The Pleasures of Sin. Jessica TrappЧитать онлайн книгу.
but he walked to the bed. The tight round muscles of his buttocks flexed in a fascinating erotic dance. He lay across her mattress, propping his head up slightly on a pillow and lacing his fingers behind his neck.
Her mouth went dry. She took in his chest, trying to discern the exact location of his heart.
It seemed a shame to kill a man so perfect in form. Mayhap—
At that moment, a loud scream and frantic barking sounded outside the chamber.
She gasped. ’Twas Adele and Panthos!
Quitting the bed, she raced to the door and yanked it open. In the tower’s stairwell, Adele was being pulled down by two burly soldiers. Her cane lay on the stones, and her dark hair flailed around her as if in a windstorm. Her skirt flapped about her knees.
“Adele!” Brenna screamed. “Cease! Cease!”
Ignoring her, the men laughed as one dove atop her sister and yanked her skirt up above her thighs. To one side, a man held back the snarling mastiff.
“Adele!” Brenna lurched into a run to rescue her sister. She slammed into something that felt like a wall. Montgomery! She blinked, stunned for a second, then sidestepped him.
He caught her and pulled her back. “Nay!”
“They are hurting my sister!”
Holding her by one wrist while she fought to get away, he peered down the hallway.
Adele scrambled for her cane, and one of the men struggled to get his breeks down. The mastiff spun and bit the man holding him who, in turn, kicked him, but neither let the other go.
Frantic, Brenna struggled against her new husband.
“Cease!” Montgomery bellowed out. His voice rang through the hallway bouncing off the castle’s walls.
The men looked up. Montgomery gave them a deep glare and made a short swipe across his neck with his finger. The message was clear: continue and be slain.
Brenna gasped, surprised at his action. He was a beast. What would he care about her sister being raped when all of them were there to conquer her family’s castle? This union was naught more than legalized rape.
Adele wobbled to her feet. She was unsteady without her cane. She gazed around dazedly and caught Brenna’s eye. “Do it!” she commanded. “Do it now!”
Brenna had no doubt what she meant.
“’Tis our only chance.”
Panthos barked, lunging upward to her. The men wrestled the dog to the ground.
Stark reality slammed onto Brenna. There were only two things that would happen in the wedding chamber—either she would be swived or The Enforcer would be killed. If she didn’t destroy this man, ’twould be both her and her sister lying beneath Montgomery men. And no doubt Panthos would be put down.
“Do it!” Adele cried. “Afore they rape and murder us all! We can get away if we act now! I know the way out and men are waiting!”
Now was her best chance, whilst Montgomery was naked, unarmed and unsuspecting.
Without another thought, Brenna yanked the dagger from her bodice, and lunged it at Montgomery’s heart.
“What the—” Montgomery twisted aside, as lithe as a tiger caught off guard.
The knife struck skin, slicing in a clumsy arc across his chest and glancing off his shoulder blade to stick shallowly in his flesh.
He grunted. A thin red line oozed blood down his chest.
Her heart lurched into her throat and she backed away, realizing what she had done. She’d been too close. This was not how she had practiced; she should have thrown the dagger, not lunged at him. Her stomach felt sick and her knees liquefied as if they had turned into water.
He scowled at her, dumbfounded, his hand grasping the hilt of the dagger. “Christ Almighty, wench.”
Her underarms prickled and her palms turned clammy. Terrified, she turned and fled down the hall.
Chapter Five
Justice demanded that she be charged with treason, the same as her father.
A red haze of fury clouded James’s vision as he snatched his wife’s upper arm, hauled her to the bed and threw her across it. His pride stung, demanding retribution. In his mind, he heard his father jeer. Stupid fool! You are too soft to be a leader. An unworthy son.
She landed with a thump, and James forced himself to unclench his fists to keep from beating her to death with his bare hands.
A sharp twinge throbbed in his chest, slashing across the knife wound. The blade was stuck shallowly into his shoulder and the dagger’s quivering hilt caused wave after wave of stinging pain. He drew a breath, forcing himself not to look at her lest he be tempted to turn the knife straightaway on her.
With a mighty wrench, he yanked the dagger from his shoulder. He grunted. Blood trickled down the blade and wetness ran down his chest.
She scrambled to her knees on the bed. Her fingers trembled, but she glared at him all the same.
Taking a deep breath, he released his anger and refocused on his duty to the king.
Milksop, his father taunted, speaking to that dark part of himself that wanted to rashly slit her throat, to damn the consequences and slander of having a murdered bride in his past.
With strength of mind, he shushed his father’s voice. His rage was not the best way to serve his country. But, all the same, insolence would form in his ranks if it were believed that he could not handle his own wife. He would be the laughingstock of the army. The King’s Enforcer would become The Wife’s Dunderhead.
The blade shook, but, through force of will, he made his hand open and dropped it to the floor. It clattered on the planks, and with deliberate, slow motions he commanded himself to don his hose as he decided her fate.
Earlier he’d thought the note to bring him to this castle was prompted by her father—now he realized that she, too, was a key player in the rebel scheme to unseat the king.
If he took her to London, the king would have her beaten and tortured. Likely, she’d be passed around the army. Pass her around to your men, his father taunted, only a sap would give her the benevolence of a quick death.
Nay. He would not allow that. Not even for her.
He would execute her here…but he wouldn’t do it in the bedroom to have the castlefolk and all of England’s rebels able to clamor around her as a martyr.
His mind made up, he reached for her leg.
Brenna scrambled backward on the bed, her pearled veil and the enormous wedding dress twisting around her body. Ermine trim fluffed in the air.
At her insubordinate action, fury fogged his brain, giving a hazy quality to her wide-eyed face.
“Move off that damn bed and I’ll kill you right now.”
A strong pulse beat in her neck; she glared at him, but she didn’t get off the mattress.
He stepped back, determined to make it to the courtyard before executing her for treason. To not give in to the rage that coursed through him.
Milksop, the dark voice sneered.
Brenna swallowed against the hard knot in her throat as she watched Montgomery buckle his leather belt around his waist and slide on his boots. Should she scream? Fight? Run? She straightened her skirt over her legs. His anger was a tangible force in the room and, feeling like a dog sent to its kennel, she dared not test his threat to leave the mattress.
“What are you going to do wi—”
Her mind froze, the words dying on her tongue, as he straightened and looked at her. His eyes were