Kissing the Bride

by Sara Bennett

  “What will we do, Henry?” she whispered.

  Henry stroked her cheek with one long finger, as gentle with her as he had been with the kittens. “It will run its course, sweeting, you will see.”

  “Do you know that for a fact?”

  “Lust burns itself out eventually.”

  Jenova wondered if that were so. She had never been afflicted with lust before, never desired someone so desperately as she did Henry. But perhaps he was right, perhaps this would vanish as quickly as it had appeared. Mist before a sea breeze. She really should trust Henry, he must know—he had more experience, after all.

  He was stroking her neck now, his fingers warm and insistent. She leaned into him, lifting her face, and he kissed her. Their breaths were white in the chill air. Her senses were afire with the same urgency she had felt yesterday. Madness. Sheer madness.

  “Will you come to me later?”

  Henry smiled. “Wherever and whenever you wish, my lady.”

  Jenova kissed him again, wondering if she would have the strength to break away, and then she pulled out of his arms and ran, back toward the keep, hardly noticing the cold wind at all.

  Chapter 7

  Lord Baldessare and his family were to come to Gunlinghorn, to a feast that Jenova had arranged in their honor. They would be remaining at the castle overnight and returning home the following morning. It was an event that had been planned for some time, and although Henry wished he could lock and bar the gates against Alfric and his relatives, and deny them entry, he knew he could not. Even the weather conspired against him, the day dawning bright and clear instead of with the blizzard he had hoped for.

  On a day like this, he and Jenova could have ridden for miles. Just the two of them. They could have returned to Uther’s Tower, reliving that first time. Instead it was to be wasted on the Baldessares, and Jenova had already wasted two days now on preparations. She had been bustling about, dealing with food and wine and entertainment, making the lives of her servants a misery. Henry had hardly seen her.

  Well, apart from one very interesting tryst in the stillroom.

  Henry remembered it now with a satisfied smile. He had come upon Jenova in that secluded, sweet-smelling place, surrounded by syrups and preserves, with bunches of drying rosemary, fenugreek and sage hanging from hooks in the ceiling, and upon the shelves, pots of such winter remedies as white horehound mixed with honey for coughs, and goosegrease for chilblains.

  The room was cool and dim, the lighted candle wavering on the table where Jenova worked. Her sleeves were rolled up, and she was grinding dried chamomile leaves with a mortar and pestle.

  Henry simply watched her for a time, enjoying the movement of the muscles in her arms and shoulders, the jiggle of her breasts, the little murmurs of effort. It was cool and dry in here but she wore no cloak, and she had left off her veil, so that her hair lay in a thick plait to her hips.

  “What are you doing, sweeting?”

  She jumped, despite the quiet timbre of his voice, and turned to stare at him. “Henry?” She wiped an arm over her brow, as though conscious of her disheveled state. Tendrils of hair clung to her damp skin, and she looked flushed and adorable. “I’m making a medicine for Lord Baldessare. Alfric says his father has painful headaches.” Jenova turned away after another uncertain glance.

  Henry thought he knew the reason for Baldessare’s aching head—the heavy burden of his conscience—but he did not say so. He let her work a moment, simply enjoying the sight of her, and then he moved. Jenova turned her head to look at him again, doubtfully, as he slipped his arms about her waist.

  He began by nuzzling her neck, kissing the soft, vulnerable flesh there, gently blowing on the fine tendrils of her hair. She gasped, leaning back against him, and soon the pestle and mortar were forgotten as his hands moved over her breasts, finding her rigid little nipples through the wool cloth.

  “Someone will come,” she whispered huskily, turning her face so that she could lick at his ear.

  “Not before you, I hope,” he said, and began to ease up her skirt. His fingers slid over the long, shapely line of her thighs, finding their way between, where she was warm and damp and ready.

  “Henry,” she gasped, arching against his invasion and welcoming it at the same time. He pressed his fingers deep inside her, at the same time brushing against that eager little nub. She shuddered, her head falling back against his shoulder. “Henry,” she whispered again.

  “Hush, sweeting,” he murmured against her hair. “Relax and enjoy what I can give you. Let yourself feel….”

  Her body moved to the rhythm of his fingers, anointing them with the wet evidence of her pleasure. Henry, with one ear open to any sounds beyond the stillroom, brought her to completion, holding her as she cried out and shuddered in his arms.

  His own body was aching, demanding his own release, but he ignored it and instead kissed her mouth gently, allowing her to catch her breath. Giving her pleasure, watching her pleasure, had been enough. In a strange, unnerving way, Henry was happy with that. It was the first time he had ever been content to give without expecting something in return.

  Remembering the moment, Henry knew a tremor of unease. Why had it been enough? Because he had known that, as they’d stood together among the herbs in the fragrant silence, Jenova had been his. Not Alfric’s, and not Mortred’s. It had been Henry who had made her gasp and plead, Henry whose expertise had drawn from her the cries of a woman complete.

  What is wrong with that? Jenova wants this as much as me. Maybe that was so, but in Henry’s experience, passion was finite. Jenova had told him she was prepared for that, but Henry wasn’t sure he was. But he was certain of one thing. With such thoughts churning in his head, he was in no mood to spar with Lord Baldessare.

  Jenova had arranged a sumptuous meal, and the tables groaned with bounty. The great hall had been decorated with mistletoe and other winter plants, giving a welcome touch of greenery, while the fire burned bright. The setting was perfect, but the guests within it were less so. Within a few moments of the feast’s beginning, Henry was fervently wishing himself elsewhere.

  The older lord clearly wanted to vent his spleen on Henry, but he did not have Henry’s finesse. When Henry smiled at Baldessare’s barbs as if they were jests, failing to respond in kind, Lord Baldessare’s muttered insults turned more reckless.

  “The king has grown weak. He lets his favorites rule the country and turns a blind eye to their greed,” he blustered rudely.

  Henry raised an eyebrow. “He rewards loyalty and endeavor, Baldessare. Do you call that weakness? I would call it common sense.”

  “There are many loyal men who never receive the rewards they deserve. How can they remain loyal when they see other, lesser men continually taking what should rightfully be theirs?”

  Lord Baldessare was short and thickset, with gray hair shaved almost to his skull, and a leathery, bitter face set with hard gray eyes. He looked like a man who was never happy with what he had, and who was always looking beyond to his neighbors.

  “Mayhap those so-called loyal men would do well to think hard and long about what they had done to displease their king, rather than let themselves be consumed with envy,” Henry said thoughtfully. “If such men took the time to think before they opened their mouths, we would all sleep easier.”

  Baldessare snorted in disgust. “Aye, you have a pretty face and a pretty tongue, Lord Henry. The king enjoys your witticisms, no doubt, at the expense of plain speech. Mayhap he should poke around in your past a little more, and see what foul things he brings up.”

  Henry felt himself go cold. He hid it, or hoped he did, facing Baldessare with a slight smile, bluffing before those cold, sharp eyes that were cleverer than he had thought. Or mayhap Baldessare was just fishing in the hope of catching something he could use in his campaign to hurt Henry. Aye, that must be it. Best he did not know just how accurate that last hit had been.

  “Father, do you not think Lady Jenova’
s son has grown? You may not know, Lady Jenova, that my brother Alfric is very fond of children, and they of him.”

  Lady Rhona’s pleasant voice was as out of place at such a tense moment as children’s laughter at a hanging. Henry took a long drink from his goblet and watched as Lord Baldessare shot his daughter a withering look. She pretended not to notice, smiling and nodding as Jenova made the appropriate response. Agetha, her eyes flicking back and forth, reassured Lady Rhona that Raf was a very obedient boy and would cause Alfric no problems, earning herself a sharp glance from Jenova.

  Raf, close by his mother’s side, peeped out at Henry beneath her arm like a prisoner through his cell bars. The boy grinned, rolling his eyes, and as Henry grinned back, he knew just how Raf felt. He, too, would do anything to escape the feast and find solitude. Somewhere to settle his thoughts, to shove the dark phantoms from his past, which Baldessare had inadvertently set loose, back into the depths they usually inhabited.

  Jenova was watching him, a puzzled expression in her eyes. “Henry?” she said, making it a question. “Is aught the matter?”

  She had obviously seen something in his face, read something. He had told her about the land Baldessare had coveted and the king had given to Henry instead, but now he wondered if their new intimacy had made her more aware of his inner emotions, or whether he had lost the knack of cloaking his true feelings.

  “My lady, you must forgive Lord Baldessare and I. We grew too…involved in reminiscences of London.”

  Baldessare made a noise like a snort.

  Jenova shot him a glance but did not comment. Instead she frowned at Henry. “London is far away, Lord Henry. Mayhap you would do better to concentrate on the here and now.”

  Henry bowed his head, lips twitching at her rebuke. She would not be so stern if she knew it only made him want to kiss her lips to smiles again.

  But perhaps she did know, for as Jenova turned to Alfric, her cheeks were slightly flushed.

  Henry winked at Raf, making the boy giggle and incurring Agetha’s displeasure. The young woman did not like him, the only one of Jenova’s ladies who did not. Did she know that he and her mistress were lovers? Mayhap she did not approve, or mayhap she preferred Alfric, if the doting looks she was casting upon him were anything to go by. Henry put Agetha out of his mind and turned back to the table at large. That was when he realized that Lady Rhona was watching him.

  More than that. She was flirting with him. Making promises with her eyes.

  Henry took another sip from his goblet and wondered exactly what it meant, and whether he should do anything about it. If he was at home, at court, he would have made an assignation with her. Possibly. Probably. In an hour or so he would have had her naked, in his bed, that pretty golden hair spread about them. But that was at court, not here, not at Gunlinghorn. Here at Gunlinghorn she was just another complication.

  Henry eyed her moodily through his lashes.

  Rhona closely resembled her brother, Alfric, and they were both of them far prettier than their father. Perhaps they took after their mother, poor woman—Henry had heard she’d died as a result of Baldessare’s brutal temper. But of the two, the son and the daughter, Henry believed the daughter to be the one who had inherited her father’s shrewd intelligence. Alfric preferred to get his way through melancholic glances and pouting lips. At any other time Henry would have been amused by Alfric’s sulking whenever Jenova smiled at Henry. Tonight he was not in the mood to be amused.

  Rhona’s dark eyes were still fixed upon him. Slyly, over the rim of her goblet. They tilted up at the corners, more so when she smiled, and she was smiling now. Smiling into her wine. Aye, she had a look with which Henry was all too familiar. The experienced I’m-yours-if-you-want-me look Henry had seen many times before in the faces of court ladies.

  Lady Rhona was not wed, it was true, and it was more usually the wives who sought his services, perhaps bored with their husbands or simply looking to see whether Henry was as good a lover as everyone said he was. But mayhap Baldessare was not as protective of his daughter’s honor as he should be. She was pretty enough, with her dark eyes and pale skin, and the body under her richly embroidered clothing was firm and rounded. If Henry had met her in London, then who knows? But they were not in London, they were at Gunlinghorn, and the simple fact was, he didn’t want her.

  Henry didn’t want her.

  It was a strange admission from a famous seducer. And yet it was true. He felt no need of her, no need to experience the conquest—not that it would be much of a conquest, when she was clearly so willing. Was he getting old? No, he had proved to his and Jenova’s satisfaction that he was as virile as ever. Did his dislike of the father interfere with his interest in the daughter? But surely his enmity with Lord Baldessare would make the taking of the daughter all the sweeter?

  No, the reason Henry did not want to pursue Lady Rhona, although she was giving him plenty of evidence that she was willing to be pursued, was Jenova. Now that he had had Jenova, other women paled into insignificance. Jenova filled his mind and his senses to overflowing, and there was simply no room for anyone else.

  And that acknowledgement was disturbing indeed.

  Rhona shot her brother a look of disgust. Instead of doing as she had instructed him—flattering the proud Lady of Gunlinghorn and making himself indispensable to her—he was sitting silent and sullen. In short, sulking. How could he be so foolish? She wished she could shake some sense into him: If they had been alone, she would have had no qualms about doing so.

  Lady Jenova was a mature and experienced woman. She was not a woman who would be interested in indulging Alfric’s childishness, at least not for long. Oh, she seemed fond of him, but she was not by any means deeply in love with him. This was not, Rhona told herself, a lady whose heart would ever rule her head. Alfric needed to show some maturity of his own if he was not to lose her.

  “’Tis that worm, Henry of Montevoy,” Alfric had grumbled on their journey to Gunlinghorn. “He’s the problem, sister. You wait and see.”

  Well—she let her eyes linger on Lord Henry—she could see what Alfric was nervous about. Henry was far more worldly than her brother, far older in experience, if not in years. And he was very handsome, with a certain air about him that could not help but intrigue and attract every female eye in the hall. Was he really the best lover in England? Rhona had heard it said so, and glancing between Jenova and Henry she could not help but wonder if they were more than friends, despite their exemplary correctness toward each other. Rumor had it that Jenova’s husband, Mortred, had been Henry’s good friend, and when Mortred had died Henry had continued to care for and protect his widow.

  But there was something…. Mayhap it was the way their eyes lingered overlong when they happened to meet, coupled with the fact that Lord Henry had not given Rhona more than a cursory glance since she arrived. It had been Rhona’s plan to divert his interest, leaving the way free for her brother to ensnare Jenova, but it was now quite clear that Lord Henry had no interest in her.

  Rhona knew she was pretty, and most men would be flattered by her blatant invitation. Rhona was not a wanton—she did not entice men to her for the pleasure they could give her. She had never felt that pleasure other women spoke of. She used men to get her own way, she used the looks and intelligence God had given her for her own and her brother’s advantage. She knew of nothing else a powerless woman could do in a situation such as theirs. And she had hoped to use Lord Henry of Montevoy tonight. Mayhap, she thought now, with a little frown, she was too countrified for Lord Henry. Mayhap he preferred the sophisticated women of the court. Why, oh why had her father never exerted himself to send her and Alfric to London?

  But she knew why. Because Lord Baldessare did not enjoy the court himself, he did not wish to expose his children to it. All he wanted was land, lots of it, and then he could sit upon it like a giant, fat spider and weave his plots. And his children were his counters in the games he played, to be put forward as bait, to dra
w richer prizes into his web. Aye, he ruled them with hatred and fear, and he’d done so for as long as Rhona could remember.

  Her narrowed gaze settled upon her father, and Rhona quickly composed her face back into a polite smile, hoping no one had read her real feelings. The baron was not watching her, for he too was staring at Lord Henry, and although his thin lips smiled, his orbs were as cold as ice spears. Lord Baldessare had hated Lord Henry since the time he’d returned from London without the large estate in the west of England he had hoped for. The king had handed it to Lord Henry, and they had both laughed long and heartily about it. Rhona’s father had left in humiliation, determined to have his revenge.

  How many nights this past year had she heard the baron ranting to his scribe and chaplain, Jean-Paul? How often had she heard Jean-Paul’s soothing tones, promising the baron that all things come to those who wait? The marriage of Alfric to Lady Jenova had been Jean-Paul’s idea, with Gunlinghorn as the prize. Rumor had it that Jenova’s young son was sickly, and once he was dead, Gunlinghorn would belong to Alfric and his father. For what could a lone woman do against the might of Lord Baldessare?

  None of them could have known that Lord Henry would hasten so quickly to Jenova’s side. Rhona had not even been aware that Henry and Jenova were friends, and she was certain her father had not either. Another of his plots turned sour. Rhona well understood his anger—land was power in King William’s England, and Baldessare still had ambitions to become one of her most powerful men.

  Rhona, for her part, feared her father and loathed him for what he was and what he had done to her, but she was fully aware of his strength. Although in private she sometimes railed against him, she would never take that extra rebellious step that would set him against her as her full-blown enemy. He would crush her as easily as he would an insect, she had no doubt of that. Jean-Paul had instructed her often enough that it was God’s will that she obey her father in all things, and he was a priest after all, even if one she did not entirely trust. But she did not need Jean-Paul’s advice to know it was in her best interests to stay on good terms with her father.