But then she had been inexperienced in the patterns of sensuality woven between man and woman.
"I have been waiting for you.”
"Waiting for me?” He watched her fingers fly with incredible nimbleness, and from her distaff and thread there slowly formed a delicate piece of lace. She wore an overdress that had a dark red-violet bodice shot through with gold. The bodice left her breasts almost bare.
She put down her lace and fastened on him those odd green eyes. No other maid looked at him so frankly, so openly. "Yes,” she said quietly, "forever and a day.”
This was not the coquettish reply Esclarmonde might make. With uneasiness, he realized Dominique de Bar was perfectly serious. Delaying, he rubbed his chin. He realized he did not want to know the truth of this woman, this peculiar woman with her extraordinary feminine powers.
Then why was he here?
Irritated with his irrationality, he broke the bond of their gazes and crossed to the traceried window. Below, in the bailey, John drilled the guard. Paxton told himself he should be out there with his men, not here, dallying like some fool page.
Behind him, he thought he heard her sigh.
His hands pressed down hard against the stones of the window embrasure. Their cool, rough feel, so unlike his memory of her body by the waterfall, restored his common sense. She was a mere woman, his chattel. "The villagers are staging a festival for tomorrow.”
"Yes, I know. Tis for May Day.”
Her voice haunted him, chaining him in the most confining of dungeons. Exasperated with his infantile reticence, he turned back to her. “I think it expedient you appear with my retinue tomorrow. Show your vassals that you are not my prisoner after all.”
To occupy his hands, he bent to pick up Arthur, who had followed him into the library. Paxton's hands were accustomed to fashioning his elaborately tactical plans into reality. Yet this young woman was elusive, and some chimerical cognition told him that his hands could never really hold this complex woman, as complex as a spider’s web, as strong and yet as fragile. As complex as the web of heaven and earth.
Her gaze tugged away from watching his fingers stroke a much-improved Arthur to fasten on his face. "Expedient for whom? Me or you, my Lord Lieutenant?”
"I want no revolt such as occurred in Montpellier, mistress.”
"The people there were revolting against imposed salt taxes, not on behalf of a deposed countess.”
“I take no chances.”
"That is why you sent Denys away, was it not? You feared he would foment opposition to you among my people.”
Was she in love with the young man? Yet, the countess had given herself for the first time to him, son of a baseborn serf. For the price of her fiefdom? His teeth ground against each other. "I sent Denys away because he is more useful as my military machinery engineer than your lap dog.”
Her eyes darkened to the green of a stormy sea. "This then is an order, my Lord Lieutenant? That I accompany your retinue into the village?”
The way she emphasized his title . . . she really was a vexing wench. Somehow, she had managed to ensnare him neatly in a net of dilemma. Bed her, as he wanted, and she would prove her power over him. Avoid her, and he would prove his fear of her.
Both were equally true, and he churned sleeplessly and sweated through the dark hours of the night with this new knowledge of himself.
He could make love every night to any one of a dozen different maids, and he knew he would still be unfulfilled. It did not matter how beautiful their bodies or how perfected their technique, as aptly demonstrated by the adept Esclarmonde. He sensed he would never achieve that sense of feeling at one with himself unless the fulfillment he sought was reached in unison with someone like this vital woman, Dominique de Bar.
Was there anyone like Dominique de Bar?
God forbid! By the blessed Mother Mary, the very thought of the possibility made his stomach knot.
"Aye, Captain Bedford will escort you to the Mayday festivities,” he growled, and abandoned the room abruptly.
The first of May dawned with all the splendor the spring ritual promised—blinding green and fairy blue and yellow bright. The cathedral bells pealed at inordinate hours in a sort of gay abandon that characterized the mood of the village people.
Paxton’s mood was erratic. He was annoyed that he could not concentrate his thoughts wholly on his work. One part of him wanted to complete his mission at Montlimoux and return to Pembroke, a project which was still a year or more away.
A separate part of him yearned to establish himself here, to lay down his guard, to explore himself. A daunting prospect. A facet of himself he had not suspected was opening like a spring flower. But flowers were fragile and vulnerable. Easily crushed.
The morning was still early with the scent of fresh dew, but already faint laughter of eager revelers beckoned through the open painted shutters. With a curse, he threw down his quill and crossed to the window casement, where Arthur lazily sunned himself.
Below, John and Dominique, with her maids-in-waiting, were riding beneath the barbican’s hoisted iron portcullis. Some of the household servants, released from their duties for the day, made up the entourage.
Abruptly, he turned from the window and called out, "Hugh! Summon the barber for me.”
Almost impatiently he sat while Hugh held a basin of beaten silver beneath his chin and the barber wielded a blade that left him clean shaven and with no more nicks to his face then he had begun with. Hugh watched the process with wide-eyed interest. "Begone with you," he told the mute lad. "The day is yours to celebrate.”
A wide smile split the boy’s face. His sandals slapped against the stone stairs as he scampered off to the festivities.
Within the hour, Paxton also took his leave of the chateau with a certain amount of anticipation lifting his spirits. He supposed the excitement of the spring day was contagious.
The hubbub down in the village was reminiscent of fair days. Peasants and their wives, burghers and their damosels, knights and their ladies crowded the streets. Gaudy spring flowers spilled over window boxes. Taverns were noisily thronged, and jongleurs sang on the cathedral steps. In the square before the cathedral, a Maypole had been erected with colored ribbons streaming from its top. Later in the day a king and queen would be selected to lead in the dance wrapping the ribbons around the Maypole.
Even though the crooked streets were narrow, the crowds parted for Paxton's great war horse. Wherever he went, he was recognized. When first he had come to Montlimoux as a beggar, their behavior had been merely that of indifference. Today their expressions were respectful and deferential, if not friendly.
Respect would be enough.
As the morning wore on, he became disturbed when he could not locate John and Dominique. Her vassals might be loyal to her, but today’s celebration would draw the usual travelers, among them flocks of thieves who would think nothing of holding an elegantly bedecked young woman at knife point. Although John was quite capable of defending himself and Dominique in an evenly numbered match, Paxton felt he should have appointed a contingent of guards to accompany them.
At last, he discovered the two before a stall displaying exotic spices—saffron and cinnamon from the Orient, salt from Salins in Franche Comté, and the small black wrinkled berry so costly that the longshoremen who handled the peppercorn were closely watched and frequently searched.
Dominique was holding a single peppercorn in her palm as if it were a solitary diamond. She looked up at Bedford, and her parted lips and sparkling eyes were enough to make a man hurt with wanting.
"To cultivate its shrub for medicinal purposes, John, would be a delight beyond—”
Paxton flipped a gold ecu from the purse at his belt. "A peppercorn for the lady,” he told the startled spice merchant.
Open-mouthed, Dominique stared up at him.
"Bedford,” he said, "I shall escort the Lady Dominique from here.”
The reins of his horse in one ha
nd, he took her by the elbow with the other and steered her past the passers-by who had recognized their countess. It would be hard not to. There was an air of assurance about her that had nothing to do with her finely made gown of rose muslin with its oversleeves slit to reveal the inner ones and nothing to do with her clear-cut countenance that was all the more beautiful for its subtlety.
"I once told you we needed to talk,” he said, keeping his eye on the cobbled path for pot-holes or pools of human waste. "We never did. I think 'tis time, mistress.”
She stared up at him obliquely. "Do you think you could address me by the same title you used with John, ‘my Lady Dominique?’”
He glanced down at her and felt himself momentarily smiling, forgetting his qualms about this strange woman. "Aye, mistress . . . my Lady Dominique.” He was somewhat astounded by the soft feelings the young maiden engendered in him. He had thought he hated all things Provencal, and for him to trust again, well . . . .
With everyone gathering in the square, it was easy enough to find on the nearby riverbank a spot secluded by bulrushes. The merry noise of the revelers was only a faint and distant whisper here. A lazy, meandering stream, the water floated dollops of water lilies that looked for all the world like fallen stars.
The overhanging willows reminded him of the dance of Brandon, that nocturnal festival in which the men and women went out with lighted candles to worship the trees and the sacred rites of spring. The oak had been the most revered of trees, but the closest trees had been willows. With his brothers and sisters, he had danced around just such a willow in a nearby meadow.
Dominique paused by the bank and watched him with her untroubled, clear green eyes. Gray, he had once termed their color, and at another time hazel. Now green. Perhaps it was the reflection of the rushing water. Pale green against her sun-burnished face.
He found himself wanting to touch this uncommon maiden. Instead, he busied himself with securing his mount to the nearest tree trunk.
"That particular tree you tethered your horse to,” she said, "is called a lotus.”
"A what?” Had she perceived his thoughts about the Brandon rites? With a show of nonchalance, he dropped down opposite her and braced his arm on one upraised knee. She had chosen a sandy patch just beyond the treeline where the bank sloped toward the slow-flowing water. The air was laden with the scents of reeds and wild flowers that grew in profusion around the venerable trees.
"You have never heard of Odysseus and the lotus-eaters?” she asked. "Well, of course not. Your abbot would have ignored Greek knowledge as a font of heresy.” She paused to emit a sigh of disgust. "Supposedly,” she went on, "Odysseus was the king of Ithaca. He and his men visited a land of lotus-eaters. The lotus was a magic food that made people forget their homeland."
That explained the eerie pull of the Provencal land. Languedoc— Montlimoux— possessed some kind of exotic air that made him feel light of body. Was that why the sunlight filtering through the leaves overhead seemed to rain its golden dust around them? He felt absolutely foolish. He did not believe for one moment in such nonsense. And yet, he had witnessed her work her magic with his cat. Was she a sorceress? A pagan, yes. But a witch?
Before he could halt his tongue, he blurted out what had been plaguing his thoughts. "Did you give me a love potion?”
She flashed him that saucy smile, displaying those two front teeth slightly and intriguingly spaced apart. “Are you in love with me, messire?”
His reply came readily. “I think not!"
“There, you have your answer."
"But . . . you are ever in my mind,” he said, hearing the acknowledgment with surprise and no small amount of resentment.
Reflectively, she sifted the fine sand at her feet through her fingers. "Perhaps, 'tis the recognition of the soul's twin in the other person.”
"You speak beyond my comprehension."
"Baldwyn will tell you that the peasant says, ‘When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.'"
Her cleverness made him uneasy. "You would make light of what is serious."
Her tone became mildly impatient. "’Tis easier to accept what you have been told all your life, Paxton, than to imagine other worlds outside your own realm.”
Should he humor her? "And how do you find these . . . these worlds?”
She shrugged. "There are way showers to guide us. Dreams, for one. And plants and animals to warn us of natural disasters. Angels even of whom, you will note, the Church bestows only male names, like Gabriel and Michael.”
With the last statement, a small frown drew her quiver-straight brows low, but she said no more.
He rubbed his own brows, then his smoothly shorn chin. "Your thoughts . . . you know they are blasphemous and dangerous should others learn of them?”
"I know. But danger is part of living. Life without that edge of danger is not life, is it? You should know that as a fearless and mighty warrior.”
He had to grin at the prankish way she stressed the last. “Aye. Tis what makes the other moments sweeter.”
"The grass greener. The sky more brilliant.”
Why, yes, he thought, that was what he had felt when he awoke this morning, what he was feeling now.
She plucked a yellow flower, he knew not its name, and, entwining its stem with that of another scented flower she plucked, said softly without looking at him, "I, too, find my thoughts full of you. When I am around you, I feel . . . I feel more alive.”
"Because I am a danger to you?" Surely, she had guessed that.
She canted her head and eyed him from beneath her thick lashes. “No more than I am to you. Tis true, is it not? To accept me, you must rearrange your entire way of thinking. And if what you once believed is no longer true, then what is?”
The way her rich auburn hair fell smoothly from her wide brow to cascade over one shoulder stirred him more than the sight of any other maiden completely disrobed. "I do not have to accept you. I could just take you, as I already have before.”
With dismay, he heard the low growl in his voice, but she appeared not to notice. She added yet another flower to the chain she was creating. “But your pleasure would die as quickly as these flowers without the sustenance of soil and water and light.”
The floral scent was heady, intoxicating. “And if I take the time to explore you, what sustenance does that bring to our . . . our relationship?”
She raised the flower chain aloft and viewed her work with a critical eye. He saw that she had fashioned a wreath. Her gaze fastened on his. “Are you brave enough, my mighty warrior, to find out?”
He tried to answer as objectively as he could. “By my troth, I have my mistrust of you, fairy maiden, but, aye, I trust I am brave enough to test my values of life against yours.” She smiled, and he felt the breath go out of him. Truly, the place was bewitched.
She raised on her knees and placed the garland atop his head. “For today you are my May king.”
He could not help himself. He captured her wrists and drew her hands around behind his back. She left them there. Other women would have already had their hands boldly inside his tunic. Merely the light pressure of her hands was enough to generate a wondrous heat
Her lips were parted, half-smiling in an enchanting way. Her upper lip, he noted with pleasure, was a perfect archer’s bow. "I wish to start with your mouth. A most lovely place to explore.”
Her mouth was as soft as the petal crown she had fashioned for him and as scented. Just touching her somehow no longer made the urge for immediate completion paramount. Slowly, tantalizingly, she brushed her lips back and forth across his own. He could not resist tasting them with his tongue. "Like the mead of the gods.”
Still clasping the breadth of his back, she moved away slightly to peer up at him. Dimples at either side of her mouth drew it into a delightful curve. "Ah, then your education was not entirely devoted to sermons!”
He chuckled. “I confess that I did not confess, leastways not all my sins. Not
those that involved loving village maids in musty haylofts.”
Something that was almost akin to pity shadowed her eyes. "Is loving a sin?”
He touched the curve of her cheekbone. "You are a strange one, Dominique. You would give me freely what other maids barter for?”
She hesitated, then asked, "Esclarmonde? She barters her love?”
"Francis's sister covets Montlimoux though she has never admitted as much.”
He watched Dominique’s expression closely. Her lids lowered, so that the black half-moons of her lashes concealed what he suspected he would find in her eyes.
"I know what you think,” she whispered. “'Tis true. Montlimoux is part of me, of my lineage, and to lose it is to lose myself. I would fight in whatever way necessary to keep it alive.” She lifted her anguished gaze to his. "But this—this thing with you. 'Tis something else apart. Something I do not understand.”
"Aye, I know,” he muttered. Without realizing it, his hands tightened on her shoulders.
Her eyes stared beyond him, as if she were puzzling over her selection of words. Her gaze found his again. "’Tis not as if I have no will of my own. I do have a choice about this moment, Paxton, but I know if I do not respond to this sacrament of loving then everything afterwards will be dulled by having missed this experience.”
Loving, a sacrament? Not a sacrifice?
He did not hold with this philosophizing. Not with her power to confuse his thoughts and feelings so easily. He drew her down with him on the sandy bank. Gone was the leisure of the moment. A seizure of passion convulsed him. His kiss besieged her. Her lips parted willingly to his invading tongue, but her own met his in a mating that felt like . . . like the way she described her healing hands . . . like lightning coursing through him.
The laces and buttons of her robe, her houppelande’s wide sleeves, and her chemise's full neckline made disrobing her a simple act. His clothing was as rapidly strewn across the embankment.
She was as impassioned as he. Entering her jolted him. Beneath him, her hips moved in exquisite timing with his. Her fluid bathed him, nourished him. He felt that moment coming, that whirling point, as if his finite body were poised at the threshold of another of those dimensions of which she spoke. If he could but sustain this feeling!
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