Burdett gestured them inside. As with everything, the chamber for serving drinks was in perfect order. On the other side of the corridor was the pantry, with all the accoutrements for cutting the trenchers out of bread.
As they left, Hugh caught Edlyn and turned her to face him. “You may not have wished her to kiss your boot, but I saw the look on your face. You were jealous.”
“I was not.”
Her sharp chin stuck out, her cheekbones stretched her skin, and her eyebrows formed two slashes of brown across her forehead. She wasn’t a pretty woman, but those angles challenged a man much as a quintain challenged an untried squire.
Hugh felt challenged, but he wasn’t untried. He knew just how he would bury his lance in her. They’d been celibate since they had left the abbey’s grounds, and he’d been almost too busy to care.
He wasn’t busy now.
“But she might have thanked me!” Edlyn said.
Her resentment made him blink. “For what?”
“For what? For talking you into letting them stay.”
That made no sense to him. “It wasn’t your decision.”
“I know that, but they would have been thrown out without coin or goods if I hadn’t insisted.”
“Insisted?” Nothing could dent his good humor, and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “You begged.”
She tore herself away from him. “Aye, I’m good at that.”
He blinked at her back as she swept away. What did she mean?
He tried to remember. The only time he heard her beg was in bed. He stroked his chin. Was that what she meant? He watched her walk ahead of him using that sway that so attracted him. That was probably what she meant. She knew he liked it, that’s why she walked that way, and that’s why she’d mentioned making love to him.
Although why she sounded bitter, he didn’t understand.
Probably it was a woman thing. Probably she was remembering how good it had been on their wedding night. The saints knew he was remembering.
Especially when she walked like that. And she’d removed her cloak too. She said it was warm enough without it, but now he knew better. Probably she wanted him to see her in that traveling gown he’d bought her. She wore it for him, so he’d know he possessed her just as he possessed the gown and everything she had. And he deemed that important. He believed it was better to have a woman who depended on him for everything. He’d seen too many noble marriages where the wife owned land and was related to great men, and the husband never knew if she’d remain with him should he have troubles.
Edlyn did depend on him for everything, and look-she now sent out clear signals she wanted him. This was a right and proper arrangement.
Neda had moved ahead, but he lagged behind and now she hurried back. “You’re tired after your journey.”
Hugh blinked. Tired? He thrived on traveling. He’d done it his whole life.
“I should have realized it at once.” Neda made a “tsk, tsk,” noise. “My lady is drooping, too.”
If the steward and his wife were to remain in their present positions, Hugh had to break them of the dreadful habit of interrupting when Edlyn was deliberately enticing him.
“Follow me and I’ll show you the bedchamber.”
On the other hand, perhaps Burdett and Neda could have some intelligent ideas.
Burdett spoke now. “We’ve had our servants work with your squire-Dewey, I think his name is-and your possessions have been moved into the solar, my lord. I apologize for anything that is missing. We’ll do our best to locate it, of course, but your man Wharton told us of your incident on the road, and most things seem to have been repacked in a most haphazard manner. Neda will see to it in the morning.”
“Aye.” Hugh didn’t care about that right now. Edlyn had kindled a fire in him, and he longed to let it burn him. “Does the solar have a door?”
Burdett didn’t seem to understand that. “Aye, my lord, it…it does.” Trying to anticipate any other odd queries, he said, “It’s spacious, as I think you will see, with a fireplace, many fine tapestries to block the drafts, and glass windows of which we are particularly proud.”
“Does it have a bed?” Hugh asked.
Comprehension dawned on Burdett’s face, and he exchanged a conspiratorial smile with his wife. “A very large one, my lord, and it has been aired and is ready for occupancy.”
With a spring in his step, Hugh followed Edlyn up the spiral stairs to the story above the great hall.
The long, wide landing held a single large wooden door. Neda flung it open and asked, “Will the lord and his lady wish to eat in the privacy of the solar?”
“Nay,” Edlyn said.
“Aye,” Hugh said.
Neda bent her head to Hugh. “It shall be as my lord commands.”
Edlyn stepped inside and muttered, “I’m sorry I ever interceded for her.”
Hugh didn’t answer. He was too busy staring.
Burdett hadn’t begun to describe the solar. It was as large as many a great hall. Gold cups and pitchers waited atop polished wood tables. The diamond-shaped windows glittered even when the rain splattered them, as it did now. The fireplace opening yawned in the wall like a dragon’s mouth, spewing warmth and light. The bed…ah, the bed. It rose on a dais, its great posts pointing to the ceiling and each finished with an eagle. The bed curtains were a fuzzy red material, thick and heavy enough to keep out the winter breezes, and they were pulled back to reveal furs of every color and thickness scattered across the mattress.
Hugh considered the furs, then considered Edlyn, then considered the furs on Edlyn.
Edlyn didn’t appear to be following his train of thought. She still gaped around her. “What a magnificent chamber.”
Her veneration freed Hugh to say, “Edmund Pembridge chose poorly when he decided to support Simon de Montfort.”
He thought he heard Burdett say, “Damn fool,” but when he looked, Burdett was turning to his wife.
“Let us leave our new lord and lady to their devices and find places for the rest of their retinue.”
Edlyn stepped forward. “Where will my sons be?”
“They have refused to leave the young man Wynkyn and are sleeping with the squires and pages in the great hall.” Neda smiled. “I’ll watch over them, my lady, and personally see to their safety.”
“Just where they should be,” Hugh said. “With other noble lads involved in the noble endeavor of fighting.”
Edlyn didn’t answer. Apparently she thought she’d challenged him enough that day, and that suited Hugh fine.
She did answer Neda, though. “If you would keep an eye on them and bring them to me should they ask, I would be most grateful. Change frequently makes them…anxious.”
Neda looked surprised. “I hadn’t seen any sign of that, my lady. They’re just excited to be here and to have the care of young Wynkyn, and they’re taking their duties very seriously.”
“Well”-Edlyn pursed her lips-“good. Good, I’m glad.”
Burdett and Neda backed toward the door, bowing as they went. Before they shut the door, Neda said, “If you have need of a maid, my lady, call me and I will perform the service.”
“She won’t need a maid.” The door had already closed, but Hugh didn’t care. He stalked toward Edlyn. “I’ll see to her needs myself.”
As if she didn’t know just what he was talking about, as if she hadn’t been deliberately enticing him, she gave him a startled glance. Then she sighed loudly. “Hugh, I’m sore from riding.”
“I’ll ride you carefully.”
She didn’t struggle as he discarded her wimple and crispinette and pulled her cotte over her head. “Do you want me to beg for…for…”
“Swiving?” He finished her sentence while staring at the darker place on the linen where her nipples rippled the material. He found himself suddenly, violently aroused, as if his body had been saving itself for this moment. “You can if you like, but there’s no need. I’ll give you w
hat you want, and more.”
Her breasts rose and fell quickly, and crimson rinsed each of her cheeks. Was she only angry, or was she aroused, too? He picked her up by her waist, and she remained stiff. Her hands clenched in fists at her sides, and her toes curled. She had that stubborn, you’re-a-man-and-you’re-swine look on her face, and he wondered what he’d done to deserve it this time.
More than that, he wondered what he could do to erase it and replace it with that soft glow of passion.
He’d never begged anyone for anything in his whole life, but he was desperate. “Edlyn,” he whispered. “I beg of you…please.”
He could scarcely believe it, but it worked. It worked! She placed her hands on his shoulders and stared at him with suspicion. He didn’t know what she saw—agony, maybe, or his cock trying to fight its way out of his breeches—but she said, “Aye,” and wrapped her legs around his waist.
“God.” He threw her on the bed, lifted his surcoat, and dropped his drawers around his ankles. She struggled to remove her shift, but he had to have her now. He jumped on her. Just jumped on her with no finesse, like a boy with his first woman. He got the shift out of the way and her legs spread, and he looked. “God.” It was the prayer of a sinner seeing his heaven. “Can you take this?” he asked frantically while sinking between her legs and probing for entrance. “Sweeting, am I going to hurt you?”
“Nay.” She placed him just right. “Give to me.”
Just like before, he worked to enter her. She was tight, cupping him, yet her body must be saying yes because she was slick and, oh, so hot. He could feel his pubic hair singeing.
Then she bucked, taking him all the way in and he couldn’t feel anything. Or else he felt everything. He plunged and rocked, holding her thighs so she opened to him all the way.
She moaned deep in her throat, like a dove that had found a treat. The scent of her pampered him, roused him from the drowsy austerity of his former life and into the world of the senses. Harnessing her fire as if it were some beautiful, temperamental animal, he muttered in her ear. “More.”
There was nothing more they could do. There was nothing he knew of beyond this poking and thrusting.
But his body seemed to be hearing something from her body. With her, he knew there was more than just physical movements. If he could get it just right; if he could hold her tight enough, give her enough pleasure, he could conquer her. He could possess her.
Reaching between them, he found the pouting lips that protected her from too much delight and opened them so each thrust rubbed his pubic bone against her.
She reacted with a frantic scrambling. She called his name, and her voice contained a sob. She strained against him.
Still he said, “More.”
His body reacted as if he were fighting the greatest battle of his life. His heart beat half out of his chest. His lungs burst from strain. His legs shook from the pleasure. He wanted to collapse. He wanted to go on.
He wanted.
“You’re…mine.” He buried himself in her.
“You’re…mine.” He sucked at her neck.
“You’re…mine.” He rubbed his chest over hers until her nipples peaked.
He was throbbing, waiting, knowing he couldn’t wait, giving her so much of him he might never find it all again.
Then heat blasted like that from a kiln around him. She rose beneath him with a shriek. She clawed at him. She sucked at him, but not with her mouth.
And the same heat engulfed him. He burst into flame, pumping his life into her, so deep inside her they melted together and were fired into one.
But he couldn’t relax and revel in that moment. He had to tell her now. He had to hear her admit it.
Letting go of her legs, he pushed his hands into her hair. He held her head so he could look into her eyes. “You’re mine.”
“Nay.”
That single word doused his fire like a splash of icy water. She dared to say nay? After the most fabulous experience of his life, she dared to deny him? Didn’t she understand with whom she dealt?
He swung off her so fast half the furs on the bed landed on the floor. He landed on the floor, too, his feet beneath him. He tugged the rug beneath her toward him until she lay beneath his standing wrath. “Nay? After what we just did, you can say nay?”
Her eyes had an exhausted slant to them. Her wide lips were swollen, as though, before she gave in to them, she’d fought the sounds of pleasure. Her hair trailed halfway across the bed. She looked the epitome of exhausted sexuality. But she still said, “Nay.”
He needed to take her again. He realized that now. He should never have left her so abruptly. If he stayed inside her, if he kept making love to her, he could make her say she was his. She’d admit it when he’d possessed her often enough, he knew it—and, praise the saints, his body was willing.
She sat up on her elbows and pushed the hair off her forehead. “I told you I wouldn’t give all to you. Be satisfied with what you’ve got.” She looked at his face, saw something that vexed her, and pushed her hair back again as if exasperated. “I should have never told you what I withheld. You would have never known.”
Wouldn’t he? He stared at her. Perhaps not. Not at first. At first he would have been satisfied with the dance of bodies that she performed so well. And he hadn’t ever been married before. Probably he hadn’t even been loved. How could one miss what one had never had?
But he would have. He wasn’t a stupid man, no matter what she thought, and he had memories of Edlyn…
“You were in that barn, weren’t you?”
She sprang clear of the bed so quickly she pulled the rest of the furs off the bed. “What?” Scrambling on the floor, she snatched at her cotte. She held it in front of her as if she were afraid to lift her arms and pull it over her head.
Her reaction convinced him those vague recollections were the truth, and he stalked toward her. “You were in the barn. You were spying on me, and you saw me swiving that woman.”
“Her name was Avina,” Edlyn snapped. Then she blushed a ruddy red.
“I remember now.” Memory fragments floated to the surface of his mind. Fragments that tugged at whole rafts of thoughts, amazing thoughts, thoughts so suffused with lust and magic he could scarcely contain his excitement. “I was sick, and I remember hearing your voice. You called up the old times. You told me about Avina, and watching us—”
She tried to skitter to the door. He raced ahead and slammed his arm across the wood like a living bar to escape. “You said you loved me.”
She raced back across the chamber toward the window, as if its opening far above the bailey offered an exit. “You were dreaming.”
He followed her. “Nay, I wasn’t.”
She tried to get the cotte over her head now, and he stopped her just in the way she feared—he snared her with her arms up and her head covered. Carefully he uncovered her head and looked into her face while keeping her trapped. “I heard you. You told me that when you were a girl, you loved me.”
“You were ill.”
“I was more than ill. I was dying.” She folded her lips tightly to seal in any response, so he shook her. “Wasn’t I?”
“I don’t know.” Tears sprang to her eyes, although whether of annoyance or distress, he didn’t know. “I’m not God.”
“I know. I saw the other side, and only one thing called me back.” His hands slid up and down her arms as he held them over her head. “’Twas you, Edlyn. ’Twas you.”
She trembled now.
“So you see, I can’t resist you.” He still smiled, but tenderly now, as if he sympathized with her embarrassment. “Nor can you resist me.”
His face lowered to hers, and she slithered down until he held her cotte and she sat on the floor. “I can, too.”
She tried to crawl away, but he caught her shift by the back and held her until he could wrap his arms around her waist and lift her.
“You asked for a feather bed,” he said, “now le
t us enjoy it.”
Was she going to give him all he wanted again? Was she going to collapse like some feeble, wanting female who thought she needed a man to complete her life?
She was not. Not when she knew he didn’t need a woman to complete his life. Not when she was nothing more than a useful tool he possessed.
He held her backside pressed against his loins as if he were a wolf panting for its mate and walked toward the bed.
She shrieked, “I won’t!” and tried to spring away even before he put her down.
He put his knee in her back and knocked her onto her stomach. “I say you will.”
She gave the most hateful intonation to the word she could call up. “You…husband.”
“I’ll make you like it.”
He wasn’t laughing. He wasn’t mean. He sounded as calm and as determined as she imagined he would when faced with a siege. He’d promised her before he would win this battle between them, and now it seemed he had decided on his choice of weapons.
It wouldn’t work, of course. She couldn’t let it, not without letting the pain back in when the prince called him to war.
“I won’t do this.” She twisted, trying to swat at him, and he used her momentum to flip her onto her back. Placing his hand on her belly, he held her down and wiggled around while she lashed out at him. One foot landed painfully close to his groin, and he caught it just in time.
“Our unborn children,” he chided. He grabbed her wrist and stretched it toward the headboard.
“What…?”
He whipped one of his garters around her wrist and secured it around the post.
“What!” She took a swing at his head with her other hand.
He grabbed it and tied it above the other hand.
She stared at her wrists, tied securely to the bedpost, and tried to understand. She’d heard of men who did things like this. It was one of the things women whispered about—husbands who tied them and hurt them unbearably. But Hugh?
She swung around and looked at him. Hugh wouldn’t hurt her.
Then she really looked at him. He sat on his heels, surveying his handiwork with the satisfaction of a dedicated artisan.
Nay, Hugh wouldn’t hurt her. There might be torment involved, but it wouldn’t be painful torment.
A Knight to Remember: Good Knights #2 Page 21