Free The Sherbrooke Bride by Catherine Coulter Page B

as much.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œI don’t believe I will tell you, Mellie, not yet, because I have yet to be certain whether my notions are accurate.” He gave her a crooked smile. “You see, I was thinking too much about you, about having you naked beneath me, to keep an excellent mental accounting of what I hoped would be true. Well, hopefully your father will have determined the accuracy by the time we return to Claybourn. Now, my dear, your bonnet looks quite dowdy. I suggest you endeavor to make yourself look a bit more charming, for we are nearing Claybourn.”
    He’d silenced her questions for the moment by appealing to her vanity. He watched her pull a small mirror from her reticule. She was efficient in her efforts, from long practice. She was so beautiful it made him shake. Her body was undoubtedly lovely—at least the parts he’d just managed to uncover and see and touch. He’d wanted to see her face when he took her virginity the previous night, but she’d been so frightened, so embarrassed, that he hadn’t the heart to insist upon the lamp being lit. But what really shook him and surprised him as well was that no woman had ever affected him as she had. He had also known instantly that she was utterly impossible, spoiled, vain, as arrogant as he was, but it hadn’t mattered. He’d wanted her. Despite Douglas, despite everything, he’d wanted her and he’d taken her.
    Now the trick would be to live with her.
    Another trick would be to bring her pleasure. The thought of a frigid wife was intolerable. It was nauseating.
    The most important trick would be to pay Douglas back.
    Odd, Tony thought, as the carriage bowled onto the long narrow drive of Claybourn Hall, but he hadn’t given Teresa, his perfidious former betrothed, a thought since he’d met Melissande. He looked at his wife, saw that she was pale and that she was wringing her hands.
    He rather hoped her father would yell at her. Then he, Tony, would step in. He was her protector, her master, her husband. Then, he prayed, he and the duke would come to another agreement.
Boulogne, France
    Douglas won the piquet match. He hadn’t even had to cheat. Belesain had been so drunk by the end of it, Douglas doubted he’d minded losing very much because as the winner he would have had to perform sexually, a feat he probably couldn’t have managed. He’d given Douglas a key and told him to explain to the lovely wench he found in the small room that he was here to be pleasured. He said the wench loved threats and a bit of pain. Then, the bloody drunk fool had decided to accompany him. “Because,” he said as they climbed the stairs to the third floor, “she isn’t exactly trained fully as yet.” Douglas watched him unlock the door and stride inside.
    He followed, saying nothing. It was a spare room, with only a bed and dresser and a single circular rug in the middle. There was only one occupant, a single woman standing in the middle of the room. Was this Janine Daudet? The general grinned drunkenly at her and said with a flip of his hand, “Strip off those clothes.”
    The woman hesitated, then complied. He’dexpected someone younger, though why he should have he didn’t know. No, she wasn’t really a girl, Douglas thought, looking at her more closely, but rather a woman in her mid-twenties. She was obviously scared and she was lovely, despite her pallor, the shadows beneath her very dark eyes, and her thinness.
    Belesain waited silently until she’d stripped to her shift. Then he lurched to her, grabbed her chin painfully in his fingers and kissed her, fondling her breasts with his other hand through the thin lawn. Then, suddenly, he grabbed the front of her shift and ripped it off her. He laughed, saying over his shoulder to Douglas, “I wanted to see if you approved of her. Nice, eh? A bit thin for my taste, but her tits are