At Daisy's sharp command two serving men entered the room and carried the little wooden tub from the bedchamber.
'How on earth did you get them to do that?' asked Skye, knowing full well that her Devon-born servant didn't speak a word of French.
'Well, m'lady, it's not so much the knowing of the words as it is the tone of voice you use, and your hand signals. Don't worry about me. I'll get on just fine. The words ain't so hard to learn. I'll be gabbing away in their own language in no time at all.'
'Oh, Daisy!' Skye hugged the girl. 'I probably shouldn't have let you come along with me. You and Bran should be married now, and starting your own family.'
'Plenty of time for that,' Daisy replied tardy. 'You're going to need me, m'lady. I can see that.'
The little door on the other side of the bed opened, and the duc, in a white nightshirt, entered the room. Daisy bobbed her mistress a quick curtsey and then one to the duc, and hurried from the room.
'You are not in bed,' he said. 'In Beaumont de Jaspre it is customary for a bride to await her husband in their nuptial bed.'
'I wanted a bath,' she said. 'I have not had a freshwater bath in weeks.'
'Pastor Lichault says bathing is a vanity.'
'Then surely he must be the most humble of men,' Skye replied sharply. 'One cannot be in the same room with him without smelling his body odor. It is distasteful. I have never particularly equated dirt with godliness.'
'I would be inclined to agree with you, madame,' he said.
There it was again, she thought. That faint touch of humor in his voice. He walked around to where she was standing and very gently began removing the pins from her hair, which Daisy had not gotten around to doing. Carefully he placed the pins on the mantel of the small fireplace, which, like those in the Great Hall, was banked in flowers. Her long hair tumbled down, and he ran his hands through it admiringly. Skye stood very still. He worried her yet, for although he was obviously attracted to her, she could see or feel no passion in him or his actions.
'You have beautiful hair,' he said quietly. 'A woman's hair is her glory.' He then turned her so that her back was to him, and to her surprise, he pushed her gown from her shoulders, baring her to the waist. Gently he cupped her small, full breasts briefly caressing them. 'And so is her bosom. You have a lovely bosom, madame. I will enjoy seeing our children suckle upon those beautiful breasts, for that is why God gave them to you.' Calmly he drew her gown back up again and, taking her by the hand, led her to the bed. 'Now, madame, I want you to lie face down upon the bed,' he said.
She gasped and turned large frightened eyes to him. Her heart began to pound with certain, terrible memories. 'Surely monseigneur, you are not going to make love to me in the Greek fashion?'
'How do you 'know of such things?' he thundered angrily, grasping her upper arms so hard that she knew she would be bruised come morning. 'What kind of a woman has England sent me? No respectable woman should know of such abomination! Answer me, madame!' His black eyes blazed his outraged fury.
'My first husband,' she cried, trying to loosen his grasp on her tender flesh. 'He loved to humiliate me by doing… doing that.'
'You did not like it?' His gaze searched her face anxiously.
'It disgusted me,' she replied honestly.
He loosed his grip on her. 'So it should have, madame, for God forbids such wickedness. You need not fear that I practice such depravity. However, you must trust me when I ask you to lie face down upon the bed, and you must obey me, madame, for I am your lord and master in both God's eyes and man's.'
Skye was distressed. He had assured her that he did not practice Dom's particular perversion, yet why did he want her to lie face down upon the bed? The silence hung heavy between them. She wasn't going to find out standing here, and surely he wasn't going to harm her after he had said he wouldn't. With a sigh she lay down upon the bed.
'Move into the center, madame,' came the command, and she obeyed him.
He took her left wrist, and she felt him sliding something about it, something soft and yet strong. As she moved her head to look he moved around the bed to grasp her right arm and bind it as well to the carved posts of the bed with a woven silken cord.
She gasped again, this time with shock. 'Monseigneur!' she cried, 'what are you doing?' Her fear was beginning to rise again. She struggled to control it, trying to draw a calming breath. His actions, however, were not reassuring.
He was now spreading her legs and binding them also to the lower posts of the bed. 'I am binding you to the bed, madame. I would have thought that that was obvious to you.' He had finished, and moving up by her head, he pulled the pillows from beneath it. Then lifting her with a surprisingly strong hand, he stuffed the pillows beneath her belly so that her hips were well elevated.
'Because,' he said, as he carefully raised her silk nightgown up, fully exposing her buttocks and legs, 'I am going to beat you.'
'I am going to beat you,' he repeated calmly.
'But why? What have I done? We do not even know each other! How can I have displeased you so in the short time since I arrived that you would do something so awful as to beat me?!'
Fabron de Beaumont sat by her side, and in a calm voice began to explain. 'My beautiful bride,' he said in a voice laced with patience, 'you are a woman, and women are weak vessels who must be constantly corrected in order to give them true strength. Pastor Lichault advocates the daily beating of a wife until she conforms perfectly, instantly, and without questions to her husband's will. He and I spoke at great length tonight before I came to you. He feels that you are much too independent a woman at present to make me a dutiful wife. Nonetheless we are now wed, and so he felt that I must begin on this our wedding night a program of correction so that I may mold you into the kind of woman that my wife should be. If you are to bear my children you must raise them as I desire, without question, and with instant obedience. Women are inferior to men, and yet you have dared to raise yourself above your humble station, to put yourself on a level with men. You are overproud, Skye, but I am going to save you from yourself. This I promise you.'
She was horrified. 'How can you judge me so quickly, my lord Fabron?' she asked him pleadingly. 'If women are so inferior then why has God chosen a queen for England, a queen who reigns without the aid of a husband? And what of France's Catherine de Medici, a queen mother who has reigned for her minor children with God's blessing?'
'You ask too many questions, Skye,' he said. “That is one way I am able to judge you. Women should not ask questions, for Pastor Lichault says they were born to obey without question. As to those two queens you have mentioned, who is to say that it is God who keeps them in power? More likely it is the Devil!'
'Monseigneur, I beg of you, do not beat me!' Skye was becoming extremely frightened. Was her husband a madman? Did he really believe the foolish nonsense that he had been spouting? Pastor Lichault was obviously one of those awful Calvinists who believed that any joy in living was sinful. They were such fools, the Calvinists. She had known some in England, and they were as dangerous as the fanatics among the Catholics. She shuddered with her fright.
'Madame, I do this for your own good. In time, when you have been properly schooled and seen the errors of your past attitude, you will be grateful to me for my perseverance.'
'H-how long will you continue to do this?' her voice was shaking. Dear God, she prayed silently, don't let him kill me in his zeal. Let me live to win him over for both our sakes, and the sake of my children.
'When the day comes, my dear, that you admit to your faults, admit that a woman is incapable of running a business-and I suspect that your business partner does it all for you, despite your claim; when the day comes that you admit that you are not suited to running the vast estates that you claim to run, and entrust such things to me, then I will know that you have become the kind of wife I seek, and want. Until that time I will beat you each night before we retire.'
