Authors: Dee Brice
Passion's Twins (19 page)
Roland seemed paralyzed, unable to do more than watch as the
hawks soared toward the crane, the peregrine outdistancing the tiercel and
downing her prey. The tiercel seemed determined to drive off Yvonne’s hawk, but
it was driven away by several hounds and their falconers. At last, Roland found
his voice and summoned the tiercel to his arm. Enroute the bird apparently mistook
the plume on Rowena’s templette for prey and flew directly at her head. Her
horse reared, throwing her to the rocky ground. She lay so still the others
could not move, fearing her dead.
Edgar reached her first. His murderous glare at Roland
belied the gentleness in his hands as he examined his fallen princess then
gathered her into his arms.
In silence the hunting party returned to Marchon Castle,
Roland still enchanted by the silvery bells on his tiercel’s legs.
* * * * *
Yvonne’s Tower Guest Quarters
When Rowena opened her eyes, she saw Edgar peering anxiously
down at her. Reaching up, she stroked the frown from his forehead, drawing him
down to kiss him.
“How do you feel?” he asked, soothing her forehead and
gazing deeply into her eyes.
“Like an idiot,” she replied. “I promise, Edgar, I shall
never wear another feather on any gown or cap or hat.”
“Roland is the idiot! Had Yvonne not ordered him to return
to your father’s encampment I’d have gutted him!”
Rowena once more rubbed the frown from Edgar’s brow. “’Tis
plain Roland needs a better falconer.”
“He needs a wet nurse. A nanny to follow him about and
ensure he does no mischief.”
She laughed. “He did seem distracted.”
“Enough of Roland. I have a surprise for you.”
“Father has consented to our marriage?”
“Aye. But even better—almost as good,” he amended quickly
with a wry grin. “Pippa has promised us a foal as a wedding present.”
“Oh! Oh my!”
“Aye. ‘Tis difficult for her to sell her horses let alone
give one away. I tried to refuse but…” He shrugged.
“They are like her children.”
“She knows we’ll take good care of the foal. And she has
loaned Gerard and Edina a stallion and mare to start their stable at Serenity.”
“Such generosity. You are truly blessed in your family,
Edgar. Willa giving Gerard and Edina Serenity. Pippa giving us a foal.”
“
We
are blessed, Rowena. Yvonne is giving us—all of
us—a wedding feast.” He chuckled. “And the choice of any tapestry from these
quarters.”
“Ugh!”
“’Tis better than one from her own quarters,” Edgar said
dryly, smiling down at Rowena.
“I would rather have her bathing tub.”
“I suggested that, but Gareth refused on Yvonne’s behalf.”
Rowena laughed. “Perhaps we can have one made for us.”
“An excellent idea. I shall see to it immediately.”
Her hand on his arm stopped him.
“I am in need of comforting, m’lord. I need you to banish my
terror.” She shivered, the memory of Roland’s tiercel flying at her face, its
deadly talons extended burning in her mind.
For a long moment, Edgar simply stared into her eyes. Then,
without touching her, he began to make love to her. His eyes darkened as they
caressed her unbound tresses that flowed over her pillows. She could almost
feel his fingers tangling in them. Could nearly feel his calloused fingertips
stroke her brow, her eyelids, her cheeks. Her lips.
Everywhere his gaze roamed she felt his touch. She thought
he never had made love to her so exquisitely, that she might reach completion
before he truly touched her.
“Edgar,” she whispered, bringing his heated gaze to her
face.
Naked lust flared in those gold-flecked orbs but his lips
were gentle when he finally kissed her.
“I thought I was lost to you.” Her voice trembled. Tears
stung her eyes but she refused to let them fall.
“’Tis fortunate that Roland is already on his way to
Innerford. Otherwise I would spear him for every tear you shed.”
She clasped Edgar’s hands then guided them to her breasts. “I
am glad he has gone. That you and I are safe and here. Love me, Edgar.”
“I do, Rowena. I love you with everything that is good
within me.” He gazed deeply into her eyes and seemed to read the thought that
entered her mind.
Smiling up at him, she cupped his balls through his
breeches. “I would prefer that you love me now with everything within you that
is naughty.”
“Gladly.” His hands worked their magic and quickly dealt
with her laces and tabs until she lay naked on the wide bed. Then, with her
gaze following his every movement, he shed his own clothes.
“Gentle or hard?” he asked when she opened her arms and
spread her legs.
“Hard,” she replied, her hips surging upward to take his
rigid cock into her welcoming heat. “Yessss!” she cried as she dug her fingers
into his buttocks and her queynte spasmed around it. “Swive me, Edgar. Harder!
Yes. Yes. Yessss!”
When her climax lessened and her body stilled, he rocked
within her. Slid gently in and out while she looked up at him and chewed on her
lush lips. Her sated eyes darkened. Her body gathered itself once more. Her
juicy core milked him until, crying each other’s name, they again touched
heaven.
* * * * *
Willa’s Tower Guest Quarters
“I wish Edgar had killed Roland!” Edina shouted as Gerard
barred the solar door.
“So do I, but I’m glad he didn’t. No one should have
another’s blood on his soul.”
“Men kill each other all the time.”
“In war, aye. Sometimes even in cold blood, for no reason at
all. And other men rape and murder, pillage and burn for their own pleasure.
But good men—men like Edgar—do none of those things.
“Except in war,” Edina amended through a sigh.
Gerard smiled down as he gathered her into his arms. He knew
what she needed, what he needed and wanted too. “I can think of more pleasant
topics of conversation.”
“Such as?”
Her curving lips invited his kiss. He probed gently with his
tongue and her mouth opened to take it in. Their tongues danced together,
tasted each other’s flavor. Need rode them, but they let it build until neither
could refrain from touching.
“Take off your clothes,” Gerard muttered against her ear.
“Remove yours,” she countered.
“Not yet.” He lounged on the window seat, bent one leg then
spread the other. “I want to watch you disrobe while I stroke my shaft.”
“I’ll stroke it for you.”
“Not yet,” he repeated. “Imagine yourself alone in this
room. You’ve come here to surprise me. You want me to find you naked when I
arrive. You want me to swive you so badly you may reach ecstasy just thinking
about my shaft buried in you. Of how my shaft will feel buried in you. Sliding
in even deeper until you can feel it touch your throat.”
Moaning, she touched the hollow at the base of her throat.
She almost could feel him there, his shaft so long and hard he
could
reach there from inside her. And she did want him—so badly her legs barely
supported her. So badly her knees shook. So badly her juices soaked her nether
curls and seeped down her trembling thighs.
“Look at me, Edina. See how much I want you.” He opened his
breeches and his shaft sprang free, hard and ready. Pulsing as if her fingers
stroked it.
She moaned again as her fingers somehow found their own way
to her shoulders. Sought and found the knots that connected her sleeves to her
bodice. Magically untied those knots before frustration made her tear every
piece of clothing from her body.
His eyes slitted, Gerard watched her every move. He sensed
the moment her embarrassment left her and her own feminine power seized her.
As if she touched him with her hands, her gaze slid from his
shaft to his face then down again. A siren’s smile curved her moist lips as she
inched her bodice down her chest revealing—one by one—her breasts. Her rigid
nipples rose higher as she caressed them. She bit her lower lip, sharing her
pleasure at her own touch with a soft “ahh”.
Turning her back, she unfastened her skirt tabs. The
material whispered over her hips, down her legs to pool around her ankles.
Glancing over her shoulder, she stepped free. Her eyes seemed to glow an even
brighter blue. Her lips seemed fuller, moister.
“Do you like my buttocks, Gerard?”
He nodded. His hand stilled on his rigid shaft. His balls
felt near to bursting.
“Do you want to swive my ring, Gerard, as Edgar swived
Yvonne’s?”
“Nay. I want to bury my shaft in your hot, moist queynte.
Now!” He stood, tearing off his own clothes.
“Not yet,” she parroted as she faced him. She moistened her
fingers, trailed them over her nipples then down to the nest of flaxen curls
between her thighs. She sat on the table, spreading her legs to ease her finger
inside her channel.
“Do you like that more than you like my shaft?”
Looking coy, she shook her head. “Do you prefer your own
touch to my hands on you?”
“Sometimes a man must take care of his own needs.” He strode
to her. Squeezing her breasts together, he lapped her nipples until her hand
curled around his shaft and guided it into her hot, juicy quim.
“So, sometimes, must a woman,” she panted, thrusting against
him. “But I like this more. Swive me, Gerard.”
He did. He drove into her again and again until she cried
his name and milked him to completion.
* * * * *
When they assembled in the great hall for the evening meal,
they found mirrors of myriad shapes and sizes propped against the walls and
laid on the tablecloths beside each eating knife.
“What is all this?” Yvonne asked her aunt.
Aida rubbed her forehead as if it ached. “I awoke this
morning thinking how beautiful the hall would look with candlelight shining
into every corner. At first I considered having more torches installed but
then…’twas as though Kerrie—may she rest in peace—whispered to me.”
“Wretched woman,” Pippa complained, her usual acidity
missing.
Aida slanted her a quelling look, saying, “Then I thought
our gowns would look even lovelier with their colors reflected throughout the
hall.”
“Sent every servant to the cellars,” Gaspar contributed.
“Had them haul and polish every piece of glass they could find.”
“The hall does look festive,” Willa said, smiling at her
aunt as if to reassure her that her efforts were appreciated.
“Aye,” Aida slowly agreed. “But now I feel ‘twas all for
naught. As if the person—the reason I did it no longer matters.”
“Roland could admire himself from every angle,” Yvonne said
caustically then frowned as if wondering why she’d mentioned the knave.
Gareth thoughtfully stroked his chin. “It did seem as if
Roland paid closer attention to himself than he did his tiercel.”
“Vainglorious creature!” Beatrix proclaimed as she and Basil
neared the dais. Rowena and Edina, looking sated and sleepy, approached on
Edgar’s and Gerard’s arms.
“We are done with him,” Basil told them. “Forever.”
“Then we have even more cause for celebration,” Yvonne
proclaimed, mounting the dais, Gareth at her side.
Before their priest said the blessing he read the banns.
At last Marchonland would see another wedding.
A Fortnight Later
The day of their wedding, the grooms surveyed each other in
their finest clothes. Gerard wore a doublet and breeches of gold velvet. His
slashed sleeves and trunks revealed dark blue satin. His poulaines—one blue,
one gold—were fashionably pointed.
Edgar had donned a dark brown doublet and trunks, the
slashes showing glimpses of autumnal red. But his hose and garters were
streaked with blue and pale gold in honor of his bride and Beaufort.
“Nervous?” Gerard queried.
Edgar started to deny the queasy churning in his gut but
grinned instead. “A little nervous. Maybe. More aroused than scared. You?”
“The same. I could kill Gareth. Forbidding our tupping our
brides for two—”
“Long and miserable.”
“Weeks.”
Realizing they sounded like their brides, they laughed and
thumped each other’s back. With Gerard leading the way, they trod down the stairs
and over the drawbridge.
Clear skies, a bright sun and a gentle breeze greeted them
along with their family and all of Marchon’s people. Archers leaned over the
battlements and cheered as the grooms paced to the priest. Together they turned
to greet their brides.
Although dressed in the same colors, their gowns—like their
birthmarks—were mirror images. One side blue, the other gold, the blue side of
each gown was embroidered with Beaufort’s coat-of-arms—peregrines in full
flight. The shoulder-to-shoulder round necklines announced them as already
married women, but even the twins’ parents seemed undisturbed by this
presumption. Over their double-pointed hennin, each twin wore a sheer blue
veil. In one hand, each carried a bouquet of summer roses. Their other hands
clasped, they approached their betrotheds. All four went to stand before the
cleric who would marry them.
The men each held up a hand, asking the priest to wait
before beginning the wedding ceremony. Then each man lifted a bride’s veil.
Shaking their heads, they switched places.
“’Tis the last time,” Rowena murmured to Edgar, laughing.
“We promise,” Edina said to Gerard, giggling softly.
“Somehow—” Edgar began.
“I doubt that,” Gerard finished.
* * * * *
Delighted, Kerrie clapped her hands and leaned into
Alexandre’s embrace.
“
C’est fini
,” he murmured against her neck.
“For now, aye. ’Tis finished.”
Dee believes she was born with a pen in one hand and a
writing pad in the other. Determined not to work in an office, this wannabe
actress never learned to type well. She still composes with pen and pad, then
transcribes her manuscripts onto her computer. Sometimes Dee and her dictation
program are best friends; more often they are mortal enemies.
Dee lives in northern California with her inspiration, best
friend and husband. She loves to read and, of course, write.
Passion’s Four
Towers
, her first published novel, was nominated for a Psyche Award in
2008.
His Virtual Assassin
finaled in Passionate Ink’s 2008 Passionate
Plume contest.
Dee welcomes comments from readers. You can find her email
address on her
author
bio page
at
www.ellorascave.com
.
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Dee
Brice
Passion’s
Treasures 1: Kerrie’s Quest for Passion
Passion’s
Treasures 2: Passion’s Four Towers
Passion’s
Treasures 1: Kerrie’s Quest for Passion
Passion’s
Treasures 2: Passion’s Four Towers
Passion’s
Treasures 3: Passion’s Twins
Virtually His
anthology
Ellora’s Cave Publishing
Passion’s Twins
ISBN 9781419920721
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Passion’s Twins Copyright © 2009 Dee Brice
Cover art by Croco
Electronic book publication January 2009
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