Enchanted

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “Ecstasy is power, lady,” Marie said. “’Tis the only power we women have over men. But for that, men own all of worth in this world and we own nothing, including our bodies.”

  Marie’s cool assessment of the nature of what passed between men and women horrified Ariane, but even worse was her understanding that Marie had destroyed something in Simon as surely as Geoffrey had destroyed something in Ariane.

  Simon can no more entrust his emotions to a woman than I can entrust my body to a man.

  Yet I must. I can no longer bear the sad savagery of the past. It must end.

  It simply must.

  Marie looked up, saw Ariane’s expression, and sighed.

  “Never mind, lady. You haven’t the temperament for controlling Simon through harem tricks. You’re far too sensual.”

  “I?” Ariane asked, startled.

  “’Tis in your music,” Marie said. “It tempts me to seduce you myself. But you have eyes only for Simon and Simon is one of the few men I’ve ever met who is worthy of fearing, as that asinine Geoffrey may discover.”

  “Geoffrey.” A malicious thought came to Ariane. “Why don’t you seduce him?”

  “I didn’t think you liked Geoffrey enough to worry over his pleasure or lack of it.”

  “I despise Geoffrey.”

  “Ah.” Marie smiled with faint cruelty. “I see.”

  She tugged at a final knot, shook out the bodice, and nodded with satisfaction.

  “When Geoffrey tires of your handmaiden tonight—”

  “Geoffrey is with Blanche?” Ariane asked, shocked.

  “Aye. But only because I refused him, knowing Simon’s dislike of him.”

  “Is it Geoffrey who got Blanche with child?”

  “Probably. She is clever enough to know a well-placed knight’s child is worth more than a peasant’s spawn.” Marie shrugged. “But she is no match for me. Nor is Geoffrey.”

  Ariane didn’t doubt it.

  “I will teach him to crawl naked across a swine pen just to lick the place where I have sat,” Marie said. “I owe you at least that.”

  “Why?” Ariane asked, rather horrified.

  “Your music. It says all that I haven’t had words to say since I was eight.”

  Marie put aside her sewing basket and stood up.

  “If you will excuse me, lady,” she said, “I have certain implements to prepare for Geoffrey’s…mortification.”

  Ariane opened her mouth. No words came out.

  Marie smiled. “Nay, I never used such harem toys on Simon. I liked him too well.”

  “That wasn’t what I was going to ask.”

  “It would have occurred to you sooner or later, and I value my life here. ’Tis as much kindness as I have known since I was stolen. God be with you in your dreams, Lady Ariane.”

  “Thank you,” Ariane said faintly.

  Marie smiled. “But if you wish for more substantial company than God, your husband is pacing the battlements.”

  Involuntarily, Ariane glanced overhead and held her breath, listening. She heard nothing but the ceaseless blowing of the wind. Then came a faint spattering of sleet against shutters.

  “Another storm,” Ariane said.

  “Aye. ’Tis much colder at Blackthorne Keep than it was in the Holy Land.”

  “’Tis too cold for Simon to be up there, that is certain,” Ariane whispered. “He will take a chill.”

  “Go and tell him so.”

  “I shall,” Ariane said, turning to leave.

  “And while you do it, stand inside Simon’s mantle, close enough to breathe his breath, so close that your nipples brush against his chest.”

  Ariane stopped.

  “Then,” Marie instructed softly, “set your hands most carefully on the bulge that is growing beneath his breeches.”

  Ariane’s breath wedged in her throat.

  “Measure him until he outgrows the reach of your fingers. Then undo his breeches and measure what you can with your mouth. Simon will be the warmer for it.” Marie laughed. “And so will his sad nightingale.”

  26

  The candle died in the fierce wind that howled around Ariane when she stepped onto the battlements. Her hair lifted and swirled as though alive. A flurry of ice-tipped rain stung her cheeks. She shivered but refused to retreat. The cleverly woven fabric of her dress kept much of the chill at bay. As for the rest…

  Amethyst eyes sought the silhouette of Simon stalking along the battlements. At first Ariane saw nothing, for the wind had brought tears to her eyes. Then she heard fragments of conversation and turned toward the sounds.

  Halfway across the battlements two men were standing near a brazier, warming their hands against the icy night. Sparks leaped up with each twist of wind, outlining the men in glittering swirls of light.

  Without stopping to think how she was going to explain her presence on the battlements in the midst of night and storm, Ariane started for the men. Just before she reached the brazier, Simon spun around as though sensing her presence.

  “Lady Ariane!” Simon said, shocked. “What are you doing here? Is Meg not well? Does Dominic—”

  “I must speak with you,” Ariane said distinctly, cutting across her husband’s quick words.

  Simon stepped away from the brazier. Taking Ariane’s arm, he led her back just inside the stairwell, where the wind would be somewhat baffled. There a torch guttered and leaped fitfully, lighting the way for the next guard.

  The whipping, unpredictable torchlight made Ariane’s eyes appear wild. She wore no mantle, nothing but the fey dress whose textures haunted Simon’s dreams. Shivers coursed visibly over her, yet she seemed unaware of her own cold. She was watching Simon with an intensity that in another woman he would have labeled passion.

  But not in Ariane, the woman who withdrew from Simon’s own passion.

  “What is wrong?” Simon demanded.

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? God’s teeth, lady! You stand shivering in front of me in the middle of the night and say that nothing is wrong?”

  Stand inside Simon’s mantle, close enough to breathe his breath, so close that your nipples brush against his chest.

  Ariane let the useless candle fall from her hand and stepped closer to Simon, then closer still.

  “Cover me,” she said in a shaking voice.

  When he hesitated, Ariane bit back a cry.

  “Please, Simon. I am in need.”

  He opened his mantle and shifted the belt holding his sword so that the blade was at his back. Ariane stepped forward without waiting for him to finish.

  When he closed the mantle again, Ariane was inside its heavy folds. Touching him.

  Vivid heat flushed Ariane from her forehead to her heels as Simon’s body pressed against her, changing her, seducing her into honeyed warmth. She felt as she had in her dreams; cherished, hot, sensuous to her very core. She wanted to pull Simon around her like a living blanket.

  “Ahhhhhh,” Ariane said raggedly, sigh and moan alike. “You always smell so good to me. And your heat…You are warmer than flame itself.”

  Simon’s nostrils flared as he caught the scent that was Ariane’s and Ariane’s alone. He breathed deeply, drawing her into his body. Mixed with midnight and roses was a spicy trace of feminine arousal.

  The scent of it sent a rush of searing awareness through Simon. Even his memories of Ariane held in the thrall of healing balm and his caressing mouth weren’t as vivid as the feel of Ariane’s breasts pressed against his chest now, arousing him with each breath she took.

  Simon’s own breath came out with a sound that was halfway between a curse and a groan. To his surprise, Ariane tilted back her head as though savoring the warm rush of his exhalation and the urgency of his need. She inhaled deeply, infusing her body with his breath.

  “Ariane?” Simon asked in a low, intense voice. “What is it? What drove you to me?”

  She simply shook her head and pressed even closer to his body, fitti
ng herself to him, giving herself to the dream that had haunted her since she had lain in healing thrall and learned that a man’s hands could bring comfort instead of fear, pleasure instead of pain, ecstasy instead of nightmare.

  Closing his eyes, Simon fought against the fierce rush of his desire. Of their own will, his arms contracted, overlapping the edges of the mantle as he drew Ariane even nearer to his body. Rather grimly he waited for her to realize what was pressing against her belly.

  The feel of his wife’s hands settling most carefully on the bulge growing beneath his breeches nearly brought Simon to his knees.

  “I have dreamed of you, Simon. Have you dreamed of me?”

  Surprise and desire hammered through him. He would have spoken, but Ariane was measuring him full well with her hands, taking away the possibility of thought, much less speech.

  Breath hissed between Simon’s clenched teeth as he felt his laces coming undone. He knew he should protest, should stop Ariane before she drove him over the edge of reason with passion only half-slaked, but he could not force himself to deny entry to her cool, searching hands.

  She found him, freed him, stroked him from blunt satin tip to thick base and then beyond, cupping the aching flesh that was drawn up so tightly with hunger that it was all Simon could do to stand upright.

  Simon ordered his arms to push Ariane away, but instead they contracted about her hips, bringing her even closer, cradling her thighs hotly between his own. The part of his mind that weighed and measured and reasoned expected Ariane to struggle against the blunt sexuality of the embrace.

  Instead, Ariane pressed herself against Simon from breast to thigh, moving slowly, caressing him with her whole body. The erect flesh she held so lovingly leaped between her hands.

  “This is madness,” Simon hissed.

  “Yes.”

  “Give me your mouth.”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  Simon bent to receive Ariane’s kiss, only to feel her pulling away from the embrace.

  “No,” he said huskily. “Don’t draw back.”

  “I must!”

  Clenching his teeth against words of disappointment, Simon released Ariane completely, keeping only the mantle around her.

  Immediately she slid down his body like a warm, supple weight, vanishing entirely beneath the luxurious mantle.

  “Ariane? Are you feeling fai—”

  Simon’s question ended in a gasp as her cheek smoothed over his erect flesh. Her skin was cool from the wind and her breath was warm from her body. It whispered over him in another kind of caress as she turned her head from side to side, stroking him. Then she caught him between her hands and brought him to her mouth.

  “Dear God,” Simon said thickly.

  His whole body tightened like a bow. Had it not been for the stone wall against his back, he would have fallen. Ariane’s mouth was hot, soft, wet, and her tongue was endlessly curious.

  Simon took the wild loving as long as he could. Then he sank the fingers of one hand into Ariane’s hair and slowly, slowly, began to draw her head away from his body. She resisted at first. He thought the sweet pressure of her mouth tugging on him would be his undoing.

  In the end, Simon’s discipline and sheer male strength won out over Ariane’s seductive caresses. But both he and she were trembling by the time Simon drew her up his body and buried his tongue hungrily in her mouth.

  The kiss was as abandoned as Ariane’s caresses had been, a hot mating of tongues that left both of them breathless, barely able to stand. Yet neither wanted to end the kiss. Each clung harder, closer, deeper, while the wind whipped Ariane’s hair into a seething black cloud.

  Beneath the mantle, Simon pulled off his gloves and loosened silver laces until his fingers could slide beneath cloth to touch Ariane’s breasts. The chill of his fingertips against Ariane’s warmth served to heighten the intensity of the caress, tightening her nipples in a dizzying rush. She moaned deep in her throat and swayed toward Simon, knowing only him.

  It was a long time before Simon could force himself to release Ariane’s mouth. He leaned heavily against the stone wall, caressing what he could reach of her breasts with hungry fingers, breathing as though he had been in battle.

  “Simon?”

  “The rest of your laces,” he said huskily. “Undo them for me. If I let go of the mantle, the wind will have it.”

  “I would rather undo your laces.”

  “You already have.”

  “Not those on your shirt,” Ariane said.

  As she spoke, she ducked beneath the mantle and probed between the laces of Simon’s shirt with her tongue. Then she began sliding back down his muscular torso, hungry for him in a way that she couldn’t name.

  Simon caught Ariane just before her mouth found him again. Muscles bunched as he lifted her upright once more. In the flickering light her eyes were wide, dark, shimmering with an unbridled hunger that made Simon’s body clench. Her tongue darted out, touching the center of her upper lip as though catching up a drop of wine.

  “You tasted as wild as the storm,” Ariane said. “Let me taste you again.”

  “You will undo me,” Simon said through his teeth.

  “I enjoy undoing you.”

  “As sweet as your hands are, as hot as your mouth is, I would rather spill my seed inside your body.”

  Ariane trembled. After a moment she found Simon’s aroused flesh with her hands. Breath hissed savagely over his teeth at her touch.

  “But you don’t want that, do you?” Simon said. “You don’t want me sheathed within you. Why? You aren’t a virgin to fear a man’s hunger.”

  “No, I’m not a virgin…”

  Ariane sighed and shivered. With one hand she slowly began drawing up the skirts of her dress. With the other, she held Simon tenderly captive. The fey cloth came as though summoned, riding up her thighs and swirling around her waist, leaving her naked but for the brushing of the mantle’s white fur lining on her hips.

  “Remember the friend I told you about?” Ariane asked.

  Simon had difficulty concentrating on anything but his own heavy arousal and the feel of Ariane’s dress sliding up his thighs.

  “Friend?” he said thickly.

  Following the instincts of her own need, Ariane brought Simon to the tight sheath that passion had transformed into a sultry, aching emptiness.

  “Aye,” she murmured. “My friend who was raped.”

  Ariane shifted, pressing herself against the rigid flesh passion had conjured from Simon’s body. She rubbed over him, moistening him as surely as her mouth had. The next motion of her hips over him was easier, deeper, sweeter.

  It made her want more. Much more. But she wasn’t certain how to accomplish it. All she knew was that the feel of his blunt arousal caressing her made her want…something.

  Simon groaned as he felt Ariane’s sultry petals parting and gliding over him. Harshly he fought to control the need that had become a living thing tearing at his loins.

  “Yes,” Simon said raggedly. “I remember. Your friend.”

  Clinging to Simon, feeling the cold wind only as an exquisite contrast to the heat of their embrace, Ariane shivered with pure pleasure at the feel of him gently lodged between her thighs. Ecstasy swept through her in a hot, secret storm.

  The breaking of Simon’s breath and the sudden thrust of his body against her told Ariane that he had felt her sultry rain as surely as she had.

  “I am she,” Ariane said.

  For a moment Simon didn’t understand.

  Then he did.

  He looked down at Ariane’s face. She was fire and shadow, half-opened eyes smoldering, her mouth still flushed from his kisses.

  “You?” Simon asked hoarsely.

  “Aye. My first and only experience of a man left me torn, bloodied, beaten. Betrayed.”

  “Nightingale. My God…”

  Simon trembled as he bent to kiss Ariane’s eyes, her cheeks, her mouth. The caresses were both hungry
and restrained. They made her feel bathed in tender warmth.

  “I believed that this,” Ariane’s hips moved, measuring Simon even as she returned his kisses, “this instrument of silk and steel was meant to punish a woman.”

  Beneath Simon’s short beard, his jaw muscles clenched against the sweet torment of being caressed by her softness and at the same instant knowing full well that there would be no release for him within her body.

  Torn, bloodied, beaten.

  Betrayed.

  “I understand,” Simon said huskily.

  “’Tis why I froze whenever you tried to touch between my thighs. I was frightened of being hurt again.”

  “Yes. I understand. Now.”

  Simon breathed kisses against Ariane’s eyelids and sipped at the ends of her long lashes.

  “But I’m not frightened of you anymore,” Ariane whispered.

  Simon said nothing, for he was afraid he hadn’t heard her words correctly.

  “Put your arm beneath my hips,” Ariane said, remembering how Thomas had carried Marie from the armory.

  Simon bent and did as Ariane asked, too surprised to ask why. The feel of Ariane’s resilient, sleek bottom against his arm sent sensual lightning through both of them. Her knees gave way, making her cling all the harder to Simon.

  “Help me,” Ariane whispered.

  The wind took most of her words, but Simon didn’t hesitate. Her body was telling him everything he needed to know, more than he had ever believed he would have from his dark nightingale.

  “Lift me,” Ariane whispered.

  Simon turned his back to the wind, letting it fold the mantle around both of them. As he took the weight of Ariane on his arm, her own arms went around his neck and clung. Her thighs parted and her legs wrapped around his body.

  “Fill me, Simon,” Ariane breathed against his lips.

  With a throttled sound that was her name, Simon fit himself to Ariane as he had in his dreams, pressing gently and then harder, pushing slowly, deeper and then deeper still, feeling her sleek and wet and tight around him, welcoming him.

  A long, unraveling sigh rippled from Ariane as she felt Simon parting her, penetrating her, stretching her…but not hurting her. The wonder of the sensuous joining trembled through her, ecstasy delicately raking her, calling a shimmering, passionate rain from her depths.