“You’re an excellent student,” he said. “Never doubt it.”
At that moment, there was a knock at the door. Angelet dropped her hand, concealing the dagger in the folds of her skirt, just as Rafe instructed.
Meanwhile, Rafe stepped around her to answer the door, his dagger now sheathed but close to hand.
He found the innkeeper standing there.
“What’s going on?” the alarmed innkeeper asked. “I heard stomping around as if there was some sort of fight!”
“Oh, please forgive the noise,” Angelet said quickly. “He was just teaching me a lesson.”
The innkeeper’s eyes flicked over to Rafe, and he gave a single, curt nod. “I see. Well, it’s wise to keep a woman in line. Just don’t be all night about it. It might keep the other guests awake.”
“Apologies,” Rafe said, offering a small coin, which undoubtedly helped soothe the innkeeper’s nerves.
After the innkeeper left, Angelet wrinkled her nose. “Wise to keep a woman in line? Ugh. Just as well I didn’t try to explain what was really going on.”
“He wouldn’t have believed you if you did,” said Rafe.
“Nor cared if you were hurting me.” She sighed and put the dagger she’d been gripping onto the little table. “I suppose that concludes the lesson.”
“For now. I’ll teach you more when there’s opportunity.”
“You don’t mind?”
He shrugged. “It’s a dangerous world. Why shouldn’t you have a chance to even the field? After all, I won’t be around to protect you much longer.”
“What can you really teach me in a few weeks?” she asked, not looking at him.
She gasped when she was suddenly swept off her feet and pushed against the wall, exactly where her lesson had begun.
Rafe stood directly in front of her, keeping her in place. “I could teach you not to turn your back on an armed man.”
“That’s not fair, Rafe! We weren’t fighting anymore!”
“You should always be ready, Angelet. And alert.”
She looked up into his eyes. “If I’m ever in this position again, with a stranger, I will be alert. I promise. But this time didn’t count!”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because I trust you!”
“You shouldn’t.” Rafe looked her over, in a way that made her breath catch. “I could do whatever I wanted with you right now.”
“What would that look like?” she asked, heat building in her core.
He held her to the wall with just one hand laid against her shoulder, emphasizing exactly how much stronger he was than Angelet. “I’ll show you,” he said, his voice low and deliciously promising—and a little frightening.
“What if I don’t care to be shown?” she whispered.
Rafe laid a kiss on her neck, one that left her wanting another and another. “Angelet, the choice is yours. If you want to give the orders, I’ll obey. Always.”
“But you want something else.”
“I think you need something else tonight. And I can show you what.”
She inhaled. Looked him in the eye.
“Show me.”
He bent down to kiss her full on the mouth, seeking her tongue. It was a rough, demanding, possessive kiss, and she didn’t want it to end.
But he did end it, with a ragged breath. Then he grabbed her skirts and gathered them up around her waist, revealing her bare legs.
His hands lifted her higher against the wall, then using his own body to hold her in place, one leg between her own. She gasped when he pressed that leg against her, rubbing exactly where she’d feel it most.
“Rafe,” she gasped. “What are you doing?”
“What I want. And you want it too.”
He slid one finger inside her, then said, “Damn me, you’re wet already.”
She gasped again as he stroked her.
“Say yes if you like it,” he hissed.
“Yes,” she echoed faintly.
“And again. Every time. Every touch. I need to know you want it.”
His voice urged her on, in time with his devastating touch.
“Yes,” she moaned. “Yes. Yes. Yes.”
Then it happened, a flash of lightning she couldn’t see, only feel as it lit up inside her. She pressed herself against him, grinding her body against his hand. She gasped as she felt a wave of heat roll through her. “Oh, yes, please.”
He held her fast for a long moment, and she pulsed against his hand, desiring him even more than before. He teased her with a few more slow strokes, each of which made her whimper his name.
She clung to him, her arms wrapped around his shoulders. She felt so…smooth, as if all the sharp edges of her existence had been pushed away, replaced with silk.
Angelet laid her head on his shoulder, sighing contentedly.
Then Rafe swung her into his arms and carried her over to the bed. He pulled her gown and shift over her head in a quick movement, leaving her naked. He lowered her back on the covers, her legs hanging over the edge of the bed.
He remained standing, watching her. Then he stripped off his own clothes and stepped to the edge of the bed, pushing her legs apart so he stood between them.
She reached for his erection, and circled her fingers around it. Rafe’s intake of breath was all the motivation she needed. She pulled him closer, but he resisted, even pulling her hand away, though he’d obviously liked her touch. He was far, far stronger than she was, and there was nothing she could do to force him to obey. Except beg.
“Please,” she whispered. “I still need you. You were right before. I need something different. Whatever you want to do.”
“Whatever I want,” he echoed.
With no restrictions, Rafe’s hands roamed freely, cupping her breasts, grazing her hips, stroking her legs. Angelet loved every touch, and loved that he wanted to touch her like this. Perhaps it wasn’t always a loss to let a man do what he liked. It just depended on the man.
“Rafe, please,” she said again, aware of how desperate she sounded.
His eyes raked over her and he smiled. His hands found her hips, dragged her to exactly where he wanted her, and then he pushed his hips roughly against her, parting her legs further. He slid into her without a word, pushing, pushing, pushing until she was moaning his name, her back arching upward. She was still resonating from the climax he’d brought her to with his touch. She could hardly stand the sensation of his body penetrating hers like this. It was too full, too big, too heavy, and far too wonderful.
She didn’t know she was clutching at him, her nails digging into his sides. She closed her eyes and simply felt him slide into her, and out, and in again. She wrapped her legs around his waist without being conscious that she did it, and only dimly heard him gasp with pleasure.
She moaned low in her throat. “You feel so good,” she said. “I love how it feels to have you inside me.”
“That’s it, angel. Let yourself go.”
Another climax broke over her just as she felt him go rigid. He clasped her hips to him as he found his own release. He now covered her body with his, leaving just enough space to avoid crushing her. She slid her hands up his body, feeling the sweat-slicked flesh. Then she tangled her fingers in his hair, and his face hovered over hers. His eyes reminded her of blue pools, easy to dive into, easier to drown in.
“Angelet,” he murmured, sounding very different than his usual self. “Tell me I gave you what you wanted.”
“I thought you were showing me what you wanted.”
“It’s the same thing.”
“Oh.”
“So?” he asked. “Was this what you wanted?”
“For now,” she said with a smile.
“Oh, God.” He looked astonished, then hungry, and then his old smile returned. “I think I’ve met my match.”
She reached up to kiss him.
“Release me, darling,” he said in a low voice. He reached to run one hand along her right leg,
still locked around his body, keeping him tight against her.
She untwined her legs from him, and sighed as he withdrew from her. She held her hand out, a wordless entreaty for him to lay beside her. He did, stretching out on his back, closing his eyes. He kept her hand in his for a moment, then let it go.
She watched him for a moment, shamelessly appreciating his body. He was gorgeous, and she didn’t want to forget a single detail. If only her visions could be of him.
Angelet giggled inwardly. She would have made a disappointing nun.
She flipped onto her stomach, looking across the floor. The dagger lay within her reach. Idly, she picked it up once more and slid it out of the sheath. She tilted it toward the candlelight, bemused at the play of fire along the blade.
“Are you having any vengeful impulses I should know about?” Rafe asked from where he lay on the bed, watching her. He hadn’t fallen asleep as she thought.
She looked back over her shoulder, smiling. “You’re safe from me.”
“Thank God.”
“But I thank you for teaching me.” She brandished the dagger, a little too showily, but she was feeling exuberant. “Now I feel as though I’m not quite so helpless on my own.”
“Like you were before we met?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.
“Well, yes. I suppose.”
“Was it only Ernald? Or were there others?”
She looked away, re-sheathing the dagger. “Very few men around Dryton would have dared assault me, even if they’d found opportunity. I am of noble blood.”
“So it was only Ernald you had to fear.”
“Why does it matter? Will you challenge him to combat?”
“Say the word and I will. I am good at it.”
“But you have no grounds. He never actually carried out the threat, not once.”
“Making the threat is enough!” Rafe said. “I should just challenge him anyway. I’ll doubtless be avenging some woman, if not you specifically.”
“You’re God’s instrument of justice?”
“Entirely possible,” he said. “I meet an inordinate number of people who are in need of divine retribution.”
“You move in circles filled with the worst sort of people then.”
“I’m a fighter by trade. So yes. On the other hand,” he added, “I’ve met good people too. Like you.”
“You say that while lying in a bed after we have sinned together.”
“We are offering ourselves freely. Not all marriages have that,” he added darkly. “I refuse to accept that sharing a night with you is a sin.” He kissed her again, slowly.
Desire reawakened in her, and she kissed him back, savoring him in a decidedly sinful way. “We’re sharing more than one night,” she pointed out, between kisses.
“Mmm. Well, I’m not the person to ask when it comes to questions of proper moral behavior. If you want to know about immorality, though, I’m your man.”
She smiled. “Tell me more.”
Chapter 21
They pressed on the next day, taking the road heading south, now with a boy in tow. Angelet was delighted to have Goswin with them, even if the circumstances of their meeting had been a little less than ideal. She recognized the boy’s frustration with the world, since she’d felt the same thing herself. Even if he only traveled with them for a while, perhaps she could help temper that anger into something more healthy. And it would be good for Goswin to understand that Rafe was a person, not a monster out to destroy his happiness. Goswin was speaking to him, at least. That was a hopeful sign.
Goswin’s pony needed to rest more frequently than the other mounts, so Rafe sometimes declared that he and the boy would walk, holding the leads of their horses, while Angelet continued to ride at a leisurely pace. Her own weight hardly inconvenienced the big white horse.
During one of those periods, in the late morning, Angelet overheard Goswin and Rafe talking up ahead.
“She’s so beautiful,” Goswin was saying. “She looks like one of the fair folk.”
“Her family hails from Anjou, not fairyland,” Rafe said, putting a quick end to Goswin’s speculations. She understood why—the last thing they needed was for someone to draw a connection between Angelet’s affliction and some fairy curse. She also hoped that they’d find a safe place for Goswin long before he might see her have a seizure, which would only frighten him.
In fact, if she regained Henry and reached Anjou, both Rafe and Goswin would leave her life soon after. It’s for the best, she told herself. Rafe had made it very clear that he intended to be gone the moment his obligation to Angelet was over. If only she could persuade him to stay. She’d already seen that he had the experience to lead others, however much he declared that he didn’t feel comfortable as a commander.
Her inner voice slyly pointed out that perhaps her real reason for wanting to keep Rafe near her was not his military skill, but rather the way he occupied her nights. Angelet fought off a rising sense of embarrassment as she recalled their last encounter. Rafe had wakened a part of her that even her late husband couldn’t. Maybe if Hubert had lived, their marriage would have grown, and they would have shared the sort of intimacies that she’d experienced with Rafe. But Hubert had been young, and preoccupied, and singularly focused on getting a child—for both his sake and hers.
Lost in her musings, Angelet let out a sigh. Both Rafe and Goswin looked back at her.
“Is something the matter, my lady?” Goswin asked immediately.
Rafe didn’t say anything, but gave her a searching look.
“Don’t concern yourselves,” she said. “I was just thinking.”
“About what?” asked Goswin, absently pushing his curly hair off his forehead.
“Nothing important. Merely pondering the future.”
The boy looked more interested. “Are you going to seek vengeance?”
“What is your obsession with vengeance?” Rafe said. “Why would she want vengeance?”
“Or retribution,” Goswin said. “For what happened to your party before, on the road. I’d want vengeance if I had all my goods stolen and my retinue attacked.”
“You know about that?” Angelet asked.
“Course. It’s how I was able to find him,” Goswin explained, glaring at Rafe as though just remembering that he was a mortal enemy. “I was following about an hour or so behind the carriage, when I came across four men on horseback. Evil-looking men, too. They asked if I’d seen a man and a lady riding along the road, he on a black horse, she on a white one. They were looking for you, too.”
“So what did you say?”
“I told them yes! I said the couple rode right past me at a breakneck speed, aiming south along the road. The men spurred their mounts and sprang away. Didn’t even thank me.”
“Well, you did lie to them,” Rafe pointed out.
Goswin made a face. “But they didn’t know I lied. Anyway, I knew you hadn’t actually backtracked, so you must have taken a different turn. I keep traveling, going faster, and came across the broken carriage and cart, and a few dead bodies.”
She winced at the picture, remembering how young he still was. “Oh, how horrible for you to have seen that!”
“Not the first death I’ve seen, my lady,” Goswin said simply. “And it won’t be the last. Peaceful or violent, death is everyone’s lot.”
“What did you do next?” Rafe asked.
“I couldn’t do anything for the ones already dead, so I retraced my steps, looking for a path that turned off before the point where I met the four men. When I saw one with fresh tracks, I took it. Kept going, but my pony needed rest, so I moved much slower. I had to sleep in the woods two nights in a row. Then it rained the next day, and I thought I’d lose you for certain.”
“Why didn’t you give up?” Angelet asked, astounded at the boy’s tenacity.
Goswin looked sidelong at Rafe again. “Because I’ve got nothing to go back to. No one waiting for me. I kept on the roads, kept asking aft
er a man and a woman riding black and white horses. When I met someone who had seen you, I just kept on.”
“Goswin, you may have saved my life,” Angelet said. “You misdirected those men, who surely would have tried to kill Sir Rafe and hurt or kill me too. We didn’t know how we eluded them.”
Goswin stood up straighter. “I saved your life?”
“Quite likely. I am so grateful to both of you,” she said, pointedly to Rafe.
“Yes,” he agreed, with only a slight roll of his eyes. “Goswin seems to have helped…inadvertently.”
“I’m more help than you,” the boy said. “Look! There’s a crossroads ahead. I’m going to see.” He sprang up onto his pony’s back and rode ahead, to where his sharp eyes must have detected a crossing.
After Goswin charged off, Angelet smiled sweetly at Rafe. “Just think. If we hadn’t been detained for an extra day by the poor weather, the lad might have lost our trail entirely.”
“We should have ridden through the fog,” Rafe said. “What was I thinking?”
“I hope you were thinking that we’d have got lost if we rode in that mist,” she countered. “For myself, I am glad we stayed at the inn another day and night.” She emphasized the last word just a little, and saw Rafe’s lips quirk in a half-smile.
“Well, if it pleased you,” he said quietly, “then it was worth it.”
Rafe mounted up, and they quickened their pace to meet up with Goswin, who was waiting impatiently at the intersection of their road with another.
“Come on,” he said. “Which way do we go? East or west?”
Angelet saw what he meant. Though technically a crossroads, it was really a T, since the path to the south quickly petered out from a true road to a mere narrow footpath. A few miles ahead, due south, she saw a dark hill rising from the forest.
She turned to Rafe, expecting him to simply point left or right.
Instead, Rafe was staring at the hill with narrowed eyes. “God damn me.”
“Don’t swear in front of the boy,” Angelet said. “What’s the matter? Are we lost?”
“No. I know exactly where we are,” he said, exhaling heavily. “That’s the problem.”
“Why should that be a problem?”
Raven’s Rise Page 18