by Sarah Hegger
What a strange day. Alice took a seat by the hearth. The thing with Mathew had her quite wrung out. Then William’s unexpected reaction had set her head spinning. Since her wedding day, naught seemed the same.
Prepared for another husband like the others, William kept her on edge and uneasy in his treatment of her. Lord knew she had had no inkling of how much she would enjoy intimacy with a man, and pine for it once she lost it. William had sunk himself into her being, and lodged there like a stubborn burr. Her body cleaved to him. Before William, she had only an idea of what that could mean.
Too restless to remain seated, she tidied the water basin and rags Martha must have used to tend Sister. More disturbing was the dizzy relief that had swept over her when William had come to her earlier without anger or judgment. Nestled against his chest, Alice had felt a calm and peace unknown to her. Safe. And she craved that more than anything.
Chapter 18
Alice wished she could take a broom and sweep the stifling atmosphere out of the hall. For five days, whilst Sister regained her strength, Alice had drifted in an odd sort of in between state.
William spent his nights with her, but other than holding her while she slept, he did not touch her. Any more of this and she would take matters into her own hands. William’s matter.
Sister’s keen gaze fastened on her, and Alice choked back her giggle.
Sister’s presence made the hall feel like a funeral procession marched through it. Wan and cross-faced in her black habit, like a death-portending crow, Sister crouched in her seat and robbed the hall of any laughter or good cheer.
People huddled, murmuring to each other and casting guilty glances at Sister.
“Good evening.” Beatrice floated into the hall, resplendent in red with Adam in her arms and Richard leading the way.
No Mathew or Ivy.
“Aonghas?” Beatrice stopped by the table with the Scotsman. “Is that a new tunic I spy? How will the ladies of the keep resist you?”
Aonghas reddened, whilst his brothers broke into guffaws.
“Easily enough, Lady Bea.” Dubhghall gave her his skirt-lifting smile. “He is an ugly brute.”
Light and joy entered the hall with Beatrice, and Alice could have cheered. A wave of smiles crossed faces as Beatrice and her children wound through the residents. Beatrice paused every now and again to exchange a word and a laugh with someone. She and the children approached the dais like a royal procession.
Alice knew not how Beatrice did it, but she would dearly like to learn the trick.
“Faithless,” Sister muttered. “Soiled by her baseborn bastard of a husband.”
“Do not.” Alice leant closer to Sister. “Be civil.”
Really, she wanted to smack Sister like she would a naughty child. Despite Beatrice’s anger with her, Alice could not help but like her.
“Bastard-get, all those children.” Was Sister hard of hearing or merely impossible?
“They are fine boys.” Alice struggled to keep her voice from reaching others when her anger threatened to rip a shrieking torrent from her. “I will not have you speak of them in that manner.”
“Good evening, Lady Alice.” Beatrice gathered her children onto the bench. A slight chill entered her voice. “Sister Julianna.”
The distance between Sister and the boys could not be an accident. Alice would not have her children near such a frightening figure either.
Her children. Alice would tuck them close to her. Fuss with them as Beatrice did, until Richard batted at his mother’s hands.
“Whore!” Sister’s voice pierced the hall chatter.
The hall hushed.
In the doorway, Ivy stopped, color drained from her cheeks.
Beatrice sprang to her feet.
“You dare.” William entered the hall on Ivy’s heels. His anger throbbed from him in waves that had people ducking and dodging out of his way.
Sister shrank into herself as William stalked closer. “You dare sit in my hall and insult one of my family.”
Sister huddled into her habit, head down, glancing at Alice.
Nobody would defend her. Not one person in this hall loved Sister. But when Alice had been a young, unloved child, Sister had stood for her.
“She is ill.” Alice tried to fill her voice with conviction. Her heart faltered in her defense of Sister. God, she wanted to box Sister’s ears herself. But just as Ivy was family to William, so Sister was family to her. “She does not know what she is saying.”
William drew himself up. “She knows exactly what she is saying.” He loomed above Sister, hands bunched into tight fists. “Hear me, old woman, and hear me well. If you wish to remain here, you will watch your tongue. This is my keep, my hall. We will do things my way. Your meal is done.”
Sister clambered to her feet and, with a final look of condemnation at Alice, skittered from the hall.
Her meal lay on the table uneaten. She should eat to recover her strength.
Alice took up Sister’s abandoned trencher. Someone needed to ensure she ate at least. And the task, clearly, fell to her, because not another soul in this hall would dare William’s anger for Sister.
William’s hand clamped around her wrist. “Sit down, Alice.”
“She did not eat.”
“She does not deserve to.” William stared her down, and Alice dropped her gaze first.
God, she did not want to fight with him, not with things so tentative between them. And not over this, where she condemned Sister’s behavior as much as he did. But she could not ignore Sister’s need. The tussle inside her threatened to burst out of her chest. She tugged her wrist from his grasp. “I cannot ignore her.”
* * * *
William stayed in the hall much later than he should and worked his way through another flagon of wine. Aye, the old woman revolted him, but he had sent a sick woman to bed without food.
Alice was loyal. He would give her that. Loyal to a sodding fault, unfortunately.
He could not back down about this. Alice and her shadow of death needed to understand how matters lay at Tarnwych. He would not bear the attacks on his kin. So, he drank his wine and fortified himself against the inevitable confrontation.
Five nights, he had kept his paws to himself. Lain beside Alice, so hard he thought his ballocks might burst, and left her alone. Some foolish notion of chivalry had kept him from foisting himself on a tired, worried woman.
He had actually welcomed the evil nun back into the hall. With the old shrew well enough to rise, his wife would have her freedom again. Which meant…
Sod it. It meant nothing. Because now, instead of responding to him with that passion barely contained in her ripe, delicious curves, Alice and he took up cudgels again.
His parents made this marriage thing look so effortless. Indeed, they had words occasionally, and he recalled times his mother had refused to speak to Father for weeks over something Father had done, but they never appeared caught in the storm buffeting him and Alice.
He placed his goblet beside the chair. No sense in hiding here all night. Best to storm a keep early before they had all their defenses in place.
“Do you need me, Sir William?” Cedric had grown half a foot since returning from Anglesea. Unfortunately for Cedric, and on occasion William, the lad still tangled his inches together.
Since coming to Tarnwych Cedric had applied himself to his weapons training. His young shoulders drooped from exhaustion. “Nay, Cedric, find your pallet for the night.”
“Aye, my lord.” Cedric spun about, tripped over a hall dog, and managed to right himself before plowing headfirst into the wall.
William climbed the stairs like an oldster, dragging his feet from one rise to the next. He slipped into his and Alice’s bedchamber.
Alice sat up in bed, her long hair loose about her back and her gaze on the door. She eyed him warily.
Avoiding her gaze, he took extra time disrobing. She ap
peared a little concerned but not angry. Using water gone tepid but still smelling of fresh herbs, he washed under her watchful gaze.
“Can I assist you?”
“Nay.” William played for time as he washed himself. “I have this.”
“You are angry with me?”
With her? Although furious with that nun, he understood loyalty. He had been raised on it. William rubbed himself with a drying cloth. “Angry?”
“About me leaving the hall with Sister.”
A swift offensive strike often gave the biggest battle advantage. Except, he really did not want to battle. Not with Alice sitting in his bed, sweet and tempting, her pretty face gentle. “I understand you feel loyal to her.”
“And you are loyal to Ivy,” she said.
Did he detect a slight edge in her voice? William shucked his chausses. “Ivy is like a sister to me.”
“She is a very lovely sister.”
“Is she?”
Alice raised a brow at him.
William flushed. Aye, his Alice saw straight through his dissembling. “When Ivy first came to Anglesea, I was like every other man there. We all chased her from one end of the keep to the other.”
Alice stiffened, and her fingers curled into the furs atop her.
“But,” William said. He sat on the end of the bed and took her hand. “That was some time ago. Ivy is only interested in Tom, and I do not see her that way anymore.”
The smile Alice gave him warmed his chest.
“Tell me about Anglesea.” She threaded her fingers through his. “Tell me about your family.”
So much better than waging war, and William settled his back against the wall beside her. Snuggled at his side, she listened, her face alight with interest, as he talked of how he and Roger could never do anything without it becoming a competition. He spoke to her of Bea and how she had met her husband, Garrett. Alice laughed at his Bea stories. His youngest sister had a way of getting into trouble with her big heart and unfettered spirit. Alice went quiet and contemplative when he told her of Faye, and the torment she had suffered at her first husband’s hands. A stray tear snaked down her chin as William went on to tell the story of how Faye and Gregory found their way together.
Sharing with Alice had a rightness about it. “I am concerned for my mother,” he said. “You would not know it to look at her, but she was not well after bearing Mathew, and her strength is not as it should be.”
Alice slid her arm about his middle and cuddled closer. “I will keep her in my prayers.”
The hearth flames danced orange, yellow and blue, sending shadows playing about the chamber. Alice smelled fresh and sweet, like a spring breeze. Her breasts pressed full and soft against his side.
“William?”
“Aye.”
Alice sat up and peered at him. “If you are not wroth with me…and I am not tired…”
Lazy heat in his blood quickened. He cupped her sweet face and drew her toward him. “Is there something I can do for you, my lady?”
“Aye, William,” she whispered against his mouth. “You could stop talking.”
She took his breath away with the fierceness of her kiss. Hot, hungry lips devoured his as if she could not get close enough.
William let her take the lead. Like heady wine, her uninhibited passion swept him along with it. She had him hard and aching within mere moments.
He cupped her breasts, loving the way it made her moan when he toyed with her nipples. So passionate, his Alice, and so responsive. She liked his hands firm on her. Writhed when he applied a small pinch to her nipples.
Sweeping aside the linens, she straddled him. Her core pressed warm and wet against him.
Right here, in the spot where her neck joined her shoulder, she welcomed his mouth. He drew deep breaths of her into him.
Beneath the covers she moved against his shaft, rocking her heat on his hardness.
“William?”
“Aye?” Words grew harder to manage. It had been too long since he had lost himself in Alice, and her writhing atop him nigh killed him. He wanted to sink into her and feel her fasten about him like a wet, hot fist.
“When you put your mouth on me, I like it,” she murmured.
Dear God, if she talked gutter to him he would come off just like this. “Aye?” He raised her hips an inch away from him. “As do I?”
He needed the taste of her. William shifted her to his side and attempted to press her down.
“Nay.” Alice took hold of his hands. “I wanted to know if you liked it.”
“More than anything. The taste of you drives me wild.”
“Nay.” Fever bright color stained her cheeks. “What I mean is, do you like it done to you?”
His ballocks fisted tight and pumped more blood into his shaft. “Eh?”
“Is it possible…for me…to do the same to you?”
The fierce demand for her to take him in her mouth rose inside him, but he tamped it down. He did not want to offend her. “It is possible.”
“Will you tell me how?”
Torment, sweet hellish torment. William struggled through the haze of lust as he instructed her. He did not know which made him ache more, the telling her how, or the caress of her tongue on his shaft. When she took him into her mouth, his back bowed off the bed. God in Heaven!
“Alice.” He panted like a dog after a bitch on heat. “God, that feels so good.”
She sucked and he dug his hands into the bedding to stop his completion. She needed to stop before he lost his control, but stopping her would kill him for sure.
She swirled her tongue over his sensitive tip as she hollowed her cheeks and sucked him harder.
“Alice!” William knifed up and grabbed her shoulders.
“Did I do it wrong?” Her face glowed, pure naughty temptress. She knew what she did to him, and she loved it.
William flipped her onto her back and came down atop her. “You are entirely too good at that.”
Wrapping her thighs around his hips, she giggled and wriggled until her heat brushed his sensitized tip. “Shall I swear never to do it again?”
“Enough, wench.” He tore her night rail from her.
Alice laughed, a full-throated, deep chuckle as she reveled in her female power over him.
He had to have her, own her, possess her. William took her in one deep thrust.
She arched and cried out, her legs wrapping around his hips and drawing him deeper.
Needing to see her, William raised himself on his arms. God, what a stirring sight. Her hair a copper tangle on the white linens. Face flushed, eyes bright, she moaned his name.
Around his shaft, she tightened in a heated, slick grip that nearly pushed him over the edge.
William drove into her, relishing the sounds she made, the digging of her nails into his forearms.
Harder he thrust, and she met him with a tilt of her head and a wild cry of encouragement.
He could not get deep enough inside her. Fever coursed through him, to join himself to her and stay there. By sheer will he held off, craving completion and wanting to make this last. Sweat coated both of them as they moved and ground against each other.
Her climax came on in a tightening grip about his shaft. It spread across her in a fascinating flush that beaded her nipples and threw her head back.
William went over the edge with her. Tumbled headlong into a dark, honeyed place crammed with the taste, the feel, the smell of them.
He knew his weight crushed her, but he took his time separating from her. Even then, it hit like a blow, and he tucked her tight against his side.
“William?”
“Aye.”
“I like that so much better than fighting.”
* * * *
Something wrenched her hair, making her scalp throb.
“Pretty,” said a voice she knew but could not place.
Alice screamed and clawed at
the thing causing pain.
“Pretty.” Her limbs banged together as it shook her.
Beneath her dangling feet water rushed past in frothing, boiling white foam. God, she would die if she went in there. She could not swim.
“Alice.”
She fought the hold on her. She had to get free.
“Alice!”
She woke with a cry, her heart pounding in her ears.
“Alice.” William’s voice, deep and soothing. William’s hands, stroking her back and drawing her close to the comfort of his chest. “You were having a nightmare.”
It had been so real. The smell of the river, the blurred faces staring on in horror. Alice burrowed into William’s chest.
“Can you tell me what is was about?” William tightened his hold on her.
Alice shook head. In his arms, the shadows of the dream place receded.
Chapter 19
William would rather impale himself on a gatepost than do this, but he needed answers, and the rotten nun seemed to keep the secrets at Tarnwych. At least, she kept Alice’s secrets.
That must have been one damnable dream Alice had the night before. She might not want to speak of it, but she’d called over and over again to Sister, pleading with her not to do something. It had taken a long while for her to ease back into slumber.
Thus, he set off to find the evil nun because of a conversation he and Beatrice had had with thick-skulled Aonghas.
Thin shoulders hunched over, the crone crouched before the fire in the hall. Condemn them as wasteful for the larger fires, did she? If she got any closer to the heat, she’d catch flame.
“Sister Julianna.” He eased into it with a charming smile and a friendly tone. “I am very glad to see you so much recovered.”
She snatched her rosary beads and wrapped them around her fist. “Are you?”
So much for the pleasantries. “Of course, Sister. I would hate to see anyone suffer.”
With a sniff, she turned back to the fire.
At this rate, they would be thicker than ticks by the end of the day. Perhaps brush each other’s hair. He took the chair opposite her and motioned a serf for wine. “I wanted to speak to you about Alice.”