Master: An Erotic Novel of the Count of Monte Cristo by Colette Gale Read Free Book Online

heart would cause her death, just as a damaged one had surely brought Père Dantès to his grave. After eighteen months of being badgered and cajoled by her distant cousin, she had agreed to marry him—not because she’d wanted to, but because she’d had no one and no resources, and had found herself in an impossible situation. Dantès was never coming back, his father was dead, and it had become clear that Villefort would do nothing to help her.
    Fernand had been an attractive man, with the same Catalan looks as her own: golden skin, dark hair, and dark eyes. Part of the reason she’d turned to him was because it was expected that Catalans would marry among themselves. It was their culture.
    But he had been pleading with her to marry him even while Edmond was alive; while Edmond was at sea on his last voyage, Fernand had come to her every day, trying to convince her to accept his suit. But she had loved only Edmond.
    I will love him until the day I die .
    She’d told Fernand that every day, yet still he asked. And then when the most horrible thing had happened—when Edmond had been arrested during their betrothal dinner—Fernand had remained quiet.
    But then, months later, he asked again, and she refused him. And then he went off into the army, and when he came back, Edmond had been gone for a year, and Père Dantès had died only a month earlier, himself certain that Edmond was dead. Over the past eighteen months, she’d gone to Villefort so many times, begging for information, for any news, desperate for anything he could tell her.
    When Fernand returned from the army, a hero for his work in Janina, he asked her again to marry him. And that time, she’d had no choice but to agree. Even when she told him the truth, and the reason for her acquiescence, his determination to marry her had not faltered. As she was to realize later, after some months of marriage, it suited his purposes to be married to a beautiful woman, thus proclaiming his virility for all to see.
    So, despite the hollowness of her heart, the grief, and the knowledge that she would never love Fernand, she married him, determined to be a good wife to her cousin even if she could not love him. She owed it to him.
    If only she’d known his true intentions then, and the real reason he wanted to marry her.
    She and Fernand had been husband and wife for more than twenty-two years. Longer than Edmond had been alive.
    Mercédès realized with a start that Fernand was looking at her, and that he’d blocked the door with his arm. “What is it?” she asked, keeping her voice steady.
    “Am I to assume that Salieux is your current paramour?” he asked. His lips were tight under the dark mustache he’d taken to growing once he acquired his title. It was kept clipped short so that the hairs were sharp and bristly, and scraped sharply across one’s skin. A great number of white hairs were beginning to thrust up from beneath the black ones. “I can fully appreciate your attraction. He is quite a robust, well-turned-out young man.”
    She refused to reply to his taunt. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have been detained long enough.”
    “Mercédès,” he said. He didn’t move, and she could not pass by with his arm blocking the way. “You will be your charming, lovely self to Baron Danglars this evening. In whatever capacity is necessary.” His dark eyes, which had long ago seemed so soft and gentle, shone hard and inflexible. “I desire a match between Albert and Eugénie, and I require that you do your part to ensure it.”
    Lips tight, stomach swirling, Mercédès gave him a short, sharp nod. “You can be assured that I will be hospitable and pleasant to Monsieur Danglars, but I will not suffer his clumsy hands on me.”
    She’d known of Danglars since he had sailed on the Pharaon with Edmond. He’d been the ship’s purser, and Edmond the first mate, during a voyage in which the captain had taken ill and died. It had been Edmond’s skill and