Now that he had her, he wasn’t going to waste any time.
He continued to tell her how much he loved her, which made her uncertainty fade. If he loved her so much, then surely what he was doing was his right. He was demonstrating that love. When he was finished pawing her, he grabbed her by both arms and pushed her down onto the cold, dirty floor.
The straw beneath them was dry but dirty as he pushed her onto her back and began fumbling with the bottom of her long woolen robe, the same woolens that all pledges of St. Blitha wore. His body was heavy atop her, squirming on her, and her uncertainty returned. We should not be doing this, she said, but he assured her that this was what people who loved each other did.
She believed him.
The woolens were shoved up, past her knees, to her hips, as he tugged and pulled, trying to expose her white body beneath him. When she tried to protest, he captured her mouth with his lips, his tongue pushing into her pink recesses. With his mouth keeping her occupied, his hands continued to yank up the woolens, exposing her belly. He couldn’t pull it any further, so his hand snaked underneath, fondling her round breasts and feeling her nipples harden against his palm.
This is what people do who love one another, Andressa. Trust me.
But she couldn’t relax, not when he was pinching her nipple, running his hands all over her breasts. His mouth continued to feast on her face, all over her face, distracting her from what he was doing with his hands as he continued to tell her how much he loved her. She tried to push him away one last time, but she didn’t do a very good job of it. It was true that she loved him, and she’d missed him as much as he missed her.
This is what people do who love each other.
She wanted him to know she loved him, too.
She stopped resisting.
Then, he was fumbling at his own clothing, lowering his hose and rubbing his stiff erection against her thigh. She felt his hardness, greatly apprehensive. His mouth moved across her face again and he shifted his body, pushing himself between her thighs. Without hesitation, he slid his manhood into her virginal body.
She gasped with surprise as he thrust into her. It stung and was uncomfortable. But he ignored her gasps of pain and thrust into her one more time to completely seat himself. In that action, her virginity became a memory, but he didn’t care. His mouth was on her ear now, groaning of his love for her once more, telling her how slick and warm she was, and how his love for her was now complete.
But she wasn’t at all at ease with what he was doing to her, love or not. He was heavy on her, and her woolen garment was around her neck and mostly covering her face now as he repeatedly thrust into her, lifting her legs up to allow him more room to move. She lay there, motionless and overwhelmed, but she kept telling herself over and over that he loved her. He was doing this because he wanted to show her how much he loved her.
And she was letting him.
She loved him, too.
… didn’t she?
His pace quickened and the thrusts became harder, more forceful. She could feel him grinding his pelvis against hers, their bodies joined as closely as a man and woman could be joined. Every contact brought a shock of sensation that bolted up her body and she wondered if this was what love really felt like. It was painful and uncomfortable, and the more he thrust into her, the more she questioned his love.
Is this really what love feels like?
She was coming to wish it would soon be over.
He gave one last, hard thrust, and his entire body shuddered. He was panting, breathing heavily, his body weight squeezing the breath from her. She couldn’t see with her woolens up over her face and everything below her waist felt cold and exposed. When he finally withdrew from her body, he pulled the woolens off her head and she found herself looking into his smiling face.
You did well, he said.
I did? she asked.
He nodded, pulling her woolens all the way down, helping her cover up.
I’ll return for you, he promised. I swear I’ll return.
When? she asked.
Very soon, he said. By the next full moon, I shall return and I shall take you away.
She believed him. He said he loved her, didn’t he? They had known each other for years and, although he was a little flighty and saw inappropriate humor in situations where there was no humor to be had, she’d never known him to be a liar.
He’d return for her, he’d said. She clung to that belief until she received a missive from him two months later announcing his marriage to a French heiress and a relocation to his wife’s estate in France. It was a blow beyond belief.
She would never see or hear from him, again.
This is all my life is ever going to be, she thought dismally. Light and love had left her, and all she had left was a former shell of herself. The woman before Rhyne had promised her the world didn’t exist any longer. All she would ever have and all she would ever know were the stone walls of the dreary abbey and a life of piety she surely deserved, for on top of being blindingly foolish about Rhyne’s declaration of love, she had sinned as well.
She deserved everything the hell of St. Blitha brought her.
It was a hell that even the Devil would run from, but little did she know that God had taken pity upon her. He was about to send her help in the form of a man known as an Executioner Knight. A man who had sinned far worse than she could ever imagine.
It would be a chance meeting that would change her life forever.
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Please enjoy an excerpt from The Mountain Dark.
~ ET REDDET PRETIUM ~
(You shall pay the price)
May, Year of our Lord 1206
London
They were lingering in the shadows, waiting.
It was in the dead of night along a smaller avenue that bottlenecked into a street of taverns to the east side of London’s great walled city. They knew that the men they had been trailing all evening were going to be spilling out through this narrowed funnel of a road, out into the uneven, dusty streets that smelled of compost and animals.
That was the plan, in fact – lying in wait like predators for their prey to come forward.
In this case, it was a matter of honor.
Kress de Rhydian was at the head of the contingent in the shadows. An enormously muscled man with cropped, blond hair and eyes as cold as steel, he’d been the one shamed. Well, it really wasn’t only him, but he was the most affronted because he’d been the one most blatantly insulted. Those bastards from Northampton weren’t going to get away with it.
He would exact his revenge.
Cheaters. Those base-born churls were going to get their comeuppance and Kress was going to deliver it right to them, front and center. He and his companions had just come from a gambling den in the Ropery district near the River Thames, a den they’d been warned to stay away from but one that had the most beautiful women and the most delicious food, all of it designed to lure in high ranking knights and nobles who expected fine treatment.
It had worked. Too well. Kress and his friends, Achilles de Dere, Alexander “Sherry” de Sherrington, and Bric MacRohan had all been lured into a place only known as The Pox, which actually should have been their first clue that the establishment was something to stay away from, but they’d gone anyway, enjoying fine beef and women that smelled of flowers. At the gaming tables, they’d faced some Northampton knights in a game called Passe-dix, an ancient game of chance.
One rolled the dice and took one’s chances in the game but, in this case, the Northampton knights had brought their own die, which happened to be weighted. The more they tossed it, the more they won. It took Kress and his companions about ten rolls to figure out what was going on. Not that they were stupid, but they’d been drinking the very fine alcohol provided by The Pox and it had muddled their heads.
But they’d figured it out, eventually. And they would get even.
So now,
they wait in the shadows, knowing that, at some point, the Northampton knights were going to have to come through this street in order to reach the numerous taverns and boarding houses that were up on Candlewick Street. Oddly enough, no one in Kress’ group was waiting with swords in hand. What they had in mind would be far more of a lesson than a blade through the gut.
And they waited.
The night passed and they could hear the sounds of the city around them, settling in for the night. There was a brothel on this narrowed street with a madam who was quite strict with her customers. They came in for the night and they remained for the night, as she didn’t leave her doors open all night so that thieves and cutthroats could rob her.
They could hear the woman shouting at some of the patrons who were being too loud with their drink and revelry, and then they could hear a couple fornicating as the woman urged the man to “plow her field”. That term set off Alexander, who started to laugh as the woman urged her customer to “plow harder”. He must have done a good job because the woman stopped begging and satisfied grunts followed. Alexander clapped silently for a job well done.
But Kress kept his divided attention to a minimum. He was determined not to lose sight of why they were really there, why they were standing outside in the damp night, waiting for those who had eschewed common decency to cheat anyone they could out of their hard-earned money. The crew from Northampton hadn’t only done it to Kress and his friends, but to anyone else they could manage to wrangle for a game of chance. There had been several that Kress had seen.
Now, their time was up.
After standing in the shadows for at least a couple of hours, the offenders finally decided to make an appearance. Extremely drunk, Kress and his friends could see the five Northampton knights as they headed into the narrowed avenue, stumbling and laughing. The madam from the brothel yelled at them through a window, but they drunkenly yelled in return.
Plug your putrid hole, harpy!
Alexander would have laughed again had he not been so focused on the knights who were about to fall into his orbit. Kress stood next to him, his big body tense, while across the avenue, they could see Achilles and Bric, both of them poised and waiting. The men had a plan, and knew what they had to do, so as the Northampton knights came within range, the trap was sprung.
The four knights rushed out into the darkened avenue. Bric, a massive Irish knight with a nasty temper, threw the first punch, knocking out the knight nearest him. That made the odds even at that point – four on four – and the knights from William Marshal’s stable went to work on the ambushed Northampton men.
Because the men from Northampton were so drunk, it truthfully wasn’t much of a fight, and that worked in Kress’ favor. They were uncoordinated, and falling over, so Kress and his men pushed the Northampton knights down into the dirt and began stripping them of everything on their body – boots, clothing, purses – everything. That had been the plan. When one knight, a heavyset man with ham-sized fists tried to fight back, Achilles, who was a very big man himself, put his booted foot on the man’s neck as he yanked off the man’s belt.
Breeches came off, followed by boots and tunics as the drunken Northampton knights tried to fight back. Everything was pulled right off of them. One man knocked himself cold in the struggle, leaving Bric to gleefully pull off all of the man’s clothing quite easily. In fact, everything was stripped off in a rather short amount of time, with two of the men unconscious and three of them struggling to figure out what was going on.
Soon, there were five naked and dirty men in the gutter as Kress, Achilles, Alexander, and Bric confiscated every shoe, every tunic, every weapon, and every purse. As their victims tried to stand, realizing they were without a stitch of clothing on, Kress faced them.
“If you want your possessions, go to Farringdon House, home of William Marshal,” he said. “I will ransom your possessions back to you to recoup the money you stole from me.”
A very drunk man sat on the ground before him. “How are we supposed to pay?” he demanded, sounding as if he were close to tears. “You have everything!”
Kress’ eyes narrowed at the man. “Then mayhap next time you believe it will be a good idea to cheat, you will think twice,” he said. “I do not care how you get the money to buy your clothing back. That is up to you. But if you want your possessions, you’ll find them all at Farringdon House.”
The man slapped the ground. “Give me my breeches, at least,” he demanded. “Give us our dignity. Will you not do that, at least?”
Kress looked at Bric and Achilles, who shook their heads slowly. He returned his focus to the men on the ground. “You did not think twice before robbing us of our money,” he said. “Let this be a lesson to you. Cheat men of what belongs to them and you shall pay the price.”
The man on the ground was so drunk that he was driven to tears. “But we have nothing!”
Kress looked up to see the madam from the brothel standing in her doorway, watching what was going on. In fact, their actions had drawn a good deal of attention, and now they had an audience. All around them, people were hanging from windows, standing in doorways, watching the humiliated knights and having a grand time of it. Kress pointed to the madam.
“Ask her to help you,” he said. “The one you called the harpy.”
As he began to back away, arms full of possessions, the men on the ground looked over at the madam, who simply snorted at them. Then, she went back inside and slammed the door, her message obvious.
As Kress and his men headed back down the dark street leaving their victims naked and dirty, they were rather proud of themselves for not outright killing them. They were, in fact, knights of the highest order, sworn to William Marshal above all, and in particular, Kress and Achilles were part of a trio of knights who had earned a name for themselves in England and beyond. As far as The Levant, if the names of de Rhydian or de Dere or even Loxbeare were heard, men whispered in fear…
The Executioner Knights.
Therefore, the Northampton men could have met a much different fate had they only known who it was they were cheating. On this night, fortune was on their side, indeed.
They lived to tell the tale.
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Spies. Killers. Gentlemen knights.
Medieval England is about to face the Agents of William Marshal.
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By The Unholy Hand
The Mountain Dark
Starless
The Promise
A Time of End
Winter of Solace
Lord of the Shadows
Lord of the Sky
Related to the series:
High Warrior
Godspeed
Rise of the Defender
About Kathryn Le Veque
Medieval Just Got Real.
KATHRYN LE VEQUE is a USA TODAY Bestselling author, an Amazon All-Star author, and a #1 bestselling, award-winning, multi-published author in Medieval Historical Romance and Historical Fiction. She has been featured in the NEW YORK TIMES and on USA TODAY’s HEA blog. In March 2015, Kathryn was the featured cover story for the March issue of InD’Tale Magazine, the premier Indie author magazine. She was also a quadruple nominee (a record!) for the prestigious RONE awards for 2015.
Kathryn’s Medieval Romance novels have been called ‘detailed’, ‘highly romantic’, and ‘character-rich’. She crafts great adventures of love, battles, passion, and romance in the High Middle Ages. More than that, she writes for both women AND men – an unusual crossover for a romance author – and Kathryn has many male readers who enjoy her stories because of the male perspective, the action, and the adventure.
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Winter of Solace (The Executioner Knights Book 5) Page 34