by Sara Bennett
“Henry—”
“I need to be inside you.” He said it as if it were the most important thing in the world, and gazing into his eyes, Jenova knew that for him, it was. Her own body trembled with an equal need.
“Very well,” she whispered. Stepping away, she began a pantomime of looking for her brooch and then deciding, aloud, that she had left it in the solar. She hurried toward the stairs, not looking behind her, wondering if she were completely insane. This was not the sort of behavior of which she would ever have imagined herself capable. She gave a stifled giggle, and then gasped.
Oh dear God, Agetha would be in the solar….
Jenova went to turn, to go back down the stairs and tell him not to follow, when a strong hand closed on her arm and drew her into the narrow, shadowy landing.
Henry, his body all but touching hers, was gazing at her with his chest heaving, as if he was finding it impossible to get enough air. Jenova reached out to touch his face. “Agetha is in the solar,” she said. “We cannot go there.”
“What about here, then?” He pressed his body against hers, and she felt the hard ridge of his manhood through their clothing.
“Here?” Her eyes widened. Despite her shock at his words, she leaned her hips harder into him. Wanting him. “Henry, surely we cannot—”
“It is quiet, and we are alone. And it can be…exciting to make love so close to discovery.”
Exciting? Jenova did not know if that was the word. Her body tingled, urging her to agree, but caution was a part of her, too. She teetered on the knife edge, then Henry pulled her fully into his arms and began to kiss her.
It was not a gentle kiss. His mouth devoured hers, his tongue thrusting deep. He pinned her against the wall, his body hard and heavy, and desire crashed over her like a wave.
She knew she had no intention of struggling or pulling away. She didn’t want to. In her heart she might be afraid of their being caught, but Henry was right, there was a sort of excitement in that. She was, in truth, more afraid of being emotionally hurt. That did not make her want him any less. She didn’t know how much longer they might have together. A day, a week, a month? This desperate moment with Henry could well have to last her for the rest of her life.
Desire, longing and anguish drove her, a heady mixture, as her mouth clung to his and her hands tangled in his hair. His body was hers, every hard line of it, every curved muscle. Her eager hips lifted to fit the bulge of his erection into the apex between her thighs, and she felt the first tentative ripples of her release, simply from that contact.
But it wasn’t enough.
She needed more. She needed to become a part of him. She needed him inside her.
Henry’s palms slid around her and down, clasping her bottom, and raising her up. Settling her more comfortably against him. Jenova curled one leg about his hips, pressing still closer, every one of her senses crying out for more. Her breasts ached. He bent his head, and his breath was hot through her gown as he opened his mouth against her, sucking at her through the cloth. Jenova reached up to tug at the laces at her throat, pulling them open, dragging the neckline down over her shoulders.
Her breasts were full and swollen, the nipples aching for his touch. Henry groaned and began to lave her with his tongue, sucking on them, pulling them into his mouth. Jenova moaned and arched against him, forgetting where she was, who she was. Or perhaps she just didn’t care. Feelings like this were beyond her comprehension, too powerful to be denied. She had always believed herself a strong woman, but what she was feeling now was stronger.
“I want you,” Henry growled and looked deep into her eyes. “I need to be inside you. Now.”
She gave a laugh that was more like a sob and began to tug at the fastenings on his breeches. In a moment he was free, hot and hard in her hand. She stroked him, feeling him quiver, as helpless as her. He had rucked her skirts up, his hands gripping her thighs, closing again on her bottom, drawing her up, angling her just right. Jenova caught her breath, rubbing her body against his, delirious with the feel of him at the threshold of that most intimate part. The head of his erection brushed her swollen flesh, and his mouth was hot against her throat as her head fell back.
“Now,” she groaned. “Oh, Henry, now.”
He thrust into her, the full length of him, stroking her deep, deep inside.
Jenova gasped, a blossom of heat starting low in her belly, trembling in her thighs. She lifted her head, and Henry gazed into her eyes, his own still blazing.
She was beautiful. A siren. A goddess. He filled his vision with her, making it last. Her veil had come loose and with it her braid, and now her hair fell about them in waves. Her mouth, reddened from his kisses, curved upward, and her dark lashes drooped over the passionate gleam in her green eyes.
“Oh yes,” she breathed.
Henry withdrew and thrust again, deep, knowing it would never be deep enough. He wanted to devour her, merge himself into her. He wanted her to swell with his child, and then he wanted to do the whole thing over again. And again. For how ever long they lived. And still it would not be enough.
He drove deep once more, and his mouth closed on hers, drowning out her cry of completion, echoed by his own. Their bodies clung together, shuddering. From far away servants’ voices hummed, a dog barked, a soldier shouted training instructions. Life went on, and they were but a part of it. It was the same and yet it was different. Henry took several deep breaths, trying to understand what it meant.
Jenova managed a shaken laugh, releasing him, letting her skirts fall to cover herself. With fingers that trembled, she reached to lace up her gown. Henry gently pushed them aside, tying it for her, intent upon the knot. His throat was dry, his heart pounding. He felt as if he had died and gone to paradise.
He needed her. He had to save her from Baldessare. He had to protect her, even if she didn’t want him to, even if he wasn’t here at Gunlinghorn. He had to be in a position to do all these things, and there was really only one way to go about it.
He had to wed her.
The words were in his head, beating like a drum, and he was not even sure he had said them aloud until she froze beneath his hands. When he stepped back and looked up, she was gazing at him as if he had grown horns, hooves and a tail.
“Henry? Did you just ask me to marry you?” Her voice was hardly more than a breath.
“I think I must have.”
She swallowed, eyes wide and disbelieving. She did not look exactly pleased. More bewildered, confused, uncertain…There was an anxious crease between her brows. Her hands went to her hair, twisting it back into some sort of order.
“Henry, you must not feel…you must not think that…I do not expect you…” She took a breath. “Before I asked you to stay, and you said you could not. Why are you now asking me to marry you? I do not understand.”
Henry gave a shaken laugh. “’Tis not personal, Jenova, ’tis—”
Her face went blank. “Oh?”
“You are in danger. I want to protect you. If I am your husband, I can do that far more easily.”
The words sounded sensible to him, reasonable. And yet the silence that followed was long and heavy.
She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the green had turned hard and cold and distant. “No, Henry. I do not need your protection. I suppose your offer is kindly meant, but I can manage very well on my own. I am sorry if my asking you to stay gave you the impression that I was clinging to you for protection. It is far from the truth. Now, if you will excuse me….”
It was ridiculous. They had just made rough, passionate love on the stair landing, and she was asking to be excused. He laughed, sick at heart, longing for things to be different. And yet he understood her point of view. Jesu, he even applauded it! There was no reason for her to trust him. He was not a man to lean upon, and things were far worse than she imagined.
“Jenova,” he whispered. “Jenova, please…”
She didn’t look back. Her midnight
blue skirts flicked around the corner and vanished up the stairs. Her footsteps faded into the general hum of castle life. Henry was alone. He had asked Jenova to marry him—his first ever proposal—and he had botched it.
The words had come from nowhere, surprising him as much as Jenova. Perhaps he had hoped for her to smile, and weep a little, and say yes. Then again, perhaps he was secretly glad she had refused him. What could he offer her, after all, but disgrace? If the truth became known, she would learn to loathe him.
It was a bad bargain for Jenova.
Henry rested his brow against the wall where a moment ago Jenova’s head had rested. Smelling her scent, breathing her in, he wondered what he was going to do.
Chapter 17
“Protect me?” Jenova muttered to herself, flinging open the door to her solar and finding that Agetha wasn’t there after all. She slammed it shut behind her. “If he is my husband he can protect me far more easily?” She strode to the shuttered window, then to the warm brazier, then back again. “’Tis not personal?” Her clothing was in disarray, her hair tangled down her back, her body still throbbing from Henry’s lovemaking.
And she was angry. More angry than she had ever been. Angrier than she had believed it was possible for her to be.
Henry had asked her to marry him. To be his bride. And she hated him for it.
“Jesu! He doesn’t want me because he cannot live without me by his side. He doesn’t want me because he worships the ground I walk upon. Not because our bodies sing together. Not because he loves me….”
Nay, none of that. Henry wished to marry her because he was worried that she was in danger from Baldessare. He wanted to protect her with his name, so that he could gallop off back to London with a clear conscience. For even Baldessare would not dare lay a hand upon a lady who was wed to the great Lord Henry of Montevoy!
She was panting. There was a piece of embroidery folded upon a stool—painstaking stitches, beautifully arranged. She threw the cloth at the wall. A goblet followed, and a pair of slippers. The violence relieved her somewhat of her fury, but it still roiled within her like the sea in a storm. Fury with lashings of intense disappointment.
Jenova had told herself she would never marry again. Look at what had happened with Mortred. She had given him all of herself, opened her heart and soul to him, and she had expected the same from him. Instead he had betrayed her, humiliated her, wounded her so deep that she had struggled to recover.
And then look what had happened?
Because of Mortred, in the need to reassure herself and mayhap to revenge herself upon a dead man, in her loneliness, she had begun to look favorably upon Alfric. Alfric had seemed perfect for all her needs. Instead he had been another mistake.
Now Henry wanted to wed her and clear his conscience. Then he would leave her, and she would be no better off than she had been before. Worse off, because she had grown used to him being there, used to the sound of his voice, and his warm morning kisses. It would be like losing Mortred all over again. Only much, much worse.
She could not do it. She would not do it. For the sake of her own bruised heart, she would not marry Henry. It would be a terrible error of judgment. A sort of prison for both of them. For him, who clearly preferred to be away from her, and for her, who only wanted him by her side.
Jenova remembered again Henry’s face when he had blurted out the question. That in itself had been odd—Henry losing his fabled charm and easy way with words—but at the time she had hardly noticed. He had looked ill. And shocked. As though the words had been forced from his unwilling mouth. As though he had not wanted to ask them but had felt obliged. As though he had been offering her some sort of payment for what they had just done on the landing.
Those moments together, when they had forgotten all else in the need to consummate their passion, had been some of the most exciting of her life. The possibility of being discovered, the wild behavior so out of character for her, and the sheer desperate need to join his body to hers. Aye, it had been wonderful.
Exciting and wonderful.
And then Henry had spoiled it.
Jenova felt hot tears fill her eyes and spill down her cheeks. He should have fallen in love with her. He should want to marry her for love. Oh, she knew marriage was a business contract, something arranged for land and money and bloodlines, but she had always hoped…she had always dreamed…Jenova swallowed back the girlish fancies she had thought long gone. Well, even if Henry could not love her, he had seemed so happy these past weeks, so content. He had seemed to enjoy the challenge of the tasks she had set him, although he had always deferred to her as Lady of Gunlinghorn. In short, he had been the perfect lord. A helpmate, a companion, and a lover. Everything she had ever wanted in a man.
Henry, her dearest friend Henry, was the perfect man for her. She should be the perfect woman for him. But Jenova very much feared that her love was a threat to him, despite the fact that she had not stated it aloud.
For she did love him.
She loved him more and more each moment she spent with him. Jenova admitted it to herself, the tears rolling down her cheeks. She was a weak and foolish woman, because although she had vowed never to love another man after Mortred, she had. She did. She loved Henry.
She lay down upon her bed, hearing the rustle of the horsehair mattress, feeling the soft furs beneath her, and she cried until her chest ached and her face was swollen and she could cry no more. This was what she had feared from the start. That with the excess of joy would come an excess of pain.
“My lady?” It was Agetha, her voice tentative, her knock gentle upon the door. “Are you well, my lady?”
Jenova took a shaky breath and sat up, wiping her face. She was a mess, but there was nought she could do about that. Besides, what did it matter, she thought, calling for the girl to enter. Agetha was her friend, and she needed her friends about her at this difficult time.
Agetha’s already rather protruding eyes bulged. “My lady? What is the matter? You…you have been crying!”
Jenova sighed. “I have. Can you please comb my hair and braid it again? It is making my head ache.”
The girl hesitated, plainly wanting to ask more questions, but Jenova closed her eyes. She felt weak and drained from her weeping, but at least it had made her see things more clearly. After a moment, she felt Agetha move behind her and begin taking the long brown tresses in one hand, while drawing the comb carefully through them with the other. Jenova drifted, allowing herself to enjoy the attention.
She could not marry Henry. It would be disastrous. If, she thought bleakly, she was unhappy now, then she would be even more so if they were bound together with ties of marriage and living far apart. Nay, her future had already been written. She would remain alone, and she would rule Gunlinghorn as wisely and well as she could, until Raf was old enough to take over. And then she would while away her days being as useful as she could, helping Raf, caring for her people, and when her grandchildren came along, she would take pride in them and try to guide them away from the same pitfalls that had beset her.
That was not such a bad life for a woman.
“My lady?” Agetha asked sharply. “Are you crying again?”
“No, I…just a sniffle. I am well, Agetha. Truly.”
“Hmm,” the girl made a suspicious sound but continued to comb Jenova’s hair. Soon she was braiding it neatly. “’Tis Lord Henry who has hurt you,” she said at last, her voice stony. “Do not deny it, my lady, for I know ’tis so.”
“Agetha—”
“He is a man who enjoys women, and they enjoy him.” It sounded as if Agetha was blushing. “He does not stay with one woman for very long. He can love none of them. I knew he would wound you, Lady Jenova. He does not deserve to touch the hem of your gown, let alone…well!”
“This is not your business, Agetha. Please stop.”
“You know, you would not have been hurt if you had agreed to wed Lord Alfric. He is gentle and kind, he would never do a
nything to upset you. My lady, I am sure ’tis not too late if you—”
“No, Agetha! I do not want to wed Alfric or Henry or anyone else. I am content as I am. Now please, please, say no more.”
To her credit, Agetha was silent, although Jenova sensed she was sorely tempted to carry on. But the girl quietly finished her task, and at Jenova’s request, she sent for hot water for a bath. Jenova let her fuss and boss the servants about, supervising the bathing, making sure the addition of scents and perfumes was just as Jenova liked it. Agetha pampered Jenova like a child, and for once Jenova was content to let her.
Afterwards, warm and dry, she felt much better. The need for tears was gone, and she had made a decision. She would insist that Henry go on his way north as soon as possible. She had been hurt enough, and he had made it clear he had no real interest in her. Aye, it was much better if he did not stay longer. The sooner he left, the sooner she could get on with her real life. Besides, she did not think she could bear it if he was at Gunlinghorn another moment.
She would command him to go, although she did not relish the thought of telling Raf. Her son had grown very fond of Henry, and Henry had grown just as fond of Raf. Mayhap, when the sadness and loneliness were faded, she could remember that one thing. And treasure it.
Henry rode hard, sending Lamb pounding across the sodden ground, up hills and down again, through woods and out the other side. He did not realize, until he went many, many miles, that the snow was melting. It sloshed under Lamb’s hooves and dripped monotonously from the tree branches. And the air, though still cold, felt a little less biting.
The thaw was upon them and, soon, the spring.
He would have liked to have seen Gunlinghorn in the spring. He would have enjoyed watching the new crops sown, and the new animals born, and work beginning on the sea groin. And, most of all, being with Jenova when the world was reborn in a cloak of fresh green leaves and sweet white blossoms.