of another was rendered half-mad from jealousy. At two o'clock, since you had not come, and I could not beat you, I pulled my maid from her bed and beat her instead. But I vowed that I'd make you pay for the misery you had caused me before another night was past, and laid my plans accordingly.'
Roger scowled at her thin, sullen face below him, and the thought that the wretched maid had been beaten for no fault of her own added fresh fuel to his anger.
' 'Tis over-time that someone put a check upon your vicious habits,' he stormed. 'Have you never a thought but for yourself? Did it not occur to you that in such an ambush as you planned someone might have lost his life? You knew that I carried a cutlass and would be certain to use it; but with five of those rogues against me I might well have received a mortal wound myself.'
She shrugged her slim shoulders. 'I loved you passionately and thought that you loved me no longer; so had you been killed I should have suffered less than in believing that you had cast me off and that another was the recipient of your caresses.'
'Lovel' he snarled. 'You do not even begin to know the meaning of the word!' And he slapped her hard with the flat of his hand across the face.
He had wrought himself up into a temper, yet his anger was nothing near so great as it appeared; and the blow was not delivered spontaneously, but as a set-piece in an act that he had worked out with great care several hours before. He meant to break her spirit if he could, and had decided that in offering her violence lay his only real chance of making her his submissive puppet by the time they reached Russia.
White and shaken she recoiled from the blow with a little gasp. Then her mouth opened to let out a scream. With a second slap he checked it, so that her cry was half-strangled in her throat.
Squirming away from him she choked out a torrent of abuse mingled with the most terrifying threats. 'You filthy Frenchman! By the death of God you shall pay for this. Son of a whore, how dare you strike me in the face! Wait only until we reach Russia, you gutter-bred parvenu, and I'll have the Empress's Cossacks ply their knouts upon you till you're flayed alive!'
'We are not in Russia yet,' he said curtly. 'And before we get there I mean to teach you how a decent woman should behave herself.'
'You'll teach me nothing!' she screamed. 'You'll not have the chance. I'll rouse the ship and have the Captain put you in irons for making an assault upon me.'
Swift as an eel she slid out of bed. He grabbed at her shoulder and caught her night-robe, but it ripped right down to the waist, and half-naked, she dashed towards the door with Roger in hot pursuit.
Before she could get it open he was upon her. Grasping her wrist he gave it a violent jerk, which swung her round and sent her crashing to title floor. Swiftly he shot the bolt, then turned again towards her.
She was already on her feet and had kicked herself free of her trailing night-robe. Agile as a panther, she bounded across the room towards the heavy desk, wrenched open one of its upper drawers and grabbed a long, curved knife. Before he could get within two yards of her she had whipped round and flashed the glittering blade before his eyes.
Roger halted abruptly in his tracks. For a moment they both remained motionless, glaring at one another. Even in that moment of crisis he could not but catch his breath at the violent beauty of the figure she made. She had not a stitch of clothing on her slim, lissome body but her long, silvery-blonde hair hung like a cloak about her shoulders and half-way down her back. Her small breasts heaved violently with stress and emotion, and her green eyes blazed at him with the fury of a trapped animal.
He felt certain that she meant to kill him if she could, yet he dared not back down now. To have shown a trace of fear or attempted to temporise would have spelled certain disaster. Even if it meant an ugly wound he had got to get the knife from her; otherwise there could be no reconciliation, and within a week she would carry out her threat to have him knouted to death. She was not the woman to forget an injury. Immunity from her vengeance could be secured only by subduing her completely. He had gambled on being able to do that, and now he must go through with it or pay the forfeit.
Suddenly it came to him that, for these next few moments, he must forget that she was a woman, and deal with her as he would a drunken sailor who attempted to knife him in a brawl. So far he had merely slapped her; but now he must hit her in good earnest as the only means of preventing her from giving him an ugly wound.
As he clenched his fists and raised them her eyes widened with astonished dismay. His left shot out straight for her face and she flung herself back against the desk in an attempt to escape the blow. But it was only a feint and did not even touch her. Before she could recover her balance his right landed with a thud in the middle of her stomach.
Her mouth gaped open as the breath was driven from her body. A spasm of pain shot across her features, and dropping the knife, she clutched wildly at the place where his blow had landed, doubled up, then slid gasping to the floor.
Roger kicked the knife away well out of her reach, picked her up and threw her on the bed. For a minute he stood watching her as she writhed there, but he knew that he had only winded her and the moment she got her breath back she would be cursing and threatening him again; so he decided that now was the time to go through with the distasteful task he had set himself.
Striding across the room to a cloak-rack near the door he took frpm it the stoutest of Natalia Andreovna's three long parasols. By the time he got back to the bed her writhing had ceased; she was lying there panting heavily and staring up at him with a strange expression in her eyes. Ignoring her glance he grabbed the hair on the top-of her head with his left hand. Instantly she clawed at it with her long nails in an effort to free herself, but she could do no more than scratch him, and twisting her head round sideways he forced her over onto her face. Then he set about belabouring her bottom with the parasol in no half-hearted manner.
For a few moments she bore her beating stoically, alternatively gritting her teeth and snarling curses at him. Then she began to shout for help, but he forced her face down into the pillow, half-muffling her cries. Next she started to beg for mercy, but he ignored her pleas and continued to belabour her. At last she ceased to curse, struggle and plead, went suddenly limp beneath his grip and burst into a flood of tears.
Only then did he stop, and, throwing the parasol on the floor, stood back from her, panting as a result of his exertions.
She did not move but continued to lie there with her face buried in the pillows, sobbing as though her heart would break. When he had recovered his breath he slowly began to undress, intent now on completing his plan for her subjugation.
He hated the thought of taking her against her will, but not from any moral scruple. He had had her first, and many times since, with her eager consent; so this would have no semblance to a violation. But he disliked the thought of forcing a woman in any circumstances, and, moreover, believed that he had now come to far the most difficult part of the battle that he was waging; since, should she prove really stubborn, and refuse to respond to Ms passion by finally melting in his arms, all that had gone before would count for nothing. They would part still unreconciled and himself inevitably become the victim of her unappeasable hatred.
Yet in this his fears were groundless. Had he lived in Russia for years and been an expert on Russian character and customs he could not have dealt more effectively with her than he had already done. As he laid his hand upon her shoulder she turned over of her own accord, smiled up at him from tear-dimmed eyes and, choking back her sobs, murmured:
'Oh, Roje Christorovitch, how deeply you must love me, to beat me so.'
'Indeed I love you,' he replied; and looking down on her thus he almost believed he meant it as he went on: 'Surely you do not think that I would have left Sweden at a moment's notice for the sole purpose of paying you out by giving you a beating. You are a wicked child, and it seems that like a fond parent I needs must be stern with you for your own betterment. But I determined at once to sail in this ship because I could not bear to be parted from you.'
'Yet you have found the way to my heart,' she sighed contentedly. 'All that you needed to-be a perfect lover was the violence of a Russian. You were too soft, too considerate, too woman-like before. You allowed me to bully you unmercifully without complaint, and that is wrong. No woman of my country ever believes that her man truly loves her unless he beats her now and then. Even the Empress Catherine has taken her beatings from the Orlofs' Potemkin and other favourites, and loved them for it all the more. Roje Christorovitch, you are now my master and I your slave. Lie down here while I kneel at your feet and you, my lord, shall tell me how best I may pleasure you this night.'
