Bride of the Revolution Read Online Free Page A

thin shoulders. ‘Do not excite yourself, maman ! Please! You are very ill and you must save your strength.’
    â€˜Pah!’ the older woman scoffed. ‘We both know this is the end for me… You have a…’ The light was fading in her mother’s eyes, Grace noticed, and she was struck with a dreadful feeling of panic. She would be all alone. No one to whom she could turn.
    â€˜Mother…’
    â€˜Promise me!’
    â€˜I promise, maman !’
    Her mother gave a sigh, a long sigh of satisfaction, and darkness veiled her eyes. It was as if a light had gone out, and Grace bowed her head over the shrunken body.
    Two neighbours helped Grace to bury her mother. The priest said a few words over an unmarked grave and it was all over. Lost and terribly alone, the dark green eyes lustrous with tears, Grace turned to leave.
    â€˜ Ma petite !’ One of the neighbours ran after her, his eyes shining, his hand at his groin adjusting a heavy bulge in his filthy breeches.
    Grace turned, her hair hanging in gleaming wet ebony tendrils over her shapely shoulders, cleaned and wetted by the still teeming rain. Her cheeks burned as she watched him rub something between his thighs. ‘ Oui, monsieur ?’ Her voice, sad though it was, clear and sweet. ‘ Aidez-vous ?’
    â€˜It is I who can help you,’ said the man.
    His companion joined him, his head bowed, shy but looking suspicious in Grace’s eyes. Bare feet shuffling backwards, huge eyes staring, frightened, framed by lashes dewed with rain, Grace began to stumble away and then to run, looking this way and that for the priest, but he was gone. She was alone, without help, in the rain-drenched cemetery. She was unsure why she was afraid. It was something, she was sure, to do with those strange feelings that came over her when she touched that place between her thighs in the darkness of the night.
    â€˜Do not go!’ said the first man. His feet began to move quickly over the muddy ground, gaining on Grace. He was big, large framed, heavy, far taller than she was.
    â€˜Do not be afraid!’ said the second man, his shy demeanour gone.
    She could hear the slosh of their feet, bare like hers, as they ran after her. She could hear the urgency in their voices, the rasp of their breath above the steady sound of the rain.
    â€˜We only want to offer you a home!’ cried the first man. ‘In return for…’
    Grace closed her ears. Despite her innocence it was not difficult to imagine what she must do in return, and she could not. She had promised her mother, although the Lord only knew how she was to fulfil that promise.
    She took a fearful glance over her shoulder. They were gaining on her. The slap of their feet on the muddy ground made Grace sob; a sound that caught in her tortured throat. Grace’s chest hurt. She could scarcely draw breath. They were gaining on her, would catch her.
    A huge hand fastened like a vice about her tiny wrist. With a breath she felt must surely be her last she managed a scream of fear. Her flimsy rags, sodden with rain, clung and caressed the length of her creamy body as the man whirled her round.
    She could smell them; the odour of garlic and sour wine. Her captor laughed and used his free hand to cup the pouting mound of one of her breasts. His thumb and finger pulled upon the sensitive skin of her nipple and she felt it harden, become painful. Cold rain splattered the upper swell as he tugged down her gown. She felt his hand graze the tiny swell of her belly and felt an all too familiar warmth suffuse her body.
    Again she tried to scream, to tug away, fearing her own eager desires. ‘Shut up, putain !’ he growled, transferring his caresses to muffle her cries.
    She was pulled closer and she felt his male flesh lengthening beneath his breeches, stiff and swaying against his belly. It frightened her. Never in her life had she seen a man’s body. Her father died