All the Sweet Tomorrows

Raising himself upon one elbow, he bent his head down and touched his lips gently to hers, drawing away as quickly as though he had been burned. With a soft laugh Skye drew his head back down with her hands, and pressed her mouth to his ardently. Fabron de Beaumont felt a delicious weakness race through his veins, felt his flaccid manhood tingle and stir to life again.

'That, monseigneur,' she said as she released her hold on him and drew her mouth from his, 'that is a kiss. Not altogether an unpleasant thing, is it?'

'Are you mocking me, madame?' he demanded, but his dark eyes belied the sternness of his tone.

'Perhaps a little,' she replied. 'Laughter goes with love, mon mari.”

'You lack respect for me, madame,' he said, 'and I must claim a forfeit for this absence of decorum.' Then he was kissing her, sweeping her into his arms, his lips seeking her sweetness with a gentle strength that quite surprised her. For the first time since their marriage a tiny tingle of desire stirred within Skye. Perhaps, she thought, there is hope for us after all.

He held her lightly against him, and she knew that he gained tremendous pleasure from the proximity of her body, the warmth and the silkiness of her smooth perfumed flesh. 'Do you like it when I caress you?' he asked her hesitantly.

'Yes,' she whispered to him.

'Do you like it when I kiss and caress your lovely breasts?'

'Yes, mon mari, I like it very much,' was her soft answer.

'I want you to like it,' he said in what Skye thought was a shy voice. 'I want you to like it when I make love to you.'

'Oh, Fabron,' Skye said, touched and pleased that she was beginning to get through to him. 'When you are gentle and tender with me I, too, find pleasure. Should we both not find pleasure in each other?'

'Pastor Lichault says-'

Her hand stopped his mouth. 'What does a priest, a priest of any faith, know of passion between a man and his wife, Fabron? I believe that God gave a man his wife not only for companionship and the procreation of his children, but for pleasure as well. I believe that God gave woman her husband for the same reasons. Love me, and I will love you in return. Where is the wrong in that, mon mari?'

Kissing her hand, he removed it from his lips, and said, 'You make it all seem so simple, Skye.'

'It is simple, Fabron. Love me, and I will love you back.'

He made love to her then, made love to her as he had not made love to her before. He was tender and considerate. He sought to please her for the first time, and was surprised to find that her pleasure excited him greatly. When she attained the top of the mountain he realized that all the other times she had only pretended in order to please him. It was then he knew that he loved this beautiful woman who, despite his bestial treatment of her that first night, had sought to make their marriage work. ^u Je t'aime, Skye,' he murmured in her ear, and she held him close, knowing now that they had a chance to succeed in their marriage.

***

Their idyll was soon over, however. The next morning they sat at a small table that Daisy set up each day in the window of the bedchamber, eating their simple meal of sweet ripe peaches, fresh bread warm from the oven, salt brie, and watered wine. The long windows stood open, and along the stone balustrade blood-red roses grew over the pink stone. Above them the sky was a cloudless blue, below the sea was a sunlit blue-green. A small black and yellow songbird that had taken to visiting them perched himself amid the roses and sang a song before fluttering to their table to eat crumbs from Skye's hand. Husband and wife smiled at each other.

'How can you do that?' he asked her, intrigued as he always was by her ability to charm the bird.

'The bird knows that it has nothing to fear from me,' she said softly. 'If you love a wild creature it senses your love.'

'More than likely it is witchcraft!' thundered a voice from the center of the room. Startled, the bird fled.

'M'lady, monseigneur, I tried to keep him out, but he pushed me aside,' Daisy said indignantly. It was said in French, but Daisy quickly switched to English. 'Beware, m'lady! The old devil's been fuming for days over the duc's neglect of him.'

'You presume upon my friendship for you, Pastor, that you would intrude upon the privacy of myself and my duchesse,' Fabron de Beaumont said sternly.

Pastor Lichault strode to the table. Skye wrinkled her nose. Did the man never bathe? He smelled as if he slept with the goats. 'I come for the good of your immortal soul, Fabron, my son! Since the night I joined you under God's holy law with this woman you have not come to me. You have neglected your spiritual duties, and God is displeased! He will take his vengence, and this woman will abort your seed as did your other wives. Down upon your knees, both of you! Beg God's forgiveness before it is too late!'

The duc looked suddenly uncertain and frightened; Skye was furious and she leapt to her feet. 'You wicked man!' she shouted at the pastor. 'It is you who should fall upon your knees and beg God's forgiveness for your distorted, terrible teachings!'

'Whore!' The pastor pointed a bony finger at Skye. 'Look at her, Fabron, my son! Look how she flaunts her body like a common harlot of Babylon!' His eyes fastened upon her breasts, and he unconsciously licked his lips. Skye was wearing the sheer, rose-colored silk gown she had refused to wear the night of her wedding to the duc.

'You are looking hard enough,' she accused the pastor, 'and the thoughts I see lurking behind your evil eyes are hardly those of a holy man!' She was very angry now.

'You have neglected your duties by this woman,' the pastor cried. 'Her skin is unmarked. You have not beaten her each day as I told you you must, and she is more unbridled than when she came to you. If you will not follow God's will, then I must do it for you, for the sake of your immortal soul!' Reaching out, the pastor grasped at Skye with surprisingly strong fingers, and tearing her gown from her, he began to beat her with his hands about the face and head. Skye screamed and struggled to escape his hold.

With a roar of outrage Fabron de Beaumont leapt at the Huguenot pastor and dragged him off of Skye. Furiously he began to pummel the man with knotted fists as Daisy ran to aid her shaking mistress. 'You devil's spawn,' the duc snarled at the pastor, who had suddenly become a sniveling, cringing creature. 'You lured me from my faith, and almost destroyed my marriage before it even began. Were my new duchesse not a woman of strength and character, I should have destroyed her that first night. God forgive me for the weakling I have been, but am no more!'

Then with one sweeping motion Fabron de Beaumont lifted Pastor Lichault bodily into the air and flung him over the balcony. With horror they heard his death scream as he hurtled through the air, then all was silent. Skye and Daisy ran to the balcony and, looking over, saw that he was quite dead upon the rocks below, his neck twisted at a grotesque angle, blood streaming from his nose and mouth.

Turning back to calm her angry husband, Skye saw that Fabron stood, his knees buckling, his eyes bulging from his head, his hands moving frantically from his throat to his head as he struggled to breathe, to speak. Then with a gasping, frantic cry he collapsed onto the floor.

'Get the physician!' Skye commanded Daisy as she knelt by the duc's side. 'Get Edmond also-and hurry, Daisy!'

Daisy sped from the room, her legs moving automatically, for she was partially in shock from the events of the