Then the pressure of the widow’s long fingers eased, only to be replaced by another, softer grip. All Troy could see was the girl’s bent head, with the torchlight flickering over dark brown curls.
“Well,”
la Veuve Noire
said. “What do you think, Lillian?”
The girl raised her head and, for the first time, looked at Troy. Her eyes, he saw, were very wide, and it appeared as if the pupil had swallowed up the iris. She was, he realized, not just embarrassed by this situation, but very much afraid.
“Stroke him some,” the woman commanded. After all, we want to know whether it is in good working order.
Over the reek of the prison cell that he had long ago ceased to notice, Troy suddenly became aware of another smell, fresh and sweet, of flowers, perhaps, whose names he had forgotten. He felt the girl’s hand quiver and her teeth came down to bite her lower lip, hard. Yet she did as she was told.
As the perfume wafted around him and the girl's fingers worked on him, stroking, stroking, arousing, he closed his eyes and remembered how long it had been since he had last lain with a woman. Soon sweat beaded his forehead, while fire ran through his body, pooling in his loins. His hips jerked forward.
It was obscene.
Troy gritted his teeth.
“Very nice,” the widow commented. “I think it will do.
Abruptly, the fingers were removed and the pressure against his windpipe disappeared. Troy staggered, the blood roaring in his ears. With something akin to surprise he realized that he was quivering like a cornered animal.
La Veuve Noire
spoke one last time. “We will take that one then. Clean it and shave it—we would not want any vermin to come along. Then put it in the second carriage as usual. We will wait outside.”
~*~
On the coarse road, washed out by recent rain, the carriage was rocking like a ship on high seas. Nevertheless, Lillian sat ramrod-straight, counterbalancing the motion of the vehicle with movements of her hips. Her stepmother lounged in the opposite comer, a thin smile on her blood-red lips. Like the cat who got the canary. But then, Camille
had
got a canary of some sort—even if it was not for herself.
The key on Lillian’s golden necklace seemed to burn through cloth and skin, a visible promise of the things to come. She resisted the urge to tug her coat tighter around herself. Emotion, she had learned from an early age, was a weakness that one could not afford to show at Château du Marais. Instead she looked outside, to where the mist rose from the ground to blur all shapes and to render the landscape a gray, ghostly place of hopelessness. Like that prison.
Involuntarily, her hands tightened into fists on her lap.
The prison, the manor house, and the mines—they all were part of the land her stepmother owned, and they all formed a unity that fed on people’s despair, a well for Camille’s pleasure. On these outskirts of civilization Camille had spun a tight, powerful web, with herself holding all the threads. And those who got entangled in it were doomed, one way or another.
From beneath her lashes, Lillian shot a look at her stepmother.
Camille’s smile deepened. “You were quite shy today,
chérie
. Did Gratien’s little institution overwhelm you?”
“It was my first time,
maman
.” Lillian chose her words with care. It would endanger her plans to anger Camille even in the smallest way. Better to pretend submission, compliance. “But let me thank you for my present. It is… lovely.”
Her stepmother nodded amiably. “It is quite a nice specimen. And so much… spirit.” She licked her lips as if in anticipation. “It will be a pleasure to break it in. A challenge.” She raised a brow at Lillian. “Naturally, you will have to do that yourself.”
“
Oui, maman
.”
Outside, the world seemed even bleaker than before.
~*~
When they arrived at Château du Marais, dinner had already been prepared for them, giving the servants time to prepare the man. Lillian did not taste any of the food she forced down her throat; she could have eaten sand and it would not have made any difference.
The candlelight gleamed off Antoine’s bronzed chest, sparkled on the gold bands around his arms. He stood behind Camille’s chair, serving his mistress in silence, his face expressionless, the mark on his forehead smooth. Lillian tried very hard not to stare at the golden breeches that hugged his hips, blending in quite nicely with the cherry-wood and golden furnishings of the dining room. Trust Camille to mind the details.
Finally, the door opened to admit Maurice, his short black curls spanning his head like a cap. He, too, was wearing golden breeches, yet his torso was covered in a white silk shirt and his forehead was flawless. The mark, Lillian knew, could be found on his right biceps.
He stopped at the table and bowed low. “Everything has been prepared, madame.”
“
Très bien
.” Camille clapped her hands together, delight shining on her face, and she turned toward her stepdaughter. “Shall we go upstairs, then,
chérie
, and admire the results?”
“
Oui, maman
.” Lillian put her napkin on the table, praying for strength to get through the next half hour. Never had it been more difficult to force a smile onto her lips than at that moment. Composure had been easier to gather even when her father’s coffin was lowered into the grave, leaving her alone with Camille.
But Lillian stood, straight and graceful, her face as blank as those of the servants.
Her stepmother led them through the wide hall and up the marble staircase, stone horses rearing up at the end of the rail. It was not far, then, to Lillian’s room, as she had moved rooms on her nineteenth birthday.
The door opened to reveal another selection of cherry-wood furnishings in combination with white, diaphanous drapes on the windows and the four-poster bed. Even the bed linen shone like untouched snow.
Blood showed so well on white.
Across the room loomed one of Camille’s constructions. It had been unused and empty all these past weeks since Lillian’s birthday, but it now held the spread-eagled form of a man, chains stretching his legs and arms so that movement was impossible. Also made impossible was speech, as a gag filled his mouth, the leather strings wrapping around his shaven head, rendering him more helpless than at the prison.
“Ahhh,” Camille breathed, “magnificent.”
Lillian forced herself to step forward, to approach the man, who had been reduced to something less than an animal.
Gone were his beard and hair, revealing a strong-boned face that for the most part had been invisible before. He had been shaved back at the prison, and the guards had been careless enough to cover his skull with the thin red lines of small cuts. Under Maurice’s supervision, Lillian knew, he had been cleaned again until the last stench of prison disappeared. Now, the light of the candles lent a soft, healthy glow to his skin, which gleamed with the oil that had been rubbed onto his body. Like Antoine, he was naked except for a pair of golden breeches.
But the eyes, Lillian saw, the eyes were the same—an intense cornflower-blue that seemed to burn to her very soul.
Camille turned to look at Maurice, who lingered on the threshold, and nodded. “Very nice, very nice indeed.” At that he bowed and left. He would be given his treat later on.
Camille went over to the small table that held a collection of her… instruments. “As I have already told you,
chérie
, you will have to break it in yourself.” She chose two short whips and strolled back to the man, slowly walking around him. “For tonight, I advise you to leave it like that. Tomorrow we might consider the cage.
If
…” She raised her perfectly trimmed brows. “If it behaves. If not…” She lightly touched one of the whips to his back, causing the muscles to ripple under the smooth skin. “Come here,
chérie
.”
Dutifully, Lillian walked around the construction, her face a calm mask while inside she wanted to scream and weep.
“If not, you might start with this.
This
”—with an expert move of her right wrist, Camille brought the leather string of the first whip cracking down on the man's back—“will leave red weals, sometimes drawing blood and sometimes not; whereas
this
”—she used the other whip, a vicious-looking thing with numerous straps that had small pieces of metal knotted at the ends—“will take away skin and draw blood for sure.”
At each lash, Lillian closed her eyes so as not to see the flesh quiver or the body flinch. Yet the results of each lash glared at her when she looked again, an angry red welt and a set of bloody rips in the man’s skin.
“You must learn how to use them well,” Camille continued, while she put the whips back with the rest of her other instruments. “For after a month we will have to decide whether it is fit.”
Whether his spirit could be broken and the man controlled. Whether he could be reduced to a mere toy for Camille’s pleasure… or not.
Smiling, Camille stepped in front of the man. “Then we will have to decide what has to go: its tongue…” She laid a finger against the gag, laughing as the man tried to flinch away. In swift retribution she slapped his face, hard, leaving an imprint of her hand on his cheek. “Its tongue,” Camille went on and reached between his legs, “or its balls.” Because Camille had no wish to mar her body with an unwanted pregnancy.
By now, the man was breathing noisily through his nose, his body taut like a bowstring.
Lillian nodded, praying for a swift end of this. “
Oui, maman
.”
“Yes.” Her stepmother let go of their captive and patted Lillian’s cheek instead. “You are an intelligent girl,
n’est-ce pas
? You will handle this well. And for now, it is all yours.” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “And there is one last surprise waiting for you. Look in the fire,
chérie
.”
With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, Lillian went over to the fireplace, where, in a bowl of red hot coals, was stuck another of Camille’s instruments.
“Bring it here,” her stepmother commanded.
Lillian forced her trembling fingers to close around the wooden handle, and she lifted the brand. Averting her eyes from the angry orange tip, she brought it to Camille, prepared to hand it over. Yet the older woman shook her head, smiling. “It is yours, so you will have the honor of setting the mark.”
Lillian swallowed, then looked at the bound man, who was watching them warily, his blue gaze even more intense than before.
“Where would you like to place it?” Camille studied the expanse of glistening flesh before her. “I am very partial to the forehead, as you know. Or the arm?” One red fingernail scratched across the man’s helplessly extended arm. “What shall it be?”
Lillian gripped the handle tighter. “The… the…” Where could such a thing most easily be concealed? “The… chest.”
“Very well.” Camille pointed. “Go along.”
Lillian took a deep breath and met the man’s eyes.
I am sorry
, she said with her own.
I am so sorry.
Then, as she went forward, her gaze dropped to his heaving chest, to the smooth place above the left nipple. Steadying herself, gripping the handle with both hands, she pressed the branding iron against his skin and tried not to notice the way his body jerked or the smell of scorched flesh that tickled her nose.
Finally, she stepped back. With detached surprise she registered the different design: a lily, instead of Camille’s rose.
Her stepmother clapped. “A lily for Lillian. Very fine,
chérie
,
n'est-ce pas
? Now that you have marked it, you should also decide on a name for it. How about Olivier? Think about it.”
Lillian hardly noticed the kiss that was blown onto her cheek or the sound of the door as it opened and closed, leaving her alone with the man. She kept staring at the small spot of flesh, now raw and burnt, kept staring and staring until her legs gave way and she sat down on the floor rather abruptly. She had enough sense left to hold the iron upright so that it would not set the floor on fire.
Drawing her knees to her chest, she used them as a cushion for her forehead. Her ears buzzed and the room was swimming, so she closed her eyes to draw long, even breaths. Cursed be the day when she had attracted Camille’s attention. And cursed be the day when she had first set foot onto the threshold of Camille’s mansion all those years ago.
Lillian had no idea how long she sat on the floor, yet when she finally raised her head, the room was still the same—of course. Filled with the stench of burnt flesh, which not even the scented candles had been able to eclipse.
She shuddered, once.
As horrid as it was, the smell, however, helped her to settle her nerves and to focus her thoughts on the most urgent issues at hand. Looking up, she found the man staring at her, his eyes even darker than before. Staring at her like he had stared at her stepmother back in the prison.
God, why hadn’t he possessed enough sense to lower his eyes to show proper submission? Didn’t he know that Camille owned not just the land but the people as well, body and soul? That all resistance was futile and would be met with savage retribution? Lillian suppressed the memory of the song of the dogs at night, out to hunt those who tried to escape Camille’s web. Futile … futile …
But…
Everything needs balance
—even if, as always, the choice had been taken away from her. She had set the mark, he was hers, and she had to act accordingly.
Her responsibility
.
Determinedly, she stood, putting the iron away before she pulled a bell cord beside her bed. She did not have to wait long for her maid to amble through the door, a sly grin appearing on the servant’s face when she spotted the shackled man.
“So you got one all for yourself.” Chuckling, Marie approached the rack-like construction, reaching out to touch oil-smooth flesh. “My, and such a fine one…”
Lillian narrowed her eyes. “I called you,” she said in her iciest voice, “because I need hot water to wash. Also, I have a desire for some wine, fresh fruit and rosemary bread.” He would not have been given any fruit or vegetables in the prison.