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Elysia watched his breathing slow, and he seemed to collect himself. Opening the chamber door, he smiled with some of the mocking self-deprecation she had seen in his nephew. “After you, beautiful one.”
Stepping hesitantly into the opulent chamber, she gasped when he wasted no time pulling her backward against him.
“After tonight, you will never again suggest your husband is some kind of invalid who needs to rest.” When he ran his hands possessively over her hips and down the fronts of her thighs, Elysia fought the urge to shove them away.
How would she get through the night? She was accustomed to being her own mistress, to managing her own life. How would she lie submissively beneath this drunken cad when she longed to run from him?
“There will be so much delight for you tonight, innocent one. I will be very gentle with you, I promise.” His words slurred together as he swayed on his feet and leaned against his wife, mashing her with his bulk.
Unable to support him for long, she stepped toward the room’s one chair, hoping to convince the count to sit down.
“Please, my lord.” She strained under his weight as she maneuvered him around the huge bed to the high-backed seat next to it.
Not in all her years as a starry-eyed girl did she envision this debacle for a wedding night. When she dared to dream of it, she imagined a man gazing upon her with adoring eyes as he initiated her into womanhood. An incredibly handsome man.
Like Conon.
Tripping over a protruding claw foot of the monstrous bed, Elysia lost her balance. The count fell into the linens, his arms still wrapped about her midsection, dragging her down with him.
The oaf.
“Please my lord, I—” Wriggling away from him, she stiffened when he seemed to regain control of himself.
“This is very nice, Lady Elysia.”
Pinning her body against his own, he rolled with her until he lay atop her. Her back bent at an awkward angle as her feet remained on the floor.
The count kissed her and ran groping fingers over her breasts. Elysia squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she could close down all her other senses.
Muttering incoherent words in her ear, he pulled at her clothing in all directions—yanking her gown from one shoulder, tearing the fabric at her neck, hoisting up her skirt.
Elysia froze. The count grinned down at her, eyes glazed and unseeing. His hands fumbled with his clothing, pawing between their bodies to loosen his braies.
And then the pain came.
Sharp and heart-stopping it felt like a dagger, jabbing into her with considerable force. Her mother had said it would hurt but a moment….
“Damn!” The count looked down between their bodies in dismay. “I forgot to sheathe my eating knife, love.” With a tipsy lack of grace, he slid the blade clumsily from her thigh. “Does it hurt overmuch?”
Blood poured from the wound, staining her dress and the bedclothes.
“I will be fine.” Grateful for the reprieve despite the pain, Elysia pressed her kirtle to the wound. “I need some wine to bathe it, however, my lord.”
“I am so sorry.” Like a chastened young squire, Count Vannes hurried across the room to retrieve the flagon.
“Damn clumsy of me.”
After cleaning and bandaging the small gash, Elysia helped Vannes remove his eating knife from its place at his waist.
“Perhaps I have gone about this all wrong, my dear.” Grinning sheepishly, he tugged her torn tunic sleeve back over her shoulder. “I think instead, you should disrobe for me.”
He cannot be serious.
“A sweet young girl like you is unused to the careless hands of a man. It will go easier for you if you do it.”
I pray he is not this careless all the time. His conquests must be fortunate to survive the night in one piece.
He settled himself upon the bed, glassy eyes looking close to sleep. Perhaps if she took her time about it, he would pass out before she finished.
Heartened by her new plan, Elysia pulled her slippers from her feet, then slowly ungartered her hose and slid them from her legs.
Still awake.
Unwinding the ties from each sleeve was a painstaking job, but it did not take long enough to lull the count into unconsciousness. In fact, his eyes widened in anticipation.
Elysia slipped the gown from her shoulders and it pooled at her feet, leaving her clad in only her sheer linen tunic.
The count’s eyes grew huge. Elysia thought it peculiar she would engender such a response. The man surely had vast experience with women. Did he find her so terribly different? Fear and embarrassment gripped her, but it was now or never.
Lifting the hem, she pulled the slim-fitting tunic over her head, baring her body to a man for the first time.
Shyly, she glanced up to see his face…convulsed in agony.
Chapter Three
“M y lord?” Panicked, Elysia rushed to the count’s side where he sat, his body twisted to one side and frozen in place. “Are you all right?”
His glazed eyes were unseeing. He did not breathe.
Her heart dropped in her chest.
“Please, my lord, you must lie down. Catch your breath.” She eased him back to recline on the bed. “I will get help.” Yanking the linen duvet from the bed, she clutched it to her breast and ran to the door.
“Help!” she shouted the plea, but she need not have yelled. Conon St. Simeon strolled down the corridor, the voluptuous widow from dinner still clinging to his arm.
Elysia reached for him, needing him far more than the widow did. “Your uncle is unwell, sir. Please—”
Conon shoved past her into the bedroom without hesitation. “Wait for me down the hall, Marguerite,” he called over his shoulder.
For good measure, Elysia shut the door to the young woman, not wanting anyone else to witness the shambles of her wedding night.
“Unwell?” Conon turned accusing eyes to her from the count’s bedside, where he clutched his uncle’s wrist. “He is dead.”
“My God.” The room swirled, and for a moment she thought she would faint. She gripped the blanket to her like a lifeline.
“What happened?” His harsh tone forced her to think clearly.
“I do not know.” Still reeling, she sank into the chair beside the bed, recalling how she had struggled an hour ago to help the count into that very seat. “He seemed out of breath all evening, but I assumed it was because of the wine. He drank so much at dinner—”
“What happened after he brought you up here?”
Elysia felt the heat rise in her cheeks, but she knew it was sinful to think of her modesty at a time like this.
“I helped him to the bed and then…” She could not tell him about the incident with the knife. It was too embarrassing and had no bearing on the count’s death anyway. “And we…lay together until he bade me to rise and disrobe.”
“And?” His face betrayed no hint of the charm she’d spied at the wedding feast. Blue eyes bored into hers in their search for the truth.
Her face flamed. She prayed she did not have to relate the details of this night to anyone else.
“And he grew…amorous. His eyes widened and—” This was awful. “I thought…well never mind what I thought. I did not realize he was unwell at first. Feeling a bit shy, I could not meet his gaze again until it was too late. When I glanced back up at him he seemed frozen, like that.” She nodded to the still form of the count.
Conon wiped a gentle hand over his uncle’s face, shuttering the dead man’s vacant stare. Closing his own eyes at the same time, Conon kneeled beside the bed for a long moment, whispering words of prayer.
The scene, so gentle, flooded Elysia with guilt. It had not occurred to her to pray, and she was the count’s widow. She should be on her knees begging God for forgiveness that she had not saved her husband, that she had come to the marriage bed full of dread and selfishly pining for a husband who wanted more in a marriage than a house full of heirs.
“I am so sorry.”
As she intoned her own supplication for the count’s soul, Conon found his feet once again, detached and matter-of-fact.
“The union was consummated then?” He did not look at her as he asked, thank goodness, but appeared to focus on the bloodstains on the bed.
The creak of the chamber door startled them before she could speak.
“You did not lock it?” Conon rushed toward the entry, but not before his widow friend stepped through the portal.
And screamed Vannes Keep to the ground. “He’s dead!” she shrieked.
Answering footsteps resounded in the hall.
The woman stared at Elysia in openmouthed horror. “You killed him, you greedy witch.”
Conon wrapped restraining arms about his paramour and covered her mouth with his hand, speaking softly into her ear. “No one has killed anyone, Marguerite.”
Elysia’s maid appeared at the door amid a growing number of curious wedding guests. Every avid gaze fixed upon her deceased lord, and beside him, the bloodstained sheets.
“Belle, take your mistress to her chamber and help her dress.” Conon’s brusque tone rang with authority.
“Dear God!” Arundel burst through the small crowd to gape at the dead man before Elysia could escape the scene. “What has happened here?
He turned accusing eyes to Elysia.
With shock, she noticed everyone else in the room shifted their attention to her in that same, peculiar way. Awkward and self-conscious, wrapped in the bed linen, Elysia wished she could disappear.
Conon stepped in front of her, shielding her from the chamber full of wedding guests with his body. “My uncle is dead, Arundel. No doubt helped to his grave by his foolish notion to take a young bride and start another family.” Conon did nothing to hide his frustration, though he directed it more toward the earl than Elysia at the moment. “His health proved too weak to support his fancies, I fear.”
“Hah!” The woman called Marguerite stepped forward. “She probably hastened him to his death.” The widow nodded in Elysia’s direction. “I hear she stands to inherit her own lands whether or not she bears an heir.”
“I do not need anything from the count,” Elysia murmured, pulling the duvet more tightly around her. “I never have.”
“Though you will benefit.” Conon turned to glare at her, still blocking her body from the view of the rest of the room. “As my uncle thought he would from this marriage.”
“It was your uncle’s idea to wed, Conon.” The earl’s voice held a note of warning. “He came to me with the notion.”
Elysia grew more uncomfortable by the moment.
“After you paraded your prize morsel before his nose when he came to England last fall,” Conon muttered darkly.
“He fell in love with her,” the earl countered.
Conon made no response, and it seemed to Elysia that every observer heard the false ring of the words.
“He wanted her,” the earl amended. “Who am I to say nay to the girl for making a good marriage?”
“I’ll say it was a good marriage,” Marguerite huffed. “The English heiress has but to spread her legs once and—”
Elysia flinched, not so much from the woman’s crude accusation, but from the fury that came to life in Conon’s expression.
“Get out, Marguerite.”
“But it is true—”
Seeing Conon’s rigid stance, Elysia silently urged the woman out the door.
“Out.” The word was not shouted, but the fierceness of it sent the young widow hurrying from the bridal chamber.
Arundel wandered over to the count as she left, peering at the man’s body and the bedclothes. Elysia gauged the distance to the door and wondered if she could sneak out before the conversation turned back to her. She wanted to wash and dress and escape the nightmarish scene.
“Too bad the marriage was consummated,” the earl observed.
“But—” Elysia intervened, preparing to explain the matter, no matter how embarrassing it might be. With no consummation, she could not call herself a true widow.
Either Arundel ignored his former ward, or else he did not hear her, for he continued to speak. “She would bring more wealth as a virgin.”
His words shut her mouth. For him to speak of her as if she were no more than an object for sale to the highest bidder…the notion galled her.
How could he think about marrying her off to someone else already? Was he that unfeeling? She had yet to bury this husband.
Perhaps Conon had heard Elysia’s attempt to speak, for he suddenly looked hard upon her. “It was consummated, was it not, Lady Elysia?”
If it had been consummated, she would be considered a true widow to the count, and safe from marriage for at least another year. Maybe longer.
She would be free. Her life would be her own again, and she could return to Nevering. To her linen business. She would not attempt to take a farthing from Vannes, no matter what Conon thought to the contrary.
Yet she could not force the lie past her lips. “I am sorry, my lord but—”
“Jesu, Conon.” Arundel strode to Elysia’s side and put a protective arm about her. “How can you humiliate the girl in front of the whole keep? ’Tis obvious the deed was done.”
Conon stared at her bare shoulders and the linen duvet wrapped carelessly around her body.
