mountbane quipped. “It seemed to wag so easily these last days.”
“I thought you…”
“Older. I’m sure that you imagined me some wizened fool like Harrow, or perhaps a man of your father’s years, or even some brutish boor. I am, dear Charlotte, just ten years your senior; and I assure you, my bride…”
“I am not your bride! I have made no vows, nor will I,” she thawed instantly, stamping her foot in a hot rage.
Mountbane laughed while she remained nearly in tears from frustration.
When he finally settled, his voice had lost its mockery and was quite courteous, “I’m afraid you’ve been mislead. Once you left your homeland and crossed our borders, an agreement that was signed days after your birth became fully executed. That agreement between your father and mine was signed with blood, binding you and me in a political marriage.”
“That is not true!” she exclaimed.
“You may check the documents; you know your father’s signature?”
“I do.”
“Then you can inspect them yourself.”
“Why would my father do such a thing?”
“To save himself,” Mountbane’s speech turned disdainful.
She closed her eyes to close him out, while he remained before her, the two wrapped inside a breathless quiet. Not even the mice inside the castle scurried the floors at this thorny moment. When Charlotte’s eyes popped open, she stared into Mountbane’s in perplexed wonder. “Why would you agree to such a marriage, sir?”
He smiled. “Because, Charlotte Castile, my spies have been gazing on you for several years, and finding you a pleasing female specimen, they suggested that I would enjoy your flesh.”
“My flesh and nothing more? Is that all there is to marriage in Ilusia—locked loins and fornication?”
“Hardly. It is gracious servitude for its women and contentment for its men.”
“And you would seek some contentment from me?”
He caught her joke, grinning, though his expression quickly turned grim. “Properly trained, daughter of Castile, you will serve me.”
“Never,” she turned her back on him.
“All this was written years ago,” he spoke plainly. “You can accept it now, or later. If you’re determined to fight me, so be it. But I am determined to win, and so I will. I like you. And even more, I fancy what my metal harness hides between your thighs—the warm fresh dew, the grasping muscle of your channel—and indeed, the puckering rear entrance that will soon gape with desire and drip with my seed.”
“Oh, how you disgust me,” she pulled back horrified.
“Disgust is only a creature of desire, my dear bride.”
“I will not desire you! And I am not your bride!” She turned around to make her point face to face.
He shook his head. “You don’t understand. You already are my bride. Women do not consent, allow, or agree to anything in Ilusia. They submissively accept their status and obey.”
“And if I don’t?”
He shrugged. “Then they are trained to do so.”
“And if not then?”
“There is no alternative,” he replied. Charlotte fixed her eye on him, unwilling to bend, while Mountbane for just a moment seemed truly perplexed. “Am I so ugly that you’re repulsed?” he asked.
“Nay. You aren’t ugly at all. Some women might find you genuinely handsome. But trust me, Lord Mountbane, I cannot look on you with lust. There will be no love in my heart! I shall never love you!” She was distraught and unwilling to give an inch in her battle.
He raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips as though this was some great dilemma for the man. “Perhaps not love. I never expected that. But you will serve me.”
“Hah!”
He snickered and turned away saying to no one, “I fear Caius will have his work ahead of him with my snappish shrew.”
She recalled Tristan’s words, advising her to guard against her shrewishness. But that advice seemed to sway her little now.
Mountbane moved to the door of his chambers. “Gregor!” He bellowed.
A flushed youth raced to his master’s side, “Yes, sir?”
“Bring me Caius.”
“Yes, sir.” He was gone.
The air inside the chamber grew hotly tense. Charlotte remained on her feet in the center of the room, nervously fidgeting with her skirts. At moments when she wasn’t noticed, she would glance at the great bed on the far side of Mountbane’s chamber, wondering—until she forcibly stopped the picture—what it might be like to lose herself inside the great velvet quilts, in the arms of this handsome man. Could it be desire beating in her heart and more horribly between her legs where she could feel the chastity belt as if it were a pair of firm hands grasping her flesh?
The room finally stirred again with the entrance of a burly brute—one man like the two fellows who took her from her father’s house. Yet, this one seemed taller still and more commanding in his presence. The hulking fellow wore leather trousers as the others had, though his torso was clothed in a dark muslin shirt and his beard was freshly trimmed, his head shaved and smooth.
Mountbane moved toward his wary bride with a contemptuous snarl curling on his lips. “You understand, I could take you now,” he said in a voice that wrapped about her with a wintry blast of wind. “I could have my aides hold you down while I rip your virginity from you.” He shook his head. “But that is not my way, fair madam. You will beg for me…”
Her face registered an earnest denial but she didn’t speak, being much too scared to utter a word.
He turned away. “Caius, take my bride into the bowels of my castle and prepare her for me.”
“And shall I prime her first, sir?”
“Yes. Thoroughly. I’ll take her when she’s well spent. Perhaps she’ll be more willing then.”
“Tis likely I’ll be having her for some time?” the great brute observed aloud.
“Oh, yes. She’ll need to be fully trained in the ways of Ilusian women. Take her now.” With his final retort, Mountbane brushed her off as he would a speck of dust from his sleeve. And Charlotte quit the room, towed by the rigid grip of Caius’ hand on her arm.
- Writer
