Page 4 of The Lady's Guide to Marrying a Viscount
After some years of fulfilling her responsibilities tothe aging comtesse, including a fitting display of grief at her graveside, Geneviève had resigned herself to satisfying a new set of duties in the service of the count. Following his mother’s death, there’d been no-one to curb his excesses. Only a worrisome chest infection had achieved that.
Maxim had seen her as a palatable diversion, with just the bedside manner he craved. Who else would read to him so exquisitely from the books he’d once hidden from his mother, and act out the scenes within?
Knowing that a man liked to conquer a virgin’s innocence, she’d presented herself as such when Maxim had finally taken her to his bed, though the handsome cellar-hand at the château could have told a different tale.
Had it been so wrong of her to tell the count he’d conceived an heir? A kindness, rather, for didn’t all men seek to face the Reaper believing their legacy ensured? Having no father to protect her nor mother to arrange the delicate matter of a husband, she’d been obliged to make her way as best she could. If deceit were the result of necessity, how could it be wicked?
Even if it were, Geneviève concluded, it could hardly be her fault, since all were slaves to baser instincts. From the fateful conjunction of the serpent and the apple, it had been so. In this case, to sin now and then was only natural.
Thus, had Geneviève become the comtesse and thought herself the luckiest of women. Château Rosseline had no match in grandeur. Itsgardens were a lush paradise, its vineyards bountiful. Even with Maxim’s fondness for gambling, the coffers remained full.
As companion to the dowager, Geneviève had accepted her lowly position. As wife to the count, she’d imagined takingpastisandmacaronswith the nobility of Marseille and Avignon. Yes, her background was humble, but she was Comtesse! It had been a bitter realization that she was still viewed as a barefaced upstart. The men, at least, had shown some courtesy, though she was too often obliged to smack their hands from where they strayed.
The women were another matter entirely. While Maxim was alive, she’d found them inclined to turn their backs. In widowhood, even after a suitable period of mourning had passed, Geneviève’s soirées were politely declined, and those who’d tolerated her before, refused to receive her in their homes.
Becoming mistress of the château had been a dream. The reality had turned to ash in her mouth.
Geneviève had contemplated packing her bags and leaving it all behind, to begin a new life in glittering Paris. But why should she forfeit the place she loved best in all the world?
One way or another, I’ll marry Maxim’s heir, and return as the comtesse, twice-chosen! They think they’ve won, driving me from the home they believe I don’t deserve—the place that has been my one true haven—but I won’t cower before those condescending harpies.I shall return with my head held high, and they may choke on their tongues!
Lisette woke her at Exeter,where they found the coachman waiting. Rain having clogged the road with mud, Geneviève was obliged to vault over a puddle to reach the step, swinging her valise into the carriage before her.
To start with, the horses kept a brisk pace, heading west past shorn fields between harvest and sowing. Now, they were ascending, laboring upward as the last portion of the afternoon faded. The lowering sun lent the barren landscape a softness, bringing out the deeper russet tones of the bracken. There was little birdsong as the hedgerows and trees grew sparser, rowan and hawthorn giving way to gorse and twisted hazels.
Lisette was drowsing, her head lolling to her shoulder with the rocking motion of the coach. How fortunate it had been that Geneviève had already sent her away, that evening on the train. Geneviève continued to gaze out of the window, but her thoughts were all of remembrance.
With his stubbled cheek and dark hair curling over his collar, the man who’d entered her carriage had looked more gypsy than gentleman. His accent had belied that, though he’d thought nothing of letting her hear his curses at finding the compartment already taken.
She’d noticed his boots before anything else, long and black, in expensive leather. Then, the buckskin of his breeches and the longer length of his jacket. Nothing of the current fashion. Yet, he was boldly attractive, with a straight nose and high cheekbones.
Her choice had beenone of impulse, and she’d been able to think of little else since. Of how she’d sat astride him, brushing his cock with the soft fur of her sex, teasing him as he kissed the length of her throat.
Freeing her breasts, he’d taken each wholly into his mouth, with a force she’d felt in her womb. When he’d pulled her onto his thickness, she’d cried with the joy of it.
Soon after, he’d rolled her beneath him. His tongue, his hands, had found her places of pleasure, making her mindless with desire.
She’d returned the favor, savoring the feel of him in her mouth, thick and hard, knowing that she was stoking his desire to take her again.
When he did, it was somewhat awkward, with her skirts pushed up and her knees bent high, but he’d known how to position himself, grinding where she was most sensitive. A satisfying coupling, despite the necessity of him spilling on her belly.
Finally, they’d slept, he on one side of the banquette and she on the other. When she’d woken, to the whistle of the train arriving at Paris’s Gare de Lyon, he’d gone. In most ways, it had been a relief. The encounter had been spontaneous, and such liaisons were best suited to the mystery of the night.
Nevertheless, the memory of his lovemaking haunted her—or the memory of his fucking, she should say. Geneviève liked to call a thing by its proper name. She was not one for romanticism.
It had also been an act of defiance, her coupling with the stranger. Submission to dark eyes and hands large and purposeful, and to that craving, hungrymouth which had left her lips bruised. Skin raked by the fine stubble of his jaw. Him tasting her, piece by piece.
The coach jolted, obliging Geneviève to clutch at the window’s ledge.
They were making their way higher, the landscape changing as they climbed. The moon was riding a clear sky, deepest black and dotted with dazzling pinpricks. Beneath, the moor was stark—now an expanse of gray, its flatness punctuated by gentle hills and the outline of dark rocks.
They passed small clumps of buildings and then fewer, until there was barely a hut, and she wondered if the coachman could be taking them to the right place. Somewhere on the air was the rustle of falling leaves, though there seemed to be few trees to make such a sound possible.
The road twisted and dipped and the moonlight almost disappeared, for they were passing through a dense snarl of woodland—a strangled tangle of over-crowded branches, deformed and disfigured, like mangled, clutching fingers from one of the darker fairy tales.
The wind, somewhere above, was melancholy over the dark mass, making it creak and rub, the trees scratching at one another. There was a smell of decay, old leaves heaped deep, and rotting stumps protruding like blackened teeth.
Geneviève drew back from the window, wishing no longer to look, fearing suddenly what might be looking back, unseen.
