Dedicated to a random commenter w41k3r_19880 - Thanks for your support, the first Wattpadder I've come across from my birth country!

Chapter 15: Of Slippers and Seduction

Drake had never been slapped by a slipper. Until now.

Not that it hurt but... he certainly never expected the first person to bestow such a degrading experience upon him to be his wife, especially after he'd satisfied her two nights straight.

He lifted his arm in defence as she whacked him again. "What's this for!"

"I'm sore!" she cried.

He leaped off the bed as she came at him again. "You blame me for that?"

"Of course I'm blaming you!" Her cheeks puffed red with indignation as she lobbed the cloth slipper at him. It flopped even more pathetically than the last time she tried throwing one at him.

"I told you we should rest, but you"—he pointed a finger at his insatiable wife—"are the one who kept begging for more." Now, he was most definitely not complaining about this. But he really didn't deserve to be slapped with a slipper.

She grimaced with a furrow of her brows. "I did not!"

"You begged for more." He threw her a lopsided grin, both teasing and filled with pride. "And harder."

"Did not!" She covered her ears and shook her head, refusing to accept that she was capable of committing such depravity.

"And faster."

"Did not!" she continued to deny valiantly, her cheeks flaming redder than ever before.

Drake heaved a sigh at his wife's selective memory loss. Only she could make him so amused and exasperated at the same time. At this point, he'd give half the gold in his treasury to the first man to invent a device that could record sound, so he could replay her lascivious pleas back to herself. Or... he could simply prove how wrong she was again.

She whipped her head to the side and folded her arms angrily. "You are never touching me again!"

"Till the next time you beg." He ducked as a pillow flew right at him. Being around her was a real test of agility, it would seem.

A knock sounded at the door. "My apologies, sir, a message."

He frowned a little, knowing it must be urgent for his men to dare interrupt their morning squabble. "Await me in my study," he called back through the door as he pulled on a loose shirt, raising his arm just in time to block a second pillow. He turned back to his wife and affixed her with a reprimanding gaze. "I will be back soon. You, behave."

She glared up at him from the bed and demanded, "Get Marge to come here."

He cast her a look of incredulity with the raise of a brow. The audacity of this woman. As if he was to be ordered around!

With her nose stuck up in the air, Amelia returned him with a poke of her tongue as he walked out and slammed the door shut behind him. It took him only a few steps down the corridor to admit defeat. His adorable wife had him by the balls.

Sitting before the mirror in Drake's room, Amelia slipped into a memory of the evening before, when his eyes blazed and roamed all over the mirrored reflection of her body as he took her from behind, right in front of this mirror, her legs shaking as she shuddered around him...

"What's the matter, my lady?"

Amelia jolted in her seat and tried to calm her racing heartbeat with a hand over her chest. "N-n-nothing." She took a few breaths as she slowly returned to reality and looked up at the reflection of Marge, rounded eyes of guilt meeting narrowed ones of scepticism.

Moments later, Marge returned her attention to the fierce battle against Amelia's tangled tresses.

The lewd memory did remind her of one other thing... "You lied to me," Amelia accused with a flat stare at her maid.

Marge paused and looked into the mirror with widened eyes of innocence. "But my lady, I would never!"

Oh, how dare she pretend to take offence. "You said to be nice to him and he'll consent to a divorce!"

"From what I heard, my lady, you were punching and screaming at him." Marge resumed dragging the brush through Amelia's hair, but was soon forced to pull apart the tangled knots with bare hands. She shook her head and wondered to herself just how intense things could get when the two young rabbits are in bed. "Excuse my ignorance but I don't know what definition of 'nice' that falls under," she muttered.

"But I've been nice to him..." Seeing Marge's doubtful expression, she added with a sheepish smile, "Sometimes."

"So why didn't you ask him when you were being nice to him?"

"B-because... because..." Amelia has asked herself that question dozens of times as well. But... would he really have consented then?

"And do not forget," Marge continued, "I am just a simple maid, my lady. Who am I to predict the thoughts and actions of a lord? That would be too disrespectful and presumptuous of me."

Amelia gaped at the cheek of her own maid. "You never qualified your advice like that!"

"I thought that much was obvious," Marge responded with a shrug. "Lesson for the future, my lady?"

Why. What has she done to deserve being surrounded by a hoard of wily characters? A father who forced her into marriage and lied to her. A husband who had no trade rivals she could taunt him with and beguiled her into bed. Now she couldn't even trust the advice of the maid she grew up with?

A lesson indeed. Taking her defeat in stride, Amelia turned her mind to a more worrying matter. "Have you heard about papa, Marge?"

"I have, my lady." Marge smiled with a sense of achievement as she smoothed out the tendrils of the young lady's hair.

Amelia frowned at the maid's display of nonchalance. Why was she not bothered? "What do you think I should do?"

"The better question is... what do you have the power to do?"

She blinked at that question, her brain wracking in search of an answer... and found none. She couldn't wield a sword, she couldn't lead an army, she had no connections in court or any diplomatic skills to speak of. She sighed and dropped her head to her chest. She was utterly useless.

Marge peered down at the deflated little lady and wondered where all the mischief in her head had gone. Only good for wreaking havoc, apparently. "You have the power to bend the will of a man who can do the things that you cannot," she counselled in a gentle voice.

Amelia raised her head and looked keenly at the reflection of her maid. "What are you suggesting?"

"If you want to save His Grace, getting a divorce and running back home won't get you anywhere."

She knew that already. Back home, she would still be powerless. The most she could do was to join her father in captivity. And yet, giving up on divorce betrays everything she'd worked for in the past year. Her father was worth putting that behind, wasn't he?

"Your marriage is consummated," Marge continued. "But all you are now is his legal wife. To wield his power as if they are your own, you must earn his trust."

Trust? After she slapped him with a slipper? "H-how can I do that?"

Marge laid her hands on Amelia's shoulders to give a little squeeze of encouragement before she leant down to give her next piece of advice beside Amelia's ear. "Seduce him."

What does seduction involve, exactly?

Amelia, of course, was so entranced by the thought that she had already forgotten all about the 'lesson' learnt.

As soon as Drake returned to his bedchamber, his wife was all over him.

She pulled him down by the neck and kissed him hungrily—almost sloppily—as she pushed him against the wall.

"Am— wha—"

She refused to let him speak, pushing her tongue against his, battling for dominance. As soon as he lifted her up by the thighs, she eagerly wrapped them around his waist. She clung to him like a snake tightly coiled around the thick branch of a tree, and it was all he could do to grind himself against the softness of her core.

With his impassioned wife still clinging to him and eating his face off, Drake walked them towards his bed and gently laid her into it, climbing atop her in the next instant to kiss her a few more times before he pulled back.

Amelia nibbled on her bottom lip and looked up at him through hooded eyes, shy and timid despite the display of unrestrained passion she'd just shown.

How the cloth slipper turned into this may forever be a mystery to him. But there were more important matters at hand.

With a deep reluctance to put an end to their first intimate session so wonderfully and unexpectedly invoked by her, he rolled off to lie in the bed next to her.

Amelia was baffled and mortified as she studied the grimness that marred his features. Feelings of doubt and insecurity washed over her. This seduction business was... hard. Much harder than just being nice. "Did... did you not like it?" she asked, her hands tugging nervously at a strand of her own hair.

Drake responded by snaking an arm around her middle and pulling her flush against his side. "No, silly," he said, raising her chin with his other hand to peck her on the nose. "I liked that."

Yet his tired expression said otherwise.

Before her mind could send her into a vortex of further confusion and self-doubt, he announced, "The king has died."

She drew in a sharp breath. "What?"

"The news is not public, it came by my spies."

"Will... will my father be released then? Once the Crown Prince is coronated?" Her eyes gleamed with a hope that was only about to be crushed.

Drake shook his head slowly. "No. The Crown Prince is gone from Lyons. Prince Warren is holding hostages, like your father, to support his own ascension to the throne."

"He is usurping?" Amelia gasped.

"I am afraid so," Drake said wearily. "With no direct claim to the throne, he will need the support of a significant majority of the court to legitimise his claim and avoid a revolt. After all, King Theodore had nephews that have a better claim than a bastard prince."

"So my papa..."

"Will not be released until Prince Warren is on the throne," he confirmed her fears. "But it also means he is safe, for now."

It was a small relief, but not enough. Knowing her own father's stubbornness, he would never give in, not without... "Could they torture him?"

Drake looked into his wife's rounded eyes of worry, and took a few moments to tell the truth, as he'd promised her. "That is a possibility."

Instead of descending into a fit of tears as he'd predicted, her eyes flared with purpose and determination. "Help me."

He reached out a hand to run his fingers through her hair, smooth again after their night of tumbling. "What will you have me do?"

"War," she proposed with no hesitation.

A smile tugged at his lips despite the circumstances. Let no one get on her bad side. This is the ruthless Amelia who did everything to make his life hell. 'Twas unfortunate he would have to disappoint her. "No."

Her brows furrowed and a fist tightened around his shirt. For a moment, he thought she would scream and hit him again, so he was completely unprepared when she crushed her lips to his.

"War," she demanded again.

"No."

She threw a leg over his body and straddled him as she kissed him again. "War!"

Drake threw his head back and laughed as he finally understood what she was doing. "Amelia, you are not going to kiss me into starting a war."

"Why not!" she scowled down at him with a pout.

He pulled her flat atop him and tucked her head to his chest. "One cannot simply start and stop a war. It ends with a victory, a stalemate or defeat. You may win some territories and lose others." His voice was steady and calm as he held her tightly, resting his cheek on her head. "History has shown us that one can lose even the most unlosable battle. And the worst of all? Whether you win or lose, there will be countless deaths, slaves and destroyed families."

"I do not want to take slaves."

"I do not, either. But I cannot say the same for our alliances, some of whom may be unwilling to sacrifice their own people if they cannot take others in return."

She exhaled a sigh and fell quiet. Marge lied again. Seduction was no contest against his vexing ability to consider things so thoroughly and foil her plans.

Drake nuzzled his jaw against the top of her hair, savouring the newfound intimacy between them. She may be a delight even when she was screaming abuse and hurling things at him, but he enjoyed it much more when she was like this, resting in his embrace, albeit with a grumpy pout on her lips. "It is for you to decide whether the risks and inevitable cost is worth the outcome you desire," he said. "If you wish to be queen, I am willing to raise the largest army these lands have seen and ride into battle to make you one. But even if we are victorious, you must accept that in our lifetime, you may only ever be a queen over resentful people, over lands still recovering from the scars of war and poverty."

Amelia lifted her face to his, surprise written all over her features at his offer of war if she so chose. "I've never wanted to be queen. I still don't want to be one." All she had to do was imagine having to act all prim and proper with a heavy crown on her head every day. She couldn't think of anything worse.

That is, until he pulled off a signet ring of gold from a finger and shoved the damned thing into her palms. "If you decide otherwise, you have my seal to sign a declaration of war."

"What!" She pulled out of his arms to study him for other signs that he'd gone mad. The weight of the ring felt a hundred times heavier than what it was seconds ago. She tried shoving it back to him, but he refused to take it. "I can't take this!"

"You can. You are my wife." He hugged her back to his chest and kissed her forehead. "I leave the decision in your hands."

He was out of his mind. "Why would you do this?"

"I've said my piece about war. I would not start one. But if you still wish to..." He lifted her hand to his lips for a kiss. "I trust you."

Her heart skipped a beat—no, dozens of beats—and her lips tremored from shock. What had she ever done to deserve his trust already? "Without war... how can I save my papa?"

"You could... for instance, place a bit more trust in your own husband."

For hours thereafter, she pestered him for his plans, which he remained steadfastly tight-lipped about. Didn't he promise to tell her everything? But the sneaky bastard replied: "Aye, I promised to tell you everything I know, not everything I am planning."

As night fell, Amelia retired to her own bedchamber to attach his ring to the gold chain of an old pendant so she could wear it around her neck. Exhausted, she curled up lazily in her soft plush chair, staring blankly into the serene whiteness that still blanketed the gardens and thick pines beyond whilst an inner turmoil of thoughts and feelings raged on.

Was what Marge said true? To save her father, she may as well forget about divorce and rely on her husband. As much as she had resented this betrothal and marriage, using him didn't quite sit well with her, and yet... he'd given her the very power to use him. Was she a successful seductress after all? Was that how she had earnt his trust?

Her mind skipped again to their intimacy over the past two days, and she bit at her own knuckles to stifle her giggles. Never in a thousand years could she have imagined coupling to be so ecstatic and intoxicating. She loved the way he looked deep into her eyes in their lovemaking; the way he could make her lose her mind with need; the way he would groan into her ear when she rolled her hips against him, as if she indeed wielded power over this man.

Her eyes fluttered close as she relished the sweet ache that throbbed between her legs and in her heart...

She wanted to smack herself senseless for drifting into these wanton thoughts. Gods, how could she let the throes of passion distract her from scheming. Wait... scheming what now? To return home again? There's not even a home back in Marlborough any more.

Amelia felt her fingers around the signet that warmed against her skin—an embodiment of his trust in her. He said he was planning things. The least she could do was to... trust him, too.

Deep in thought, she remained blissfully oblivious to the dark figure that soundlessly crawled out from beneath her bed, and slapped a drug-soaked cloth over her nose and mouth, sending her spiralling into the depths of darkness.