1435BC, Merytum, Lower Egypt
Da, I will not forgive you this time, Elibeth swore as the boat left Merytum and sailed downstream. She was once again been married off to an upper-class husband without her consent, this time to a provincial leader no less.
Brokered into marriage by her money-tight parents at the age of fourteen, and again at eighteen, her two previous marriages had been carried out only by proxy. Her first husband died in a shipping accident, and the second died in a military expansion, before either of them could actually meet their bride. After that, she had thought that she was safely done with having to live with strange families for months on end; she had been certain that she would spend the rest of her life contently at home.
But she was not that fortunate. Her mother was in want of money again, and had apparently set her husband to marry Elibeth off again. Therefore, at the age of twenty-one, she was once again on a journey to the home of a strange family, the Darcymose.
Darcymose was the provincial leader at Pemberlium, one of the richest administrative regions of the Egyptian Kingdom. His family had governed the lush region for hundreds of years and reported to the vizier, the Pharaoh’s second in command.
Normally, the great provincial leader would not have considered Elibeth, a poor engineer’s daughter, to be suitable. But her last two marriages to men of great importance had elevated her status.
Still, she did not understand why he chose her. She had heard that many of the wealthy families in the kingdom had been attempting to marry their daughters into the Darcymose’s family since the provincial leader turned fifteen. He was rumoured to be quite tall and handsome. But he had never married…until now. Her mother told her that he was on business in Upper Egypt, that explained why he wanted them to be married by proxy.
Elibeth would have lashed out at her father if he had been brave enough to face her. But no, she had only learned of the wedding from her mother half an hour before the ceremony, and she had then been shipped off immediately.
She thought back on the ceremony with anger. What an irony that she had been married in the Temple of Isis, the goddess of fertility, with Darcymose’s familial priest presiding…and no sign of a bridegroom. Again. While the priest was praying for her to be blessed with many children, she was praying that Darcymose might greet his god of death, Anubis, before meeting her.
When she arrived at Pemberlium, she was stunned to learn that her husband had returned and was awaiting her in their quarters.
“You!” Elibeth hissed, reeling with shock upon seeing her new husband, for this was a man she had first met nearly three years earlier, at her second husband’s home. At that time, he had been introduced to her as a friend of the family.
Darcymose stood and tried to wrap his arms around her waist in greeting, but she pushed him away. “Why did you use the name of ‘Wenamun’ and not Darcymose when we first met?” she demanded.
“Wenamun was my mother’s surname.” Darcymose said. “My father had just passed away, at that time. I did not want women fawning over me.”
She thought back at the grim countenance he had often shown at that time, and felt a tinge of sympathy. “I did not know,” she said. “I am sorry.”
He pulled her with him, urging her to sit on the edge of the bed, and she allowed him to do so.
“But why did you marry me?” she asked in bewilderment. “Did you not say, back then, that my maidenhead might not be breakable because I was cursed? That, since my first husband had died before he could have a taste of my lips, the same would probably come true for my second husband, as well?”
He held her hands and rubbed them gently. Gazing down at her, he said, “I fell in love with you then. Of course I wished your second husband dead.”
A shiver ran through Elibeth’s body. “How could you fall in love with me? We only dined and talked together a few times.”
“We danced once, as well.”
His fingers left her palms and smoothed their way up her arms. She felt a warm current flowing through her body. “But that was three years ago.”
“I had to allow a respectable amount of time to pass before I claimed you. I did not want your previous family to think we had formed an attachment back then. They would complain to the vizier and complicate the matter. But I have been keeping a close eye on your family. Had your mother wanted to marry you off sooner, I would have initiated my plan immediately.” His hands reached her shoulders, and he used his thumbs to make circular motions at the base of her neck.
“I did not wish to marry again.” She trembled, feeling the coarse texture of his thumbs and breathing in his musky scent. “What if I fight you?”
He remembered their last encounter. She had just heard about the death of her husband, and had seemed extremely relieved to know that she would soon be leaving that family. He recalled that, after drinking a few glasses of wine at dinner, her face had turned a lovely shade of pink.
He had rejoiced in the news for he known her husband was a violent man and that she would soon be freed, and so he himself had consumed a bit more than he should, as well. When he met her in the garden later that night, he could not suppress his ardent feelings, and kissed her passionately.
Taken by surprised, she had tried to struggle at first, but his lips soon persuaded her. By the time he parted her tunic and suckled her nipples, she was lost in the moment. She enjoyed his magical tongue and lips, feeling a pulse pounding between her thighs.
Only when he pushed his hands under her clothes and cupped her womanhood did sanity returned to her. She would not cheat on her husband on the day of his death, no matter how strongly she was attracted to this handsome man. And so she pushed him away.
He stood back at once, but extended his hand to touch her creamy mounds one last time. She, however, would have none of it, and slapped his face before running out of the garden.
Thinking back now on her temper and the fiery glint in her eyes, he was eager to provoke her passions once again. “You are welcome to fight me,” he teased. Putting a hand on her shoulder, he grasped the front of her dress and tugged one side of it open. “But in bed only.”
She gasped and raised her hand to strike him.
Anticipating her response, he caught her hand and lowered his head to kiss her wrist. Then he traced his lips down her arm and then across her breast until he reached her exposed nipple.
When he used his lips to pull her nipple taut, then wet the tight-gathered tip with his tongue, all strength left her body, and she subsided onto the bed.
He followed her lush body down and pushed the other side of the dress off her shoulder, baring her white alabaster breasts to his burning gaze. With three years of longing and ardency to fuel him, he devoured her creamy mounds, licking, suckling and squeezing them.
As his mad ministrations continued, the temperature in her body grew. She had never known such passion before. She tore at his hair, pressing him to her chest, then thrashed her head from side to side in sensual torment. She loved his torturing kisses but she wanted more, so much more...
She felt his hands leave her body as he struggled to strip off his clothes, and she whimpered in protest. He caught her nipple in his teeth in response. She screamed in ecstasy and reached her peak in that instant, trembling violently and feeling a wave of honey-sweet sensation at her apex. Then she went limp, as if floating on a cloud.
He quickly stripped off his clothes and returned to her. When he pressed his naked flesh against her hot skin, he felt that he had come home. He rubbed rhythmically against her, calling her urgently back from her bliss.
His hands kneaded her, dispensing with her gown, awakening every inch of her gorgeous body. Her breathing quickened again, and she parted her thighs instinctively to welcome his body.