Tempt Me With Kisses (9 page)

Caradoc wanted to laugh out loud. He wanted to grab her and kiss her. Passionately.

“God save me, boy, she is a wonder,” Dafydd muttered, his face so red, Caradoc almost pitied him. He might have, had Dafydd not embarrassed him a hundred times or more.

And Dafydd’s heartfelt words were a great compliment, whether Fiona knew it or not.

“We had best return to the high table. Father Rhodri is starting to fidget,” he said, moving before he started grinning like a drunkard getting free ale.

But by the saints, he hadn’t felt this lighthearted in months.

Fiona was indeed a wonder. He could hardly wait to be alone with her again. To stifle his building laughter by kissing her. To tuck her marvelous thick hair behind her shapely ears with a similar caress, and to let that caress linger and slip lower…

When they had reached their places, Father Rhodri stepped forward to say the grace. As everyone bowed their heads expectantly, Caradoc saw the look on the priest’s face and all propensity to laughter fled. Dreading what was to come, he readied himself as a warrior before battle, for he was sure it would be a challenge to keep his emotions under control as Father Rhodri spoke.

“Oh, God and St. David, patron saint of this blessed land of Wales,” the priest began in a mournful voice more suited to a funeral oration. “Look down with mercy on all here as we prepare to partake of Your blessed bounty. Forgive decisions made in haste, based on earthly need. Pardon the worship of mammon, oh God, and the lusts of the flesh. Show all those tempted into sin the error of their ways and lead them onto the path of redemption and reconsideration. Have mercy upon the impetuous, oh God, and teach them the wisdom of patience. Blessed heavenly Father, take pity on the weak and give them strength.

“Grant us these things, we pray, in the name of Your beloved Son who first made known His divine nature at the wedding feast at Cana where He was a guest, a ceremony not agreed upon in haste and leading to disaster. Amen.”

Caradoc shifted and mentally rolled his eyes, frustrated nearly to speaking. He had guessed the man’s grace was going to be bad, but this was beyond anything he had anticipated.

Yet he would not reveal his anger. Father Rhodri had been here too long and was too beloved by the people for him to chastise. Besides, Father Rhodri would take his complaint all the way to the pope if Caradoc even tried.

“Thank you, Father,” Caradoc said, managing to keep his voice level with great effort.

“You’re welcome, my son,” Father Rhodri replied, sounding very well pleased with himself.

It was tempting to send the man on a long pilgrimage, preferably somewhere that would take years to reach.

“This food smells wonderful. I didn’t realize how hungry I am,” Fiona remarked as the aromas of fresh bread and roasted mutton filled the hall. She was apparently no more disturbed by Father Rhodri’s impertinence than she was by Dafydd’s comments.

A wonder indeed, thank God. He had known from the moment he had agreed to marry her that it was not going to be easy for her to be accepted. Fortunately, it seemed she wasn’t going to let that trouble her. It appeared he need not fear complaints and grumbling or hot-tempered demands from his wife.

That would be pleasant.

Of course, a far more pleasant change to his circumstances awaited him at night. Thinking of that and emboldened by her comments to Dafydd, he didn’t resist the impulse to put his hand on her thigh.

Her muscle tightened and he imagined her legs gripping him, holding him to her as he loved her.

“My lord,” she said as she lifted his hand away, her voice low so that only he could hear, “perhaps my response to your friend, made in the same jesting spirit as his remark to me, has caused you to think I am somewhat wanton. I am not.”

Despite her chiding remark, he was not willing to return to polite distance yet. “If I think you are somewhat wanton, it is because of the kiss we have already shared.”

“Be that as it may, I must remind you that we are not yet married,” she retorted, sounding surprisingly prim considering what she had said to Dafydd and in view of that breathtaking kiss. “Although I have given my word and mean to keep it, I will not be treated like a piece of merchandise to be pawed over.”

He had heard that critical tone too often from others and he hated it.

Nor did he deserve such severe censure for a relatively harmless gesture. “We have made a bargain, Fiona,” he likewise reminded her, his voice as stern as when he passed judgment in his courtyard.

She did not seem overly impressed. “I know that as well as you, but you do not own me yet, so please do not treat me as if you do.”

“As you wish,” he replied. “Besides, my people already think you very brazen, and perhaps it would be best not to confirm their impression. And what would Father Rhodri say? His next grace would surely condemn you as a Jezebel.”

“
I
am brazen?” she countered, her eyes fairly blazing with indignation. “I am not the one putting hands on thighs.”

He leaned slightly forward, his gaze dropping to her luscious lips. “You are the one who proposed to me, Fiona, not the other way ’round,” he whispered, his voice deep and low and intimate.

“But you are the one who needs my money.”

It was as if she had slapped his face, or risen to berate him in his hall.

Feeling that same horrible sense of deficiency as when he had failed to please his father or his tutors, he scowled and took a gulp of her fine French wine.

Would that he had scowled thus at the priest after that insolent, outrageous blessing! Fiona thought as she watched the goblet meet Caradoc’s shapely lips. If Father Rhodri had raised his hand and struck her, she couldn’t have felt more humiliated and embarrassed. If that was his idea of a blessing, she didn’t want to imagine his curse. What would he say at the marriage? That they deserved excommunication and eternal damnation? Or would he refuse to bless it at all?

Why had Caradoc accepted the insolence without a look or word of criticism? After all, the priest didn’t seem to be limiting his disgust to her, but obviously sought to criticize Caradoc, too.

On the other hand, she reminded herself, she had not admired Connor of the fiery temper, so how could she condemn Caradoc for being more moderate?

Caradoc took another huge gulp of the wine. “God’s wounds, that’s good.”

She sipped hers and realized it was the Bordeaux. “You have already opened the French wine?”

“Why not?”

Why not indeed?

In an attempt to have some sort of normal conversation—for surely then she would
feel
normal—she nodded toward the three dark-haired men sitting together at a table full of raucous soldiers. “Those three brothers have unusual names. Is Bron a family name?”

Caradoc wiped his lips after another gulp of wine. When he spoke, his accent was broader and he seemed far more relaxed than he had been before. “In a way. It’s from their older sister, Bronwyn. Famous is our Bronwyn, you see, for her talents.”

Since she was in Wales, Fiona made a guess. “She is a fine singer?”

She had the sudden sensation he was doing his best not to burst out laughing, which was almost as disconcerting as if he had.

He leaned close again, bringing his broad shoulders nearly to hers, and whispered as if revealing state secrets. “She makes a kind of music. An earthy lass is our Bronwyn, and liking men, especially young ones ready for their first time. In other places they say such lads are sowing their oats. Here we say the lad’s gone to Bronwyn, because most times, he has.”

This was not what she had expected to hear. At all.

“She was the most popular tavern wench between Cardiff and Shrewsbury,” he continued, as if he were proud of Bronwyn, too. “She made enough that now she owns the tavern in the village.”

“Then she was a—?”

“Whore, aye. A good one.”

He sounded so proud and happy for the woman, he must have been a frequent customer.

Then the corners of his mouth slowly curved up in a secretive smile that seemed to say he had read her thoughts. “No, not me. I went farther afield.”

She stared down at the table, blushing like a green girl who didn’t know men had needs, especially virile men like Caradoc. And after all, he would not be her first, either.

But he would be far and away the best
.

She silenced that knowing little voice, so confident and keen.

“She doesn’t mind the reputation, and neither do they.”

“Then the stories are true about the wild Welsh in their mountains,” she replied, fighting to sound matter-of-fact. “I had believed them exaggerations, but obviously they are not if those men take part of her name as their own.”

“That isn’t the way it works. Others give you the name.”

She fingered the base of her goblet. “And they still don’t mind?”

“No. Not so delicate, the Welsh,” he replied, by his tone condemning not the Welsh but everyone else. “It’s part of living, isn’t it? Nothing to bring shame.”

Unless you were too easily won over by empty flattery and even emptier promises. That would bring shame, far more than the act itself, although in the eyes of the church, the act alone was a serious sin. “Father Rhodri surely doesn’t think so.”

“Father Rhodri understands there is a time to condemn and a time to forgive.”

No wonder he had not chastised the priest—he thought the man’s disapproval only temporary. She hoped he was right.

And then a new fear slipped into her consciousness. “Do they nickname everybody?”

“Mostly, yes,” he replied, ripping apart a loaf of brown bread with his lean fingers. “Sometimes it’s from a feature, like Dafydd, or something to do with the family like Jon and his brothers, or a quality, like piety.”

Holy Mother, what would they call
her
?

Not Fiona the Fair, that was certain. “Does the lord of Llanstephan have a nickname?” she asked.

“Aye. Connor and Cordelia gave me a name. Would you like to hear it?”

His low, proud growl of a voice seemed to challenge her to ask. Yet in his eyes, she saw something that made her hesitate: a pain as old as the first cruel taunt of childhood.

“They called me the troll. I stayed so long in the solar at my studies, I was like a troll in my cave or under a bridge somewhere, they said.”

Appalled, she exclaimed, “You are far too handsome to be likened to a troll!”

A spark kindled in the blue depths of his eyes and he once again put his strong, broad hand on her thigh. “Calm yourself, my champion. They have not called me that in a long time.”

Once more she felt that leaping excitement. When he had put his hand on her knee the first time, she had nearly jumped out of her skin, and not just because she was surprised. His simple action engendered a shockingly powerful excitement.

As for the way his kiss made her feel…

Despite her own volatile reactions, however, she had to act as if mightily offended when he touched her in that intimate manner. She must pretend to be the virgin bride unless she wanted him to ask a lot of questions.

So she had, even when his incredible deep, luxuriant voice seemed more thrillingly intimate than his caress. He could seduce her with his voice alone.

No, he didn’t even have to speak. He didn’t have to do anything at all except look at her, and she was like chaff in a strong breeze, helpless to resist the winds of desire sweeping through her.

He took his hand away before she had to tell him to. “Did you ever have a nickname, Fiona?”

The churning excitement died with his question. She had no desire to humiliate herself by confessing that she had. Nevertheless, his questioning gaze compelled her to answer.

“Skin-and-Bones,” she admitted quietly, so that only he would hear. “Freckled Fiona. Cows-eyes. They would moo when I walked past, or cluck like chickens.”

His expression softened. “It must have been difficult.”

Nothing had prepared her for that different look in his blue eyes. She had not anticipated his sympathy or his understanding. Suddenly she saw again the Caradoc of his youth, when he had been shy and unassuming.

“If your own brother and sister called you a name like that, no wonder you stayed so long in the solar,” she said, grateful for that glimpse, and hoping young Caradoc would not retreat behind the cool facade of Caradoc the man for a while yet.

“I did not stay there to avoid them. I had my lessons to learn and work to do. Did you hide at home, Fiona, or did you ignore the taunters?”

Caught in the warm swell of his unexpected sympathy, she was proud to answer, “I ignored them.”

“I knew it.”

His lips curved up a little into a smile that told her he understood the courage she had been forced to muster to face her tormentors daily. More, he admired it. She heard that in his voice and saw it in his brilliant blue eyes.

Iain would never have understood. For him, courage was something that only a man could feel, and only then in a battle.

“What of Rhonwen? What is her nickname?” she asked, trying to clear her mind of Iain, hating the intrusion of her folly into this moment.

He regarded Fiona steadily, and to her sorrow, the shutters closed once more. “She is only and always Rhonwen.”

This lack of a nickname was obviously not something good, yet she saw no reason that Rhonwen should be so excluded. “She is Welsh, too, isn’t she?”

Caradoc took another sip of wine before answering. “Nobody knows. She was abandoned here by her father, a tinker, whose woman died in childbirth. The woman was not cold in the bed before he was gone. We never even knew her mother’s name, and her father never came back.”

“That was not the babe’s fault,” Fiona said, upset to think that the shy, quiet young woman was faulted for the circumstances of her birth.

“So my mother thought. She paid a farmer’s wife to nurse and raise her, and believed Rhonwen well taken care of. It was only years later that we found out otherwise. She was treated little better than a slave by that woman and her husband. That is why she is here now.”

Yet not accepted, either, although Rhonwen had been born there.