The Hunted Bride Read online

  “You’re to put it on and lie on the bed. After your bath.”

  Matilda stared at the plain fabric, its purpose slowly dawning on her. She was to be unwrapped, presented to him, and he would see her naked from neck to ankle. Her heart quickened and her throat tightened. Gervais was not taking his plans lightly.

  “What, my lady?” Sara touched her sleeve.

  “He’ll find out.” She slumped onto the chair. “I thought he would overlook this part of the arrangement. That he couldn’t possibly determine the truth from looking at me. But he won’t just be looking, will he, he’ll touch me, and then he’ll know.”

  Sara gave the other maid a quick glance. “I think he knows anyway.”

  “Nobody knows the truth, not even my father. I only told him that Father Mark touched me inappropriately.”

  Sara took her trembling hand. “Did he hurt you?”

  Matilda shook her head. “A little. But I did not ask him to stop. Don’t you see, I am soiled by him. Gervais will treat me contemptibly if he knows that I will do anything, things that no other woman would consider without shame.”

  “Tell him, my lady. He does not seem a cruel man.”

  Matilda laughed half-heartedly. “You think not? You’ve not heard him describe what he will do to me if I disobey him.”

  “Then obey him.”

  “It’s not something I’m good at.” She caught the sparkle in Sara’s eyes. Her maid was well versed in Matilda’s rebellious ways, but she said nothing.

  The bath soothed her for a while, but she struggled to eat. Only when Sara badgered her did she manage to finish the platter. “Strength is what you need.”

  With her skin dry and her hair presentable, the towelling gown was removed, and she slipped on the shift. Sara laced the front with neat bows and smoothed the fabric. “I think it’s silk. It must be worth a fortune. So strange to spend money on a garment only seen in the bedroom.”

  Matilda lay on the bed, her head on a pillow, her hands resting on her chest and waiting for the appointed hour.

  Gervais entered, dismissing his manservant at the door. Approaching the bed, he paused to admire her.

  “Beautiful. Are you afraid?” he asked.

  She nodded. Truth be told, she was filled with trepidation and excitement, but she was not willing to admit to the latter sentiment.

  “Don’t be. This won’t hurt you.” He drew off his tunic, leaving on the cambric shirt and simple dark hose. He unlaced the shirt to reveal a smooth chest with tinges of scarring around the ribs. The muscles were bonded to steel sinews, and lean. He carried no waste, no aberration or deformity. He was a soldier still.

  She bit her lower lip and accepted she would tremble uncontrollably for the duration of his examination.

  He lifted the lowest part of the shift from her legs. “Sara, unlace this. I wish to see your mistress’s flesh.”

  Sara, a good servant, obeyed him without question, although her cheeks were flushed and her hands shaking. She fiddled with a few bows, starting with the one under Matilda’s chin. She uncovered two pert nipples and the crescent shapes of her bosom, the flat of Matilda’s belly, the wide girth of her hips, then to Matilda’s shame, the trimmed bush of her mound and the glisten on her thighs. Sara exclaimed an unhelpful gasp.

  Gervais merely smiled.

  The shift, opened like curtains, fanned out on either side of her in the shape of butterfly wings. Presented to her betrothed, she lifted her chin and stared at the vaulted ceiling. It would be over quickly, she prayed.

  Could this not be done in privacy?

  “My lord—”

  “I trust Sara as you do. She is not only a witness to this examination, but an aide. I have manservants, whom I trust implicitly, mutes bought in foreign markets from vicious slavers. I liberated them and they chose to stay and serve me. What I command, they do without judgement. Sara will act likewise.”

  She swallowed hard. “I trust you.”

  He nodded. “I ask your maid to stay to ensure there is no impropriety while your virginity is determined. Now, draw down to the bottom of the bed, part your legs, keep them raised and knees bent. Sara, bring me a bowl of rosewater, so that I may bathe my hands.”

  Gervais rolled up his sleeves. Matilda carefully shifted to the edge of the bed, so her bottom was perched there, spread her legs and propped her ankles against the bedposts for support. In such a revealing position, her slit opened, she felt the waft of cool air touch the lips shielding her entrance.

  She closed her eyes and reached up with her arms and instinctively arched her back.

  She waited, breath held, and nothing happened. She opened her eyes and found kneeling before her Gervais, his face struck by awe, his mouth slightly parted and his tongue licking his lips. His fingers twitched by his sides, and he made no attempt to hide the bulge in his hose.

  He raised his hands, placing them between her parted thighs, and gently pinched each of her folds between his fingers and thumbs. She sighed, unable to stop the rush of sensations flooding her sex. His thumbs rimmed the opening, stealing themselves deeper, but in a manner that was cautious and unlikely to harm her. She knew that he would meet no barrier, nothing was there to stop him plunging those fingers inside her to his knuckles.

  However, he was patient. He glided up and down her slit, probing with one firm digit, ensuring she was able to accommodate its girth. Then, as she rocked her head from side to side, frantically trying to control the urge to buck against his hand, he pressed home the longest forefinger.

  There was no cry of disappointment or disgust from him, nothing like what the Abbess had exclaimed when she caught Matilda with the priest. Instead, he moaned softly, and almost with delight. The moment was brief, for he now seemed determined to conduct a more thorough examination for his own purpose of mind. She offered no rebuke of his changing intentions.

  “Hold tight,” he said, keenly addressing her. “I need to test the extent of your wantonness.”

  Sara had crept away into a corner and presented herself to the wall. The servant was embarrassed, or perhaps aroused; either way, Sara would not interfere.

  Matilda faced Gervais and acknowledged what he had discovered with a shameful tear on her cheek. “Now you know,” she said, her eyes filling up.

  “Tell me. Don’t be embarrassed. I only want to know how this came to be.”

  She shook her head. “It is wicked, sir. I let him, you see.”

  “I know, but I would know what it is that made you give him what you should not.” Gervais stroked his hand down her belly, over her mound and touched the apex of her sex. A bolt of lightning shot through her body. “Did he ever touch you here?”

  “No... no, not like that.” Her back arched higher.

  Gervais thrust two fingers inside her and she cried out, remembering how deep and wide she might stretch. Three fingers plied her open, thrusting repeatedly, allowing themselves to explore her inner sanctum. She bucked, and he planted his body between her thighs to prevent her from twisting. There was not one hand teasing her, but two generous sets of fingers. Gervais tickled her mound with the tips, gentle caresses compared to the ardent rigour of his other hand.

  Then it happened, something she’d never forget. She screamed, the calamity she had uncorked below undid her, and she shook so violently, she thought she might kick his chest. But he stayed steadfast and by keeping her still, the energy unleashed remained focused on her tender sex. The ripples travelled along her thighs, and up to her breasts, which flushed red and shimmered with the warmth. Onward the sensation journeyed, into her constricted throat, stifling her cries, and forcing her to breathe rapidly, then her fingers formed clenched fists and she pummelled the mattress, calling out.

  “I’m sorry. I am wicked. I deserve punishment. Do it, please, punish me.” She slumped back on the bed, and he lowered her legs, easing her back up onto the bed. At a signal, Sara left the room. A chaperon was no longer required. She was his betrothed in name, and now to b
e his in body too. Spoilt by her transgressions, which were born out of a haste to prove she was a fully-fledged woman, he had no need to keep her chaste. She expected a thorough bedding by him that night and certainly not an inquisition, but it seemed Gervais was not satisfied with her request for penance, nor was he openly seeking to finalise their arrangement. Instead, he perched on the edge of the bed and draped the folds of her shift back over her legs and belly.

  “Did he use his cock?” he asked.

  She lay rigid in her mortification. “No. Never. He kept it locked away. He wore a guard beneath his robe. He tortured himself with it, knowing it imprisoned it painfully.”

  “Strange man, but not so perhaps for a priest. Did he say anything to you?”

  “He accused me of harbouring the devil’s thoughts, and that he believed evil had entered me there.” She lowered her arm and pointed between her legs.

  “So he decided to see for himself.” Gervais shook his head. “He tricked you.”

  “I was eighteen. I knew what he wanted. I let him.” She spoke with a natural anguish and without pretence. Regret came easily when faced with a handsome lord and not the flirtations of an immature priest.

  “And he used his hand?”

  “A taper. He breached me with it.”

  Gervais winced. “Did it hurt?”

  “No. I was feverish, like now, and I bent over a table. He fumbled with my clothing, seeking it out, and pushed hard, and I yielded. I felt only a tenderness afterwards.” She recollected the first time with unsolicited shame, something that was absent at the time. Throughout the priest debauchery, she had groaned, willing him to thrust deeper and expel the supposed devil within her.

  “Tell me it was the once?” Gervais asked.

  She covered her face with her hands. “No, my lord. I told him he had failed, the evil was still there, so he summoned me again, and again, and used not just a candle, but other things. I dared not look in case they frightened me. I only felt them enter and he intoned these Latin words, as if to exorcise a curse from me.”

  “Then, one day, with your skirts up, the Abbess came upon you.”

  “Yes. But she only saw the back of my legs. She never knew that he uncovered my bottom.”

  “He was the one with wicked thoughts, not you, Matilda. Yes, you need to be punished for encouraging him to continue, but the first time was not your fault. He should not have laid a finger on you. He will be condemned, not you.”

  She raised herself onto her elbows. “You will punish me, sir? Please, I trust you. The Abbess would have—”

  “With her birch? I can see that not ending well for you. Nuns can be surprisingly cruel with their punishments.” He took Matilda’s hand. “I shall administer a good, sound spanking, and you will tell me when you feel sufficiently purged of your sin. It is your choice.”

  “You don’t want to do it?”

  Gervais lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “I wish to see you happy and not haunted by this mistake. Personally, it is of no great disadvantage that you have some experience of carnal lust; it will serve me in my endeavours. However, now that you are my betrothed, you will not seek out pleasure without my permission, neither will you think upon this priest and what he did to you. You’re mine now, Matilda, and I shall teach you, not some tormented priest who shuns fucks for fear of damnation.”

  She caught her breath at the vulgar word. “I had not thought of it like that. I assumed it was me who was damned.”

  He rested his hand on her belly and the warmth of his palm spread throughout her body. “No,” he said quietly. “Not you. You will start afresh with me. I will decide from now on what is appropriate behaviour. Tonight, after you have seen my castle, dined at my table, I shall take you to the farthest tower, to a quiet chamber, there I shall spank you until your arse burns red hot and there is a fire inside you that yearns for me.”

  And then? She stared at his bright eyes.

  “Then, I shall fuck you. You see, now that you are no longer a virgin, there is nothing that I can’t do to you. It will be an adventure, Tilda, these three months, and by the end of it, you’ll never think of another man but me, and I shall never desire another woman but you.”

  Chapter Eight

  The grounds of the castle offered Matilda a respite from troubling thoughts. What if she could not tolerate his spanking beyond a few slaps? To have him believe her penitent, she would have to allow him great latitude, not quibble at the duration or strength of his hand, nor move about too much. What little experience she had of punishments were a few swipes of a switch at the hands of the nun in charge of the postulants and novices, and of course, her redoubtable nurse, who’d cared for her in the latter part of her maiden years. Somebody best forgotten.

  She trailed up and down the small terrace garden, her skirts brushing against the grass, knocking the petals off the flowers and the dew from the blades. Gervais had shown her his fine chambers, the elegant tapestries purchased in exotic lands, the glass in the windows of his solar, and to her delight, an oriel window, one that cast enough light into the hall to allow her to sew without candlelight.

  “This isn’t a fortress,” she’d said to Gervais.

  “Not all of it, no. The outer walls serve as the defence, but the keep is for living in. I plan no wars with my neighbours.”

  A chivalrous knight, then, and not a warlord.

  The supper served was simple and tasty, washed down by weak ale, which he insisted they both drank. His sobriety bolstered her fractious state of nerves.

  The plates were swiftly cleared from the table, the dogs given the scraps left over. Gervais petted one, an old mastiff with a scarred nose.

  “My favourite. He’s been with me all over Europe.”

  “A fine beast.” She dipped her hands in the rosewater.

  Smirking, he drained his tankard and wiped his chin with a napkin. “Now, Matilda, let us move to the crux of the evening’s affairs.”

  “I’m prepared,” she lied. Her weak knees knocked atrociously.

  He rose and held out his hand. “Come then.”

  She walked by his side, her long gown gliding behind her. She clung to his arm, allowing him to support her as she battled the nausea pitting in her stomach. The tower he proposed to use was across the courtyard. In the gloomy evening light, the dark stone and weeping ivy climbers were forbidding. There was not a single window facing into the yard and the gnarled oak door was locked.

  Gervais jangled the keys hanging from his belt and picked an iron one. The door hinges creaked upon opening, and a rush of cool air escaped into the dusk. She heard what seemed to be the desperate sigh of a forgotten sanctuary brought back to life.

  “Have you not used this tower?” she asked.

  “Only for specific purposes,” he said mysteriously.

  He lit a torch and carried it before her. The stairs led up and down. Down to where? She expected a dungeon given the lack of windows or a cellar for storage. To her relief, he led her upstairs, past the first storey, and into the space beneath the timbers of the roof. Above their heads would be the turrets of the tower: a lookout post.

  The round chamber he had unlocked with another old key filled the expanse of the tower. There were window slits facing out, providing archers with a good view of the forests below the walls and across the moat. A trickle of a draught seeped into the room, but otherwise it was not as damp as she expected. The fireplace was lit, the burnt embers still glowing; somebody had prepared the room for them.

  The rest of the chamber was furnished with stools, a low bench, and a table the size of a bed. There were stands for tapers, and Gervais lit each one with his torch, before kneeling to rebuild the fire. She waited, her hands clasped before her, clutched into a knotted ball of fingers and sweaty palms.

  He took his time, blowing on the fagots until they roared with flames. The heat filled the room swiftly. She welcomed it; she was shivering uncontrollably, and the reason was not entirely from the discomf
ort of the cold.

  “There’s no hurry,” he said pleasantly. “Once you’re a sufficiently warm, you can undress.”

  “Undress?”

  “Yes. You’ll be punished naked.” He removed his cloak and laid it on a bench. He perched on a stool. “This bench will suffice. I shall have you lie across my lap, your outstretched arms at one end, your legs pointing to the other.”

  The blood drained from her face into her toes. “Naked.”

  “Why the long face? Were you expecting a covering on your poor behind? No, no, my sweetheart, you’ll take this upon your bare skin and for the duration you will not curse, nor attempt to dissuade me. This is your guilt we are ridding, not mine. I have no compunction for the part I play in it.” He folded his arms across his chest and cocked his head. “Have you changed your mind?”

  “What good will that do,” she said grumpily. “I will know you hold me in contempt until this is done.”

  “Contempt? A somewhat harsh assessment of my opinion of you. I do think you are a spoilt maid. This business of the priest has merely given you licence to speak and say whatever you like, believing yourself to be a spirited lady, when to me, you’re still an untried maiden with no knowledge of the needs of a man, let alone a husband.”

  She stared wide-eyed at him. “You, sir, have strong, arrogant opinions yourself. This business, as you put it, has haunted me. My father keeps his distance from me and is keen to have me packed off. Only the young men who care not for reputation have stalked my every move in the hope of winning my hand.”

  “Is Geoffrey one of these predators?” He raised an eyebrow.

  “No,” she said. “He’s the exception.”

  A wry smile formed on Gervais’s face. “Naturally. Are you warm now? Has your anger heated your belly, stoked your fires?”

  He’d done it on purpose: riled her into a state of ire, knowing it would distract her from her surroundings. She said nothing.

  He stretched his hands to either side of the bench and leant back. “Good. Kindly undress then, and I will relieve you of your sorrow.”