“Whatever you do,” Christian growled, “make it hurt.”
Disregarding the man’s shocked look, he tipped back the flagon to drink from it.
He needed the pain to drive away his shame and guilt. Most of all, he wanted it to drive away the unsated lust that still tempted him to take his wife.
And if he was lucky, the physician might actually kill him.
Seven
The marriage was now consummated. Adara should feel elated and relieved. She didn’t.
She felt horrible. Awful! For the first time since their marriage, she actually dreaded the idea of Christian remaining her husband. Saints preserve her, but how many more times would he want to do that with her? From all she had heard, men liked conjugal relations. A lot.
Not to mention she would have to have more sex with him to become pregnant. Oh, this was horrible! If only she’d known just how painful sex was, she wouldn’t have pressed him for a consummation.
Why had no one told her? But then, why would they? If other women knew, no one would ever have sex again.
The entire world would die out, and truthfully she would rather that happen than her husband take her again.
“Is something amiss, my queen?”
She turned at the sound of Lutian’s voice. He was standing in the opening of the tent’s entrance as he watched her.
Adara sat down again in her chair and sighed. “Did I make a mistake by coming here, Lutian? Honestly?”
He came forward to kneel beside her much like Christian had done. Taking her hand into his, he stared up at her with an inquisitive gaze. “What has that bastard done now?”
His angry tone on her behalf warmed her, but she couldn’t allow him to go unchastised. It wasn’t his place to insult Christian. More like she would do it herself.
“He’s a prince and would-be king, Lutian. You shouldn’t be so impertinent.”
“And he’s a bastard who hurts you.”
She smiled at him while she squeezed his hand, grateful for his friendship. “I know not what to think of him. I truly don’t.” She shook her head. “I should have stayed home and fought Selwyn myself.”
“We couldn’t have, my queen. Our army is no match for the Elgederions. You know that. They would have destroyed us and you would have been imprisoned again or killed.”
That was true enough.
“But that isn’t what is truly bothering you, is it?”
She glanced away from him. There were times when Lutian was far too intuitive for his own good and he knew her far too well. There was never any hiding from him.
He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. His beard tickled her skin, but there was no heat from his touch. Not like Christian caused her.
“Tell me what has you so despondent, my queen.”
She wished she could, but it was too horrible to contemplate. “It is too personal.”
“Nay, there is no such thing where I am concerned, and well you know it.”
It was true. She confided everything to him.
“I’m confused, Lutian. I always thought that when a husband…” She hesitated. She’d never spoken of such things before with anyone. Her nurse had merely explained the basics, then left the rest to her imaginings.
How could she broach such a topic with her friend? For that matter, she wasn’t even sure if Lutian had experience in these matters. If he had been with a woman, he’d never mentioned it to her.
“When he what?” Lutian asked.
“When he…when people…”
He cocked a brow as he waited while she searched for the right words.
All she could remember was her old nurse and what she’d told her. “You know there are birds and bees and they have to pollinate…well, not really pollinate per se…”
He cocked his head as if he were starting to understand. “Has your prince consummated your marriage?”
She felt heat flood her face. She couldn’t look him in the eye.
Lutian cursed. “Did he hurt you?”
Reluctantly, she nodded. “He apologized for it afterward, but aye, he did.” She looked at him beseechingly. “Why did no one ever tell me it would be so painful? And I don’t believe he even finished. It was marvelous in the beginning and then it turned awful. Horrible. I don’t think I should ever want to do it again.”
A tic worked in his jaw. “Methinks your noble prince is an incompetent man, my queen. I assure you, the experience can be most pleasurable for both the man and the woman when it is done properly.”
Adara’s chest was tight. “Think you he didn’t care enough to make it pleasurable, then?”
“Nay. I think your husband is a great fool and wholly unworthy of you.”
“What should I do, Lutian?”
“What should I do?”
Christian lay in the bed, staring up blankly at the tent’s ceiling over him. He had a wife now. One who had carried a memory of him from her childhood. A woman who had guarded a throne for him that he didn’t even want.
In all his life, he’d only had two things that belonged solely to him. His sword and his horse.
He’d never wanted anything more than that. But Adara was right, they provided a cold comfort to him at night.
Now he had a wife and a throne. People who looked to him for leadership. Whether he liked it or not, it was time he grew up and took his rightful place in the world. Time he stopped running from his past and his parents’ memory.
“Slave to a throne…”
His worst fear. He would have no one to trust.
He would be like Adara.
Pain lacerated his heart at the thought. Lutian had been right. He knew his wife’s isolation and yet she had borne it with grace and dignity. Unlike him, she wore the chains of her slavery without complaint.
God’s blood, she must think him a childish cur, and in truth, at this moment, he thought it of himself.
Now it was time to be the man Adara had expected. He only hoped he didn’t disappoint her again.
Adara spent the night in Corryn’s tent, far away from her husband, who might wish to exercise his marital rights. Truly, it was the last thing she wanted.
So she and Corryn had spent an interesting night getting to know each other. She’d been more than a little dismayed when the young woman had confided her gender to her.
She couldn’t believe she’d been fooled so easily. But then, Corryn wasn’t the most feminine of women. Still, she was kind and amusing, and Adara liked her a great deal.
They had arisen early and broken their fast, then set about packing up Corryn’s tent while the men in the camp did the same.
“Don’t lift that,” Corryn said as she rushed to Adara’s side to stop her from moving one of the arcs by her cot. “We’ll make Ioan do it.” She winked at her.
Adara laughed. “You enjoy abusing your brother, don’t you?”
Corryn shrugged. “All women need a man to lovingly abuse, and I’m lucky to have a whole camp full of them. It keeps them on their toes.”
She handed Adara a large leather-bound book. “If you would like something to do, Majesty, please carry this to Ioan in his tent. ‘Tis a list of the men and their pay and he gets rather upset if I keep it too long.”
Adara studied the thick ledger. “Why do you have it?”
“I was adding new names to it. We picked up three new archers while we were here. Ioan is in charge of his knights, while I oversee the rest.”
That made sense to her. A bit apprehensive, Adara left Corryn’s tent to cross the way to Ioan’s.
She expected to see Christian or Ioan in the tent, but neither was there. Frowning, she went to the bed, where she found Christian’s robe discarded.
Was he walking about naked?
Surely not. But what else did he have to wear? She’d never seen her husband in anything else. Could something have happened to him? Surely the Sesari hadn’t found them.
Placing the ledger on Ioan’s desk, she left the
tent in search of him.
She found Phantom and Ioan, who were helping to load a wagon of weaponry. “Have you seen Christian?” she asked them.
“Last I saw he was in the tent with the physician,” Phantom said.
“Is anything amiss?” Ioan asked after he loaded one large trunk.
“Nay. He wasn’t in the bed. I was but curious.” She looked around the men and noticed that Lutian had vanished as well. “Have you seen my fool?”
“I already said I know not where Christian is,” Phantom said.
Adara gave him a droll stare.
“Oh,” Phantom teased, “you meant Lutian. The other fool who does your bidding.”
“Aye.”
Ioan laughed at them. “I sent him off to aid in packing the spare tack, my lady.”
“Thank you, Ioan.”
Adara left them to find Lutian, but he wasn’t with the others who were packing the tack and none could tell her where he’d gone.
A bad feeling went through her. Surely Lutian hadn’t challenged Christian. Had he? Her mind ran away with ideas of her friend doing something profoundly dangerous where Christian was concerned.
“Oh, please, Lutian, please don’t get yourself killed.”
“I’m going to kill you for this, Lutian,” Christian snarled as he looked at himself in the polished steel mirror. His face was clean-shaven, his hair trimmed and styled by a hired razor. Good God, he’d even allowed the man to curl his hair, and for what?
He looked like a stranger.
“You asked me what she wanted, my lord, and that is what she dreams of.”
Christian grimaced at his reflection as he stroked his smooth and oiled cheeks. He looked like a bloody woman. How could any female find this attractive?
Sighing, he got up and paid the man who had shaved him.
He felt like a complete and utter ass and he still wasn’t sure why he was doing this to please a woman he’d only just met. A woman he had inadvertently made cry.
He’d bathed in scented water, had bought a new mail hauberk, gloves, and a horse. He’d even dragged out his court clothes, which he hadn’t worn since Stryder’s wedding.
“Have you memorized the poetry yet?” Lutian asked as they left the small shop.
“Of course I have.” Sentimental slop that it was. The entire piece was an ode to a woman’s beauty. “You are certain that this is what a prince does?”
“Aye. All women dream of a golden knight who plies them with gifts and words of beauty.”
Christian reached up to brush his hand through his hair, only to have Lutian slap his hand away. He glowered at the fool.
“It has taken us hours to make you presentable, my prince. Don’t undo it on a whim.”
Christian tightened his grip on his sword as he fought an urge to pull it out and skewer the man. This had best please Adara or he would indeed skewer him.
A group of women watched him as they passed by, then burst into giggles as they stared at him with lust in their eyes.
Christian smiled devilishly.
Mayhap he didn’t look so imbecilic after all. But he wouldn’t bet his life or his soul upon it. He only hoped his wife appreciated his efforts. If not, her fool would be hanged by nightfall.
“Oh, saints preserve me. Who is that fine specimen of manhood? I know he’s not one of ours. But with any luck, that might change.”
Adara turned at the sound of Corryn’s lust-filled words to see a knight riding down the pathway between the tents. She couldn’t see his face, but the setting sun glinted off his form, making him appear to be golden fair, like an angel with a halo.
His stallion was white, with a black and gold drape that matched the surcoat of the knight. A golden rampant phoenix was embroidered on his chest and painted on the black shield that hung from his saddle. He carried a rippling black banner embroidered with the same symbol in his hand. He posed a fearsome sight.
Adara furrowed her brow as she continued to watch him. She knew those arms, but couldn’t remember where she had seen them before.
“I’ll be buggered,” an older knight said from her right as he paused his own packing. “I haven’t seen the arms of Michel de Chelrienne in years.”
“Michel de Chelrienne?” Adara asked.
“Christian’s father,” Corryn answered as she cast a new look at the knight. “His father was the son of the duc there.”
Adara felt her jaw go slack as she turned back to look more closely at the approaching knight. That was her husband?
Mercy, the man needed to discard his monk’s robes more often.
She didn’t fully believe it until he reined his horse before her and his blue eyes seared her with heat. She’d known her husband was a handsome man, but this…
This was unbelievable.
He buried his banner into the ground beside his horse. His gaze never wavering from hers, he slung one long, well-muscled leg over his steed before he slid to the ground. She didn’t move as he approached her. She couldn’t. The sight of him had her completely riveted to this spot on the ground.
Adara wasn’t sure what he had planned, but when he dropped to his knee before her, she was dumbfounded.
He struck himself on his left shoulder with his fist as a salute to her, then bowed his head. “My sword is ever at your disposal, my lady.”
Laughter rang out from the men around her.
“As is mine,” someone called out.
Christian ignored them as he looked up at her like something out of her dreams. The moment seemed surreal. Truly, it was a fantasy come to life.
“What has possessed you, Christian?” she asked.
“Your beauty. It has…” He paused as if searching for the words. “Your great beauty has possessed my soul and…”
More laughter and taunts rang out.
Her husband’s eyes flashed angrily, but still he stayed there. “I would be your champion, Adara, and—”
“Simpering milksop,” one of the knights finished for him.
Christian dropped his head and shook it. “This is not who or what I am,” he muttered before he looked up at her again. “I’m sorry, Adara.”
“For what?”
His answer came as he rose to his feet. With a determined stride, he went to the men who had been tormenting him. He struck the first man he reached so hard that he was knocked to the ground.
“Milksop with an iron fist,” he snarled. “And you’d best remember that.”
The knights attacked. Even wounded, Christian fought them off, then drew his sword to keep them back.
“Cease!” Ioan’s Welsh accent cut through them all. He pushed his way through his men to see Christian in his finery. Ioan looked at him, blinked, then burst out laughing. “Abbot? Since when do you dress like a woman?”
His expression hard, Christian tossed his sword into the air, where it twirled around. He caught the hilt upside down in his fist and in one smooth motion sheathed it.
Christian paused beside Ioan and glared at him. “Be glad I carried you out of the Holy Land on my back. That fact, and that alone, is all that precludes me from hurting you. For both our sakes, don’t try my patience and make me kill you after such a sacrifice.”
Ioan’s eyes twinkled in merriment. He leaned forward and sniffed. “My God, you even smell like one. What happened to you?”
Christian let out a tired breath and headed for the tent they had pitched for him.
Phantom tsked in her ear as soon as Christian was out of his hearing range. “Only a woman can make a man sacrifice his dignity on the altar of humility. Tell me, Adara, did Christian just sacrifice his for naught?”
Nay, he didn’t.
Adara did something she hadn’t done since she was a child. She ran toward his tent, then drew up short as she saw Christian angrily unbuckling his sword and tossing it to the cot. The anger from him was tangible.
“Bloody damn fool,” he growled under his breath. “I should have known better.”
; “Was that for my benefit?”
He turned sharply to face her and grimaced. “Well, I most certainly wasn’t trying to turn Ioan’s head in my direction, now, was I?”
She squelched her smile at his dour words. “I surely hope not. If you were, I would say it didn’t turn out well.”
Her words didn’t seem to have the lightening effect on his mood that she had hoped. If anything he appeared even angrier. “I’ve been mocked enough this day, Adara. If you wish to laugh at me, then join the others outside of my hearing.”
She approached him slowly. “I’m not mocking you, Christian. I think you look noble. Kingly.” She reached up to cup his smooth cheek. “You even shaved.”
Christian held his breath as she stood up on her tiptoes and placed a chaste kiss to his cheek. Her warm lips were softer than silk and they made his skin burn, especially as he recalled even softer areas of her body. Her breath caressed his flesh as she nuzzled her cheek to his. The tenderest of chills went through him.
“I think you smell wonderfully manly. I could inhale you all day.”
He hardened at her words and fought the urge to crush her in his arms and make love to her again. “I’m not the man you dreamed of, Adara. I am coarse and used to doing for myself. I know nothing of royal manners or decorum or even how to dance. I have spent my entire life either confined in cells in the company of men or on the battlefield. I’m not the cultured knight my father was. In truth, I feel like some sort of pretender in his clothes. How can a man such as I ever be king, prince, or husband?”
Those words set her heart to pounding as she pulled away. “I can teach you anything you need to know about royal etiquette. ‘Tis far simpler than swordplay or battle strategy.”
Christian was captivated by her dark gaze, by the flecks of gold in her eyes as she stared up at him with an adoring gaze that somehow erased all the embarrassment he’d suffered outside. He laid his hand against her cheek so that he could feel more of her softness. “I thought you would hate me after I hurt you.”
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