The buttery’s stone walls were thick enough to withstand lengthy sieges and rough storms, its door a slab of wood so dense it had taken six men to hoist it into position for attaching to the walls. Sound didn’t escape such formidable buffers, and a good thing too as Ballard’s hoarse cries resounded in the chamber itself. He buried his hands in Louvaen’s silky hair, loosening strands from her braid so they drifted over his knuckles. Her head slipped back and forth against his palms as she took up a rhythm that had him struggling not to buck himself off the bench. He wanted to gaze at this erotic tableau, of her pleasuring him with lips and tongue, one hand curled firmly around the base of his cock to control his involuntary thrusts, but his eyelids refused to cooperate. He closed his eyes, lost to the sensations that sent fire coursing through his limbs.
Louvaen’s hand resumed its play across his chest, teasing his tight nipples between her fingertips. Ballard whimpered and massaged her scalp with restless fingers in wordless approval. He’d not indulged in this particular delight in centuries. Isabeau would have bitten clean through if he’d tried such a thing with her—not that he’d ever been tempted by the idea, even without the imminent threat of dismemberment. There had been the court prostitutes, women of impressive stamina and talent who offered any service for the right price. A few had done this for him in the shadowed corners of a castle corridor and once in the king’s armory. Efficient and skilled, they’d brought him to orgasm in a matter of moments, his cock barely out of their mouths before they were gone, hands stretched out to take coin from another knight for the same service.
This was different, so very different. The same act, similar position, less skill, and Louvaen was no prostitute with the goal of turning profit. What she did to him pleased her as well. He heard it in her soft murmurs, felt it in the way her hand slid over his ribs to rub and press as if she enjoyed the texture of his scarred flesh beneath her caress. She made love to him with her mouth, leisurely savoring him. All the sensation washing through his muscles swelled in his groin until he tugged on her braid to make her stop. He slipped out of her mouth with a soft pop.
Her gray eyes glittered black, her breath warm as it gusted over his glistening cock. She stared at him, flushed and puzzled. “Am I doing something wrong?” Her question held more challenge than concern, as if she dared him to answer in the affirmative.
Ballard managed a thin laugh. “No, my beauty. What you’re doing goes beyond right. Too right.” He ran trembling fingers over her hot cheek. “If you don’t stop soon, you’ll be catching the mettle in your mouth.”
The wry look she leveled on him suggested he was a trifle lack-witted. “Foolish creature,” she admonished and lowered her head to nip at the inside of his thigh. He jumped. “That’s the best part.”
She took a breath and sheathed him in her mouth again, taking him deep until his tip touched the back of her throat. Ballard fully surrendered to her, groaning her name, his hips twitching with the need to thrust as she drew down and then up along his shaft. His eyes rolled back and his knees lifted as he held her head. “Can’t hold,” he said through teeth clenched tight together. “Gods, Louvaen. Now!”
He came hard, his back arching away from the wall until his spine audibly cracked and his seed pumped out of him in quick spurts to fill her mouth. Her cheeks and tongue flexed as she swallowed. His fingers twisted elfknots into the loose strands of her hair and held on until she’d emptied him.
Louvaen slowly pulled away, pausing to kiss the flushed head of his softening cock. Her lips, swollen with her efforts, curved up into a small, satisfied smile. Reduced to a wreck of leaden muscle and melted bones, Ballard fought to catch his breath. “You’ve finished me.” He slurred the words.
She rose to her feet, her grin as unapologetic as her smile had been lascivious. “I believe that was the idea, my lord.” She leaned closer to kiss him, sucking on his bottom lip.
He mimicked her actions, running his tongue along the underside of her upper lip. “You taste like me.”
She rubbed her nose against his. “I’ve a belly full of you too.” She followed her kiss with another on his bruised forehead. “We’ve been down here too long. They’ll be thinking all kinds of improper thoughts up there in the kitchen if I don’t get back with these spirits.”
Ballard managed to tuck himself into his breeches and lace them closed without stringing too many knots. Standing up and not having his knees buckle presented more of a challenge. He’d like nothing more than to crawl into bed, spoon around Louvaen, and fall into a heavy sleep. “Oh aye,” he said and hauled her up against him. He liked that she was nearly as tall as he was. Every curve notched perfectly into every angle. She looped her arms over his shoulders, wiggling when he cupped her buttocks. “Very improper, especially if you show up with that look on your face,” he teased. The corner of her mouth tempted him. He touched his tongue there and smiled against her cheek when she sighed her pleasure.
Louvaen pulled away just enough for him to catch her smug expression. “And what look is that? The cat who’s stolen the cream?”
“Nothing so tame. More like the wolf after a successful kill.”
She threaded his hair through her fingers. “You may be called many things, Ballard. ‘Prey’ will never be one of them.” She gestured to his shirt, a crumpled heap forgotten under the bench. “One of us will have some explaining to do if you went down to the buttery wearing all your clothes and came back up wearing only half.”
“A benefit of being dominus—I don’t have to explain a damn thing I do.” Ballard reluctantly let her go to retrieve the shirt and slipped it over his head. “And I’d wager you’ve told more than a few people to mind their own affairs.”
She swiped at the bits of wandering goose down that had managed to embed themselves into the weave of his shirt. “Many people and often.” Her smirk revealed she relished each opportunity.
They shared a cup of wine and several kisses before he handed her one crock and lifted the other. He held her hand as they took the stairs, pausing before the door to plant a kiss in her palm. She returned the gesture by kissing his knuckles before easing her fingers out of his grasp.
The kitchen stood deserted except for Magda who sat in a chair sewing by the hearth, a basket of mending at her feet. Whatever thoughts she had regarding Ballard’s time in the buttery with Louvaen, she kept them to herself. She pointed to the clean table where the plucked geese had rested earlier. “Leave the wine there, and put the ale by the fire.”
They did as she instructed. Louvaen’s gaze swept the kitchen before she peered around the screen, listening. “Where’s Cinnia?”
The cook’s mouth quirked as she stitched a tear in a linen shift. “In the stables with Gavin. He wanted to show her your horse’s hoof is healing nicely.”
Louvaen’s nostrils flared. “Is that so?”
Ballard growled. He didn’t think anything could ruin her brief good mood faster than a possible threat to her sister’s precious chastity. The seductress was gone; the shrew reigned in her place. She strode past him, snapped up one of Magda’s skinning knives from the table closest to her, and made for the door to the bailey.
Ballard snatched the knife out of her hand as she passed. “I think not.”
She didn’t waste time fighting him for the weapon, only laid a glare on him hot enough to singe his eyebrows and stalked out in a flurry of skirts.
“You realize there are at least two pitchforks and three shovels out there?” Magda set aside her sewing to claim a spot by the window.
Ballard poured himself a cup of ale from the crock he’d brought up from the buttery. “As long as Gavin doesn’t turn his back, he’ll be fine.” He took a swallow of the brew. “Lad better quit dawdling and marry the girl, or I’ll kill him before Louvaen does. This is getting bloody tiresome; guarding an uncracked pitcher like it’s the crown jewels.”
Magda chortled. “Best entertainment we’ve had in years, I’m thinking. Those two slinking off fo
r privacy, and your lover flying after them like a hobby on the hunt.”
Ballard shook his head. “Come get me if Gavin returns full of holes.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
He entered his chamber, pleased to note someone had built up the fire in the hearth. He appraised his bed with a critical eye. A sumptuous monstrosity generously draped in heavy cloth woven of embossed silk, it took up one corner of the room. He had been its solitary occupant for many years. If his luck held, he’d have a chance to share its generous space tonight.
The chest at the end of the bed contained his clothes, along with a few keepsakes from a life that seemed a distant memory now: the regalia he wore during his investiture as a knight, the spurs bestowed upon him by his sponsor and finally, a gift bequeathed by a proud, foreign queen now long-dead. This last, wrapped in bronze velvet, he removed from the bottom of the chest and carried to the hearth for a better look in the firelight. Modrnicht’s rituals included giving tribute to the women of the household as well as the goddesses worshipped. He’d already spoken with Ambrose about creating a gift he could give both sisters to share, but he had something special in mind for Louvaen, something he intended to offer in private.
Were she like Cinnia or any of the women he’d known in his long life, Ballard would lavish her with jewelry or several ells of silk. But Mistress Duenda was singular, and he couldn’t think of anything more appropriate than to pass the queen’s gift on to her. He unwrapped the velvet, revealing a dagger and wooden sheath inlaid with enamel and precious stones. The weapon itself was the work of a master, its design different from the straight, double-edged knives he usually carried but just as lethal. A tempered, single-edge blade with a gentle recurve, full tang and a thick spine cross-sectioned into a T for strength, the dagger could cut or thrust through a chain mail hauberk, no matter how well woven or riveted. His fingers curved around a pommel of milky green jade fashioned into a hawk’s head. It sat easy in his palm—light, balanced, deadly.
Some might say he’d become clodpated—as beguiled as any callow boy sniffing after the skirts of his first woman. They’d be wrong in most of that accusation. He was no longer a boy, and Louvaen was not his first woman. Even before the advent of the curse, he’d never been moved by a woman, never loved one—certainly not his wife whose lip curled in disgust every time he drew near and never the noblewomen or prostitutes who populated the king’s court and shared their favors. Louvaen though...she consumed his thoughts.
Do you love her?
He stared blindly at the dagger while the question resonated in his head. His mind rejected the idea. He admired her, had been captivated by her fierce character and resolute demeanor the moment Cinnia introduced them, and she complimented him on the blackened eyes she’d given him. She’d break a weak-spirited man or tempt him to murder her at the first opportunity.
Ballard didn’t consider himself a weak man: a cold one sometimes—wearied and twisted by Isabeau’s bane—but unbroken. Louvaen brought him to life, snapped him from a twilight of interminable waiting interrupted only by the curse’s tortures when the flux ran at high tide. He hadn’t known it was possible to embrace lightning until he’d held her, and the experience had left him exhilarated.
Do you love her?
“Does it matter?” he said aloud. Isabeau had cursed him as thoroughly as she’d cursed Gavin. He had no future and nothing to offer Louvaen. Even if Gavin broke the curse by marrying Cinnia, Ballard was too physically warped to live outside Ketach Tor. Louvaen and Cinnia accepted his appearance; he didn’t fool himself that others would do so as easily, if at all. They’d view him as a monster—hunt him down like a beast. His accumulated wealth insured his son and his son’s future bride a life of comfort wherever they chose to abide. They weren’t confined to Ketach Tor as he was or as any wife or leman would be if she bound herself to him. This fortress was his home, his sanctuary, and his prison. He shuddered at the idea of caging Louvaen here with him, even if she were willing.
He wrapped the dagger and sheath in the velvet and returned it to the chest. When winter warmed to spring, he’d send her home weighted down with gold; enough that she could buy her own personal cannon, but he hoped she would treasure this token of his respect and remember him.
For the first time in nearly a week, she rejoined the rest of his household in the solar that evening and took a place among the women to create charms for weaving through the greenery hanging in the great hall. The table Cinnia usually shared with Ambrose as they worked to bind his spells and potions recipes into books was littered with heaps of what looked like refuse raked from the forest floor—dried rue, artemisia and rowan berries, birch bark carved with runes and ribbons strung with oak galls. The women laughed and chatted as they worked, their soft voices accompanying the comforting snap of the fire in the hearth.
Ballard observed them for a while, his gaze resting on Louvaen longest as he admired the way her dark hair shimmered in the firelight. Gavin sat next to him and Ambrose near the fire. All three nursed goblets of ale and discussed what tasks they had before them the next day. For an hour or two, he could fool himself into thinking this was how it had always been, how it would be for years to come—his small household sharing camaraderie. Here he spent time with his son, his trusted friends and a generous, if prickly-tempered lover. As a young man, he would have rebelled against such peaceful domesticity, eager to wage war and prove his prowess to his peers. Time and malediction had mellowed him; he appreciated the quieter moments, especially transitory ones like these.
When the hour grew late and the fire burned low, their little gathering broke up. Ambrose escorted Magda, Joan and Clarimond out of the solar. Ballard suffered a sinking disappointment in his gut as Gavin offered an arm to each sister and was taken by both. Louvaen had not accepted his invitation to spend the night in his bed. She hadn’t declined either, and after their time in the buttery earlier in the day, he’d been almost sure she’d agree. He was wrong.
Both women curtsied and bid him goodnight. Ballard searched Louvaen’s face but saw nothing in her expression that hinted at her thoughts. He nodded, offered an abrupt “goodnight” of his own and turned his attention back to the fire. He was still brooding in his chair a half hour later when a soft knock interrupted his meditations. The door opened, and Louvaen stepped inside wrapped in a heavy robe with her hair loose and brushed into sleek waves. Her bare toes curled against the cold floor, and she gave him a knowing grin.
“Still wish to share that comfortable bed you keep boasting about?”
He was out of the chair and across the room before she could take another breath. She squeaked in protest when he crushed her in his embrace. “You will grant me mercy, mistress?”
She pushed against his chest until he loosened his hold on her. “More than you’re showing me.” She dragged in a deep breath “If you hold me like that in your sleep, I’ll not last until morning.”
He kissed her; a slow, deep welcoming punctuated by soft growls that made her sag in his arms and moan in his mouth. His hands journeyed across her back and thighs, rising to grip her buttock as his hips thrust against her
When they broke apart, she stared at him with hooded eyes. “Bed? Or are you going to let my feet freeze to the floor?”
He swung her into his arms and pushed open the door connecting his bedchamber to the solar. The fire in the hearth had almost guttered, smothering the chamber in shadows. At Louvaen’s impatient squirming, he reluctantly set her down to tour his retreat. She halted before the bed and glanced over her shoulder at him. “Not a mere boast when you said your bed was big. I think you’d need a map to find a person in this thing.”
He came up behind her and slid his arms around her waist. She leaned back and tilted her head so he could nuzzle her neck. “I’ll not let you far enough from me to need a map,” he whispered in her ear.
He turned her to face him and removed her robe. She wore a linen shift that highlighted the shadows of her tightened nipp
les beneath the cloth. Ballard paused in undressing her to admire her body’s outline; the slender waist and long legs, the fragile ridge of her collarbones and elegant slope of her shoulders. Light from the hearth fluttered over her skin, burnishing it a pale golden color. Statuesque, with the bearing of a queen and the grace of a sylph, she made him burn.
Her shudder snapped him out of his reverie. He divested her of the shift and paused at the linen loincloth banded around her hips and between her legs. Louvaen swatted his hand when his fingers slipped beneath the waist edge. He grinned, kissed her and palmed one of her small breasts. “I can be a patient man.”
With no such obstacles stopping him, he stripped bare, carried Louvaen to the bed and dove under the mountain of covers and furs with her. He almost shot right back out to grab the closest weapon when Louvaen screeched and leapt on top of him.
“Sweet goddess,” she exclaimed. “The sheets are like ice.”
Ballard knocked his head against the bolster and exhaled hard enough to lift strands of her hair. His arms closed over her back to hold her still while his heart did its best to slam through his rib cage.
For one horrifying moment he thought Isabeau’s roses had slithered through the window and coiled under his bedclothes, waiting for his return and the chance to trench his flesh bloody with their barbs. The image of them ripping away at Louvaen sent the bile surging up his throat. He glared at her and beat his terror into submission with a lie. “Are you trying to kill me? With all that carrying-on, I thought someone had stuffed a hungry dragon under the blankets.”