Ariel fought to keep her own eyes open but she too was lulled by the heat and the bright glow of the fire. Her eyelids drooped and her head swayed forward, burdened by the weight of her hair. The sound of the river rolling by overhead vibrated the air and even though the men had to talk loudly to be overheard, Ariel found herself drifting to the sound of their voices, sliding sideways, and finally curling up asleep on the floor.
When she wakened—she knew not how much later—the fire had been robustly restocked. Marienne and Eleanor were both asleep, covered by blankets. Ariel had been covered as well, though the folds of the wool cloak still gave off a slightly damp smell.
She pushed herself up on one elbow and rubbed her eyes to remove some of the fuzziness. She could hear nothing over the rumble of the river, no voices coming from the other side of the blanket—were they all asleep?
Creeping to the woolen wall, she poked a finger between two overlapping edges and inched them apart. Lord Dafydd was the first one she saw. He was sitting with his back propped against the cavern wall, his head tilted to one side, his complexion pale beneath the beard. He had not complained throughout the long, wet morning, not when river water rose as high as the bellies of their horses, not when brambles and briers tried to drag them out of their saddles. His arm must have given him nothing but pain, but he had drawn his sword alongside Henry and Sedrick, prepared to fight to their defense on the roadside, and he was first out of his saddle to help with whatever task was asked of him. He had not asked to become involved in any of this madness. He had only gone along with it because of her, because she was betrothed to his brother. What would he do when he discovered she had deceived them both by falling in love with Eduard FitzRandwulf?
Robin was curled in a tight ball, his back to the small fire they had built on their own side of the wall. Henry and Sedrick were dozing lightly, their experience and training telling them to take advantage of what time they had to rest and restore their strength.
Sedrick managed to pry an eyelid open and offer a weak smile as Ariel tiptoed past, but he did not ask her where she was going or why. He had enough to do to keep his eyes and ears on Jean de Brevant, for he still did not trust the man not to turn on them all and slit their throats for the gold they carried in their money belts.
Captain Littlejohn was soundly asleep, his massive chest rising and falling like a farrier’s bellows. He had stripped out of his armour, as had the others, and was sprawled comfortably in a linsey-woolsey chainse and hose, looking no less formidable now than when he was wearing several layers of padding and chain mail.
Ariel drew the edges of her cloak around her shoulders and ventured into the much cooler tunnel that led to the opening beneath the falls. A shiver was about to send her hurrying back to the warmth when she saw a shadow detach itself from a niche in the wall and come forward into the light.
“There is no sign of Sparrow yet?” she asked.
Eduard shook his head. “It has only been a couple of hours. I will allow him a couple more before I worry him into an early demise.”
“You are not worried now?”
“Not about Sparrow,” he said. “In all the years I have known him, he has never overstayed his welcome anywhere his feathers might get clipped. He comes and goes like a ghost in the night and …”
The words just stopped, the thought simply ended. The need to talk was suddenly, overwhelmingly surpassed by the need to gather Ariel in his arms and hold her so close he feared he might crush her. To kiss her so hard, it all but took his breath away.
Ariel clung to him and did not protest his roughness. She welcomed his urgency and matched it with her own. His body was cool through the thin layer of his tunic and hose, but it smouldered quickly when she spread the folds of her cloak around him and pressed her own scantily clad body next to his, warming them deeper than any man-made fire ever could.
“I was so frightened today,” she confessed on a gasp. “I wanted so desperately just to touch you … hold you.”
“You were brave beyond measure,” he countered. “And in truth, I longed to do more than simply touch you, or hold you.
When I saw you sleeping in there, curled up like a kitten …”
“You covered me?”
“It was either that or join you,” he said huskily. “And I doubt the others would have survived the shock.”
“The others are all asleep now,” she said, breathing just as huskily in his ear. “Only you and I are awake, my lord. And quite alone.”
He groaned and pressed a muffled curse into the tender crook of her neck. “You play unfair, wench, to tease a man so.”
“Unfair,” she agreed, her mouth molding eagerly to his as he kissed his way from one side of her neck to the other. “But I do not tease.”
His hands pushed savagely into her hair and he held her away from him for a long, long moment of melting contemplation, his gaze roving from her moist, swollen lips, to where the exquisitely peaked crowns of her nipples strained against the cloth of her tunic. His tunic, he realized with a jolt, and was at once irrationally jealous of its intimacy.
His mouth covered hers again, this time with a bold intent that sent tremors racing through the length and breadth of her body. His hands slipped down to her waist, then her hips, and he pulled her against him, heat to heat, flesh to flesh, groaning deep in his chest when she responded with a shuddered, breathless plea. His hands skimmed up beneath the hem of the tunic and cupped the heavy coolness of her breasts, and she shuddered again, unable to keep the wildness from flowing into her limbs, making them part brazenly over the growing bulge in his loins.
“Someone could come—”
“Someone could,” she agreed again, panting lightly as his thumbs abraded her nipples with small, torturous brushstrokes then trailed deliberately down and around to cup the softness of her buttocks. The challenge was there, gleaming in the smoky gray eyes, and Ariel’s hands answered it, moving down to his waist and unfastening his belt, casting it away in the shadows. A second assault, launched beneath the hem of the loosened chainse, met with a hissed curse when she discovered the rows of infernal rawhide points that bound his hose to his thighs.
Undaunted, she tugged only the front few thongs free so that the surging flesh that was already halfway clear of the slash in his braies, leaped through the widened gap and pushed forward to fill her questing hands.
Eduard shuddered and bent his head forward. Her lips were there to savour his soft oaths even as she guided his heat between her thighs.
“Help me,” she implored. “Lift me.”
“Madness,” he gasped.
“Yes. Yes. Yes …”
When she felt her feet leave the ground, she drew her knees high and hooked her legs around his waist. A shallow cry, stifled against the curve of his shoulder greeted the straining spear of his flesh as he lowered her over him; a gasp of splintered wonder sent her teeth sinking into the ridge of solid muscle and her hands threading into the dark mane of his hair.
Eduard stood motionless. He had heard her cry and had felt her stiffen against him and he was afraid—because he had never needed or wanted a woman as badly as he needed and wanted Ariel now—that he was too big and too hungry to cause her anything but pain.
The next few gasps he heard dispelled those fears, for they were accompanied by such greedy, undulant urgings of her hips, he was compelled to lose all sense of caution and reason, and thrust himself so deep inside her, it was all he could do to keep his pleasure from spilling then and there.
He was big, but Ariel only rejoiced in the hunger and stretching thickness. There was no pain. Sweet Mother Mary, there was no pain, only pleasure—deep and shaking, all-consuming, ravaging pleasure.
Something cool and damp was against her back and she realized he had moved into the darker shadows near the mouth of the tunnel where moss grew lush and soft on the walls. The contrast of thrusting heat and cushioning coolness sent her fingers clawing into his hair. The sound of the water
roaring only an arm’s length away, the sight of it blurred and luminescent plunging past them with such power, such might, only made the power plunging within her seem all the more shattering and intense.
Ariel’s ragged gasp of warning brought Eduard’s mouth back over hers in time to swallow her hoarse, gusting cries of rapture. He felt her begin to convulse around him and he weathered the stunning ferocity of her climax as long as he could before his own tempest broke within him, causing them both to cry out against each other’s mouths and writhe through the deluge of ecstasy together.
Eduard held her with bruising desperation. He held her with a body that continued to press her into the moss, continued to move with each of her soft, mewling cries until the last thudding pulsebeat of pleasure had shivered from their flesh. Neither wanted to be the first to move or the first to break the spell. Their mouths were still together and the need to muffle each other’s cries changed without thought or notice to a need to acknowledge the flamboyant excesses of their passion.
“Shameless,” he breathed against her lips. “’Twas not a position I would have thought a lady yearned to couple in.”
“I was not thinking, my lord,” she admitted with a slow sigh. “I was only … needing.”
“Even more shameless then,” he whispered, his hands continuing to cradle her against him. He kissed her again, and this time, Ariel’s legs—utterly depleted of strength—began the long slide down from his waist. She looked up at him, her lashes spiked with tears, and after a moment, raised a hand from where it rested limp on his shoulder and traced cool, trembling fingers over the hard ridges of the scar on his cheek.
“My only shame is remembering the things I have said to you in cruelty and ignorance. My shame is my pride and I gladly lay it at your feet, my lord, to trample upon, discard, or scorn as you will.”
Eduard covered her hand with his own and drew it from his cheek to his lips. “How could I possibly scorn that which I possess too much of myself?”
Her eyes were like dark mirrors to her soul and he could see each brush of his lips, each flicker of his tongue reflected there. She was still aroused, still peaking delicately, languidly, in a way that made him acutely aware of where they were still joined together.
Ariel was aware of it too and her lashes fluttered down and her teeth caught her lower lip, curling it between them in a sharp bite for courage.
“Have you … given any thought as to what will happen at Gloucester?”
He had given a good many things a great deal of thought over the past twelve hours; he had not anticipated the need for outright answers so soon.
“I … know I have no claim,” she stammered, swallowing to cover the awkward gap caused by his silence. “Nor do I expect you to feel any obligation to marry me, but … I would ask … beg … that you do not cast me aside altogether. I w-would stay with you as your mistress, your cook’s helper, your boot scrubber if that is what you would make of me, but only … do not … banish me—” she sobbed, “—to Wales. Do not … m-make me wed a man … I do not know … or … do n-not care to know … or …”
She dissolved in tears and buried her face against his throat, too mortified to see the look of shock which she was certain must be widening his eyes as he beheld the ultimate proof of her brashness. He still cupped her hand over his lips— it was frozen there by horror, she supposed—and she could feel his breath, hot and stilted, gusting into her palm.
She reclaimed it with yet another sob and clenched it into a fist, fighting the urge to strike out at something, anything, but most especially the motionless, unresponsive wall of muscle that held her trapped against the moss.
“I … have no need for a boot scrubber,” he admitted finally. “And I have already sampled your talents as a cook’s helper, only to find them sadly wanting. As to a mistress … aye.” He paused and ran both hands down the curve of her back. “You show promise of a distinct knack there, my lady, but alas … no. I have no need for a mistress either. I have neither the time nor the energy to spare on such things.”
Ariel’s hopes sank and her shoulders sagged, but it seemed he was not finished chastising her yet. Nor would he let her escape without tilting her face up and forcing her to meet his gaze.
“It will have to be as a wife, or nothing at all,” he said quietly.
Ariel’s breath stopped in her throat and her heart missed a noticeable beat.
“Your … wife?” she whispered.
“If you will have me: a scarred and saddle-galled beast, arrogant and ill-mannered, brutish, unfeeling—” He pursed his lips and frowned. “My memory fails me, was there more?”
She studied his smile intently. “You mock me, sir.”
“I love you, my lady. God Himself could be waiting for you at Gloucester and I would not relinquish you.”
Stunned, she barely responded as he bowed his head, kissing her with all of the tenderness she could have longed for and more than she deserved.
“Of course … your uncle is another matter. He will not be pleased to hear how you have spurned another groom.”
“I have not spurned Rhys ap Iorwerth,” she protested softly. “I have simply made a wiser choice.”
“Nonetheless, you have broken your contract with him. A contract your uncle signed and sealed in good faith.”
“The contract is void if I marry another—Lord knows the Welsh have stolen enough brides away from their intended grooms to be well acquainted with the law. As for Uncle Will …” She paused and the relief she felt brought forth a giddy question. “Are you afraid of him?”
“Me? Afraid of the Marshal of England? The greatest champion of all time? Only from the ankles up, my love; only from the ankles up.”
“But he likes you. He admires you; this he told me himself.”
“Aye, well, his admiration might dim somewhat once he learns how sadly we have botched things.”
“Botched? But you have saved the princess. You have stolen her out of King John’s clutches.”
“That we have,” Eduard agreed grimly, disengaging himself as gently as possible. “But in such a way as to leave no doubt who was responsible. Part of your uncle’s plan was to keep the king from having positive proof of your involvement. Gisbourne may not yet know who I am, but he will surely waken with blood in his eye and the name De Clare screaming from his lips.”
“Whatever did you do to him? Furthermore, what did he want with Robin?”
Eduard glanced up from refastening his points. She still stood against the moss, her cloak skewed to one side, her tunic raised in a crush above her thighs. The stone walls of the tunnel were damp from the mist and the tiny, glistening bits of minerals in the rock reflected the opalescent wash of light that came through the falls, seeming to form a glowing nimbus around her. Despite her obvious and magnificent look of debauchery, Eduard thought it best to guard a small part of her innocence, for a while longer at any rate.
“Suffice it to say he wanted Robin for no good reason and that Robin himself offered his refusal in a way Gisbourne will not likely soon forget—or forgive.”
“Meaning he wanted Robin in the same way you wanted me … and Robin responded in a similar fashion as Alan of the Dale.”
“Alan of the … who?”
“The outlaw who ambushed us on the road to Rennes. He said the guards wanted to use him as a whore, and he butted them, all right, but—”
Eduard’s mouth came down swiftly, perfunctorily, over hers, muffling her recollection along with the small laugh she accorded the look of surprise on his face.
“I have an excellent memory,” she said when she was able.
“Aye, and a knack of drawing on it at most inopportune moments.”
Ariel’s expression sobered. “Is Robin … that is, he was not hurt in any way, was he?”
“Only in the way he views the meaning of being in the ‘flower’ of knighthood. He, my lovely, is not quite so worldly-wise as you. Or me, alas. He is still convinced there is no t
rue evil in the world, only slightly misguided fools who need a strong hand to show them the way to gaining purity of soul and goodness of heart.”
“But you do believe it? You believe true evil exists?”
“I am a product of it,” he said quietly. “And because of it, or perhaps in spite of it, I have tried too hard to protect Robin from the blacker side of humankind.”
“Because of it … because of you, my lord,” she insisted, “and the man you have become in spite of everything, he will make for a braver and bolder knight one day, for he will want to be just like you.”
Eduard lost himself in the drowning green of her eyes for a long moment and saw the pride and love shining there. It was pride for him, love for him, intense enough and honest enough to make him bow his head slightly, overwhelmed by the smothering tightness that took hold of his chest.
The same tightness was etched on his face and Ariel recognized it for what it was. She had been suffering it herself, the whole blessed day long, each and every time she glanced his way. The worst of it had been eased and was still wet and slick between her thighs, but she knew it would happen upon her again and again until they were out of England and could shout their love for each other to the world.
Until then, however, they would have to be content to shout it to themselves, in quiet ways. On darkened rooftops and in watery caves. With a look or a touch, or a few fleeting moments of intimacy that were over too soon. Too soon.
“Did you really mean what you said?” she asked softly. “If God Himself were waiting at Gloucester, you would not relinquish me?”
He did not meet her gaze, but the muscles in his arms bunched beneath her hands as he pulled her close again.
“I meant it,” he whispered, burying his lips in her hair. Ariel pressed herself into his heat and her hands climbed up to his shoulders, then slid around, lacing together at the back of his neck. She was aware of his heartbeat hammering in his chest and of the tension coursing through his body. The tumbled waves of her hair framed the expectant face she raised to him; her lips, soft and moist, traced a warm, seductive path up his throat.
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