“They ride perhaps two days behind and it’d take you several days of hard riding to catch up. We both know you’re not a skilled enough rider for that.” Her sad face made him wonder for the first time if he’d done the right thing by keeping her at his side.
He had to give credit where it was due. She didn’t give in easily. “Mayhap I can wait in Lincolnshire and ride with Marcus to the wall? You and your men ride ahead? I promise to give you time to woo me once we’re all together at your keep. What say you? You ask that I trust you. Will you not do the same for me?”
“I told you. I know no one I trust enough to leave you with.”
“What if I told you I have family in York? Would you let me stay with them?” Her voice shook and her face paled in the way it did when one of her vivid memories attacked her.
The hairs on his arm prickled and a cold chill went up and down his back. “What keep?”
“Mind not my words. It was a bad notion.” She stared at a falcon in the distance, refusing to meet his gaze.
“Tell me what you saw.”
She shook her head no, so he whistled between his teeth for all to stop and shouted to his men. “There’s a priory ahead known to let men stay in their fields for a price. Show them Marcus’ token, give them coin, and set up camp. We’ll join with you shortly.”
Jacob galloped near and glared at Merry, sensing the tension. “We’ll wait just beyond earshot, Sahib. Our swords ready. We know not what scum lies upon these roads.”
“Have some move ahead and some behind.”
When all were situated, his mail clunked as he crossed his arms. “I’m a patient man and we shall sit here until dawn if must be, but I will know why you pale.”
“’Tis naught.” She squirmed.
“Meredith. Enough. The men wait. Spit out the truth. What did you remember?”
She took a deep breath. “I was condemned as a witch for my uncanny memories at the age of six summers. My father, the steward of Scarborough, instructed that I should be left in the woods to die. My mother disobeyed and stole me away. She gave me to her sister, who sold me to the Lady Ann. If not for them, I’d be either dead or among those whores who ride with the knights, exchanging meals for open legs.”
She swallowed hard, squeezed her eyes shut, and whispered hoarsely, “Surely, the old bastard died years ago and I have a twin brother who I’d love to see again. I’ll go peaceably with you to Scotland should you just allow me to stay and wait for my son there. You need not even worry about the wager.”
His gut wrenched and he cursed at the man who’d brought her into this world. What manner of knight would put aside a child? Thus so incensed, he didn’t trust himself to speak words of comfort and rode ahead until evening in silence.
Occasionally, she narrowed her eyes and glared at him as if he had done some huge injustice. He shook his head back and forth. His wife was an impossible shrew. When they arrived in Lincolnshire, the night was so mild that tents were not needed. Of course, she wrapped up tightly in her own furs, with her back to him, and said not a word. He took watch and stared into the fire until late. He should be joyful that she’d surrendered to his wager, so why did he feel like camel dung?
Chapter 11
He didn’t want her anymore? Just like that? What about all those promises? What about I-will-never-leave-you? God’s blood. He was an impossible man. This time, she would really never ever speak to him again. Not ever. Once they got to a real keep with real knights, she was going to demand her own horse, find Marcus’ entourage, take her son, and go home. She had honestly started to believe he was a different man. She ground her teeth, clenched her fists, and tried to sleep.
She sat up with a start when a falcon screeched in her ear. Its wings flapped so close, she was certain she was its intended prey. Covering her head with one arm and waving with her other, she screamed.
Thomas held high his leather gloved hand. The bird settled there, cocked its head, and peered at her, as if she were the interloper, not the other way around. The campsite lay bare except for smoldering pits where the fires had burned. “We’re off in moments. I’ve let you dawdle long enough.
Dawdle? It was so early, even the sun was still upon its darkened pallet in the sky. Only the faintest dusting of pink lit the campsite and it was colder than what it should be for late spring. She willed her legs to move, despite the ache in her arse that went up and down her thighs. This was followed by the most urgent of needs to pee.
It must have shown on her face, for Thomas placed the now-hooded bird with Jacob, took her hand, and rushed her a few feet out of the camp. He took his cape and held it open as a shield. “You may go.”
She held her tunic as modestly as possible and squatted. Nothing. She checked all around, but no one was paying her any mind.
“Merry?” Thomas peered over the green wool cape.
“Oh, for goodness sakes, be quiet and stop gaping. I’m having a hard enough time. Where is a shit house when you need it?”
He snickered. “There’s a forest a short ride ahead, if you wish.”
“Nooo. Shush. Just wait … Please, Thomas. This isn’t amusing.” She concentrated and remembered every flow of water she had ever made. Small spring grasses tickled her bare behind. No one had mentioned how inconvenient travel could be.
“Think of the river, the way it tinkles.” His labored breathing indicated he was having trouble not busting a gut laughing.
“Stop it. That’s …” She managed a long stream and relaxed. Thank God. She wiped with her sponge on a stick and let down her tunic.
“Can I drop my cape now and be on our way, your highness?” He leered over the cloth and winked. That one lock of dark hair fell over an eye. His gaze darkened as if in pain, but he quickly hid it behind a grin.
Taking care to walk over her own puddle, she curtsied. “Prithee do, Sir Knight. Have my sweet meats and breakfast sent to my chambers where I will await you anon with my twenty maidens in waiting.”
He held out an elbow so she could place her hand in the crook. “What are they waiting for, m’lady?”
“It’s obvious. You and your sword. No doubt you would have them all.” She glared at him, still annoyed from yesterday. Mayhap he was in a pleasant mood, but she’d tossed and turned all night.
Suddenly, his mood also reversed as if a dark cloud passed over the sun. He swung her about and into his arms and kissed her. His mouth was fierce upon hers and his tongue demanding. Holding the flesh of the globes of her behind tightly to him, he growled, “You’ve never seen my rod except that one night, and even then, I spent between your legs. That’s the only thing I can’t jest about. I have ached for you for years and my tether reaches its limits, wife.”
How would he react once he knew the truth? Already, he loathed her for being cast out as a witch. She shuddered and pushed his firm chest away.
With a groan, he released his hold and took her hand. “You ride with me today.”
Across the muddy meadow, he strode and she needed to run to keep pace. He mounted Demon and reached an arm down.
“Wait. I need my pillow.”
He fumbled in the pack and shoved it at her. She swung one leg over so as to sit in front of him, astride. His interest pushed hard at the crack of her behind and his warm breath hit her ear. “We must consummate soon or my balls shall turn to stone.”
She turned about, so she could see his face under the stony mask he had donned like a cloak, and tried to squirm away, but it could not be done. “Better, then, to let me ride behind you.”
He grunted, clicked his tongue, and put one firm arm about her waist.
Beyond them, the road stretched endlessly across a pasture of sheep and into a dark forest. Today, his men were fully mailed. Thomas greeted each with a respectful nod or word as they passed. Jacob, at the front of the line, waited on his sand-colored charger that seemed impatient to go. It whinnied and pawed at the ground.
“Set the pace. We ma
ke haste to York.” Thomas pointed north.
The large black man in black mail met her eyes, then looked her up and down like a morsel of mutton. “You’ll bounce your pretty bundle.”
“Better that than your bouncing head.” The strong arm at her waist clenched tight.
Jacob snickered and shouted, “Ho!” At that, the small army moved forward.
She gasped when Thomas swung her behind his back. She fashioned a bit of buffer by clumping his cloak and stuffing it between her and the mail. The pink pillow he handed back, she placed between her legs and saddle.
Much better. The horses’ hooves pounded over the fields, and after a few teeth-chattering moments, she tried to emulate how his legs clamped and released with each of Demon’s movements.
By the time they left the fields of sheep and entered the forest, Merry was grinning. The sun warmed like mid-summer. Rabbits with long back feet, a few young deer, and grumpy badgers scampered out of their path. Flocks of brown birds, whose names she didn’t know, broke forth from the earth in one giant effort, like a cloud. They’d squawk or scream in a wonderful cacophony. If it weren’t for little Tom, and the fact she and her husband would never mix, she’d admit to being happy.
Well into the forest, they stopped to give the horses a break at a gurgling clear stream. Thomas pulled her around to his lap and dropped her down to a waiting Sir Jacob. Her legs buckled like a cloth doll, but the huge black man held tight.
Her frowning husband dismounted, scooped her up, and carried her like an infant to a private area downstream. He put her down, flicked open his great cape, and set it upon a large stone.
A moment later, Jacob appeared with hand to sword’s hilt. His eyes darted all about. “All is well, Sahib?”
“Aye. See to the men. I need a moment with my wife.”
He winked and pulled up on his sword’s worn leather frog with a bawdy gesture.
Merry waited until he was well gone to lift her tunic to her waist and open her legs. “Aren’t you going to correct him?”
“Who knows what may happen?” The crinkles in the sides of his eyes and the half-smile did nothing to relieve the tension. Would he thrust into her, here along the stream?
She lifted her derriere off the cape so he could unwrap the linens tied around her thighs. There, the wounds had mostly healed to a dry crust. She sighed and closed her eyes when he rubbed the skin where the cloth binds had made more sore wrinkles.
He groaned. “You should’ve told me that I bound you too tight.”
She tried to explain that it didn’t hurt until just now, but his course hands laid waste to her thoughts. Around and around he kneaded her thighs like bread dough, taking care to avoid any wounds. He mixed more herbs with water into a soothing poultice, then rewrapped.
When finished with the final tie, his fingertip lingered, moved up to the lips between her legs, and pressed upon her. She moaned and opened wider to give him access. What manner of healing was this?
Like this morning, Thomas looked upon her as if in pain. “I would take you here, wife. So sweet a pearl waits for me. It gleams in the light, waiting to be shined by the tip of my sword.”
Her face heated. He was speaking of joining? Milky liquid pooled where he touched her and she grew hotter still. He pulled his finger to his nose and inhaled of her scent. He licked her cream off his finger.
The nub between her legs pulsed as his black eyes bore into her. “Tonight, there will be more of this. No more waiting. We both know what we want. Come. We eat. Then we need to be off again.”
He pulled her tunic down as if nothing of mention had happened, pulled her to her feet, and strode toward the rest of the men. Wobbly, she followed behind. That was it? Her body wanted more of what he offered, but she didn’t even know how to ask. He’d left an ache and a longing so fierce, she wanted to reach a hand below and ease the throbbing.
After the horses were rested and they’d eaten a cold meal, Thomas said for her ears only, “You ride in front, so you can rest your inner thighs. They will be busy clamping around me soon. I believe I’ve finally created a want in you to match my own, wife.”
Damn the man. “I shall never kiss you nor ever beg you to bed me again.”
He snorted, turned, and she followed.
Later, legs together and cradled within one of his arms, she enjoyed the deep forest as never before. Only the bravest of flowers poked their heads through the leaves below. Mayhap they feared that winter hadn’t yet truly gone. Here in the dark shadows of the thick foliage, how would they know? Every so often, a stag would stare like a statue and she’d laugh. So unlike the sheep who panicked and ran around in circles.
The man was merciless the rest of the day, kissing her head, caressing her arse, and being all kinds of sweet and attentive. He pointed out castles and priories that loomed atop high hills. They nodded to peasants with wagons of wares when the forest opened up to field. She held her eyes wide and unblinking for fear of missing something. Her body tingled, not just from his constant touch and smell, but from the abundance of life around her.
Without thinking, she broke into a troubadour’s song she’d heard recently. Thomas smiled and his low voice joined in. Soon, they were all singing and the afternoon went by quickly, verse after verse. Of course, she remembered all the words, which astonished the men.
That evening, they took some blessed time to rest the horses. A small boar turned upon a spit above a hot roaring fire. The dozen knights gathered around it with gruff conversations and laughter. She’d wanted to help with preparations of the meal, but Thomas’ men seemed to have a method that didn’t include her, so finally she gave up and settled on a small log.
He approached with a steaming plate of meat. “I brought you pig and roasted roots.”
After she greedily devoured the sup, he ran back to the fire and returned with an unleavened biscuit, soaked in the fat drippings and mead. She swallowed and licked the bowl in a most un-lady-like fashion. “My belly thanks you.”
He laid out a fur and lay upon his back. He pulled her atop of him until they were nose to nose and his mail cut into her. He studied her lips with dark eyes, as his lips brushed over hers, tasting of their meal. “Tonight, I call a truce. You may kiss me freely without losing your freedom.”
His calloused palms caressed her cheek, one leg wrapped around her, and his mouth covered hers, nibbling and playing. When his tongue asked for entrance at her teeth, she opened her mouth, and he moaned.
The noise hit her soul like an arrow and her lips between her legs tingled. Taking the lead in the battle, she thrust her tongue into his mouth. Perhaps it was time to live in the present before it, too, became a haunting memory of missed opportunities.
Despite all her efforts, the intimacies brought forth the memory of that fateful night. How kissing had led to more kissing. Then he’d lifted her tunic and lay her down on the warm floors of the bathhouse in late summer. He’d opened her legs and touched her until she’d exploded with joy. She’d begged him to enter her, but instead, he had showed her how to tighten her thighs around his thick rod. He’d bucked until his seed exploded between her legs and mixed with her own thick juices. Aye, and thus he believed Tom was miraculously conceived with her womb still not breached.
She paused, gasping for breath. The young man that left her six years ago had faded behind the older. His skin was made darker by hours in the sun, and a few more scars marred his face. Two crinkles lined the sides of each of his eyes.
“Where did you go?” Clever hands kneaded her rounded arse, pushing her into his pintle.
“Six years ago, when last we lay like this and Thomas was conceived. Then you left me all alone.” She scooted off his body.
“God’s balls, you’ll be the death of me.” He moaned, scrunched his eyebrows together, and clunked the back of his head against the ground repeatedly. Done with that, he turned his back to her and said not another word, yet muttered obscenities into the dark. A couple of
his men within earshot snickered.
She woke in the dark, mind racing, as one of his sentries wandered close. She had to tell him the truth. One thick arm pulled her close and he whispered. “Soon, you will realize our hearts are one and our bodies must join.”
Chapter 12
During the next few days, muddy roads loomed ahead endlessly. Sometimes forest, sometimes field, and yet every so often, a priory or castle would appear upon a hill in the distance. Depending on the closeness to a village, the road would be so cluttered with people they could barely pass, then nary a soul for hours.
Thomas must’ve given up on her for he no longer paid her any mind. After gifting her with a mount and a grunt this morning, he rode either far ahead or behind. He jested and laughed with the others as if she didn’t even exist.
A shrill whistle, the clomping of hooves from the opposite direction, and Thomas pulled his mount alongside her. “Cloak up. Stay hidden and say naught.”
His black beast nickered, nose to nose with hers, who quivered beneath her thighs. Swords sliced against leather sheaths as they were drawn and her heart pounded. Thomas’ men closed in around her. Sir Harold-the-Elder, took honor at the front of their small pack of men and waited.
One man dressed in armor emerged from the forest, followed by a ragtag group of mayhap ten more. He spoke in a low voice, spiced with a northern accent and filled with disdain. “Where be you off to, Sir Knights?”
“None of it your concern.” Thomas’ eyes narrowed, his knuckles whitened, and his mouth went wide in a grimace. He nodded almost imperceptibly at his men when more outlaws with deep scars upon their faces emerged from the forest.
His men shifted positions to best protect her and she hid deep within the cloak, covering her face, arms, and hands. Laughter laced with crude Scottish jibes followed and she shivered. Would death by sword be quick or painful?
“There’s a hearty tax along this road from hither to anon. Give me the bonnie lassie and I may let you live.” The lawless man snickered.
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