“LIE DOWN, Adalene.”The command made her shiver and tingle all over in a pleasurable way. She wiped the wetness at her mouth with the back of her hand as she followed his order, lying on her back and waiting until he reached her.The Baron kissed her mouth. It did not start tender. He was hungry and aggressive, and she liked this somehow. She fought his kiss with her own hungry kiss, opening her mouth and dueling with his tongue and sucking hard when he did. She gasped, though, in both panic and excitement, when she heard him tear her gown in the middle. But she was not afraid. He raised his head, and the expression of undiluted desire on his face as he looked down at her exposed nakedness chased the panic away.“Beautiful... you’re so beautiful, Adalene.”“Yes... you make me feel beautiful, Fabian,” she moaned. She wanted him to feel desire for her. She thought, as she watched his head go down on her exposed breasts, that she would go crazy if he stopped.Then his tongue flicked and
FABIAN LEFT HER for a while and when he came back, he had a soft cloth in his hand that he soaked with the water on the pitcher. He used this to wipe both of them clean. She closed her eyes as his touch, even at this time, could still produce that melting sensation inside her. She trembled inside and out. And she doubted if she would receive the same care from Louis Didier when he...She gulped as her heart thudded at the thought. Now that she knew what involved a husband and a wife on the marriage bed, she could not measure the revulsion that she suddenly felt, and she suddenly recoiled from Fabian’s hands.“What? What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?” he asked.“N-No... no, it’s not you. I...” She looked up at his worried face and she suddenly felt her eyes getting warmer and warmer.“What is it?” he said, neglecting the wet cloth and gathering her in his arms.She went to him, trembling. “How can I do this with Louis without being ra-r*ped?” she asked in a rush.He tensed, and then his arm
The door to the chamber suddenly opened and the Baron walked in, stopping as he saw her where she stood, her tears clearly visible in the light flickering from candles still alight in the room.He was quickly by her side.“What’s wrong, ma bichette?” he asked, his voice urgent and concerned. “Are you hurting?She shook her head. She did not want to speak.He turned her to him, and his mouth descended on hers, devouring her lips. She kissed him as hard as he did, opening her mouth to his and sliding her tongue against his, feeling a surge of triumph as she felt his manhood hardening and rapidly growing against her lower stomach.He wanted her.Her hand eagerly went for it, and he sucked his breath in when she found it and traced its shape with her fingers. He was wearing a loose shirt and soft breeches, and she left his mouth to kneel before him, pulling at the string and the cloth down his thighs.“Adalene!”“I want to taste you,” she whispered, her voice breathy at the beginning of t
The morning sun's rays permeated the bedchamber when Adalene woke again. The Baron had left very early. She remembered him leaving a kiss on her forehead and whispering something, but she couldn’t remember now what it was. Exhausted sleep still clutched her senses. When she gingerly sat up from bed, there was a new nightgown and a new pair of underpants neatly laid down on the footrest at the bottom of the bed. The handmaidens had come in and they must know what happened between her and the Baron the night before.They probably had already changed the white sheets stained with her blood in the bedchamber she used last night.And they would change the sheets here, too, because they were again stained with her blood from the coupling she and Fabian did during the early dawn.A melancholic mood pervaded her recollection as she remembered that today was last night’s tomorrow, and it would be the very opposite of her yesterday with the Baron.Today was to resume her real life.She would be
IT WAS a beautiful huge garden, with the entrance to the grounds littered with a few statues of horses, lions, and wolves. The inside consisted of forest trees that lined outer walls topped with thick, sun-tanned bricks. There were irises, English roses red and white, tulips and lavenders on boxed compartments. She strolled in between boxes and boxes of perennials and annuals, basking in the sweet smell of flowers until she reached the gazebo that was at the farthest end of the pavement her feet followed as she explored.Once there, she sat and faced the pond where water flowed under a short, romantic-looking bridge. Flowering peas, of all things, climbed this bridge and it looked very pretty to the eyes. As she watched the water and basked in the coolness of the breeze on her face, for a moment it seemed like her troubles disappeared.But it all came back when she heard the neighing of horses arriving in the chateau.The Baron had come back.Would he ask for her? The servants knew wh
“BARON,” said the knight as Fabian approached the steps. “I was just singing to the lady. I arrived to find her looking so alone and melancholic I just had to try to make her smile.”She looked towards him and could not know what to say. In all intents and purposes, that was what he tried to do. But she did not know she appeared sad when he came.“I was told you were here to give me a message, Bertrand?” he asked in a formal voice, “and not to sing to my guest.”“Yes. But your guest is so lovely and I can’t help but coax a little smile out of her lips.”“Bertrand,” the Baron almost growled.“You shouldn’t leave her unattended, then. Where were you, Fabian? The lady did need company.”Adalene gasped. “Oh no, I am not a Lady, Sir,” she corrected, alarmed that the Baron might think she let the man think that, or introduced herself to him as that. “I am just Adalene Duvre without a title. Though... I am wed, which means you can also call me Adalene Didier.”The knight took a step back has
“I wish that I be brought to my parent's farm, in their humble cottage, and be left there. I do not wish to be sent to Louis Didier’s estate,” she told him quickly.He stared at her, his eyes puzzled now and he wasn’t scowling anymore. “And will you tell me why? I promised him my men will return you to him when this is over,” he asked in a calm voice.“I... I do not wish to carry on with the marriage.” She swallowed the lump that formed in her throat. She couldn’t cry now. She had to give him a proper and determined explanation of her plans. “I will ask my father to return the bride token. I would rather work as a slave for an aristocrat or like a man on the farm than go through with a marriage that will eventually kill me,” she replied in a trembling but forceful voice, which she also could not help. She felt like she was deluding herself that the Baron would allow her to do this. She felt like everything was hopeless.“And what made you think you can have this choice? You are the da
Instead of giving her an answer, he dropped his head and, with a groan, kissed her hungrily and passionately. She could only kiss him back as heatedly because there was no other way he could be answered. He pushed her back to the seat in the gazebo and they sat side by side, and she leaned back on her hands as his hands started to get through the complicated layers of her clothes so he could intimately probe her body.“Fabian... your men—”“They will not dare disturb us here.”“Do they know what we’re doing?” she asked, while her cheeks felt like they were about to melt in much heat.He raised his face to look at her and there was a grin there so rouge that her heart skipped a bit of its rushed beating. “Whatever we’re doing here, unless there’s a war coming to our doorstep, no one is going to come here.”She had almost completely lost her concern by then. His palms were already somewhere very near where she wanted them to be. “Oh, Fabian...”He understood the reason for the plea in h
THE couple’s first morning in the cabin arrived quite differently, with the husband’s cock sliding inside the wife’s mouth.Fabian first thought he was dreaming still, only to find out that his beloved had taken control of the dream and was pleasuring him with her expertise in handling his cock after more than a year of getting to know it.And he must say, she did it so well that by the time he moved and pushed her flat on her back, he was already crazy with the craving to slide into her sweet, wet, tight warmth.And when he did, he was gratified to hear her imploring whispers to thrust deeper, to make it harder, as she angled her hips for fuller penetration.Her face was flushed with her own need, her eyes rolling up as he angled his hips to make sure his cock slid against her clit, or that sweet spot inside that could always undo her.Oh yes, she wasn’t the only one who’d memorized the other one’s body so thoroughly because eliciting the other one’s excitement and pleasure was param
EARLY the next morning, Fabian and Adalene were loaded inside one of the carriages and they went their way to the cabin near her family. It took most of the day and it was almost dark when they arrived.Since her family had the cabin stocked with food and whatever else they needed to stay there for a week, they started right away with cooking dinner.Someone, probably one of her brothers, left fire and wood in the fireplace that might have been alight the whole day, and though there were only embers when they arrived, the inside was comfortably warm. Fabian added more wood and it was crisply hot when they sat down to eat that they stripped down to slips and undergarments.“You can cook!” Fabian said happily as he got his second filling of the beef stew.Adalene shook her head. “I’m afraid that’s my mother’s cooking. She left it in a big pot for me to heat up when we arrived. I can cook, but I haven’t done much for a long time… since I arrived in the manor, practically, so I am not sur
“What is happening?” the Baron asked in a voice rich with enjoyment.“I cannot!” she whispered.“What do you mean you cannot? You insisted.”Despite the freezing air, Adalene’s cheeks felt aflame. “I can’t do it. I can’t watch that. Mon Dieu, please let’s hurry back before they see us!”His laughter sounded so loud to her ears that it alarmed her that Sir Thibault could hear them, and she felt relief once they were back inside the manor. They went upstairs and she did not stop moving until she was inside their bedroom, and when Fabian entered the door, too, while pulling his cloak off, one look at him and she was seized with hysterical giggles.He shook his head and started helping her take off her cloak and the strings on her gown. There were nights when she didn’t require Odette this anymore because she and Fabian mostly went up to the master’s bedroom together and it had become a nightly routine to help each other off their clothes while they talked about the day, or start making l
As preparations continued for the next trip to the port of Rome, Adalene paid more focus on shooting her arrows more accurately and her knife-wielding skills. It did not lessen her efforts when Fabian welcomed the idea of hiring a small group of stragglers who looked like stragglers but had a reputation for being sound companions on the rough road toward Rome. They could go to places the knights couldn’t go to and get information that could help make travel less dangerous. In fact, this made her work harder. She knew she was the reason Fabian worried, but not one of his men who knew him would dare ask him to leave Adalene behind. They also never made her feel like she was an encumbrance and made a way out of their time to check on her progress and spar with her every day. Traders bring female members of the family to fairs and trade ports. The only difference to theirs was their trader was a baron, at the behest of the Duke of Burgundy, but only in whispers.There was one person who d
“But I have something in mind now, too,” Adalene said.“No… you were busy with your book and I came over to distract you.”“And I am thoroughly distracted now. What are you going to do about it?” she asked in a throaty voice, pouting a little because she knew how that drove him crazy.And it did. The next moment, his mouth was devouring her lips, sucking them in and opening them so his tongue could probe inside and molest her tongue into a fight. And she did fight, tangling with him in tongue and limbs until she was pinned beneath him after he stood up and tumbled her to the couch. She had him inside her in one smooth stroke, stealing a groan out of both of them because of the sheer pleasure of that. And then he was thrusting slow and hard, her hips meeting each one, her skirts and underskirts bunched up her belly and her flushed bosom exposed to his eyes and mouth as he took her deliberately and with burning intensity because he knew this drove her crazy.She closed her eyes. She cou
As soon as she entered the library and saw the additional books on the new floor-to-ceiling shelves installed yesterday, Adalene gasped in delight.“I got new books!” she exclaimed, to which her tutor reacted with a tsk-tsk. Fabian acquired a tutor to teach her the necessary Italian phrases in the language she needed for our travels. He would have wanted to get her another one for computing but she was already in good relations with his compter who helped her with understanding some accounts in books she found here. Besides, Adalene only needed to learn the numbers needed for accounts concerned with buying stock and inventory. The Baron—her husband’s people were very capable.But, anyway, the new hardbound books Fabian bought for her were the ones she had requested. She wanted a few books written in the Italian language so she could start reading them and understand more the context of what her tutor was teaching her. And for the next three hours, Adalene stayed in the library for her
ONE YEAR LATER.It was a fine afternoon as Adalene practiced in the shooting range built nearer the manor since she started training. When they started planning on doing the trips Fabian and Duke Philip Lornier privately discussed the first time she accompanied her husband to the Duke’s castle and court, she told her husband she wanted to learn how to shoot arrows and defend herself. As she expected, he thought about it instead of negating as it was unwomanly to do so, and only about if they had what she needed in their weapons room. It took more than a month after the wedding before he started teaching her himself. She could easily move by then as her wounds have completely healed, and he had tasked a favorite bow and arrow craftsman to devise a set for a woman of her build and height. So the first time they went on the trip to Italy to trade in the ports where merchandise arrived from the remnants of the silk road, she already knew how to shoot arrows. News about robbers on the
ADALENE BELIEVED NOW.But watching the activity below, it was hard to believe she would marry in such grandeur. She never imagined this could happen in her life. Never.Her family was shell-shocked.They had arrived yesterday, the whole lot of them, and they huddled together almost most of the day, watching everything in a frozen state, not sure where they belonged until Odette had them busy with things they could help with.They were relieved to find they could easily converse with other workers in the manor, and that the Baron didn’t care for anything other than they settle in. Her little nieces and nephews were so in awe of the knights that they would either laugh or cry whenever one would actually talk to them, but they seemed to be thawing as the men made an effort to smile, talk and play with them when they could.Her mother had just left with Odette after helping her get ready and was somewhat calmer now. But yesterday, she was appalled to see the fresh scars that peaked from t
“I CAN’T BELIEVE this is happening,” Adalene whispered as she watched the gathering in the gardens from the window of her bed chamber.“What is hard to believe?”She whirled to find the Baron there, dressed in his finery as a groom—her groom. Her eyes warmed at the sight of him. She couldn’t believe he was going to be her husband.From that day they had started making love again, Fabian had earnestly toiled to get the wedding preparations underway. She had also since then found out that after that terrible night Lady Veronique had instigated—again—Lady Madeleine Clemence Gauvreau traveled back to the castle instead to angrily inform the Duke about the latest schemes of his cousin to hurt her nephew’s future wife. Fabian’s great-aunt demanded retribution.Since then, lady Veronique Moranville had been sent to Spain to marry a distant cousin from another family.And this was because Lady Madeleine and the Baron chose her instead to become part of their family.It felt like the world had