RHYS SAT VERY STILL, LOOKING AT THE STAIRS AND THINKING. He saw Tillo leave, shuffling along, bowed over more than usual, as if beneath a heavy weight. This journey had been hard on him, Rhys knew, but the old man had insisted on coming.
Next Rhys watched Newlin depart, hobbling along with his peculiar sideways gait. Tomorrow he would find out from Tillo what they had discussed. Newlin must surely know the truth about who Reevius the minstrel was. But he’d chosen not to reveal it. For what purpose? Rhys would not allow his fate to be controlled by so unpredictable a creature as the fey Newlin.
But at the moment Newlin’s threat was of lesser import than another urgent matter. The hall was empty. The stairs beckoned. Rising, he responded to its call.
Twenty-five wide stone steps up to the next level. Fifteen more carried him up to the floor where Isolde awaited. The part of him that hated the English and had plotted all his life to overthrow the FitzHughs took note of everything: the number of steps, the placement of windows, and even the position of the torchères along the way. He saw and noted all the conditions he might need to know should he ever have to fight his way in—or out—of the keep.
But the part of him that was a man, hungry for a woman—that part noted that there were no maids straying about, that the door to her parents’ chamber stood ajar, and that a single candle flickered pale golden light across a massive raised bed.
The bed hangings were of rich blue silk and they cast dark shadows across the half-hidden mattress.
As Rhys came into the chamber and closed the door behind him, all he wanted was to lay Isolde, pale and naked, upon those silken bedclothes and to know she was his for the taking.
He looked around, searching her out, for he was aroused and ready for her, and more than tired of this game of cat and mouse. She was ripe for seduction and he was willing to do the seducing. But where was the tempting little wench?
The door latch clicked and he spun around. The hinges creaked as the door leaf swung in, and he slid his dagger from the sheath at his hip.
She’d set him a trap!
He braced for attack. But it was not Osborn or any of his men-at-arms who advanced into the room. Instead, Isolde peered cautiously around the door, her rich hair glinting in the single candle’s flame. She blanched when she saw the weapon in his hands.
“What’s wrong? Why do you—”
“’Tis nothing.” He sheathed the dagger then caught her by the shoulders and pulled her roughly into his embrace. His heart was still pounding.
“But why—Wait—” She struggled, pushing against his chest.
He would not release her, however, and held each of her arms in a firm grip. “I did not see you,” he explained, staring deeply into her eyes. “Then the door opened and I feared your watchdog, that captain of the guard, might have followed me. That’s all. But happily I was wrong. And now we are alone—as we have wanted to be. Come, Isolde. You need not fear me,” he said, pulling her nearer. “Come,” he coaxed when he felt her firm young breasts pressed against his chest. “Kiss me, for I am in dire need of your kisses.”
Isolde felt herself relenting, and yet a part of her was troubled. Something was not right. Something about Reevius’s words did not ring entirely true.
But then his mouth came down on hers, and it became impossible for her to think. His strong arms encircled her, his clever lips moved over hers, and his will sucked any protest out of her. Gone was logic and reason and any thought of
propriety. In their stead came a powerful aching desire. It was fearful and fierce and she gave herself up wholly to it.
He took possession of her mouth, nibbling on her lower lip, then creating a breath-stealing friction when he slid his lips back and forth over hers. She wound her arms around his neck and mimicked the action of his mouth. But he knew so much more of lovemaking. She could hardly keep pace with him.
Somehow he parted her lips—or she did it herself—and his tongue found entrance. At once he lifted them to a whole other plane of desire. He devoured her mouth, deepening the kiss, and awakening an inferno deep inside her. He slid his tongue in, then drew hers out, and tremors of excitement began to build in her belly.
Without her understanding how or when, she found herself on the bed, lying on top of him. And still the kiss went on, robbing her of everything but her awareness of him. Then he rolled them over and she was beneath him and finally he ended the kiss.
In the quiet room with only the one candle she’d lit, all was in shadows. He was a dark looming silhouette over her, and were it not for the feel of his hard body pressing onto hers, she would have thought him a phantom lover, a wicked dream come to her at the hour of midnight. But he was real and they were in her parent’s huge bed, and doubt suddenly assailed her.
“We cannot,” she began.
“We can.” He kissed her again, urgently, stroking in and out of her mouth in an arousing rhythm, until she melted beneath him. “We can,” he murmured, moving his kiss down her cheek to her ear, to her neck and throat, and along her collarbone.
“Yes, but … but not in here,” Isolde managed to say. As protests went, it was meager, for her hands urged him on even as her words bade him stop. “Not in here.”
“Why not?” With one hand he tugged the neckline of her kirtle down past her shoulder. “’Tis a big bed, and soft. Perfect for what I have planned.”
“But Reevius,” she said, then gasped when his mouth closed over her nipple. Even through her chemise and kirtle
she felt the erotic nip of his teeth and she arched in an agony of new sensations.
“’Tis a fine bed,” he said, drawing her skirts up and sliding one hand beneath her thigh. “I’ve always wanted to possess a bed such as this one.”
“But … but ‘tis my parents’.”
He did not answer that, at least not with words. But his body had an answer. His lips and fingers gave an answer, and her protests were silenced by what they said. He caressed her everywhere, sliding his hard torso against her, abrading her inner thighs with the rough wool of his braies. One of his hands teased her breasts, rubbing across the incredibly aroused peaks. And though he did not kiss her mouth this time, he found every other sensitive spot with his lips. Her earlobes. The hollow of her throat.
Her fingers threaded through his hair as she clutched his head to her. Something wonderful was happening to her. Something momentous. Something so intense she could not bear it. But she could not bear to end it, either.
With an effort she forced him to look at her. “Reevius … Wait. I … I have prepared a different place for us. That’s where I was, up in the tower room.”
She thought he had not heard her, for passion ruled his features. His eyes burned with it and perspiration beaded on his brow. But he did hear and after a moment he rubbed his thumb across her lower lip. “Very well. We will go to the little nest you have prepared for us. We will go just as soon as I finish one small task.”
So saying, he slid slowly down the length of her. His weight flowed over her, heavy, wholly masculine, and arousing her with the very possessiveness of the movement. When his face hovered above her breasts she began to breathe even harder than she already was.
What was he going to do to her now? Her body tensed in anticipation. Oh, God, let him do it soon, else she would surely explode!
Then she felt his hand between her thighs, touching her where no one had ever touched her—where she hardly touched herself! She tried to clamp her legs together, and
failed. She grabbed his shoulders and tried to dislodge him, but he did not budge.
“Reevius, wait—”
“Shh,” he answered, as his finger began to stroke her down there.
“Oh … Reevius.” This time it was more a sigh, for her body was melting into the bed. “What … What are you doing?”
“Showing you how good it can be when a woman gives herself up to the right man.”
“Yes. Yes.” She panted the words as the rhythmic motion of his fingers became the center of her world.
“This is but the beginning,” he whispered in a low, rough voice. “There’s much more to come, Isolde.”
If there was more, it surely would destroy her. That was the last sensible thought she had. For once again Reevius lowered his head to her breasts, and when he took one in his mouth, something broke inside her. He’d pushed her too far, too fast, and something gave way. Like a storm-driven wave breaking upon the rocks, she crashed and burst apart, wave after wave after wave.
And when it was done, she was left utterly destroyed, dead, perhaps. He had killed her with the violent pleasures he’d given her.
She was revived only when he slid down her body further and pressed his face against her belly, breathing hard, as if he could draw in the very essence of her. The part of her that she feared had been broken flickered again to life.
What was it he’d done to her? She knew how men and women joined together, how a man’s seed was planted in a woman’s womb. But what he’d done, touching her so … Her mother had never explained anything like what had just happened to her.
Did her father do that to her mother?
Isolde did not want to think about that. Suddenly she gasped. They were still in her parents’ great bed.
She pushed up onto her elbows, staring wildly about. “This is wrong. We weren’t supposed to—”
“Wrong?” Reevius looked up and his eyes scorched her with the power of his desire.
“No, not that. That was …” Words failed her. “I mean here. This bed.”
“I think it’s right, what we did here. And this bed is the right place for us to finish what we’ve begun. The fitting place.” He came up over her and she felt the heat of his thick arousal. He drew the hem of her gown up to her waist and loosened the ties on his braies.
But though Isolde’s body desired him still, her belated sense of right and wrong persisted. “Not here, Reevius. Please. Let us go up to the tower room.”
He paused. “It bothers you that your parents sleep in this bed?”
She nodded.
He grunted. “More reason to use it, then.”
Her brow creased in confusion. “What do you mean—” She broke off when his arousal slid against the excruciatingly sensitive place his fingers had touched before. He moved his hips, rocking them back and forth against her, and the fire in her belly leaped back to life. Yet something troubled her still. “I don’t understand. My parents have nothing to do with this—with you and me.”
He did not answer but shifted his hips so that he was poised at the entrance of her femininity. Something was not right, she realized. Something, only she did not know what.
But she did know. She lay in her parents’ bed with a man who was not her husband, a man she’d known but one day. Though she was drawn to him in a way she could not understand, she had succumbed to him too fast. Much too fast. In truth, what did she know of him as a man?
Nothing.
“Wait.” She pushed at his shoulders.
“No.” He pressed further, entering her.
“Wait!”
Their eyes met and held. His were so dark—deep set, long lashed, and completely black save for the tiny reflection of candlelight. They looked so familiar.
“I can wait no longer,” he said in a strained voice. Then with a swift thrust, he was inside her.
Isolde gasped at the quick stab of pain, and held her breath
in alarm. She’d done it now. Dear God, but she’d really done it now.
Then he began to move inside her, and her doubts burned away in the exquisite friction he created. His breathing was harsh as he built the movements, slow and shallow at first, then deeper and harder when she began to moan her pleasure.
“By damn,” he swore. “By damn.”
“Reevius.” She panted his name mindlessly.
“Reevius.” He repeated his own name and the expression on his face grew grim. At once his movements grew harsher, more demanding. She was suddenly afraid of him, yet on fire for him, too.
“Ten years,” he muttered, saying the words in Welsh. “Twenty.”
She blinked, not understanding what he was talking about. “Ten years? Twenty? What do you mean?” she asked, speaking Welsh, as he had done.
He did not cease the furious pace he set. He came in and out, in and out. On his face was the evidence of his arousal as he strained toward his own completion. But in his eyes … in his eyes she saw pain and also anger. Though her body responded to his with rising passion, her mind spun. What was wrong?
What was wrong?
Then the awful truth struck her. A truth too hideous to face, but impossible to ignore.
“Rhys!”
She didn’t realize she’d said that hated name out loud. She was that horrified by her suspicions. She lay beneath him in the final throes of their joining, overwhelmed by rising pleasure and sickening guilt. “Rhys ap Owain!”
He looked at her then and she saw the confirmation in his black eyes. But it was too late. She’d cried out his name and in the next moment he plunged deep and spilled his seed within her.