“My what?” She looked at him in bewilderment
at the unfamiliar term until he smiled.
“It’s a current saying in my country,” he
informed her. “It means you are close to fainting from lack of
nourishment. Even if you don’t feel hungry, eat what I give
you.”
She nibbled at the cheese, discovered to her
surprise that she was hungry after all, and reached for the bread.
Michel handed the flat loaf to her, and when he did, their fingers
touched. Danise looked at his hand, tanned, long-fingered, newly
callused from days spent handling weapons in his attempt to reach
the same proficiency as Frankish men. Shaken by the sudden
realization that she wanted to feel those hands on her body, she
let go of the bread. Michel took it and broke the loaf in half.
“We ought to save some of it for the
morning,” he admonished.
“I have been half asleep until this moment,”
she murmured, wondering how she was going to control her unruly
emotions.
“I would say you have been in a state of
shock. It’s perfectly natural, considering what you’ve been
through. The food will help to bring you out of it. Have some more
cheese.” He watched her eat for a while. “Do you feel like talking
about it now? You said something earlier about Clodion and Autichar
hatching treason between them.”
“Hatching?” She smiled briefly at his choice
of words. “They intended to use my abduction to cause a war between
Charles and Duke Tassilo.” She told him everything that had
happened since she had been taken from Duren, and all that she had
been able to learn from Autichar.
“This is serious business,” he said. “It
really is treason those two have been plotting. Danise, did Clodion
harm you in any way? If he laid a hand on you, I will personally
tear him into pieces, though I may have to fight Guntram for the
honor. Guntram threatened to castrate Clodion.”
“I’m not surprised. Guntram’s fierceness is
legendary. Still, there’s no need to do it in punishment for
anything Clodion did to me during these last few days, though I am
sure there are women in Francia who would applaud the act as
vengeance for their own wrongs at Clodion’s hands.”
“Your father and Redmond were ready to help
Guntram,” Michel said, “but Charles insisted on justice. When he
hears what you have to say, I wouldn’t be surprised if Clodion
receives the worst punishment possible under Frankish law. In
Merovingian times, the method of execution for treason was to tie
each of the offender’s arms and legs to one of four horses, and
have the horses whipped into running in four different directions.
Queen Brunhilde was executed that way back in the early seventh
century. The same punishment would serve Clodion right for what he
did to you, and for what he was planning to do.”
Danise watched him staring into the fire as
he spoke, his face hard as any Frankish warrior’s. He was so deep
in his thoughts of male vengeance that he did not notice the effect
his words were having on her. She gulped back tears, brushing at
her eyes.
“I can’t,” she whispered, and he turned to
her, startled out of his bloody reverie. “Michel, I can’t make
light of what has happened, or talk about bloodshed and punishment.
When Clodion took me away from the hunt, I was terrified. Autichar
said he would let Clodion have me and then give me to his men. He
said that afterward, if I still lived, I could go where I wanted,
but what would there be for me after such shame? I feared I would
never see you, or my father, again – or anyone else I love.”
“I’m sorry. Danise, I am sorry.” He seized
her, holding her tightly. “I’ve been thinking about my own anger at
Clodion and forgetting how you must have felt. Your abduction never
should have happened. We should have protected you far better than
we did.”
She clung to him, and the tears would not
stop no matter how hard she tried to get them under control.
“I am such a coward,” she sobbed. “I was
afraid from the moment Clodion captured my horse’s reins until you
took me onto your horse today.”
“Anyone with any brains at all would have
been afraid,” he said. “You had wit enough to stay alive and
unharmed, and courage enough to escape. You got away from them on
your own, Danise. You found us. You can be proud of that.”
“But I can’t stop weeping!”
“It’s a delayed reaction. Cry all you want.
Soak my tunic. I don’t care. I’m so happy to have you safe in my
arms that you can saturate every piece of clothing I own. Work on
the cloak for a while if you like.”
“Oh, Michel.” Poised between renewed sobs and
laughter at his words, she looked into his eyes – and found she
could not look away.
Gently he wiped the moisture off her cheeks.
When he was done, he did not remove his hand. He cupped her face,
holding it steady while he kissed her. Danise made a soft sound,
part whimper, part laugh, part cry of surprise. And then he was
crushing her to him and his mouth was hard on hers. She felt his
tongue and parted her lips to give him access, pressing herself
against him while he searched out every sensitive corner of her
mouth. She was dimly aware of the pounding noise of rain upon the
roof of the little hut where they sheltered. She was more conscious
of the warmth and dryness of the interior of the hut. And at the
heart of that warmth, that shelter and safety, was Michel. He was
the heart and center of everything.
“I mustn’t do this.” He was pushing her away
and Danise, half drowning in sensual pleasure, caught at his arms
to keep him close.
Michel knelt on the brown blanket, his
features now softened by desire. Danise sat facing him, her legs
drawn up beneath her, hands wrapped around his forearms, not
willing to let him go.
“I was sent to rescue you, not to violate
you,” he said. “How can I return you to Savarec after taking you,
when I would have killed Clodion or Autichar for doing the same
thing? Worse, how can I take away your freedom to choose the life
you want or the husband you prefer?”
“You will not take anything away from me, you
will give to me,” she cried. “I know you, Michel. You would not
touch me if I did not want you also.”
“You’re overwrought, you don’t know what you
are saying. It’s a natural reaction to nearly losing your life.”
But he did not move and he put no further distance between them
while Danise spoke.
“I did not have my time with Hugo. We denied
ourselves in hope of greater joy at some later time. Will you also
be taken from me, Michel? I know you believe it will not happen,
but what if you are removed to your own time and I never see you
again?”
“All the more reason not to take advantage of
you now,” he said.
“What if Autichar has bested Redmond and his
men? We do not know the outcome of that battle, Michel. Suppose
Autichar should track us to this place and take us prisoner. I know
what Autichar will do to me after I have escaped him once. He will
not give me the chance to escape a second time. He will watch while
his men make sport of me, and he will make you watch, too. And then
he will kill us both, and what will your forbearance matter
then?”
“It won’t happen,” he said. “Redmond has
twice the men that Autichar has.”
“The lesson I learned from Hugo’s death
almost a year ago,” she said, “and learned again in these last
days, is that life is brief and most uncertain.”
“That’s not reason enough for me to break
faith with your father,” he declared. “I promised to return you to
him unharmed.”
“And what of me?” she whispered. “Can’t you
think of what I want? I am a woman grown, Michel. My father gave me
free choice in this matter. And you – you all but asked me to marry
you. Have you changed your mind?”
“Never. But I still don’t have anything to
offer you, or your father.”
“Honesty,” she whispered, nearly overcome by
her longing to be held by this man. “Loyalty. Friendship. A good
heart. I have recently learned how rare these qualities are. And
how valuable.”
“Danise.” Still he hesitated.
“Have you changed your mind?” she asked
again. “Don’t you want me?”
“I’m dying for you,” he said with a
groan.
“And I for you. I have been since the first
moment I saw you. Knowing that, will you lie beside me all this
night and never touch me? Or do you plan to stand outside in the
rain until dawn, guarding my virtue and your own?”
His eyes grew dark, his face intent and
serious.
“I’ve never known a woman like you before,”
he said, “never anyone so honest and open. Danise, are you
absolutely certain this is what you want?”
“Yes.” Looking into his eyes she knew her
long time of mourning, and of longing for something she had
believed lost to her forever, was over at last. “I would lie with
you, Michel. I would have you make love to me.”
“God knows, it’s what I want myself,” he
said.
“Then I am yours.”
It was as though they were entering upon some
solemn ritual. In silence he moved the food and the wineskin to a
far corner of the blanket, then smoothed out the woolen folds until
the blanket was perfectly neat. Kneeling beside her again, he
unfastened the hair she had tried to make tidy, unbraiding it until
it hung in long, shimmering strands of pale gold. Once or twice
during this slow process he touched her lips with his, very
lightly, but they were not real kisses, they were promises of
kisses to come. When he was finished and her hair was loose, he sat
back on his heels, watching her breasts rise and fall beneath the
linen of his undershirt.
As slowly as he had dealt with her hair, he
now put out his hands to cover both of her breasts at once. Danise
kept her eyes on his face, memorizing the play of emotion upon his
features. He rubbed a thumb across each nipple and she caught her
breath. She knew her nipples were hardening at his touch. She could
feel it happening. There was a warmth far inside her that grew in
response to his caresses. When he bent his head to nibble at her
through the borrowed shirt, she changed position restlessly, moving
upward onto her knees and thrusting her breast against his mouth.
There was no shame in anything they did. It was all natural, all
meant to be. It seemed to Danise that their coming together had
been fated long before they ever met.
He caught the hem of her shirt, which lay
upon her knees, and pushed it upward, his hands sliding along her
thighs and then her hips. She raised her arms so he could draw the
shirt over her head. For a moment she covered her nakedness with
one hand and arm across her breasts, the other hand hiding the
place where her thighs joined. Then she moved her hands aside, to
let him look at her.
She had been told by older women that she
possessed a nicely rounded figure, but secretly she thought her
breasts were too large. Michel did not seem to think so. He touched
her again, without the linen to separate his hands from her
sensitive skin. When he began to lick around the tip of one breast
she cried out in shock at what the moist heat of his tongue did to
her. The warmth inside her burned brighter still when he attacked
her other breast in the same way. And all the while his hands
caressed her spine, her hips, her shoulders.
Danise’s heart was pounding, her head was
spinning, she could barely breathe for choking emotion. Surely she
would die soon if he did not – did not… She whimpered with aching,
as yet unfocused desire.
“You are still dressed,” she whispered,
trying to break the intensity of what she was feeling. Girls and
new wives often talked, and Danise had many friends at school and
at Duren. She knew she ought to be apprehensive at what was about
to happen. She was not. She trusted Michel and she wanted him to be
close to her. She wanted it more with every struggling breath she
took, with every touch of his hands upon her burning skin. But
when, in answer to her complaint, he removed his tunic, she
recoiled for an instant, her desire checked by the burgeoning
evidence of his need for her.
Now she understood the whispers of the other
women. Michel had never been so large while she tended him when he
was injured. She was not a very big girl and he was so huge. Surely
that enormous, rigid part of him would split her asunder. Or would
it fill her with unexpected pleasure, as Hildegarde had once hinted
could happen? She stared at it, fascinated.
“Are you afraid, Danise? You needn’t be.”
“I am not afraid.” Miraculously, she was not.
To prove it, she put out a tentative finger and touched the very
tip of him. He caught his breath, but she was too entranced by the
velvety feel of him to pay attention just then to his response. She
ran her fingers down the length of him, curled her hand around him.
Desire flared in her anew, bright and free from apprehension. On an
irresistible impulse, she leaned down to kiss him. That was when he
caught her shoulders, pulling her upward.
“Was it wrong to do that?” she asked, not at
all sorry for what she had done.
“Not wrong,” he said. “Delightful. But you
will drive me mad if you keep on like that. I need to be in control
of myself, Danise. I don’t want to hurt or frighten you.”
“You would never hurt me. Your very words
prove you would not. Even large as you are, you will have a care
for me and be gentle.”
“You do know, don’t you, that the first time,
just for a minute -?”
“I know. I have been told.” She stopped his
words with a finger at his lips. “I thought, when the time came, I
would be afraid, but I am not. You have eased my concern. That
first moment you spoke of is simply a part of our coming together,
and since I want to be one with you, how could I fear it?” They
were still kneeling, facing each other. Danise put a hand on each
of Michel’s shoulders and edged closer to him.
“May I kiss you again, on the lips this
time?” she whispered. “I do like to kiss you, Michel.”