A Christmas Promise by Mary Balogh

had restored his anger by her foolish attack on his manhood. She would be made to know, then, what it was to be duty bound to cater to his pleasure, what it meant to be obliged to grant him his conjugal rights. He would make all her future days ones of anxiety, wondering if she must face this again when the night came.
    He began to move in her, watching her face. She looked back, but something far back in her eyes assured him that she had not known of this, that she had thought the one penetration of her body all that was to be endured. He set up a slow rhythm before finally lowering his weight off his elbows and onto her warm feminine curves and continuing, making sure that he withdrew almost completely from her with each downward movement and reached deeply into her with each upward one. And he listened to the wetness of their coupling and the rhythmic creaking of the bedsprings and her ragged breathing and his own, imposing the last ounce of control over himself so that he would not climax before he was quite ready to do so.
    But it was not easy. He gradually became aware over the thudding of his heart and the surging of his blood that her legs had hooked themselves around his and her pelvis tilted to allow an even deeper penetration. And inner muscles were drawing on him, resisting his withdrawals and relaxing around his entries. And her hips were swaying against his.
    He grasped her shoulders, slid his hands down her back to grasp her buttocks and still her movements, and pushed urgently and mindlessly up into her depths until a blessed shattering brought his release. He heard a shout and rather thought that it must have been his voice.
    She was shuddering violently beneath him. He held his weight firmly on her until she gradually relaxed. And perhaps for longer than that. He had the distinct impression when he finally thought of moving off her that he was just waking up from sleep. But the candles were still bright, and the fire still burned in the grate.
    He lay beside her, looking at her. Neither of them had pulled up the blankets. Her dark red hair lay in wild disarray all about her, making her pale breasts look as if they might be made of alabaster. At least now, he thought, the red hair did not seem quite so out of place. She had an earthy, passionate nature that he had not dreamt it possible for a woman to possess. Least of all this woman. Perhaps it came from her less than noble background, though in his experience even mistresses and whores exercised more decorum in the bedchamber than she. Passionate nature and cold, cold heart.
    “Well,” he said, “the deed is thoroughly done. At least I will never now be able to be accused of depriving you of all your rights as my countess.”
    “And at least,” she said, “I will never be able to be accused of denying you all except the fortune that came with me.”
    “
Touché
once more,” he said. “Well, the happiest day of our lives is over, my lady, much to our mutual regret, I am sure. I shall leave you to dream of the triumph of your new status while I return to my own bed to dream of counting piles of gold. Good night.”
    He looked down at her as he got to his feet. The sheet and her inner thighs were a mess of blood. But she did not even try to cover herself. She looked up at him with that half smile he found so unpleasant.
    “Good night,” she said. “I doubt the night will be long enough to count every pile, my lord. My father is very, very wealthy.”
    “I know,” he said, bending to retrieve his nightshirt but not stopping to pull it on before leaving her room.
    He glanced at a clock in his dressing room. More than an hour had passed since he had entered his wife’s room. A wave of revulsion set him to shivering as he poured water that was almost cold into the basin on the washstand and proceeded to wash himself. Revulsion against the strange cold, passionate woman he had married. And revulsion against himself for indulging hatred and animal