by Alyssa James
Somewhat wearily, he shook his head. He wished he could stay, but King Henry needed to know immediately what was afoot. He would be given an immediate audience with his liege whereas Richard would most likely have to petition for a hearing.
Rowan would caution Lisette to take extra care. Much to his disgust, he wasn’t sure she would heed his advice.
‘Twas possible Malin and Blake would decide to strike against Romsey if they discovered Rowan was on his way to Henry’s court. The guard had been increased and orders left that every visitor to the castle needed to be identified and searched for concealed weapons while Rowan was absent.
The only other possibility that concerned him was that Lord Blake had sent those two male servants to Romsey will mischief in mind. Rowan had already taken steps to monitor every move made by the two servants from Bridlemere. He felt his forehead crease into a frown. His subconscious was still working on the suspicious behaviour of those two men. It irked him that he could not find a reason for their strange reaction to him.
He shook his head unwilling to focus on anything else now but his journey to his chamber. At the end of this long, eventful day, all he wanted to do was to climb into bed with Lisette and lose himself in her body. He would not wake her if she was sleeping, but he hoped she would rouse and would desire him with equal fervour. Making love to her was the one sure way to forget his concerns. When he was with his wife ’twas as if only the two of them existed. Everything and everyone else in the world dimmed to insignificance each time he thrust into her sweetness. The fierce passion between them raged hotter and brighter until they were both mindless with need. And afterwards, when they had both been hurled to the heavens together, the sense of completeness as they lay entwined in each other’s arms and drifted back down to earth, brought him peace and a completeness he’d never known.
’Twould be more than a sennight before he lay with her again after this night. Depending on King Henry’s response, Rowan may be away even longer. At least he should be back in good time for the celebration of Michaelmas. Still, ’twould be too long to be away from this woman whose body he craved.
He frowned again. What kind of magic did his wife weave that she had been able to reduce him to a man who was tempted to stay behind and indulge with her in the pleasures of the flesh when his duty to his king called? This need for her could not take precedence over his sworn oath of fealty to Henry. It could not take priority over bringing Malin to justice. The part of him regretted—even resented—leaving her to do his duty, must be crushed. He was a knight of honour. A knight who had longed for the opportunity to bring his parents’ murderer to justice. All that he had vowed to bring about was within reach.
Malin’s plot would be unveiled to Henry. If Rowan had his way, Malin would make another confession before he swung from the gallows for treason. Rowan wanted Malin to confess to the murder of the former Baron of Baddesley and to repent the murder of their mother.
Rowan paused just outside the door to the chamber he shared with his wife. Although he must still speak to Lisette about the servants from Bridlemere and ensure she was extra wary while he was away, he would put the rest of his plans from his mind.
A vision of beauty, Lisette sat alone as he entered, brushing her long blonde hair. He was filled with a sense of déjà-vu, remembering how he had helped her brush her tresses the eve he had made her his wife in truth. They had come far since then. There was peace between them now, despite the shaky start to their marriage and the fact that she would bear another man’s child.
The smile she sent him warmed him through as surely as if he’d been enfolded in her embrace.
Placing the brush down, she stood and walked toward him. “You were quiet at dinner, my lord. Does something trouble you?”
Aye. He was troubled, but his most pressing need at that moment was his flesh straining against his braies as she sashayed toward him. Her wondrous, womanly curves were outlined by the candlelight. It shone through her thin night shift and he could not look away from her.
“I shall miss you, Lisette,” he admitted, gathering her close to him.
“And I shall miss you, Rowan.”
Her kisses were as fiery and passionate as he needed them to be. Lisette’s tongue duelled and danced with his and her hands ran over his body with urgency.
“You have far too many clothes on. I want you naked, my lord.”
He couldn’t shed his clothing fast enough, ripping off his tunic with almost savage movements. As he shucked off his hose, she lifted her night shift over her head. It didn’t matter how many times he saw her naked, he still marvelled at the sheer perfection of her feminine form.
“This is our last night together for some time.” She trailed a fingernail down from the base of his neck toward one male nipple. “I want to make sure you remember it as you travel to our king. I want to make sure you remember me every second we are parted.”
“I—”
Her finger moved up to rest against his lips to stop his words. “This night you are mine. I want to pleasure you most thoroughly.” The heat from her hands warmed his shoulders as she gripped him there and urged him backward toward the bed. Once he was there she trailed her hands down over his flesh. When she splayed her fingers over each male breast, she gave a firm push and he did not resist. The next moment he’d fallen backward on to the bed.
“This night I intend to drive you mad with longing.”
She was already succeeding. The power she had over him was disturbing, but her take-charge attitude and the boldness of her expression this eve had his length eager for her touch. Desire pulsed through him as he wondered what she was going to do—just how she had planned this eve of seduction.
“Woman,” he groaned. “Join me.”
The pleasure she experienced in her disobedience lit her features. Instead of joining him she merely took a step away from the bed. She raised her arms up slowly in a sinuous action, lifted her hair up above her head and rotated her shoulders in a way that accentuated her breasts. All the while she regarded him with a small smile of satisfaction that told him she enjoyed flexing her feminine power over him. Her attention didn’t wander from his face as she shook her hair out and allowed her hands to drift down, to trail her fingers across her breasts.
“I love it when you touch me here.” Her eyes closed just for a second as she cupped each breast and squeezed her nipples between her thumbs and forefingers. “Mm.” She moved her hips restlessly as her tongue darted out between her lips.
Rowan’s mouth fell open. He watched transfixed as she pleasured her own nipples. God’s teeth! He’d never seen such a display. Where had Lisette learnt this seductive art? Her self-stimulation had him on fire. Before he could leap up and throw her down on the bed to ravish her, Lisette’s hands left her breasts and trailed along the outside of her curves, moulding the outline of her waist and down to the flare of her hips. The sight left him rigid and almost shaking with want.
Glancing at him from beneath lowered eyelashes, she smiled again. “I love your hands on me everywhere. I especially love it when you touch me...Ooh!” One hand dipped to the thatch of hair between her thighs.”Here.”
Rowan gulped. Just as he was about to tell her that he could stand no more, she stepped toward him.
“I am so ready for you, my lord. This eve I shall take you!”
He was so ready to be taken. Excited beyond belief, he was both shocked by her brazen behaviour and admiring of the way she’d brought him to this fever pitch of arousal. Had any husband been thus seduced by his wife?
Each step she took toward him was slow and deliberate. Each step was sheer torture. Anticipation made his breathing fast and shallow so that his heart rammed against his ribcage.
Just as she reached him, something made her trip. The seductive spell was broken. All the sensual finesse was destroyed and she sprawled heavily on top of him forcing the air from his lungs.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, immediately contrite.<
br />
Rowan stopped breathing. His mind seized as memories assailed him. As she scrambled up on top of him to relieve him of her weight, his eyes widened in almost panicked disbelief.
“That wasn’t quite the way I’d planned it,” she giggled, her expression apologetic. “I...” She tilted her head in concern. “Rowan, are you alright?”
Nay! Not Lisette!
Everything in him screamed in denial. He had to be wrong. It couldn’t be. And yet he knew in that second he was right. The final piece of the puzzle had just fallen into place.
“Rowan?”
Dear God! He felt physically ill as he struggled to breathe. He had to get away from her—couldn’t bear her touch.
Why? Why did it have to be Lisette?
“Rowan? What’s wrong? Say something!”
Bile burned his throat. Suddenly ’twas as though he suffocated. He pushed himself up, uncaring that the forcefulness of his movement sent Lisette tumbling off him, off the bed and onto the floor.
“Rowan?” There was panic in her voice now, consternation set deep into every one of her features. Yet even as he regarded her, he saw a different person—a person he’d never come face to face with. A person he knew but didn’t know.
There was nothing he could do for a few moments but stare at her in mute silence as he absorbed her betrayal. Staggering a few steps backwards as though he’d been struck by an opponent’s blade, he needed to put more distance between them. Not only did he want to get away from her, from this whole shocking truth, but the tiny part of his brain that could still think with any sanity realised he didn’t trust himself not to lash out at her. He was like a wounded, cornered animal and the urge to strike out at her was paramount.
“I know,” he finally managed to scrape out. Speaking the words aloud broke him out of his trance.
Her hands moved in helpless confusion. “I don’t understand. What do you know?”
A hot tide of rage seeped through him. It started at his extremities and swept through him, replacing the cold, numbing shock of his discovery. Right on the heels of anger came the taste of bitter betrayal.
This realisation, just when he was letting his guard down, shook him with violent intensity. Right at the point he’d acknowledged to her, and to himself, that he respected her and was beginning to trust her, he’d learned—yet again—that he could not afford to trust. Not her. Not anybody.
The tragedy was that despite having warned himself about keeping a distance from this woman, he’d started to care too deeply about her. The desperation with which he wanted to be with her had made him regret his oath of duty to his king. Everything in him had resented that ’twas necessary for him to part with her on the morrow. That he’d trusted her and started to let her into his heart made the realisation of her guilt all the harder to deal with.
Had she known his identity all along and played him for a fool?
The air in the room was toxic. Gathering up his clothes he dressed as quickly as he could.
***
Lisette stood up slowly and watched her husband dress. Each of his movements was stiff with an anger she didn’t understand. Had she been wrong to take the initiative in their love-making? One moment he’d been aroused by her and she’d been empowered by his responses—prepared to be bold and daring. The next instant he’d thrust her away from him as though she was diseased. He’d pushed her with a violence she wouldn’t have believed him capable of.
Now he stared at her, his rage evident in the taut outline of every muscle of his body, in the hostile, searing intensity of his gaze, and in the tightness of his lips and jaw. His hands clenched at his sides as though he wanted to strike something.
What could she have done that was so terribly wrong? Had it been wrong to take the initiative in their lovemaking? Is that what had cast him into this black mood?
’Twas only the knowledge that Rowan was an honourable knight who’d shown naught else but infinite care and tenderness to her, that allowed her to calm herself in the force of his inexplicable and sudden temper.
Picking up her shift he threw it to her. “Cover yourself, woman.”
“Pray, my lord, tell me what is wrong. What did I do that caused such offence?” She moved toward him and reached out a hand in an attempt to re-establish a connection with him.
The hostile condemnation in his expression made her stall and lower her hand.
“Don’t come near me. Don’t touch me,” he rasped.
She flinched at the bitter rejection in his words. The man who had held her close and told her how much he would miss her had completely vanished. Hastily she donned her shift, needing to shield herself with some form of protective barrier as she faced a man who was now a stranger to her.
“Have you known all along?” he grated.
Her head pulled back slightly as she frowned at him in incomprehension. Had he taken leave of his senses?
“Rowan—” She broke off as he took a step toward her and loomed over her, his whole demeanour menacing. His fingers bit into the flesh of each of her upper arms, only releasing their grip slightly as she winced.
“Did—you—know?” he demanded.
Abruptly he released her.
She crossed her arms in front of her, her hands rubbing at the flesh made tender by his grasp. Confusion and anxiety flooded through her at his aggressive behaviour. “I have no idea of what you are speaking.”
“Tell me who you lay with, Lisette.”
Her gasp was shocked. After all they had shared since he had learnt of her betrayal, they were back to this?
“Tell me his name.”
“Nay.” The word was barely audible. Shame engulfed her once again as she relived her sin, making it impossible for her to meet his gaze.
“Why?” The single syllable was bitten out with such harsh challenge that she found herself edging away from his wrath. “You can’t tell me his name, can you?’ he persisted. “You don’t even know who you lay with, whose seed you milked to father the child you carry.”
Stifling the urge to sob, she raised her head. She knew her anguish must be revealed in her expression and hoped it would make him stop this irrational behaviour. “Rowan, I beseech you, I—”
“The truth, Lisette.” Each feature was hard. Unyielding. There was no sign of her generous, tender lover. Faced with the battle-hardened king’s warrior she understood the terror his enemies must realise before he struck them down.
Tears scalded her eyes before they ran down her cheeks. “Nay. I do not know his name.”
“But John Cartwright and Frederick Crofter know.”
A new panic gripped her. How had Rowan learnt of the involvement of her two loyal servants? Despite her turmoil, she frowned and shook her head in denial. “Nay, they do not. He was also a stranger to them.” ’Twas a relief that she was able to speak the truth. Whatever Rowan had discovered about her mission to become impregnated, she alone bore the responsibility and the guilt.
“A stranger.” His lips were even tighter, pressing into a firm, flat line of fury. “Yet you led me to believe the man was a willing participant in your scheme.”
He spoke the truth. She had deliberately misled him, for how would she have explained the entire wickedness of her scheme otherwise? “I didn’t say—”
“Nay. You did not.” His tone, and the way he clipped each word, communicated his contempt. “’Twas not what you said but what you didn’t say that makes me sick to the stomach, for I know the identity of the man you held against his will and violated.”
Her head snapped back a little and her mouth dropped open in shock and denial. “You know him?”
“Aye.” The word shot out like a blast from a cannon and its impact was just as devastating.
If Rowan knew the father of her child, would that make a difference to his acceptance of the babe as his own? Wait. How could he possibly know the identity of the man when she didn’t know him herself?
“You can’t know. I don’t...”
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br /> “You don’t know because the man you violated was nameless and faceless to you.” He raised an accusing finger toward her. “You cared naught for his predicament, naught for his angst. All he represented to you was a cock you could ride so you could accomplish—”
She held up a hand in protest. “Nay! Do not be so crude! ’Twas not like that.”
“Really? You didn’t have Crofter and Cartwright drug him, capture him and hold him prisoner? He didn’t have his head in a sack? Wasn’t bound to a pallet day after interminable day for your pleasure?”
She swayed a little on her feet. How had he learned about what she had done in such detail?
Ignoring the question that hammered at her brain she rushed on, seeking to justify her actions, imploring him to understand. “There was no pleasure for me. ’Twas something I simply had to do. I explained that to you.”
A sound of scorned disbelief passed through his lips. “And you deliberately made me think you had enlisted the assistance of a willing man.”
“I know ’twas wrong,” she argued. “I have repeatedly repented, but I had no choice. I did it to save my life and Genevieve’s.” Damn the man! Didn’t he understand what she had been facing? Why must he dredge all this up this eve before he left for Henry’s court? “I have committed my sin and although I repent daily, I cannot change what is done. What difference does it make who the man was? What does it matter after all this time whether he was willing or not?”
A tide of red stained his neck and face. “Your behaviour—”
“The man was unharmed,” she insisted. “’Twas only for a few days, and he was richly compensated.”
“Unharmed? Richly compensated?” His voice had risen and echoed off the wall of their chamber. He stared at her in angry disbelief. “You think any man wants to be taken prisoner? You think any man wants to lie bound and powerless while an unknown woman rides him?”
“He found pleasure in his release!”
“By the rood, woman!” Rowan swung away from her, let out a growl of pure frustration and pounded his fist against a wall before pivoting back to her. “Your prisoner had no idea what would happen next. No idea how long he would be held captive. No knowledge whether he would be released or whether he would be tortured, killed or maimed.”