by P. J. Fox
“That must have been some wedding night.”
All eyes turned to Rudolph. Who’d finally spoken. And who sounded, for all the world, like a child who’d stumbled into a tavern. Asher, Hart was fairly certain, knew more about girls. Asher whom, thank the Gods, had been put to bed some hours ago.
Rudolph guessed again. “Ah…the next morning?”
Some of the men exchanged looks.
Arvid, was usual, was not tactful. “A full three months before! She hadn’t even agreed to make me the wreath.” In Arvid’s culture, it was the woman who proposed marriage by laying a wreath at a man’s feet. And although some encouragement on the man’s part was usually involved, Hart had heard stories of women chasing men with wreathes halfway across the Northern reaches. “You don’t buy an ox before seeing how he pulls the plow.”
Hart poured himself some more wine.
It was going to be a long night.
Quinn, the dandy from Hardland, was openly staring at Rudolph. He, too, was apparently not a master of tact. Tristan, for his part, said nothing. He didn’t have to. All knew of his love, nay obsession for his bride. It was already the subject of songs. Hart supposed that Tristan must have forsaken his other lovers; he visited Isla so frequently, he couldn’t hardly have the time. Although the existence of Asher proved, if nothing else, that Tristan wasn’t necessarily one to honor the restrictions of the marriage bed. His, or anyone else’s. Maeve had been married to Brandon at the time, had she not?
Callas turned to Quinn. “You’re betrothed now, aren’t you?” Good for Callas, trying to steer the conversation into more normal channels.
“Yes, but just barely. She’s still not too sure about me.”
“Your getups are almost as ridiculous as Rudolph’s.” Although they weren’t. No one’s were. But Callas was trying to be gallant, allowing Rudolph into the same circle as Quinn.
“Yes, well.” Quinn sipped his wine. He was very elegant. Restrained. Under other circumstances, Hart would have been surprised to discover that he liked women. “Since she’s a bit of a prude, I made certain that it was me, this last fall at the harvest festival.”
“You…for what?”
Now things would get awkward.
“I…ah….” Even Quinn’s words had failed him. Perhaps he’d finally realized what the rest of them had, hours before. Or, in Hart’s case, years before. That he was talking to a child. In mind, if not in body. Rudolph was as much a man as Rosie the pig would have been Hart’s choice for the harvest festival.
But, Hart supposed, Rudolph didn’t know. The North had different customs, different views. Especially regarding the fairer sex and sex in general. Views that Hart, for his part, found a good deal healthier. But Rudolph was a Southron, a fact that also just now seemed to dawn on Quinn. Who really wasn’t as stupid as he was acting this night.
“Oh.” Tristan’s tone was bland. “But you were doing so well at your recitation. Please continue.”
Under other circumstances, Hart would have accused the duke of making fun. But Tristan did not make fun. Fun and Tristan were entirely alien concepts one from the other.
His eyes, in the low light, were smoldering pits as he regarded his guests. Black, with just the faintest hint of heat within. The kind of gaze that pinned a person like a moth. That made them think things they didn’t want to think. Want things they didn’t want to want. He was dressed in black this evening. Elegant robes befitting his station, well cut but without ornament. The contrast between the wool, his hair, and his marble white skin was startling. He looked like a statue, except when he moved. An event that, in and of itself, couldn’t have been more surprising than if he truly had been carved out of marble.
He, too, held a cup like the other men. But its contents had remained untouched since he’d sat down. He’d just…watched.
Quinn addressed Rudolph. “She, Adela, my betrothed, hadn’t…made much progress on her own. So far as I know, she’d never more than kissed a man and that reluctantly.” A grin, entirely genuine, flashed across his face. “I know, because I’d tried to initiate her several times and each time, although she’d responded enthusiastically enough at first, she’d remembered herself and then run off to her sisters.”
“You…laid hands on her?”
“She’s a woman, not a vase. And of course.”
“That’s disrespectful!” Rudolph seemed shocked.
“Disrespectful to show a woman love?” Arvid, for once, seemed genuinely confused. “But the Gods made us for love.”
“So,” Quinn continued, “it was decided generally that she be put to the cock.”
Now the story was finally getting interesting.
“You mean….”
And then Quinn described a process wherein the girl—or sometimes boy—in question was tricked into spending the evening with her friends, believing them only to be seeking some innocent excitement, but then ending up with her clothing forcibly removed in front of a watching crowd. She was then brought forward, held down on some couch or table, and equally forcibly introduced to the arts of love. Although, from how Quinn told the tale and from Hart’s own experience, he suspected that the reticence was largely for show as most very quickly warmed to the experience.
“I wanted it to be me.” Quinn poured himself more wine. The pitcher on the table before them was quickly emptying. “She could be with another man after, but I wanted to be the first. To claim her, as no other man could, and in a manner she’d never forget. Because, you see, she was mine. And always had been. She just didn’t know it yet.”
Rudolph’s eyes were as wide as saucers. “Other men?”
“Within the month. She and I, and a friend of mine. And then she with him and I with a friend—a female friend—of my sister’s.”
Hart was a bit jealous.
“And you’re…marrying her?”
“Why not? I love her.”
“Because she’s—been with other men! She’s been with you!”
“And will be again after we wed. We intend to have children, you know.”
“But—”
“I forget that you’re from the South.” Quinn was obviously working at keeping his composure. Hart didn’t blame him; he’d just been called a pervert, and worse, by a fellow guest in his lord’s home. A fellow guest who had, even more upsettingly, suggested that his betrothed was unmarriageable for being a slut. The only issue Hart saw was that he wasn’t certain he’d want to bed a woman, and certainly not for the first time, in front of an audience. She’d certainly never forget the experience but, then again, what woman did forget her first time? And if Quinn was that bad, an audience wouldn’t help.
Still, Hart was fairly certain at that moment that, if Quinn and Rudolph had been in the stable yard, Quinn would have stabbed him.
“I’m still confused.”
This from Arvid.
Hart glanced at Tristan and while the duke’s expression remained as impassive as ever Hart could have sworn that there was just the merest hint of—something—in those black pits of eyes. Could it be laughter?
“Are you suggesting,” Quinn asked, his voice pitched dangerously low, “that I’m so revolting as to ruin a woman with my touch? Or that I’m so unworthy of my knighthood that I’d put her aside for acquiescing to my own desires? Sir, I can assure you that—”
“So you only like women who…don’t like men?” Arvid’s brow furrowed.
Leaning forward in his chair, the tribesman adopted the patient tone that one might use with a child. A stupid child. “Son,” he said, addressing Rudolph, “shield maidens seek…the company of other shield maidens. It’s a myth that they do so only until a man pulls back the tent flap and announces that he’s come to quench their fires. Something from tavern songs, not real life.” He paused. The silence stretched, painfully. Quinn, meanwhile, was boring a hole into Rudolph with his eyes.
“Their fires are for each other, you see. Each other alone. So if Rowena—”
�
��Rudolph,” Hart cut in, “have you ever laid with a woman?”
The groom to be sat back in his chair. His lack of answer was answer enough. And confirmed for Hart something he’d long suspected. Rudolph’s seemingly unending stream of unfortunate comments weren’t the result of prejudice but, rather, of ignorance. He’d probably done less with Rowena, or any woman, than Quinn’s betrothed had with Quinn in those first few months together.
Quinn, Hart saw, understood as well. And his anger evaporated. Replaced, in an instant, with concern. Hart doubted that this was a problem many Northmen encountered, even dandies from Hardland. “So you and Rowena have never…?”
“Of course not.” And then, lamely, “I mean no disrespect.”
“And you never…?”
“The church forbids it.”
The silence returned.
“I, ah, suppose you might need some advice.”
“Do you know where it goes?” This from Arvid. Of course.
Callas stood up, added another log to the fire, and then sat back down.
Tristan, as usual, remained silent.
“Well you start by taking your clothes off and—”
“The church forbids coitus while naked! One might…become aroused.”
The feel of mulled wine shooting through Hart’s nostrils was not pleasant. Gasping and choking, he blew out the excess into a handkerchief. He’d known he never should have humored Isla by agreeing to attend this thing. But, as Isla had pointed out, Rudolph shouldn’t have to miss out on traditions simply because he had no friends. And then Hart had felt somewhat guilt-ridden as while he certainly didn’t regard Rudolph as a friend, it had never really occurred to him that no one else did, either. He’d tried very hard, indeed, to avoid thinking about Rudolph at all.
“You know where it goes, right?”
“Well that depends on if you’re hoping for a child.” This from Callas.
Arvid shot him a look. “Don’t confuse the man.”
The expression on Rudolph’s face told Hart that, in that moment, death would be a sweet release.
“How do Southrons fuck, for any purpose, without stripping down?”
“There’s a nightgown. A big, tented thing with a ribbon at the neck. And a hole.”
“And you know this how, Hart?” Quinn seemed entirely too interested.
“I am from the South.”
“Bugger all.”
“They don’t bugger. That’s precisely the point. Sex is meant for procreation only and brings the wrath of the Gods if conducted for any other purpose.” Or if, even during the most determined attempts at procreation, it was enjoyed. By either party. For even a moment.
“Don’t bugger?”
“What….” Rudolph’s tone was tentative. “What do you mean?”
“What’s the most you’ve done,” Quinn asked, “with Rowena or any woman?”
“I…nothing.”
“You’ve pleasured each other with your hands?”
“No.”
“You’ve kissed her breasts?”
Rudolph shook his head.
His face had turned the exciting color of an eggplant.
“Fondled them?”
Rudolph shook his head again.
“Kissed her anywhere?”
“I tried, once. She wouldn’t let me.”
“Have you ever kissed anyone?”
“I tried with one of the dairy maids, once, but she boxed my ears so I left.”
Here he was: the church’s one pure, true soul. A man who, from the time of his earliest childhood, had striven to follow its precepts. To embody them, indeed, in every word and action. Up to the point where he was getting married on the morrow and had absolutely no idea how to complete the act without a special church-approved costume.
There was always the option of bringing him to a brothel but Rudolph might spend the morning of his wedding sobbing because he’d committed a sin. Or decide, even worse—at least for those who had to live with Rowena—that he couldn’t go through with it until he’d scourged himself back to purity. Hart had seen the flagellants wandering through Enzie, as a child, whipping themselves as they stumbled ever forward in a seemingly endless penance, their suffering meant to bring about the end of the war.
“Well,” Callas said, “I was going to ask you what you’d purchased as a bridal gift but after this conversation I’m inclined to think that you’re the one who needs one.”
Hart had never understood the convention of a bridal gift. Although not technically a part of church cannon, it might as well have been for how common it was. The morning after the wedding, the groom presented his bride with some sort of trinket. A ring, or a necklace. Sometimes a box to hold cosmetics, if he were rich enough to afford such things. The idea being to compensate her for the loss of her maidenhead.
A necklace, even a very nice one, seemed poor compensation for what surely must have been an awkward and unpleasant encounter for the woman. Undoubtedly with an almost complete stranger. Although, that people could actually get married without touching each other was an idea that Hart hadn’t fully credited until this night.
No one made any jokes about bedding virgins.
FORTY-TWO
Hart pushed her against the wall, nearly knocking the breath out of her. The rail topping the wood paneling hit her just beneath the shoulder blades, and it hurt. His kiss was equally as violent, forcing her mouth open as he pinned her.
His hands were on her waist, her breasts, her shoulders, and then she was down on the floor with no understanding of how she’d gotten there and his hands were around her neck. Her hands were on his belt, nimble fingers working to free him. He’d arrived minutes before and there was no warning, just this. In other circumstances she might have been frightened but raw need surged through his every movement.
He ripped her dress. She didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything in that moment except the fact that he was here, here, with her. That, whatever was wrong, he’d come to her.
She arched her hips to meet him. The floor was cold and hard and she knew she’d have bruises. He dug his fingers into her hair, twisting it, and she felt some pull free from her scalp. She cried out, unable to help herself. His lips found her exposed neck, and when he bit her shoulder, she cried out again.
His free hand slipped down, along her side, and then under her exposed rump. With a rough yank he pulled her up, impaling her on him. It hurt, with no preparation. He was so large. So strong.
Everything hurt.
“Tell me you want me,” he hissed into her ear.
“Y—yes.”
“Tell me.” He bit her again.
“I—I want you.” It was true. She did. And this was only making her want him more.
“Tell me you’re mine.”
She could barely moan in response to the repeated violations, to the heat building inside of her, let alone form a complete sentence. But she tried. “You—you know I am.”
“Tell me.”
“I’m—I’m yours!”
“And no one else’s.”
“And—no one else’s.”
“Promise me.”
“I—of course I promise.” Those last words were a gasp, barely even distinguishable as words. He was her whole world, especially now. He cared for her, took care of her. He was the only one who ever had. But she would have wanted him regardless. Had wanted him since the first moment she’d laid eyes on him, even knowing who and what he was.
Had his reputation drawn her to him? A wiser woman might have said so. His ruthlessness. The power he possessed, over himself and others. The knowledge that he could kill her at any moment. He’d seduced her from that first moment when his eyes met hers, filled with fire and barely concealed intent. He was fearless. He was a predator.
And he made her feel, not dirty and ashamed, not like a used up plaything to be discarded, but new. Pure. Something to be chased. Stolen. Coveted.
He made her do things but she wanted t
o do them. For him and with him. Wanted to be tied up, and bitten, and made to feel things she didn’t want to feel. When she was under his control, she felt close to him. As close as two people could be.
She tried hard, at those times, not to think about the fact that those same hands had caused permanent disfigurement to so many. Not to think about the fact that he might be, even now, holding his lusts in check and that there might be worse to come. Much worse. That there might be no limit to the pain he needed.
He’d been gentle with her that first time and gentle with her again, later on, and he was always gentle after. Always held her and told her she was beautiful and rubbed arnica into her wounds if there were any. Deep, penetrating strokes that were themselves a kind of seduction.
But he’d never, never been like this.
She was frightened, not for her but for him.
Still, that didn’t stop her from falling into an almost drugged state, releasing her body’s deepest secrets to him as he mastered her. She clung to him, overwhelmed by the mix of sensations that became, as her climax built, only pleasure. A desperate, urgent kind of pleasure that fought for release even against her better judgment. Why should she feel like this? She didn’t know, could never have imagined before meeting Hart that she would.
And then she was so far past the point of rational thought that she could only feel. Feel, and feel only pleasure. She gasped, her eyes rolling back in her head as, reaching his own climax, Hart collapsed on top of her. It was like being trapped under one of the marble slabs that were used to cover tombs and she could barely breathe but she didn’t care.
Even so, a moment later, she was vaguely conscious of his moving. Wrapping himself in a robe he stepped out into the hall and spoke to someone. Probably Cassie. Who liked to stand outside with her ear pressed to the door, although she denied this.
Lissa didn’t move. Wasn’t sure that she could. She just floated.
More time passed. Minutes or hours she couldn’t have said. But then he was lifting her up and carrying her, and then she was in the tub. His tub, that he’d purchased for his own use and that Goodwife Hamel had declared a disgrace of overindulgence. To his face, even. But Hart had only laughed.