“Are you satisfied?” the countess hissed at her son, as she helped Peri into bed. “Milord husband, let us invite our guests to leave this chamber forthwith.”
Baudoin ushered out the now silent well-wishers.
Peri was left alone with her naked husband.
Only Mine
Gallien stood in the silent chamber, eyes tightly closed, conjuring a vision of his wife’s perfect body gleaming in the glow cast by the fire. For a moment, he had stared at a sprite born of the flames, her red hair a blazing banner around her delicate shoulders.
Her beauty stunned him. But his fear had caused him to humiliate her. She would never come to love him now. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes.
Wrapped in the robe, she lay huddled on the edge of the bed, her face buried in the bolster, her shoulders hunched. He pulled back the linens and eased onto the other side of the bed. He wanted to make amends. This was not a good beginning, but what to say to repair the damage he had wrought?
He put his hand on her shoulder. “Je m’excuse, Peri. I’m sorry. My first wife…”
She whirled her head to look at him, eyes wide.
Why in the name of all that was holy had he mentioned Felicité? It was the last thing he wanted to discuss this night.
“You were married before?”
He pursed his lips. “Oui. She died.”
* * *
Everything became clear. His beloved wife had died, leaving him bereft and heartbroken. His heart belonged to a dead woman. “I did not know,” she murmured. “I am sorry.”
He shrugged. “That is in the past. You and I must face a future together.”
It was not a declaration of undying love, but it warmed her. He had slept with his first wife in this same bed, yet now seemed resigned to this marriage. She would try her best to make him happy, but his enduring love for his first wife gave validity to her tendresse for Geoffrey.
Their bodies might join, but their hearts never could.
She inhaled his male scent. Her husband lay inches away, his heat warming her though his hand no longer rested on her shoulder. She wanted him to touch her again. She liked the strange sensations his caress brought to her belly and other unmentionable parts of her body. She had a wanton urge to trace a finger along the appendage she had glimpsed.
She turned to face him, aware the unfastened robe had fallen open to reveal more of her breasts than anyone had ever seen. Strangely, she felt no embarrassment. Though covered, her nipples pouted against the fabric. She looked up at him. His eyes had darkened to a deeper shade of blue.
Without warning, he leaned forward to swirl his tongue over one nipple. When Geoffrey had touched her nipple, her instinct had been to push him away, but now she cautiously entwined her fingers in Gallien’s long hair, holding his head to her breast as he suckled through the fabric. Hot desire pulsated from her breast, down her spine, up the backs of her thighs and thence to her woman’s place. “Husband,” she whispered throatily.
He leaned back, studying her face. Her gaze fell on his broad chest. She had never seen a man’s bare torso before. The light dusting of hair between his nipples was dark. Afraid to look him in the eye, she trailed a fingertip down the narrow line of hair leading from his chest to his belly, but there her courage deserted her. He took hold of her hand and pressed it against his shaft, inhaling sharply when she moved her fingers on him.
“It’s silky,” she whispered, as her most intimate place clenched, heating her from head to toe. She had a lunatic notion to touch her lips to the flesh that seemed to grow bigger by the second. “And thick.”
Smiling broadly, he took hold of her hand, pressing it to the bolster behind her head. “Words every man wants to hear. But, there is time yet for that.”
The rare smile was her complete undoing, though she had no inkling what he meant. He entwined his fingers with hers, then bent to suckle the other nipple. A growl escaped unbidden from her throat as wet heat erupted between her legs.
He left off suckling. “You like that,” he teased.
She felt her face redden. Fermentine had said there was no pleasure, but the sensations overwhelming her body were beyond pleasure. Perhaps she was not supposed to have these feelings. She could only nod.
He smiled again and her heart lifted at the sight. “Me too,” he rasped, his voice huskier than usual. She felt the sound in her toes.
He pushed the robe from her shoulders. “Take this off.”
* * *
Gallien kicked the linens to the foot of the bed as Peri peeled the bed robe from her body. Blood rushed to his already swollen arousal when she lifted her hips to ease the fabric from beneath her body.
She blushed fiercely when he parted her legs and knelt between them. He leaned forward to cup her breasts, lifting them apart. He pressed his nose into the valley he had created, inhaling deeply. “I knew it,” he exclaimed. “This is where you hide your elusive perfume.”
She looked at him as if he had lost his wits, then threw back her head when he brushed his thumbs over the dark nipples.
It would seem he had married a woman of passion. But would she save her passion for him alone? If she loved another, how could she give herself to him? It unnerved him that her love was what he craved. Therein lay madness if she betrayed him. What had happened to his resolve to guard his heart?
He threaded his fingers into the hair framing her face and nibbled her lower lip. She opened to him immediately. Lust roared through his veins as he savored the warmth of her mouth, tasted the tisane. She whimpered as her tongue dueled with his, rendering their first kiss at the door of the church chaste in comparison.
He sucked her tongue into his mouth, then trailed his fingertips down her belly to play with the damp curls at her mons. A vision of her standing naked by the fire danced behind his eyes once more. The soft curls were the same flaming red as the hair on her head. The memory fueled his passion as he touched his fingers to her nether lips, certain she would be warm and wet. For him.
She moaned into his mouth as her juices coated his fingers. He found the pouting bud of her desire and stroked, sliding his finger inside after each caress, hoping she would not become alarmed. She writhed, tearing her mouth away from his to catch her breath. Her green eyes glowed with arousal, but there was uncertainty there too. “You’re doing well,” he whispered.
She smiled nervously. It was humbling that she trusted him after his cold cruelty. The intensely pleasurable ache of his arousal urged him to enter her, and soon, but he wanted her to release. He stroked faster, sliding two fingers a little deeper. She arched off the bed, stammering his name over and over, her fingernails digging into his flesh.
He lifted her hips. She gazed into his eyes and locked her legs around him. He guided the head of his shaft into her opening and plunged. She stiffened, clutching him more tightly as he tore through her maidenhead. It came to him he had been holding his breath.
Dizzying relief washed over him, intensifying the euphoria of the orgasmic rush that soon overwhelmed him as he thrust, hips pumping. Her tiny muscles pulsated on his flesh. As his couilles drew up, he clasped her tightly to his chest, reveling in the hard nipples pressed against him. “You are mine,” he growled into the hollow of her throat as his seed erupted white hot from his body into hers. “Only mine.”
Proof
Sleepily, Peri gathered the linens more tightly around her body. Unused to sleeping naked, she was cold.
Her eyes flew open, her heart beating too fast. She had slept naked—with a man. She smiled. The man was her husband. She snuggled into the mattress, wondering why she felt cold when his body gave off such heat.
Her skin warmed and tingled at the memory of her wedding night—the things Gallien had done to her, the places he had touched, the pleasure he had wrought. She had touched him too, and he had enjoyed her caresses, her kisses. Perhaps they could learn to love each other.
She wished Fermentine lived nearby so she might rush to tell he
r sister that she had been right about the joining, but completely wrong about the pleasure. She giggled. Poor Fermentine.
Still feeling chilled, she wriggled backwards, hoping her husband would not deem her brazen if she pressed her back to his.
She sat up abruptly when she realized she was alone in the bed. The cock had not yet crowed. Where was he?
She peered into the darkness. Perhaps he had gone to rekindle the long dead fire, but she heard no movement or sounds of breathing.
As her eyes became accustomed to the gloom, she noted how masculine the chamber was. She had not paid much attention the previous night, her mind on other things. This was the refuge where he came with memories of his first wife. Yet, he had evidently removed all traces of her.
She shivered as timbers creaked in the cold wind that howled outside. Did the woman’s ghost haunt the place? Had Gallien fled the intense memories the room held? Had she died in the very bed in which Peri now lay?
She scrambled to her feet, dragged one of the linens from the bed, and wrapped it around her, tucking it securely around her breasts. As the first streaks of pale winter sunlight crept into the chamber, she took a few tentative steps, feeling like a Roman empress in her toga.
Her heart lurched at the sight of bloodstains on the bed. She recalled the sharp stab of pain when Gallien’s male part had first entered her body. She stared at the stain, mortified that her body had been too small for his magnificent shaft. She had bled on him. How embarrassing. Her menses were not supposed to come for another sennight. It occurred to her suddenly that her woman’s place felt sticky too.
Perhaps he had not noticed. It must have been dark when he rose. She lunged at the bed, grabbing the offending sheet, determined to drag it off and hide it.
Kneeling in the middle of the bed, she paused, breathless and flustered. Where to hide the sheet? And what to replace it with? The maidservants would surely notice missing linens. They would believe her a thief. Frantic, she struggled to hold up the linen wrapped around her as it threatened to slide from her body.
She whirled at the sound of the door opening, gaping as her husband strode into the chamber, fully dressed. He seemed taken aback for only a moment before he reached for the linens. “Exactly what I came for,” he declared.
He stripped her of the toga, dragged the other sheet from beneath her, and left without a word of farewell.
A shiver shuddered through her. Not only had he left her naked in a chilly chamber, he had uttered not one word of greeting or endearment. He was once again the cold, cruel man of their first meeting.
* * *
As far as Gallien was concerned, the tradition of hoisting a virgin bride’s bloodied sheets up the flagpole was a barbaric one, but he bowed to his brother’s youthful disbelief that Gallien did not intend to do such a thing.
Étienne rushed off with great glee, clutching the sheets. Gallien slumped into the chair by the hearth in the Great Hall. In truth, he had to admit a certain sense of pride that he had deflowered a virgin. His wife had come to his bed untouched. Geoffrey had not bedded her. He let out a slow breath as relief again washed over him. What would he have done had she proven as false as Felicité? Killed her perhaps with the dagger he had secreted in his chamber?
He closed his eyes, anxious to erase the vision of their marriage bed awash in her blood as he plunged his blade into her heart. He remembered the confusion in her eyes as he stripped the sheets from the room. His eyes flew open. Dieu! He had left Peri without linens. She must be freezing.
He summoned a maidservant. “Go at once to my chamber with fresh linens.”
She looked at him curiously then winked slyly. “Of course, milord.”
As he watched her hasten away, he thought about his wedding night. He should hurry to his wife’s side, but he could not. He had lain awake beside her for hours as she slept peacefully, his body on fire for her, wanting to stroke the curve of her hip, to take her again and again.
Peri had been a virgin, but her innocent passion had brought him more ecstatic pleasure than he had ever known with a woman. It was a bitter truth. If he had married Peri first, he would not be the cold, cautious man he was now.
Felicité had damaged him beyond repair. He refused to risk his heart again, and Peri was much too attractive. Besides, she loved another. The remnants of his battered heart would be dragged in the humiliating muck of infidelity yet again. This time he risked being cuckolded by no less a personage than the betrothed of his future queen. It strengthened his resolve to steel himself to his wife’s charms and to campaign harder against Maud’s succession to the throne of England.
* * *
As he entered the Great Hall, Baudoin almost bumped into Étienne. His son’s red-faced excitement and the bundle of linens in his arms quickly provided an explanation. It was a good sign. Gallien would never have consented had the wedding night not gone well.
He hesitated, his optimism flagging, when he espied his eldest son sitting by the hearth, staring into the flames. Was it too much to hope one night of carnal pleasure with his new bride might restore Gallien’s good humor? “You’re up early,” he began cautiously.
“Couldn’t sleep,” his son grunted in reply, his gaze still fixed on the fire.
Baudoin had spent many a night making love to his wife, sleep of no importance, but he feared that wasn’t the case with Gallien. He tried a different tack. “Will Peridotte be joining us to break her fast?”
His son shrugged. “I suppose. She had risen when I left.”
Baudoin inhaled deeply. As a Norman, he thrived on form and order. Gallien’s steadfast avoidance of giving a straight answer was infuriating, a legacy, no doubt, of his Welsh blood. He held his breath when his son tore his gaze away from the fire, relieved to see some of the anguish had gone from his face.
“Before you ask, my bride and I consummated our marriage without difficulty.”
It wasn’t the ringing endorsement of Peridotte Baudoin had hoped for, but…
He patted his son’s knee. “Good. You must be hungry.”
A rare smile provided the answer.
Arrogant Bastard
Peri had dreaded living with Normans. Upon her arrival two months before, the castle folk had politely ignored her. Fortunately, the earl and countess had been her allies from the beginning. It was her mother-by-marriage who soothed away her mortification by explaining with a smile why bloodied sheets flew from the castle’s flagpole. It was from the countess that she began to learn how to run a large household.
She became familiar with the healing properties of herbs and spent much of her time in the countess’s Still Room. She became adept at making her own blend of potpourri, bearing in mind her husband’s fascination with the original recipe filched from Westminster. She relied heavily on the hips and dried petals of roses, rosemary, and artemisia, with a hint of cloves. She wondered if it was the reputed aphrodisiac in the latter that attracted him.
She did not wield her new position as countess-in-waiting with a heavy hand, preferring to listen to the opinions and advice of servants and other folk of the castle, who knew more than she about the place she would rule.
Gradually, so slowly that she barely noticed it, the servants sought her advice, her direction, her opinions. It came to her one day that they craved her approval. They wanted to please her.
Étienne had become her most ardent admirer, lauding her decisions and changes she suggested. It was akin to having a faithful puppy dog.
She came to love the earl and countess as her parents, and they in turn treated her as a daughter. Fleurie and Isabelle were the loving sisters Fermentine had never been.
Her husband was a skilled lover in their bedchamber, bringing her to heights of pleasure she had never dreamed of. He called her Peri. Their bodies sang together. His appetite for their lovemaking was seemingly boundless.
Outside the bedchamber he was as cold as he had ever been. She dared not bring up his strange behavior for fear of br
eaking whatever spell existed when they were in bed together. It was a mystery. In the bedchamber he had shared with his dead wife he was a considerate, loving man.
She longed for a smile, a word of praise, some recognition of her growing affection for him. The more remote he became, the harder she tried—to no avail.
She made up her mind that he was not worth the effort, but then he had only to enter a chamber and she was lost to the wanton sensations that thrummed through her body. She chided herself that she was falling in love with him—arrogant bastard that he was. Geoffrey would never have treated her so cruelly.
* * *
As Yuletide approached, it warmed Gallien’s heart to see his wife throw herself wholeheartedly into the preparations. No task seemed too insignificant for her attention. One day he found her in the Great Hall, assisting with the hanging of holly boughs, her hair threatening to spill out of the turban affair she had bound around it. She looked like an exotic princess. His shaft leapt to attention at the sight of her flushed face, alive with excitement. “There is no need to exert yourself,” he chided. “The servants take care of that.”
She looked down at him from her perch atop a trestle table. “I know, but at home I helped Maman with the decorations. She made sure Yuletide was special.”
It came to him then how lonely she must be, far from home, separated from those she loved. This would be her first Yuletide away from her parents, and he had done nothing since their marriage to make her feel welcome in the castle he loved.
His constant craving for her body and the fulfillment he enjoyed in their lovemaking lay at sharp odds with his determination not to trust her, not to fall in love with her. He had sworn never to be vulnerable to a woman again, but how much longer could he deny he was falling in love? He could not contemplate life without his Peri. Dare he hope she found something in him to love? He had not given her much to find lovable.
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