Bride of the Revolution by Bethany Amber Page A

the comfort of madame’s chamber. Her new surroundings were dark, cavernous, unwelcoming.
    She was shocked fully awake; fearful, terrified of the rusty iron bars at the edge of her vision, the walls slicked with trickles of water and streaked green with lichen.
    â€˜Where am I?’ she murmured, shuffling on her bare buttocks across a floor which was cold and uneven, strewn with filthy straw and the rotting remains spilled from discarded bowls of food.
    Lighted sconces were fixed into rusty iron brackets in the rough hewn wall, shedding flickering light and petrifying shadows which danced like ghosts around her. A rustling noise made her look down into the straw strewn about the stone floor. She screamed as she saw the long, grey and sinuous shape of a rat scurrying there.
    â€˜Don’t be afraid.’ Strong arms gathered her to a broad chest, but Grace fought this new captor, hurting her small fists as she pummelled muscles as hard as the iron bars that held them prisoner.
    â€˜Where am I?’ she asked again, straining against the almost naked man who held her. ‘And who are you?’
    â€˜We’re in the dungeons below the palace,’ he said. His voice was deep, soft, like spoken velvet. He wore only a scrap of filthy cloth held about his waist by rough string. The cloth was lifted, Grace noticed, by the massive thickness, his cockstem, beneath it. ‘And you don’t remember me. I am being punished for holding you too close.’
    â€˜The servant in satin,’ she murmured, remembering.
    He laughed mirthlessly, touching the scrap of rag. ‘Satin no more.’
    Grace felt his fingers stray to the swell of a breast, the deep dip of her waist and the splendid rise of her buttocks. She lowered her head, allowing her midnight hair to fall forward, curtaining her full breasts and hiding the flush that came unbidden once more to her pale face. The fingers trembled as they petted the swell of her belly and strayed downwards to the darkness of her bush.
    â€˜No,’ cried Grace, managing to push him away. Despite her sleep, her sex pouch was still swollen, still creamily wet and hot as fire. If the servant touched her she would be lost, she knew.
    â€˜You’re a virgin,’ he murmured in awe.
    â€˜And must remain so,’ she said, ‘or be punished severely by Madame de Genlis.’ She paused, her eyes raised to his, round and fearful. ‘Perhaps even executed.
    A sound rang out in the dank and sprawling cave-like rooms. A crack that could have been a pistol shot echoed over and over again. Grace screamed.
    â€˜No talking!’ A huge shadow emerged, solid and fearsome, from all the other shadows which flickered against the ancient walls. It held a whip, long and snakelike, darkened by years of body fluids. It flicked between the bars, its tip touching the wine-dark nipples of Grace’s breasts. A gasp of pain was drawn from her. ‘No talking,’ repeated the rough voice.
    The green eyes widened at the sight of their gaoler. Tall and broad, dressed only in a scrap of worn leather drawn roughly into a pouch about his heavy genitals, he grinned at Grace through the bars before fading back into the shadows.
    Her companion drew his finger across his lips indicating that they must be silent and mouth their words. Grace, fighting back tears, nodded, doubting that she could speak for the painful lump in her throat. Perhaps she would have been better to take the offer given to her by the men at the cemetery than suffer the tortures offered, one after the other, by her new captors.
    The palace seemed nothing more than a torture chamber. Wearily, she lay her head upon her companion’s shoulder.
    â€˜Listen,’ he whispered and grasped her arms, shaking her, forcing her to watch his lips. ‘You have been in their chambers all night and it is well known that they are the most rabid sensualists in the palace.’
    His breathing was rapid and harsh,