“I offered you marriage in all seriousness and in solemn belief in the justice of my suit”—he sank to the floor, dragging her with him—“and you mock me?”
She eased him around until his rump touched the mat. “’Twas my mistake. I have seen men who live by the code of chivalry.” She guided him back toward that hated pillow. “But not for a long, long time.”
She had her arms around his shoulders, one hand supporting his head, just as if he were a baby—or a lover. She should have grasped the simple truth—that he hadn’t lived so long or prospered so well by not seizing opportunity when it manifested itself.
In a tone heavy with sensuality, he whispered her name. “Edlyn.”
When she looked down and caught the expression on his face, she knew she was in trouble. She had presented herself on a platter.
Should she drop him and run? Or should she tend to his well-being? She’d worked too long and hard to drop him, but that confident expression he wore irked her. She got him within a finger’s width of the pillow and let go. Her action was not enough to hurt but enough to give warning she wouldn’t be easy.
She tried to jump back. He already had his arms around her, and he used that off-balance position to tip her forward and onto him. She collapsed on his chest and he groaned.
“Serves you right,” she said, struggling to elbow her way up. “I don’t want this.”
“Be ruthless.” He just kept blocking her, expending as little of his precious energy as possible while she exhausted herself. “Hit my wound.”
She couldn’t do it. She wanted to so badly, but she just couldn’t take him back to the edge of death. Instead she balled her fist and tried to hit his face. He caught her by the fingers and gripped. She struggled, and when she flagged, he grasped the back of her head and held her still for his kiss.
He tried to use his tongue, and that infuriated her all over again. Who did he think he was? Her long-lost love?
Well, he should have stayed lost.
And who did he think she was? A lady of easy virtue?
Her tight-lipped resistance must have given him the message, for he let her pull back her head. She tried to scramble away again, but he handled her with great care, rolled onto his good side, and tucked her half under him.
He was so calm, so deliberate! How could a man who’d been so near death just a few days ago restrain her, a healthy woman? A little alarm worked into her voice as she struggled. “This…is…not…right.”
“I’m just going to kiss you, and that is right between couples who have pledged to wed.”
“I’ve made no such pledge.”
“You’ll see the good sense of it soon.”
He said it as if it were the truth. As if her objections meant nothing. As if she were nothing but a silly lady who needed a man to tell her how to live her life! Worse, he probably believed it, the dunce.
With one thigh anchoring her down, he controlled her. He got rid of her wimple first. The covering slipped easily off her head, and his fingers caught in the fine, straight strands that had escaped her braid. Holding the braid aloft, he stared at it.
“Stop that!” She grasped his wrist.
He looked at her, pressed between the floor and his body. “I remember seeing this, all unbound, in the light of a fire, and seeing you, too, wearing nothing.”
“I wore something! I wore a—” She stopped talking.
Too late. Satisfaction curved his mouth, and she snapped, “What else do you remember?”
He didn’t answer. He just leaned forward and brushed her lips with his. She kept her eyes open, and when he lifted his head, she said, “First you try to sweep me away. Then you try gentleness. What’s your next tactic?”
She must have betrayed an emotion better concealed, for he replied, “Gentleness will do what I wish.”
She tried to stiffen even further, but she knew he was probably right. The loneliness of the abbey echoed in her soul. Oh, there were always people around, but in a place where flesh equaled sin, the residents spurned touch. Her sons hugged her, of course, but she couldn’t help but remember Jagger Castle. She missed the impulsive embraces of the girls she fostered, the respectful kisses of greeting she gave her guests. Most of all, she missed the body embraces she shared with her man, and this unwilling response to Hugh had to be nothing more than a sequestered soul reaching out to the nearest human for contact.
Either that or she was as wicked as Lady Blanche intimated.
Hugh’s forearm lay beneath her head, and he watched her with a fascination she knew to be unwarranted. His regard made her want to squirm, but she held herself still and said tartly, “What are you looking at, knave?”
“At the lady who would be my wife, and—dare I say it?—the woman who saved my life.”
An unwilling warmth softened her. “’Twas the grace of God.”
“Aye, and He used you as His instrument.” He stroked her hair. “Should I not be privileged to rescue God’s instrument from the despair of poverty into which she has fallen?”
Her goodwill evaporated. “I’m doing well on my own!”
“Ah, aye.” He glanced around at her beloved dispensary. “Very well indeed.”
She knew what he saw. The low ceiling, the dirt floor, her carefully tended herb boxes: what was this place when compared to a castle with glass in the windows, a wooden floor strewn with rushes, and tapestries on the walls? Yet because of her previous generosity, she’d had an abbey to come to instead of needing to resort to the streets to support her children. It had been as the priests said—the Lord rewarded good deeds. What Hugh saw when he looked on her was a woman who had fallen on bad times. She thought of herself as a woman who had done well with little.
She voiced a woman’s universal complaint. “What asses men are!”
He didn’t answer that. He only brought her head to his and kissed her again. Little kisses, nibbles that gave her a taste of him. She didn’t want to know about him and kept her teeth clenched, but his tongue darted through her closed lips and she had a sample of him anyway.
The billows of his breathing lulled her as his chest rose and fell against hers. She was hungry for human contact, it seemed, for she found herself inhaling with him, exhaling with him.
“Open,” he whispered. His beard had grown to a soft pelt that caressed her chin, and the sweet scent of him titillated her desires.
Plastered so closely against him, she felt his heart pulsate against her breastbone, and the beat overwhelmed her own natural rhythm to sweep the blood through her veins.
“Edlyn, give to me.” His hand rubbed her neck, then her scalp, in slow, hypnotic circles.
Her eyes had closed, but she saw with his vision. Her ears had failed her, but she heard her own denial. She felt his triumph as he surged into her mouth, then his frustration as she let him do what he would and made no attempt to reciprocate.
He gathered her closer when there was no closer, tangling his legs with hers, pressing his knee between and high until the pressure brought familiar sensations, then new urgings. She fought to deny them, but he moved insistently, insidiously.
“Feel me,” he crooned. “’Tis Hugh who holds you, who pleasures you. ’Tis your old friend, your new lover, your future husband.”
“Nay.”
“So faint a sound!”
He mocked her, but benignly. His hand—how many did he have?—wandered over her throat, her shoulder, along the length of her torso to her hip and rested heavily there. So aware of him, she could even imagine the pain of his wound. She fought the merging of two selves into one. He was an enchanter to so absorb her into his bones and his bloodstream.
“I feel your passion,” he murmured. “So long denied, so hungry and demanding.” His knee moved. “When you respond—”
Preservation made her answer, “Not going to.”
He stopped moving, stopped breathing, and remained so motionless her eyes opened and fixed on him.
She had seen him unc
onscious. She had seen him in pain. She had seen him recovering. She had seen him curious. She had never seen him determined, but she saw him that way now.
His level gaze held hers. His wide mouth slashed his face straight across. In a voice all the more convincing for its lack of emotion, he said, “I’m not going to leave you alone. I’m not going to let you get away. I will hold you until you respond or until both of us perish of hunger and thirst.”
She wanted to tell him it wasn’t possible. Someone would come looking for her. And lovers didn’t really die in each other’s arms, regardless of the romantic fables.
Yet looking at that hunting-mastiff expression he wore, she thought it just seemed easier to give in. Then it would be over, she’d be free, and he’d have his manhood back.
After all, that was what this was about, wasn’t it? A woman had defied him, and his fragile male pride had been shattered. Although he didn’t look shattered. He looked patient, and that was worse. She didn’t want to surrender, but she’d done a lot of things she didn’t want to in her life. That was, after all, a woman’s lot.
Resigned, she lifted her head off his arm and pressed her mouth to his.
“More.”
His lips moved against hers, and she told herself again she was resigned. But her hand had curled into a fist. Instead of using it as a weapon, she propped it under her head. With the other hand on his shoulder and her eyes wide open, she kissed him with her lips, then her tongue.
He opened for her easily, a studied contrast to her earlier resistance. But of course he would—he was getting his own way.
Resigned. She was resigned.
Breaking the kiss, he asked, “Has no one taught you better than that yet?”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s more to this than stabbing a man with your tongue.”
Before she even thought she said, “But I’m so good at that.”
“Only when you talk.”
At some point, she must have put some space between them, because he pulled her close again and rolled her onto her back. She didn’t like the way he rose above her, dominating every space, but she was resigned to giving him his own way.
“Close your eyes,” he instructed.
She obeyed.
“Relax.”
She tried.
“Good, now learn.”
It was the kiss she’d dreamed of all those years ago. Intimate. The roughness of his tongue lapped at the tender tissues of her inner cheeks.
Passionate. His hands roamed her body, touching places so long untouched she might have been a virgin once more.
Playful. He nipped at her until she responded with a fight. Then he wrestled her into submission and kissed her some more.
She’d never before met a man who liked to kiss. When women talked, they agreed that kissing wasn’t pleasure for a man. Kissing was only waiting until the woman indicated her readiness to mate, and if the woman didn’t indicate readiness soon enough, then the man quickly suppressed the kissing. That had certainly been Edlyn’s experience.
But not with Hugh. Hugh kissed her mouth, her neck, each sharply angled plane of her face, and then her mouth again. He didn’t try to take off her clothes. He didn’t act impatient when she wanted more. In fact, he held her off with as close to a smile as she’d seen from him and said calmly, “I knew I could make you respond.”
Resigned? Had she thought herself resigned? She wasn’t resigned! She was angry. Abruptly, deeply furious. His smug comment did what nothing else had done. He had relaxed, the whoreson, and she brought up her knee so fast he didn’t have time to even attempt defense. One good strike, and she stood above him while he writhed on the floor.
Livid, panting with rage, she said, “I’ve already buried two husbands, but I’ll make an exception for you. If you ever touch me again, I’ll bury you before I ever wed you.”
6
“A warrior should never exalt in his victory, Wharton, before the enemy is completely disarmed.” Leaning heavily on the long table, Hugh made his way around the dispensary.
“Ye are wise as always, master.” Wharton danced around him, holding his arms out like an anxious parent with a toddler. “Don’t ye think it’s time t’ sit down?”
“’Tis a lesson I’ve had taught to me before, but never has it been illustrated as thoroughly as was done this day.”
“She’s a cruel woman, t’ have unmanned ye so,” Wharton said fiercely.
“Edlyn is a warrior-woman and worthy to bear my children.” Pausing in his perambulation around the room, Hugh spoke to Wharton in direct disapproval. “And she is your future mistress, so you will speak of her accordingly.”
Wharton wrestled with the concept of a woman with the power to direct him.
“In sooth, what she did and what she said did not matter. She gave me a great gift.” Hugh took a breath. “She proved to me all my parts are functioning and I am going to live.”
“Women are good fer that, at least,” Wharton agreed. “Ye’ve been up longer tonight than last night, and last night longer than th’ night before. Shouldn’t ye rest now?”
“My strength returns every day tenfold.” Cautiously, Hugh pushed himself away from the table and lifted his arms. The skin pulled but not unduly. Edlyn had taken the stitches out the previous day, and even she had seemed stunned by his improvement. “Let us not forget, Wharton, Lady Edlyn’s herbal skill brought me back from the dead.”
“Don’t say that, master.” Wharton shivered. “’Tisn’t natural.”
“I remember,” Hugh insisted. “I was lying there behind the oven. I couldn’t open my eyes. I could barely breathe. Then I smelled something, and it smelled like…like the odor of a fresh destrier before battle, or like chain mail when it has been oiled. I wanted to breathe it in. I wanted to grow strong on the odor.” He clenched his fist, and his gaze grew distant. “Then the bandage became soft and warm, like well-rubbed leather, the kind I have my gauntlets made of.”
“Ye were dreaming, master.” Wharton’s assurance faded as Hugh turned his glare on him. “Weren’t ye?”
“I know a dream, and I know reality, and this…this was both.” Hugh considered. “Or neither. But it was real.”
“Aye, master.” Wary and confused, Wharton asked, “What else happened?”
“Taste. I could taste it.”
“Taste what?”
“Taste her.”
“Lady Edlyn?” Wharton scrambled backward. “She thrust herself into yer mouth while ye were sleeping?” He thought. “Or whatever ye were doing?”
“Of course not, you dolt. It wasn’t like that at all!” Wharton was a loyal servant, but sometimes his ignorance amazed Hugh. Yet trying to explain seemed hazardous at best. “Flavor burst on my tongue, a flavor such as I’ve never tasted before. I wanted to savor it. I wanted more and ever more. And I knew it was the flavor of Lady Edlyn.”
Wharton shivered. “’Tis ungodly what ye’re saying. Has she bewitched ye?”
Slowly, reserving his strength, Hugh moved toward the door. “For what purpose?”
“Ye say ye will wed her.”
“So I will.” Hugh caught the jamb and swung the door wide to let in the night.
“’Tis not necessary. Ye can have her fer less than that.”
Jolted, Hugh remembered how Edlyn had doubted men and their honor. “What is your thought?”
“There’s none here t’ compete fer her. Just take her!”
Carefully, so Wharton would never suggest such a thing again, Hugh turned to his man. “That would be the act of a knave, indeed, and I will slit the throat of any man who suggests I am a knave.”
Wharton’s eyes bulged, and he audibly gulped. “Of a certainty, master. I meant that ye have no competition, so ye may wed her as ye wish.”
“I thought you meant that.” Hugh smiled, but he kept his gaze level and icy. “Although there is no competition for her, the lack of competition doesn’t lessen my appetite.”
“But…why her?” Wharton couldn’t hold in his cry of frustration, right from his wizened heart. “Why do ye wish t’ wed her?”
After due consideration, Hugh decided Wharton deserved some explanation. “She is in desperate straits here, and I feel a sense of responsibility.”
Wharton freely gave the benefit of his advice. “Give her money.”
“But I need a wife.”
“A young wife,” Wharton countered.
“An experienced wife, one who can manage my estates with a sure hand until I have learned everything a mercenary knight needs to be a noble lord.”
“Aye, a wife should be of use to her husband.” Wharton easily comprehended that. “But she talks ugly t’ ye.”
“I will sweeten her disposition with myself.” Indeed, Hugh looked forward to that.
“She doesn’t want t’ marry ye.”
“So you think Edlyn is a woman who knows what is best for her?”
Wharton’s reaction was automatic and unthinking. “O’ course not!”
Hugh hid his half-smile. “Nor do I. She is an exemplary woman, but she’s only a woman, and she’ll only be happy when she accepts the guidance of a man. Men are, by definition, the wiser gender.”
Wharton clearly itched to argue, but how could he? Every word Hugh said was true. Wharton bobbed and bowed, and satisfied he had squelched his servant’s little insolence, Hugh stepped outside.
Outside. He hadn’t been outside since the day of the battle. He’d been stuck in that stuffy dispensary, dying in slow degrees until Edlyn had worked a miracle. And she had worked a miracle. He remembered little of his illness, but he remembered that.
Now the stone wall around the garden protected him from anyone who might be out so late. The night air smelled as sweet as freedom, and he squinted up at the sky overlaid with clouds. The rain, more than a mist yet less than a shower, wet his face. He had heard it on the thatch earlier, but knowing and experiencing were two different things.
Fearing to leave his master out in his weakened state, Wharton shuffled out to stand beside him. Wharton hated water of all kinds. He said it would kill a man to drink it and wither his cock if he washed in it, so Hugh took a fiendish delight in keeping him wet.