Outrageous (13 page)

“Aye.”

“’Tis not stabbed through. ’Tis healthy enough to—”

She kissed him.

Oh, just a light and innocent touch of her lips. Just the skin in the middle of his chest. Just the skin
over
his heart.

But it broke another of the reins that restrained the cavorting horse that rode him…that he rode.

She laid her head back down, and he thought he couldn’t draw a breath big enough to fill his lungs. She could hear the betraying race of his heart, he knew, but he didn’t know if he cared. The glory of her fiery hair drew him, and he lifted his hand. Touching her forehead, he stroked his palm slowly along. On their own accord, his fingertips wandered around her ear and down to her neck. They stroked down her back to the very tip of her braid. Then he lifted his hand and began again.

“Lass, have I told you how beautiful your hair is?”

“Nay.”

The word was scarcely audible, but her breath warmed his nipple, and he closed his eyes against the pleasure of it. “How long is it when it’s unbound?”

“It reaches my…ah…”

His hand patted her posterior, then surreptitiously released the ribbon that bound the end of her braid. “That’s what I thought.”

“I can sit on it when it’s loose. It would be longer, but…”

He pulled the wool wrap back from her shoulder and massaged her through the thin material of her dress, and she broke off as if she were confused.

“But?” he encouraged.

“When I was a child, I hated the color. Everyone teased me about it, so I took some scissors and—”

“You’re too impulsive.” He wondered how he had the gall to chide her when they lay entwined on his
bed at his own behest, and he was carefully unplaiting her hair.

“When I was young, perhaps. By the time I was five, I well knew my duties and had control of my mad impulses. My father saw to that.”

He wanted to ask her what it was, then, that had landed her flat on her back in some man’s bed, but that would anger and alarm her, and he found himself unwilling to sacrifice the warmth, the small talk that was teaching him so much. Maybe it was the near darkness, their isolation, the strangeness, but they were talking.

Not snarling, not snapping, but exchanging information—and he liked it.

“Your father?”

“Aye, before he placed me with Elizabeth, he personally drilled me in my duties to my patron.”

“Personally?”

“Of course.” She chuckled. “But for no honorable reasons, I assure you. ’Twas only to advance the fortunes of the family. The House of York seemed secure then. I was to make myself indispensable to Elizabeth, to remain totally loyal to her. And I did.”

“For your family?”

“For Elizabeth,” she corrected. “She loved me more dearly than a sister.”

“And your father loves you not at all.”

“My father loves me as well as he can love. Mayhap not at all.”

As he pulled his fingers through her hair like a comb, he said, “You take his lack of affection well.”

She shrugged. “One can’t miss what one has never had.”

Remembering his own warm relationship with his parents, he wondered…But she was right, of course. She wasn’t suffering.

“If my father had had one drop of affection for me, he wouldn’t have sent me away from my home, and I
wouldn’t have been there to help Elizabeth.” She shook her head. “Now
she
was impulsive. She would do anything for love.”

His fingers tightened on her shoulder. “And what would you do for love?”

He meant—had she given herself to help Elizabeth?

But it sounded like a personal appeal.

She was warm now, he knew it. Her toes touched the stone, and her body absorbed heat from his. Yet a fine trembling began in her again, and she lifted herself on her elbow to look into his face. “What would I do for love?”

She seemed to absorb his needs like a disciple and in her gestures responded to his unspoken query.

He wanted her to love him, to give him everything she’d ever given to another man, and more.

“I can’t,” she whispered.

“I would never force you.” But he seduced her with a smile and never gave a thought to his battered countenance. The Griffith he saw reflected in her eyes was painted in all the hues of adoration and beauty.

“’Twould be disaster.”

“’Twould be”—he laughed, deep in his chest—“magnificent.”

Triumph swelled in him when she responded. Her unbound hair sifted around them in a slow cascade of autumn color, and she leaned forward.

He’d tasted her before; now he savored her. Her open lips, the peach color of her cheeks, the spicy scent of cedar lingering in her long stored dress. The sound of her wrap hitting the floor, the rustle of her bows as he untied them, the firm, long, athletic legs that kicked the dress down, the fire of her pubic hair. “If this be the mouth of hell,” he murmured, “I would die unshriven.”

She laughed, huskily, pleased and amazed. “I like you, too. Your chest hair and your…all your body hair
is black.” Her fingers skimmed through his head hair. “This is dark brown. Do you dye it with walnut juice?”

Too indignant to remember, for a moment, their first meeting, he protested, “Nay!”

Then her gurgle of laughter reminded him, and he punished her with a kiss that started at her lips and slid in slow, careful increments all the way down to her toes.

He didn’t perform any extraordinary feats of lovemaking. He scarcely touched the places she longed to have touched—it was a punishment, after all. But she didn’t seem to realize how he’d cheated her. The soft cries she muffled in the pillow, the clutch of her fists in the covers, the arch of her body, tense as a drawn longbow—they proved an innocence her lover had left untouched, and Griffith set out to make this time the first time, the best time.

She faltered, “You shouldn’t…”

“Forget your back? That’s true.” Pushing her onto her stomach, he worked his way up to the nape of her neck.

She liked it, and she showed him by the strength of her embrace when he turned her to face him again. He pressed her into the mattress, using his whole body to brand her whole body with his ownership. He pushed his hands into her hair on either side of her thrashing head, held it still, and looked deep into her eyes. “You are mine,” he said.

As with everything else, she erred in her reply. “For now.”

It wasn’t the answer he sought. He wanted to teach her that what burned in him would burn forever, but in her face he saw the rebirth of sanity—and he couldn’t stop now. He was out of control, crazed with desire and desperate for her. He knew, without conceit, he could create in her the same desire, the same desperation, for although he might not be the world’s most accomplished lover, he was her mate.

Though he already held her, he directed her, “Hold still. Let me show you.…”

Everything.

With a kiss that wrung whimpers from her, he taught her the finer points of pleasure—taught her until she forgot her inhibitions and her sanity.

This was worship, direct and simple. Her hands slipped and fumbled, she blushed and looked astonished, she seemed shy and overwhelmed, and she made him feel like lord of the heights. He monitored her as if he were initiating a virgin, and she reacted like one, right up to the moment he began to enter her.

“You’re so tight,” he murmured. “You’re so tight.”

Something about that bothered him, but conscious thought had been blocked by pleasure. Shivers ran up his spine, and he could only fight to control himself. He kissed her deeply, touched the breasts that had proved so sensitive, and stroked the one place he’d not yet touched.

He’d been saving it, depending on that final, sensual pleasure to push her over the edge.

And it did.

She moaned deep in her chest. She panted, she writhed, she bucked at him, and the muscles inside her sucked him in.

At least that’s what he imagined, but he’d obviously gone mad, for he would have sworn, have
sworn
, he broke through her maidenhead.

She moaned, but her moan spoke of pain, not passion, and he reared up to look at her.

The pinched mouth, the trickling tears, the tightshut eyes, told the story.

She had been a virgin.

By the saints, she had been a virgin.

She tried to stifle her shriek
, but it was too late.

What had she done? Sweet Mary, what had she done?

Did he realize?

Could she hide it?

Opening her eyes, she looked.

He looked back, and he was furious. His gaze wasn’t friendly, but it was hot. Aye, so hot. Then he smiled with all his teeth, and said, “I hurt you, but sweetheart, ’twas unavoidable. Now…now I’ll show you real pleasure.”

When they finished, the bed was destroyed. The pillows had disappeared, the sheets were untucked, the blankets kicked off. If it was cold in the room, she didn’t know it, for his revenge for her deception had been, as he promised, real pleasure.

More pleasure than she could tolerate.

Like a stained-glass window whose components had been scattered never to be gathered again, she couldn’t seem to pull all the pieces of herself back
together. She groped for deceptions with which to cover herself.

But he gave her no time to think, to plan. He leaned over her, stroked her throat until she opened her eyes, and mocked, “All those years of riding astride—for nothing.”

He’d found satisfaction. She didn’t know much, but she knew that. His roar of primitive rapture had been part and parcel of the greater picture he’d created with her. Yet now his gaze poured heat over her, and when she groped for a blanket to cover herself, he stopped her.

Her voice quavered. “What do you mean?”

He smiled again like the beast he’d proved himself to be. “Riding astride didn’t break your maidenhead.”

She jerked in nervous reaction.

“I
know
.” His voice lingered over the words.

She tried again for the comforter. Again he denied her.

“I’m cold,” she complained.

“I’ll cover you.”

But he didn’t mean with the blanket. He pulled her half under him, and like his eyes, his body burned, too. She tamped down the panic, prepared to face the consequences of her stupidity, but not the consequences of her passion.

He commanded, “Tell me again how you came to have Lionel.”

Putting her hand against her lips, she felt them move as she spoke. Spoke yet said nothing. “I’ve never told you anything of importance.”

Her evasion angered him further, and he crowded her deeper into the mattress. “Yet you lie with me in the most primitive sense. So where’s the truth in this?”

“The truth is not for me to reveal. I gave you myself. Don’t ask for more.”

“But you didn’t give me yourself. You gave me
your body, and beautiful though it is, it’s not enough.” Pressing his fingers to her temples, he whispered close against her ear, “I want what’s in here. I want to know the mind, the soul, of Lady Marian Wenthaven.”

“You can’t. You’ll be leaving soon, and I will stay here.…” He was shaking his head, and she asked, “Why do you deny it?”

“I mean, I will stay close to you as commanded by my sovereign, good King Henry.”

Her sweaty palms slipped when she pushed at him, but he sat up obligingly. He was openly, impressively naked: corded muscles and a light dusting of body hair sliced, here and there, by scars both old and new. He watched her as she, too, sat up, and this time he didn’t stop her when she groped for the covers.

But her need to hide herself was second to her need to understand him. Whispering in incredulous dismay, she asked, “What do you mean, King Henry commanded you to stay close to me?”

“In a letter he sent with me, he ordered me to remain and watch over you.”

It would have been kinder if he’d struck her. She could have borne it better than this betrayal, this proof of her own folly, this mockery of love. “You came to spy on me?”

“I came to deliver gold from Henry’s wife to his wife’s former lady-in-waiting, then remained to protect her and her son.”

“Spy on me?” Ignited by the pain of betrayal, her cheeks burned until they hurt. “Like my father spies on me?”

“Protect you—”

“A different term for the same thing.” Her vision blurred with a sudden influx of tears. “I spit on the protection men such as you offer. I spit—”

He covered her mouth when she would have followed words with action, and his fury was no less
palpable than hers. “Don’t push me, little girl. You’ve lied to me from the first moment I saw you, and this self-righteous indignation can scarcely compete with the existence of the bloody stain on the sheets. You are not who you say you are.”

She knocked his hand away. “I am.”

“You are not Lionel’s mother.”

More emphatically, she said, “I
am
.”

With his fingers, he pushed his thick, tangled hair out of his face. “The virgin birth occurred almost fifteen hundred years ago, and so I say to you, that child upstairs is not the child of your body.”

The chill in the room pressed in, cooling her temper, making her realize the danger to Lionel. She’d allowed herself to be seduced by kindness, by warmth, by a tender touch and a rumbling voice. She’d given herself to a man she thought she could trust and he’d just proved his deceitfulness. “You know aught of what you speak.”

“May I remind you, I am the only man who knows of what I speak when you are spoken about.”

She caught his hands and squeezed them until his bones and tendons creaked. “If you say anything about me—”

Quickly he slipped his hands out and caught hers in his. “I said I would protect you, and to speak about this would be to do you—and, I fear, Lionel—a great disservice. But you must believe in me for my protection to be effective.”

His obstinacy pulled a frustrated little scream from her. “Believe in you? In
you
? I don’t want your protection. I don’t need your protection. I wouldn’t take help from one of Henry’s flunkies—”

“Not even if Lionel’s safety depended on it?”

She sat frozen, her mouth slightly open, and he leaned forward to plant a kiss on her lips. The first flush of his anger had faded, and sweet reason supplanted it. “You need help, sweeting, whether you
admit it or not. Your father’s making some kind of plans.”

She looked alarmed. “What do you mean?”

“Have you not wondered about the number of mercenaries your father has hired?”

“Wenthaven has never indicated interest in…me.”

“Nay, not in…you.” He mocked her. “But is there anywhere that’s safe for a
royal
child?” Her anguished gaze told him more than she intended. It told him the truth, if not the details, of his suppositions. He brought her close against him and lay down, taking her with him, squelching her ineffectual struggles. “Ah, lass. Stay and sleep with me. Things will look better in the morning. We’ll talk in the morning, and you’ll see I’m right.”

Alarmed at her limp acceptance, he arranged the blankets to cover them and tucked her under his chin. “We’ll talk in the morning,” he said again.

The passion, then the anger, had washed through him, leaving him relaxed and refreshed. He hadn’t felt this good in years.

He hadn’t felt this good, ever, and he couldn’t help marveling at the miracle of this woman. His woman. His love.

She curled up tight as a babe, and he smoothed his hands over her, massaging her, trying to convey confidence in him, in them, through his touch. From beneath the covers where she hid her head, he heard, “But I don’t know you.”

He chuckled. “You know me better than any woman has for over two years.”

“Only a fool thinks a bed partner can be trusted.”

He hugged her to him. “Then call me a fool.”

“I’m a fool!” Griffith’s Welsh roar echoed down the stone stairway and around the tower. “A stupid, gibbering fool!”

Art pulled him back inside the countess’s room. “Saint Dewi save us, man, don’t announce it to the world.”

The door rocked on its hinges when Griffith slammed it. “Where could she have gone? And with a babe?”

“More to the question—why did she go?”

Art accused Griffith with his question, with his tone, and Griffith thrust his face close to Art’s. “Because we did what you had urged us to do.”

Art flushed with anger. “Did ye treat her so awful she had to escape?”

“Oh, Arthur.” Griffith flexed his fists. “Oh, Arthur, you don’t know how you tempt me to wring your neck. I treated her better than she deserved. She’ll not forget me for a long time. In fact”—he paced across the room—“she’ll not forget me ever.”

“Conceit!” Art cried.

“Not at all,” Griffith said smoothly. “You yourself said a woman never forgets her first lover.”

“Aye, I know I said that, but I—” Art stopped, and his eyes bugged out. “What do ye mean?”

Griffith walked over to him, wrapped his hands around Art’s surcoat, and lifted him to his toes. “I mean, ’tis not Lionel’s father we must wonder about. ’Tis Lionel’s mother.”

Art’s mouth worked silently, then he released a slow, long whistle. “So that’s it, is it?”

“Aye, that’s it.”

With a jerk, Art pulled his clothing from Griffith’s grasp. “Ye have to take extra care with a virgin. Did ye take extra care?”

Griffith laughed bitterly and leaned against the windowsill to look out. “I took extra care, aye. For all the wrong reasons, but I took extra care.”

Art opened the cupboard and pulled Griffith’s clothes out into a pile. “Where do we start looking for her?”

“I don’t know. Look!” He picked up her dress. “She left everything behind. Look!” He gestured toward the fireplace. “Even her sword.”

Art rescued the blade from its place in the wood chips. After wiping it with a rag, he leaned it against the fireplace stone. “She might come back for it,” he said.

Griffith stomped to the ladder which led to the loft and shook, calling in English, “Cecily, get down here. Get down at once!”

Cecily’s blond head appeared in the hole in the ceiling, proving she’d been listening, and Griffith knew with grim satisfaction that she hadn’t understood a word of the complex Welsh language. He pointed to the place in front of him, and she climbed down hastily.

“My lord?”

“When did your lady leave?”

She blinked. “Is she gone?”

In Welsh Art said, “Aye, and ye know it, ye strumpet.”

She glanced at him, but he was stuffing clothes into the saddlebags and didn’t look up.

“I might have heard her in the middle of the night,” she admitted.

Griffith’s hand itched to slap her. He didn’t like silly little half-wits, especially half-wits who told a lie when the truth would serve. “Why didn’t you stop her?”

She widened her blue eyes. “I thought I dreamed. My lady has never left me before.”

“Hasn’t she?” Griffith snapped. “Not ever?”

Those wide eyes slid away from his gaze. “Only once. Only because Lady Elizabeth had to go into exile and Lady Marian wouldn’t let me go with them.”

“Why?”

“Because she wanted me to find a husband at court.”

“Nay.” Griffith reined in his temper. “I mean, why did Lady Elizabeth go into exile?”

“Because of the rumors she was going to marry King Richard.”

Art stopped packing.

“When did she go into exile?” Griffith asked.

“Two years ago. Well…” She blushed. “When Lady Marian bore Lionel, in fact.”

Art started packing again.

As Griffith realized the implications, he wiped the sudden sweat from his brow. “So you heard Lady Marian leave in the middle of the night last night.”

“I didn’t hear anything,” she said. “I didn’t hear
anything
.”

“Heard too much,” Art commented, again in Welsh.

Cecily turned on Art in a fury. “I don’t know what you’re saying about me, but it isn’t true. I don’t know where Lady Marian went, and I don’t know when, and I don’t know why. But I’ll wager”—she drew herself up and glared at Griffith—“that somebody here knows.”

Art scratched the gray stubble on his chin, and said, in English this time, “That might be true.”

Emboldened, she turned on Griffith. “And if you’ve ruined Lady Marian again, Wenthaven will kill you both. Another baby will destroy his plans for her.”

Art’s Welsh phrases sounded lyrical, but what he said did not. “Ye’ve one of yer own in the oven, missy. Ye’ll be high-bellied afore long, yerself.”

Griffith glanced at Cecily’s waist, then back at Art.

Art nodded. “I recognize the look. In another fortnight, everyone’ll know.”

Cecily flushed under their scrutiny, and her hand went to her stomach in a betraying gesture.

“So you don’t know when she left,” Griffith said to her. “Do you know where she would have gone?”

Sullen now, Cecily said, “Oh, she’s probably hiding somewhere on the estate. She wouldn’t leave unless she thought Lionel was in danger.”

“And if she thought Lionel was in danger?”

“Then she’d go as far away from the danger as she could. Back to Lady Elizabeth, I guess,” Cecily muttered.

Griffith jerked his thumb toward the door. “Go break your fast, and remember—don’t tell anyone about Marian’s disappearance.”

Cecily scuttled out, and the men fell into their native Welsh.

“How long until the whole castle knows?” Art asked.

“Not long.”

“Do ye think Marian lass is on the grounds?”

“Not likely.”

“Do ye think she returned to Lady Elizabeth?”

Griffith slowly shook his head.

Art dropped his voice, not trusting even the protection of a foreign language. “Elizabeth is the mother, isn’t she?”

“I suspect.” Griffith started up the stairs. “Let’s see if Marian left us any clues.”

Sir Adrian Harbottle sat in the mercenaries’ quarters, clutched his shoulder, and smiled the first smile he’d indulged in since meeting Marian in the woods. It was the first smile since Griffith had twisted his sword arm and the bone slipped its socket, rendering him useless, in pain, and without income.

Cledwyn smiled, too, for much the same reason and with much the same affability.

The bitch and her whelp were loose.

She’d slipped out in the first light, dressed in her men’s clothing and leaving a trail any fool could track. Their first impulse had been to follow her at
once and take their very pleasurable vengeance, but common sense had reasserted itself. She was too close to Castle Wenthaven. Worse, Griffith would take exception to her rape, and he’d proved himself lethal in ways both men understood.