"Oui!"
She might have appreciated his usage of her language at any other time. She wasn’t presently in the mood to, however. She held up her half frozen fingers. "Cold!"
His face hardened. He reached for her. Alinor shrieked, leapt to her feet and fled.
It was inevitable that he would catch her. Alinor had had no clear destination in mind and she was hampered by her stature, the gown tangling around her ankles, and the residual stiffness from days in the saddle. She had not gone far before he swooped down upon her, grasped her around the waist and hauled her back to the water. Wading in with her until he was in the middle, he released her. The brook was just deep enough to completely submerge her. It snatched her breath right out of her chest. She came up, struggling for air, swinging wildly. Stepping back to avoid her swing, Wulfgar lost his footing and hit the water so hard it covered Alinor in a fresh avalanche. Enraged, she dove for him. Straddling his middle, she grasped his hair and shoved his head under. He pried her fingers loose and bucked her off. When she came up again, he’d already gained his feet. Reaching down, he grasped her wrists and hauled her from the water.
Dropping her onto the mossy bank, he caught his breath and began to struggle out of his wet clothes. Wrapping her arms around her knees and hugging them to herself, Alinor watched him in teeth chattering resentment for several moments.
He ignored her, wringing the water from his tunic and spreading it over branches to dry. Removing his boots after a great struggle, he upended them. A small fish hit the ground. Alinor stared at it a long moment and snickered. In the next moment, however, he began to loosen the lacing on his breeches. Gasping, Alinor covered her face with her hands, listening to the rustle of soggy clothing as he calmly removed them, rung the water from them and moved across the small clearing to toss his breeches over the bushes beside his tunic. He was gone for some moments. When he returned, something soft plopped into her lap.
Alinor peeked through her fingers. It was a length of linen, damp already from his body but far dryer than the clothing she was wearing. Stiffly, she got to her feet, intent on heading for the brush to remove her own wet clothing. He caught her, held her until she ceased to resist and began to loosen the lacings down the back of her gown, his hands as impersonal as a maid’s. She remained still, watching as he wrung the gown out and hung it up, wondering what his ultimate intentions were. He stripped her, layer by layer, hung each article to dry with care and then returned, took the linen from her and buffed her skin dry. When he was done, he scooped her into his arms and strode to the furs with her and, kneeling, crawled among them, covering the two of them from neck to foot, tucking her bare back against his chest.
Slowly, Alinor’s shivering subsided and warmth began to seep into her. He shifted, pushing her to her back. When she would have covered her breasts with her hands, he grasped them, bearing down until her arms were manacled against the ground on either side of her head. Her heart leapt, and began to gallop away. Her breath caught in her throat. Slowly, he relaxed his grip on one wrist and slid his hand along her arm until he reached her breast, cupping the mound than trembled with her pounding heartbeat, massaging it.
Alinor stared down at his large, dark hand on her pale breast, torn between fear and fascination. Her mother had explained that it would be painful her first time, but less so if her husband took the time to help her to relax and ease his joining with her. She wasn’t terribly clear on what it was that he must do to help ease the joining, but knew that she must relax and accept whatever he did or cause herself more pain.
It took an effort to remain perfectly still when it felt so very strange to have someone touch her in such a way. Her breath caught in her throat as he grazed the nipple with the pad of his thumb, rubbing it back and forth while her nipple tightened and reached out to him, almost like a sunflower following the path of the sun. When she looked up at him, she saw that he was studying her face, his eyes dark, heated.
Slowly, he lowered his head, closing his lips around her nipple. Startled, Alinor stiffened, but strangely exciting sensations began to move through her as he tugged gently at her nipple and then suckled it. She gasped as the warm heat of his mouth covered her. Fire seemed to flow outward, trickling along tiny pathways through her breast, spreading even to the breast he had not so much as touched until it throbbed and ached.
Alinor squeezed her eyes shut, following that trail in her mind with a mixture of curiosity and pleased surprise as it ebbed and flowed, washing along her ribs to her belly until it finally reached the core of her femininity, pooling there with growing warmth as if it had found a tidal basin to collect the molten fire.
She had not thought that anything could feel so good and yet so disturbing at once. She felt, oddly, as if she’d drank too much wine--warm, lightheaded, breathless.
He was breathing heavily when he lifted his head, his face flushed, his eyes dark and gleaming. Holding her gaze, he released her breast and slipped his hand downward, over her belly, the rough pads of his finger tips causing her flesh to twitch reflexively. When his fingers tangled in the thatch of hair just above her nether lips, Alinor gasped, feeling her body tighten in anticipation.
He lowered his head once more, took the peak of her other breast into his mouth, sucking hard as his slipped his hand between her thighs, urging her to part them. Distracted, enthralled by the sensations rushing at her from both points, Alinor was barely aware of moving her legs to accommodate his hand. His finger explored the moist crevice of her femininity and discovered a tiny nub of flesh that seemed to focus all that she’d been feeling into one point.
She gripped his upper arms, digging her fingers into them, panting, wanting to pull away from that intrusive finger and move closer at the same time. Something was building inside of her, excitement, the certain knowledge of something else just beyond her reach. She felt, as in a dream, that she was struggling hard to reach it but could not race toward it. She could only fight to move forward inch by agonizing inch.
Releasing her breast, Wulfgar pushed her thighs wider, insinuating his knee between them.
When she opened her eyes, she saw that he was watching her once more. He moved over her, spreading her legs wider still, settling his hips between them. Something hard nudged the place where his fingers still teased her. She gasped, felt it pressing harder against her flesh. Abruptly, her flesh parted, and that hard, heated part of him breached the opening.
She panted, willing her body to adjust to the intrusion, fighting the tension of fear than began to creep through her, chasing the thrill of excitement further from her reach, but he continued to press into her, filling her, stretching her until she began to feel as if he would rip her apart, felt a welling of panic that he simply would not fit.
He paused, breathing raggedly, beads of sweat breaking from his pores. Brushing the drying hair from her cheek, he lowered his head and began to tease her lips as he’d teased her nipples. Surprised, captivated by the gentle brush of his lips, by the warmth of his breath, she held still, allowed her mind to focus on the taste of him, the exquisitely pleasurable merging of their mouths. The flick of his tongue startled her, but it sent something hot and sweet rushing through her. She felt the muscles in her femininity tighten around his flesh, embracing his intrusion.
He groaned as if in agony, thrusting his tongue fully into her mouth, and the heat and taste of him were like wine, dizzying, disorienting.
She felt him gathering himself to thrust past her maiden head. With an effort, she parted her thighs wider, breathed deeply and suckled his tongue as he had suckled her breast.
He shuddered, thrust hard, breaching her maidenhead and burying himself so deeply inside of her she felt as if she had been mortally wounded. She could not contain the groan of pain when he possessed her fully, but she sensed that he was oblivious to it now, oblivious to anything but the drive to complete what he’d begun. He had lost all semblance of control and with it the gentleness that had gone before. Groaning, he
began thrusting inside of her hard and fast, burying himself deeply, withdrawing only a little and thrusting forward once more in a mindless sort of frenzy that was both thrilling and frightening at once. Within minutes she sensed a gathering inside of him such as she’d felt before the pain, his body tensing all over in anticipation.
He threw his head back, releasing a long, low, growl of agony or pleasure, or both, his body shuddering, pumping into her convulsively. Something hot spilled inside of her womb, and then he went perfectly still, collapsing on top of her as bonelessly as if he had passed out.
Alinor lay perfectly still, wondering if it was over, feeling chaotic emotions rush at her from no where. She felt the urge both to cuddle him tightly and to thrust him away.
She had missed something, and she felt that it was something momentous. Many minutes passed and she was beginning to think he truly had lost consciousness—might have thought him dead except for the harsh rasp of his breath and the thundering of his heart against her squashed breasts. Finally, he shoved himself upwards and rolled off of her.
Something uncomfortably sticky trickled between her thighs. She wiggled uncomfortably, wishing she could cleanse herself.
As if he read her mind, he thrust the furs aside, rose and moved away. When he returned, he held something white in his hands—the linen, she thought. Pushing the furs aside, and her efforts to thrust him away, he nudged her thighs apart and wiped the stickiness from her. Humiliated, she could do nothing but endure until he’d finished. When he sat back on his heels, he held the cloth up, examining it.
It was her pantaloons, covered now in her blood and his seed. He turned to look at her, his face an expression of triumph. Tossing the pantaloons onto the ground, he climbed into the furs once more and pulled her tightly against him despite her efforts to pull away. Finally, she desisted, knowing it to be a useless effort.
His arm tightened around her waist. "Sleep," he said gruffly. "We must leave in a few hours."
Alinor glanced at him in surprise, for he’d spoken French with no apparent effort at all.
Chapter Four
"Lord Wulfgar?" From the man’s voice he sounded as if he suspected a wraith had appeared at his door.
"Aye. I have come for news."
The rough plank door was opened wider. Wulfgar’s hand tightened on Alinor’s arm and he tugged her into the faint light spilling through the doorway of the tiny cottage, pushing her before him as he ducked his head and entered.
Alinor blinked, dazzled momentarily by the light, though there was little enough of it. Her eyes felt as if they had been coated with sand, and the smoke that filled the room did not help a whit. Her eyes watered, and she blinked rapidly, trying to focus her eyes as she glanced briefly around the single room. When Wulfgar released his hold on her, she moved closer to the fire and sat on the floor near it, ignoring the stares of perhaps a dozen pairs of eyes.
In one corner was a cot. A woman lay in the middle of it, surrounded by small children. More slept on a pallet on the floor near the cot, squirming sleepily like a litter of pups, all staring with a mixture of fear, awe, and curiosity at the two strangers.
She heard the scrape of chairs against the hard packed earthen floor as Wulfgar and the man took a seat at a rickety wooden table near the only door the cottage boasted.
"The soldiers pass through every few days searching for the Norman’s whore. He has torn the land apart searching for her. It is not safe for you here, my lord."
Wulfgar’s face tightened with anger. "The Lady Alinor is not the Norman’s whore. He will not live long enough to make her his whore," he said coldly.
The man paled. "Beg pardon, my lord."
Wulfgar studied him a moment longer and finally nodded. "Tell me what you have heard."
"Word came that the party sent to fetch the Norman’s … lady had been set upon by a band of men and the woman taken. But when Lord John questioned them, the man who had been set to watch—the one you left tied to a tree—confessed that you were alone and that you had challenged Lord John to meet you in single combat. He put the man to the sword afterwards and placed a bounty upon your head. When they found the woman’s clothes in the woods, torn and bloodied, we were told that you had slain the woman and fed her to the beasts of the wood.
They gave him the wolf pelt you left in the woman’s tent. He knows it is you, my lord."
Wulfgar nodded in satisfaction, but then frowned. "I had thought he would answer my challenge before now."
The man looked at Wulfgar fearfully. "He calls you a low born outlaw, my lord, and says you are not worthy of his sword."
Wulfgar came up from the table with a roar that shook the walls of the mud and daub hut.
"Mercy, my lord! I have only told you the slander he has put about!"
Wulfgar turned and studied Alinor for a long moment through narrowed eyes and her heart clutched in her chest fearfully. "He will meet me," Wulfgar said through gritted teeth, "or I will slit his throat while he sleeps. One way or another, I will have my revenge."
Alinor rose nervously as he strode toward her, flinching involuntarily at the look on his face. He merely grasped her wrist and hauled her behind him as he quitted the cottage, however.
Grasping her skirts, Alinor lifted them out of her way as she struggled to keep up with the furious pace he set. Despite her best efforts, she stumbled several times, but he scarcely seemed to notice.
When they reached the place where he had tethered the horse, he grasped her around the waist and lifted her wordlessly onto the saddle, mounted behind her and kicked the horse into a gallop. He did not touch her, did not hold her closely as he always had before, and Alinor clutched the pommel in a death grip, expecting to hit the ground and be trampled by the great horse’s hooves at any moment. She had no idea how long he pressed the horse, but finally, when she thought that she could not hold on another moment, he slowed the foam flecked horse to a less breakneck pace. They halted at last when they emerged from the forest on a rise. In the distance, Alinor could see a huge manor house behind the partially constructed stone wall of a fortress.
Dragging her from the horse, Wulfgar led her to a tree at the edge of the woods and tethered the horse. Pulling a length of leather rope from the saddle bag, he pushed her against a tree nearby and began to bind her tightly to it.
Alinor found that she was more terrified than she had been at any time since Wulfgar had stolen her from her tent a sen’night earlier, so frightened she couldn’t think of anything to say. She didn’t know which frightened her the most, the fact that it appeared that he was leaving her for Jean-Pierre, or the certainty that he was going to meet his death.
"Why?" she finally managed to ask him when he had finished tying her and it appeared that he would leave without saying a word to her.
He paused and turned to look at her. "If I do not return before dawn, they will find you."
She supposed it was meant as a reassurance, but it was hardly that. She’d heard what the man had said and although she had not been able to understand all of it, she had understood enough to know that Jean-Pierre had said that she was dead. Somehow, she felt that he would not be happy to find that she lived still—dishonored by his enemy, perhaps even now carrying the child of his hated enemy. "Jean-Pierre will kill you if you go there," she said quickly.
His eyes narrowed. "Mayhap … and mayhap I will kill him."
"But … why, monsieur? I don’t understand why you must do this."
He stepped toward her, leaning close, he teeth clenched in fury. "Because your precious Jean-Pierre has crushed all that I held dear. I will avenge their deaths--- or die."
Alinor swallowed with an effort. "Your wife?" she said faintly as understanding dawned at last.
Something flickered in his eyes. "For my beloved Freda," he gritted out and, turning, strode away. Pulling his sword and pack from the horse, he moved swiftly into the darkness, disappearing from sight within moments.
The urge to weep swell
ed in Alinor’s chest as she strained to catch a glimpse of movement, feeling, somehow, that as long as she could see him he would come to no harm. She had no idea whether the urge to cry was for herself, for those who had perished in the battle for England, or for Wulfgar.
What he had told her and what she had overheard in the cottage explained much, and yet it left almost as many questions unanswered.
She had told herself from the first that she could not allow herself to believe that she was anything more than a pawn in some struggle between Wulfgar and his enemy, the man she had been sent to wed. Wulfgar had been so gentle in taking her, though, that she had nursed a secret hope that whatever his intentions had been originally, he had come to see her as more than that.
He had not touched her since. She had been relieved at first, for she had been so tender that she had dreaded coupling with him again, but many days had passed since that time and he had shown no interest in her at all. It had worried at the back of her mind.
She should have known his lack of any interest in coupling with her was indication enough that she was less than nothing to him. If she had, in truth, been no more than a common whore, he would have used her for his needs. It was painfully obvious that he could not even stomach her.
She should be relieved that her ordeal was nearing an end. She was weary to the point of dropping where she stood. She had scarcely been off the back of a horse for more than a few hours in weeks now, even sleeping in the saddle when she reached a point of exhaustion where she could no longer stay awake.
Wulfgar had kept them on the move and had not once built a campfire—knowing they were being hunted—and thus she had had nothing to eat since she was captured but dried meat, moldy cheese, sour wine and bread so hardened that it crumbled to dust in her mouth. The dunking in the brook had been her only bath until they had come upon another some three days later. She was dirty, ragged, her hair hanging in rat tails, and, even to her, she looked almost skeletal.
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