Heaven in His Arms by Lisa Ann Verge

Author:Lisa Ann Verge [Verge, Lisa Ann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Scan; HR; 17th Century; Colonial French Canada; "filles du roi" (king's girls); mail-order bride
ISBN: 9780821748961
Google: WUZdAAAACAAJ
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corporation
Published: 1995-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

***

Swine. Andre squeezed his eyes shut. No, he thought, he was lower than swine. He was a snake, slithering around on his belly like the devil in the garden of Eden.

She trembled in his embrace. Her ragged fingernails still dug into his back, anchored firmly in his flesh, though her body's intimate throbbing had long faded. He focused on the meager pain and the guilt roaring in his head, for both prevented him from taking what every muscle and every sinew in his body screamed for: final release in the soft, willing moistness of her womanhood now quivering in the palm of his hand.

His lungs screamed for air. He couldn't move, because he knew that if he attempted to roll away from her, he would instead roll upon her, push aside her lithe thighs, and thrust into her eager, supple body. He tormented himself with the feel of the silken tresses on his cheek. He wanted this woman as he had wanted no other in a long, long time. Sacre, she was as warm and responsive as a well-trained courtesan, yet as innocent as a lamb, for as he touched her, he had felt the tight restriction of her maidenhead, that thin, fragile piece of flesh that proved to the world she was not yet his wife.

And she must never be.

Andre forced himself to think of the consequences. A wife would expect him to buy three by forty arpents of Canadian land for a few coppers and a couple of chickens a year, to give up fur trading and spend his time tilling the rocky soil. A king's girl would expect him to fill their house with furniture and earthenware and linens imported from the motherland, to drape her in lace from Brussels and silk from Lyon, to clutter his life with more things than any one man could carry. But he had grown up on the edge of the settlements, within easy reach of the bountiful forests, and saw no need to buy a plot of land when the whole uninhabited world stretched westward; he saw no need to fill a house with clutter when all a man needed was a sharp knife, a keen eye, and quick wits to thrive. He'd tried that once.

Never again. Never.

Yet he had taunted her, teased her, tempted her with all these things even though he knew he would never have another wife, not even the impetuous, passionate one purring in his arms.

Damn it, why couldn't she have been like every other Frenchwoman he had ever known? Why couldn't she have collapsed in exhaustion before they ever reached Long Sault? Any other Frenchwoman in her situation would be sobbing at the sight of her own ragged dress. Any other Frenchwoman would have demanded to be sent back to Montreal at the first sight of a savage. This one bargained with one for her shoes. This one hunted geese and rabbits. This one grew lean and strong and rosy-cheeked and beautiful from the fresh air and the exertion.

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