Free The Demon's Bride by Jo Beverley

but then sliding down to her breasts. She wore only soft stays with this gown and the merest brush of his fingers seemed to start a fire of longing.
    She cried out against his hot mouth and knew she was mad. Mad to surrender, mad to deny them both. . . .
    Something alerted her. She opened her eyes and glimpse the three young Fletcher lads standing on the path, grinning.
    She struggled free, hearing Morden hiss with anger and fearing for them, but he released her and made space for the lads to pass. Giggling, they ran on, but stopped a little way along the bank to inspect the water for fish.
    Morden muttered something and moved to draw Rachel away to a more private place.
    “No,” she said shakily. “I admit your power over me, but I won’t go willingly to ruin.”
    “Plague take it, I want to marry you!”
    “But only for money. It will not do.”
    He looked at her darkly, and she sucked in a breath. “You were going to seduce me, weren’t you? Here, on the path! I suppose you think that once you’ve had your way I’d be bound to marry you.”
    He maintained a bold stance, but she could see that her words had hit home. “It seems a reasonable assumption.”
    “I’d rather die ! If I think it wrong to marry you, my lord, then nothing will persuade me to. Neither threats, nor seduction!”
    “Now you’re sounding just like that damned Clarissa! I suppose you would pine away from the shame of your fate.”
    “Not before I’d killed you, sir!”
    He suddenly laughed. “Gads, but you are magnificent! Are you really going to force me to make do with some simpering London miss?”
    It was the hardest thing she had ever done in her life, but Rachel said, “Yes.”
    And walked away.
    The next she heard he had gone back to London. She knew he was off to find some other woman to marry him so he could get his hands on his inheritance. A handsome earl would have no trouble at that, so she braced herself to hear the news.
    Over the next little while, Rachel wept many a bitter tear and berated herself for being a fool, but she knew that given the time over again—and the remnants of her virtue and sanity—she would have done the same. Still and all, she could hardly bear the thought of the earl’s return to the Abbey with a bride, and plotted ways to persuade her father to move on to a distant area.
     
     
    On the night before Easter, Mrs. Hatcher said, “I wonder what house will have the egg this year.”
    “To pick Dym’s Bride?” said Rachel, who couldn’t even summon much interest in that matter any more. “How is it done?”
    “Someone has the job of choosing, but none knows who.”
    “No one knows? But I suppose if it were known, there would be pressure. It must be an honor, being Dym’s Bride.”
    “That it is, miss. Something to be right proud of.”
    The next morning, Mrs. Hatcher came to Rachel as soon as she came downstairs. “Miss Proudfoot! You’ll never guess. The egg were on this very doorstep!” She proffered a small blue robin’s egg.
    It took a moment for Rachel to understand. “Dym’s Egg? Here? But . . .”
    “Yes. You’ve been chosen to be Dym’s Bride!”
    Rachel felt a shock of icy horror. “No! I mean, it’s impossible. I’m not even from these parts. . . .”
    “That don’t matter, miss.”
    “But what if I refuse?” Images of Meggie Brewstock in the flames were dancing before Rachel, and Mrs. Hatcher appeared ghoulish.
    “Nay, miss, you couldn’t spoil a tradition that’s gone on for centuries.”
    The Reverend Proudfoot came in at that moment, and when he heard the news he looked very thoughtful. “But is not the Bride generally young? Rachel is twenty-four years old.”
    “Nay, sir, just unmarried.”
    “Perhaps we could have breakfast now, Mrs. Hatcher,” said the vicar calmly, and the housekeeper had to leave.
    Rachel stared at her father. “A virgin, she means. I’m to be a sacrificial virgin! Though I fear I am not supposed to end the night that