“Gareth would keep us here, truly, until—?”“I think so,” Kenbrook replied, sounding resigned as well as irritated. And the blow to his head had been a sharp one; he was pale, and his clothes were bloodied. “Having gone to such dangerous lengths to achieve his ends, I seriously doubt that he would relent now.”
“Perhaps Edward will learn what has happened and mount a rescue.”
Kenbrook was actually rude enough to laugh at that suggestion. “Sir Edward might well try to save us—or more particularly you—that much I’ll grant. But Gareth is a seasoned fighter, and he will have no trouble putting down the faltering advances of a novice.”
Gloriana pressed the fingertips of both hands to her temples, “I could not bear it, were Edward to be injured or killed on my account.”
“Edward will thrive, milady,” Kenbrook assured her, with a smile in his voice. “By no account would Gareth ever raise a sword to the lad, or allow his men to do so. Now, lie down, I bid you, and take your rest. You are quite safe with me.”
She nodded; there was no sense in sitting up through what little remained of the night, pacing and bemoaning her situation. Perhaps things would appear more hopeful under the light of the morning sun.
“We shall share the bed,” Gloriana said, with forlorn magnanimity. “I cannot ask you to sleep on the floor or upright in a chair.”
Kenbrook grinned. “I had not thought to sleep anywhere, milady, but beside you.”
Gloriana interlaced her fingers and bit her lower lip. She had dreamed a maiden’s dreams for years, awaiting her husband’s return, longing to understand, at last, the mysteries of love. She was by nature a passionate and sensual person. Now, suddenly, even with Kenbrook’s promise of chastity, she felt exceedingly shy about lying down beside him.
“I usually pray before I sleep,” she said, and immediately felt silly.
Kenbrooke’s grin broadened, and he spread his hands. “Please,” he said. “Do not endanger your immortal soul on my account.”
Gloriana glanced at him uncertainly, then went to the bed and knelt beside it. She prayed silently, beseeching the Virgin to grant her discretion, wisdom, and especially virtue. Then she drew back the heavy velvet coverlet, kicked off her slippers, and lay down, fully clothed, on the sheet beneath.
Kenbrook, seating himself with a heavy sigh on the opposite side, made a great and complicated business of taking off his boots, stretching his arms with a huge expulsion of breath, and, finally, stretching out. Gloriana lay rigid as a corpse, her eyes open wide even though her lids seemed weighted with weariness. Her body pulsed with the need of sleep—and with a maiden bride’s eager, reluctant need to end her suspense.
Dane moved beneath the covers, causing the rope springs to sway dizzyingly, and though there was a considerable distance between them, due to the size of the bed, Gloriana was quite conscious of the fact that he was removing his breeches and shirt.
“Sleep, Gloriana,” he commanded, though he could not possibly have seen her in that thick, moonless gloom and gauged her alarm by her expression. “If I am to have you, it will happen in the broad light of day. Lovemaking is an art, not a science, and when I caress a woman, I like to watch her responses.”
Gloriana’s blood ran scalding hot at the suggestion, but not because she was angry. She should not have spoken, but she did. “I have heard that women weep,” she confided, in a troubled whisper.
Dane sighed. “Should I succumb to your undeniable charms and my brother’s devious plot, you shall not weep, at least not for sorrow. You have my bond on that.”
Gloriana’s cheeks throbbed with heat. Perhaps, she thought, it was the all-encompassing darkness that gave her license to be so bold. “What—what would my part be in the matter?”
Kenbrook gave a low, husky burst of laughter, and she felt him turn onto his side. Is he naked? she wondered. If only she dared to extend her arm and touch him.
“Your part,” he answered, in his own good time, “would be to receive me.”
She imagined that and felt light-headed. There was a warm, inexorable ache in that place shaped to take him inside her. “Does—wouldn’t it hurt?”
He reached out, found her braid, and gave it a little tug. “There can be pain the first time,” he said quietly. His tone contained no trace of mockery or amusement, and Gloriana was grateful. “I would, of course, prepare you well beforehand, and that process can be very pleasurable indeed.”
Gloriana was silent for a long time. Then, softly, she said, “I am so curious.1”
“Are you asking me to pleasure you, Gloriana?”
She swallowed. “Would you? If I were asking, I mean?”
He laughed. “Oh, yes. Gareth shall not have his wish tonight, but I am more than willing to introduce you to certain parts of the ritual.”
Gloriana was trembling. Either the Virgin had not heard her prayers, or she was a worse sinner than she’d ever dreamed. “I believe I should like to learn,” she said.
“Get up, then,” Dane said, “and take off that infernal dress. A woman’s body is an exquisite instrument, made to release the most beautiful music of all, but a minstrel must touch the strings of his lyre in order to play it.”
A delicious shiver went through Gloriana, and she did as she was instructed, rising and slowly removing her kirtle and chemise. Dane, whom she had expected to lie waiting upon the bed, arose instead and lit other lamps from the one that had been left burning on the table, until the whole chamber was aglow.
Gloriana stood as if paralyzed beside the bed, utterly naked. “I had not thought of the lamps,” she whispered.
“I would see you,” Kenbrook said evenly, utterly bare himself except for a pair of trunks, “and thus know if my touch brings you the gratification I shall attempt to give.”
She grasped the ornately carved bedpost, in order to steady herself.
“Come here,” Dane said.
Gloriana hesitated only a moment or two, then moved slowly toward him, into the center of the light. He assessed her untried body in a long, appreciative glance.
“You are uncommonly beautiful,” he told her in a hoarse voice.
She remembered the kiss and all it had awakened in her. Had it not been for that, she might not have wanted him so much. “You will not take me?”
Dane shook his head. “No,” he answered. “But I shall give you all you want of pleasure, short of that.”
“It is not fair,” Gloriana heard herself saying, “that I am exposed while you are covered.”
With a complete lack of self-consciousness, Dane loosed the ties of his trunks, and they opened and slipped to the stone floor. He stepped out of them, his manhood rising hard and high against his belly.
Gloriana caught her breath. “I do not see how I could—how I could manage,” she said.
Dane chuckled again and approached, laying his hands lightly upon her proud shoulders. “You needn’t worry about that,” he replied. “When and if the time ever comes, you will accommodate me very nicely. Nature, you see, has anticipated that particular event.”
She wanted, suddenly, to flee, and yet she would not have denied herself, even if it meant owning all that lay in the four directions. “Will you kiss me?”
“Undoubtedly,” Kenbrook said. He was looking, not at her mouth, but at her small, firm breasts, with their eager, jutting tips. He raised his hands slowly and cupped them in his palms, as he might hold the most fragile of treasures.
Gloriana drew in her breath, for she had never imagined the elation so simple a caress could bring.
“Only the beginning,” Kenbrook said, chafing the nipples with his rough thumbs and then his palms.
A deep shudder moved through Gloriana, and with a soft cry, she tilted her head back and closed her eyes, surrendering to the amazing, fiery joy Kenbrook’s touch stirred in her.
He filled his hands with her breasts, possessively but without force, and she thought of the comparison he had made earlier, between a fine instrum
ent of music and a woman’s body. Her flesh sang under the deft guidance he gave it, and she began to breathe faster and to make the slightest whimpering sound low in her throat.
Kenbrook bent his head and found her mouth with his own, stroking and fondling her all the while, and Gloriana did not open her eyes or make an effort to return his kiss. She was too dazed, too distracted by the unfamiliar sensations he was awakening in her.
He kissed her lightly at first, and then very deeply, holding her by the hips now. Her breasts, wanting something he had not given them, were pressed against his chest and further stimulated by the whorls of hair and the hardness of his flesh. Instinct made her grasp at his shoulders and try to pull him closer—onto her.
Into her.
Dane kissed her muscles to the consistency of warm candle wax, then held her at arm’s length. He murmured some nonsensical plea to the old gods and then, bending his head to suck her nipple into his mouth, introduced her to an ecstasy so keen that she cried out and entangled her hands in his hair.
Gloriana arched her back, that he might have better access to her breast—surely it was a brazen act, but she didn’t care. From the time her body had begun to change, she had awaited this communion, and now that it was finally, finally upon her, she gave herself up to every nuance of his lovemaking. Her flesh burned, her hair was damp at the scalp, the surface of her skin slippery with the heat.
He turned to her other breast and devoured that, and when he’d satisfied himself, he caught her head between his hands and kissed her again, this time with a hunger that inflamed her even further.
“Now,” Kenbrook rasped, tearing his mouth from hers.
Gloriana expected him to take her to the bed, but instead he drew the chair he’d sat in earlier into the middle of the floor and led her to it. He set her hand on its back, for balance, and lifted one of her feet to the seat.
Nothing in all her maidenly imaginings could have prepared her for what happened then. Kenbrook knelt before her and stroked her inner thighs with his swordsman’s hands, and she looked down on nun and waited, holding her breath.
When he parted her and took her into his mouth, she sobbed with joy and urged him closer with her free hand. The rising tension, the exaltation, the promise of violent, all-encompassing satisfaction, caused her to rock against him, as though riding his tongue. Dane alternately teased and consumed her, and steadied her with his hands, still suckling, when the tumult began.
Gloriana was flung, as if by a catapult, to a place where she could see the backs of the stars, and Dane gave her no chance to retreat from the experience. When it was over, at last, she fell forward over his shoulder, boneless and only half conscious, and he carried her to the bed and laid her gently down.
She raised her arms to him, for his need of release was plain even to her innocent eyes, but Kenbrook shook his head.
“No, Gloriana,” he said. “Not tonight.”
Perhaps not ever. The words lay unspoken between them.
Gloriana was just beginning to breathe normally. She was flushed from head to foot and glistening with perspiration, and her heart still raced like a deer pursued over uncertain ground by wolves. Without speaking, she reached out, caught hold of his hand, and brought it to rest on her belly.
With a groanlike sound, barely audible, Kenbrook was again on his knees. His hand moved downward, to cup the place he had just mastered so thoroughly, and Gloriana tensed with renewed desire. Having known the splendor once, she wanted it again.
Kenbrook knew that, of course, without asking, and plunged one of his fingers deep inside her.
Gloriana raised both hands to her head, like a woman in the throes of madness, and moaned.
Dane bent over her and kissed her mouth, her breasts, her belly, all the while stroking her internally in a way that at once soothed and excited her. A delicious interval of growing fever had passed when he found a special, secret place inside her, one he had apparently been searching for.
Gloriana cried out and hurled her hips high off the bed. Once again, the stars seemed to fall away behind her, as if she had worn them for a robe that was now shed, fragment by glittering fragment. Having driven her outside the boundaries of her own mind, Kenbrook patiently guided her back, stroking her thighs, whispering comforting words, soothing her in her wondrous delirium.
By the time Gloriana could assemble her thoughts into coherent patterns again, her husband had raised himself from the floor, gone round to extinguish all but one lamp, and found his way back to the bed. He’d stubbed his toe and cursed several times in the process, but did not speak a word when he lay down.
“Dane?”
There was a great shifting of weight while he settled himself for slumber. “Hmm?” he asked.
“What about you?” she asked.
His exclamation, though she didn’t make out the actual term, was another oath. “Go to sleep, Gloriana,” he said.
She indulged in a long, contented sigh. “Oh, I shall sleep, without question. But I am still concerned about you.”
“Don’t be.” Dane did not sound at all friendly, given the intimacy of the acts he had performed upon her eager body. “I’ve been a soldier fully half my life, and I have undergone far greater hardships than any this day has wrought.”
Gloriana gazed upward, into the darkness. The chamber’s ceiling was not visible. “I am sorry, Dane,” she murmured. “I thought only of my own desires. It did not occur to me that you would suffer.”
Kenbrook swore again and rolled over, setting the rope springs to swaying again. “There are tunes,” he said, “when honor is a wretched burden. Nonetheless, where you are concerned, Lady Gloriana, it must be served. Now, if you have even the faintest shadow of mercy in your soul, cease tormenting me with reminders of what might have been and go to sleep!”
Except for the things she had learned that very night. Gloriana was still innocent. Instinct told her, however, that she could seduce Dane simply by lying close to him, perhaps touching and kissing him.
Integrity prevented her from employing such tactics. Without her express permission, Dane would not have shown her the pleasure she had known. For obvious reasons, reasons that bruised Gloriana’s heart, Kenbrook did not want to consummate their marriage, and she must respect his wishes. His body was his own to give or withhold, as Gloriana’s was hers alone.
“Good night, then,” she said. “And thank you.”
He let out a loud, somewhat angry moan.
“What did I say that was wrong?” Gloriana asked, somewhat wounded.
Kenbrook did not answer, but hurled himself from the bed and began stumbling about in the gloom, evidently searching for his clothing, muttering as he stomped and bumped about.
Gloriana suppressed a strange urge to laugh and put it down to hysteria. There was, after all, nothing funny about their situation. They were prisoners, and there was no guessing how long they might be shut up together.
“What are you doing?” she asked, when she could trust herself to speak. Tears seemed more imminent now than laughter, but she would dive from one of the tower windows before she wept for him again.
Dane did not reply, but she heard a stopper being drawn from a ewer and guessed that he had found the wine. She sighed, settled in deep, and closed her eyes.
Sometime in the wee hours, Kenbrook returned to the bed and flung himself down, fully clothed, to sleep as soundly as a dead man.
Gloriana sat upright in bed the following morning, covers pulled to her chin, watching sunlight pouring in from another set of windows high overhead, filling the tower like some golden liquid. The chamber was not the grim, forbidding place she had thought, but more like a well-furnished solar. Extensive efforts had been made to make the room habitable.
There were braziers to provide heat and plenty of coals to feed them. Ample supplies of food and water had been laid in, and Gareth—or perhaps it had been Elaina—had even thought to send along a trunkful of kirtles and tunics and chemises. Fre
sh rushes covered the floor, and there were no cobwebs within reach of a broom.
Kenbrook sprawled beside Gloriana, on his stomach, his back rising and falling with the deep, even meter of sleep. She bent over and peered at the wound on the back of his head, which looked fairly good, all things considered, then rose and crept over to peer behind an intricately painted screen.
As she had hoped, the screen concealed a chamber pot. She was dressed and washing her hands and face at the basin, near the bed, when Kenbrook stirred at last and then hoisted himself onto one elbow.
“It wasn’t a nightmare after all,” he said in a tone of immense disappointment.
“No,” Gloriana answered, blotting her face dry with a bit of undyed linen provided for the purpose. She was embarrassed, remembering the way she’d carried on the night before while Kenbrook dallied with her and then denied himself rather than make a promise, with his body, that he did not want to keep. “Plainly,” she said, with what dignity she could manage, “our truce is ended.”
Kenbrook sat up with exaggerated effort, one hand pressed to the back of his head. “Do not try my patience, woman,” he warned. “I am not a man who is at his best at this hour of the morning.”
Bells chimed, pure and silvery, from the other side of the lake. “We’re missing mass,” Gloriana observed, sticking to plain subjects, lest she say something incendiary.
“That,” Kenbrook said, heaving himself to his feet at long last, “is a great pity.” He moved unsteadily to the food stores on the other side of the room and examined the crocks and baskets until he found a loaf of bread and a bit of cheese. “Let us meditate upon the trials of Joseph, robbed of his many-colored coat and flung into a pit by his wretched brothers.”
Gloriana rolled her eyes. She was trying to be civil, but if Kenbrook was going to go about comparing himself to people from Holy Writ, she would not be able to hold her tongue for long.
Kenbrook went, with his bread and cheese, to the northern window, which overlooked the lake and presented an imposing view of Hadleigh Castle. “Damn you, Gareth,” he bellowed, at the top of his lungs, his voice echoing. “Damn you to hell!”
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