Three Nights With the Princess

by Betina Krahn

  “Lies? And which is the lie, ma dame? That you are handsome?” He laughed softly at her embarrassment. “You have a great liking for the truth, I see. But truth is a hard master. There are times when a lie is kinder, even nobler. And a lie is almost always more enjoyable.”

  “Blasphemy,” Lillith pronounced with quiet vehemence.

  “Non. Merely the truth, ma dame. Surely you recognize the truth when you hear it.” A slow smile appeared on his face. He had her there, and they both knew it.

  Lillith caught herself staring fixedly at his wide, generous mouth, feeling an unwelcome trickle of excitement winding through her stomach and below. She lifted her chin and stepped back again, wondering how they had gotten into such sticky personal territory and remembering Thera’s plight with a flush of anxiety.

  “I cannot just sit here and do nothing while my lady is in peril—”

  “By now your lady is well rescued,” he assured her. “And mon ami Saxxe is claiming a sweet reward.”

  “Reward?” Lillith turned to search the valley and follow the swollen waters downstream with a horrified expression. “Merciful Lord! Let us hope not!”

  * * *

  The fire was a flickering, yellow-gold island in a sea of darkness when Thera awakened. When she righted her vision and realized she was lying on the ground, beside a fire and under a blanket, her first impulse was to rise. Halfway up, she made a strangling noise and dropped back down. Beneath the blanket she was as naked as a newborn babe.

  “You’re awake,” came Saxxe’s voice from nearby, startling her. She clutched her cover tightly beneath her chin and looked up to find him sitting by her head, watching her. Behind him, spread neatly on a bush by the fire, were her garments. How they got there was something she didn’t want to think about.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Like I’ve been trampled by a herd of very fat, very rude cattle,” she said, groaning as she rolled onto her side. “And I have a sore spot for each of their nasty little hooves. Three score and seven . . . at least.”

  “You’ve counted?” He laughed with surprise.

  “Of course.” She tried not to smile; it hurt too much. “I always count.”

  “You do?” He grinned. “I shall have to remember that. Hungry?” he asked, smiling. When she nodded, he rose and cut a piece of rabbit from a makeshift spit on the far side of the fire while she struggled to both sit up and remain covered at the same time. She managed to hold the blanket securely and sit back against a log, stretching her cold, aching legs out before her. When she accepted the food, she found the meat was wrapped in a thin oatcake, recently made. She looked up at him with surprise and he cocked a look at her. “Is something wrong with the food?”

  “Where did the oatcake come from?” she asked. “You?”

  He looked outraged. “I am a greedy, sword-yielding, Mongol-bashing barbarian, it’s true. But to accuse me of hearth tending—” He growled good-naturedly. “Put your tongue to better use, demoiselle. Eat.” Burying the urge to smile in her food, she did as she was told, and he got to his feet to check her garments. When he saw her watching him with a frown, he announced: “They’re not quite dry. But soon.” He rejoined her by the fire and knelt by her feet. “And what about you? Are you warm enough?”

  Her mouth was full, so she nodded. Food had never tasted so good to her. When she had trouble swallowing that bite, he handed her a half-filled wineskin, telling her to drink well. She did just that, between bites of food, and no sooner had the food settled to her stomach than she began to tremble and her teeth began to chatter again. He must have been watching for that very thing, for he slid to her feet, threw back the blanket, and took her feet onto his lap. Shocked, she tried to jerk them away.

  “What are you doing? Let go—”

  “Hold still.” His grip on her ankles allowed no resistance. “I’m going to rub them to get the blood flowing in them again. It’s a trick I learned from an old Norseman who . . . served in my father’s house.” He engulfed one of her feet in his big, warm hands and ran his thumbs down the bottom of her foot, from toe to heel. She squirmed as tiny needle pricks danced up her leg. When he did it again, she braced and winced, but the third stroke produced an entirely different sensation. A sensuous wave of heat traveled up her leg and she nearly melted. It was stunning . . . like having him reach into her very sinews to brush away the discomfort.

  “Rubbing and kneading the body can warm the blood and ease the aches. It’s a valuable thing to know in my trade. After a long, hectic day swinging a blade in battle, your back and shoulders tend to get hellish sore.” He flexed them, drawing her eyes to them. “And your hands—Dieu, how they cramp from gripping a blade for hours on end. But worst of all are the aches in your legs and feet.

  “In the east, they say that the humors from all over the body meet in the feet and that rubbing and stroking them is the most effective way to restore the entire body. I don’t know if all that is so . . . but there have been times I would have sold my soul for a good foot rub.” He looked up with a roguish twinkle in his eye and grinned. “Alas, I have never met anyone willing to make that trade.”

  She stared at him, at his big hands and his broad, sun-bronzed shoulders, and suddenly saw him as a man . . . who spent his life in hard, punishing labor in a violent trade . . . who suffered very human aches and pains and felt a very human need for comfort. A barbarian with sore feet. She almost laughed aloud. As he massaged her feet slowly and methodically, reducing her tremors and discomfort to warm, steamy release, she wondered who, in truth, had taught him such a lusciously civilized thing? Then it struck her that he had spoken of his home.

  “And what else did you learn in your father’s house?”

  He looked up from massaging her toes, one by heavenly one, and his smile dazzled her. “Oh, the usual barbarian things. Deceit. Treachery. Mayhem. The arts of war . . . and of course, the Seven Deadly Sins.” He waggled his brows in parody of wicked delight. “My favorite—and the one I was always best at—was lust. I had a great talent for inventive and prolonged debauchery, it seemed. Wine, women, and the arts of pleasure . . . in quantity.”

  “Now you sound like Gasquar,” she said, hugging her blanket a bit tighter.

  He grinned, watching her lick a stray crumb from her lip, and felt a rustle of response in his sinews.

  “But, come to think of it, gluttony was a close second.” He reached for her other foot, to give it the same treatment. “They said that was why I grew so large . . . I ate everything that didn’t eat me first. Still do . . . when there’s food worth eating.” A faraway look appeared in his eyes. “I have tasted the food of many far-flung lands, and some of it is fine indeed. But there are times when I actually dream about Saracen sugar. Have you ever tasted sugar?” When she shook her head, he sighed. “Sweeter than honey, if you can conjure that in your mind. But a pure sweetness . . . no other taste to it. The Turks make a wondrous hot drink of sugar and mint. And their cooks mix sugar with cinnamon and bake it into sweet, buttery cakes . . .”

  His gaze wandered over her and fastened on her hair. “Have you ever tasted cinnamon?”

  She managed to nod and realized that his hands had stilled on her foot and he was staring intently at her.

  “Do you know . . . your hair is exactly the color of cinnamon.”

  “Is it?” She realized with a start that her hair was loose around her shoulders again. She reached for a lock of it and looked at it in the light, frowning.

  “Wet hair is a sure passage to lung sickness,” he explained. “I loosened it and dried it as best I could.”

  How did he manage to read her mind like that? she wondered, experiencing a chill that he must have felt all the way down in her toes. She nodded again. Every inch of her skin was suddenly humming with awareness of him. She felt warm and well tended and . . . womanly. And he looked so big and bronzed and male. Her pulse drummed faster in her veins and a flush of heat began rising into her cheeks. She wanted this momen
t to go on and on . . . to hear him talk . . .

  “What was your home like, and your family?” she asked, watching his eyes beginning to glow in the firelight.

  His smile tightened, but he shrugged and looked down at her slender feet. “Oh, the usual barbarian hovel . . . skins, twigs and straw, and bedding down at night with the pigs.” He paused, waiting for the quip that didn’t come, then looked up. “And much too crowded at the trough.” Still there was no barb, and he felt a strange melting sensation in his core.

  “And your father?” she asked, her voice a little breathless.

  “A monumental barbarian . . . tough as pickled bull hide and fierce as a badger. Why once, when our hovel was attacked, he jumped up on the bailey wall with only a three-legged stool in one hand and an ill-tempered hen in the other. And by the time . . . he was . . . done . . .”

  He ground to a halt, staring into her jewel-bright eyes and feeling something wriggling against the prominent bulge in his breeches. In the course of his talk, whenever he halted his massage, she had wriggled her toes in his grip, entreating more. Now her feet had slid into the crevice of his lap, and his hands were stroking her shins. But her toes—bon Dieu!—they were still wriggling! Did she realize what she was doing?

  Every nerve in his body vibrated with sensual awareness of her . . . sitting there with her face flushed with pleasure, her eyes glowing with curiosity, her lips wine reddened. The top of the blanket had drooped open, baring the pale skin of her throat and a slice of her upper chest. He recalled too well the swell of her breasts, the curve of her waist, and the elegant taper of her thighs. He had tried not to look at her as he stripped her garments, knowing the sight of her nakedness would haunt him and weaken his determination to forgo her womanly pleasures in favor of hard silver coin.

  A meadow, an orchard, and a stream, he repeated desperately. That was all she could ever be to him. But her slender foot was sending tantalizing trickles of sensation through his susceptible male parts, and they were insisting that there was more, so much more to be had. A shudder racked him, and he froze. Dieu, he was afraid to move for fear of pouncing on her!

  Thera had watched his gentle ministrations with awe, and had felt the tension of longing replace the chill and exhaustion in her limbs. Now she savored every perception of him . . . the way his long, dark hair hung around his shoulders, the intense concentration on his face, the subtle flexing of his shoulders, and the surprising skill of his touch. Watching his hands sliding up and down her shins, then cupping and kneading the backs of her calves, she found herself scarcely breathing . . . imagining the feel of them rising up her thighs, then her waist. Her unbound breasts felt heavy and sensitive, and tingling heat collected in their tightly drawn tips.

  When his hands withdrew from her legs, she started to protest, then looked up and sucked in a shocked breath. His eyes were molten, his features fierce with what seemed to be anger.

  “Take your foot from my lap, demoiselle,” he ordered, his voice deep and raw. “If I am forced to remove it myself, you will find yourself on your back, paying your debts in full . . . and then some.”

  She jerked her foot back, gathering the drooping blanket tighter around her. After a long, tense moment, he shoved to his feet and made straight for her drying garments. He carried them back to her and dropped them in her lap.

  “Put these on . . . and be quick about it. I’ll check Sultan and be back soon.”

  He left the circle of firelight, and for a moment she could make out his outline against the pale gray horse. Then he strode off into the moonless darkness, and she sat looking after him with conflicting feelings of dismay and relief. What had caused such a drastic change in him?

  She should be immensely grateful to it for keeping her from finding herself on her back paying her “debts.” Instead, she felt a disturbing sense of loss and a longing for the unexpected warmth that had bloomed briefly between them. He had watched over her today, and fed her tonight, and tended her chills and aches in the most disarming manner.

  And when she asked questions of him, he managed to answer in ways that revealed little of substance but left her with the feeling that she knew him all the better for it. He possessed a droll wit and a breadth of experience that left her burning with both envy and curiosity. And at the base of it all was a battle-honed confidence in his own strength and skill, and a sense of mastery in every situation. Just look at the way he had taken charge of her wretched situation.

  The notion brought her up short. Her eyes widened. He had more than taken charge of her predicaments, he had taken advantage of them, time and time again! And here she was going all warm and soft and womanly inside . . . longing for his roguish smiles and aching for the feel of his hands, forgetting everything but the seductive pleasure of his presence.

  She had to stop letting her womanly feelings get out of hand . . . had to somehow regain control of herself and the situation. To do that, she had to put and keep a safe distance between them. She looked down at her exposed skin. And a few clothes between them wouldn’t hurt either!

  Letting the blanket fall around her hips, she sucked a shocked breath at the cool air and hurriedly drew her thin chemise and long tunic over her head. Then, clothed but chilling again, she pulled the blanket back around her and scooted toward the fire. The flames were so hot that she inched back, farther and farther, then finally stretched out in the dewy grass . . . hallway between roasting and freezing.

  Chapter Nine

  That was where Saxxe found her: safely clothed, curled around the fire, her front half scorched and her back cold enough to set her shivering. He broke several branches over his knee and added a few to the fire, trying to ignore the pathetic way she quaked. But she looked so small and miserable, huddled on the ground, seeking the fire’s heat and yet unable to get close enough to assuage her need for its warmth. The sight generated a powerful surge of protective impulses in him . . . to gather her up in his arms and warm her, to surround her with his . . .

  With a huff of disgust, he strode back around the fire, slung a blanket over his shoulders, then lay down behind her, fitting his body to the curve of hers, spoon fashion. She gasped and tried to squirm away, but he pulled her back against him.

  “Hush and lie still,” he ordered gruffly, slipping one heavy arm beneath her head, like a pillow, and tucking the other around her waist. “I’m only here for warmth. Go to sleep.”

  Less than an hour after her vow to stay as far from him as possible, Thera found herself lying stiff and wary in his arms. But the slow rhythm of his breathing and the generous warmth of his body gradually melted her chagrin. He made no move to rouse or caress her, and it began to seem that he intended simply to sleep with her.

  Sleeping. Together. It was an entirely new idea for her, sleeping with someone. Not once, in her entire life, had she shared a bed with anyone . . . not her mother or her nurse, not her cousins or companions . . . not even Lillith.

  Comfort and warmth slowly claimed her. And her last coherent thought was that sleeping with someone was unexpectedly pleasant . . . on a cool night . . . someone who was big and warm and made her feel safe.

  Saxxe laid his head beside hers, on her soft hair, and made himself think of apple boughs laden with ripe fruit; clear, rindling streams; and meadows full of tall grasses, wild daisies, and newborn foals. But as he drifted toward sleep, Thera of Aric climbed up into his apple trees and gleefully sank her teeth into his juicy apples . . . then splashed about, mother-naked and shameless, in his stream . . . and picked armsful of his daisies and nestled her delectable bottom in the middle of his grass, making a coronet of flowers. And for the first time in many years, he went to sleep with a smile on his face.

  * * *

  Thera awakened the next morning to the noisy chirping of birds. The sun was scarcely up and the fire had long since died, but she was grandly, luxuriously warm . . . and she owed that warmth to the heavy blanket of flesh wrapped around her. She came suddenly alert, recalling th
e bizarre conditions under which she had started the night and a little surprised to find that she had slept so soundly. She shifted gingerly onto her back and turned to look at her night-partner . . . and found him staring at her with a heavy, just-wakened look to his eyes.

  She blushed furiously at being caught in the midst of appreciating his nearness, when she should have been avoiding it. But somehow she couldn’t make herself move away from him.

  “Good morning, demoiselle,” he murmured with a huskiness to his voice. “You slept well.” It was a statement; he had apparently been watching. “Your feet and legs . . . how did they fare? Can you move them?”

  She wriggled her toes, then shifted her legs experimentally. “I can.”

  “And your arms and hands?” He slid his arm from her waist and sent a knowledgeable hand down her arm, testing, caressing. “There is no damage?”

  “Nay, only stiffness,” she whispered, watching the shifting lights in his golden eyes, breathing in his musky scent . . . while he toyed with her fingers and threaded his own through them, gently mating their palms. That interweaving of their hands joined the sensitive valleys between their fingers and gave focus to the desire growing between them for a larger and more intimate union. Then he slid his other arm from beneath her head and raised onto his elbow above her.

  “Your shoulders”—he ran his fingers along her collarbone—“are trembling. And your lips”—he drew a finger around her jaw and up, over her mouth—“are much too warm.” Both his gaze and his voice were filled with smoky sensuality. “A strange malady. I have seen it before . . . once in Paris and again in Venice. Fortunately, I know the cure,” he whispered, leaning over her, lowering his head, and claiming the moist, yielding bow of her mouth.

  There was no resistance in her, for her night had been filled with potent dreams of hot wind and cinnamon . . . Arab sugar and thick, sweet kisses. Soft to soft, like honey poured into cream, the feel of his mouth on hers was delicious. And each slow, silken brush of his lips spread before her a sensual repast of sensation; the tickle of his breath against her skin, the sweet saltiness of his mouth, the tantalizing swirls of his tongue around hers. She wound her fingers through his hair to cradle his head and urge it closer to hers, deepening both the contact and the pleasure.