The Changeling Bride Read online

  Deep inside he smiled to himself in satisfaction, even as he moved to explore the planes of her face with his lips. He had allowed her her protest, her arguments. She could feel that she had not given in without a struggle. Her pride would remain intact, even as she submitted.

  She was young and inexperienced, he knew, and at heart she would want to be told what to do, no matter the defiance she showed him. It was his own response to her that now surprised him. He wanted to sink his fingers into the softness of her hair, to explore the gentle contours of her body, and to discover whether the warmth of her coloring extended into the heat of her passions.

  He moved his hand up over her breast, gently teasing the nipple between his fingers. She strained against him, seeking more contact, and he knew he could release her hand and she would not fight him. He held it, though, allowing her to pretend to herself that she had no choice.

  She opened her eyes as he pulled back to untie her robe, then pushed it open to gaze upon her hardened nipples, showing through the silk. He bent and took one aureole in his mouth through the cloth, the wetness soaking through the fragile fabric. He heard her suck in her breath, and felt her muscles tense, then relax. He reached down to pull up the hem of her chemise, grazing her leg on the upward journey. His own robe came open, and he let the raw heat of his arousal nudge against her.

  She reacted as if he had pressed a knife against her. “Nooo!” she wailed, and jerked her hand free from above her head, and before he could stop her, she had rolled out from underneath him and off the bed. She backed away, pulling her short robe closed, covering the wet fabric over her breast. She stumbled into a chair and stopped, her breathing loud and ragged.

  “I can’t do this,” she said, almost pleading. “I can’t.”

  He sat up and looked at her, his body throbbing with lust that was quickly turning to angry frustration, which he fought to keep from leaking into his voice. “You can, and you were enjoying it. Sooner or later you will have to give in, Eleanor. Make it easy on yourself, and do so now. You cannot escape.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “It should have been someone more suitable that you married, someone ready for all this. I’m not the right woman, no matter what they think.”

  “Is not an earl good enough for a merchant’s daughter? Do not think you are going to escape this marriage by putting me off on our wedding night. The bargain was made, and I intend to seal it.”

  “Then you’ll have to force me to do it,” she said flatly.

  He heard the finality in her voice. No challenge, no uncertainty. She meant every word of it. He felt the blood pound in his head as he realized that she was going to win this round, and for the briefest moment wanted to throw her to the floor and take her, to have it done with and let her know for once and for all that she could not have her way in this. She was his wife now. He quickly smothered the thought. He was not his father, to use violence to win his way.

  He forced his hands and jaw to unclench. This was but a single battle lost. To show her that she had affected him as deeply as she had would be to risk losing the entire war. Control of the self led to control of the situation.

  He got off the bed and went over to the table with the fruit and wine, picking up the small knife provided for cutting the fruit. “I cannot have you claiming our marriage was unconsummated, halting the transfer of all those funds and properties to my name,” he said with false calm, his voice free of the emotions that boiled within. He sliced a small nick in his thumb.

  He pulled the covers back from the bed, then let spill a drop of blood into the center of the exposed sheet. He pressed his thumb into the spot, smearing it slightly, then brought his thumb to his mouth to stop the bleeding. When he was finished he turned to her.

  “Rather artistic, do you not think? Just enough to serve the purpose, and not so much as to make the maids believe you suffered unduly. Of course, you could always have a doctor check whether your virginity was indeed intact, but I would not suggest it, given the doubts that have already been cast on that subject.” He paused to rein in his temper. “So you see, my darling Eleanor, there is no escape for you. There is no point in fighting when you will inevitably lose. Give in, before you make a complete and utter fool of yourself.”

  “No power on earth can force me to stay married to you. I’ll leave, and you’ll never figure out where I’ve gone.”

  “Well, it will not be home. Your father would never accept you back. You have not a penny to your name, and nothing to sell but your body, so unless your lover is waiting to spirit you away, which, really, he should have done before now if he was serious about it, you are out of options.”

  “You don’t know half as much as you think you do.”

  “I will warrant it is half again as much as you. Come to bed, and I shall not touch you. Your supposed virginity has already been lost upon the sheets, and I will not take it a second time tonight.”

  “I’d rather sleep on the floor. Bodies have a way of rolling together in the middle of the night.”

  “And you would know.” He peeled blankets and the top sheet from the bed and tossed them on the floor. It was beyond his ability to graciously offer her sole use of the bed. If she had a wish to sleep on the floor, let her suffer the consequences of having it granted.

  “By the time we pile those back on the bed in the morning, they’ll think we had a wild night of it.”

  He stared at her. “They will have no idea.”

  Chapter Eight

  Elle spent several hours lying tensely on the hard floor, listening to each and every move of Henry on the bed. Was he even her husband, legally? She had married him under a different name. She had a feeling, though, that it was the person who mattered, considering that it was a personal vow made before God.

  If she made it back home, she’d be a widow, Henry having long since died and rotted down to bones and a few silver buttons. She didn’t like to think of him that way, for all that she had never had a more infuriating encounter with a man. Or a more erotic one.

  She’d liked it when he’d pinned her to the bed, liked feeling his lips on her skin, his thigh between her legs. She’d never been intimate with a stranger before, and had had no idea how the excitement of it could course through her body. It was only when she’d felt his arousal against her bare skin that she’d realized the danger she was in.

  It could take just once to get pregnant. A few minutes of pleasure was not worth the risk.

  Tatiana got up from her corner and came to join her on her makeshift bed, and the comforting weight of the dog against her legs had a soothing effect. When she woke up she’d probably be home again. She’d fulfilled her side of the bargain, and married the man. Her eyes eventually drooped closed, and in short order the exhaustion of the day carried her to sleep.

  In the early hours of the morning the door to the chamber silently opened. Sibilant whispering, almost beyond the range of human hearing, came from the two slender fairies that cautiously eased into the room. Tatiana awoke abruptly, ears forward to catch the sound. Her nose twitched at a familiar scent, and she left the blankets and her mistress to investigate.

  The two figures, faintly glowing, separated. Mossbottom went to the far side of the room, giving a whistle like the high call of a bat, and dangled with distaste by two prim fingers a jointed bone with gobbets of flesh still attached. Tatiana trotted to the familiar fairy, leaving the way clear to Elle where she slept on the floor.

  The second fairy stepped quickly to the sleeping woman, bent down, and brushed her hand across Elle’s forehead, leaving a phosphorescent dusting of powder that quickly faded. She straightened, then gestured to Mossbottom, who gladly gave up the bone to Tatiana and ran to the door. They slipped out, the two sleeping humans none the wiser for their presence. Tatiana watched the door for a minute longer, then dropped the bone with a thunk on a spot of bare flooring and lay down to gnaw it.

  That clank of bone on floor was enough to wake Henry, who had been bu
t dozing lightly. He pushed himself up on his elbows, wondering what had awoken him, then noticed the dog off in the corner chewing. He lay back down and moved to the edge of the bed, rolling onto his side to peer over the edge at where his wife lay sleeping. Moonlight faintly glimmered on her forehead, making her look ethereal in her humble bed. She reminded him of one of the fairy tales his great-grandmother had loved to tell him as a child, the one with the princess who dressed in servants’ clothes and slept outside the door of her beloved’s room.

  He slowly shook his head. She was no princess, and he most certainly was not her beloved. Still, almost in spite of himself he found he was somewhat intrigued by her. She was intelligent, which surprised and pleased him, given her shallowness at their first meeting. She had the courage of her convictions as well, not backing down despite all that was against her. There was the possibility she could make an adequate wife and countess, once she was brought to order.

  He grinned in the darkness, watching her sleep, thinking of that day. From all signs, she would make a lusty bed partner. Perhaps there were more advantages to this marriage than he had thought.

  She shifted in her sleep, a small moan escaping her lips. Her head rolled from side to side, a frown drawing down her brows. Henry continued to watch her, his own smile fading. She looked as if she was having nightmares. He hoped it was not his own face that tortured her in her sleep.

  Elle was dreaming. The pink husband coupon was in her hand, and she was once again waving it at the dripping firs, spouting her demands for an arranged marriage. The landslide came, then the cave with her dead replica, and the confusing whisperings of the glowing fairies. It was all familiar, a replaying of the past, and then it changed.

  She dreamt now of her brother, Jeff, his face gaunt and ashen, walking down a tiled subterranean hallway. A white and steel room waited at the end, lined with the ovenlike doors of a morgue. An attendant opened one of the square doors and pulled out the shelf inside with a low rumble. He pulled back the sheet over the mound of the body, and Elle watched over Jeff’s shoulder as the face came into view.

  Elle woke screaming, with the vision of her own face vivid before her. She did not hear Tatiana barking in alarm, or Henry’s anxious voice. She could only scream, and push her hands at the darkness, warding off that grotesque image.

  Warm arms surrounded her, lifting her up onto the bed. Her head was pressed against a broad chest, the rich reverberation of a heartbeat below her ear. It was that which calmed her, more that than the hand that stroked her hair or the low voice murmuring soothing words. A heartbeat meant life, and she drowned herself in that sound, shutting out all else. She was not dead.

  Still, she could not shake the power of the dream. That was not her on a slab in the morgue, but it could have been. It might have been, if she had not agreed to come here.

  With sudden, eerie certainty, Elle knew that it was Eleanor Moore she had seen lying there, and that somehow she had been allowed to witness what had become of her life to everyone she knew and loved at home. No one was going to come take her away from here: The switch was meant to be permanent. She now belonged to a man she neither knew nor particularly liked. She was helpless. She was married. She was alone.

  “What was it?” Henry’s soft words finally penetrated her despair.

  “I saw myself dead,” she whispered against his chest, not caring for this moment that she was pressed so intimately against him.

  Henry felt a chill run along his spine. The fine hairs on the back of his neck rose, and he glanced uneasily out the window at the night beyond, inexplicably feeling that there was a presence watching. He tightened his arms around her, the instinct to protect strong. He pulled her unresisting with him under the covers, never releasing her from his arms.

  “It was just a dream. No one is going to hurt you.” She did not struggle against his hold, but neither did she relax. He could feel tremors run through her, then short gasping breaths as she began to sob. She pressed her face to his shoulder, one hand fisted on his chest. She clung to him until the sobs devolved to hiccups, then slow deep breaths. He felt her relaxing, then to his astonishment realized she had cried herself to sleep, her mouth slightly open on his shoulder.

  He lifted his head to look at her, but from the awkward angle it was mostly her nose that was visible. A beautiful, Grecian nose. Even in her sleep it suggested that she was not a person to be trifled with, no matter that she had just wept like a child over a bad dream.

  He dropped his head back onto the pillow, his mind roaming. His hand soon followed suit, lightly tracing her thigh and buttocks, all that he could reach without shifting the arm wrapped around her. She was soft and rounded in all the right places, and he could feel her breasts pressed up against him.

  The desire that he had felt earlier came back in a tingling rush, and he forced himself to keep his hand still on her hip. There was no use torturing himself. He was not about to wake her and try once again to seduce her, not when she had turned to him of her own volition in an expression, however unconscious, of trust.

  He was logical; he was a tactitian; he was engaged in a battle that would be won by patience and planning.

  That did not mean he could not think about it, though. He drifted off to sleep with fantasies of his wife pinned beneath him, accepting his thrusts with great moans of pleasure. A man could dream, after all.

  Chapter Nine

  Henry was gone by the time Elle awoke the next morning, and a feeling of dread nestled deep in her gut. Marianne, oblivious, was bustling about, a knowing grin on her plump face.

  Elle sat up, noticing that all the blankets were back on the bed, albeit in a rumpled mess. It did indeed look like they had had a wild night of it, which was no doubt the cause of Marianne’s cheerful amusement. Elle’s mind slowly sought an answer for how she had ended up in the bed, and when the image from her dream returned she whimpered and squeezed her eyes shut, burrowing back beneath the covers.

  “Here now, milady,” Marianne said. “No need to be embarrassed.”

  Elle ignored her and pulled the sheet over her head.

  With the memory of the dream and all it implied, her vague sense of dread found its proper shape. She was never going to see Jeff and his growing brood of monsters again, never going to see her friends, never going to drive a car or watch the news on TV. She had lost everyone and everything.

  She sat up suddenly, pulling the sheet off her head. “Marianne, where’s Tatiana?”

  “His lordship took her outside, milady.”

  Elle threw back the covers and got out of bed. Tatiana was all she had. She couldn’t trust the dog’s care to anyone but herself. “Do you know where my clothes are?”

  “Yes, milady, of course. Do you not wish to break your fast?”

  “No, no time for that.”

  “Very well, milady.” Marianne led her to the dressing room, where she had laid out Elle’s clothes and accessories. Elle quickly used the chamber pot behind a screen, and realized that she’d never again hear the rush of flushing water. She felt tears sting her eyes.

  On a stand behind the screen there was a basin and a pitcher of tepid water, and she took the time to give herself a brief sponge bath, tossing her chemise over the screen. She smelled of sweat, and she realized she’d have to wash herself three times a day to keep from exuding any trace of body odor. The thought of her underarm hair growing long depressed her even more.

  “Marianne, a fresh chemise, please,” she called, putting one hand out from behind the screen. Her mood made it easier to give orders, something she had been having trouble with. She stepped out from behind the screen and went to the vanity, picking up a brush and taking it to the snarls that had twisted themselves into her hair overnight.

  “The fairies have been at you good,” Marianne said.

  Elle’s hand stopped midstroke. “What was that?” she asked sharply, the blood draining from her already wan face.

  “The fairylocks, milady. The snarls
in your hair. Do you need some help?”

  “No . . . no, I’m used to doing it myself.” She continued brushing, more slowly, then without even thinking, sat down and began to put her hair into a loose French braid. It was a simple task for her practiced fingers, and in a few minutes she was searching for something with which to tie off the end. The best she could find was a ribbon, which she tied as tightly as she could, knowing that it would most likely slide off. They didn’t even have rubber bands here.

  She stood and let Marianne help her dress, knowing that she couldn’t do it herself, and knowing as well that none of Eleanor’s clothes would have a prayer of fitting her without the painfully tight stays. As Marianne tightened the laces and the pain increased, she felt a small bitter smile form on her lips. She’d spend every remaining day of her life bound in this device, unable to bend at the waist, unable to eat more than a few bites of food. It seemed a perverse, cosmic revenge for her dislike of exercise.

  Marianne tied on her petticoat, the bustle, rolled on her stockings and tied the garters, then helped her into her dress. It was dark blue, of a thicker material than the wedding gown had been. It was embroidered in black along the hem and the edges of the overskirt, which was open in front, curved to the sides in an inverted V. The bodice was tight, as were the sleeves. Marianne poufed the handkerchief over Elle’s bosom, the folds of linen reaching to just below her chin. Elle sat again for Marianne to put on her shoes, for she could not bend over to do it herself. She continued to sit as Marianne picked up a large, high-crowned, wide-brimmed black hat with ostrich plumes sticking up from the blue ribbon that circled the crown, ending in a fluffy excresence of flounces.

  “Are you certain you do not wish me to do your hair, milady?”

  “We’ve taken enough time already.”

  “Yes, milady, only . . .”

  “What?” Elle asked, impatient to be gone, cranky in her misery.

  “Nothing, milady.” Marianne stepped forward and arranged the hat on Elle’s head, carefully poking hat pins through it and the braid.