Free Worlds of BBW Erotic Romance - Box Set by Celia Demure, Jennie Primrose Page B

that if I found a nice man that I wanted to marry, he should give his blessing.” 
    “Was your mother very pious like your father?”
    “My mother was the daughter of a wealthy village squire,” Julia explained. “Her parents didn’t want her to marry a poor parish preacher, as my father was at the time. But they ran away and got married. She said she never regretted it, even though she had to give up so many things. She made my father promise that I would never have to run away, that he would let me pick my own husband.”
    “Your father made her happy?” Ed asked, incredulous.
    Julia nodded on her pillow. “He wasn’t always like he is now. Mother said he was handsome and had a fiery charm, that when he talked about God or about her own beauty it made her weak in the knees. She said you could see the power in his eyes. But he was gentle with her, and she said she could settle for no one else.”
    “Well,” Ed said, “I guess you have to settle. For me, I mean”
    “Why?” she asked.
    “Because you had to tell your father you wanted to marry me to save my life.”
    “But … I do love you,” she said.
    There was such surety in her voice! The statement had been crystal clear and confident.
    “I’m crippled,” he protested. “You saw my foot when Mrs. Starks bandaged my burns? It’s a clubfoot. Ill-formed, they call it. All twisted and… and… everything.”
    Indeed, he had been greatly embarrassed, sure that he would see disgust in her lovely face, that it would be the end of her respect for him.
    He’d been surprised when she’d seemed only concerned about his burns …
    “So?” she asked. “What does that matter?”
    “I’m a burden,” he said. “Flawed … you know.”
    “I’m flawed, too,” she said, nodding earnestly. “I know I’m not exactly petite. I know that I’m quite a bit… heftier… than most gentlemen would desire. I’m no beauty.”
    She thinks she’s ugly?, Edwin thought, incredulous.
    He certainly had a sure opinion on that! In fact, just feeling the soft contours of her body against him now… even through the bundling bag… sent warm desire through him, from his chest down to his loins.
    “I have devoured every inch of you with my eyes and I wish… Well,” Ed sighed, “I wish my hands could touch all of it, every lovely creamy inch of your flesh. It’s all beautiful to me.”
    She was smiling at him, her big blue eyes wide. Even in the dimming light, he thought he could see his own face reflected in those pale eyes, as if he were her entire universe.
    “Do you love me, Edwin?” she asked.
    “Yes,” he said, surprised at his own lack of hesitation.
    She made him feel powerful, as if he might rip his way out of the bag and carry her off the estate right now, striking down all who opposed him.
    For her, he might just try it …
    “I wish we had more time together,” she said, and then he heard her softly sob. “Father was saying that the end is coming sooner than he planned.”
    The end …
    The image came into his mind again, the memory of seeing that thing Croatoan dragging her out of the circle of light, down that dark tunnel. Whatever had happened in the darkness, between her and that thing and her father, she didn’t want to talk about it.
    “We have to get you out of here,” Ed said. “I’m not going to quit now.”
    She nodded. “But what can we do?”
    His mind was churning, turning over every tidbit of information he had about the Rector and Croatoan and their situation, over and over …
    “The wedding,” he said. “Your father will want to have it here, in the house?”
    She nodded again.
    “But we won’t be in bags, or tied up. You’ll tell him we can’t be. It has to be special for you, right? So that’s our chance …”
    He whispered his ideas to her, watched her nod and blink to acknowledge what he said.
     
    #
     
    The sun was setting now, the faint orange light in the bedroom dimming.
    Julia listened to Edwin as he told