Ice Princess
by Lila Brody
Prologue
Scottish highlands – June 1744
From the arrow slits of her room, Ariana could glimpse the black towering battlements and the vast, vacant stretch of heath as it rolled into the distance away from the fortress that was now to be her home. The view was oppressive and overwhelmed her with a sense of hopelessness. She backed away from windows, her hand pressing against her chest. She again felt that tight feeling that had suddenly siezed her the day of her wedding, only three days ago. It felt like a cold, firm hand, closing around and squeezing the life from her heart. She threw herself despondently across her bed, still clothed in her wedding dress, her long blond hair blanketing her. She brushed a single tear quickly from her eyes. I will not cry, she told herself. I will not give him that satisfaction. Not anymore. She buried her face in the pillow, closed her eyes and remembered.
Until she was fifteen, she had only ever known joy and love. Though her family had not been wealthy, Mr. Curtis and his wife had never made Ariana or her older brother, Stuart, feel as though they lacked for anything. They had only had a servant and a cook, and only one horse graced their small stables, but since this was all Ariana had never known, she did not think anything of it. Ariana remembered the happiness she had felt growing up on the small manor in the south of England. Memories of sunshine, warmth and the wonderful flower garden that was her mother's pride and joy still haunted her, though these memories were beginning to dim, replaced by the sombre overshadowing of subsequent events.
The day of her fifteenth birthday was supposed to be a joyous occasion. The Curtis family had invited several of the nearby local gentry families to attend the gathering. Ariana had so looked forward to the event. Her mother had made her a special white dress of fine lawn and Cook had prepared her favorite chocolate cake. Her good friends Stella and Beatrice were to come. It had been a beautiful, warm and cloudless day in June. The guests arrived, the party began. Everything was perfect. She remembered being so utterly and completely happy. And then, everything changed. As the family and friends began to sing her happy birthday, Mr. Curtis suddenly collapsed to the floor. Her father, who had always seemed so strong and so vigorous, in that instant, became an invalid. The party ended abruptly and the physician was called. Ariana remembered the day ended in sadness and fear.
From that moment, the Curtis family would never be the same again. Mr. Curtis required extensive medical attention, which cost enormous amounts of money and which left the family in financial straits. Within weeks, Stuart who was nineteen, enlisted into the military, hoping to gain an income that would help contribute to the family's coffers. Unfortunately, he was soon sent to India and no longer could visit. Mrs. Curtis did the best she could to manage the household under the circumstances, but life became difficult. Mr.Curtis grew despondent and no longer oversaw the operations of the small estate. He spent most of his time in his rooms, confined to a wheelchair, except for the increasingly rare visits of local neighbors and friends, when he insisted on presenting himself in the parlor as though he were not physically impaired. He did not want people to think anything remiss with their household, so Ariana no longer could have her friends casually visit and the formal functions grew less and less frequent. By the time she was sixteen, Ariana had learned to spend a great deal of time alone, developing a taste for reading that was barely satisfied by the small family library. Without Mr. Curtis' guidance, the family's financial situation steadily worsened, and by the time Ariana was seventeen, her parents were convinced that she must marry as soon as possible.
When Ariana boarded the coach bound for London, she did not know that she would not see her home again for many long years. She remembered looking out the coach window and waving to her mother and father. Her mother stood with her arms about her father, supporting his weight so that he could appear standing for the inhabitants of the coach. She remembered through the course of the long trip to London that Mrs. Rice, who had been sent to fetch her by her busy and socially prominent Aunt Penelope, spent the time instructing her as to the ways of London Society. At the time, she cherished a young girl's notions of courtship and marriage to a handsome gentlemen. Now that memory filled her with grim irony. The man Aunt Penelope arranged her to marry was a monster.
Ariana had known from the instant she met Penelope that the other woman did not like her. In her naïve innocence, she did not understand at the time that Penelope was insanely jealous of her radiant youth and beauty. Penelope had never been beautiful but had been lucky enough to land Sir Walters for a husband, and though he was thirty years her senior and now in his dotage, at least her future was secured. She still felt the shame and humiliation of marriage to a man so many years her senior, and she knew that Society blamed her lack of beauty for the match. She was determined that Ariana's beauty should not gain her a handsome young man. In a whirlwind season, Ariana attended a myriad of balls, fetes and teas. Countless handsome young suitors were sent on their way. In their place, came Lord Derrick [Chester Manfield Duke of Lomond]. At fifty, he was older than her father and more than thirty years older than she. Though not a tall man, he was extremely fit, fencing several times a week with a master. His silver blond hair disguised what grey might appear in his beard and the hair on his head remained thick. In short, his appearance did not immediately reveal his age. His financial holdings were endless and his power in London Society vast. Though this was to be his third marriage, all of polite society turned out for the wedding, hailing it as the event of the Season. By the time she had turned eighteen, Ariana was married to Lord Derrick.
Suddenly, Ariana heard the key turn in the lock, breaking the train of her memory. She kept her faced pressed into the pillow, refusing to face him and give him the satisfaction of her gaze. She involuntarily shuddered as she heard him throw open the door.
"And how does my young wife fair today?" Derrick said, a malevolent smile under his moustache.
When Ariana did not respond, he shut the door behind him, locking it and pocketing the key. "So, my young wife has yet to learn to behave," he said. "When are you going to learn to respect and obey? Don't you remember your wedding vows?"
He crossed the room to stand over her. "You thought you could defy me in London," he grabbed her by the hair. "Now that we are at Lomond Keep, I will teach you to obey!" He began pulling her up from the bed by her hair.
She had no choice but to rise up and face him. His green eyes were inches from hers, filled with a look she was only just beginning to understand. The pupils were slightly dilated, his lips moist. His eyes traveled quickly from her face down to the top of her wedding gown, where the corset raised and pressed her breasts into a deep cleavage. He immediately sunk his head to press a moist kiss on the swell of one of her breasts. She gasped and struggled to pull away from him but his grasp on her hair was excruciating.
"Oh no you don't," he said, his mouth still against her breast. His left hand remained in her hair and his right hand traveled to her buttocks to push her firmly against him.
She felt that part of him she feared most. In their brief courtship, he had forced her to touch it, to handle it, and ultimately to suck it. The experience had been horrible and terrifying. He had been ruthless and uncaring of her feelings. She had learned that when it grew in size it became hard and warm and that a warm whitish liquid came out of it. The taste nauseated her. He told her that when they married, he would put it inside her, down below. It seemed so big, she could not imagine where he would put it. The thought terrified her. She knew he would be ruthless.
"Lord Derrick, I beg of you," she whispered, hating herself for begging.
He lifted his head to look into her deep blue eyes. "What do you beg for, my wife?"
She tried to turn away from his gaze, but his hand in her hair held her steady. She felt his body pressed firmly against her, she felt him raised and hard against her thigh. She ignored the pain of her hair and pushed against him with her hands. "Let me go," she said.
"You do not make the demands!" he shouted and pushed her back across the bed. "I make the demands." He stood over her breathing heavily, his eyes roaming across her figure as it lay prone on the bed. "We are now in my domain. There is no one here who will help you and your tears have no effect on me," he said.
Ariana quickly wiped the errant tears away. She bit her lip with the effort to restrain any more. She saw the swell in his tight breeches and she saw that look in his eyes. She fought the shudder that grew as he moved closer.
He sat on the bed beside her. "You cannot escape me, now," he said. "Even if you pleaded a headache or some other feminine problem, no one else is here to heed your plea, and I know it is merely an excuse." He stood up and began to remove his clothing. "It is time to truly make you my wife."
Ariana watched in shocked horror, unable to look away. Underneath his shirt, his chest was still fairly firm and had little hair on it. His nipples were erect. As his hands traveled to the top of his breeches, the terror overwhelmed her and she rolled from the bed, rushing for the door, her only thought to get away.
The next thing she knew, she found herself on her back on the floor with Lord Derrick's heavy weight pressing the breath out of her.
"You will obey," he ground out.
He seized her hands in one hand and forced them over her head. With his other, she felt him fumbling to move her skirts out of the way. She struggled to kick him. He slapped her, hard across the face. She winced from the pain and glared at him. He stared back and then pulled a knife from his pocket. He held it to her throat.
"I said, you will obey me," he forced her legs open with his and climbed between them. With the knife, he cut her dress open.
Ariana could feel the cold draft of the room on her legs and the rough feel of his breeches pressing against her. She closed her eyes, willing herself away.
"Look at me," he demanded. When she refused to open her eyes, he slapped her again. Her eyes flew open to see his filled with rage and what she now knew to be lust.
"You will look at me and you will see me take you," he said.
Involuntarily she looked down. She saw him free himself from his breeches, red and engorged. His hand took it and pushed it toward her. Suddenly, she felt a horrible, rending pain. She closed her eyes.
"I said look at me," he groaned, as he pressed himself into her and she felt the knife blade draw blood against her neck.
She forced her eyes open. He was staring into her eyes, his eyes dilated almost completely black. Sweat was standing out in large drops on his brow. She could feel the length of him now buried inside of her. In that moment, she knew that he wanted to see the fear and hurt in her eyes. She realized that it was this that he sought.
The pain began to lessen as her body adjusted and with it some of her fear dissipated. As if he could read this change, he suddenly began to move inside of her. The thrusting motion renewed the pain. She saw the charge of recognition in his eyes when he saw her involuntarily wince. He thrust harder and faster. She fought against letting him see how it hurt. He dropped the knife and grabbed her hips so that he could better leverage himself into her. He pushed her legs open enormously wide. She felt as though she might split asunder. She no longer felt any pain, just a sense of numbness. Then, suddenly, she felt him press against a sensitive part of her at the juncture of her legs. Her breasts, crushed between the bindings of the corset and the press of his chest, suddenly erected with almost painful intensity. His pistonlike thrusting had reached a frenzied crescendo and she began to shake all over with a strange, inexplicable feeling. Then, with a shout, he collapsed against her, his body instantly slipping from hers.
Ariana lay there for a moment with the full weight of her husband atop her. Her body felt warm and moist, and it pulsed strangely where he had penetrated her. She felt his moisture running down between her legs. She looked up to find Lord Derrick staring at her, a malevolent smile on his face.
"You will be made to heel, my dear," he said, as he buttoned himself up and pocketed the knife. He insolently watched as she tried to cover herself with the destroyed dress.
"I expect you to be ready for dinner in an hour. See that you are," he commanded, then locked the solid oak door behind him as he left the room.
Ariana knew then that her husband thrilled to pain. She would not let him see her pain or her fear. She would not give him that satisfaction. She felt the cold hard grip around her heart strengthen. It felt like ice.