She stood her ground. “I will show you instead how your beauty affects me.” And at that she began to work at the tie that closed her over-tunic to whisk the garment to the floor. Her under-tunic came next, and suddenly, she was naked to him once more. But instead of coming to him, she began to caress her breasts. Pinching her nipples, she sighed and let her head fall back so that the arch of her slender throat was laid bare to him. She reached up, removed the pins from her hair and let the wealth fall about her slender shoulders. The blonde curtain of her curls concealed one breast and cupped another.
“Elise,” he breathed. “Come to me, my darling, and let me suck your pretty nipples.”
Her eyes opened, and she smiled like a cat as she let her hands drift lower to her waist and her navel and her frothy little nest. She played in her nether hair, her fingers twisting and pulling at her mound. She moaned, and he did too when she delved into her slit with eager fingertips and parted herself for him.
“What do you think, my Knight Divine?” Her voice was husky with need. “Am I ready for you?”
Her lips were bright pink and glistening with her body’s sweet syrup. “Nay,” he forced himself to tell her. “You can do more to bathe that cunny for me.”
“Oh, aye,” she agreed with a gush of enthusiasm and spread her legs wider to tilt up her hips towards him. “I think a bit of this would be good,” she crooned and sent her fingers up inside herself to bring down more juice and caress her nub. But when he would have guessed she had reached a point of delight, she groaned and pulled her fingers out. Then she turned and bent over to show him her pretty heart-shaped ass. “I need you to put your jewel inside me here.”
Near to bursting with his seed, he almost choked in laughter on her double entendre. “My emerald or my rod?”
She glanced over her shoulder at him and let a sensual fire light her eyes. “My darling, I think it must be both.”
He swallowed hard. “What have I created here?”
She spun to face him once more and ran her hands from her bush up her lithe and swaying body to her breasts then to her throat and lifted her hair to let it fall about her once more. “A woman who loves to love you, my lord.”
“Aye,” he breathed the affirmation and felt the pain of their coming separation as if a knife were cutting open his guts. He rose with a start, the water cascading from his body.
“Sweet man,” she said on a bare sound. “You are a dream come true.” Her eyes flew to his. “Love me again.”
He left the tub, grabbed a towel to give himself a few swipes and reached for her. In one sweep, he caught her high up into his arms then he was carrying her to the bed. She wiggled in delight and began to tickle him.
“You torment me?” he asked with fake harshness.
She giggled and reached for his armpits.
He gripped her wrists and pinned her to the bed. “You want to play?”
“Aye!”
“I’ll show you play.” He kissed her quickly and left the bed to once more find his pouch.
“Ooh…” she murmured, rubbing her thighs together. “What more do you have?”
His nostrils flared. He had known she would make a good lover. For him and no other. But to see her delight and hear it drove him to mad joy. As he approached her, he wound the silken ties about his fists, cautioning himself not to bind her too tightly. “These are for you and me.” He forced her wrists above her head and bound them together with a sailor’s knot. “There,” he said, sitting back on his heels and admiring the sinuous figure before him. “My prize to do with as I please.”
She writhed in tortured delight. “I cannot bear the delay.”
“Oh, you must, pretty lady.” He ran a hand down the front of her naked body and loved the way she undulated at his touch. “For there is so much more to teach you.” And if I had all the time before I die, I might not have enough to show you all the ways I can delight you best.
“Simon,” she beseeched him. “You go far from me. Come to me now. No sadness here.”
“Aye,” he snapped back to the moment. Then he rose and went to the tub to snatch up a cup, the soap and his razor. “Lie still,” he whispered, “and let me bathe this pretty cunt and bare it to me.”
She oohed and ahed as he made soap suds, caressed her to make a lather and outlined her mound with his fingers. He could barely keep to his task, her cunny was so wet, so swollen and so red with want of him. But he held her down, kissed each bit of her lips he shaved then rinsed his hands to thrust his fingers inside her and give her some relief. She bucked high up from the bed and groaned loud enough to shake the rafters.
“Simon! Simon! Give me your rod!”
He looked at his throbbing shaft and bit his lip so hard he knew he drew blood. But he was determined to give her another new adventure that no other man ever would. “Patience my pretty.” He rose, hurried to his pouch, withdrew his pincers and emerald and another piece that he had bartered for, one night, years ago in Acre.
She watched him with half-lidded curiosity. “Hurry. How I need you.”
He bent to her and settled between her thighs. As before, he kissed her areolas, sucked them and licked them before he clamped the pincers to her rosy little buds. With a hand to her stomach, he gentled her, coating the emerald in her love juice. She squirmed and moaned and demanded he insert it in her ass. And he gave her what she needed. She gave a cry as he sat the green gem into her little hole and arched her hips up to him. “You make me mad. Kiss my cunny,” she demanded.
“I have something better, richer.”
“Agh,” she objected, wild with need, just the way wanted her for this next.
With an ease that astounded him, he sent the first stone of the long strand he held in his hand up into her succulent little cunt. “You are so wet, my sweet one. You take these like an eager lover.”
“I am,” she insisted. “Oh, Simon, what is this that fills me with smooth, round balls?”
He braced himself above her and took her lips in rich kiss. “Pearls. Each one perfection, as are you.” He seized her mouth again and pushed another small round stone up inside her greedy little body. And for each pearl, he gave her a kiss until at last the strand remained with half or more of the pearls outside her lovely cunt. The sight of her flesh adorned by pale white orbs enflamed him now, as he had known it would, lo those many years ago. He sucked in his breath and positioned his rod to possess her.
Beneath him, strengthened by raw need, she heaved like waves upon the shore. “Simon,” she whispered, “I am still empty without you inside me.”
And at her supplication, he grasped her thighs, parted her slick plump lips and carefully took hold of the loop of pearls. Then he sank inside her to the hilt. The smooth, hot feel of her channel, studded with the pearls made them both groan in teeth-baring delight. At once, her walls pulsed around him in violent spasms and milked him mercilessly until, robbed of all control, he yelled again, a dying man in his own release. He had sworn only to take her, make her breed, make her safe. But in his claiming of her he had deceived himself. He had always loved her and so would he continue no matter time or cost or men who said him nay.
For with each mating, each loving moment, he had claimed her. Made her his more completely than ever he had fantasized. Removing his flesh from hers and the pearls as well, he sank to the bedding. Sighing, he released her tether, nestled her close and gave in to the euphoria and the restful assurance that now, every inch, every hair, every fold, every curve, every breath of hers inside and out belonged to him and him alone.
“Simon,” Elise pressed her mouth to his minutes, hours later, “Omar is at the door again.”
He raised his head and heard not only Omar’s knock but another at the inside door to the chamber where Katani kept watch over Alphonse.
He strode to the inner door first and gazed down at the little man. “What ails you, Katani?”
The mute dwarf motioned up the stairs to Alphonse’s chamber then plucked a
t Simon’s hand.
Naked, panicked, Simon took the winding stone stairs two at a time. Katani sped at his heels.
When he reached Alphonse’s bed, Simon halted. He had seen this look before on battlefields and in the filthy warrens of the Hospitalers inside the walls of Jerusalem, Rhodes and Corfu.
“Nay, nay!” Elise cried as she rushed around him towards her husband. She had thrown on her tunic, but her hair drifted about her face and form as she bent to the man who had been her master for twelve years. She rubbed his cheek and pressed her fingers to his nose. “How can this be? He was not so ill yet. Not on his death bed.” She sank to the bed, her tears coming silently.
And Simon knew she was right. When he had arrived here, when he had first seen Alphonse, he knew the man was ailing and had weeks at the least, months at most, to live.
Why would he die now? Sooner than he should?
Unless someone had hastened him along to meet his maker.
Chapter Seven
Simon strode forward. “Stand aside, Elise.”
When she blinked at him but complied, he tore the covers back from Alphonse’s body. The frail man wore his night linen, his thin legs spread askew on the bedding. Simon bent over him, cupped his head and turned him this way and that. No marks appeared on his face or throat. But Simon, knowing there were more ways to kill a man than to beat him, opened the poor man’s mouth wider and smelled his breath. No air came forth, but an acrid smell lingered.
Simon reared back and, with loathing for the deed so recently done, told Elise his finding. “Alphonse was poisoned.”
“Nay.” The shock sent her back a pace.
“I have no proof, save the fetid odour in his mouth. But he is gone by someone’s foul hand.” He spun to face Katani. “Did you see anyone come in here?”
The little man nodded. Then he made motions that two men had come, talked with Alphonse and bent over the bed.
“If ever I wished you had a voice,” Simon told him, “it should be now. What else?”
Katani scurried towards the door that led to the stairs and Simon’s chamber below. Then he made a few motions with his hands that had Simon scowling. “You saw this through the crack in this door.” He pointed towards the door to his own chamber, and Katani nodded.
And at that moment, a shouting match erupted in the hall.
When Simon opened the door, Omar barred the portal with arms spread wide, but there stood Phillip Crosby and behind him Cleve Faulk with two Atherton guards from the gatehouse. “What is amiss here?” Simon demanded.
“You!” Crosby pointed at him. “Tell your man to move from the door. I understand the Earl of Atherton is dead and by your hand.”
Simon lifted his chin to Omar to let Crosby pass the door. “How might you know that when we have only learnt it?”
“Cleve swears he saw you force the poison down the throat of the earl.”
Simon sneered at Cleve. “Do you now?”
Cleve gloated. “I do.” He gave a signal and the two guards seized Omar and Katani.
The serfs from the kitchen and the farmyard began to gather behind the Cleve.
Elise stepped to Simon’s side, having swept a mantel from her husband’s bed around her shoulders. “Cleve, unhand Lord de la Poer’s men.”
“Nay, my lady, I give the orders here.”
“You ungrateful dog,” she belittled him. “What gall to do this?” She spun towards the guards, noting their identities for the disposition of their miserable future. “Release those men, I command you!”
Simon stepped forward. “You act beyond your station, man.”
“My station has improved these many years. My Lord, the Earl ordered it.”
“He is no longer with us,” Simon shot back.
“I am the power here,” Elise strode towards Cleve.
He drew himself up in pride. “My lady, you went to the woods yesterday,” Cleve announced to all in a snake’s silken voice. “You visited Ulred, and we all know she makes poisons. Poisons,” he lifted a vial, “that she puts in little pots like these.”
The assembled servants gasped and nodded, eyeing Elise with suspicion.
Phillip Crosby stepped forward, and with a satisfaction in his countenance, he announced, “We have sent for the sheriff to tell him our tale. As the king’s justicar, he will see we have the evidence to make you both confess.”
Elise snorted. “You go too far, Phillip.”
From the corner of the hall, five Crosby men in mail came forward and took Simon by the arms. Phillip sneered. “Give him some clothes and throw him in the dungeon.”
Elise barked at him, “You dare to give such orders in my house.”
“I do, for your guards are tied up in their own house. All unable to help you escape.” He wrinkled his nose in distaste. “You would not have me when you could have saved yourself and your household.”
Cleve looked at one of the servant woman. “Take your lady to her bed and tie her to it.” He sent Elise a look of evil pleasure. “We will see how she likes it without a lover to warm her.” He glanced at Crosby. “Unless, of course, you would deign her fit to—“
Elise strained at the hands that held her now. “I would not permit either of you near me.”
Simon broke free of his captors and pushed her towards her backwards towards her alcove. But the guards snatched at him, pushing open the door he would have closed against them.
Crosby yelled at his men, “For Christ sake, take him to the dungeon now! Get him from my sight.” He strolled closer to Elise and lifted her chin. “I will visit you soon, Elise. Once we have washed away all traces of de la Poer and confirmed there is no child of his in your belly, you may yet beg me to take you to my bed. But do know, you will now come not as my wife but as my whore.”
She spat in his face. “The king would never permit it. Nor would my father or my brother.”
He wiped away her insult with his open palm. “They are far away and can only learn weeks after I have plumbed your ripe cunt and made you moan for me alone.”
Simon struggled to remain in the hall as Crosby insulted Elise, but the numbers of Crosby’s guards waylaid him and he heard her reply, “I would rather die than let you lay a hand on me, you swine.”
The crack of Crosby’s hand against Elise’s delicate face had Simon’s tearing like an animal at his captors’ hands but to no avail. He trudged behind them to the guard house and the desperation of his and Elise’s loss.
* * * *
The endless days and nights in confinement in the bleak, stone-cold guardhouse were no torture compared to his worry over Elise’s fate. If she was with child and Crosby or Cleve hurt her, or if she was subjected to mating with Crosby, Simon agonised over what she might do to thwart them. For thwart them she would, he knew. She had been strong before he’d come to her, but since laying in his arms, she had blossomed into an Amazon queen. Now he grew crazed with hate that tore his heart to shreds.
One night in turmoil, Simon created such a ruckus that the guard on duty came to bid him be quiet. “Else Crosby’s men will come to beat me to submission, my lord.”
This was the first word anyone had dared speak to Simon, and so he tried for more. “Tell me, man,” Simon reached through the iron rungs of his wooden door, “what news of my two companions?”
“Gone, my lord. Escaped from Cleve and ran away like the wind.”
Simon grinned. Omar and Katani’s freedom gave him a spark of hope that some would survive this ordeal. Where they might have gone and how two oddities such as they might cope in this barren frozen land mystified him. But he had to ask, “And what of your lady Atherton?”
The guard glanced away in no hurry to reply. “Ill, my lord. Sick unto death. Bleeding, too.”
Simon stiffened, racked with agony. “Does Crosby beat her?”
“Nay, my lord. But I must not be caught talking to you, sir. I will get a lashing.”
Simon seized the man by his tunic. “I’ll tell no one
of this, you can be sure. But what ails her? Why does she bleed?” he asked but feared he knew.
“They say she loses a babe, my lord.” The man gulped. “Yours.”
Simon released the guard and sank against the wall. “Christ. I’ve killed her.”
He roared in his grief and guilt. He had killed men, slaughtered them in the name of Christ to gain rocks of the Holy Land for his pontiff and his king. He had butchered men, women and children who stood in his path to gain a castle keep, a city wall or desert sands. Never had he wept for the blood he’d shed in those causes. But in the one true cause of claiming his beloved and freeing her from tyrants, he had gladly enlisted and fought. And now, he had failed.
At the thought of her death caused by the touch of his hand and the seed of his body, Simon recoiled and swore to the God whom he knew now had deserted him that he would find a way to destroy all who had abused Elise and used her to their own ends. Dedicated to finding the chance opening, the imprudent mistake, he sealed his mind from the agony of his loss and set his life in dedication to his survival and hot revenge.
The guards came with regularity to give him watery gruel. Why Crosby did not kill him Simon thought he knew. The fiend feared Elise’s father or brother might saddle their own retainers and beset the castle. But leagues away as the Cordeliers were, Simon surmised that Crosby feared more the sheriff, a friend of the one all feared if they were wise—John Plantagenet, King of England, Ireland and France.
Two weeks later, the sheriff arrived. Simon’s guard described him. Fat, short, bald, he had ridden in after the snow had melted and presented himself in the main hall to Crosby who now sat in the old earl’s chair. What was discussed there, Simon could not learn a word of it.
“You must ask the house. Your lady’s maid,” Simon suggested to the guard who by now was sympathetic to his cause and hated the cruelty of Crosby and Cleve to the serfs.
“She will not talk to me, my lord.”
“Why not?”
At Her Service (Swords of Passion) Page 8