The Lord's Right

by Carolyn Faulkner

  Piers sat back against the wall, with Amber between his legs, wrapped in all of the furs and surrounded by his not inconsiderable bulk, because she was shivering. “Amber, dearest, what’s the matter?”

  “What’s wrong with me? What just happened? That’s never happened to me before in my life? Am I dying? I feel like I’m dying! I’m all weak kneed and weepy and my legs feel like jelly and–”

  “Shh.” Piers found himself in the awkward, unusual position of comforter. But at least now he understood what the matter was, and he was annoyed with himself for not anticipating it. Amber was, after all, a sheltered, country girl. He knew she was a virgin, he’d discovered that delightful fact himself. Despite the fact that she liked to parade through the countryside dressed as a boy, she was still very innocent, and she had had absolutely no idea where he’d been guiding her, and what the culmination he’d lead her to was.

  He was surprised to find himself indulging in what he’d always eschewed with other women, even Josette; the petting and cuddling and snuggling they all wanted but he abhorred. He tucked her in next to him, tight against his side, allowing his mere large presence to be a comfort, but also pressing kisses on the top of her head and stroking that gorgeous, unusually colored hair. Her breathing regulated slowly as he spoke in a low, quiet voice. “I’m sorry, Amber. I didn’t do that very well.” She had no idea this was one of the rarest of apologies; he almost never apologized to anyone, certainly not to a peasant English girl. “I should have prepared you for what was going to happen. That was a gift to me, that explosion in your body. It was a very precious gift. It happens to a man more often, and a woman much more rarely. You are an exquisitely unique woman, Amber.”

  She wasn’t sure whether she was going to allow his pretty speech to placate her or not. “You mean I’m not dying?”

  He chuckled softly. “No, you’re not. In fact, your woman’s body is so wondrous, that you can do that again at any time.” He reached down, as if to do it again to her, but she was out of the bed and across the room in a flash, looking as if she would throw herself out the window if he so much as touched her again.

  Piers decided it was best not to push her right now. But he didn’t want her to think that she could simply run away from him, either. He stood, and commanded that she come back into his open arms.

  Amber did as she was ordered to, but he knew she didn’t want to, and that she didn’t quite trust him not to throw her down on the bed and begin either punishing or pleasuring her again, or some combination of the two.

  And she was right not to trust him. He was her lord and master, and he could do anything he liked with her, at any time.

  But right now, he didn’t want to push her too far. Overall, besides the fact that she had shown up his entire hunting party, she had done very well. He crossed the room to a concealed panel in the wall, and then brought her down a hidden staircase that ended up in the room she had been given.

  Piers again indulged himself and put her to bed like a baby, tucking her in and noticing the dark circles under her eyes. She looked absolutely exhausted. First orgasms were apparently quite the ordeal. She was already asleep before he even turned to leave. He pealed back the thin blanket and observed the handiwork he’d created on her lovely seat, before turning to sneak back up the stairs while she slept soundly.

  He embroidered a story about the slim boy poacher he’d sent on his way, making sure no one suspected exactly who that boy was, despite the fact that everyone knew it was Amber’s screams that issued from his room so closely after.

  Amber might have wanted to have been terribly embarrassed about everyone in the keep hearing her being punished last night, but she didn’t have a chance to—she was much too busy. Mrs. Tulane keep her going all morning with the weeding and the fertilizing and the harvesting and the drying of all the various herbs, to say nothing of the potions she concocted, which she was eager to learn, with a few she was dying to teach the old woman. She also liked to go into the nearby village to do anything she could to help the sick and ailing there, taking the least of the herbs to the people and distributing them in the count’s name, which gained him much favor with them. When he rode by the villages where Amber visited on that big black charger, he heard his name chanted and saw children following him through the streets, instead of the grumbles and groans he heard from the other provinces through which he traveled.

  Mrs. Tulane came running to fetch her that afternoon, saying that the master wanted her to accompany him into the village, that he had a question for her. She followed after him on foot, until they were well away from the castle, and he leaned down and put her up in front of him.

  “You look pensive today, Mademoiselle,” he said in his native tongue. “What are you thinking about?”

  “I was wondering what you wanted to ask me,” she replied in perfectly accented French.

  Piers was quiet for a moment, then said, “It seems I am a hero in some towns, a heel in others. I wondered if you had any idea why.”

  “Why would I know, Sir?”

  “Because you often know of unusual things, as you are an unusual lady, my flower.”

  They turned a corner and rode down a small hill, into a tiny but generally prosperous village, and were immediately swamped by children. Piers thought they were all coming to see him, but then he realized that they weren’t anywhere near as thrilled to see him as they were to see Amber.

  He allowed her to slip down, and she disappeared into a sea of grubby hands and smiling but generally toothless and somewhat grimy faces. He pulled Tygan to a halt, and just listened to her talking to them. She was as straightforward and no nonsense with them as she was with everyone else.

  “Timmy, how goes your finger? Has it fallen off yet? Let me see it.”

  The lad in question extended his finger proudly. It had a dirty bandage on it, which he bravely allowed her to remove.

  “Have you been keeping it clean and washing it like I showed you?”

  He nodded solemnly.

  ”Well, it looks like you have, and it’s healing beautifully. I guess you know what that gets you!” Like magic, a sweetmeat appeared in her hand, and just as quickly disappeared down Timmy’s gullet.

  The other children were treated much the same, whether or not they had as grave an injury as Timmy’s.

  Before she let them go, though, he heard her say quietly, “Remember, though, who is it that lets me come here, and gives me the medicines that helps your families and the sweetmeats that fills your bellies to overflowing?”

  “Sir Piers!” They all screamed in unison. He was stunned.

  “And who is our great king now?”

  “King William!”

  “Very good, children. Now run along. I have other things to do.”

  When they scattered, and she rose, Amber refused to look up at him, although she knew without him saying so that he wished it.

  “I thought I was the enemy?”

  “You are, to me. But they have to live in the future, in a world where we’ve lost the war, where we’re an occupied nation. It’s much easier for them to come to grips with it than it ever will be for me.” She met his eyes, of her own volition. “If you win over the hearts of the peasantry, you’ll win the hearts of the nation. They are England, Sir Piers.”

  As they made their way through the village, many more people came up to her than to him, which could well be attributed to his status and their reluctance to approach him. But some did come to him with flowers, bowing and scraping but thanking him most often for her, and her for saving this relative or that, or this limb or that.

  “What are you using to save them, might I ask?”

  Amber glanced up at him, wincing into the sun. “If you’re asking if your men are feeling the lack, you may rest assured that I would never do that. The villagers get what would have ended up on the compost pile, or as a forgotten ingredient in someone’s tea. It’s such a little thing, and it helps them so enormously, and I always m
ake sure that they know that I’m doing it in your and the king’s good names.”

  Beautiful, sensual, and politically adept. This woman was too good to be true.

  By the time they left the village, he looked like a maid on May Day, and she’d filled his saddlebags with all sorts of homemade goodies from the grateful villagers.

  He was gone for a time, to the site of the new castle. Amber found herself being extremely productive in his absence, not having to worry about whether or not she’d be summoned to his chambers and punished harshly for something she’d done. She felt free, and did very much as she pleased, almost as if she was at home again.

  The only catch was that he had awakened her in a way that made her uncomfortable, especially at night, when her thoughts were wont to travel back to when his fingers were where they oughtn’t be, touching that spot that no one else knew about, making her feel that new and exciting way she’d never felt before. When it had happened that first time, she would have sworn she would never want to feel that way again. It was too … just too much. Too sensitive. Too raw. Too impossible to deal with.

  She couldn’t remember a time when she’d been quite so frightened, except perhaps when her mother had died. But even then, she hadn’t been in fear for her own life. This had most definitely been a worry that she was going to expire, right then and there. Her heart was pounding, she was sweating and panting and her body was contracting in mysterious and—she was sure—dangerous ways. It was certain to be a sinful thing, this whatever it was that he had done to her, and Amber knew she was going to die from it. She just knew.

  But she didn’t. And she would never forget just how surprisingly gentle he was with her. He’d gathered her up like the frightened child she was, and taken her into his enormous bed—which she was surprised to find later was still too small for him—and held her until she was more able to come to grips with what had happened.

  She wished he had explained to her what was going to happen. It might have helped, although she wasn’t sure that she would have believed him. It was something so … so different that it had to be experienced, and even now, looking back at it, she almost thought it was some sort of dream, until her body reminded her, throbbed and ached and almost began to clench again, on its own, completely without his touch

  She would never have thought that her body was capable of something that extraordinary. No one had ever told her. Certainly not her father, and she doubt even her mother, if she had lived.

  Amber hated to admit it as she turned and thrashed on her little bed, but she hoped he came home.

  Soon.

  When he did, it was with news that the king would be visiting soon, so everything needed to be spit-shined and polished to within an inch of its life. He arrived with only a small entourage, most of his men having stayed behind to come home in a few days. Piers slid down from Tygan and crossed the courtyard to the gardens immediately, grabbing Amber from her duties and pulling her up the stairs to his chamber, consigning anyone who might gossip about them to the devil.

  He charged his manservant, Archibald, with bringing him a tub full of fresh bathwater by the fire. Amber sat on the edge of the bed while he downed a glass of wine and watched her ravenously, as a stream of servants paraded in and out of the room with buckets full of water to fill the small, barely man sized tub with steaming water.

  “Shall I stay and assist you with your bath, Sir?” Archie asked.

  “No, thank you, you may go,” Piers dismissed him with a wave, and Archie left discreetly.

  He descended into that water like he’d dipped into his first woman so many years ago, slowly, savoring it every inch of the way. He’d always adored water, any way he could get into it. He’d driven his mother crazy, swimming in lakes and ponds when she thought it would kill him dead. His entire family had a complete aversion to bathing, and their annual bath had to suffice. He bathed as often as he could, which wasn’t nearly as often as he liked, although he had no aversions whatsoever to taking dips in the clear, cold streams or lakes hereabouts. They were absolutely beautiful.

  Piers looked out through the steam at Amber, who sat nervously perched on the side of his bed, and wondered if she swam. Probably not.

  “Come here, my flower.” He let his outstretched arm drip onto the cold floor.

  She did so, if a bit reluctantly for his tastes.

  Piers handed her a bar of soap and a cloth, then said, “Tell me, Amber, do you swim?”

  Her face lit up, and once again, he was enchanted by this woman. “I do! My mum used to hate that I loved to do it, and I used to get into terrible trouble, but there was a beautiful lake by the house–” She stopped speaking suddenly, looking down at the contents of her hands.

  Piers had already lain back and closed his eyes, in anticipation of a lovely bath. “What is it?” He opened on eye in time to see her brush a tear away and begin bathing him. But he caught her hand and repeated his question in a warning tone.

  “I just–I just miss my–miss my family.”

  “I’m sorry, Amber. I’ll see what I can do about arranging a trip for you to see them. Would you like that?”

  She brightened up so much that he wished he’d thought of it sooner. “Yes, please, Sir!”

  “They’re not far from where the new castle’s being built, right?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  She wasn’t washing him, in her enthusiasm about the trip, so he brought her hand to his chest in a hint, and watched her turn several shades of red, having forgotten the reality of what it was he was expecting her to do for him.

  So she bathed him, but she assiduously avoided all of the strategic areas. His chest was sparkling clean, as was his neck and face. His hair was cleaner than it had been in years, and his back, even his feet, and his arms and hands. But most of the rest of him still reeked of the road, and he intended that she was going to give him a thorough bath.

  So he grabbed the hand that had been making determined but useless circles on his belly and pushed it lower, where it would do him some good, in one way or another. The cloth slipped, as it was wont to do, and her hand came in contact with him for the first time.

  Amber reacted like a scalded cat, but his reflexes were too finely honed to let her get away with retracting her hand that quickly. And, luckily, his ego wasn’t quite that delicate. He brought her fingers back down to him, murmuring all the way that touching him wasn’t going to hurt her, or him—not that he fancied she cared—until her fingers finally wrapped around the full tumescence of him, and he groaned, deep in the back of his throat.

  That caught Amber’s attention like nothing could have. The connection between her hand on him, and his guttural, completely animalistic reaction clicked something in her head, and experimentally, she moved her hand up and down on him, just to see what would happen.

  Chapter Five

  Jesu, she was getting naturally too good at this already, he thought, entirely unable to stop himself from throwing his head back and growling at the way she held him firmly, but not too tightly. He wasn’t very fond of the way she was watching him, though, as if he was some sort of oddity she had to consider very carefully.

  “Close your eyes.”

  “Close my eyes?” she parroted back to him, surprised at the command.

  “Yes. I cannot abide the way you’re looking at me. Close your eyes or I’ll blindfold you.”

  “But, Sir.”

  “But what?”

  “I can’t bathe you–”

  In answer, Piers leaned forward, reached out to grab Amber by the back of the neck, and hauled her forward, nearly into the bath with him, thoroughly dampening the front of her tunic as he brought that sweet mouth of hers down onto his. “Did I tell you that you could stop?”

  Her fingers were dormant because she was too preoccupied by his kiss, but they started up again, slipping carefully up and down that long, thick shaft of his. Piers was almost immediately unmanned, if only by her untrained skill. She kept a wonde
rful rhythm and pressure without having been taught—he assumed.

  His own free hand was far from idle, having sought and found her budding nipples where they were brought into relief by the worn, clinging fabric of her garments. One quick flick of the tip of his index finger on an impudent nub had her trying to crane away from him, but he wouldn’t allow it, and he pulled her closer.

  Long before he reached his own pleasure, he had her panting hotly for her own. He’d never had a wench who was quite so responsive just to breast play, and this was without having even bared them to his touch.

  As he drew closer to his own end, he wished he hadn’t decided to do this in a bath, as he wish heartily for her mouth on his cock, but he knew he wouldn’t last to the bed. He let her go, so that she might concentrate on the matter at hand. “Faster, Amber. A little faster, and all the way up to the tip, then all the way down, every stroke.”

  Her hand was barely large enough to fit round him, and finally, he didn’t know what stroke of genius touched her, but she brought her other hand to bear, wetting and soaping it well, and that was all he could stand. He flew off into the sun, and was putty in her small hands with a scream dragged from the deepest recesses of his throat. Archie knocked at the door to see that he was all right.

  Knowing that the man wouldn’t take Amber’s word for it, he shouted angrily, “Yes, man, I’m fine.” It didn’t help that Archie was half deaf, but he’d been his father’s man, and Piers couldn’t see his way to getting rid of him.

  Amber, for her part, sat there, amazed at what had just happened. She had never seen the like in her life, and it was written all over her face. Piers caught a glimpse of that look before he relaxed back into the rapidly cooling water of his bath.

  “Don’t tell me that watching me spill my seed was quite that horrendous an event. From the look on your face I would think you’d seen a ghost or a demon.” He added, “Fetch my bath sheet.”