by Speer, Flora
Arden gazed in near reverence at her slender shape. He watched with aching longing the way the linen of the shift pulled tight across her high, firm breasts with their pink nipples. He also noticed what he had not been able to see while she was still dressed. Dark bruises marred her uncovered arms from elbows to shoulders.
The sight of the bluish finger marks inflicted by the very men who should have held Margaret dear and protected her from violence brought Arden's seething emotions to the boiling point. He was powerless to prevent his next action. His hands moved almost of their own accord, skimming along her shoulders and upper arms as if to brush away the cruel bruises. For several precious, silent moments his fingertips lightly caressed his wife, and Margaret stood still, her eyes fixed on his, allowing his gentle touch. Only with the greatest difficulty did he finally pull his hands from her and hold them at his sides, clenched into fists.
“Those foul brutes,” he muttered. “How could they use you so, when anyone with half a mind must see that you deserve the kindest, gentlest treatment?”
“You have promised they will never hurt me again,” Margaret said. She moved at last, wrapping her fingers around his tight fists, trying to unfasten them. “I trust you to fulfill your promise.”
“You should not!” He pulled away from her, unable to tell her that he kept his hands fisted because if he unclenched them, if he loosened his tight grip on himself and his emotions, he would touch her again. He would wrap his arms around her, slide his fingers through her shining hair, put his mouth on her sweet lips. He would destroy her. “Listen to me, Margaret. For your sake as well as mine, I must ask you to connive in a lie.”
“What lie?” she asked.
“Only until your father and Eustace have gone,” he said, “and until I have spoken with my father.”
“Arden?” Her face was white, far whiter than marble, as if there never had been blood surging beneath her luminous, petal-soft skin. “Do you mean to repudiate me after my relatives have left?”
“It's you who will repudiate me,” he said. She began to shake her head, she opened her rosy lips to object, and Arden spoke the words he hated to say, but knew he must say, for her sake. “I cannot consummate our marriage.”
“I find that difficult to believe,” she said, misconstruing his meaning. “The night when we lay together in this room, you experienced no difficulty. Indeed, your problem was not in your ability to perform the act, but in restraining yourself. Why should there be a difference tonight? Surely, you are not nervous or afraid of me?”
“You don’t understand.” Deliberately, Arden turned his back on her. He could not continue to gaze at her, at her soft, pliant form and still say what must be said. How could he tell her that the Arden she remembered had died in the searing desert heat of the Holy Land?
“You are right. I do not understand what you mean,” Margaret said. “Have you forgotten that I was first wed to a very old man, who during the last few years of his life was in declining health? Let me speak bluntly, Arden. I know the signs of impotence and you do not display them.
“If your difficulty is not an inability,” she went on, “is it an unwillingness? Do you find me uninviting? Have I been no more to you than a minor entertainment, to be briefly enjoyed during a long and boring winter evening and then cast aside?”
“No!” He spun around to face her. “Never think so. God forbid that you should think yourself unlovable.”
“'God forbid,'“ she repeated slowly. “That is what you said when Eustace accused you of getting me with child. Is that what's wrong, Arden? Are you afraid of making a child who will carry their blood in its veins? I assure you, I am nothing like them. Though I am undoubtedly Phelan's child, he has naught but scorn for me because I am so similar to my mother in character and looks. That being the case, isn't it reasonable to believe my children will be like me and like my mother, rather than like Phelan or Eustace?”
“You do not understand,” he said again.
“How can I,” Margaret cried, “when all you will say is that I don't understand, and you will not explain yourself so I can understand?”
Margaret closed her trembling lips, warning herself not to give way to the weakness of tears. If she was going to attain what she most desired – a husband freed of the mysterious burden he carried with him like a great, crushing weight upon his soul – then it was necessary for her to be strong. She had known and cherished the open-hearted, cheerful Arden of old. She wanted some part of the same youthful Arden back, combined with the more serious, mature man who was her husband.
She decided to risk trying the one way she had discovered to make intimate contact with him. Perhaps, if she persisted without seeming to demand anything more of him than he had already given her on a previous occasion, she might be able to lead him on to a deeper intimacy.
“If you cannot, or you will not, consummate our marriage,” she said, keeping her voice calm and steady, “then, let us do what we did on the night when we last lay together in your bed. If that is all you can give me, Arden, I will ask for no more.”
“You are treading on dangerous ground,” he warned, frowning at her.
She hoped it was so, hoped what she was suggesting would prove to be so dangerous that Arden would not be able to resist the power of his own manly passion.
“Kiss me,” she whispered, moving nearer to him. “Hold me in your arms. I deserve that much.”
“You deserve far more than I can ever give you,” he said. “Margaret, what you want is most unwise. You will regret it later.”
“I disagree. I do not regret the last time we were alone together in this room. Why, then, should I regret this time, when no one can possibly object to what we do?” She placed a hand on each of Arden's shoulders and then she kissed him. He held back, not returning the kiss. Undaunted, Margaret wound her arms around his neck, pressing closer. Opening her mouth against his, she touched his tightly closed lips with the tip of her tongue.
Arden groaned and seized her by the arms to break her tenacious hold on him. His fingers bit into the bruises on her upper arms and Margaret winced. Immediately, he loosened his grip on her.
“I have hurt you,” he said, “after I swore I never would. Do you begin to understand what being close to me will mean for you?”
Telling himself he only wanted to ease the pain he had just caused to her bruised flesh, he gently moved his hands along her arms to her shoulders a few times, and then around to her back, stroking over linen and soft skin. Margaret trembled a little under his touch. The involuntary movement pierced Arden's heart like a sharp knife. Unable to stop himself, he enfolded her in his arms, holding her tenderly, swearing to himself that he wanted only to reassure her. But when she lifted her face and lightly pressed her lips to his, he kissed her long and hard.
Her fingers wove through his hair, her mouth opened under his in sweet invitation, her breasts pressed softly against his chest, and this time it was Arden who began to tremble. Half maddened by longing, he tore his mouth from hers.
“I should not do this,” he whispered, even as he picked her up and carried her to the bed. “Binding you to me by affection will cause you more harm than my clumsy hands just did, or the bruises your cruel menfolk have inflicted.”
Margaret did not argue with his claim. She was too busy unfastening his belt and pulling off his woolen tunic. For a fleeting moment she thought of Isabel and Catherine, and of what they would say about her wedding night if they knew how reluctant the bridegroom was, and how overly eager the bride.
“Margaret, I warn you.” Arden sat on the edge of the bed, staring at her, with her shift twisted up over her knees and her hair spread across the pillows.
“I will not heed your warnings, be they ever so dire.” Lifting herself a little, Margaret placed a hand on Arden's broad shoulder, then slowly drew her hand downward over his muscled chest and up again to his throat. Arden bent over her, and Margaret gently pushed him away.
“You can
not come to bed still wearing your boots,” she said.
Deliberately enticing him, she caught the hem of her shift and pulled it upward over her head, then cast the flimsy linen aside. Arden's eyes locked on hers and she saw in his gaze an odd mixture of longing and hope and terror. Margaret lowered her own eyes, fearing he would see in them her intention to rid him of more than his boots. She wanted all of his garments off, wanted him naked beside her.
She needn't have worried, for when Arden bent forward to pull off his boots at her order, his loosened hose slid downward, providing Margaret with an enticing glimpse of bared skin over taut muscle. With a growl of impatience, Arden ripped off his hose and linen under-breeches as well as his boots, before flinging himself onto the sheets.
The top sheet he hastily pulled up was inadequate covering for the burgeoning manhood that plainly indicated to his wife that, though he vowed he would not possess her, he wanted her badly. After wrapping the sheet across his waist, Arden began to caress Margaret's breasts. He was skillful in his ministrations, as she had known from earlier experiences he would be, but the tender ardor of their previous encounter was absent and it soon became apparent to her that Arden was determined to withhold himself from her as much as possible.
His mouth fastened on her breast, his tongue circling her nipple. Though Margaret felt a flickering of warmth far inside herself, her heart was heavy with longing for what they ought to be giving to each other, and were not. When Arden lifted his head from her one breast, preparing to attend to the other, Margaret caught his face between her hands, forcing him to look into her eyes, to see there all the tender emotions she felt for him.
“Don't,” he said. “Let me go from you now, before it’s too late.” Yet even as he spoke the words his hands caressed her, drawing her closer, as if he yearned to obey a deeper, more primitive command than his repeated insistence on keeping his emotional distance from her.
“I said I would not listen to your warnings.” Margaret pulled his head lower so she could kiss him on the mouth. This time she sensed a response in him and sensed, too, how hard he was struggling against his own need.
Still with her mouth on his, she kicked at the sheet, pulling it free. Then Arden's whole, long frame was pressing against her, with its contrasts of textures; smooth and hairy, calloused and soft and, in one particular place, hot and hard and prodding at her. She shifted position, entangling her legs with his.
“This should not be happening. Stop me,” he groaned. “In the name of heaven, Margaret, be strong enough to stop me, for I cannot stop myself. Not now, not when you are so close, so blessedly sweet in my arms, so honest and clean and good. If I continue, I will only harm you.”
“I will never stop you,” she whispered. “I love you.”
“No!” he exclaimed, sounding utterly miserable. “Don't love me. Don't even think of it. If you love me, I will surely break your heart.”
“Like you, I cannot help myself,” she murmured, exalting in the way he continued to press against the most heated, most sensitive area of her body, even as he protested against what they both wanted. She pressed eagerly forward, hoping to tempt him to venture farther. “I love you, Arden. I will love you forever, no matter what you say, no matter what you have done.”
At the last possible instant Arden raised himself to look down at her, and Margaret saw in his eyes a flame that was something more than the moment's passion. She saw in Arden a desperate hope aching to be released into full life. Responding to his painful desire in the only way she could, she lifted her hips and drew him closer still, opening herself to him, trusting him. Immediately, she felt his great size stretching her almost painfully, as if it was her first time with a man. Arden filled her until she was made dizzy by his rigid, probing heat. The slight discomfort receded and Margaret closed her eyes to better savor the erotic sensation.
She heard his groan and she wasn't sure whether it was a sound of triumph, or of despair that he had failed to keep himself from her. When he was completely embedded in her, Margaret realized that in spite of his large size they fit together perfectly, his body touching hers in ways she had not known were possible, ways that quickly made her intensely aware of the sensitivity of her own body. She thought if either she or Arden moved the tiniest bit she would shatter into a thousand little pieces, and so she held herself as still as she could while she waited for him to make the first move.
They lay quietly for a time, until Margaret could no longer resist the impulse to move. She opened her eyes to find Arden staring at her. The hope she had seen in him moments before blazed high in his gaze and he spoke in a husky whisper.
“Say you love me,” he commanded. “Tell me again.”
“I love you,” she responded without hesitation. “I will always love you.”
“If only I could believe that were true,” he said. “I know too well your love cannot last. But, for this brief, sweet hour, let me treasure the gift you offer.”
“I am yours,” Margaret told him. Unable to remain still a moment longer, she ran her hands along his spine, up from his waist to his shoulders and then down, lower and lower, until she cupped his firm buttocks and pulled hard on them, forcing him deeper into her body.
With an agonized cry, Arden began to thrust into her. Released from immobility, Margaret moved with him, meeting his every hard thrust, her passion mounting steadily, fiercely, as he stroked into her over and over again, until she dissolved into a pulsating sweetness so intense that she did not know where she ended and Arden began. She cried aloud with the joy of it, and in the next heartbeat she heard the wild shout that Arden tried to smother in the pillow. He plunged deep into her one last time and stayed there, shuddering with the force of his release.
Margaret could not move. She did not think Arden could move, either. He lay atop her, his face buried between her shoulder and the pillow, and she knew he still lived only by the way his heart
beat against hers and then, a few moments later, by the deep breath he drew in as if his lungs were completely empty, as if all the air had been forced out of him during the last, intense, moments of his lovemaking.
Margaret's arms were still around him and when she finally found the strength to move her hands, she tenderly stroked Arden's back. It seemed to her that his frame lifted and moved against her caressing hands, as if he longed for the comfort of her touch. He lay as he was for so long that she began to think he had fallen asleep.
Chapter 19
Arden was not asleep. He was too shaken by what had happened between him and Margaret to speak or to look into her tender, trusting eyes. The bride he had unwillingly married had succeeded in destroying every impediment he raised between them, until he was no longer capable of concealing his desire from her. Margaret was able to reach behind his shield of isolation to find the man he once had been and to touch emotions he had long believed were frozen for all time. After so many years of refusing to allow himself to care about anyone or anything except his guilt, Margaret had ensnared his heart in a matter of days. She had brought him to life again.
For that precious gift Arden wanted to give her the world in return. Tragically, all he could offer her was heartbreak and disillusion, when she learned everything. For now he was bound to tell her the same sorry tale he was going to have to reveal to his father.
Margaret's warm, slender hands smoothed his hair and stroked along his shoulders and down his back. Arden's muscles responded to her touch, moving as if he possessed no will of his own, lifting to make closer contact with her, as if her fingers offered surcease from all guilt and all grief.
She continued to stroke and caress him until his physical response went so deep and his longing to possess her again throbbed so strongly within him that he knew it was time to remove himself from direct contact with her. The hour for honesty had arrived.
“At least I am still a man in the bedroom,” he said, pulling away from her and sitting up. “Until tonight, I did not think it was possible.”<
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“I never doubted it.” Margaret smiled at him with love in her eyes. “Not for a single moment did I question your manhood.”
“You live by faith and hope,” he said, “while I have nothing left of either.”
Arden swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat there with his back to her. Afraid he would leave the bed, and that if he did, his thoughts would once again become distant from her, Margaret moved to kneel behind him. Winding her arms around him, she pressed her cheek against his bare shoulder. He caught her hands where they were clasped together at his chest and pulled them apart. Margaret feared he would free himself from her embrace. Instead, he kissed the fingers of one hand and laid it against his face. They sat that way, in silence, until she felt a drop of moisture on her wrist, and her heart lurched in grief for his pain.
“Dear husband, we are one flesh now,” she said softly, hoping to convince him to confide in her.
“It's a fact you will soon regret.” His voice was as soft as hers, and far more sad.
“Please tell me what troubles you so sorely. If you speak what is in your heart, you may discover that speaking eases the pain. You may say anything you want to me, and I will never repeat it.”
His back stiffened and his fingers tightened on her hands. He sat so still for so long that Margaret feared he was too angry for words. He kept his back to her and she could not see his expression. Then, to her surprise, he kissed both of her hands and released them, and when he spoke again his voice was gentle.
“You have brought me a comfort I never thought to feel again in this life,” he said. “I have been trying to hold on to that comfort moment by moment, because what I have to tell you will make you despise me. I did not guess until this instant how very difficult it would be to tell you what you have every right to know.
“Stay where you are, there behind me,” he said when she started to climb off the bed. “I am a coward; I cannot face you and say what I must. I do not want to see the look in your eyes.”