Not Quite Married by Betina Krahn Page B

table, then pulled it to the bed so she could reach it.
    The light was so welcome that she wasn’t aware she had held her breath until he moved back toward the door and she exhaled with relief.
    Then she spotted her jailer standing just inside the door, with his arms folded and a shoulder propped against the wall. Raoul spared not a glance for his henchman as he ordered sharply, “Get out.” When they were alone, he straightened and walked toward her at a slow prowl.
    “My lovely bride. Feeling better?”
    Brien said nothing, hoping to hide the fear rising inside her. This was his doing. Ella had warned that he was capable of anything.
    “I trust your accommodations are adequate.” He stopped near the table, where the candlelight enhanced the glow in his eyes. A chill coursed up her spine. How could he be so beautiful on the outside and yet so degraded inside?
    “Where am I?” she asked, feeling as if that one demand took all of her strength.
    “Where I want you to be.”
    “Where is Ella?”
    He seemed not to understand, then—“ahhh”—gave a nod of recognition. “The maid. You needn’t worry, my dear. She won’t be threatening anyone ever again.”
    “What have you done with her?” Brien threw back the covers and lurched over the side of the bed. A wave of dizziness and nausea hit as she staggered a few steps and she held her head, waiting for it to pass.

    “Tsk, tsk. Still you feel the effects of your illness.” He made a show of producing a silk handkerchief and holding it near his nose to mask the chamber’s smells. “Disagreeable as it is, I owe a debt to whatever illness seized you and rendered you insensible.
    The housekeeper gave me the keys the next morning when the door was locked and the servants couldn’t rouse you. We found you lying on the floor. I was, of course, the perfect bridegroom . .
    . so anxious for my bride’s health that I must tend her myself. For all anyone knows, you are still in my bedchamber, being tended by your devoted new husband.”
    “What is it you want, Raoul?” she said weakly. “More money?”
    “You defame me to imply that mere money is at issue here. I claim only that which is mine by law and right.” He abruptly seized a lock of her hair and yanked her closer. “The right to plow you deep and often . . . the right to watch your belly swell with my seed . . . the right to make you to regret your betrayal of me with every breath you take.” That flash of frightening intensity faded as quickly as it appeared; he loosened his grip on her with a caustic laugh. “Besides, your père has been most generous. There is nothing else you can give me . . . except the pleasure of humbling you.”
    He pulled her closer, lowering his head to kiss her, and her stomach rebelled. She surrendered to the wave of sickness, retched dryly, and went limp. Revulsed, he released her as if contact with her sullied him. She slid down the side of the bed to the floor and he stood over her, staring, trying to decide whether to vent his anger on her. After a moment he stooped and lifted her head, his fingers digging into her face.
    “Look at me,” he commanded in coldly compelling tones. When she complied, there was an alarming glitter to his eyes that betokened an unnatural appetite for violence.

    “How long do you think you can keep me here?” she whispered.
    “As long as it takes, chérie. ”
    “For what?”
    “For you to be with child.” His words fell about her like a steel trap. “ My child.”
    “Never,” she breathed, paling even more around the green that circled her mouth.
    “ Au contraire, chérie. As soon as possible.” He appraised her crumpled body. “Then you cannot deny our vows, and you will be bound to me in flesh as you are on parchment.”
    “I’ll never bed you,” she said, feeling another, stronger wave of nausea rising. She clamped a hand over her mouth and managed to stanch it.
    He rose and his nostrils flared in disgust.
    “Never is a