Heart Of A Knight

by Barbara Samuel

  Spluttering and squealing, Lyssa bent her head against it, and the gesture pressed her buttocks closer to his flesh, and her breast spilled into his hand. She trembled at the dizzying combination, and tried to wriggle away, but he held her tight.

  At last, Lyssa laughed. "You win, sir!"

  The movement of his hands was covered by the position of their bodies, and Thomas fingered an aroused nipple discreetly. Against her ear, his voice dark and intoxicating as mead, he murmured, "Not yet," and let her go.

  Suddenly free, Lyssa wiped water from her face and turned to watch him go back to his wood-chopping. A leap of anticipation bloomed in her belly as he bent, those muscles stretching long in his back. A faint small voice in her head sang, at last!

  But she dared not acknowledge it. Lifting her chin, smoothing her wet tunic, she bowed to the laughing number in the yard, and went back to her dyeing as if nothing at all had changed.

  Giddiness infected Lyssa before supper that evening. By virtue of the work she'd done all day, standing over the hot tubs, and struggling with sodden wool, she ought to have been tired. And though she felt the work in a tight pull in her arms and low in her back, she was not weary in the slightest. She felt she could dance for a week—nay, needed to dance, for days and days, to burn away the restlessness that jumped in her knees and across her shoulders, and burned with a sense of urgency in her chest.

  Alice, sensing her mood, took out a gold gown, embroidered with green at sleeve and hem, and a brocaded surcoat trimmed with silk. A girdle of gold belted her waist, and Alice wove flowers into her hair, leaving some loose, some braided, so it flowed in a dark wash over the gold tunic.

  When Lyssa looked at herself in a silver mirror, her eyes were unnaturally bright, her cheeks rosy as if she were overheated, and she put a palm up to see if she were feverish. "What ails me this night?"

  Alice chuckled. "I see naught amiss, milady. Only hale health and young spirits, lighting up those pretty eyes."

  Still Lyssa stared at herself perplexedly. "'Tis true I have not felt young much."

  "Go tonight and dance and play. You'll see how it makes that restlessness leave you."

  "Am I so easy to read?"

  "I were a young woman once." She patted Lyssa fondly. "Go now, be young."

  Lyssa smiled, and impulsively kissed the woman's still-smooth cheek. "You're hardly old now. Come you and dance tonight."

  "Go."

  The air within the hall was close and sticky, and Lyssa had ordered the trestle tables to be set up outside for supper. To cool the humors of their bodies, she'd ordered a simple meal to be served: cold roasted chicken, vinegared cucumbers, and ale cooled in the well. As she emerged into the twilight, she saw torches had been set into the earth, ready for lighting, and the food was piled high on tables set against the kitchen's north wall. A harper and a lutist, happily employed here since St. Swithin's Day, tuned their instruments, and close by was a drum. A red-haired piper would make a show of playing both when the evening flowered. A trio of soldiers played dice at one table, and with satisfaction, Lyssa saw Isobel, demurely attired in a tunic of deepest blue silk, with a gossamer veil over her hair, listening to something Stephen de Kivelsworthy said earnestly, waving his hands to explain.

  At least that seemed to be going well, Lyssa thought. Isobel had made a complete change since that disastrous night a few weeks before, and seemed at peace with her betrothal. They would be married at Michaelmas, in King Edward's chapel, as befitted the high station of the participants. While Lyssa looked forward to the bustling pleasure of a visit to court, she shied from thinking much on it. She feared Edward might give greater thought to a husband for her, so all could be safely wed at once.

  Already most of the castle's inhabitants were present, but Lyssa realized she was seeking the one face that had not yet appeared: Thomas was noticeably absent.

  A flush touched her at the thought of his seductive play this afternoon. The bawdy teasing and the feel of him against her had been exhilarating, and she wondered if all knew the lady of the manor had a yen for the strapping knight.

  Ah, how could they fail to know it? She lifted her chin and strode over the neatly clipped lawn to join Isobel and Stephen. Let them all make what they wished of it. 'Twas not their concern.

  "Good even," she said to the young couple as she sat down.

  "My lady," Stephen replied with a nod and a smile. "I was only telling Isobel how lovely you are."

  Lyssa shot a glance toward Isobel. That could not have sat well with the spoiled beauty. "My thanks, sir," she said, her eyes on Isobel, who felt the gaze and glanced up with a droll expression hidden in the pale blue irises. Discreetly as she was able, Lyssa winked. "Where are Robert and Lord Thomas?"

  "They went off on some secret errand an hour ago."

  Stephen leaned forward earnestly, his eyes darkening, his mouth hard as always when the knight's name was mentioned. "Tell me, Lady Elizabeth, have you uncovered anything more of your mysterious knight?"

  "More?" Lyssa echoed, deliberately vague. A dull knife of fear cut through her ribs. "What more should I learn?"

  Isobel snickered. It was a quiet sound, but Lyssa's fear leapt a notch and she looked at her stepdaughter in alarm. And there, in the diamond-hard eyes, Lyssa saw smug knowledge.

  Somehow, Isobel knew. And bided her time. For what purpose?

  Stephen, unaware of the undercurrents, leaned forward earnestly. "I sense something amiss with the man. Why have I never seen him at a list in all of England or France? How came he to be here, and where lie these great lands of his?"

  Lyssa swallowed her terror, and in a calm voice, said, "His lands are far to the north and all were plague-killed. When he chanced upon Woodell, which had been deserted by my own men, he stayed to defend the villagers who had none. I asked him to stay till harvest. Where is the great mystery in that?"

  Stephen scowled. "I do not like him."

  "Why here comes our noble knight," Isobel purred. The tiniest of smiles turned her lips at the corners, making her look like a cat.

  Stiffly, Stephen stood. "I'll not share a bench with him. Come, Isobel."

  Isobel rose, sweetly as a child. While Stephen's back was turned, she cast a spiteful smile toward Lyssa, then laughed softly and moved away as she was bid.

  Fear cooled Lyssa's restless blood. Fear and dismal reality. No matter how she wished it, she could not lie with the man who so inflamed her. For he was not even the rough knight all believed, but only a peasant. The danger threatening him would be trebled if Lyssa gave in to her selfish wish.

  "He spares no love for me," Thomas said, sitting down across from her. Lyssa looked from the departing pair back to Thomas.

  And forgot everything. He wore the velvet tunic she'd given him, and it never failed to make her think of opening her palms on the fabric, to smooth the great rounds of his broad shoulders and the breadth of his chest. His hair, perhaps softened by the water from the well, showed a glossing of light from the lowering sun, and it lay on his shoulders in invitation. Touch hair, touch shoulders. Touch me.

  In his hand was an apple, scrounged from who knew what winter stores, for it was small and hard and could not possibly taste good. But with a wicked gleam in those midnight-colored eyes, he lifted the fruit to his sensual mouth, and bit into it with obvious relish, leaving a little of the mean juice on his lip.

  Transfixed, Lyssa watched his tongue slide out and capture the juice and carry it back into that heat and warmth and moistness—

  To her astonishment, Lyssa felt a ripple of response spread through her body, starting just below her ribs, rolling down over her belly and into her thighs, and upward over her breasts, which pearled as it brushed them, and into her face. A place on the back of her neck felt strange until she imagined his teeth there, biting as he bit the apple, and she near shuddered.

  To cover her response, she countered with a bold question. "Found you no cherries to suck?"

  It surprised him, but to
Lyssa's dismay, he also laughed heartily before he leaned over the broad tabletop. "Aye, but their owner is unwilling to let me sample them." His eyes bored into her. "Unless…" he lifted the apple to his lips and took another bite. "She has changed her mind."

  Lyssa could not bear it. "You are in danger of death and you play with me thus?"

  "Ah, so that is the way we play tonight? With threats, my lady?"

  "Nay," she cried in frustration. "Only a warning. Your mortal enemy there would stop at nothing to see you swing, and he knows naught of you."

  Apparently unconcerned, he only took another bite of apple and gazed at her levelly.

  "Do you not care?"

  He lowered the apple and eyed her slowly, head to toe. "Soon or late, a man meets his end. Some things are worth dying for."

  "Bedsport is not one of them," she hissed.

  Thomas smiled lazily. "Then you've not known what it should be."

  "Nor will I ever, sir," she said furiously. "Not at your hands."

  His laughter followed her as she tried to make a dignified escape, ducking into the shadows of the buttery where she could compose herself once again. She ran headlong into Mary, coming out from the hall, and both of them grunted and nearly fell.

  "Ho, Lyssa!" Mary said, putting out a hand to steady them. "Where're you running off to?"

  "No one," she said, glancing darkly over her shoulder. Then realized her mistake as Mary chuckled. "That is… nowhere."

  "No use, my lady. 'Tis plain to us all ye melt like butter when he smiles at you."

  Lyssa made a frustrated noise. "God's teeth! I'm weary of that man and his arrogance. I'm not one of his wenches, to fall in writhing pleasure at his every glance."

  "Are you not?" Mary asked quietly.

  Too late Lyssa realized how her words would sound. "Ah, Mary." She reached for the girl's sleeve, but Mary pulled easily out of reach. "'Twas not meant that way. Not you."

  "Oh, but I was one who writhed for him," she said. "And Gwen and Mary Gillian and only the saints know who all. I'll wager he's slept in ev'ry bed from here to Scotland." She tossed her head, her eyes glittering. "All but for the proud Lady Elizabeth, who is too fine for such a brute, and will not take him no matter how he loves her."

  The restless heat in Lyssa's chest rose to a bright flame, making her throat hot. "You dare judge me? There are things you cannot know, and ways I am bound that you are not. Think you I do not wish to let him give me what he's given all of you? Think you I wanted to lie with my old and cranky husband? Think you my lot is so much better than yours, Mary?"

  Abruptly, Mary grabbed her close. "Nay, nay. My tongue flew away with me!" She pressed her head against Lyssa's neck, and Lyssa felt a deep ache at the feeling of her friend giving comfort. "Forgive me, Lyssa. I do love him, and it wounds me to see him love you."

  That was the second time Mary said "love," and Lyssa snorted. "'Tis lust, not love, Tall Mary."

  "Is it?" She lifted her head. "I think you are to him a queen, my Lyssa. The finest creature he's e'er known."

  Lyssa thought of him, biting into that apple with such teasing relish. She thought of his bold hands this afternoon, and the liquid heat that filled her limbs when he touched her, and she ached, ached to take what he offered.

  But his crime was deep enough in what he'd done already, a peasant playing knight, his punishment death if he were found out. If he lay with her, simple death might not satisfy. She could not bear to think of him being tortured.

  Lyssa could not risk it.

  In a day or a month or a year, there would come a missive from her king, and Lyssa would be wed to another, and Thomas would be gone to his life, whatever he made of it. 'Twas best they did not long for what they could not have.

  "I wish he'd never come to Woodell," she whispered, suddenly fierce.

  Mary said nothing, only held her for a time, then let her go.

  Chapter 15

  Lyssa found she could not bear, after all, to sit in the company with the rest, and let Thomas tease her. But neither could she settle anywhere, not with the restlessness in her limbs. She went first to her solar, but found she had no patience for the work. The hall was too hot, the orchard filled with peaches, which made her think of apples. Finally, she made her way to the battlements of the castle roof. In times of war, the place was manned with armed guards, but for now she had it to herself.

  As a child, it had been her favorite place, for ever was it deserted, reached only by a twisting set of stairs rising above two of the tower rooms. It gave a view of the whole shire, the forest and the hills, the village and the road, the river winding silver on its path toward the sea. All was gilded now by the late gold sun, casting long fingers through breaks in the trees. Neat squares of ripening crops spread out in a quilt from the village. Over all flew a pair of ravens, arched wings black against the hazy sky.

  Looking at it, Lyssa let go of a breath, thinking of her return home and the first night she had come here. Thomas had joined her then, but she thought she could make out his black-headed figure among the tables in the bailey far below.

  She was mistaken.

  "I sought you in the solar," he said. "And your chamber and the hall, and then remembered me that you liked this roof and the quiet."

  She closed her eyes in defeat. "Go away, Thomas. 'Tis from you I flee."

  "Nay," he said, and she felt him behind her, close but not touching. His voice quieted. "'Tis yourself you flee."

  She bowed her head. "I wish to be alone, sir."

  "And I," he stepped closer, "wish to be with you." His hand brushed the back of her neck, and a shiver of reaction moved on her spine. Before she knew what he was about, he bent and put his mouth on that very place on the back of her neck that had felt so odd.

  Her reaction was almost violent. Hard ripples of desire rocked her from shoulder to knee, and a sound—half moan, half cry—escaped her throat. The sensation was excruciating and exquisite and painful and she stood frozen as stone as he moved and lightly bit her, round the side of her neck, to her ear. She only stood, eyes closed, trembling in resistance and reaction.

  "Thomas," she said in a whisper. "This is madness."

  But even as she said it, his hands slid up her sides to cover her aching breasts, gathering her flesh into the cup of his palms as if to gauge the weight. A bolt of fierce need rocked her. She held herself rigid, her hands on the walls.

  "Nay, Lyssa," he said, "'tis fate." His fingers brushed the aroused peaks of her nipples below the silk, and his mouth suckled at the place on her nape, and Lyssa found she trembled. "You ache for me, as I ache for you, Lyssa. Tell me you do not." His mouth moved to her ear, and he tugged the lobe into his hot mouth, and at the same instant, plucked at her nipples with a firm but gentle squeeze.

  She cried out, and covered his hands with her own, flinging her head back against his chest, helpless because she could not say a word to halt him when this was what she had dreamed of. He bent close and touched his mouth to her temple, sliding his hands downward, over her waist, her hipbones, her thighs, and back up, so close, so close, to that heat that ached for him. "Tell me you do not want me to touch you like this," he said in a ragged whisper, and bit again her neck. With excruciating slowness, he edged her gown upward, until the fabric bunched around his wrist and his fingers stroked her bare thigh.

  Lyssa sucked in her breath at the brush of air and hand against that delicately sensitive flesh, and when he moved again, sliding those long fingers against the center of her longings, she could not stop the faint cry it culled from her.

  "Oh, God," he groaned against her ear, and turned her almost violently in his arms.

  For one moment, he halted, bent over her mouth, their bodies arched close. "I would halt, even now, if you said it, Lyssa."

  In answer, she reached for him, pulling his great head down so she could kiss his beautiful mouth. She did not care if it was right, or what consequences they would pay. For once, duty did not drive her, but passio
n, the long-denied yearning she had felt for him. And all of that yearning she put into her kiss, opening to him, giving to him, arching upward.

  With a growl, he hauled her into his arms, lifting her against him until Lyssa, understanding, wrapped her legs around his waist. He braced her against the stone tower, where they would be hidden from any who chanced to look upward, and moved his hands over her body, exploring her breasts and waist and buttocks, even as he kissed her and plucked at her lips with his teeth and sucked her tongue deeply into his own mouth. There was roughness and violent need, and Lyssa felt the brutal need rise in her with a wild fierceness she had not known she was capable of feeling.

  She returned his violent kisses, and gripped him hard with arms and legs, and laced her fingers through his hair, and opened her mouth wide to the thrust of his tongue, and when she gasped for air, she broke free to kiss his face and chin and neck.

  With a quick shift, he grasped her buttocks tightly in one hand and reached behind her to unlace her tunic. Lyssa lifted herself more tightly against him, aching for the touch of his bare hand against her bare flesh. She pressed the needy heat between her legs to his aroused sex below the tunic with an instinctive thrust that drew a choking sound from him. With urgent clumsiness, he finally loosed her tunic enough that it slipped off her shoulder to one side, and roughly, he tugged it down to expose her breast.

  He paused for an instant, and brushed his hand over her naked flesh, over the aroused point, and Lyssa watched his dark fingers move on her, dance over the upthrust nipple, and near swooned at the rush of desire it raised. When his fingers closed over her aroused nipple and rolled the flesh between, Lyssa could not breathe. Her fingers clutched his shoulders, and she whispered his name.

  "What's this?" he said, raising his indigo eyes, alive with passion now. With exquisite skill, he stroked and plucked and circled the spot, still holding her gaze, and for all that he strove for a normal voice, Lyssa heard the strain in it. "A cherry?"