Free Master: An Erotic Novel of the Count of Monte Cristo by Colette Gale Page A

day of an empty existence. He might consider death an easier way than the madness that awaits him. The eternity of darkness and nothing.”
    Mercédès thought of Edmond, of course, and wondered if he too had wished for death before his demise . . . or if he’d believed that someday he would be free. Her eyes stung, and she looked away.
    Sinbad continued to speak. “But perhaps there are worse things than death or imprisonment, Countess. If someone wronged you—for example, if something happened to your son—”
    “What do you know of my son?” she asked, suddenly frightened.
    “Nothing but what you told me, Countess. Ten years ago, when we last met, you told me you had a son of twelve. So he must be past his majority now.” His voice was still relaxed, still exotic and lilting; yet she heard a trace of harshness beneath the superficial gentleness. “As I was saying, if something happened to your son—if he was set upon by bandits, for example, and mercilessly killed, what of revenge? Would you want the brigands who harmed him to die, or would you foist some other form of vengeance upon them?”
    “I would want them to know the same suffering as I,” she replied fiercely.
    “Exactly so, my dear countess. And would not an execution— a rope around the neck, the kiss of the guillotine, a bullet to the head—be too simple, too easy? Would it not allow the evildoers to be released into whatever afterlife they might expect?”
    “I said I wanted them to suffer . . . but they will be judged by God,” Mercédès replied firmly. “It’s not my place to judge here on this earth.”
    Sinbad smiled, his dark mustache stretching to show a glimpse of suddenly feral teeth. “But I know that God selects avenging angels—avenging ones and rewarding ones—and places them here on this earth to assist Him. And for great sins, very often the best justice is a long-lasting punishment. One in which the sinner lives with the results of his or her perfidy, rather than being released from his earthly responsibilities by swift death.”
    He met her eyes again. “Would you not want those who murdered your son to live with a pain and loss as great as your own? Wouldn’t death be too simple, too quick for them?”
    “I would want that—yes, I would . . . ,” Mercédès replied, honesty compelling her to speak plainly. “But . . .”
    Her voice trailed off. Sinbad was looking at her so steadily, so darkly, that the words simply disintegrated. “What an honest woman you are, Countess,” he said sardonically. “Honest and loyal and true. You would wait for your love forever, wouldn’t you?”
    She had waited for Edmond.
    She had . . . until she’d had no choice.
    She knew Fernand had lived in fear for that first year or two after they married that Edmond would return, that he would be furious that Fernand had badgered her into wedding him when she’d promised to wait for him . . . but Edmond had never returned.
    The sharp clap of Sinbad’s hands startled her, drawing her from the deep, dark reverie of guilt and loss. “I can see that our debate is upsetting you, Countess,” he said. “Let us move on to more enjoyable pastimes. Please,” he said with a gesture of those elegant, gold-cuffed hands. “Enjoy Omania and Neru.”
    Mercédès realized that Omania and another servant, a male—presumably Neru—had returned, and cleared the table of much of the food whilst she and Sinbad conversed. They moved the table across the room, putting it against the wall opposite them. Neru moved another, smaller table next to Sinbad, and on it the servants placed some wine and several small bowls filled with grapes, mango, and a tiny jewellike red fruit Sinbad had called “pomegranate.”
    Now the two servants moved to the empty space recently vacated by the table of food, and stood in front of the divan. Omania had changed clothing, and was wearing a skirt made of nothing but countless strips of silk hanging from a golden girdle