“You are so beautiful,” Gilliane sighed. “I have never seen a man so beautiful.”
It was not the first compliment Adam had ever received, but it was the first he believed. The other women who praised him he knew had praised men before him and would praise men after him. He had never loved and had never, until this moment, bedded a woman who really loved him.
He did not reply in words, but with his mouth and his hands he worshipped her who worshipped him—and had the response he desired. Fascination drew Gilliane’s fingers and lips to Adam’s body. Her first touches were tentative, but her lover’s gasps and sighs, the way he strained toward her, soon taught her the value of such touching. Soon she was near weeping, again crying brokenly, “Please…please…” but with a far different meaning.
Chapter Thirteen
The cataclysm of pleasure that struck Gilliane when Adam finally consummated their love play left her nearly senseless. She was only dimly aware of Adam’s weight lifting off her, of his hands gently smoothing the hair she had tossed wildly. Her senses returned slowly as the fierce palpitations of pure sensation faded, and she realized that Adam was now lying beside her, breathing deeply in sleep. Gilliane had no idea what she should do. She was afraid to move lest she wake Adam. She was also afraid to remain in the bed and expose herself to the likelihood that, when Adam woke, he would dismiss her as he would any slut who whored for him. In addition, she could not bear to move because to lie thus beside the man she loved was, she feared, the last taste of joy she would have.
Between fear and longing, she lay so still that she slipped into sleep herself, to be awakened some hours later when Adam turned and landed half atop her. A shock of terror changed at once to a thrill of pleasure when she saw Adam, but this was followed by a dreadful sinking of despair. How angry he would be if he woke and saw her lying there as if she had the right of a wife. Blinking back tears, Gilliane began to inch herself out from under Adam’s weight, but the arm he had thrown across her tightened, holding her firmly.
“Lord, what fools we were to fall asleep,” he said muzzily. “I am sorry, Gilliane. The thing is we were riding and fighting every night and during the day we all slept with one eye open lest we be taken by surprise. I was tired.” He grinned, looking much wider awake. “Especially after this last bit of riding. I have never bestrode a more mettlesome mare.”
Gilliane stared at him, wide-eyed. Voice and face were one, tender as the hand with which he was stroking her hair. Could she have misunderstood the laughter? No, because no one could misunderstand the anger with which he had thrust her away in the bailey.
The grin faded from Adam’s face, and he raised himself on an elbow. “Come, love, do not be wroth with me. I could not help it, I swear. I am sorry to spoil your clever plan to conceal our doings from the maidservants. Indeed, it was well thought of and very wise, but if you whip well the first who looks askance or speaks amiss, you will have no further trouble with them.”
It was fortunate that Gilliane was so surprised that Adam thought she had wanted to conceal their relationship that she was unable to say anything. Then, suddenly, she believed she might have the explanation for his rejection when she ran to meet him. Adam could have been trying to protect her from her own folly. How stupid she was! Why should Adam care that his men knew he was bedding a married woman? It was no blame and no shame to him. It was the woman who would be considered foul. A little flicker of fear that Adam’s circumspection might come from a determination to keep clear of any claim she might make on him passed through Gilliane’s mind, but she put it aside and reached up to touch his face.
“I am not angry,” she murmured. “How could I be, when the fault is mine? It was I who should not have fallen asleep.” She was about to add that she did not care a whit what the maids said or thought, but that flicker of fear touched her again. Perhaps it was Adam who wished to avoid gossip. He was not married, Gilliane knew, but he might be betrothed or negotiating for a betrothal, in which case he would not want his relationship with her spread abroad. “The maids will not gossip,” she assured him. “I will see to that.”
Adam lay down again, completely content. He was convinced that Gilliane had the sweetest temper of any woman born. “You must not blame yourself for my faults,” he remarked, grinning again. “My mother tells me I am little enough wont to believe I am other than perfect. You will make me unbearable if you constantly agree with me.”
Not to me, Gilliane thought, but she was aware that Adam was joking and she made a light rejoinder, moving to sit up and slide out of the bed. Adam caught at her.
“We have already overset the fat into the fire,” he murmured, rubbing his lips suggestively over her breast, “stay with me a little longer.”
Already Gilliane could feel her body responding, but she tried to pull away, saying in a shaking voice, “Oh, my lord, do not.”
“Why?” Adam urged, stretching his neck to kiss the cleft between her breasts.
“It is very late,” Gilliane quavered. “Oh, dear, there will be no dinner.”
But the arms Gilliane had placed against Adam’s chest to keep him at a distance felt all boneless and exerted no pressure at all. And then, as Adam’s lips wandered from the center over toward the nipple, her hands slid downward along his body quite of their own volition. Soon her mouth was too busy to utter any further protest. In any case, all thoughts except those concerning what she was doing had flown out of her head. Therefore, when the climax had been passed and she was drifting up out of the daze it induced, she was surprised to hear Adam laughing again. Her breath caught and her eyes widened in panic, but the fear did not last long, for Adam was bending above her, kissing her nose and eyes.
“What a woman,” he chuckled. “It is a wonder to me that you are not fatter than a styed hog. All you think about is food. Was that a time to talk of dinner? And I remember when we had just taken the keep and any other woman would have been prostrate with terror, you were very angry because we interfered with your preparation of dinner.”
“It is not my dinner I care about,” Gilliane protested indignantly. “It is yours.”
“Oh, I am well satisfied with the feeding I have had,” Adam assured her.
“Now you are,” Gilliane replied, half joking and half serious, “but when you sit down at table and nothing is brought to you but a mess of pottage, you will feel otherwise, and I am the one who will feel the weight of your hand to measure your disappointment.”
Adam turned his head, and his eyes were cold and bright with anger. Before Gilliane could shrink away, his arms were around her. “You will never feel the weight of any hand again, Gilliane. One of those who hurt you, I have paid already. Had I known, I would not have killed him so cleanly. When I find the other, believe me, he will suffer a thousand torments for each blow he dealt you.”
“No!” Gilliane cried, shuddering.
“No?” Adam asked very softly, his arms stiffening. “Why no?”
“I am afraid for you,” Gilliane whispered. “He is sly and evil. Oh, I know he is no match for you in any honest way,” she added breathlessly, sensing Adam’s hurt and anger and remembering how he had said she insulted him when she feared for his safety before. “But Osbert is not honest. He will seek some dishonorable ruse to hurt you that you would not even think of, being an honorable man.”
“Do you not desire him dead?”
“God knows I do,” Gilliane answered fervently. “I pray for it and I do not care if it is a sin to pray for another’s hurt. Let him only die of the pox, or by hanging, or by any cause—but not by your hand, beloved. I fear—I fear that if you kill him for me, my sin will come upon you. Adam, if any hurt should befall you through me…I could not bear that.”
In her earnestness, Gilliane had pulled free of Adam’s embrace and sat up. Her eyes met his without the smallest hint of evasion. Adam sighed. He believed her. He had to believe her because she was all, everything he had ever wanted. Not to believe could only tear him
apart. Besides, he had every intention of killing Osbert no matter what Gilliane said. If Osbert had hurt her and been cruel to her, he had to die. If Gilliane rejected him after Osbert’s death…no, he would not even consider that, but to be on the safe side, he would say nothing to Gilliane about marriage until her husband was dead and she was free. His attention was diverted by the fact that Gilliane was sliding from the bed. “Where do you go?” Adam asked harshly.
Gilliane began to giggle. “I am afraid to answer you, my lord.”
Adam sat up, too. “What do you mean?” he began, and then, realizing why she was laughing, he began to laugh himself. “Will nothing divert you from the delights of the table? Go then, but return here as soon as your precious dinner is planned. There are a few more pressing questions—even if I will never convince you that there are more important things than dinner—that we need to consider.”
Having pushed her head through her shift, Gilliane looked at her lover and her heart smote her. Under the week’s growth of beard, his skin was pale and his eyes were heavy. There was also a red stain on the bandage she had wrapped around his ribs. She should never have permitted him to make love to her.
“Do you hear me?” Adam asked more sharply.
The quick irritability was another sign of an overtired man. Gilliane dared not go back to the bed and kiss him and beg him to lie down and sleep. She was sure to approach Adam would end in their coupling yet again. There was something in the way his eyes followed her fingers doing up her bodice that was sufficient warning. To tell him he was exhausted, Gilliane was sure, would only result in his denial and insistence on getting up altogether. Perhaps if she made a jest of it, he would stay abed and sleep.
“Yes, I hear you,” she said saucily, “but since you have been so unwise as to promise me I would not feel your hand nor any other’s—I think I shall be disobedient.“
“What?” Adam exclaimed, sitting more upright.
Gilliane laughed at him. “Lie down, my lord, do. I was only teasing about dinner. Truly, there are more important things, and I have been greatly at fault in allowing my pleasure,” her voice faltered a little and her eyes caressed Adam’s big body, but she picked up her cotte and pulled it on as she continued, “to draw me from my duty. I must look to the wounded men and also see to the proper storage of what was on the pack train. Do you permit, my lord?”
“Good God, yes!” Adam exclaimed remorsefully. “Poor devils. See what you can do to make them easier at once. It was cruelly hard on the worst hurt to ride so far, but I dared not leave any behind lest our pursuers take them. When you are free, though, come back. We must decide what to do about your vassals, whether we should tell them—”
“Yes, my lord,” Gilliane interrupted. “Do you wait here, where we can be sure no one will overhear. I will return as soon as the men are bandaged and dosed.”
Actually, Gilliane attended to everything—dinner first, because it was most important to her that Adam have a proper meal, then the men and then the storage of supplies. When all was done, Gilliane stopped by the cooking sheds again to see how far forward things were. “Not before dusk,” the cook Gilliane questioned said despairingly. “Could the lord be pacified with some pottage until the meats are ready?”
Laughing, Gilliane took a large bowl, a ladle, and a small pot of the thick soup and went back to her chamber. Adam was fast asleep, sprawled across the bed in exhausted abandon. Gilliane set the pot on the hob to keep warm and sat down near the door where the light was best. She worked for a time at a simple dress she was embroidering in an attempt to make it more elegant, but when she had used up her supply of silk she did not wish to leave the room again in case Adam should wake. He had been moving restlessly. She sat for a while with idle hands but found that her eyes kept wandering to him, which made him even more restless. Finally, she laid a small writing desk she had adopted on her embroidery frame and began to practice writing.
‘To whom do you write?”
Gilliane jumped and nearly spilled the ink. “Oh, my lord,” she gasped, “how you startled me. I…I do not write to anyone.”
“That is no account book,” Adam said harshly. “I do not know what else can be written that is not written to someone.” Gilliane’s face became flooded with color and Adam stared at her, his heart sinking. “Let me see,” he said, stretching out his hand.
“It is not written to anyone,” Gilliane insisted, blushing even more. “I was only practicing my writing.”
“Practicing?” Adam repeated. “I saw you write as easily as my mother or sister, who have been writing since childhood.” He got out of bed and came toward her.
“Only because I have written these words so often,” Gilliane explained breathlessly, “but…but…”
She was put aside by a hand gentle enough but hard as steel. Adam looked down at the desk, stared dumfound.
“It is a dreadful waste of parchment,” Gilliane said in a very small voice, “but I will scrape it clean and it will be good enough—”
She did not get to say any more. Adam had caught her to him and kissed her. Then he released her lips to laugh, and then he kissed her again. Written over and over on the parchment was his name, coupled with a selection of the most tender endearments.
“I told you not to look,” Gilliane protested when her lips were freed.
“You did not,” Adam contradicted, still laughing. “All you said was that it was not written to anyone, but that is clearly not true—or do you dare to call me no one, you little witch?”
There could be no answer to that. Gilliane pushed futilely at Adam’s chest, and he laughed and kissed her yet again. She did not push very hard while their lips met, but when Adam lifted his head she said, “Let me go. I must get clothes for you. Adam, let me go. You will take a chill.”
“Not beloved Adam,” he teased, “nor even dear Adam? Why should an old piece of sheepskin be given sweeter words than I?”
“You are cruel always to laugh at me,” Gilliane complained, although she was smiling, too. Slyly, she relaxed completely against Adam so that, after a moment, his grip slackened. Instantly, she had twisted free and fled to the antechamber. She returned with an armful of clothes, which she insisted Adam should put on. While he dressed, she removed the pot from the hob and ladled its contents into the bowl. Turning to present the soup, she shook her head over the patched garments and apologized.
“You are so big,” she said in extenuation, putting the soup on a small table so she could tie Adam’s cross garters, “and I have had no cloth fitting to make new clothes for you until yesterday when…oh, I have so much to tell you, my lord. A French ship came into the harbor and we captured it—I hope we did right?”
“We captured it? Do not tell me that you—”
“No,” Gilliane laughed, “Alberic went down to the port, and…I think it will be better if he tells you himself what exactly he did because I do not well understand it, although he did explain. But, Adam, the ship was for the Lord of Lewes, and the cargo was very rich. Now I will be able to make you some clothes that will be fitting for you, and—”
“For Lewes?” Adam pursed his lips and whistled. “He has been twice stung in only a few days. I had better look to the walls and our weapons. When he hears—”
“Oh, I hope he will not hear of it. We took the captain and crew prisoner. They are below waiting your pleasure, my lord. And the ship we sent to Roselynde—that was where Alberic thought it could be most easily hidden.”
Alberic, Adam thought. Alberic never thought of anything in his life. Not that the master-at-arms was stupid or ignorant. He had a fund of knowledge and experience, but would never use it on his own. It was Gilliane who had thought—not of Roselynde but of the need to hide the ship. Once she had pointed out the necessity, Alberic would be likely to suggest Roselynde harbor. Adam wondered briefly why Gilliane was so reluctant to take credit for her own successes, but she had exclaimed again and run back to the bedchamber from which she returned
a moment later carrying a small casket.
“And see what else was aboard. Now there is something with which to pay your costs.” Gilliane opened the casket to display the jewels looted from the French ship.
Adam looked from them to Gilliane’s face. “What is their value?” he asked, firmly subduing the impulse to tell her that he would not take them—which was what he feared she expected.
“How can I guess, my lord?” Gilliane replied, looking puzzled. “I have never owned such things and, to speak the truth, neither did Saer’s wife or daughters. Sometimes, if he wished to make a brave show of them, he decked them out in jewels, but he took them away again. Is there enough to pay the cost you have sustained in saving me?”
Saving her! If that was truly how Gilliane felt, there could never be a question of debt between them. Adam opened his mouth to say that she had already paid him back a thousand times over by her sweet love—and clamped it shut again. There was too much chance that was exactly what she expected of him. Nonetheless, he could not take the things from her. He cleared his throat awkwardly.
“It is too soon yet to decide exactly how the costs must be paid—or even how much will need to be paid. We are only in the beginning of our attempt to obtain your lands. For now, let us say the jewels are mine but lent to you so that you will not look a pauper to your vassals and castellans.”
Gilliane had a clear memory of the first time the vassals had seen her, in a dirty, patched dress with her hair tied up in an old cloth. She nearly told Adam that, but felt shy about mentioning her marriage. Also, she was troubled by Adam’s answer. She had thought he would take the jewelry at once. It was valuable, and she did not really want the responsibility of caring for it.
“Whatever you say, my lord,” she replied doubtfully, “but will you not keep it? I have no strongbox nor any way to ensure its safety. This one day I hid it, but that could not answer for long. And, although I have the list of what should be there, made by the ship’s captain or a scribe for him, I have no desire to be counting these things over every day and worrying about them.”
Gilliane (Roselynde Chronicles, Book Four) Page 20