To Have and To Hold
Chapter Two
Narcissa, as vain and beautiful and proud as her name suggested, sat beside her beaurearu, looking cold, and crystalline as ice. She listened to her husband's thundering steps in silence, the edges of her lips curved up in a small, vicious smile. Not a hair was out of place on that white-gold head as it bent slightly, studying her dagger sharp nails.
Her hair fell softly about her, waves and rivulets of silken ringlets. Many a man would gladly suffer death at her husband's hand just to bury their faces among the hair. Many more would be willing to suffer a thousand deaths to run their hands along her glorious figure. A million deaths would be well worth it if they could have a chance of intimacy.
The problem was, her husband knew a thousand thousand things much, much worse than death.
Her husband was at the door.
He entered without knocking, barely taking in the figure of his wife in her negligee. He had long since gotten past the grandeur of her beauty.
"Good evening, Lucius." Narcissa's throaty purr floated over to him, as calm and winning as ever. Her body, however, tensed, and Lucius' keen eyes, glinting and stone grey, failed to miss this. He fought down the stirring he felt when he took in her readiness for war.
"You are supposed to be downstairs at this time. I'm sure you didn't fail to receive this... message."
His voice was calm and unassuming, carefully tucking away the rage and want to employ quite different strategies other than rationalization mixed with coercion.
"You summoned me, Lucius." Was her equally careful reply. "You know I do not reply to summons."
"You do to mine." He replied curtly.
"When they are reasonable."
"And what, pray Madame, do you consider 'reasonable'?"
"It sure as hell isn't parading naked in front of your collected 'gentlemen'! Mab, Lucius!"
Narcissa didn't like tactical approaches.
Her husband sneered at her. "What, then, do you suppose your looks are for other than 'parading'? Enlighten me."
Narcissa fought to regain the control she had so rashly lost. Perhaps she could turn this around.
Standing, she allowed the sheer material covering her curvaceous form to drop, slithering to the floor with a silken hiss. Swaying her hips, she approached her husband, locking eyes and allowing a sexy grin to play over her mouth.
Pressing herself against him, she trailed her fingers down over his chest, swirling them over his abdomen, and moving on. Her other hand played with a lock of his hair, nearly as fine as her own.
"Why, Lucius," She murmured, "They're for you!"
Lucius felt himself longing to react to his wife's touch, but he had long ago mastered control over every aspect of himself. Mab, but she was beautiful!
Lucius managed a dismissive snort. "Me and about thirty other of your lovers." For a moment, his arms tightened around her and Narcissa's breath quickened. Then he pushed her roughly away, cursing at himself for almost giving way.
The two worked at composing themselves.
Narcissa move to the bed, drawing the top coverlet partially around her.
Lucius moved to the high-backed scarlet chair and rested his hand on the wing, his other clenched into a fist.
Neither spoke.
"You will come down and entertain our guest."
"Your guests, Lucius. And no, I won't." Narcissa's beauty hardly diminished as she sat there, a delicate pout on her face.
"Don't bother, Narcissa," Lucius said with a sneer, "Your looks, however pretty, don't work on me." His voice did nothing to betray his rising anger; she was his wife, and he would do with her as he pleased. How dare she disobey him! How dare she! And in the presence of Them, no less.
"You can give it up too, then, pet. There's nothing you could do to make me, so why don't you just go off in a corner and lick your pride; goodness knows it'll take you the better part of the week to finish, your ego being so big." She laughed harshly. "I'm the only thing you can't control, dearest."
Her sweet smile was too much.
With a snarl, Lucius leapt upon her, closing a fist over her hair that she prided herself in so much. Narcissa shrieked and set her nails to Lucius' neck.
"Nothing I can do? Oh darling, that's where you're too wrong. There are a thousand, thousand things, all too ready for me to command." He snarled, wrenching her head further and further back.
His eyes locked on hers, and her gaze was one of pure venom. But the smile, that tiny, secret-secret smile re-fixed itself on her face, changing her pretty looks to a goyle's grimace.
"As you wish it, Lucius!" Her pearly teeth were bared in two, even, dazzling white lines. It was through those evenly rowed soldiers that she spat.
"Go ahead, darling! Loose your demons on me! Let me be haunted for the rest of my days, a phantom, a crazed phantasm cackling in your rafters of your grand, grand house, your precious sanctuary! You'll be stuck, Lucius: Death, my death, would be your only option, and that would hardly be satisfying, now would it, pet?"
His grip on her tumbled mane had loosened, and she drew her head close to him, placing her mouth beside his ear.
"Remember, oh husband, just remember – I am not one of your darling girls that you occasionally tumble, in need of coercion. I'm a big girl. I've seen big things. There is nothing you could do that could frighten me. You, darling – have no control."
Until then, Lucius' steely gray eyes had lost their focus, looking, staring elsewhere than that room and his wife. He had momentarily receded into the workshop of his mind, wide and full, as elegant and tastefully arranged as his won person. In there, he had found his shelf on "Narcissa," everything he knew on the headstrong girl, flirtatious minx, devilish fighter, madwoman, woman, etcetera.
Nothing under "wife."
In his mind, he had never been married. He never would be. To yolk himself to any woman would be to contaminate his thoughts, his being, his very essence.
No. Inside, at the very core, Lucius Malfoy was a cold, emotionless bachelor. To be married was to be in love. To love was to feel. To feel would be weak. Lucius Malfoy was anything but.
And so, in that esteemed workplace, Lucius Malfoy decided how to break the wanton creature awaiting a response. He examined the end result, the perfect reprimand.
The corners of his lips turned up.
Let her wait.
Narcissa blinked as she saw her husband slowly pull back to reality.
His eyes refocused and sharpened; his irises became less cloudy and regained their steel. Narcissa blinked her heavily lashed eyelids again, suddenly uncomfortable. Her husband had suddenly acquired his triumphant look. He hardly ever wore it, unless victory was imminent.
He wasn't often wrong.
Her eyes narrowed, willing him to look at her, to share his epiphany. Lucius complied.
Seeing the smirk playing at the corners of his upturned mouth, Narcissa's heart began to pulse with the first inklings of terror. Here, she knew, was the beginning of the end.