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

locks that came from the front of her center-parted style had been drawn back in gentle swoops over each ear, and they too remained tucked into the complicated chignon.
    She took a deep breath, refusing to let the tremors continue to shake her fingers, and tears to gather in her eyes. She couldn’t let Albert see her like this.
    One more night, and he would be gone.
    And she would be alone with his father.
    Fernand followed through on his threat to come to her chamber the next night.
    Mercédès was exhausted from the party of the night before, and the emotion of saying farewell to her son earlier that day.
    She had just been divested of her gown, crinolines, corset, and chemise, and had been dressed in a warm flannel night rail. Her maid was brushing her long dark hair.
    “Charlotte, you are dismissed,” said her husband as he came in the door.
    The maid took one look at the set expression on the comte’s face and, glancing at Mercédès, gave a quick curtsy and left the room.
    Her mistress couldn’t blame her: the comte hadn’t darkened her door for nearly a decade—since Albert had become old enough to realize what was going on in the house—and Charlotte had only been with her for five years.
    “Fernand,” she said by way of greeting. It was neither welcoming nor frigid. It was a statement. After all, he was her husband. He had every right to come to her bed whenever he wished.
    Mercédès was not foolish enough to attempt to deny him. During the early part of their marriage, she’d tried to love him— or, at least, to pretend that she didn’t wish he was Edmond, to hide the tears that came after they copulated, to allow her body to try to respond to his. But she couldn’t fully let herself go, and that was, ultimately, what caused his anger . . . and then the humiliations and torments that followed.
    Fernand was jealous of Edmond. He always had been, and always would be—despite the fact that Edmond had been dead for more than twenty years.
    “You can take that off,” he said now, walking over to the bed, pulling off his own nightshirt as he did so.
    This, she could do. This was simple. Hundreds, thousands of other wives had done so, did so, every night.
    Mercédès unfastened the six cloth-covered buttons that marched down the front of her pleated nightgown, and pulled it over her head. She glanced at herself in the mirror as she made her way to the bed, where Fernand lay, naked and waiting.
    Her skin was still golden, and mostly firm, except for the angry red lines from the bones of the corset that still marked her skin ten minutes after it had been removed. Her breasts had lowered a bit over the years, but they had become fuller after her pregnancies—four of which had ended in early miscarriage— and even more generous in these last five years, when her curves everywhere had become more pronounced. Her waist was much slimmer when tamed by the corset, of course, yet there was still a definite hourglass shape to her figure, and her belly made a gentle curve. But Mercédès knew that she was still a beautiful, desirable woman.
    Standing in front of the bed, she divided her waist-length hair into two parts and tied it together at her nape, then again, and again, before pinning it into a makeshift knot at the back of her head, aware of how her breasts lifted tantalizingly when she raised her arms.
    Fernand’s eyes were flat as he watched her, and his cock lay like a large white worm, curled into the dark hair that spread between his legs. It didn’t look as though it was ready to rise to the occasion.
    Mercédès lowered herself onto the blanket next to him, and closed her eyes as he reached for her. Any vestige of affection she might have had for him had evaporated long ago, when he’d turned ugly and humiliating in their chamber. Now she merely lay there and let him do as he wished.
    Or tried to do.
    Her nipples reacted partly to his ministrations, and partly to the chill in the room—tightening,