Then he stood and was beside her, lifting her in his arms. “None of it is important right now. All that is important is that you forgive me. Dear God, I had prayed you would confess your betrayal to me, and like the magnanimous gentleman, I would have forgiven you. I deserve to be whipped.”
“Yes,” she said. “But not just this moment. Perhaps tomorrow I could take a whip to you. Or best, we wait until we have a roaring argument. What do you think?”
He kissed her, very lightly, very gently. She wanted to cry. “You truly believe me now?” she whispered against his mouth.
“Yes, I believe you. I will never disbelieve you again. I am a dog. I am a blind dog. If only I had told you exactly what I had seen, but I didn’t. Please kick me.”
“No, I’m sorry, but not now.”
He held her face between his hands. “You are my wife and if you will forgive me, then we will begin anew.”
“I would like that.”
“You will forgive me?”
“Yes, I must. I really have no choice.”
“That first night together, Arabella. You were a virgin, utterly innocent, so happy, so filled with anticipation and I violated you. I am more sorry about that than I can tell you. Will you give me another chance? Will you let me love you now? I swear to you that I can do it right.”
She remembered that night, the humiliation, the pain, the helplessness.
“It is difficult,” she said, her breath warm against his lips. “Very difficult. But I love you, something I cannot seem to help. Yes, Justin, I would like you to love me now.”
He kissed her again, and yet again, only this time he wasn’t gentle at all.
And when she was on her back, her nightgown on the floor beside the bed, her husband over her, his hands lightly stroking over her breasts and belly, she said, “Our marriage did not begin so very well.”
“No, but from this moment on, it will be as perfect as I can make it.” His hand slipped lower to stroke her. Her hips arched and she stared up at him. He was smiling, and there was wickedness in those gray eyes of his. “Yes,” he said, as he kissed her breasts, “you have the same look in your eyes when you’re pleased with yourself.” He brought her to pleasure before he entered her. He wanted no fear in her, no hesitation. Her release was shattering, her astonishment clearly written on her face. She was staring up at him even as her heart pounded in the aftermath of a pleasure so wild, so intense, she could never have imagined such a thing. “That was very nice, Justin,” she managed to say after a moment.
“There’s more I hope you will enjoy.” He eased into her, feeling her tense around him, her muscles tightening in shocks of pleasure. He went deep and deeper still. And she couldn’t believe this, couldn’t believe what it made her feel.
“You’re part of me,” she said against his neck, and then she bit him, and her hands were wild down his back and his hips. “I will never let you go.”
“No,” he said, “no.” And he turned into a wild man, heaving and thrusting and then his own pleasure overtook him and he threw back his head and yelled with the power of it.
He was flattening her but she didn’t care. She bit his shoulder again, then kissed him, again and again. “That was nice,” she said. “Perhaps we can do it again?”
He managed to raise himself on his elbows and stare down at her. “I cannot,” he said. “I am just a man, Arabella, just a weak man and you have wrung me out.”
“I don’t know if I like the sound of that.” He leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose. “Give me a little while and then I will please you again.” He paused, then said in a low gruff voice, “Do you forgive me for hurting you? Can you forgive me for all of it?”
He was deep inside her. She lifted her hips and he moaned. “Yes,” she said. And he began moving deep inside her again and she loved it, no, craved it, and soon she was with him and it went on and on.
She snuggled into the warmth of the covers, held tightly against him, and soon fell asleep.
She was magically transported to the chamber beneath the old abbey ruins.
Rock rumbled and fell about her, striking her head, her face, her shoulders. She tossed forward on her face, frantically trying to avoid the sharp, jagged stones, desperately flailing her arms about for protection. Her fingers clasped about brittle, spiderlike projections.
She felt her hand squeezed with such force that she was jerked forward.
Though she was struggling in darkness, she saw with terrifying clarity what held her so mercilessly. A skeleton’s hand held her fast, its fleshless fingers digging into her wrist. She heard a low cry, a moan of hate and pain, the rattle of imminent death. The skeleton rocked up from its prone position, broken teeth falling from its rotted hollow mouth.
Slowly, before her eyes, the bones of its hands began to turn to dust and trickle away. The head tottered backward and fell, crashing and crumbling to the ground. She heard hellish screams all about her. She felt death upon her, clogging her throat, enclosing her in a shroud of terror.
Arabella awoke, her hands tearing at the bedcovers, a final cry dying on her own lips. “Arabella, dammit, wake up!” The earl lit a candle and raised it above her head. She drew back with a gasp as the light fell upon the jeering face of the skeleton on The Dance of Death. Dream and reality mixed in her
