Secret Thunder

by Patricia Ryan

  "Would you care to join me at my table for the noon meal?"

  Felix gasped with astonished pleasure as the other boys exchanged looks of incredulity. "Can Mummy come?"

  "Of course."

  The boy leaned over to look Luke in the face and whispered, "Will you make me eat any turnips?"

  "Felix!" his mother scolded.

  "'Tis a fair question," Luke told her. "I can't bear turnips myself," he assured Felix, "and I wouldn't dream of inflicting them on you. I understand there's to be some sort of sweetmeat for dessert, though. You might be called upon to eat some of that."

  "I wouldn't mind that," the child confided.

  "Excellent." With Felix on his shoulders and his hand held out to her, Luke looked the very antithesis of an agent of death. Faithe took his hand and let him lead her back toward Hauekleah Hall.

  When she glanced behind her, she saw the rest of the villagers dispersing... except for Orrik, who stood alone on the bridge, glowering into the water.

  * * *

  "I don't quite know what to make of your brother," Faithe told Alex as she knelt that afternoon at the edge of her kitchen garden with her dibble and her seedlip full of beans.

  Alex leaned forward on the bench, elbows on knees, twirling his cane between his palms. "You wouldn't be alone in that."

  Faithe jabbed the dibble into the soil, plucked a bean from the curved basket, and dropped it in the hole. "He's so..." She shook her head.

  The young man chuckled. "Aye, he is that."

  She planted three more beans. "It's just that I can't help wondering how... interested he's going to be in Hauekleah this time next year."

  "Ah. You're afraid this is just a passing fancy of his. You still think he's planning on seeking an annulment, don't you?"

  "Nay. That is, I'm almost certain he has no such plans." She couldn't be completely sure until he bedded her, but she had no intention of discussing these details with her brother by marriage.

  Leaning over, Alex stuck his cane into the earth in the exact spot Faithe was going to dibble next. "Thank you," she said, and plunked in a bean.

  "Why do you plant beans in your kitchen garden," he asked, using his cane to make a row of holes for her, "when you have furlongs devoted to them in your demesne field?"

  "These beans are from the plants that were most productive last year," she explained. "I use this garden to experiment with different strains in the hope of producing better yields."

  He chuckled as he scraped the dirt-encrusted tip of his cane on his boot. "Have I mentioned that I think my brother is a very lucky man?"

  Faithe ducked her head so the brim of her straw hat would hide her blush. "Constantly."

  "He knows it, too. He's grateful to have you."

  "Has he told you this?"

  "Nay. He hasn't had to. He's completely transparent to me."

  "Transparent? Luke?" Faithe had never known a man more locked up inside himself.

  "To me he is. I've known him all my life. Well, from the time I was six, at any rate."

  Having finished that row of beans, Faithe moved back and started another one. "I don't understand. He's six years older than you. Why didn't you know him before then?"

  "Oh, I knew him, of course, but not well. I only saw him twice a year or so, when he was on holiday from the abbey."

  She looked up.

  "You didn't know he was brought up in a monastery?"

  "Nay, I... we don't talk much."

  "Evidently not." Alex sat back, his arms draped over the cane, which he balanced on his shoulders. "Luke was the second son, and as such, he was naturally destined for holy orders, just as I was destined for soldiering. Our father sent him to the abbey at Aurillac when he was very young so that he could get a good monastic education."

  Faithe sat back on her heels. "I had no idea. Why didn't he become a priest, then? Or a monk?"

  Alex grinned. "He hadn't quite the temperament for it. He had little patience for his lessons, and less for the holy offices. He had a disconcerting habit of breaking the rules, and rules are the backbone of cloistered life. He'd sleep through matins, skip Mass, sneak away and eat his meals in the fields..."

  "Was he punished?"

  "Not badly. Our father was a very powerful knight, and he'd made generous contributions to the abbey in return for Luke's education. It got to the point, though, where the abbot wrote to Father and gently suggested that perhaps Luke would be happier pursuing a secular vocation. And so, he was called home at the age of twelve, and trained in the arts of war alongside me. I concentrated on swordplay." Grinning, Alex held his cane by the handle and executed a series of thrusts and slashes that looked to be well practiced. "Luke preferred the crossbow. 'Tis a more impersonal method of killing. One doesn't have to look one's target in the eye. He never had the natural interest in soldiering that I did, but he embraced it as a preferable alternative to the Church."

  "He seems to have embraced it very well," Faithe said, bending her head once more to her work, "to have become known as the Black Dragon."

  After a pause, Alex said, "Luke is the type of person who, if he bothers to do something, wants to do it well. Look how he's thrown himself into the management of this farm. Your villeins respect him already—I can see it in their attitudes. Except for your bailiff, of course."

  Faithe sighed. "I don't know if Orrik will ever accept a Norman as his master."

  Alex tapped his cane thoughtfully on the ground. "I don't know as he has much choice, if he wants to remain bailiff here. I can't imagine Luke will put up with his insolence forever."

  Faithe bit her lip. She'd not permit herself to contemplate the possibility that Luke might want to relieve Orrik of his duties. Orrik had served her family since long before she was born. He'd become a kind of father to her after her own father had succumbed to his chronic lung ailments. Orrik was mulish and frequently quarrelsome, but she loved him, in a way, and would be loath to replace him. She sincerely hoped he didn't persist in trying Luke's patience.

  "Except for Orrik," Alex said, "I believe Luke finds life here quite agreeable. I don't think I've ever seen him so content." Leaning forward, he added, with a smile, "It seems to me his happiness must be at least partly due to his lovely wife."

  "Don't be so sure," Faithe said, thinking about Luke rolled up in his blanket in the rushes night after night.

  Alex waved a dismissive hand. "That will sort itself out in time."

  "What will sort itself out?" Had Luke discussed their sleeping arrangements with his brother?

  Alex cleared his throat. "I've got eyes and ears. I know how things are. Don't worry. These situations have a way of righting themselves. It's like steam building up in an untended kettle. There's nowhere for it to go, and the kettle trembles and shakes and threatens to erupt, but finally the top flies off all on its own, and the steam comes shooting out."

  Somehow that imagery provided little in the way of reassurance. "So... I should just wait for the top to fly off?"

  He shrugged, grinning carelessly. "Have you got a better idea?"

  * * *

  Luke awakened in the moonlit bedchamber, facedown in the rushes, his body quivering, hips flexing involuntarily, ready to explode.

  Nay! Not again. He rolled over and sat up, drenched in sweat and painfully erect beneath his drawers.

  It had happened once before, several nights ago, during one of his dreams about Faithe, naked and glistening and writhing in his arms. Only that time he'd awakened to find his pleasure already shuddering through him. He'd swallowed a groan as his seed discharged, then lay there breathless, praying that Faithe was still asleep. He hadn't been prone to this sort of thing since adolescence, and it shamed him to be subject to it now.

  Standing, he approached the bed stealthily, so as not to awaken his wife.

  Faithe lay on her back, her face turned toward him, mouth half open, arms and legs at odd angles. In deference to the warm night, she'd kicked the covers off, and her shift w
as rucked up around her thighs. Silvery moonlight caressed her lissome body, all too visible beneath the delicate linen. Her luxuriously round breasts rose and fell steadily. His palms tingled with the need to caress them.

  Instead, his hand stole to the rigid shaft between his legs. It jerked at his touch; he clenched his jaw against the pulsing need that hovered just on the verge of erupting.

  Not here. Yanking his chausses off their hook, he pulled them on and tied them, then tugged a shirt over his head. He'd go outside, find someplace private, and put an end to this excruciating ache himself.

  Treading on silent feet to the door, he slowly opened it, stilling when he noticed movement down in the main hall. He squinted into the vast semidarkness.

  Alex is awake, he thought. And then he saw that his brother was not alone. Two people occupied the pallet by the fire pit—Alex and one of his charmingly debauched twins.

  They were naked, both of them, their bodies locked together as they sat facing each other, moving in a lazy, sensual rhythm. Alex smiled and whispered something to her; nodding, she slid her hand between them, to where they were joined. Even from this distance, Luke could see the glitter in Alex's half-closed eyes as he watched her pleasure herself, her head thrown back, her expression rapturous. Gripping her shoulders, he increased the tempo of his movements, every muscle in his body standing out in sharp relief.

  Luke closed the door and pressed his forehead against it. His cock felt like red-hot steel. He lay on his back in the rushes without undressing.

  Over the quiet breathing of his sleeping wife, Luke could just barely hear a series of soft, feminine cries from the main hall.

  It was going to be a long night.

  Chapter 9

  She saw him as she strolled along the narrow path that led past the small sheep pasture tucked between the village and the river. The pasture was empty, the sheep having been gathered for shearing into the sheepfold, an open pen with a wooden shelter at one end, surrounded by a scattering of shade trees.

  Her husband stood beneath an ancient oak, his back to her, his arms crossed, watching the annual shearing ritual. Even at this distance, Luke de Périgueux could not be mistaken for anyone else. His height, the breadth of his shoulders, and the uncommon stillness with which he held himself, distinguished him from other men.

  Next to Luke, sitting on a stump with his cane across his lap, was his brother. Faithe was pleased that Alex had walked so far from the house. The wound to his side had knitted nicely, but the deep gash in his hip was healing more slowly, and with a dreadful scar. Even now, more than a month since the attack, it pained him to put his weight on that side. He walked with a limp, but Faithe hoped that wouldn't last.

  It was a clear, sunny morning, and sultry for early June. The brothers de Périgueux were in shirtsleeves and chausses, having abandoned their tunics as a concession to the heat. As for Faithe, she'd chosen her lightweight, front-lacing russet kirtle and dispensed with an undershift altogether.

  As she approached the men, Faithe noticed that they weren't alone. Little Felix sat cross-legged in front of Luke, lining up his collection of clay soldiers in the grass. The fatherless boy had been Luke's shadow for the past three weeks, tagging along with him whenever his mother would permit it.

  Alex pointed toward the sheepfold and said something to Luke, who nodded. Faithe knew what had caught their attention; a woman had taken up the shears, joining the half dozen men laboring industriously on the hard-packed earth outside the sheepfold to strip the animals of their wool.

  "That's Elga Brewer," Faithe said, coming up behind the two men and dropping her satchel on the ground. They turned to greet her; Luke's expression of pleasure warmed her. "Elga takes time out from her ale making every June to help us with the shearing. Her father was a shepherd, so she grew up doing this."

  Luke's dark eyes sparked with amusement. "Why aren't you pitching in yourself? I've seen you milk cows, rethatch roofs, weave wattle..."

  "She was spreading manure yesterday," Alex put in with a grin. "I saw her."

  "I'm not surprised." Luke smiled at her, something he did more and more recently. "Why draw the line at shearing?"

  "Even if I had the skill, and I don't," Faithe said, "I'm not strong enough. Look at Elga." The brewer was as big as the biggest man, with arms of solid muscle from hauling around full kegs.

  "She scares me," Felix said.

  Luke chuckled. "She scares me a little, too."

  They watched the shearing in silence from the tranquil shade of the old oak. Faithe smiled to herself. When the sheep were stripped of their winter coats, it meant that spring was drifting into summer, and there was no finer time of year than summer. Dunstan supervised the work, Orrik being off on one of his unexplained "errands." Faithe wished he'd just go ahead and marry the Widow Aefentid and move her into his house. These increasingly frequent visits to her under the guise of estate business took him away from Hauekleah at inconvenient times.

  Not that Dunstan was unequal to the challenge of overseeing the workings of the farm. In fact, Orrik's recurrent absences had provided the young reeve with the opportunity to prove his mettle. Despite his youth, he was more than competent, and a natural leader. Just as important, unlike Orrik, he appeared to harbor no ill-will toward Luke. In fact, from all appearances, he'd come to hold his new master in as high a regard as he'd held Caedmon—possibly higher, for Luke took a far more active interest in the affairs of Hauekleah than Faithe's first husband had.

  The young reeve strode back and forth, keeping tally on a wax tablet and calling out instructions over the bleating of the sheep. Each shearer had a child working alongside him, gathering the shorn wool into giant sacks and offering the workers ladlefuls of water from buckets.

  "Why aren't you helping to collect the wool?" Faithe asked Felix.

  The boy's shoulders slumped. "Uncle Dunstan wanted me to, and I tried, but I'm no good at it. The other boys... they said... well, I'm just no good at it."

  Alfrith and Brad and the others had eased up some on their incessant taunting of Felix—a result of Luke's taking him under his wing—but it appeared they hadn't abandoned the sport altogether.

  "You're just not as big as those other boys," Luke told him. "That's why you had trouble. You'll be better at it next year."

  Felix shrugged and continued desultorily arranging his toy soldiers.

  Alex grinned up at Luke. "What's stopping you from helping with the shearing? You herded swine yesterday."

  Faithe raised her eyebrows at her husband.

  "I helped to gather up the pigs from the woods where they were foraging," Luke explained to her. "That's all."

  "You're so keen on finding out how everything is done around here," Alex goaded. "Go on. Go ahead. Offer your services."

  Luke hesitated.

  "Perhaps you shouldn't," Faithe said. "'Tis highly skilled work. An inexperienced shearer can cut a sheep pretty badly."

  "He's done it before," Alex offered. "He told me."

  "At the monastery where I was brought up," Luke explained. "But I was young, and they trusted me only with the wee ones. I was passably good at it, though."

  "A grown sheep is a handful," Faithe said. "You're best off—"

  "I'm best off seeing if I've still got the touch," Luke said, rolling up his sleeves.

  Alex whooped. "That's the spirit!"

  Luke nudged Felix with the toe of his boot. "What do you say, pup? Care to gather up my wool for me?"

  Felix sprang to his feet and hopped up and down. "Can I? Oh, milord, thank you! I'll do a good job, I swear it!"

  "I'm sure you will."

  Luke walked up to the sheepfold, Felix in tow, and spoke briefly to Dunstan, who registered a fair measure of surprise.

  Faithe chuckled. "They're not used to having a master who pitches in this way."

  "Your husband didn't?" Alex asked.

  Faithe expelled a long sigh. "Caedmon had other interests. He left the management of Hauekleah t
o me, and I was just as happy for it. I mean, I suppose I would have preferred if he'd at least cared about the land. But he didn't interfere with what I thought was best, and I was grateful for that."

  "Do you resent Luke for coming in and taking over this way?"

  Faithe thought about that. "Not really. 'Tis odd. I suppose I should. Perhaps I can accept it because he hasn't taken anything away from me, or tried to make me stop doing the things I did before."

  "But you still think he's going to tire of Hauekleah and go back to soldiering, don't you?"

  Faithe chewed her lip as she watched Luke drag a big ewe out of the sheepfold by her front legs, a look of determination on his face. "I don't know anymore."

  The other shearers exchanged skeptical glances as Luke balanced the ewe between his legs, grasped her front hooves, and took the shears from Felix. He paused. His gaze flicked toward Faithe, just for a moment, and then he began cutting the wool away from the animal's belly.

  Alex gave her a knowing smile. "He's trying to impress you, you know."

  "Nonsense." But her cheeks grew warm.

  Alex chuckled.

  Luke alternatively clipped and pulled the wool from the sheep's body, exposing its creamy underbelly. He worked more slowly than the others, and a bit awkwardly. The wool came off in small, ragged pieces, which Felix grabbed eagerly and stuffed into his bag.

  Gesturing Dunstan over, Luke asked him something. The reeve took the shears from him and neatly sliced the rest of the wool away from the ewe's belly.

  "He's asking for advice," Alex murmured.

  This display of humility would serve him well with the men, Faithe knew.

  The other shearers watched this demonstration as they worked, still somewhat bemused, but interested. Taking back the shears, Luke turned the big ewe over and set to work on her back. His cuts were smoother than before, the wool pulling away in large sheets. Dunstan offered praise along with more instruction.

  Tendrils of hair came loose from Luke's braid and stuck to his forehead, damp with sweat. His shirt stretched across his shoulders as he hunkered down over the writhing animal, struggling to control her while he stripped her of her wool. With every movement, the hard bands of muscle in his forearms bunched and flexed, veins standing out beneath the brown skin.