Chapter thirteen
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Christine
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I was dumbstruck, 'you may call me husband,' what kind of answer was that? I had asked him a very simple question with a very simple answer, what his name was. The man had his nerve that was for sure, husband indeed, he was no husband of mine! True we were technically married by the eyes of the law, but we were only married on paper for the marriage was never consummated so therefore was not really a marriage. I found my self getting a headache and becoming nauseous, great just what I needed. My father had set me up with the marriage from hell and now I was feeling ill. Bloody perfect! I went after him and caught his shoulder and repeated my question to which he gave me the same answer. This aggravated me so much I made a move to slap him but he caught my hand and dragged me to him. I struggled but he did not let go so I made a move to hit him with my other hand, which he caught and then holding my hands brought his mouth crashing down on mine in a forceful, searing kiss. I began struggling but he held me tight and pulled me closer, his hands holding mine firmly as I tried to push him off.
I tried to struggle for a moment longer but he dragged me closer and the moment I felt the solid wall of his chest I automatically fell against him. I became high on the feelings he was causing in me and I could not help but swoon into his mouth. He must have sensed my submission for his grip relaxed into something that was more of an embrace as he lifted his mouth from mine and began to kiss my throat. I tried to protest but my voice would not obey my mind, because my body did not want him to stop. He massaged the underside of my wrist with kisses and I could not help but shiver. He smirked.
The man laughed deeply, arrogantly, and moved back up to my throat. I told him to stop but he merely smirked and said that I knew I did not want him to and I knew he was right. The shocks of electricity going through me were too much and I could not tell him to stop for he kissed my lips and I lost control of my senses completely. All I could do was give in to the harshness of his kiss as it held passions that I longed to experience. It no longer mattered that I did not love this man, all I could think of was the passions he controlled the feelings he put in me as I gave myself up to him.
I did not know why I was doing this and at the moment I did not care as I gripped him as I became dizzy and he held me more gently. There was no end to the confusion running through my mind, one minute he was ignoring me and acting like a total brute and the next he was kissing me. One minute I was trying to smack the daylights out of him and the next I was gripping onto him for dear life.
It did not make any sense.
He had swept me up into his arms and carried me to his bedroom where he laid me down and began to kiss me again. His hands caressed me and I shivered as he took my body with his hands and gave me the pleasures a man gives a woman. His lips followed down to my throat and his eyes took more than he had touched and he began to touch me in all the places that only a lover should. It made me shiver as his caresses became more tender and coaxing, was this what my father had spoke of when he had told me of the joys of the flesh? If it was than this man whomever he was, was very good at it.
His kiss became deeper and I could not stop the shivering as he took me with his mouth into a world that I never knew existed and he had me drunk on them. He turned me so that he was looking into my eyes and when I saw the emotions reflected there I was suddenly frightened. The passion was dulled and what I saw was more anger than anything else. It was as if he were doing this purely out of obligation than anything else. All sense of thought was again driven from my mind as he kissed me again and all I could think of was that feeling that had caused me to submit to him in the first place. That sea coming from his mouth in which he made me drown and in which I helplessly floundered.
I could not think, I could not concentrate as his hands began to very skillfully disrobed my body. His hands touched me in ways that only a lover should and in all the places reserved for intimacy. He seemed to want to heighten my pleasure before he disrobed himself and made me put my hands on him so that he made his own pleasures. He seemed eager to give himself the same high that I was feeling for soon he looked as drunk on it as I was on them and so we continued to do this until I felt something painful at my center. The sensation was a burn that I had never felt and never wanted to feel again. I begged him to stop but he would not and the pain ceased and I heard him make a sound as I began to cry. The kiss he gave me then was tender and soft.
I was confused for more than one reason as he had hurt me and then when I asked him to stop he had not but the pain had eased somehow. How he had done this I could not fathom and quite frankly did not care to figure out at the moment. The thing that had really bothered me was the tender kiss he had given me. The kiss he had given me as he had ended it. had been strange. It was not like the kisses he had give me before this, but soft and gentle as though he were a true lover to me and not some stranger who I had been forced to give myself to. I froze, what had I done? The marriage had been consummated and now I was officially the wife of a man who I did not love in both the eyes of the law and God. Now he really was my husband... a man I did not know, a complete stranger was my husband in both the physical an legal sense of the word.
What had I done?
His hands were around my waist as he drew me closer to him and my back was against his chest. I could hear him humming softly to himself as though to lull himself to sleep. The voice and the melody were vaguely familiar to me but I could not place them, all I knew was that both were very pretty and that I was exhausted. I felt my body relaxing into the sheets... the bed was so warm and his arms were strong. Without knowing it I had moved closer to him, my head now pillowed on his shoulder... before I knew it I was fast asleep.
When I woke up there was a pair of blue eyes staring at me. They were not my husband's eyes, his were the silver of raindrops not the shadowy blue which gazed at me with such curiosity. When I opened my eyes I knew it was not he, for the face was very furry and had whiskers. I reached up to pet it and the creature purred, once I had gathered up my senses to realize that it was a cat I continued to stroke it and the animal for its part seemed to be thoroughly enjoying itself. One of the maids whose name I heard was Jean came in, greeted me pleasantly with a 'good morning' and then seeing the cat snapped at it to get out of his master's bed and to stop pestering me. When I assured her that it was not and that it was fine by me if the cat wanted to be in my lap, she shrugged.
I asked what the kitten's name was she answered me in a slightly clipped tone as if annoyed that I had allowed the cat to defy her orders. I sighed---Elijah--- so like my husband to name his pet for the angel of death. This man's brooding attitude was really becoming taxing on my nerves . I knew nothing about him, or rather nothing about his mind, for by now I had seen him as unclothed as the day he was born. Still he was content to remain a stranger to me. God this was getting tiring now and if he kept this up I was sure I would go mad.
Speaking of, where was he? He had not been there when I woke up leaving me alone after we had laid together. Would there be no end to the man's brutal habits? First there was the leaving me on our wedding night to go be with a street walker and now he leaves before I wake... I swear if my father were here right now I would hit him over the head with his own cane. I put my face in my hands and had to swallow the lump in my throat, there was no point in crying over this it would not solve anything, nor would it help in doing the latter. All crying would was cause my nose to run and my eyes to swell up and turn red and bloodshot, in other words all crying would do was make me look awful.
Elijah, must have sensed my distress for he began to purr sweetly and nuzzle my shoulder with his little head. I petted him and sighed as Marguerite came in and kindly asked my if I had slept well and I answered in the affirmative for despite my troublesome thoughts I had slept well... odd that I should have slept so well in the arms of the man who I was hell-bent on doing all manner of painful and illegal things to most of them involving his death or at the very least torture. I set the kitten down and as the maid dressed me I thought of last night. Or what I could remember of it...
Now that I was not caught up in the throws of passion I had a clear head and I did not like it. It would seem that last night he had been drunk on more than just passion and though I had failed to notice for lack of the ability to think straight I now faintly recalled the taste and smell of alcohol in his mouth. That hurt, he had only lain with me because he was so drunk that he hadn't known what he was doing. The man did not care for me at all, and while this did not surprise me for he did not know me and visa-versa it still hurt and vaguely disgusted me that he had not come to me out of his own free will but because he was drugged. I had to swallow another lump and when the maid asked if anything was wrong I shook my head and put on a weak smile. She did not seem convinced but dropped the subject and finished tying my gown telling me my husband was in the garden, I thanked her and she stopped me and gave me a motherly hug.
I sank into her embrace, grateful beyond words that someone was there to comfort me. She held me so tenderly that I did not even notice when I had begun shaking. The good woman shushed me and kissed my cheek, humming softly until I was calm and I pulled away for a moment and let her kiss my cheek again before I went to find my spouse. I found him and asked him again what his name was and when he said nothing I became angry and demanded to know why he was so intent on hurting me, why he had betrayed me on our wedding night and then was not there when I woke up this morning and why the bloody hell wouldn't he tell me his name? He turned around and the look in his eyes frightened me. It was a look that I had seen last night, that passionate angry look.
What he said next hurt me more than anything he had done before,"This is a marriage of convenience. Nothing more." and he left me there going in his coach to god only knows where. I stood there... he did not even care for me, last night had not been a true consummation... he had raped me... he had raped me and I let him... worse I'd enjoyed it. I sank to my knees just as little Elijah padded out to the garden and jumped in my lap, snuggling his head into my shoulder. I held him close and kissed the back of his head burying my face into his fur, I cried like a child.
A/N: Thanks to all who gave me help and suggestions, I couldn't have done it without you!