Authors: Jennifer Blake
So the days passed. They laughed, they teased, they fed each other. She read to him from
Le Morte d’Arthur
and other such tomes. She changed his bandaging with great care, gave him more red meat as he demanded it and supported him, along with Oliver, as he walked carefully up and down. Yet at no time could Marguerite tell what David was thinking or what he wanted.
It was on a fine morning a week after the attack, when Astrid had gone for bread, beef and ale and asked Oliver to come fetch it back for her, when matters changed. David had refused to remain abed a moment longer. Rising, he’d shaved himself instead of depending upon Oliver’s services. He left off his boots, but
dressed in hose, shirt and a doublet of plain blue velvet. Over these he strapped his eating knife, yet another gift from Charles VIII of France with its fine hilt of ebony chased with gold.
Now he stood at the narrow window with the shutter flung open to the morning, his hosed foot on the sill that rose to bench height above the floor and his arm braced upon his knee. His gaze was on some exercise being conducted below, from which shouts and curses and commands rose to where he stood. The day was overcast, with a yellowish hue to its bleak, gray aspect. The pale light threw his features in relief, underlining the hollows in his cheeks and the sallow look of his skin. Despite it, a sheen of vitality lay beneath the surface. It was the mark of strength that no mere knife thrust could ever vanquish, for it was of the spirit instead of muscle and sinew.
“No,” she said, “I don’t believe you are quite ready to join what’s going on below.”
He gave her a rueful smile. “Reading my mind again?”
“It’s not difficult when you look like a boy forbidden to play.”
“I’m no boy.” He returned his attention to the window.
No, that was the last thing he was. The boy he had been was gone forever. She grieved for that gentle, fun-loving lad in an odd fashion, though he was safe in her memory.
“I never said you were,” she answered as she moved to join him.
“No.” He paused. “I suppose you think it comical that I am shut away here.”
“Why should I think that?”
The look he gave her had an ironic edge. “You are always shut away, more or less, since a lady can only come and go when permitted.”
His understanding of that basic truth made her feel light and warm inside, though she tried for unconcern as she answered. “’Tis the fate of women. I felt it a beastly trick when I was younger, but seldom think on it now.”
“At least you will never require a man’s permission again when this is over.”
She glanced out the window to where gray clouds gathered above the green of the distant meadow and the blue hills beyond. A meadowlark soared, trilling, into the freedom of the open sky, and she followed its flight while a wry smile twisted her lips. “I had not thought of it in quite that way.”
“That is, of course, unless you return to Braesford Hall. You would have the company of your sister Isabel there, but must also come under Braesford’s protection, therefore his authority.”
“He is a fine man,” she said in easy reply, “and not unreasonable. I could say the same thing for Cate’s husband, Dunbar. Still, I prefer to live independently.”
“I thought as much.”
She turned her head to study him where he stood so grimly pensive beside her. “Therefore, your bargain with Henry?”
“He will honor it, I believe. When the time comes, you need only ask that he extend his protection for your
remove to one of the properties inherited from your lord father.”
He knew well that she and her sisters had inherited considerable wealth from their father who had been killed when Marguerite was but a babe. Her mother had remarried but lived only a few years. Afterward, her second husband and his only heir had both died. As a result, Marguerite and her sisters were heirs to that estate, as well. There was no lack of properties from which to choose.
“It will be a welcome release.”
He tipped his head in agreement. “Yet is it a fair exchange, freedom and loneliness in your own manse for family and security with Braesford?”
“Who says I will be lonely or without family?” she asked, the words as light as she could make them.
“You expect to take a husband?” He glanced at her and then away again.
“And hand him the right to claim all I own, to strike a fine figure at court or waste the income on gaming, fine trappings and other women? The thought has no appeal.” She sent him a quick look from the corners of her eyes. “Astrid suggested I might take a lover.”
“A lover.” The words were stiff.
“She thought a man-at-arms, one with no pretension to becoming a husband.”
“Don’t be fooled,” he said in rough disdain. “Any man you take into your bed will begin to think of what else he may gain.”
“You think so?” Her voice was layered with frost. “The bedding not being enough to hold him, I suppose.”
“Nay, Marguerite. The bedding being certain to set him scheming on how never to lose the privilege.”
The quiet timbre of the voice did strange things to her midsection, as did the idea that a man might so enjoy having her. It was an effort to keep her voice even as she replied. “It sounds a dangerous business then. Mayhap that’s why you are trying to discourage me.”
“Suppose it is?”
“The obvious answer, as I said once before, would be to marry me yourself. Then you need not worry some man will seek greater advantage than I choose to give him.”
“Take care,” he said, squinting at the distant meadowlark. “There are many who would consider that a proposal.”
“But you are not among them.”
“You know…”
“I know you have already declined to be my husband. But nothing was said of physical love, be it chaste or unchaste.”
“Marguerite…”
“Henry will like it, I believe, as he insists on putting us together. Mayhap he considers himself a matchmaker, as he did so well by my sisters.”
“And mayhap it’s merely the gift to the gladiator.”
She flushed at the thought of being offered to David as in olden days, a prize before he went to risk death at the will of his king. “Not likely.”
“No.”
The pain in his eyes acted like a goad, though she could not be sure what caused it. “Forget I mentioned
it,” she said in dismissal. “I don’t know how we strayed onto the subject, anyway.”
He turned to face her, tucking his thumbs into his belt as he put his back to the stone edge of the window’s frame. “I asked about your future plans.”
“I don’t see how that concerns you, as you will do nothing to change them.”
“I could, if you like, give you a different view of a husband’s purpose.”
“What do you mean?” She searched the graven stillness of his features. “You may correct me if I am wrong, but I could have sworn you rode many a long league and risked the wrath of a king to save me from being wed.”
“From being wed at Henry’s behest, rather, and without your consent,” he answered with dogged precision. “You should be married, if you will not be a nun. No protection is so certain for you as a strong husband who can keep all other men at bay.”
“And who will protect me from him?”
“That should not be necessary if you choose him for yourself, a husband to your liking rather than a mere lover. Instead of only submitting on your wedding night, you might enjoy his embraces.”
“David—” The abrupt, squeezing tightness in her throat would not let her go on.
“You believe otherwise, but I could, if you will permit, show you something of it. I have been long away from Braesford and from you. It would be a rare man, I think, who failed to take advantage of certain opportunities that came his way. I left a boy and have come back a man, and in between…”
“I understand,” she said shortly.
The gaze he turned upon her was doubtful. “Do you?”
“Oliver was kind enough to enlighten me.”
David’s scowl was instant and dark. “What said he?”
“Women are drawn to you, and you have had no reason to resist,” she replied in unwonted irritation. She didn’t want to think of him with other women. It offended some cherished ideal deep within, ached like a bruise struck by accident.
“Well then.”
“What of it? We have established that you are not forsworn in…in regard to other females.”
“The result is more knowledge of what happens between a man and woman than I had when we were at Braesford.”
“I’m sure that will be useful to you in future pursuits, but…”
“Hear me, Marguerite.”
The iron-hard command in his voice was something she had never heard or thought to hear directed at her. She lifted her chin and turned sharply from him then, bent on putting as much space as possible between them.
A soft oath left him. He shot out a hand and grasped her wrist, swinging her back around. In the same move, he circled her waist with his free arm and snatched her against him. Releasing her arm, he slid his hand across her back and upward beneath her veil, thrusting under the fine cloth to tangle his fingers in her thick, loose braid. His hooded gaze scanned her face, her lips that parted to form a blistering order for her release. He met
her eyes, his own as gray-blue and forbidding as the looming storm.
“Many are the ways a man may pleasure a woman, Marguerite, ways that have nothing to do with possession. I know most, spent days and long nights enjoying the learning. I’ve a mind to show them to you, that you are better able to judge whether you will ever desire a husband.”
H
ad the blow to his head addled David’s brain? Or was this mayhap the result of her small attempt at seduction not so long ago? Had the memory of it lingered, so he sought more of her?
Marguerite had no time to make sense of it. The heat and hardness of him took her breath, clouded all thought. The unbreakable hold of his arms sent a shiver over her. Her heart shuddered in her chest as she watched his gaze fasten upon her mouth, saw him lower his head.
She could not move, not because she lacked the strength but because all will for it fled. Slowly, as if he had all the time in the world, he took her mouth, lapping the finely molded outer ridges with slow strokes of his tongue, tasting the soft surfaces, the indented corners, collecting her flavor as if it was the most precious of nectars. His hand at her waist slid down to press her more firmly to him, and he eased his body against her, nudging her lower abdomen with slow, sure movements.
She inhaled in the shock of sudden hunger, feeling starved for touch and closeness and all the incredible things he promised. Her lips parted without her volition.
She matched the opening of his mouth with her own, delicately seeking the meshing of breaths and tongues she had known with him before. He jerked a little, a movement that rippled through him. She murmured deep in her throat, a low sound of need and empathy. The velvet of his doublet was warm, sensuous against her palms. She slid them upward until she could clasp his shoulders, twisting her fingers into the tucks of rich cloth there. She was melting inside, softening to take his hard heat within. Boneless, near mindless, she swayed against him.
He whispered her name, his voice thick, while he kneaded the indentation of her waist as if he would gather all of her into his hands if he could. His clasp moved to her ribs, and higher. He cupped the softness of her breast, weighing its fullness. His thumb, rough with a swordsman’s calluses, rasped across the thin wool and linen of her bodice and shift beneath it, again, and yet again. As her nipple hardened to a tight point, he took it between his fingers, rolling it as gently as he might a ripe and tender berry.
A small sound vibrated in her throat. It startled her, and she dragged her mouth free. “What…?” she began in near incoherence.
“Shhh,” he said. “It’s all right. I wish…if you were naked I would…and anyway, I…”
He was hardly more in command of his senses than she was. The knowledge soothed her. She rested in the support of his arms that seemed to grow ever harder, her eyes closed while he kissed her chin, the hollow of her throat, the turn of her shoulder. When he lowered his head to her breast, she shuddered, needing she knew not
what. That was, until she felt the wet heat of his mouth upon her.
Violent need uncurled low in her belly as he carefully closed his teeth upon her beaded nipple under the cloth. Stunned by the sensation, she was unable to move, could only burn as he tugged upon her, breathed in so she was cool and then wet the cloth and took her deep in the fiery heat of his mouth again.
She shivered, clutching at his neck, while in some far recess of her mind a thought struggled to gain ascendancy. He did not mean to take her, but only to show her what went before. What if…what if she could slip past his iron will so he took her regardless? Once that happened, his code would force him to marry her. This was her chance, the only one she might be given.
He wanted her, of that there could be no doubt. Proof of it was the swordlike ridge that angled across her belly. She undulated against it with slow care, while lowering one hand to trail down to his chest, seeking his flat nipple under the soft cloth of his doublet. She found it, a tight knot not unlike her own. Carefully, not quite certain of what she was doing, she caught it between her thumb and forefinger and squeezed.
The sound he made was neither groan nor grunt, but something in between. Abruptly, he drew back, caught her arms and set her from him. Perspiration made bright gleams on his brow, and his breathing was fast and hard through his parted lips.
Compunction gripped Marguerite, along with a tremor of distress. “Did I hurt you? Is that why you stopped.”
The shake of his head was fast, hard. “No, I… You…”
“Was I not supposed to touch you?”
“No! This was for you, not me. You can’t do that, not and expect me to…”
“What?” she demanded, her voice tight with disappointment and mystification.
“Keep to my vow.”
This was a good thing to know, she thought, a very good thing indeed. She reached out to brush her fingertips down his face, all he would allow, while watching carefully to see the effect. The pupils of his eyes darkened, widened. His grip on her arms grew slack.
An oath feathered across his lips while suspicion surfaced in his face. “Marguerite,” he began, then stopped as a laugh shook him. “Serves me right.”
He swung her toward the bed and pushed her down upon it. For a single terrifying yet glorious moment, she thought he meant to join her there. Instead, he stepped back and shoved his fingers through his hair. His gaze moved over her, resting on her moist and parted lips, on the wet spot on the fabric over the straining peak of her breast, on the quick rise and fall of breathing. Cursing again, he swung from her and stamped from the small chamber.
He had no boots on. She wondered, even as she sank back upon the rustling straw mattress and closed her eyes, how long it would be before he noticed.
“David! Wait!
It was Oliver who called after him. David heard him in the dim way he might take note of a buzzing gnat, but
did not stop. He could not get away fast enough or far enough from the chamber where he had left Marguerite. If he slowed or stopped, he might go back. If he went back, he might rid her of her veil, loosen the tightness of the braid that held her hair and spread it around her. He might ease every stitch she wore from her and slide his hands over her body until he was stupefied with the pleasure of it. He didn’t trust himself to resist seeking the warm, wet center of her then, or sliding into her in hot, hard possession.
God’s teeth, but he’d dreamed of it often enough. It would be only a small step more to turn fantasy into reality.
“Hell’s bells, man, are your braies on fire? Or have you learned who knifed you and mean to settle the score?”
Oliver, bearing down on him from behind, reached to catch his shoulder. The movement pulled him off balance. David staggered, falling against the near wall. Feeling suddenly like a torn practice dummy with its sand-fill draining away, he turned until his shoulders rested against the stone. Closing his eyes, he breathed in tried gasps.
“Sorry,” Oliver said, “didn’t intend to be so rough. Are you all right?”
David nodded.
“What happened? Where were you going?”
“Away.”
“Away from what? Or shall I guess?”
Opening his eyes a fraction, David stared at his Italian friend. “You couldn’t, never in this life.”
“No? Only one thing has the power to upset you that I’ve been able to discover. What did she say to you?”
“Nothing.”
It wasn’t what she had said at all, but what she had done. A lady, daughter of an earl, should not be so fervent in her responses. She was meant to protest being touched, to avoid having her lips sullied by the unwanted intimacy of a kiss. She was not supposed to set him aflame.
Maybe he had a fire in his braies, after all. Certain parts of him certainly felt hot enough.
“What did she do?” Oliver asked, rubbing over his mustache with thumb and forefinger as he frowned.
David scowled at his friend and squire while feeling as if the truth must be written on his forehead. The need to protect Marguerite, also to prevent the besmirching of what they had just shared, made his voice brusque. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“Something must have happened,” the Italian said with an inquiring tilt to his head. “What did you do then?”
It wasn’t what he’d done so much as the contrast between that and what he’d intended. His plan had been so simple that it seemed foolproof. It was to be a slow campaign to undermine her defenses. He would begin by persuading her to allow another fairly innocent kiss similar to the one he had tricked her into the evening he was injured. He was certain it would take days before he could slip his tongue into her mouth, longer still before he could put a hand upon her elsewhere.
She was not supposed to respond with such hot sweetness that it sent him spinning into need so violent
it ripped his control to shreds. He had intended to persuade her to release him from his vow, not become so inflamed that it shattered at the first blow like a faulty sword.
He’d wanted it broken. Above all, he’d wished it unmade. And that was the most ignoble thing of all.
“Well?”
“What?” David gave Oliver a dazed look.
“You did something, didn’t you?” Oliver said, narrowing his eyes. “Tell me you didn’t… Oh, but you did. Didn’t you?”
Marguerite had responded to him as if she’d been doing it all her life, David thought in sudden recognition. It stunned him still to think of it. But why? Why? She was meant to be shy and virginal and fearful of the consequences of being intimate with a man. Instead, it was almost as if she wanted to be seduced.
Did she? Was that what she was about?
Or did she intend to seduce him? Was that what he had seen in her face, felt in her touch?
“Do I look such a prize fool?” he demanded as he realized, belatedly, what Oliver was saying. But of course he had been, almost. Almost.
“You look like a man who doesn’t know whether he’s on his head or his heels. What happened then? Did she ask you to marry her again? She did, and you said yes. That’s it. Am I right?”
“Don’t be daft. Lady Marguerite is not for the likes of me.”
She had suggested before that he marry her, yes, but only to prevent any other from attempting it. Well, and mayhap from reluctance to see him caught up in this
political maneuvering of Henry’s. Not that he thought her concern was personal. No. She’d have felt the same reluctance to have the injury or death of any man on her conscience.
“Henry didn’t think so. He’d have given her to you, had you not been so nobly self-sacrificing.”
David felt a great stillness come over him, felt his features set as if in stone. “Who told you that?”
“You did, my friend.” Oliver’s black gaze took on a look of pity. “You talked out of your head when you were fevered. Did the little one not mention it?”
Out of his head. The very idea left David chilled to the center of his heart. “She didn’t, no, if you mean Astrid. Did Lady Marguerite hear?”
“She was asleep, as she had hovered over you for most of three days and nights. Astrid and I watched in her place, as we thought the fever near conquered. We were wrong.”
“I am grateful for your care.” It was the exact truth that David spoke, though he was even more grateful that it was not Marguerite who had heard his mutterings. Or had she? “Was that the only time?”
“The only one I know about.”
He gave a stiff nod. It was as well, for there was no telling what he might have said. Some of his dreams where she appeared made him break into a sweat just remembering them.
“The point is, only misplaced humility prevents you from taking her,” Oliver went on, “that and years spent thinking her as far above you as the stars. You should have her and be done, so we may go back to France.”
“Only humility and my sworn word.” He would not
admit he had begun to think the same thing. The Fates had a way of smiting those who dared too much.
“One made when you were green and thought the world a simple place where women were pure, men were brave and honor sacred. What of it?”
“I might have changed, but the vow has not. And the lady deserves better than to be used and discarded as if no more valued than a good dinner with extra sweet wine.”
“I did tell you what you might do about that.”
“What?” David’s scowl was fierce.
“Ask her to release you.”
“Impossible. Chivalry will not allow it.”
“David, David,” Oliver said with a doleful shake of his head. “You may be the last good man.”
“If so, then Marguerite is the last pure lady.”
“What odds then,” Oliver said with a shrug, “that the two of you will corrupt each other?”
That was his fear, David thought, if he continued with the purpose he intended. Still, how could he not, especially after what had just taken place? He could not bear to think of any other man tasting the pure honey and sunshine that was Marguerite. Somehow, some way, he must find the strength to resist trespassing beyond what was allowed.
He must. It was the only way.
The smile he gave Oliver was sharp-edged. His strength recovered, he pushed away from the wall and turned toward the great hall. “I’d not wager on it, were I you. Shall we go in search of ale?”
“Oh, aye,” the Italian said. “But you do know you’ve no boots on your feet?”
David looked down. His curse was short and vicious. Still, he could not return to his chamber. Not now. Not yet.
“Get them for me. Knock first.”
“Don’t I always?”
David glared at him. “Just remember it.”
Oliver said no more, but his smile as he turned to do as he was bid was wryly diabolical.
Within the hour, the storm that had threatened earlier broke over them. Wind whined around the castle like a demon forbidden entry, snatching slates from the roof and flinging them, clattering, into the inner bailey. It threw rain at the shuttered windows in great handfuls, and sluiced down the walls in sheets.
The dark inside the great hall was like midnight. Lamp flames in their open basins flattened and flared and sent smoke swirling into the upper gloom that was the ceiling. The banners that hung over the high dais swayed as if pushed by unseen hands, and the embroidered horsemen scattered across the tapestry that covered the back wall appeared to gallop with its movement. Those men and women gathered in the gloom raised their voices above the rumble of thunder and drumming hiss of rain, while their faces glowed with ghostly pallor in the lightning flashes that struck through the cracks around the shutter edges.