Raising her hand to his face, she traced his mouth with her fingertips. He was grinning, and she grinned back.
“Any man who engages you in a skirmish expects to crush you with impunity. Use your weaknesses to confound him.”
She nodded slowly. “I understand. To be a good knight, you must have strength and skill. To be a great knight, you must be intelligent and contrary.”
He laughed. “You’re good for my pride.”
“You’re a great knight, but if you must go to besiege my fief, I require a pledge you’ll not be hurt.”
“The greatest knight in Christendom? Hurt?” He laughed and kissed her cheek. “This ‘kind, generous, great’ fighter? Hurt?”
“William,” she faltered as his tongue flicked the sensitive skin over her chin. “William, you haven’t given me your pledge.”
He nudged her chin aside with his nose and kissed her neck. “This clever fox? Hurt?”
“William?” she murmured as he nuzzled her collarbone. “Your pledge.” The sharp edge of his teeth nipped her shoulder through the material that swathed it. “William.” She gulped, and lost the thread of her thought. “William, the churls.”
“Curse them.”
“Supper. Your father and the boys will howl if ’tis late again.” She sighed as he lifted her off her chair and into his lap, and lightly bit her ear.
“Curse the supper.”
“We can retire right after supper.”
“And do what?” he whispered.
“I’ll show you,” she whispered back, pressing her nose to his.
He grunted and eased her onto her feet. “We have the supplies ready for a siege.” He supported her as she regained her balance. “I’ll take the men out tomorrow morning. You don’t need to get up and see me off.”
Catching his sleeve, she asked, “Have I been manipulated? Has my clever knight retired from the field with all he sought?”
“Not everything,” he assured her. “You still don’t trust me enough to tell me what worries you.” He waited, but she said nothing. “I’ll always be here, sweeting, when you’re ready to speak.”
She sat in the herb garden, rich with mature plants that awaited their harvest. She waited in the cool of the early evening for William to come to her and tell her he would go and fight once more.
He’d recovered from the wound received at the siege of her fief. She hadn’t recovered from the guilt. All those weeks of illness, just to take back a castle she didn’t care about. It hadn’t been much of a wound, everyone had assured her, but with typical male irresponsibility he hadn’t cleaned it, hadn’t cared for it. He’d arrived back at Burke, delirious, dragged on a litter of branches.
Frightened, Saura had helped Maud care for him, applying a steady application of smelly poultices and bathing him when his fever rose. She hadn’t thought of the future then, only of bringing him back to life. She thought about it now, bitterly, unceasingly. Was this her reward? Cure him to send him out to fight again?
She shouldn’t have let him go, although how she could have stopped him, she didn’t know.
Leaning against the wall on her favorite stone seat, she bubbled with a fury and a discontent. He’d come through that gate beside her and stand before her and explain, in that deep and golden voice of his, that he had to go throw himself in harm’s way once more. And she’d listen and make the proper discontented noises and then, like a good wife, she’d let him go again.
Gritting her teeth, she listened to the tromp of his boots at the back of the garden. Here he came, striding around the walls to open the gate.
But he didn’t. One moment he was outside the far wall, the next he stood cursing inside, complaining of the thorns.
Saura stood up and cried, “How did you do that?” She heard him turn as if bewildered, and then turn back.
“Do what?”
“How did you come through the wall?”
“What? Oh, that?” He laughed, a golden sunshine that never failed to warm her. “There’s a miniature gate in the back wall. ’Tis hidden under the roses and well protected by the thorns, I assure you. I used it as a child, but ’tis a squeeze now.”
“Who knows about it?” she demanded.
“Every wee one in the castle, I suppose. ’Tisn’t a secret.” He strode towards her, through the rows of plants. “Why?”
“There was someone in here on our wedding day, but the ladies insisted I’d been dreaming, for they never saw him leave.” Excited, Saura caught his arm and shook it. “I thought I must be mad, but he was here. He was really here!”
“Aye, I’m sure he was. What did he do?”
“Touched me, I think. And spoke to me.” Remembering those words of love, hissed through a wrap of cloth, she shuddered.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“That feeling of menace, of eyes, following my every move, vanished with the guests. I don’t hear that hungry whisper.” Remembering, her voice dropped. “I no longer hear the tread of soft-clad feet.”
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” he demanded again.
She squirmed. William sounded dangerously neutral, and she wondered at his thoughts. “I felt like a fool. No one else believed me. So many people think that because I’m blind, I’m stupid.”
“And you group me in with those?” The arm beneath her hand stiffened perceptibly.
“Nay. Nay, of course not.” She bit her lip. “I just….”
He sighed. She knew he was disappointed, but he lifted her face and dropped a light kiss. “A chance, Saura. That’s all I ask. A chance. I believe you when you say someone was here with you.” William’s hand covered hers, and he reached around her in a hug. “That’s why I must go and confront him.”
Her excitement faded, returning her cold fear. “Who?”
“Charles. It has to be Charles,” he said with sad certainty, as he urged her down onto the bench.
“Why does it have to be Charles? Why not Nicholas? Or Raymond? Or even someone we don’t suspect?”
Propping his foot beside her, he leaned on his knee and said, “Logically, it must be Charles.”
“Oh, logically!” she said with a fine scorn.
He ignored her contempt and in an even tone agreed, “Aye, logically. Charles is the only one who needs the profit my death could bring him. Nicholas already owns half of Hampshire. Raymond doesn’t need the land. His family owns lands scattered on the Continent and all over England.”
“Does Raymond?”
“What?”
“Does Raymond own any of this land?”
“Nay.” He snorted with disdain. “His parents wouldn’t give up an acre of ground before their deaths. They keep Raymond dependent on their good nature, keep him hungry so they can control him.”
“So it could be Raymond.”
“Nay,” he stated firmly. “Nay. Raymond is my friend.”
In some strange way, that made Saura feel better. William was wrong about Charles, of that she felt sure. She’d heard the jealousy in Charles’s voice, heard his unhappiness about his station, but she could never discern in it anything beyond pettiness and a longing to hide from his troubles.
Raymond. Raymond was not so easy for her. Layers of complexity colored his speech. He, too, was jealous of William, not of his wealth but of his contentment. Raymond was a man driven by his ambition and his family, cynical and wary.
So that left only Nicholas. Nicholas, her odd friend.
“Nicholas,” she breathed.
William hesitated. “I did consider him. Except for one thing. Nicholas would never have killed Hawisa.”
“Why not?”
Easing her to one side, he sat beside her and leaned an arm around her shoulders. “He offered to take her off our hands, and I had given her to him. She was his property, and he would never, never destroy anything of value he owned. He still owns the first penny he was given on Christmas morn.”
“Hawisa enraged me.”
“Nay, dearling, I’m sorr
y, but I know Nicholas. He maintains his peasants with food and wine so they’ll not sicken and fail to work for him. He keeps his accounts meticulously. He never trusts a steward or bailiff.” He hugged her. “He’d have to be mad to have killed Hawisa.”
“’Twas no accident, you’re sure.”
She sought the opposite reassurance, but he couldn’t give it to her. “She fought the man who pushed her. She had bruises on her neck in the shape of fingertips.”
“No one truly believed I did it?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Not even Theobald thought you did it. As Lady Jane pointed out, you couldn’t have knocked her down the stairs. She stood head and shoulders above you and outweighed you by three stone.”
She leaned against him, and he shifted her sideways so she lay across his lap. “Does your wound bother you?” she asked.
“Nay. Even your dragon of a Maud pronounces me cured.” He tightened his hold. “But I do still have a sickness, a sickness only you could cure.” He lifted his knee and levered her head close to his, and her eyelids drooped as his mouth settled on hers. He explored her with the delicacy of a musician, but that wasn’t what she wanted.
Before their marriage, she’d been a fallen woman, reveling in dissipation, and then to ensure her respect, he’d deprived her of himself. They’d wed, and once again she reveled in the marriage bed, blessed by contract and the Church.
And he had left, only to return wounded and insensate. When they brought William home, babbling with fever from the infection of his wound, Saura wanted nothing more than to cure him. She wanted to bring him back to consciousness, bring him back to life, and then wrap her hands around his throat and choke him until he promised never to fight again.
They’d had no loving since the day he’d ridden away to siege, and now he came to her to declare he’d go again. In Saura’s breast boiled a mixture of frustration and anger at him, at circumstances, at herself. A plague be upon him! He was leaving again, to fight this invisible threat that stalked them. And she couldn’t stop him. She wanted to spread a protective cloak over William, for with some dreadful illogic she felt his misfortune was her fault. It wasn’t true, of course. He’d been blinded before she arrived and cured during her sojourn. But he was still leaving her.
Tearing her lips away, she said urgently, “Maud says you are healthy?”
“Aye.” He followed her mouth with his, seeking her sweetness.
She put her hand against his shoulder and pushed. “Lie down on the bench. I wish to verify.”
“Dear heart,” he caught her hand and kissed the palm, “this garden is protected by only a gate. I can’t lie down here.”
Giving in to her fury, she trapped his face in her hands and ordered, “Lie down.”
“The servants—”
“Need no instruction on how to knock. I’ve taught them this is my private place, so we’ll take advantage of it now.”
Taken aback by the passion in her voice and the fierce insistence of her gestures, he gaped with the amazement of one never ordered. “At least let me—”
“Nay!” Snatching her hand back, she pushed him again. “I will know your body beneath mine before I let you go.”
He examined her face in the light of the setting sun. Her skin was tinted pink; perhaps the light caressed her, perhaps she was flushed. Her lips set firmly, her eyes burned with fervor. She was thinner with worry and firm with determination, and he yielded to her. He slid down on the bench as she shifted over him, his back resting on the stone, his feet planted on the ground. She swung her leg over him and her hands raced over him frantically, seeking a confirmation of health. He realized how she missed the comfort of looking at him to check his progress, a comfort most wives took for granted. He grunted as she jerked at the laces of his shirt and she slowed to trace the rupture of skin that had felled so great a warrior.
“’Tisn’t much, is it?” she said. “I’ve not touched it, I feared to hurt you, but I thought they might be lying to me, telling me falsehoods to ease my worry.”
“’Tis only a slight wound,” he answered hoarsely. Her fingers were less nimble than usual, probing the still-red flesh around the wound, but he withstood the pain as he comprehended why she did it. She had to reassure herself, and her frantic concern cheered him.
Did she love? Perhaps what he witnessed was the birth of love, and the thought brought a slow, steady burn of desire in his heart. Not just desire for her body, but a real desire for her, for all of her. Her years of struggle and worry and pain with Theobald were behind her, but those years had built a wall of mistrust he wanted to smash. He wanted to demand her trust, force her to give it, force her to tell him her mind. Words and rigor had no power against this wall; only the slow, steady proving of worthiness would prevail. He understood while he railed against the necessity. The only thing that kept his purpose steady was her pleasure in his company and in his body. Perhaps, when he’d proved himself to her, he’d also see the birth of the pure trust that would signal his victory.
He felt the pressure as she settled her weight on him. She rode him like a horse, her skirt tucked beneath her with no consciousness yet of his willingness to stud. She wanted union, he knew, but her need to explore him obviously took precedence. Demanding without words, she kneaded his shoulders, still covered by his shirt. She ran her hands down to his hands, examining each finger, each nail, each line of his palm, and her sure touch pulled his attention from her. Focused with painful intensity on his own senses, he shut his eyes and reveled in the garden of scents and feelings she constructed around him.
Saura would have smiled when she felt him relax beneath her, but it seemed so long since she had smiled her lips felt stiff and unpracticed. Anger held her in its grip, anger and the fervor to know him once more. When she raised his hands to her face, she petted the skin on the backs, nuzzled his palm, tasted one finger. She sought reassurance, but his groan encouraged her to pursue sensuality for his sake. Levering herself up, she unlaced his shirt all the way and pressed her hands to his abdomen. He liked that; he bucked beneath her and suddenly the unpracticed smile broke across her face. If William had been looking at her, he would have been worried, for it was no smile of happiness, but the sweet curl of revenge.
She’d pay him back for the worry, the anger, the painful maturity he was forcing on her. It would be a temporary revenge, but revenge nevertheless. Her hands skipped to the laces at his breeches and with a slow, steady pull she opened the tie and spread the rope to its greatest width. She slid her fingers into the gap, then slipped away, caressing back up to his breastbone where his heart thumped in a heavy beat. And she smiled.
“I can’t stand,” he began, and reached for her.
“Aye, you can.” She raised up, and the evening coolness struck them for the first time. It must be getting dark, she realized, and she had no time to indulge him. “Give me your hands,” she ordered, and he submitted them meekly. Placing them on her waist, she said with stern authority, “Don’t move them.”
She trembled with the effort this slow and steady assault cost her. She wanted to pillage him, satisfy the burning inside her, take him with no care for his pleasure, yet know his pleasure met hers irresistibly. She simply wanted him to realize he could no more deny her than she could him. As he had done once before, she now taunted him. “You, my Lord William, are the man who’s going to purge me of my frustration. Right. Now.”
He laughed and groaned. Prepared, she caught his hands as they flew away from her waist and returned them with firm emphasis. “You’ve had your turn, William, now yield me mine.”
He groaned again. Her purpose was now clear, but he was a fair man and he let her have her way.
She touched his mouth with her open lips, mixing their breath, and he tried to capture her with his tongue, but she’d have no part of it. Pulling back, she laughed, a slow, mocking chuckle.
“Witch.” He accused her with less heat than he intended.
She heard his torment a
nd responded with the slow slide of her body down his. Standing, she untied his garters and hooked her thumbs in his waistband. He lifted his hips in response to her unspoken demand, and she pulled his clothing away, all of it.
She didn’t know what prompted her, pure curiosity perhaps, but she leaned into him and tasted him. His writhings stopped; every respiration, every indication of life, every motion of enjoyment failed him. Alarmed, she pulled her mouth away. “Are you well? William?”
A huge sigh answered her.
Never had William been tormented in such a sweet way. He wanted to move, to shout, to keep Saura where she was and to tear her away. He held his breath, gritted his teeth, held the bench as if it would buck him off, and when he could stand no more, he muttered, “Saura!”
Smiling her vengeful smile, she rose to her feet and lifted her skirt, asking, “Is this what you want?”
“Damn you, Saura, come to me if you value your own pleasure.”
She didn’t question, simply brought herself over him, skirt held high. She wedged one knee against the wall, keeping one foot on the ground, and found him with unerring instinct. She wanted to plunge on him, satisfy herself with one swift race to completion, but more than that she wanted to torture him. Controlling herself, she eased up, using her extended leg for guidance. Experimenting, she swiveled her hips on the way down. He gasped and strained up against her, and she quickened with excitement. Oh, he liked that! She rose again, and swiveled back down, and rose.
His hands clamped on her waist, and he jerked her straight down, lifted her.
With her hands and her body, she fought William; not enough to destroy their union, but enough that he grunted, “Stop, you little wanton.”
Of course, if he’d wanted to stop her, he could; he could easily have overpowered her at any moment. It spoke volumes for his patience that he could listen to her curse him, maintain their rhythm and still encourage her with his ever-increasing gusto.
She panted, she struggled; she found little screams escaping from her throat with no volition of her own. And when she rose above him one last time and the feeling burst within, he was with her. He relished the shudders that drove her to the brink of insanity and when she finished, his back arched off the bench and he forced her back to the brink with his own mighty explosion.
Candle in the Window: Castles #1 Page 29