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She glanced up at him with trepidation in her eyes.  It made him uneasy.  But he decided to make the first move anyway.  The only times he had ever touched her had been a week ago and today.  He’d held her hand during part of the wedding ceremony.  And on the walk home.  But his lips had yet to brush hers.  Perhaps, he should start there.  After he’d embraced her gently.

Just to test out the possibilities.  To see what was real.  And what was merely a figment of his imagination.

He reached out and slid his arm around her, and she winced.  Her whole body tensing.  Instantly, he stilled.  His hand resting against the bottom of her back.  Lightly.

“Mi Sook?” he queried.  “What’s wrong?”

She remained silent.

“Are you afraid of me?”  He frowned.  He despised the idea that she might fear him.

Her eyes grew wide.  “I…I’m fine.”

He decided to test that theory.  And another one.  By increasing the pressure of his fingers against her back.  He had noticed today that she had avoided sitting.  As much as possible. 

As his fingers pressed lightly against the back of her waist, he watched her countenance, so he didn’t miss her reaction.  He felt her cringing away from his touch.  The fabric under his fingertips slid away from his fingers as she pulled herself up straight.  Clearly drawing away from his hand.  But he also witnessed her face convulsing.

“Mi Sook.”  Those two syllables were rife with passionate pain.  “Take off your robes.”

Shocked, she stiffened.  Her eyes flew to meet his.  He hadn’t even attempted to kiss her, yet he wanted her to undress? 

Her heart sank.  But then she upbraided herself.  Had she been hoping for a show of tenderness on his part? 

Silly girl that she was, his emotional breakdown at her home a week ago had led her to believe that perhaps more lay beneath the quiet façade of this mysterious man than simple self-interest.  But, clearly, she’d been wrong.  Hadn’t she?

“What?” she croaked.

She hadn’t expected him to insist that she undress before him this soon.  She had hoped to buy at least another hour.  Her heart began to trip along.  Stressing her breathing.

But his next words surprised her even more than his last had.

“I want to see your back.  Turn around and remove your robes.  Or lift them up,” he finished a moment later when she didn’t move.  “Here.  I shall help you.” 

He reached for the belt holding her robes closed.  She recoiled from his touch.  And he heaved a deep sigh.

“I thought you weren’t afraid of me.”

“We – we barely know each other,” she insisted through clenched teeth.  “I didn’t think that you would demand your rights tonight.  Not this soon.  I – I thought that we’d take some time to get to know each other first.”

His face fell as he watched her countenance tightening.  But she missed his disappointment since her eyes were trained on her feet.  She held herself erect.  She was quite evidently on edge.

Could he shock her into being comfortable in his presence here?

“I’m not going to rape you, Mi Sook,” he spoke baldly.

She gasped, and her eyes flew to meet his. 

“I want to see what he did to you,” he breathed, disguising his fury under a soft voice.

She swallowed.  “It doesn’t matter.”

His frozen mask cracked, and some of his anger leaked across his face.  “How can you say that?”

“Because he doesn’t own me anymore.  I belong to you now,” she murmured woodenly.  “I don’t ever have to fear him again,” she expelled those final words in one long breath.

He gazed down at her while a myriad of emotions flew across his brow.  But he kept them hidden under a dark cloud.  “You don’t ever have to fear me either.”  He paused.  “Now, show me your back.”

She began to shake.  Why was she so nervous?

She’d never bared herself before a man.  She bit her lip and reached for her belt.  But his fingers were already there, untying it for her.  She was grateful for that small offering of help.  For her trembling fingers might have gotten in the way of her goal. 

As her belt fell away, the edges of her ivory outer robe separated, revealing her violet robe beneath.  She reached up and pulled her white robe off.  His fingers were there, drawing it out of her hands.  But his eyes were on her under robe.  He tossed the ivory robe onto the end of his bed.

They were standing two feet away from that big bed.  And her husband was helping her to undress.  She cleared her throat nervously as her fingers pleated the edge of her under robe.

Her heart was racing away now.  Its beat tripping steadily faster with every passing moment.  She took a deep breath, trying to calm it.  But it refused to be comforted by a mere increase in oxygen. 

Her fingers unfastened the second robe, and its layers fell away to reveal the flimsy undershirt beneath it.  And her pantaloons.  She tried to still her trembling hands but found that she could not.  She reached up and drew the second robe off.  This time, she tossed it onto the bed herself.

“Turn around,” came his gentle voice.

She obeyed him, having found that her will to resist him had fled.  He was, after all, her husband.  He could take what he wanted.

But he had promised not to rape her.

Of course, those were merely words. 

His actions would prove whether he had actually meant them and purposed to abide by them.  Or not.

But such rationalizations did not bring her any peace.  She was about to discover if she had acted wisely by accepting this marriage.  Or if she had just sealed her doom by simply climbing out of one cage and into another.  Which would be controlled by a stranger rather than by her father.

As she turned her back to Dan Se, he reached out slowly and touched the snowy fabric of her undershirt.  He tugged gently on it, freeing it from the waistband of her pantaloons.  A moment later, he lifted that shirt a few inches and sucked air through his teeth as his gaze fell on the purpled bruises blotting her lower back.  His eyelids floated shut as his heart cracked wide open and a scorching agony poured out.

Now he was the one trembling.  He couldn’t touch her tonight.  Even a tender brush of his fingers would spell pain for her damaged skin.

He was filled with a boiling rage as he opened his eyes and studied those blue contusions.  His quaking fingertips rested gently against one of those hideous marks. 

“I cannot understand how he could raise his hand to a girl,” he mumbled, baffled.

A tiny, defenseless girl.  With wide, obsidian eyes.  And long, gleaming locks of ebony.

His fingers shifted and brushed along one of those beautiful, midnight tresses.  The ends of her hair could feel no pain at his touch.  He caught one lock between his thumb and forefinger and drew it to his lips.  After kissing it, he pulled it toward his nose and inhaled its pleasing perfume.  Lavender.

As a child, he had played in its fields.  He recalled tripping through those blooms, a sea of pale purple, and falling down onto his back in the midst of them, closing his eyes, and inhaling deeply of that field’s fragrance.  Before Han Sung had found him and tickled his nose with one of those fragrant stems which he had carelessly plucked from the green earth.

His eyes fluttered shut for a moment as Dan Se relished that precious memory before they once again opened, and he released that fascinating lock of her hair. 

“Where else did he touch you?” he breathed tensely.

“Across my shoulders.”

“He beat your entire back blue?” he forced the words out in horror.

He saw the back of her head bob up and down.

“Anywhere else?”

A pause.  “My bottom…my thighs.”  And she wondered if he would insist on examining them too.  She could feel her pale cheeks growing warm at just the thought.

He winced.  “Why?  What triggered his wrath?”

“Does it matter?”

A great shiver ripped through her then.

“Are you cold?” he queried as he furrowed his brow in concern for her.

“Yes.”

He stepped around her and drew her violet robe off his bed.  He draped it gently around her shoulders.  Noting how she winced as his hands brushed the bruises there.  He moved around her again, this time to face her.  He reached up and tenderly drew that robe closed over her torso.  His fingers lingered on that luxuriant fabric. 

As his eyes caressed it, he murmured, “I wonder if you will regret marrying me.  And losing clothing this fine.”

She frowned.  “What do you mean?”

“Can it be that you do not know?” he gasped.  His eyes studied her perplexed countenance for several silent moments. 

“My dear,” his eyes stroked hers, “you have married a pauper.”