The Patriot Bride (3 page)

She supposed she should be glad that she didn’t find herself tied for eternity and beyond to one of those choice personages. At least her father’s pretensions had gotten her a man who was probably only about ten years older than she was rather than thirty or so.

That thought was cold comfort as he loomed over her. She didn’t want to, but her body automatically took intimate notice of the contrast between his rugged visage and the fancy uniform. Hannah could smell the spicy scent of his Bay Rum cologne. She noted with an almost frown that he still wasn’t wearing a white wig, as someone of his station most definitely should, but she reluctantly admitted that she liked the more natural look of the shock of black hair that was caught at the back of his neck with a plain cotton tie.

Lying half beneath him like this – he was only claiming her upper body at this moment, although Hannah was acutely aware that he was inches away from positioning himself even more intimately upon her person – was the first time she’d lain on her back to look up at a man. Most women her age had had that experience for several years by now, and had presented their husbands with children as a result. Her lips twisted. She knew so little about what transpired between a man and a woman – surely just being held like this wouldn’t result in a pregnancy, would it?

At least she was married, apparently, if that did happen.

Not liking where her mind had wandered in the least, Hannah decided to regain the upper hand with this man . . . if indeed, she’d ever really had it since she’d gaped up at him on the Common. Something niggling in the back of her mind told her that she hadn’t, and that just spurred her righteous indignation further. “Let me up, Sir. I have no knowledge of any such marriage, and I do not recognize you as my husband. Therefore this position and even your presence within my house serve only to compromise my virtue - ” She tried to sit up, but found she could barely raise her shoulders, and, to her great humiliation, he wasn’t doing anything actively to hold her down. He was just leaning over her, his muscled bulk more than enough to keep her right where he wanted her.

His smile was enough to make her heart begin to thump painfully behind her breasts. “Oh, but I am – and you’ll find that I’m a lot harder to dismiss in person.” In seconds, he was atop her, pressing her into the thin feather mattress, securing her wrists to the bed with alarming ease. “I’m your husband, like it or not, and I own every single inch of you.” As if to prove his point, he leaned down and pressed his hot mouth onto her breast, over her very pointed nipple, nibbling in a way that she hated to admit was somewhat gentle, although its unfamiliarity made a bold of lighting flash up and down her spine, forcing that poor nipple into even further prominence even though they were still separated by layers of cloth.

She could feel the unwelcome heat of him, and her fear only heightened the arousal she was experiencing for the first time in her life. Hannah had lived her life much as a nun might – well guarded by her mother, then her father for a short time, until he’d descended into his cups, virtually unnoticed by the majority of gentlemen her age and just as happy to be left to her own devices. She could never quite bring herself to tone down her intelligence or her tongue enough to attract a man, not that she ever worried much about it. That was her mother’s territory.

She was, much to Mamma’s intense concern, happiest alone with her nose buried in her books. Papa was just as happy that she was out of his hair.

Nothing in her short, cloistered existence had prepared her for what she was feeling – she wanted badly to flee the dark, brooding man who had the audacity to say that he was her husband and held her hostage within her own house, on her own bed, and tears of frustration were rising behind her eyes, although she vowed she wasn’t going to shed them in front of this uncultured brute. If he was who he said he was, and she had her doubts, then why was he acting in such an ungentlemanly manner? Hanna was not going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry. Anyway, if he was anything like her father, her tears would only serve to enrage him further, or make him smirk down at her evilly.

But despite her very real fear of him, there was still a small but growing part of her that wanted to stay right where she was and finally know what the mystery was, what he would do. That part of her was also responsible for the sensitive peak he was carefully mouthing.

Wolf was amazed that she hadn’t screamed yet, and really hadn’t fought him much considering that he was taking incredible liberties with her person. And that tight little bud was still there, daring him to suckle.

Perhaps one of the reasons she fled the country rather than marry him was that she didn’t want to have to explain her lack of virtue to her groom. For some reason he couldn’t put his finger on, the idea that she might have lain with someone else had him ready to take whoever it was apart, limb from limb.

He didn’t rightly know why his little runaway wife intrigued him so, but he’d asked for a transfer from Fort William Henry at Lake George as soon as he’d gotten a letter from his mother, informing him that his marriage by proxy had taken place, but that the proxies had had to be on both sides. Wolf had only given his consent to his mother’s hare-brained idea because Hannah’s bride price would add to the family’s straining coffers, and, eventually, when he decided to settle down, she’d be there, at Preston Hall, waiting for him like a good wife. And it would keep his mother’s harangues down to a slow simmer.

Wolf had been incensed when he’d read in one of his mother’s depressingly frequent letters that she’d disappeared rather than become his bride. Why, there were women lined up right and left – women of unquestioned Quality – who would have given their right arms to become his wife, and yet this little chit of a girl decided to up and sail to America to avoid such a horrid fate as becoming his wife.

Shifting a little more of his weight onto her to hold her in place, he quickly – and with disgusting ease – transferred control of her wrists to one massive hand, while using the other to boldly reach into the front of her gown and cup the impudent breast he’d lately been teasing with his mouth.

Hannah thought she was going to faint dead away right there – more than that, she thought she should faint dead away. Any woman of good virtue would do just that, she was quite sure, and she was purer than most. Why was she still conscious – and much, much worse than that, why was it that her body seemed to be thoroughly enjoying his lascivious attentions? That big, callused hand was gently but inexorably exploring an extremely intimate part of her anatomy, and she wasn’t cringing, she wasn’t crying out – she wasn’t doing anything to try to stop him at all, because it felt much too pleasing!

Incredibly shamed by her body’s response to a perfect stranger, no matter that he might be her husband, Hannah pulled and tugged and twisted, trying to break his hold on her. It was only his unyielding fingers keeping her from being able to at least attempt to push him away, but even that small task seemed beyond her abilities. He was much too strong for her, and the beast was actually enjoying her attempts to free herself! It seemed the only thing she’d accomplished with her struggles was to press her breast even further into his palm, and jiggle the both of them in front of him like some public house doxy.

Finally, after trying more delicate, less frantic methods of retrieving her hands, Hannah descended into a state of mortification the likes of which she had never in her life experienced. She’d always been a good girl, and now this man had destroyed her chastity in a matter of seconds. He was lying on her skirt, effectively pinning her legs, and she didn’t know what else she could do to try to extract herself from this situation. So she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, losing her battle to keep the tears at bay. She wished, as if she was a little girl, that that was all she had to do to make him disappear so that she could get back to her quiet, uneventful life.

It had been a while for Wolf – he had no interest in the dirty, diseased camp followers that everyone else seemed to patronize. He took a deep breath, and was gratified to realize that the only things he smelled were the faintest traces off lye soap and the soft scent of the wildflowers that sat in a crude vase on her night table. Her hair was somewhat askew, but it was obviously her own despite the huge mass of it fanning out around her like curls of spun gold. There were no traces of the God awful white horsehair – or human hair – wigs with clumps piled so high a woman could barely lift her head – not to mention the bear grease and birds nests and other flora and fauna women seemed so fond of.

But he frowned when he saw the tears dampening her temples. She was his wife. He was tied to her by name, and by tradition. But more than that, by honor. She didn’t deserve to have her first intimate encounter with him to be the result of his anger, he thought. But his body had other very distinct ideas. He was rock hard behind his uniform breeches, and her twisting and writhing hadn’t helped that agonizing ache one bit, but perhaps she knew that. He wasn’t at all sure that she was who she pretended to be – the poor, quiet, widowed seamstress. She could have had any number of men since she’d been out from under what he assumed was her father’s strict supervision – he only knew if he had a daughter she’d certainly be under his very strict direction. There was no telling how many of the eligible bachelors in the area she’d wound around her finger.

Just the thought of her with someone else – despite the fact that he barely knew her; she was his wife – putting his hands all over his wife nearly drove him crazy. But instead of driving himself into her – which he wanted to reserve for a time when they weren’t in her dismal cabin – he instead rose to sit on the edge of the bed, and dragged her, eyes still firmly clamped shut, over his lap. One arm naturally crossed the small of her back, and it was more than enough to keep her just where he wanted her. He reached down and lifted the hem of her skirt, noting its ragged edge and the fact that although it was still nearly winter, the material was extremely thin, and couldn’t be keeping her very warm.

He would deal with that – and her living accommodations – later.

For right now, he folded it as neatly as possible over her back, and seconds later her dingy white petticoats joined it.

Hannah wasn’t just sitting still for this treatment, any more than she had for his earlier pawing. She recognized this position, and knew that she certainly didn’t want to have this big oaf spanking her. His hands were the size of trenchers, and she knew they were unnaturally strong. She wasn’t about to let him bare her bottom, much less spank her!

But none of her wiggling and straining and rolling from one side to the other, trying to slip out from under that dead weight of an arm of his, had any effect on him whatever . . . except that something of his was sticking up into her tummy more and more as she struggled. She wondered if he had a quill in his pocket, but that would have been pointier and much more yielding.

Finally, Wolf could stand her teasing movements no longer and clamped that arm more tightly around her waist, efficiently quieting all of her movements.

“Let me up this instant!” Hannah cried indignantly, once the realization of how truly trapped she was sank in. She hated to admit defeat, but now she wasn’t even able to struggle much against whatever it was that he’d taken into his mind to do to her. And she didn’t like where this was going at all!

He didn’t make a conscious decision to take down her drawers, they just seemed to end up around the bends of her knees naturally, without any sort of conscious movement on his part. But they certainly inspired movement on hers, as soon as he reached beneath her to tug at the bow that tightened them around her hips she began another explosive volley of jerking and writhing, but she still ended up bare bottomed, with him just sitting there, staring down at her bottom.

Once her bloomers hit the backs of her legs, though, she stilled, almost eerily, as shame washed over her as she realized that he was sitting there staring down at one of the most private parts of her. No one had seen her bare bottom in more than a decade, and she certainly hadn’t expected that some stranger would come in from the cold, announce he was her husband, and then proceed to flip her over his lap. But that seemed to be exactly what had happened, and, because she was weaker than he was, she didn’t seem to have much say in the matter.

“If you don’t let me up this instant, I shall - ”

“If you don’t stop whining this instant I shall rip your drawers off you and use them as a gag.”

He couldn’t see it, but her eyes blew incredibly wide at that idea. Hannah’s jaw clicked shut so hard that her teeth hurt, although it went against her grain to just lie there and take such manhandling. This man was not her father, wasn’t her beau, and as far as she was concerned, wasn’t her husband, either, despite whatever documents he might have provided to the contrary. Even if he were her husband, she would never let any part of her anatomy become nude around him. It just wasn’t done.

Wolf found himself staring down at her rounded rump, practically salivating at the sight. He took himself firmly in hand mentally, shaking his head, trying to clear it. Her skin was a creamy, healthy pink, and – like the breast he’d fondled minutes ago - those hillocks were wonderfully generous, despite the fact that the rest of her seemed woefully underfed. All he wanted to do at that moment was to gently massage those twin hemispheres, and drop his own cheek against hers.

But that wasn’t what he needed to do. Like it or not – and he wasn’t sure where he was going to fall on that scale quite yet – she was his wife, and he didn’t intend that there would be any doubt as to who was in charge in their relationship. He would install her in his ancestral home, and she would give him the requisite heir and a spare, even if he had to change his way of life a bit in order to accomplish that goal. Although she would be materially pampered, and he would probably feel generous towards her, especially if she gave him the children he wanted, she would do as she was told, and would have no rights beyond those which he decided to grant her.