The Rebel Bride by Catherine Coulter

A shock of fear ripped through her, and she gulped down a sob. The sound of her own voice brought with it a certain calm, and with forced detachment she tried to examine her fear. She knew that men took total possession of women’s bodies, that they had this long thing between their legs that they stuck into a woman. She saw his hands on her hair, her breasts, and then moving elsewhere on her body. He would touch her everywhere. He would see it as his right as her husband. There was nothing he couldn’t or wouldn’t do to her. She pressed her thighs tightly together.

Strangely, she thought about Julien’s French mistress. Lady Bellingham had let her name slip. What was it? . . . Yvette. How many other women had Julien touched and caressed? How many other women had he possessed? Unbidden, innumerable faceless women rose in her mind, and she pressed her fists against her temples to blot out their images. There was an unaccountable bitter taste in her mouth, and for the moment she encouraged a contemptuous disgust of him, a man, a lecher. She didn’t understand herself, but the contempt was there, deep inside her, for him, for herself, ah, yes, particularly for herself. Hadn’t she allowed him to do just as he had wished with her? Even forcing her to wed him against her will? She saw herself as weak and despicable, capitulating to a will stronger than hers. In vain she tried to excuse herself on the grounds of Julien’s physical threats. She should have fought him, forced him to rely on the drug. Anger at herself welled up within her. She’d been contemptible, a gutless, worthless female, and now she hated herself for it.

She forced herself to be calm again. She sought to understand why she’d lost all will to fight him, why indeed she had executed his every command. The thought that he’d been right, the thought that she had wanted him to force her gained a foothold in her mind, and anger surged through her again. She forced herself to relive the moments when Julien had carried her, unresisting, and laid her on the bed, when he had stroked her hair, when he had caressed her breast. She sat up in her bed and shook her head in blind confusion.

Her thoughts flew again to Julien’s French mistress. How was she different from that woman? After all, Julien had bought her just as he had Yvette. He would tire of her, just as he had tired of Yvette. That he had married her did not count to his advantage, for she wasn’t so naive as to believe that even the powerful earl of March would attempt to seduce an unmarried lady of quality. No, he’d been forced to wed her. Her own destiny, whatever that might have been, had been wrested from her control the moment he had decided he wanted her. He’d won, and she wondered bitterly how long it would be before he left her to preside alone over his household and search out his next quarry.

She smiled, a mean smile. Undoubtedly Julien now thought her cowed and submissive. Her jaw set itself into a stubborn line as she resolved never again to show weakness. He had compared her to Shakespeare’s Kate. Very well, that’s just what she would become.

Possession of her body would be his next object. She fought back the sudden unreasoning fear that accompanied this thought. Damn him, no. He had made a very expensive purchase, but she would see him in hell before she would allow him to enjoy it. Her life had been a constant battleground since she met him, and it didn’t seem likely to her now that anything would change. Nay, she wouldn’t let it change.

As Julien lay in his own bed, his head propped up on his arms, he reviewed the day’s events with some satisfaction. He was pleased that he had forced Kate to wed him as soon as he had, for he had allowed her to hold on to her pride. He could have waited another week, but he’d not been able to bring himself to do it. He hadn’t wanted an admission of failure from her. No, he hadn’t wanted her on those terms. In all truth, to Julien their marriage was not a victory over her but rather a natural course of events.