Bitter Greens (37 page)

‘Down there?’

With a swift movement, he had me on my back, my skirts rucked up, knees spread so he could kneel between my legs. His hands slid down my bare thighs till his thumbs were just touching the point where my thighs met my pelvis. His touch was like a branding iron.

He smiled at my shocked face. ‘Midsummer’s Eve,’ I answered faintly.

Slowly, slowly, he slid his thumbs inside me. Slowly, slowly, he parted the soft damp lips, then quickly, savagely, he thrust both thumbs as far inside me as he could. I cried out and arched my back. He pulled his hands away and took both my wrists in his, pinning them above my head. For
a long moment, he looked down at me, his lips parted, breathing quickly. I twisted, drawing my knees towards my chest, feeling both unbearably aroused and also frightened. His face was so hard, so unreadable. Then he nodded. ‘Midsummer’s Eve,’ he said, and got up and left the room.

During the day, we walked in the gardens, or we rode in the forest and picnicked among the trees. He loved to see my body by daylight. I swear he would have had me out there in the open if I had let him. At night, we danced and drank champagne and went to the theatre. If the lights were low, he would slide his hand under my gown, drawing slow circles on my silk-covered legs, higher and higher, ever higher. I’d have to rap him with my fan, blushing, and hastily straighten my clothes.

One night, playing piquet in my little room, he wanted to brush my hair. I had already lost my garter and my stockings, my pearls and my petticoats and my dress; he had lost his coat and his waistcoat and his cravat and his shoes and stockings. I was languorous and smiling, deep in a haze of alcohol and scented candle smoke and anticipation. Although I could glimpse the bag of spells through his open shirt, I had got used to shutting my mind to it.

‘Come sit on the stool,’ he said. I obeyed, and he took my hair down from its pins, drawing it through his hands, bending to smell it. I only wore the perfume he had given me now, and the air was heady with its rich enticing smell.

‘Where’s your brush?’

I gave it to him, and he brushed my hair slowly, sensuously. I sighed and bent my head forward. I felt so dizzy I might fall. He said in my ear, ‘Come lie on the bed,
chérie
. I want to see you clad only in your hair.’

‘Was that part of the wager?’ I answered drowsily. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Your hair is so long and thick, it’s like a cloak,’ he said. ‘You’ll be more modest than if you wore a chastity belt, I promise you.’

I smiled, rather ruefully, but allowed him to draw me up and push me down on the bed. As he unbuttoned my chemise, I raised myself on my elbows. ‘Remember …’

‘I know. Only combing your hair. That’s all I’m allowed to do. No kissing.’ He leant forward and brushed my lips with his. ‘No touching.’ He slid his hand inside my chemise and stroked the curve of my breast. ‘No tasting.’ He put his mouth to my nipple and sucked it briefly through the cotton of my chemise.

I rested my hands on his head. ‘
Chéri
,’ I sighed.

He sat up. ‘I know, I know. Here, just let me slide this down. I won’t take it all off, I promise.’ He slid the chemise off my shoulders so it pooled around my hips, then drew my hair over my shoulders so it hung down over my breasts. He parted it carefully with his fingers, allowing my pink rosebud nipples to poke through. ‘There, perfect,’ he said. ‘That’s how I’ll expect you to dress at our wedding.’

‘Imagine what the Duchesse de Guise would say,’ I giggled.

He reached forward and gently touched one nipple. ‘I love the way it hardens when I touch it. Won’t you touch mine too? Let’s see if a man’s nipple hardens the way a woman’s does.’

Shyly, I reached forward and let my fingers push his shirt open. Avoiding the bag of spells, which hung on its ribbon against his muscled chest, I gently touched his nipple. It immediately hardened into a nub.

‘Won’t you kiss it?’ he asked.

I shook my head, closing the shirt so it covered the bag of spells. He sighed. ‘Let me kiss yours then. It’s too cruel to let me so close and not let me kiss you.’

So I let him part my hair and take my nipple in his mouth. He laved it with his tongue, sucking gently, then suddenly bit me so hard I yelped and pushed him away. ‘Ouch. That hurts!’

He looked contrite. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’ve never kissed a woman’s nipples before. I didn’t know they were so sensitive. I know now. I won’t hurt you again. Please let me make it up to you. Lie down. I’ll be so gentle.’

I lay down on my stomach, and he drew the chemise down over my hips and threw it on the floor. For the first time, I was completely naked before him. I pressed my body down into the bed, feeling vulnerable and a little
afraid, but he did as he promised, taking my hair and spreading it over my back like a cloak.

‘So beautiful,’ he said. I felt my lips lift in a smile. No one had ever called me beautiful before. ‘Ravishing. Utterly ravishing.’

Slowly, slowly, the Marquis brushed my hair, from the crown of my head to its curly tip. Slowly, slowly, I relaxed, resting my head on my arms, all my muscles loosening till I was as soft and malleable as clay.

‘Your hair’s so long,’ he whispered. ‘Look, it reaches past your bottom.’ He took the end of my hair in his hand and began to caress my bare buttocks with its silky tips, as if it was a feather. I sighed and my thighs parted involuntarily. He brushed the tips of my hair down the cleft of my buttock then teased me between the legs. I squirmed.

‘Is that brushing?’ I asked.

He drew the ends of my hair away, winding it about his wrist and then about his arm. ‘It’s like a rope,’ the Marquis whispered. ‘So soft and yet so strong.’

Suddenly, he yanked on my hair, pulling my head back, my back arched like a cat stretching. I cried out.

‘I would so love to touch you there,’ he murmured, sliding his fingers into the cleft between my buttocks. ‘I’d so love to be on top of you. Can I just …’

Before I could say a word, he sat astride me, all his weight on the base of my buttocks. Dragging on my hair so tightly my spine was bent like a bow, he pressed himself against me, his other hand seizing my breast. He was naked from the waist up. He must have taken off his shirt without me realising. I felt the bag of spells squashed against my back and tried to break free, repulsed.

‘No,’ I cried. ‘Stop! Enough, enough!’

He would not let me go. Keeping a tight hold on my hair, he let go of my breast and plunged his hand down between my legs, lifting me up and jamming me against his penis, straining against the silk of his breeches. If he had been naked, he would have been inside me. As it was, I could feel my body being wrenched open.

‘Stop! You’re hurting me. You promised.’

He threw me down on the bed, saying savagely, ‘Yes, only your hair, only brushing.’ He took the brush, dragging it through my hair so hard it brought tears to my eyes. His hand pushed me down so firmly my face was squashed into the pillows. I could not breathe. I flailed, trying to break free. Then he took the handle of the brush and thrust it between my legs, jabbing it just inside the lips of my vagina. I froze, feeling his hand heavy on my head, the cold hard end of the brush threatening to impale me. For a moment, we rested there, me not daring to move, him panting into my neck. Then he hurled the brush away.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘You should not tempt me so much.’

I grasped the sheet to my breasts. ‘You’re right. We should stop.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘This must stop.’ He got up, drawing his shirt on again.

‘Only till our wedding,’ I said.

He jerked his head. ‘Yes. Till our wedding.’

For three days, he stayed away from me. I was tense with anxiety. What if he had changed his mind? What if the wedding plans had fallen through? Nanette had heard the servants gossiping about how the Marquis’ cousin, the Grand Condé, had told him he must end things with me or risk being cast out of the family. I felt I could not bear it if all my plans came to naught, and I wondered if I had miscalculated. Perhaps if I had let him have his way with me …
But then why would he marry me,
I told myself,
if he had got what he wanted for nothing.

I was asleep in bed on the third night when I heard a soft scratching at the door. I scrambled up and ran to open it, dressed only in my nightgown. The Marquis was leaning against the wall, wearing only a shirt and breeches, a candle in one hand.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have done it.’

‘It’s all right. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have let it go so far.’

He pushed at the door, stepping in. I stopped him. ‘Better not.’

He drew me towards him, his eyes on the slight swell of my unfettered breast beneath my nightgown. ‘I cannot stop. I’ve tried. Don’t make me stop.’ He kissed me on the mouth, backing me into the room. I pushed
both hands against his chest, but I could not stop him. He put the candle down on the table and seized me by the hair, kissing me, grasping my bottom so I was brought up hard against him, feeling his urgent need. ‘I love you, you know that. I’ve told the whole court we are to marry. My God, I’ve even defied the head of my family. You cannot deny me now.’

‘We’ll be married soon,’ I said desperately.

‘No, I want you now. I can’t wait any longer.’

‘No. Please. No.’

I shouldn’t have said ‘please’, the word he had said to me so often. For he had me back on the bed in seconds, tearing away his shirt, wrenching at the fastening of his breeches, his arm across my throat. He was too strong, too fast. I had only time to gasp a breath before he had ripped my nightgown away.

As he drove into me, again and again and again and again, the satin bag of spells banged against my chest, making me gag with the smell of decay and rotting herbs. The stench filled my nose, my throat, my stomach, as he emptied himself into me. When he collapsed against my breasts, the bag was crushed between us, a heavy stinking lump that seemed to brand my skin, a burning pin to impale me.

I found it hard to get out of bed the next day.

My body hurt all over. My mouth was puffy and torn, there were dark bruises on my neck and breasts and wrists and thighs, and when I sat on my chamber pot I felt like I was passing acid instead of urine.

It is your own fault
, I told myself.
You gave him the bag of spells. You wore the perfume he said would drive men crazy with love. What did you expect?

Yet tears rolled slowly down my cheeks. I washed myself carefully with my softest flannel, hid my torn nightgown at the bottom of my chest and found myself another one, the softest and most voluminous one I owned. I pulled all the sheets off the bed and thrust them out of sight, then crawled under my eiderdown, too ashamed to ring for Nanette and ask her to remake the bed. I lay there, occasionally sniffing and wiping my eyes with the back of my hand.

It’ll be different when we’re married. He was only so rough because you teased him so much
, I told myself. But I had not forgotten that moment when he had threatened to jam the handle of my brush up inside me.
Perhaps he did not realise how much he hurt me,
I thought.
Perhaps it is the black magic, driving him to be cruel. Perhaps if I get rid of the bag of spells, he will be gentle with me again, and call me
ma belle,
and tell me how much he loves my mouth.

Nanette soon came scratching at my door, and I told her I was sick. She made up my bed for me with fresh sheets, then brought me broth and well-watered sweet wine to drink, and a cloth soaked in lavender water. She would have combed my hair for me, but I flinched at the touch of her hand. She went away, her face in a knot of worry. I slept for a while. When I woke, she brought me a hipbath and a train of footmen carrying jugs of hot water, and I sat in the bath, my knees pressed to my chin, until the water was cold. She washed my hair for me, telling me stories about when I was a little girl and the funny things I’d say, and all the naughty things I did. I turned my head and rested my cheek on my knee and almost smiled. She gave me a jar of comfrey salve to dab on my cuts and bruises, and a foul-tasting herbal concoction to drink, and said not a word except, ‘There, my Bon-bon, there, my little cabbage, is that better?’

I loved Nanette so much.

When the water was too cold to sit in, I got up and let Nanette towel my hair dry. She would have passed me my nightgown, but I shook my head. ‘Court dress, please, Nanette.’

She looked anxious. ‘You won’t go out?’

‘I think I must.’

She helped me dress in one of my new gowns and coiled my hair around the hot poker till it was a mass of long tight ringlets, pinned back above my ears. I painted and powdered my face, carefully concealing the bruises on my neck, then coloured my mouth with carmine. Carefully, I placed a black velvet patch on my chin, to the left. I am discreet, that patch said. Finally, I clasped the jet necklace that the Marquis had given me around my neck. At the end of a string of tiny exquisite jet beads hung a tiny carved rose, black as my hair. ‘My dark rose,’ he had called me. I picked up my fan of ostrich feathers and rather unsteadily made my way through the corridors to the King’s salon.