Loves Choices. PENNY JORDAN

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СКАЧАТЬ My dear, no matter how lovely you are, without your virginity all you can ever be to Alain is simply another pretty diversion.’

      As Hope stared up at him, the implications of his words finally struck home, her eyes widening with shocked comprehension, her husky, ‘No!’ trembling on the air between them.

      ‘I’m afraid “yes”,’ the Comte corrected gently. ‘And that is not the worst of it. You see, I never liked your father, Hope, and I hated him for what he did to Tanya. She was twenty-one when she met him, young and full of hope. She thought he would marry her and gave herself to him willingly, but once she had done so he let her know that the only place he had for her in his life was as his mistress, and loving him as she did, she accepted it. I had to watch as her pride and respect were slowly stripped from her as he paraded her before the world as his whore. I think it a fitting punishment for him that I do the same to his daughter, don’t you?’

      She was going to faint, Hope thought hysterically. She couldn’t really be hearing this; she couldn’t really be listening to the Comte telling her calmly and emotionlessly that he intended first to rape her and then to flaunt her publicly as his mistress. For a moment she contemplated telling him that he was too late and that she had already given herself to someone else, but his voice forstalled her.

      ‘It’s no use, Hope,’ he told her calmly. ‘You have already betrayed to me in a thousand ways that you are an innocent. You cannot leave the château—Pierre will not help you—and by morning …’ He shrugged, and her appalled senses struggled with the knowledge that he intended to start taking his revenge that night. ‘You need not fear that I shall hurt or abuse you—it is not my intention to punish you personally, and indeed in many ways I am sorry that it has to be accomplished through you. Certainly you will suffer no worse at my hands than you would at Alain’s …’

      ‘Except for the fact that I would be his wife,’ Hope reminded him bitterly. All her life she had heard the Sisters telling her that sex outside marriage was a sin and never for a moment had she contemplated indulging in it with anyone other than her husband. Even if she was married and in love she would still be dreading what now lay ahead of her, she acknowledged inwardly, but to contemplate the Comte’s hands on her flesh, his body … She shuddered deeply, her panicky ‘No!’ bringing a brief grimace of understanding to the Comte’s mouth.

      ‘I’m afraid your protests only make it all the more difficult for you, mon petit. Here, in this château, it is my will which prevails. We shall stay here for a week,’ he told her, as though they were discussing something mundane. ‘By that time it is my hope that you will have lost that look of undeniable innocence.’ His eyes mocked her pale face and bruised expression. ‘Then we shall fly out to the Caribbean. I have a villa there, and the crowd your father mixes with will be at his hotel at this time of year. No doubt your father will be in a benign mood, contemplating the wedding he believes is to take place later in the summer. Your appearance at my side, so incontestably mine, will surprise him.’

      ‘I shall tell him what you have done,’ Hope cried out. ‘You can’t force me to stay with you then, I shall leave you …’

      ‘And your father will take you in?’ He shook his head. ‘Oh, no, mon petit, he won’t.’

      ‘How long … how long will I have to stay with you?’

      ‘As long as it takes.’

      ‘And afterwards?’ Hope shivered again. The nuns had always stressed to their pupils that once a girl sinned, once she lost her innocence, the downward path was a very steep and slippery one indeed, and a hundred lurid pictures tortured Hope’s mind. ‘After you have … finished with me, what becomes of me? No man will want me as his wife …’

      ‘I did not say that, nor is it true. You cannot really believe that all men marry virgins—or indeed want to. You are a beautiful girl, Hope, many men will be attracted to you. You have intelligence, and depending on how much you use it, you can be happy and content in your life or not.’

      ‘Would you marry a girl who has … has had other lovers?’ Hope flung at him bitterly.

      ‘I would—if I loved her; if she had other assets that I wanted. The confines of your upbringing have been very narrow, Hope. If the Montrachets were not as they are, if your father had not callously traded in your innocence for their wealth, my plans could not come to fruition. In many ways you are an artificial product. Had you been left to grow and develop naturally I doubt you would be a virgin. It is as acceptable for girls to experiment these days as it is for boys.’

      ‘But you intend to … to ravish me because …’

      ‘It will not be a ravishment in the terms that you are thinking of,’ he told her calmly. ‘I have no desire to inflict pain or degradation on you. On the contrary, I want your father to see that you come to me willingly.’ He smiled at the expression in Hope’s eyes, and her bitter:

      ‘Never—I could not. I do not love you!’

      ‘How little you know,’ he mocked her softly. ‘But you will see. Love is not always necessary for pleasure, Hope.’

      She closed her eyes in mute agony, unable to understand what was happening to her. Could she really believe that this cool, sardonic man, talking reasonably, almost lightly to her, actually meant to despoil her body, to deprive her of her virginity?

      She saw him glance at his watch. ‘It is getting late, and you must be tired. Why don’t you go to bed?’

      Her eyes flew to his face, but he wasn’t looking at her. ‘I have some work I have to attend to. Don’t even think of trying to escape, Hope. The doors are all bolted, the drawbridge raised, and Pierre will not aid you—he was fanatically devoted to my sister. Would you like something to help you sleep?’

      For a moment Hope was tempted. Perhaps if he came upstairs and found her sleeping he would … what? Change his mind? Hardly, having gone to so much trouble to bring her here. This wasn’t something done in the heat of the moment; his anger had cooled and hardened, and he wouldn’t be turned aside from what he intended.

      ‘No, thank you,’ she responded formally, wondering if it was admiration she had seen flicker briefly in his eyes, or if she had imagined it.

       CHAPTER THREE

      IN the end she was not left alone with the torment of her thoughts for long. A warm bath had done little to soothe her jangling nerves, her various plans for escape all dismissed as wildly impossible as she went through them; there wasn’t even a telephone anywhere in sight she could use to contact her father. If she was the heroine of a novel no doubt she would have a knife or a gun to hand with which to defend herself, she thought painfully as she pulled on the old enveloping cotton nightdress she had brought with her from the convent. Not for the world would she wear the fine, silk garments she had bought in Seville. She was glad that the room was in darkness—she didn’t think she could bear to look at the Comte, it would be bad enough to have to endure his touch.

      Her fingernails were digging into her palms when she heard the door open. The light was clicked on and the Comte surveyed her, a small smile touching the corner of his mouth as he studied her nightdress, but he made no comment, simply locking the door and pocketing the key, before walking past her into the dressing room.

      When he was gone Hope found that she was trembling. She heard the sound of running СКАЧАТЬ