Wolf Bride (34 page)

‘
Rex uxorem meam cupiat
,’ he whispered, looking into her face.

She stared back at him, slowly groping after each word, glad that her father had insisted she learnt some rudimentary Latin as a girl. ‘The king . . . the king desires a wife?’

‘The king, my beautiful fool, desires
my
wife.’

Her heart almost stopped.

She pushed against him urgently now. ‘Wolf, you are not serious? The king?’

‘You did not know?’

‘I know the king always favoured me as one of Queen Anne’s maids. But he would never take me for his mistress. I was accused of being complicit with Her Majesty in her affairs. And I am married now. Married to you. And you—’

‘Have just enough skill as a soldier to be worth keeping alive.’ He buried his mouth in her throat, and she could feel him shaking, still inside her. His voice was ragged. ‘I could not risk it though. It was imperative that I made you less attractive to His Majesty. The queen is in the Tower, Jane Seymour will soon be in his bed, but what the king most desires is to bed a new lady. Someone to take the edge off his appetite, but not a whore. For where would be the challenge in that? No, what he desires to bed before he remarries is a lady not too experienced, nor yet too innocent.’

Eloise shivered. ‘A new bride.’

‘Last night, with the help of Mistress Langley, I sought to put a little doubt in his mind. To make my bride less appealing to his sensual tastes. But without arousing his suspicions. That is why I maligned your skills in bed, and made my preference for another woman painfully clear.’ He drew a sharp breath. ‘I knew you would hate me for it. Yet what else could I do?’

She was horrified by this confession, suddenly realising that Wolf had put himself in terrible danger by trying to fool the king.

‘If His Majesty discovers your deceit, you could pay for it with your life.’

‘You think my life is worth more to me than your honour?’

‘My honour?’ Eloise linked her legs about his waist, her body fired by his closeness, the way he was still moving gently inside her, driving her slowly insane. ‘Was it my honour you were thinking of when you drew your dagger on Simon by the river?’

He turned his head and gazed at her, the most honest look he had ever given her. ‘No,’ he admitted, and the word seemed to hurt him.

‘Then what?’

There was a hard colour in his face. ‘I wanted to kill him,’ he muttered. ‘For daring to put his hands on your body, his mouth . . . God’s blood, I have never wanted so badly to kill a man, even in battle.’

‘Yet you did not,’ she reminded him softly.

Wolf kissed her hotly. ‘His death was not worth losing you over. I may be high in the king’s favour, but even I cannot stab a courtier through the heart just for kissing my wife. I would have risked being condemned for his murder, leaving you a widow and defenceless. In time, the king would have made you his mistress. No, Thetford’s death was not worth the risk.’

His kiss had lit a hunger within her that would not be ignored. She wound her fingers in his hair, pulling him closer while she kissed him back.

‘So you find me desirable,’ she whispered.

His cock jerked inside her, thickening. ‘As you see,’ he murmured, his words slightly slurred.

‘And yet we seem to do nothing but scratch and bite at each other. Out of bed, we are enemies.’

‘You are a fiery bride,’ he conceded drily. He withdrew, teasing her, then pushed forward to fill her again, his mouth twisting in a smile as she gasped. ‘But you will not hear me complain. Your fieriness makes for some exciting nights.’

‘And days.’

She thought of Margerie, whose name had been on that loose sheet he had dropped in the tower room.

The thought that Wolf might still be in love with his former betrothed, and writing letters to her, left her grieving inside. He had convinced her that he was not sleeping with the beautiful Mistress Langley, and that he had merely behaved like that before the king to make Eloise seem less appealing as a mistress. But there was still so much she did not know about her husband.

Now was not the time to demand answers though, Eloise told herself. Later, perhaps, when her sudden intense hunger for his body had been assuaged.

‘Wolf,’ she said against his throat, kissing his warm rough skin. ‘Stop teasing and take me.’

‘It will be my pleasure, my lady,’ he agreed hoarsely. ‘You had only to ask.’

She thought he sounded as violently in need of release as her. Wolf carried her a few unsteady steps from the beech tree, laying her down upon a grassy spot where two trees parted in the green shade, bright shafts of sunlight dappling their high leaves. There he knelt and pressed his mouth between her legs, parting her moist flesh with his fingers and tonguing her greedily.

Eloise moaned in wild ecstasy, clawing at the loose earth on either side of her head, her fingers sinking deep into the soil, not caring if she dirtied herself or her yellow silk gown. This was what she had needed from the moment he came along the river path and found her with Simon, she realised. For Wolf to show her to whom she belonged, and why.

She climaxed easily, and thought her back would break as she arched with pleasure, crying out his name.

Wolf covered her at once, not waiting for her to come down from that sweet peak but thrusting urgently inside. He supported himself on his hands as he ploughed her body, grunting out his pleasure and working fiercely above her, showing her with every deep stroke how much he desired her. Both of them were still partially clothed, yet that lent an intense excitement to their lust, and the knowledge that at any moment someone might come walking through the woods and discover them.

When he came, it was with a violent shuddering cry, his cock pumping rush after rush of hot seed inside her. ‘Jesu,’ he groaned, and buried his face in her breasts.

She lay beneath him for a long while afterwards, staring up at the flickering green canopy of leaves above their heads. She felt so drowsy and fulfilled, yet her heart was churning with barely veiled excitement. Something had changed between them, she was sure of it, a strange and sudden shifting of emotion in the air. Had Wolf felt it too?

But when he stood later, and held out his hand to help her up, Eloise saw once again that cool distance in his face, the cautious sidelong glance that told her Wolf was not yet ready to love her as he loved his elusive Margerie.

Perhaps he never would be ready.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Almost a week had passed since the fight on the river bank when Wolf told her that Simon had left court. ‘It seems he has returned to Norfolk and will likely remain there some months,’ he commented, delicately boning a baked trout with his dagger before passing her the dish. They were taking a late luncheon together in the privacy of their apartment, away from the gloomy terrors of the court. ‘By order of the king, I heard.’

She looked at him. ‘Poor Simon,’ she murmured, thinking aloud. ‘He so loves life at court. To be exiled . . .’

‘Better exile than a shameful death on the scaffold, which the others under accusation may not so easily escape.’ Wolf hesitated, helping himself to a dish of pickled walnuts. He met her gaze steadily. ‘You will miss him, I expect.’

She did not reply to that. His tone had not fooled her. She had seen the bitter flash of jealousy in his eyes, and knew herself how it felt to be in its grip.

‘I only wish we had news of my sister,’ she remarked, pushing aside her trencher. ‘It has been days since Master Beaufort rode north in search of her. I fear something terrible must have happened.’

Eloise kept remembering the day when their cavalcade had been attacked. They had been journeying north on the same road her sister had most likely taken on her way towards London, and in the company of stout soldiers. If Susannah had been attacked by men like those, a pack of northern ruffians with rape and murder on their minds, there would be little hope of her survival. A woman alone was an easy target, even one who had apparently taken the precaution of garbing herself like a man.

‘Beaufort is no fool,’ he assured her, meticulously cleaning his fingers in the water bowl, then drying them on a damask napkin. She watched him, amused by the thought that her husband had better table manners than the king, despite his pretence that he was just a rough soldier. ‘Nor does he ride alone, remember. If your sister is still on that road, he will find her.’

‘I pray you are in the right, my lord.’

‘I am always in the right, my dear Eloise,’ he murmured, his sharp blue eyes mocking her across the table. ‘Have you never remarked it before?’

‘Forgive me, no. It must have escaped my attention.’

‘Ah, cruel.’

She could not help smiling. Wolf was hard to dislike in this mood, so charming and at his ease. Events at court in recent months had turned everyone sour, and put that grim look in her husband’s eyes. But perhaps when they were home again in Yorkshire, away from the dark clouds of Henry’s court, his mood would lighten again and she would be able to fall in love with him.

To own the truth, she was halfway in love with him already. His hard, powerful body had long since captured her soul; but could his soul capture her body?

‘Did you hear that young Wyatt is not to be executed?’ he asked abruptly, watching her as though hoping to gauge her reaction to the news. ‘They are still holding him in the Tower, but his father has spoken for him and it seems the king has listened.’

Her lips were bone dry. She licked them nervously, and saw his intense blue gaze narrow on the movement.

‘I did not, no,’ she murmured. ‘But I am glad to hear it. Sir Thomas Wyatt is a fine poet and the most charming courtier. He is one of the few gentlemen at court whom I have always admired. Furthermore he is innocent and does not deserve to . . .’

Eloise stopped, and pushed her trembling hands into her lap. She could not bring herself to say the word.

Wolf’s eyes brooded on her face. ‘I don’t know Sir Thomas well enough to comment on his innocence, though I have fought beside him on a few campaigns. He is a fair soldier.’ He hesitated. ‘So he holds a special place in your heart, does he, this Wyatt?’

She glared at him, immediately angry at the unspoken inference. Why did Wolf always have to assume that if she expressed some liking for a man, he must have been her lover once?

‘No more than any other innocent man whom I would not wish to see on the scaffold!’

His brows snapped together. ‘Oh, you will see nobody on the scaffold, I promise you that. You are not permitted to attend any of their executions, is that clear?’

How dare he? She had no intention of watching any of those unfortunate men die, nonetheless a wave of fury swept over her at his overbearing manner. It was like being married to her father, another man who had never seen her in any other light than as a possession, to be ordered about or locked away at will.

For such men, women were dim, carnally minded creatures, who were to be kept under harness and not allowed opinions or independent thought. Oh, but females must also be watched very carefully, lest they produce an heir by another man while their husband’s back is turned.

‘Yes, my lord. No, my lord. Whatever you say, my lord.’

‘Eloise . . .’

‘Your doubleness makes my head spin. You accuse me of having a special place in my heart for Sir Thomas Wyatt. Yet you, my lord, will not give up your own lover.’

‘And who is that, pray?’

‘Margerie.’

‘Be quiet,’ he growled.

Part of her knew that she was probably being unfair to Wolf. But he should not have baited her with what he had heard during Cromwell’s interrogation. And now he was trying to impose his will on her again, regardless of the injustice.

Her temper got the better of her. She jumped up. ‘I will not be quiet.’

‘Sit down and do as you are as told.’

‘You do not believe those men to be guilty any more than I do,’ she threw at him. ‘It is all a sham.’

‘For pity’s sake, will you not be silenced?’ he ground out, something akin to panic suddenly flaring in his expression.

‘Why should I obey you, Wolf?’ she demanded, flushed and too angry to properly interpret his orders. ‘So you can gloat over my wifely subservience?’

Almost as though he could not help himself, Wolf’s gaze shifted warily towards a decorative wooden screen set into the west wall, where a doorway into another chamber had once stood, now long since sealed off and no longer part of these apartments.

She glanced that way too, frowning, and saw a sudden, tiny movement behind the intricate friezework of the screen. As she stared it was hurriedly stilled.

The blood froze in her veins.

Somebody was watching them from behind that false panel. Listening to every word they said.

‘Sit down,’ Wolf repeated gruffly, and this time she obeyed him without comment, grateful to be seated now that her legs were shaking.

‘The evidence gathered against these men cannot be refuted,’ he said warningly, but she could see the message in his eyes was one of caution. He did not believe them to be guilty either. But to say so when they were being spied upon would be tantamount to slitting their own throats. The king would accept no talk of an unjust trial, and she knew it. She could hardly believe how close she had just come to condemning them both to death. ‘Their sentence is lawful, and must be carried out as given.’