She refused to fall easily as she’d done last night. She’d made everything too easy last night, but he’d taken her by surprise. She’d been too long without a lover. Or was it that he was too good to resist?
Her reward for constraint was a kiss bestowed upon the shoulder he’d earlier caressed. “See how you enchant me?” he whispered. “Even after a night such as last night, the sight of you stirs me.”
She tried to inject a prosaic note into the rapidly heating atmosphere of the tent. “You’ll get used to me soon enough.”
“Will I?” He tried to twitch away the blanket, but she held on tight. “I have no experience with this. Do all men weary of their brides?”
“Sooner or later.” His hands crept around to her back. As his fingers slid into the hair at the base of her skull, she fought to keep her sense of reality. “Probably sooner.” But she said it with a sigh, and she let him ease her back on the pillow.
“Then they are bride and groom no longer.” He massaged her scalp. “But husband and wife.”
“And he’s unfaithful.”
“Not I, my lady.” He leaned over her, an elbow planted on each side of her head, and he pleasured her with the slow intoxication of relaxation. “I pledged my troth of you, and I always keep my vows.”
Eyes closed, she laughed weakly.
“Don’t you believe me?”
His hands slipped away from her—in punishment, she supposed—and she wished for the moment of cherishing she’d lost. Then his hands were back, moving around her ears and among the roots of her hair. “You’ll apologize to me for that one day,” he pledged.
“By the saints, I hope so,” she muttered.
“I’m not Robin of Jagger.”
“I know that.”
“I will not betray you with another woman.”
She didn’t answer, for she didn’t believe him.
“I am nothing like him,” Hugh insisted.
Sitting up in a sudden blaze of fury, she tore herself away from his hands, jerking strands of her hair loose in the process. “Oh, aye, you are! You’re just like him. A warrior, going forth to right every wrong, to fight every foe.” You get out of your clothes as quickly, too, she wanted to say. That she kept to herself, but somehow, he’d stripped himself while he caressed her. “And you’ll end up just like him, too.”
“I will not hang!”
“Mayhap not, but you’ll be just as dead. Spitted on a sword, or bashed with a mace, or bludgeoned beneath the hooves of some other knight’s horse. They’ll bring you home to me on a slab, and I’ll cry until I’m hoarse, and I’ll be alone again.”
He laughed. Laughed! “I won’t be killed. Better me n have tried many a time and haven’t succeeded—why would they succeed now?”
The stupid oaf mocked her rage and her fear. She’d heard that braggadocio before, and once more, she tried to reason with something that couldn’t be reasoned with—a man’s brain. “As time goes on, the chance is ever greater that you will be killed.”
“As time goes on, my skill in battle grows ever greater.”
“Mere luck works against you.” He still smiled, that patronizing “I know best” smile. He tried to take her hand, but she rapped his knuckles. She wanted to fight. He wanted to swive. He’d win, of course, but she’d challenge him anyway. “You want me. All right, you can have me. “I’ll warm your bed and keep your house and you’ll never know what you’re missing.”
That made him stop. Moving closer, he stared at her face as if she would tell him a secret. “What will I be missing?”
“I won’t give you any of my…my true affection.” There was no use talking about love. She didn’t still cherish him in her heart. She didn’t cherish any man in her heart. “I’m not going to grieve for a man who looks for a fight when peace can be made with a smile.”
He still didn’t understand, and she guessed why. All he wanted was her efficiency and her body, and he would be satisfied. Fine and good; she’d give him both in generous portions and keep the important parts for herself and her sons.
Then he grabbed her, his face alight with comprehension. “Are you saying you’ll not give to me what you gave to Robin?”
“Ah.” She spoke to the air. “He’s a clever lad, he is.”
“That’s what you think, my lady. That’s what you think.” He stripped the bedcovers away from her and pushed her down. He placed his hands one on each side of her hips and lowered himself to her, and his sword stood ready for combat.
She grabbed him by the back and put the mark of her fingernails along his spine. She was ready for him. Even the wildness of the night before couldn’t extinguish her excitement.
She might not love this man, but she wanted him, and that was enough. “You’ll not win this battle,” she vowed.
“I win every battle,” he answered, his hazel eyes flaming with conviction.
Wrapping her legs around his hips, she opened herself to him, determined to swallow him and leave him defenseless.
Without even directing himself, he thrust home.
She arched back, caught instantly in frenzied orgasm. He rose like a whale breaching in a wave. On his knees he caught her hips. He forced himself deeper. She couldn’t take more, but he made a place for himself deep within her. Her womb welcomed him with ripples of demand and pleasure.
No finesse. Nothing but instant desire, followed by instant release.
He muttered, “I don’t take you. You take me.”
He admitted that, so she was winning. Winning! Another orgasm caught her, and she screamed from the heat and the fierceness.
He besieged her, thrusting again and again. The castle gate had fallen, the enemy was within, but he hadn’t defeated her and he knew it. His hands moved over her; he pinched her nipples, then moved his hand down below her waist and slid his thumb between their bodies.
The result brought her right off the mat. She pushed with her hands under her until she, too, was sitting up. Until her bottom rested on his thighs and he caught her around the waist to raise her to his level. With her feet planted firmly on the floor, she used her legs to move, and this time he groaned, loud and deep, like a beast in its death throes. She set the rhythm, making him follow, and when he swore at her, she titled back her head and laughed.
He tumbled them over and tucked her beneath him. She couldn’t fight him. Her thighs trembled with the effort she had made…or was it the continuous, vibrant flow of life between them that weakened her?
“You’re mine.” He wrapped her legs high up on his back and began the final assault. “Mine. Mine.”
She heard it as a chant.
“Mine.”
As magic.
“Mine.”
She grabbed the length of hair that hung over his shoulders and jerked until he opened his eyes and fixed his attention on her face. Fiercely, caught up in his demands, in the demands of his body, she said, “Mine,” and dragged him down so she could seal his lips with hers.
It was nothing less than possession, and he recognized it. He freed his mouth, and with a shout, he gave himself to her. She felt his muscles strain and stretch through her skin. She saw his lips curl back from his teeth and the agony of pleasure that stamped every feature. As he finished, she heard him intone her name. “Edlyn. Edlyn.”
They collapsed in an exhausted heap. This union, and all they had said, bore contemplation, but Edlyn didn’t have the energy or the inclination. All she wanted to do was draft.
When he moved off her, she complained with a soft whimper.
“I’ll crush you,” he whispered and pulled the furs over her. They couldn’t take his place, and she waited for him to come back and warm her. He didn’t, and she opened her eyes just a slit to see him dressing.
Too bad, because she liked him better naked.
He saw her peeking, and as he adjusted his belt, he knelt beside the mat. “See? You are an enchantress.” Burrowing under the covers, he kissed her breast, her navel, her chin. “
You may have your two possessions before I burn the rest of that…matter.”
He didn’t think much of the effects she’d accumulated at the abbey, she could tell, but she didn’t blame him.
His voice softened, and he coaxed, “Is there any other service I might perform for you?”
Give up your fighting. “Not unless you can bring my sons back from their pilgrimage,” she muttered.
“They’ll be back soon, won’t they?” Hugh asked. “No matter, we’ll wait for them.”
Surprisingly, it never occurred to her Hugh wouldn’t wait. “I know, but…I want them now.” She wailed like a child, and she waited for him to laugh at her.
Instead, he tucked the blankets around her shoulders. “Just sleep. I’ll take care of everything.” And in a whisper, he said, “And I will win our battle, my lady. That you must never doubt.”
Her sense of repose slipped away. “Not until the day you cherish peace as much as you cherish the clash of arms.”
“Battle in a good cause is a noble thing,” he insisted.
“There is more than one way to win a battle, my lord. Watch.” She smiled. “And I will demonstrate.”
“Ah.” Edlyn dug through the sack of her belongings and pulled forth those two most precious mementos. She rubbed her face on the ragged pieces of cloth and breathed in their essence. Then, carefully, she folded them and placed them in a corner.
She had to have something with which to cover her bare body also. Something more than the surcoat she’d found tossed across a stool. Hugh had made her promise not to removed anything else from the sack, but Hugh didn’t want her wandering naked, either Having made that sensible deduction, she dressed herself in the old brown cotte she’d worn every day in the dispensary.
Now she was clad and ready for…what? Midday had passed, so she broke her fast with the bread and ale waiting on the table. Then she stood, indecisive. Should she leave? Should she stay? If she left, would Hugh’s men grin at her while she crossed the camp and tease her about her late rising? Worse, would they frown at her and think Robin’s widow unworthy to wed their commander?
And what would she say when she reached the abbey? She’d stretched the formerly beautiful wedding dress over a trunk and picked at a stain on the hem. Worse, what would the nuns say? How was Edlyn going to explain the grass stains on the white hose and splotches of mud on the painted leather shoes? The nuns had loaned he those clothes cheerfully, in a charitable spirit, and she would be returning them in tatters. The nuns would lecture her. They might even shun her, and rightly so. The weaving of cloth, the sewing of clothing, occupied every spare moment of every woman’s day, and she had ruined some of the fairest examples of the craft in her midnight rambles around the forest.
Hugh might have satisfied his need for revenge during the night, but she couldn’t pay the nuns for the damage she’d done in the same coin, and she had no other. Just as before, she was poverty-stricken.
“M’lady?”
Wharton’s rough voice outside the tent flap made her jump. She’d vanquished her fear of him, so she’d thought, but apparently the memory of his early threats lived on, and mayhap, just mayhap, her kidnapping of the day before had recalled those memories.
“M’lady?” He sounded a little impatient now. “I’ve brought ye something t’ wear.”
Shaking her trepidation, she walked briskly to the flap and pulled it back. Behind Wharton, the camp appeared to be empty.
He looked at her garments in disgust. “I thought ye promised t’ keep only two things out o’ that bag.”
“I have to dress!”
“If ye can call it that.” A wool sack, one that looked much like the first, sat at his feet, and he thrust it at her. “Here. From th’ master, with his compliments.” He sounded quite gallant, but then he spoiled it by adding, “Ye’d best shuck that ugly cotte an’ throw me out that sack afore th’ master gets back, or he’ll do as I told him an’ keep ye naked an’ with child.”
“You said that?”
“It’ll be th’ only way t’ keep a woman such as ye out o’ trouble, from what I can see.” He turned away, muttering, “Not even one hour married an’ ye got yerself stolen.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” she called after him.
He shrugged.
“I got myself out of it!”
He made a sound with his mouth that would have been more appropriate coming from his arse.
“How childish,” she said. She used her best mommy voice, but Wharton only jeered.
A head peeked out from behind one of the other tents, and she realized some of the squires remained. But where had the knights gone?
No matter. That obscure embarrassment still lingered, and she ducked inside. At the table, she dumped out the sack’s contents. She gasped. Jewel colors glowed in the dim light. Somehow, Wharton had gotten his hands on clothes. Lovely clothes. Cottes of thin wool. Slim tubes of hose. Shifts, all of them as fine as the one she’d stained the night before. And shoes. Shoes of all sizes.
She backed away from them as if they were a slithering snake. “Wharton,” she whispered. Then louder, “Wharton!” She ran outside, looking for Hugh’s manservant.
She found him squatting by the fire, darning a hole in a man’s rough black hose. Stalking up to him, she grabbed him by the front of his surcoat. “How did you get those clothes?”
“M’ lady, why do you ask?” He smirked at her. He had been waiting for her. He knew just what she suspected.
“Did you steal those clothes from my nuns?”
He placed his hand on his chest in a gesture of innocence. “Steal from nuns? What a dreadful thought.”
She leaned over until her face was level with his. “How did you get those clothes?”
He rose, keeping his eyes glued tight to hers. “My master gave me a purse full o’ coins an’ told me t’ buy you a wardrobe.”
“Oh.” What else could she say? “Oh. Well…did the nuns want to sell their clothes?”
“Lady Corliss encouraged them t’ open their trunks, an’ th’ gold convinced them.”
She stumbled back. “Oh.”
“Thanks would be appreciated.”
“Of a certainty,” she mumbled. “My thanks.”
“Not me.” He looked disgusted. “My master.”
Glad to break eye contact, she glanced around. “Where is he?”
“Dress t’ please him. That’s th’ thanks he wants.”
That seemed reasonable. “But where is he?”
“He’ll be back.”
She wasn’t getting anything our of this discussion, and besides, she could almost hear those clothes calling her. Trudging back to he tent, she tried not to look too eager. After all, she had worn fine clothes before. She’d been the wife if a duke and an earl. But oh, how she had missed the silks, the thin wools, he bright colors! It was odd how new clothes gave her such pleasure. She would have to consult Lady Corliss about her excessive vanity.
When she emerged from the tent, she wore the green striped gown the nuns had refused to let her wear on her wedding day. She liked it, symbol of easy virtue or not. Her hair was tucked into a net crispinette at the nape of her neck. She’d owned several before her eviction from Robin’s castle, and she missed the convenience of confining her hair. Now she had three crispinettes as well as various headgear of all shapes and sizes.
Wharton and the shy youth who had peeked at her sat on camp stools set in the sunlight, and it seemed Wharton was instructing the young man in the art of hose repair.
Edlyn approved. She liked a man who could care for himself.
They didn’t seem to see her, but without looking up, Wharton demanded, “Where are ye going? ”
She stumbled slightly on the too-long her. “I’m going to the dispensary.”
“Why?”
She dumped the bag of old possessions at his feet, then showed him the bag he’ brought her new clothes in. “I have to gather some herbs for my travels and provide guid
ance to whoever is taking my…” In disgust, she exclaimed, “Oh, why am I explaining myself to you?”
“Because th’ master told me t’ keep an eye on ye an’ keep ye out o’ trouble. That’s why I couldn’t ride with th’ men.” Wharton’s voice rose. “I’m playin’ nursemaid t’ th’ master’ wife.”
“Oh.” Clearly, he’d wanted to ride with the men. She looked at the youth. “Are you here to watch me, too?”
The youth scrambled to his feet. “Nay, my lady. I’m here to guard the tents against thieves.”
He was taller and thinner than she’d realized, and she smiled in a gust of amusement. Just so her sons would appear in a few years. “What’s your name?” she asked.
“Wynkyn of Covney.”
“You’re a long way from home,” she observed.
His face twisted in that pained expression young men used for a smile. “Nay, my lady, this is my home.”
A pang struck her, and she looked at the tents. “Mine, too, I suppose.”
Sensing criticism, Wynkyn rushed into speech. “The men are kind, my lady, and the lord has the finest of everything.”
Wharton lifted the black tube he held. “An’ I’ll show ye how t’ darn hose if ye’re nice t’ me, m’ lady.”
“My thanks, Wharton, but I already know how to do that.” Wharton made to hand her the hose, and she jumped back. “I trust in your skill completely.”
Rapidly she turned toward the abbey, and Wharton called, “’Tis yer husband’s.”
“And you know how he likes them,” she called back, grinning at the rude word he used in reply.
She approached the dispensary tentatively, already feeling alienated from this place where she had been poor, chaste, and struggling for resignation. all the windows were open and the door gaped wide, and she could hear someone muttering. She tapped on the sill, and the muttering stopped.
“Aye?” the strong, impatient voice identified the speaker at once.
Edlyn stepped over the threshold. She smelled the black, disgusting odor of wet charcoal and saw the boxes and herbs that cluttered the tables. “Lady Neville, what are you doing?”
The widowed countess pulled her head out of the oven and glared. “I’m trying to start a fire; what does it look like I’m trying to start a fire; what does it look like I’m doing?”