Read Daughters of the Storm for Free Online Page A

much in my eyes,’ she replied, shrinking away from him.
    â€˜Don’t make me laugh,’ said Jacques savagely. ‘They’ll suck you dry and fling you out with the night-soil, like they do everyone round here. Look around you, Marie-Victoire! People like us don’t count. We die early, and worn out. Have you been to the village lately? Obviously not, or you wouldn’t be talking like this.’
    There was enough truth in what he said to give Marie-Victoire pause.
    â€˜I shall see you often enough when I return,’ she said.
    â€˜No, you won’t. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.’
    He flung the words out into the evening air and waited for a reply.
    â€˜I never promised you anything, Jacques.’
    Marie-Victoire spoke sadly because she would never wish to hurt him. Nevertheless, like an animal sensing danger, she wanted to run for home.
    â€˜I did not think I had to. Is it not plain what I feel?’
    â€˜What is it, then, that you want?’ she asked – which was stupid because she knew.
    For an answer, he pulled her towards him, ignoring her protests. Marie-Victoire’s small, work-roughened hands beat at his chest.
    â€˜Stop it, Jacques. I am too tired to be teased.’
    But Jacques, intoxicated by the smell of her body, bent his head and buried his lips in the nape of her neck.
    â€˜You shan’t leave me,’ he muttered thickly into the curve of her shoulder, tasting the warm skin with his tongue.
    Marie-Victoire struggled harder. Suddenly, she was very afraid. The stranger who was showering her with kisses in places she had never been kissed before had nothing to do with the boy with whom she had gone fishing on summer evenings, or pelted with snowballs on winter afternoons. She twisted frantically in his grasp.
    â€˜Stop it,’ she managed to say. He had got his hands under her dress but her genuine panic stopped him in his tracks.
    â€˜Don’t be stupid, Marie-Victoire,’ Jacques said, his eyes narrowing. ‘You want me really.’
    Marie-Victoire disentangled herself and backed away.
    â€˜No. No. NO. I don’t.’ There was no mistaking her fear. ‘Leave me alone, Jacques.’
    For a moment he was disconcerted and she seized her advantage. She turned and stumbled up the path towards La Joyeuse. Jacques stared after her and bent to pick up his knife. He turned it slowly in his hands and then, with a sharp blow, drove it deep into the barrel of the gate, where it stuck, quivering. He began to run.
    When she heard him behind her, Marie-Victoire’s pace quickened. The long grass whipped at her legs, her heart pounded and her breath came in sobbing gasps. He was too fast for her, she knew that, but fear lent her speed and she skimmed through a line of trees by the side of the meadow.
    She stumbled on a tuft of grass.
    â€˜Marie-Victoire,’ shouted Jacques. He lunged forward and caught at her skirts, and with one quick movement felled her to the ground. The earth rose up to meet her with a sickening thud. In an instant, he was on her, blind with passion. Marie-Victoire lay beneath him, feeling his body hard against hers, its familiar contours now changed into something quite alien.
    â€˜Don’t do this,’ she begged, her mouth crushed against his shoulder, but he did not, nor did he want to, hear her. His knee forced its way past her twisted legs and jerked into the softest part of her. She screamed with terror but her scream echoed uselessly among the trees and disappeared. No one heard.
    Jacques pinioned her with one arm. With the other, he forced her skirts up to her waist and found the places he was seeking.
    â€˜You will be mine,’ he whispered. ‘I will make you wish you had never heard of Héloïse de Guinot. They have taken you from me, but they shouldn’t have done. You were not theirs to take.’
    She wrenched her head away from those magnetic eyes and struggled