“I am mine own to give, and while I can, I give myself to him. If I birth a bastard, he will take the child, and raise him stronger and freer than I ever could. I will not deny you your right to give my hand, in any alliance that reclaiming our family honor requires. But my heart rejects such worldly chains, and wears another by my own choosing.”
“You are half mad yourself. You doom yourself to unhappiness with such notions. And you condemn me to be the agent of your misery.”
“Ah, Mark, you are so ignorant. When I break this, I will not really give up the important things. It did not begin when we made love. It will not end when we stop.” She turned back to the horizon. “Go and prepare. Learn what you must to make our old lives whole again. But until those lives or his tear us apart, I will take what I can get, and give what I have chosen to give.”
Joan had told Mark that she was contented, but in truth she was not. She and Rhys lived out their love under a hanging sword, knowing that one day it would drop and sever them forever.
It made their time bittersweet, and the nightly embrace painfully poignant. Even the pleasure was shadowed by the anticipation of loss. She could not find abandon anymore. She could not lose herself in the present now that the future surrounded her. Too often as she lay in his arms a soulful melancholy overwhelmed her.
Her whole world seemed to share the heavy anticipation. There was a mood in the household that she could not name. A palpable expectation filled the air. It was as if everyone waited for something. It reminded her of those days after the abdication, when her father and Piers and the knights always seemed to be listening for the sounds of an army.
At first she had assumed that it was concern for her that caused it. But when days passed and no riders followed from Westminster in pursuit of the tiler seen with Guy Leighton that day, the mood still persisted. She told herself that she imagined it, and that her own conflicted waiting, her own impatience to finish what had started and her own prayers that time would stand still for her and Rhys, was the source of it. But it came from the others too. The waiting cloaked Addis, and even Moira.
Then one day it suddenly disappeared. A new mood spread in the household. A silent hum of excitement filled the air.
Mark came in the late evening to tell her that the waiting was over, and that Addis and the King and a few others planned to arrest Mortimer at Nottingham Castle, where Queen Isabella had moved her retinue.
“Isabella and Mortimer have summoned Edward to Nottingham as though he were some servant. They want him to explain rumors they have heard that he plots against them. I say that is damn bold of them. He is the King, not Mortimer. So he will go, but sooner than they expect, and he will settle with them both.”
He paced with excitement, spilling the tale. “I'm to go, too. Not into the castle, but to Nottingham. I will serve as one of Sir Addis's squires, and be nearby so he can present me to the King when it is over.”
“It sounds very risky. Just a few men, you say. They will be very vulnerable.”
“It is brilliant. It will be glorious.”
“It will be a bloodbath. They will be horribly outnumbered inside those walls. Mortimer will order his guard to cut them to pieces. With Edward dead, he will have the barons declare the Queen the official monarch, and continue as he has done.”
“You do not understand warfare.”
“You do not describe a war. You speak of a band of thieves stealing into a home.”
Joan paced around her chamber, imagining this bold scheme easily going awry, agitated by an unpleasant excitement.
“What if they fail? What happens to you then?”
“I will be with Addis's retinue. I will be safe.”
“If Addis is killed, no one in his retinue will be safe.”
“Stop being such a woman. It is Addis and Rhys who face the danger, not me.”
That stopped her pacing. Abruptly.
“Rhys? What has he to do with this?”
Mark looked too much like someone who knew that he had spoken unwisely.
“He is going with you?” Oddly enough, that idea made her calmer, not that a mason could protect Mark better than a band of knights.
“Nay. He departs for Nottingham at dawn. We will wait some days more.”
“Why does he go at all?”
The toes of his boots suddenly fascinated him. “Don't know. Something about a project for the King.”
It made no sense. Any project for the King could wait until after this action.
Mark pivoted and aimed for the door.
She intercepted him. “How much do you know of this plan?”
“What I told you.”
She glared.
“A bit more.”
“Tell me the bit more. Now. Why does Rhys go to Nottingham?”
He tried to look mature and superior. She was in no mood to play to his pride. She grabbed his hair the way she used to when he misbehaved as a boy.
“Ow! Damn! Jesus, I'm not a—”
“Then tell me what I ask.”
He disengaged his locks and stepped back, indignant and embarrassed. “I've already told you more than I should. If you want to learn all of it, speak to Addis. As for why Rhys is coming, I expect it is because this was his idea to start.”
He dodged her, and ran out of the chamber before she could make him explain.
She grabbed a lit candle and followed on his heels. She aimed for a chamber in the nearby south tower.
The door was not barred, but the chamber was dark. Her flame shed vague light on a mound of leather sacks heaped against the wall near the threshold.
Silence greeted her, but she knew that Rhys was there. She felt his presence, as solid and strong as the rock that he carved.
The bed where she slept in his arms was empty. She raised the light. It barely penetrated to the far wall, but it found him there. He stood with arms braced on either side of the narrow window, face turned to the moonlight and the cool breezes flowing in.
He wore only his hide work leggings. His pose made the strong muscles of his shoulders and back taut and defined.
He sensed her arrival. It showed in a subtle flexing of his body and a sudden change in the air. He turned and rested against the wall, arms crossed over his chest.
Joan gestured to the sacks. “It looks like you are leaving.”
“Aye. At dawn. I was going to tell you tonight.”
“Where are you going?”
“Away. It is time. We both knew the day would come when we had to part. Where I go when that happens does not matter.”
“It does if you journey to Nottingham. Mark told me what Edward plans to do.”
“The boy still has much to learn if he speaks so freely.”
He was not making it easy. He acted distant, as though he was hiding something. Aye, he had intended to tell her, but not all of it. He had been planning to lie.
“Why do you go to Nottingham now? The King's project can wait until this is over.”
“It can wait, but it does not need to. That is how it is with craftsmen. Knights and kings fight their battles, but we must continue earning our bread.”
“I do not think that you go only to earn your bread.”
“Perhaps you forget who I am. What I am.”
She dripped some wax onto the top of the chamber's lone chest, and pressed the candle in it to stand. “You are a man who helped depose a king. I think that tomorrow you will be a man setting out to depose a usurper. Please tell me what your role will be. I want to know what danger you will face.”
He turned back to the window. “Very little danger. The role is a small one.”
A knot of fear had formed in her chest, and his confirmation only made it thicker. She went to him and embraced him from behind, laying her head on his back. “Tell me. Please.”
He hesitated, then moved to bring her forward under his arm. He still gazed into the night. “There are passageways underground that will permit Edward to approach unseen
. Trusted men will be at the inner gate and will let him pass. But once at the keep, he will be vulnerable. I will make a diversion, that is all. Something to distract the guards while Edward reaches the Queen's chambers. It should not be difficult.”
“If the King's plan fails, it will be known that you were involved.”
“Possibly.”
“Certainly. Mark said that this move was your idea. How long have you been scheming with Addis?”
“Not so long.”
“Since before we met?”
He did not answer, but she looked at his profile and knew the truth.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“I expected it to come to nought, and did not want you disappointed. And I was sworn to secrecy. The fewer who know of such things the better.”
He spoke so calmly, as though he did not comprehend his risks. She could think of nothing else but the deadly danger he faced.
He would leave at dawn. The hanging sword would finally fall, and he would be severed from her forever. If this rash plan worked, their worlds would separate. If it failed…
Bile rose to her throat. Images invaded her head, and the old ones that had plagued her for three years transformed into new ones. Ghastly and hideous ones.
Blood in a yard, and bodies twisted in death. A sword falling, and eyes defiant to the end. Rhys's eyes.
Except it might not come so mercifully. A king might lead this action, but a queen would mete the punishment if it failed. Addis might survive, but there would be a terrible death for a common craftsman who dared to plot against a royal person.
An unholy fear took possession of her, turning her limp. A new dread, more terrible and more raw than any she had known these last years, left her cold and shaking.
She had to stop him.
“I do not want you to do this.”
“That is another reason why I did not tell you.”
“I entreat you not to. It is not your—”
“Not my place?”
She would worry about his pride later. “Aye, not your place, nor your battle.”
“I remember a fieryeyed woman telling me that anyone can stand against injustice, even masons. And it is my battle because of you, if for nothing else. I may not be the champion you sought, but I can do my part.”
Her heart glowed that he loved her enough to risk his life to make it right for her. But fear for him also sliced like knives, shredding her composure. She pressed her face against his shoulder. “Wait a day more. One day only. A little more time …”A little more time to hold him, and make memories to sustain her. A little more time to convince him not to go.
“One day, then another, and another … It will be no easier to leave you a day or a month hence. The sooner I get to Nottingham, the better chance this will unfold as planned.”
His calm resolve made her frantic. “You do me no honor with this.”
“And you do me no honor in trying to dissuade me.”
“I do not want it from you.” She tried to make her voice cold and firm, but it came out a whimper.
He looked at her and smoothed his hand over her cheek. “It is not just about you, Joan. That is a part of it, but it is not all of it.”
“That does not reassure me. If it were just about me, I might be able to stop you,” she muttered miserably, wiping her eyes.
“Do not waste the night that way. It will not happen.”
She heard the decision in his tone. Recognized it. Nay, it would not happen. He stood where she had recently stood, and his path would not be diverted.
Rhys waited as she had, for the dawn. He faced an ordeal, and knew its potential cost. He had been savoring the breeze and the night when she entered, and dwelling in that poignant present that only exists when one anticipates no future.
The light showed enough of his intensity for her to know where his soul was tonight. She remembered her own dark vigil. Empathy stirred her love, and her heart swelled with the desire to protect and comfort.
She looked at him. All of him. Slowly and carefully, so that she would always remember. He appeared so splendid to her. Handsome and hard, hewn with dignity and strength. His chiseled expression showed no weakness, but his humanity still had its needs.
His words made it explicit. “I thank you for trying, Joan. I will cherish the evidence that you put my life above your quest. But I do not want to speak of this anymore. Nor of the parting that awaits. Nor of anything but love.”
He stepped behind her, and began untying the lacing on her back.
He worked the lacing slowly, enjoying how his slow progress made her tremble, like a murmur whispering through her body and the night. He might not have noticed but for his raw alertness to everything. And so he also felt the sadness in her, and her aching awareness that this would be the last time.
“I wish that we were still in London. Or at the pond behind the pines,” she said wistfully.
He smoothed his hand up the gap he had made, and relished the warmth beneath the thin shift's fabric. She arched ever so subtly to his touch. “Aye. But this is where we are now, and we can not change that.”
He eased the gown off her shoulders. It slid down her body into a heap on the floor. He went to work on her braid. She did not turn. She knew that he wanted to savor every moment.
“I will always regret that I brought you into this, Rhys. You were content before you met me. And safe.”
“Not so content. And maybe too safe. I was lacking purpose, and envied you yours, whatever it was. Protecting you gave me one. Regret nothing, pretty dove. A man who has nothing worth fighting for is not really alive.”
He set her hair over her shoulder, and bent close to kiss her nape. Then her shoulder, while his fingers slid the shift off them. It skimmed down. “Do not move. You are so beautiful, and I want to look at you in this moonlight.”
The moon gave her a pale glow in the darkness. Lovely. Ethereal. He would worship this image of her forever. She stood as still as a statue, but it was not stone that his hands glossed while they followed her curves. Her warmth spoke of her life and spirit and need, and her skin quivered beneath his touch, as if her pulse responded.
She was so beautifully formed. He kissed her back, to honor all that she was. Joan, daughter of Marcus de Brecon. Joan the tiler. Tonight she was still both those women. For the next few hours, at least, she was still in his world.
He kissed lower, along the entrancing, delicate bumps of her spine. He sank to his knees as his kisses descended. He took the softness of her hips in his hands and pressed his mouth to the round swells.
She wobbled. Her stillness disappeared and her body flexed with her response. The softest moans mixed with her breathing. She grasped the window ledge, bending slightly, steadying herself. He licked and nipped the tops of her thighs. With a gasping “aye” she parted them, and he let his tongue flick and explore.
Her scent made the sweet mist of desire cloud his head. The demand for more pounded through him.
He caressed her legs up to her hips. “Turn, love. I want to taste you fully.”
She faced him, leaning against the wall, looking down with glistening eyes. The light from the window and the candle played over her breasts and arms and legs, creating fluid, mysterious shadows. He raised his hands and caressed as softly as the night air flowed. He glided his touch over her chin and down her neck. A flush warmed the path, and a lively pulse beat through the connection. He glossed lower, to the full softness of her breasts, and reveled in her sharp intake of breath. He eased her toward him, bending her until he could kiss her lips.
Her hungry response said where she was. She clutched his shoulders and kissed back more aggressively than she ever had before. Her little assault sent desire on a rampage through him. He moved his mouth to her neck and then to her hovering, beckoning breasts.
He teased at her with his tongue, and her sounds of pleasure filled his ears, his head, his blood. She arched and pressed forward, begging for more, her fing
ers clawing his shoulders, her head thrown back in abandon.
He leashed the raging impulse to rise and immediately claim what waited. Removing her hold, he set her back against the wall. Kneeling closely, he kissed lower. Over her stomach, around her navel. Lower still.
He reached down for her ankle, but did not have to guide her. She pressed against the wall, and looked down with smoldering eyes. “Aye, fully,” she whispered as she bent her knee and rested her foot on his shoulder.
No thought. No restraint. Cradling her hips in his hands, he kissed up her thigh to his goal and licked. Her ascending cries and pulsing flesh absorbed his consciousness. She rocked slowly, rhythmically as he explored deeper and the hunger turned primal. He kept her on the edge, frantic with a need that aroused him more than her taste, before he finally sent her screaming into a glorious release.
He rose and crushed her to him. Her scent and gasping breaths immersed him in a cloud of sensation. Her feminine softness yielded limply into his clasping hold.
He took her hand to guide her to the bed. “Come lie with me now. Let the husband of your heart love you while he can.”
To his surprise, she resisted and stood her ground. “We will love each other, not just you me.” She caressed down to the closure of his leggings. “After such a start, my blood is up. Do not expect me to be shy.”
His garment loosened and she brushed it down his hips. She looked him in the eyes with a new confidence. Desire scorched through him like a brushfire.
She stepped back and regarded his body frankly. There was a promise in that inspection that stunned him, and also pushed his craving higher. The memory of being inside her swept him, and he almost pinned her against the wall to make it real.
Her gaze dropped to his phallus. She reached out and gently ran the fingertips of both hands up and down. She had touched him before, but not boldly like this. It made the pleasure maddening.
She smiled impishly. Seductively. Her finger circled. “I am wondering if I might yet be able to convince you to stay.”
“If you plead your cause like that, you are welcome to try.”
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