Reaching down, he snagged the shift’s hem. With his fingertips on her skin, he raised the shift. His eyes blazed with fierce pleasure and that strange fury. He liked making her uncomfortable, he liked stripping her, and she shut her eyes to seal out the sight of his intrusion.
As if that helped. She knew his every movement. His touch alerted her as he skimmed her thigh, then her hip, her waist. As physical as his touch, his gaze sought out her bare parts and relished them, and she didn’t know now whether she shivered from cold or from embarrassment.
Suddenly with both his hands he stripped the shift off over her head. Her eyes sprang open as he cupped her breasts again.
“Look at them. They’re beautiful, and they’re mine.”
His possessiveness brought the sound of choked amusement to her lips. “So you said.”
Startled, he asked, “When?”
“When you were sick. You grabbed me and said, ‘Mine.’”
Tilting back his head, he laughed out loud. “Did I? Did I indeed?” The water was drying on his skin, each drop evaporated by his heat. “If you were going to run, you should have done it then.” He dropped to his knees in front of her.
She tried to scramble back. He caught her with one arm around her rear. In a soothing tone, he said, “I’m just going to take off your hose.”
Her hose. The only things left between her and…“I don’t think I can do this.”
“Aye, you can.”
He looked up at her, and she cursed the stupid impulse that had led her to reveal her anguish when he was kneeling at her feet. Pressing her legs together didn’t lessen her discomfiture, nor did staring out into space above his head. He was examining her, and he probably saw every flaw. After all, she wasn’t fifteen anymore.
Then he said the same thing, but with a totally different intonation. “You’re not fifteen anymore, are you? You’re not that scrawny little lass who used to follow me around. You’re a woman now.”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t know what to say.
“Aye, you’re going to give me what I want. Call it a debt fair paid.”
He said that in a more businesslike manner, and she wondered how to get him back to that other, more worshipful tone.
He sat back on his heels. With both his hands behind her, he separated her legs, and before she realized his intentions, he tasted her.
“Hugh!” She shrieked his name as if she were calling on a saint. She tried to step back. He held her too closely and used her wild action to widen her stance.
“You taste just as I remember,” he said, looking up at her but obviously not interested in meeting her eyes. “That night you gave me the fairy remedy.”
If anything, that appalled her more than his lascivious plans. “You remember—what do you remember?”
“The taste of you.” Again his tongue flicked out.
“You didn’t taste me!”
“I sucked some part of you.” He burrowed closer, using his lips to open her and his tongue to torment her.
“My fingers.” She gasped as pleasure tightened its grip on her.
He didn’t answer. He had found a place in her flesh that made her try to escape and get closer, both at the same time. And when her legs started shaking, he took his mouth away. He was done, thank the saints. If he hadn’t stopped, she would have humiliated herself by collapsing, by pulling him on top of her and begging. He’d given her a reprieve.
“Your fingers.”
It took her a moment to remember what he was talking about.
Then he took her hand and sucked on her fingers. “A different savor, perhaps, but definitely you. But could you tell me why I thought we were in a barn?”
Her trembling legs almost betrayed her, but she stiffened her knees. “A barn?”
“I was making love and looked up, and you were above me, giving me such delight…”
He looked up at her. She looked down at him. He’d confused the memories, but somehow he’d placed them in her head. She remembered now—the heat, the scents, the motion, the excitement. She remembered something that had never happened.
“You made me a happy man,” he said. “You gave me a taste of yourself, and with that taste, you told me what life could be. You saved my life, and I owe you for that. And Lady Edlyn”—his hands had been resting on the back of her thighs, but no longer—“I always repay my debts.”
His finger entered her from behind. His tongue lashed her from the front. She didn’t want to be the first one to make a spectacle of herself as she climaxed, but his finger deliberately coasted in and out while his tongue, in a counterpoint of rhythm, touched and withdrew.
She couldn’t stand up. She had to tell him. But she bleated, “I can’t…”
“You can.” He widened her legs. His finger plunged in her.
Too intimate. Too shameful. Too good.
She spasmed and cried out, and he pressed her with his open mouth, using his lips and tongue to prolong the exquisite sensuality.
When he had extracted every shudder, every moan, he removed his finger. He kissed each of her thighs and held her up with one hand on either cheek. He nestled his face against her stomach and waited, patiently, for the shaking to stop. And when it had, he asked, “Can you stand alone now?”
She couldn’t. Right now, she didn’t think she’d ever be able to stand alone again. But pride stiffened her spine. She clenched her teeth and nodded.
“Good,” he whispered. “Good. I would hate to think I had wearied you before the night had truly begun.”
What should she say to that?
Briskly, he untied her garters. “I have been a fool for you, Lady Edlyn.” The wet hose clung to her legs, and he worked the material down each calf. “Step out,” he instructed.
She had to rest a hand on his shoulder to balance on one leg, but he didn’t seem to mind.
In contrast to the care with which the hose had been chosen, Hugh tossed them aside. “You saved my life. I have paid you back and will continue to do so all our days. But no woman makes me a laughingstock before my men and gets away with it.”
“I don’t understand.”
Standing, he grabbed a folded square of cloth off the table, shook it out, then twisted it around her hair. “Dry it.”
A simple command, but she didn’t want to raise her arms before him.
“Dry it,” he said again, and shaking out another square, he went to work on her body. He rubbed it hard, without a shred of ardor, returning the circulation to her skin.
That commonsense approach freed her to tend to her hair, and when she had dried most of it, he handed her another towel.
“Now, dry me.”
Her body still rang with the results of his seduction, and if she touched him, it would all begin again. As he no doubt knew, the wretched knave. “You’re already dry.”
“Not all of me.”
She wouldn’t look.
“Dry me,” he said. “It will delay your fate a little longer.”
He had that note of warning in his voice again, and she placed the cloth on his pectorals. Only his pectorals, but if she dried lower, her towel would become entangled, she would be trapped by curiosity, and she’d see what she’d scarcely glanced at.
So she dried his chest, then his arms, with slow sweeps of the cloth. “I didn’t make a fool of you.”
“I went to rescue you from the knaves who had kidnapped you. I thought you were raped or worse.”
“So ’twas your imagination which played you false,” she said, triumphant about shifting the blame that he seemed intent on placing at her doorstep.
Taking her wrists, he directed her hands downward. “You know how when your sons run off to play and get involved and don’t come home?”
“Aye…” His lower belly demanded attention, and his hips. And she could stall by drying his upper thighs, although it was difficult to accomplish without looking. If only she could concentrate on the conversation.
“You’re w
orried, the sun is getting low, and you imagine all kinds of dreadful things that could have happened to them.”
“Aye.” She was beginning to get his drift, and as she comprehended his words, she also comprehended his intention.
“Then they run in, dirty, scratched, without a care, and you’re so happy they’re safe you want to hug them and slap them at the same time.”
She stuck out her lower lip. He didn’t want her to dry him. He wanted her to stroke him, and mayhap, as he watched her squirm, he would get a little of his revenge.
“I rushed out and ruined my best blade on a stone for you—and you’d vanquished your captors yourself.”
A bubble of indignation rose in her. He wanted her to caress him intimately, and he insulted her at the same time? Brusquely she circled him, moving with a speed he didn’t think to counter, and began to dry his back. “Would you rather I had done nothing?”
“Nay. Oh, nay, I’m proud of you for your quick thinking.”
He sounded sincere, and she relaxed enough to swipe at his rump. First one side, then the other, both covered with those fine blond hairs. He had a rather attractive behind, with the sucked-in, muscled cheeks of a very active man.
“But while I’m proud of you, you scared me to death.”
He turned and faced her, and she once again got the shock of seeing him in all his glory. Funny how the back wasn’t nearly as threatening as the front.
“I’ll hear nothing but trouble from my men for this, and so you must pay now.”
“Pay?”
His hands closed on her shoulders, and he brought her body close against his. He was warm and yes, a little wet in spots, but his intention was quite clear.
Completely rattled, she blurted, “Are you going to hit me?”
He stared at her, and his perception went far beyond their limited acquaintance. “I don’t beat women. There are better ways to get their attention.”
She relaxed.
Then he smiled, a toothy, rapacious grin that would have been at home on a hungry predator, and she realized she had relaxed too soon.
“Aye, you’d better be worried.” He backed her over to the pallet of skins in the corner. “It could take me a very long time before I’m satisfied with my revenge.”
She was in trouble. She was in big trouble. Brightly, she asked, “Would you like to tell me the details of your last battle?”
He just kept smiling.
10
“We have them, master. Eight good-sized rogues, ripe fer hanging.”
Hugh took Wharton’s arm and moved him away from the tent and toward the fire. “Did you have any trouble?”
Wharton’s sharp cackle of mirth made the other men look as they prepared for bed. “Nay, yer lady fixed them up properly. The reavers could scarcely stand from th’ cramps in their guts.”
Looking up at the stars, Hugh decided the rewards of the marriage bed had eased his indignation, and he said proudly, “She’s a clever lass.”
“Aye, fer a lass.” Wharton dismissed her ingenuity with scorn. “It wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t gone haring off like that.”
A smidgen of worry nudged at Hugh’s mind. “How many women marry their last husband’s executioner?”
“Ye didn’t execute him. Not exactly. An’ anyway, he deserved it. I don’t suppose ye’ll be wanting my services this night?” Wharton shook out his bedroll.
“Nay. I have no need of your services tonight.” Hugh glanced back at his tent. He’d left Edlyn sleeping, but he had the urge to wake her again. For some reason, he needed to imprint himself on her, and he needed to do it tonight. With only half a mind on his words, he said, “Have the sheriff hang the reavers as soon as we leave Eastbury.”
Wharton paused in the act of kicking the already sleeping squires. “Not first thing in th’ morning?”
“’Twill upset my lady. She developed a tender place for those reavers.”
“Move, ye varlets!” Wharton used his foot to clear a space for his bedroll. “’Tis odd. They seemed to know her more than simple reavers should know.”
Alarm jangled in Hugh’s mind. “Why do you say that?”
“When we said they’d hang fer trying t’ rape a lady, they groveled. They said they never would have touched her.”
“Flimsy prattle.” Hugh dismissed that.
“I thought they meant it.” Wharton scratched as he lowered himself to the ground. “They’d been watching her, I think. It sounded as if ’twas her they’d been planning t’ capture. Not just any woman, but Edlyn, countess of Jagger.”
The rumble of men’s voices woke Edlyn, but her eyelids were so weighted she thought it would take a mill wheel to lift them. She thought about prying them open with her fingers, but that would involve moving her hand from wherever it rested.
She wiggled her fingers.
Ah, her hand lay beneath her cheek. Close to her eyelids. Very close. As the abbess always said—
Without use of mill wheel or fingers, Edlyn’s eyes sprang open. Lady Corliss. The abbey. She observed the dim sunlight that entered the open tent flap. Morning Mass. She’d missed them all!
The men’s babble died. A large shadowy shape stood up from the table where the voices had originated, moved across the tent floor, and knelt beside her. “You’re awake.” Hugh’s voice. Hugh’s now-familiar touch on her cheek. “I was getting worried.”
“How late…?” Her voice came out raspy.
Hugh snapped his fingers. “Mid-morning.” Another shadowed figure came to his side and gave him something, then withdrew. Hugh lifted her head and placed a goblet to her lips. She drank greedily, and when she had finished, he said, “You’re hoarse this morning. Too much moaning last night, I suppose.”
She planted her hand on his chest and pushed, and he sat down hard. The men at the table laughed, but Hugh laughed too. This morning, he no longer cared if his troop mocked him. He’d extracted his revenge last night.
If only she hadn’t enjoyed it quite so thoroughly.
“Go back to sleep,” he said. “It’s a misty morning, not good for anything but sleep.”
“I have to go back to the abbey.” Although how she was going to get dressed with all those men sitting around, she didn’t know.
“Why?”
He didn’t sound hostile, but that single brief word didn’t bode well for her plans. “If I am to leave this place with you, I need to pack my belongings.” Then it occurred to her she was assuming much. “That is…I am supposed to go with you?”
“You’ll go with me.” He gathered her hair in his hand and moved it off her shoulder, then covered her shoulder with his palm.
His silent gesture of possessiveness made her uneasy, and she asked pertly, “May one ask where?”
“To Roxford Castle. I am to take possession of Roxford’s lands as well as his title.”
“Roxford.” A face flashed before her. Long and thin, handsome, intelligent, and…cruel. Edmund Pembridge, now the former earl of Roxford.
Robin’s crony.
“Do you know him?”
“Nay.” She denied it, although she didn’t know why. It was, perhaps, the instinctive reaction of a woman made uncomfortable by the admiration of a man.
“I’m surprised. I thought you would have known such a leader in the rebellion.”
Had Hugh seen something in her face? Or was it simply logic?
She feigned irritation. “I didn’t know them all.” Twitching her shoulder away from his touch, she buried it beneath the furs and did her best to change the subject. “Is that why you married me? To manage your new possessions?”
In a flat tone, he answered, “It is a sound plan, is it not?”
It was a sound plan. He’d never owned property. She’d managed Robin’s, and successfully, too. And it certainly reduced the previous night to its rightful dimensions. “Then I must—”
“Wharton already gathered your belongings from your room at the abbey and brought them here in
a sack.”
She withered at the thought of Wharton pawing through the few pathetic things she’d managed to amass since she’d come to the abbey. But some of the items were important, and she asked, “Did he bring everything?”
“All of it,” Hugh confirmed. “Although he might as well have burned it.”
Appalled, she sat up. “Nay. Say you will not!”
The men at the table cleared their throats as Hugh lunged to cover her. As if she would be so stupid to show herself to them! She held a thin blanket before her and glared at Hugh, and he glared back. Jerking his head, he commanded, “Out!”
She wondered briefly if he meant her, then stools tumbled and men fled the tent, shutting the flap behind them.
Enough light leaked through gaps in the tent pieces for her to see Hugh’s stern features. “Tell me why I shouldn’t burn that pathetic pile of drab clothing and worn blankets,” he demanded.
Tell him? Not likely. “Those are my possessions,” she said firmly.
“I’m your husband,” he answered. “They’re now my possessions.” He slipped his thumb along the ridge of her collarbone. “As are you, my lady Roxford.”
He had an expression on his face she recognized, for she’d seen it often last night before the candle burned down and left them in darkness. She caught his hand as it wandered down her chest. “I submit to your dictate obediently, as a wife should, and will discard most of my previous possessions, as my lord demands. I ask only that you allow me to pick out two things before you burn all else.”
His hand turned in hers, and his fingers tickled her palm. “Make me.”
“Make you?”
“Enthrall me. Enchant me. Make me do your bidding.”
She hated playing games like this. She’d done it before with the highest of hopes. She’d given everything, used every wile, and when she was done. Robin had praised her and promised to do as she begged, then he had forgotten or given the favor to another, better lover. No, she wouldn’t give in to Hugh’s challenge. “I’m not an enchantress,” she said gruffly.
“Ah, but you are.” He leaned into her, crowding her back.
A Knight to Remember: Good Knights #2 Page 13