“I might ask you the same thing.” She gave an affronted huff of her own. “At least a dragon would have kept the blankets warm. I didn’t expect a dip in your bed would feel the same as the dip I took in your frozen pond.” She settled her weight harder on him, melding her body to his from shoulder to knee. Her fingers followed the angle of his jaw and curve of his nose. “Do you have a hatred for warming pans or a nice toasty brick?”
Ballard trailed his hands down her spine to her buttocks, sketching lazy circles over her smooth skin. “I do now if this is what happens when I don’t have the sheets warmed.” He kissed the fingertip wandering across his lower lip. “Forgive me. I didn’t think of that small comfort. I’m not bothered by the cold.”
“Obviously not.” She flashed him a grin and shifted until his erection nestled between her cloth-wrapped thighs.
The curse offered one or two unexpected boons, and his altered eyesight had its benefits. Even in the bed’s curtained darkness, he saw every detail of her features—long eyes with heavy eyelids, the prominent nose and angular cheekbones, full mouth and sharp jaw. She was beautiful in a way Isabeau had never been—that regal inner strength carved into the very bones of her face. Ballard thought her breathtaking. “Kiss me,” he ordered.
She complied instantly, still smiling as her lips met his. They spent several moments like that, buried under the covers and exchanging kisses that were, by turns, languid and passionate. When they paused to breathe, Louvaen did an odd thing. She covered his eyes with one hand, took it away and repeated the action.
Ballard frowned. “What are you doing?”
She shrugged. “Black as a demon’s heart in this bed. I can’t see my hand in front of my face, but I can see your eyes; like an owl’s, all glowing and round and lit from inside.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “I never thought I’d bed a giant bird. What do you see with those eyes?”
He flipped her on her back so quickly, she gasped. Ballard rested his weight on his elbows so as not to crush her. “You mock me,” he said in his most threatening voice: a difficult task when her thighs parted and she raised her long legs to grip his hips.
Her fingers kneaded the muscles in his neck. “Only in the kindest way,” she teased. “And I very much like your gold-coin eyes.”
“Owls eat mice.”
She snorted. “Didn’t you call me a wolf earlier? I’ve yet to witness an owl eat a wolf.”
“This owl does.” He lunged at her and buried his face in her neck. She shrieked with laughter as he growled and snuffled at her throat, trailing soft nips from her jaw to the top of her shoulder. She twisted in his arms when his fingers scuttled up and down her ribs, jabbing a knee into his side as she tried to avoid his tickling. Their play turned serious when Ballard nipped a line down her chest. He paused and blew a stream of warm air over one nipple. Louvaen moaned and grew still except for her hands. They gripped his shoulders, nails digging hard into his flesh. He took her breast into his mouth and suckled, his weight holding her down as she arched and whispered encouragements.
His senses reeled. She smelled of flowers and tasted sweet. Her slim body entwined with his, soft and eager. The only other woman he’d taken in this bed had been Isabeau, and those encounters had nothing to do with lovemaking and everything to do with war. This contradictory creature, both waspish and loving, bewitched him. He’d cheerfully spend the rest of his days tangled in the covers with her.
He switched to her other breast, lavishing it with the same attentions, while his hands slid down her sides to the linen loincloth and stopped. He abandoned her breast to nuzzle the hollow of her throat. “The red sovereign is truly a tyrant,” he grumbled.
She shook in his arms with silent laughter. “Don’t complain so. You’re not the throne upon which she sits once a month.”
“No, only the miserable supplicant who kneels before her.” He stroked her legs down to her calves and trailed his tongue over her collarbones. “I want to please you.”
Louvaen pushed against him, shoving until he rolled to his back and she lay atop him once more. Her loose hair fell forward, surrounding him in a sweetly scented curtain. “You are pleasing me,” she assured him. “I’ve not shared a bed with a man in a long time, not since I lost Thomas, and you are as fine a man as he was.”
Ballard’s breath locked in his chest as he met her steady gaze. She scolded with the sharpness of a well-honed axe blade, but her unexpected, forthright compliments shocked him speechless. She kissed the tip of his nose before shimmying down his length to disappear beneath the blankets. He lifted the covers to peer at her. “Louvaen, what are you doing?”
He fell back against the pillows on a gasp as her tongue laved a meandering path up the inside of his thigh. His nails raked the sheets when her lips closed over his bollocks and sucked them gently into her mouth. The sounds erupting from his throat rang bestial in the darkness; thin whines and low growls interspersed with ragged breaths. He hadn’t expected or even hoped for this when she reappeared in the solar. He was still stunned by their interlude in the buttery. The gods who’d turned their backs on him centuries earlier now chose to grant him the boon of Louvaen’s affections. He wasn’t a man to turn away so gracious a gift.
As she’d done in the buttery, she milked him until he flooded her mouth with hot seed and reduced him to a quivering mass of muscle and blood that tumbled through his veins like rapids. Perspiration trickled down his temples and dewed his belly even after he kicked the blankets off to cool down. He licked dry lips and worked to slow the pants that heaved in and out of his lungs. Louvaen crawled from the foot of the bed, confiscated his share of the covers and nestled down into his side.
“That was lovely,” she purred in a smug voice. “We should do it again very soon.”
Ballard wondered how soon was soon and if he’d survive a third encounter. He spooned around her wrapped form, unwilling to crawl under the sweltering blankets just yet. He tucked her head against his shoulder and encircled her waist with one arm. “This is how your husband died.” He nuzzled her hair. “Satisfying the desires of his lusty, demanding wife.”
Her soft chuckle tickled his shoulder. “No, though he swore more than once I was trying to kill him with my enthusiasm.”
Ballard thanked those newly generous gods for having him meet Louvaen after she was widowed, otherwise he would have challenged Thomas for her. “He was a fortunate man.”
She tangled her fingers with his. “I was a fortunate wife. Thomas was exceptional. A man who dealt with the dead but embraced life with great joy. He taught me to laugh.”
“You still grieve him?” How could she not? Every word she spoke about her husband resonated with admiration.
“I do, though the pain lessens with each year.” She turned in Ballard’s arms, and in her features lingered an old sorrow. “He died of the plague.”
Ballard winced, recalling the mockery Ambrose, Gavin, and he had made about the nature of her husband’s demise, some directly to her. She’d either responded with a sharp insult or a smiling negation. Death came to everyone. Even he and Gavin, with their lifespans stretched unnaturally long by the curse, would die—either by each other’s hand or Ambrose’s mercy. Sometimes joking about it kept the fear of death at bay. No one joked about plague. “I’m sorry, Louvaen. Had we known—”
She pressed a finger against his lips to halt his apology. “I bear no ill will and neither would Thomas. To be honest, he’d laugh at your conjectures and offer a few of his own.” She grinned. “Several townsmen swore when we married that he’d be dead in a week; scolded to death or knifed in his sleep.”
He captured her hand and kissed her palm. “Ah, more fortitude than sense.”
She arched an eyebrow. “You’re just as guilty of that charge. You bedded me.”
“Considering that I’ve had you once days ago and been at your mercy twice today, I think it’s safe to say you bedded me, Mistress Duenda.”
They exchanged grins and slipped into
a contented silence. He nearly groaned when Louvaen ruined the moment by asking “Do you miss your wife?”
Did he miss her? Only during those times when he retreated to his cell in the storerooms and rode out the flux in a fit of convulsions and agony that made his eyes bug out and his voice go hoarse from screaming. Oh, he missed fair Isabeau then, prayed for the ability to roll back time. He’d negate contracts, turn her over to Cederic with a smile, and declare no two people deserved each other more; that or kill them both and bury their bodies far from his demesne.
“No, ours was an arranged marriage over lands. There was no affection between us.” An understatement of colossal proportions, especially in light of the time he shared with Louvaen. Isabeau had lain in his bed colder than one of Duenda’s corpses and oozing revulsion for him thick as melted tallow. It had taken all of Ballard’s effort to work up an erection and bed his wife. He could give lessons to Louvaen’s husband on fortitude. “I didn’t wish for her death, but I didn’t sorrow when she died.”
“I think that is something to sorrow in itself.”
If she only knew. He shook his head to rid himself of darker thoughts. Louvaen’s lips were soft under his as he kissed her. “This isn’t how I want to spend tonight with you—talking of dead husbands and dead wives.” He wanted many nights with her like this. “And considering you literally just sucked the life out of me, I’m about to either die or fall asleep on top of you.”
Louvaen countered his statement with a wide yawn. She turned her back to him once more and settled into the curve of his body, lifting the covers for him to join her. “You promised you’d warm me if I slept in your bed, and these blasted cold sheets aren’t going to warm themselves.”
He did as she ordered, uttering a contented sigh when she pressed against him skin to skin. His flesh burned hot, and he longed for the caress of the frigid air on his limbs, but it was a small price to pay to have Louvaen in his arms. He kissed the fragile skin at her temple, heard her mutter a sleepy “Good night,” and fell asleep soon after.
Dawn came far too early for his liking. He awoke at her first stirring. Sometime in the night he’d rolled away from her and thrown off the blankets. She’d promptly stolen them. The only part of her visible was the crown of her head at the top of the cocoon she’d fashioned. He gathered her into his arms. “Are you awake, termagant?” His breath puffed out in a warm cloud that dissipated in the cold air.
A muffled “Maybe,” drifted from the swaddling. “What hour is it?”
“Sunrise.”
Quick reflexes saved him from taking an elbow to the face as Louvaen exploded out of the covers, fell through the bed curtains and onto the floor with a thud. Ballard swung out of the bed in time to watch her sprint across the chamber and snatch her shift up from the floor where he’d dropped it the night before. He stood in front of her, eyebrows arched, as she struggled to pull the garment on, hopping up and down and growling in frustration as she tried to squeeze her head through one of the armholes.
“Louvaen,” he barked, losing patience.
“What?” she snapped back, arms bent at odd angles as she battled with the shift.
He clutched her shoulders. “Hold still,” he commanded. She did as he ordered, feet shuffling impatiently as he adjusted the shift. It slipped over her head to cover her body.
She blinked at him and scraped wispy clouds of tangled hair away from her face. “Thank you.” She glanced past him. “I need my robe.”
He touched her elbow as she sidled around him. She’d surprised him with her reaction to the news it was dawn, as if she feared the weak light leaking through the slats at the window. “So eager to leave me?”
Louvaen paused, her eyes almost silvery in the dim light. Her gaze caressed him, lingering on his morning erection. Ballard exhaled a surprised “umpf” when she launched herself at him hard enough to rock him back on his heels. His hands slid across her back to hold her close and keep his balance. She kissed him as if starved, her tongue sliding between his lips to ravish his mouth and demand the same response from him. He was only too happy to oblige.
She ended their kiss on a shuddering breath and pressed her palms against the sides of his face. “Lackwit.” She admonished him in a thin voice. “If I had the time, I’d be on my knees right this moment to give you a proper good morning.” She grinned at his groan and wrestled out of his embrace to retrieve her robe. “Cinnia sleeps like the dead but wakes with the clerics. I don’t need her catching me sneaking out of your chambers at daybreak.”
Ballard raked a hand through his hair. “Don’t tell me the girl doesn’t know you’ve rumpled the sheets a time or two in your life. That isn’t innocent; it’s thick.”
She laughed. “If she were stupid, I wouldn’t have to worry about this at all. Cinnia is; however, as clever as she is beautiful. And stubborn. I’m having a difficult time as it is convincing her to resist Gavin’s charms until she’s wedded. Coming from the mouth of a hypocrite, it will be impossible.”
He resisted the urge to embrace her—afraid he might not let her go—and settled for petting her untamed hair. “The rules for a widow are far different from those for a maiden.”
Louvaen sighed and leaned into his caress for a moment. “We both know that, and so does she actually, but she’ll use any reason she can find to weaken my argument. I’ll still win, but I’d rather not make it harder on myself.”
She gave him a final peck on the cheek before dashing out of his bedchamber. He listened to her light steps as she crossed the solar, then the stealthy creak of the door as she slipped into the corridor. “Virgins,” Ballard muttered to himself as he sauntered to the garderobe. “Troublesome, useless creatures.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ballard went about his morning preparations in a much more leisurely fashion than Louvaen, devoting a few minutes to scraping the rough stubble off his face and tying his hair back before traipsing downstairs to break his fast.
Breakfast was a haphazard affair with Magda glaring at him and Gavin while they sopped bread in their ale. “Don’t let anyone rush you two.” She clutched her broom as if it were a mace. “It isn’t as if I need the room and that table to prepare for this evening.” Ballard wondered who she’d whack first.
Gavin eyed her warily, gobbled his bread and gulped down the ale. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked to his father. “If you act as my striker, we can get that length of pulley chain repaired and replaced on the bridge by early afternoon.”
Ballard nodded. “I’ll meet you in the smithy. He hid a smile behind his cup as his son rose, edged past Magda and fled the kitchen.
“Six gone, one to go.” The housekeeper set the broom aside and cleared Gavin’s place.
Ballard settled in his chair, stretched out his legs and ignored Magda’s disapproving frown. “Chased all the rest off before they could eat?”
She gave an unapologetic sniff. “Only you two took your time getting to the table. The others ate and went about their tasks before you came down the stairs.”
He rolled his eyes. Magda made it sound as if he’d sauntered in at midday after a morning spent lolling in bed. A pleasant thought, and an indulgence he would have embraced if Louvaen hadn’t shot out of his chambers at the crack of dawn like her hair was on fire. “Where are the lovely sisters?”
“Cinnia’s bower for now, up to who knows what. She promised she’d be down in an hour to help me make pies. Your shrew is to meet Ambrose in the great hall later to decorate for Modrnicht.”
Ballard spat the mouthful of ale he’d just taken back into his goblet. “Is that wise?”
Magda shrugged and paused in her sweeping to lean, smirking, on her broom. “Probably not, but entertaining. We’d have a true Modrnicht then—one which follows the old ways and offers sacrifice—because one is bound to kill the other before we ever sit down to the feasting.”
Despite Magda’s dire prediction and her penchant for bloodshed that equaled Louvaen
’s, no one tried to kill anyone else during the hectic preparations for Modrnicht. For Ballard, the day was like any other at Ketach Tor. He helped Gavin in the smithy for hours, working the bellows to keep the forge hot and pounding metal until the tinnient chorus of hammers rang in his ears long after they’d smothered the fire and taken the newly forged link to repair the bridge. They then set to work repairing the roof of a storage building that had caved in from the weight of accumulated snow. The anemic sun sat low on the horizon by the time they finished and made for the kitchens.
When evening fell, he went downstairs to join the festivities. He’d dressed with care, outfitted in a velvet cotte the color of Louvaen’s eyes, and a sword belt tooled with decorative scrollwork and inlaid at intervals with ruby cabochons. Even his boots were free of caked mud and polished to a rich sheen. Such finery was wasted on him, he thought. No amount of costly velvet or polished gemstones could overcome his disfigurements, but he’d succumbed to vanity anyway in the hopes Louvaen might admire him.
The head table, unused for centuries, sat in the middle of the hall. Its great size once accommodated as many as fifty people at dinner. Ballard recalled the times he’d hosted banquets when King Waleran’s nomadic court had taken up residence at Ketach Tor for weeks. Keeping so many people fed had decimated his larder, thinned his hunting grounds and put a sizeable dent in his coffers. While he was loyal to his king, Ballard had celebrated when the court left his castle for another fiefdom and another nobleman to impoverish.
Magda had set only one end of the table. A white tablecloth covered the surface and was dressed with embroidered napkins and lit beeswax candles set in silver holders. Silver plates shimmered under the candlelight and shared space with several platters of food and pewter pitchers filled with spiced wine and sweet milk. Cushions covered the benches, and a dantesca chair occupied the space where the castle lord sat. A small heap of bundles wrapped in silk, linen and wool sat to the side—gifts to the women for Modrnicht.