In the Shadow of Midnight (46 page)

The brightest peak was yet to crest within her when she was lifted off the chair and carried to the wide, raised bed. Smaller peaks, breathless shivers, were racing through her
limbs as she felt herself sinking back into the soft fur coverings. With shaking hands she tore at Eduard’s shirt. She peeled it up his back and, with his help, tugged it up over his shoulders, baring the incredible expanse of virile male flesh that was hers to explore. She did so eagerly, restlessly, skimming her hands over the sculpted muscles, running her fingers through the tangles of soft, thick hair that covered his chest. Not surprisingly, she had lost a good deal of her shyness somewhere between the rooftop and the hearth, and she dragged his mouth down to hers, kissing him with an open-mouthed boldness that demanded all the skilled expertise of his lips and tongue.

While Eduard kissed her, he loosened his braies and pushed them down over his hips. In a brief tumble of arms, legs, and glossy red hair, their positions were reversed long enough for him to kick the final encumbrances free, long enough for Ariel to rise above him and gaze in awe at the long, thick spear of flesh rising so proudly from the juncture of his thighs.

They rolled again, his body naked, warm, and hard as he pressed her deep into the bed of furs. His palms smoothed over her breasts, cupping the supple flesh as he drew it into his mouth and suckled each nipple to a crinkled tautness. Ariel arched her back repeatedly, feeling the tug and pull of his lips all the way down to her toes. His heat was between her thighs and she moved with frantic little whimpers to entreat him closer. She raised her knees and dug her heels into the bedding, tilting her hips up and forward so that he slid against her, teasing her with both a threat and a promise. Again and again he simply slid against the dense, glistening curls, denying himself, denying her until she was so wet and he so hard they could not have stayed apart a moment longer, even if they had wanted to.

Eduard groaned as he buried himself inside her. He groaned and he gasped and he pressed his head into the curve of her shoulder, stunned by the tightness and the heat she wrapped around him. Ariel’s hands shook where she clutched him. She felt him plunging, stretching, pushing himself to the
limit, and then more … more … until she was filled, swollen, aching with a deep, saturating pleasure.

Her cries of awe fevered his blood and his first few thrusts were fast and powerful, more for the benefit of his sanity than anything else. Her body quickened against him in response, making his every muscle strain and beg for release. But Eduard was determined. He braced himself on outstretched arms, his lips moving in a silent litany of prayers to hold on, hold on, hold back even as Ariel flung her arms around his shoulders, her legs around his waist, and stiffened convulsively through wave after wave of intense, protracted ecstasy.

His eyes closed, his neck arched. His breath came harsh and choppy and his body gleamed under a sheen of moisture, his muscles quivering, his whole body feeling like a raw, chafed nerve. The fierceness of his impending climax stole his breath away. He shuddered and rolled his hips faster into hers, letting the pleasure come, letting it overwhelm him, letting it burst, throbbing and flame-hot into the wild and violent friction of Ariel’s own continuing, continuous orgasm.

Flushed and panting, they rocked together in a crush of damp, steamy flesh. Ariel was numb, dazed, and still beset by the tiny, shuddering bursts of liquid heat that pulsated from his body to hers. She kept her legs locked firmly around his waist, kept her hips moving, arching gently to glean every last drop, every last shiver from his flesh. The incredible fullness diminished inside her, but he made no move to pull away, not even when he thought to ease the burden of his weight by turning onto his side. He turned, keeping her close, his hands cradling her thighs so that there could be no thinking he wanted to leave her, no allowing it if she wanted to leave him. Luxuriantly slippery inside and out, Ariel was flushed with the knowledge that she could give as much pleasure as she could take—pleasure she would have thought to be commonplace to a man of such careless might. And yet, if the fiercely possessive pressure of his hands was anything to judge by, he was just as shaken as she by the intensity of their expended passions.

Her head found a natural, comfortable pillow in the hollow of his shoulder. Her hair was stuck to the dampness on her
temples and throat, and she gave a little sigh of thanks as he gathered it back into a single, thick tail that he spread beside her. It left his hands free to roam over the naked flesh of her back and shoulders, and he did so until the audible pounding of her heart slowed, and she could think and feel beyond the flush of carnal gratification.

It was a soft, fuzzy, engorged contentment that replaced the urgent restlessness of wanting. It made her very much aware of the shape and texture of their bodies, of the heat he radiated even in repose. She wished she could stay like this forever and wondered if every woman felt this way, or if it was only the foolish ones, the ones who had been too stubborn to admit this was something they could not accomplish on their own.

Ariel sighed and traced her fingertips over and around the contours of his chest. She could fire a bow, wield a sword, ride a horse, even swing a quarterstaff the equal of most men. And because she could, she had never felt any pressing need—or desire—to prove she could be just as soft and yielding as any woman. Eduard FitzRandwulf d’Amboise had wrought a change in all that. He had shown her, precisely and exquisitely, just how much of a woman he wanted her to be, how much of a woman she could be in the arms of the right man.

This man, she realized dreamily.

With this newfound pride in her own femininity bristling through her like a rash, Ariel lifted her head out of the snug cradle of his shoulder, intending to share the discovery with him. But Eduard was asleep. Soundly, deeply, blissfully asleep, with just the vaguest hint of a smile on his lips to suggest she did not have to tell him anything. He already knew.

E
duard was still asleep several hours later when a loud, urgent knock sounded on the outer door. The room was dark save for the low flame of the night candle, and it guttered to the brink of extinction as a sudden draft rushed across the bed. Eduard, quick as a cat, was on his feet and melting in the shadows as Henry came barging through to the bedchamber.

“Ariel? Ariel—are you awake?”

Ariel, scrambling to pull the bedsheets up to shield her nudity, pushed her hair out of her eyes and stared at her brother as he drew near the bed.

“Ariel … rub the sleep out of your eyes,” he hissed urgently. “We have trouble. Brevant has just been to see me. A man was admitted to the castle not an hour ago bringing news that the king’s ship has dropped anchor in Christchurch. The Leopard himself will be upon us before noon.”

Ariel was struck dumb—by the news, and by the sight of Henry standing beside her bed, superimposed in front of the naked, amber-lit spectre of Eduard FitzRandwulf, his back against the wall, his sword gleaming in the revived light of the candle. Her vision clouded briefly with the threat of a faint, a faint that grew proportionately stronger as Henry’s nervous pacing carried him around to the foot of the bed.

“If we are to have any chance to steal the princess, it must be done now, before the rest of the castle is awakened to make preparations for the king. Brevant has looked high and low for FitzRandwulf, but he is nowhere to be found. In the process of looking, however, he found something else. He—” Henry stopped and his breath huffed from his lungs on an angry curse. His foot had become tangled in something, and, thinking it to be an article of Ariel’s clothing, he bent over to pick it up. While he was down there, his eyes were drawn to another crumpled heap … and another. He was able to identify each without too much difficulty once he recognized the black
studded surcoat he clutched in his hand. A man’s belt, a shirt, a pair of braies … a pair of cuffed leather boots …

It took another moment of stunned disbelief while he gaped at the bed, at the obviously naked and dishevelled figure of his sister, before he could straighten completely and turn slowly to acknowledge the glint of reflected light coming from the shadows.

Eduard lowered his sword. He was still in the half-crouched position he had assumed when he thought it was Gisbourne’s men bursting in on them. To judge by the look on Henry’s face, he was not all that sure he would not have welcomed the sight of soldiers more.

“You …
bastard!”
Henry exploded.

“Henry,” Ariel gasped. “Please … I can explain …”

“Explain?” The hot fury of her brother’s eyes shot back to the bed. “Explain
what?
Explain what you are doing naked in bed together? Christ Jesus, girl, I think I can guess that much by myself. Or perhaps you were going to explain
why? Why
you are naked in his bed, stinking of sweat and lust, when you were supposedly so eager, so determined to savour these fleshly delights with your intended
groom!”

“Henry … I know it comes as a bit of a shock—”

“A shock? A shock to find you spreading your charms for the Bastard of Amboise? Nay, nay, sister dearest—” He paused and folded his arms across his chest. “It comes as no shock. A surprise, mayhap, that it took you so long to cull the stallion out of the herd.”

“Henry, I would have a care,” Eduard began, his voice low and held in check with an obvious effort.

“No!” barked the enraged lord. He held out a hand and thrust his finger up in warning.
“You
should have a care, sirrah. You should not speak yet. You should not utter one bloody word until I fetter this overwhelming desire to tear your heart out through your throat. What,” he demanded, turning back to Ariel “were you thinking? What could you possibly have been thinking?”

Ariel glanced at Eduard, then met Henry’s accusing glare. Strangely enough, now the initial shock was passed, she started
to feel quite calm. And not a little resentful that a man known to have cuckholded many a groom and husband himself could be standing so righteously before her now.

“I obviously was
not
thinking, brother dear. I was just doing.”

Henry hissed the air out from between his teeth and raked a hand through his hair, grasping the tawny ends in his fist as if he would have liked to rip it out in chunks.

“Ariel … !
Damnation
, Ariel … do you know what you have done?”

“I have a fair idea,” she answered coolly. “I have greatly reduced my value as a virgin bride.”

Henry blinked. A few blond threads came away between his fingers as he lowered his fist and leaned it on the foot of the bed. He blinked again and seemed to gather his wits enough to force a sardonic smile. “Well, I am sure the donjon guards here at Corfe will not rue the loss overmuch; they seem to prefer their doxies experienced. And once they are finished passing you around, you might just want to have a fond memory or two to savour. I doubt the same may be said for your brother,” he added, casting a cold eye in Eduard’s direction. “After tonight, he will not have too many pleasant memories at all.”

“What does Robin have to do with this?” Eduard asked.

“Gisbourne has him,” Henry said succinctly.
“How
he got him, I do not know, but according to Brevant, when he went with Gallworm to announce the king’s imminent arrival, the boy was trussed like a hog and unconscious in the corner of Gisbourne’s anteroom awaiting the governor’s pleasure.”

Eduard’s face blanched for all of the two breaths it took him to funnel his rage into action. He crossed the room in three long strides and started snatching up his clothes, donning his braies and tunic as fast as he found them, not troubling himself with any belts save the one that sheathed his sword.

“Where is Brevant? How long ago did he see Robin?”

“Brevant is below, in my chambers. He came straight here from the Constable’s Tower, uncertain of who you would want to see rescued more—the princess, or your brother.”

Eduard stamped his feet into his boots and strode out of
the room without another word. Ariel, who had made haste to pull on a shapeless bluet, was not far behind him, running down the stairs, all flying hair and whiplashing linen.

Henry caught her before she flew through the doors to his chamber, his fingers like iron bands around her arm.

“We have not finished saying all there is to say; we have only delayed it.”

“Fine! Good!” she cried furiously. “It will give you time to see how”—she grit her teeth and wrenched her arm out of his grasp—
“happy
he has made me!”

Brother and sister entered the chamber in time to see Eduard selecting an arsenal of daggers out of the belts and bucklers lying amidst their armour.

Brevant stopped speaking and looked up sharply, but a brisk order from Eduard started him talking again, low and swift.

“—on the upper floor. There will be guards in the passage below the tower and two more posted at the bottom of the stairs. He had his favorite whore in the room with him, probably to prime him and share the fun.”