The Conqueror's Lady

by TERRI BRISBIN

  Giles stepped closer now and, deciding to move her boldly towards the passion he sensed she tried to control, spread the gown so that her breasts were open to his sight.

  ‘Lovely,’ he whispered in his Breton language. ‘Beautiful,’ he said, using his fingers to graze only the tips of them. When she trembled under his touch, he repeated it, enjoying the way her body responded to him.

  His body reacted as well, his blood rushed through his veins, readying him to join hers. Every encounter threatened his decisions about her and he knew he was not ready to take her in that final way. Ready? Oui. Not willing was more the case. Giles then used his whole hand to cup each of her breasts, holding them, caressing the tips with his thumbs as he moved his hands under their fullness and soft skin.

  She let out a sigh and her eyes closed then, only for a moment, but there was a softening in her gaze when she opened them once more. He took advantage of that moment to move to her side, still touching her, still caressing her breasts, and then to stand behind her. Now, he encircled her with his arms and continued to enjoy the feel of her in front of him, against him, just near him. When his cock rose to fullness between them, she did not startle, and he held her tighter to savour the feel of it.

  Fayth would tell herself later that she did not resist because she was exhausted or because she feared angering him, but the shameful reason was that pleasure overwhelmed her. If her mother or Emma had revealed that a simple touch could bring about such myriad feelings and cause her body to heat as though on fire, she would not have believed it.

  Now, feeling her body tighten and ache with his every touch and feeling it throb each time he whispered his foreign words in that husky, deep voice, she knew he did this with a purpose in mind. Lord Giles was seducing her, much as any lord could or would seduce a maiden into giving away her favours. The only way she could justify this and explain her weakness was their marriage vows and his right to claim her.

  As her body responded to him she felt as though she would fall, her legs trembled beneath her, so she leaned back against him for support. He surprised her by accepting her weight and shifting his arms to hold her closely. Fayth felt the presence of his manhood between them and allowed herself to lean back against him and it. He pushed forward once and then again and then rested it there without moving it.

  She thought he was done exploring her body as was his right when he released her breast and used his free hand to push her hair aside. Nuzzling her neck, he laid kisses along the line of her shoulder up to her neck and then caught the edge of her ear with his teeth. She shook then, uncontrollably, and she heard his soft laughter as it vibrated against her skin. Did this please him in some way? Too far into pleasure to consider more, she allowed him his way.

  She was soft. She trembled in his embrace. She did not stop him. Giles slid his hand down from her hair and grasped the thin gown, gathering it in his hand and exposing her legs now to his gaze and his touch. At first, she reached down and covered his hand with hers, he thought to stop him from his obvious intent, but then she just let hers remain there on his while he moved ever lower.

  The mass of soft curls guarding the junction of her thighs tickled his palm but his body screamed for more than a touch. Without thinking, he arched against her, rubbing his straining cock against her bottom and savouring the explosion of pleasure it caused. Lady Fayth moved within his arms then, closer to him and with more pressure on his hand, guiding him forward on his quest.

  Her panting breaths changed then and he realised she held her breath. As did he. He spread his fingers wide and touched the curls gently at first, just barely grazing them and then running his fingers along them with more pressure and then slipping between her legs to touch the centre of her excitement.

  Her body might be inexperienced at this but it wept onto his fingers as he touched that intimate place and slid along the folds of her womanhood. She shook in his arms and he shifted his other arm to hold her more firmly against him and he continued to caress her. He knew what he searched for and he touched and rubbed her, making her gasp over and over again until he found it—the tiny budlike nub.

  Giles rubbed there until he felt another gush of wetness from deeper within and then, spreading it along the folds, he caressed every inch he could reach. Sliding one, then two, then three fingers inside and drawing them out, he used it to ease his path and to heighten her pleasure. She tossed her head where she leaned it on his chest and Giles began to kiss her neck, licking and nipping it in time with his fingers down there.

  Then, when he felt her body tighten and prepare for that final step of release, he took the nub between his finger and thumb and rolled it there. Squeezing there and still sliding over it, he felt her entire body shake and she began to moan.

  ‘Giles?’ she murmured through clenched teeth. ‘Giles?’ she asked again on a breathy moan.

  ‘Do not fear this, my lady. Do not fear,’ he repeated as he leaned down and kissed and used his teeth on her neck in a place that seemed to be a sensitive one to her. With his mouth there and his fingers rubbing the engorged folds and nub between her legs, his name was now an announcement rather than a question.

  ‘Giles!’

  Her body shook now and he held her tightly as tremors moved through her. Fayth could not stop herself from arching into his hand or from rubbing herself against his touch at a faster pace than the one he moved to. And she could not stop herself from pressing her bottom against his hardness.

  Wave after wave of pleasure struck her, making it difficult to breathe and impossible to think of anything except his fingers rubbing in and against that most private place. Losing any remnant of control, she released herself into his power and let the aching and the answering pleasure escalate until it flowed throughout her body. She might have screamed, but she did not care or know at that moment.

  A few moments or minutes later, she gained a sense of herself and found herself collapsed against her husband and him against the wall. Not remembering when that had occurred or when he had removed his fingers from that place, she tried to lift her head and move away. He held her tightly and thrust against her once and then twice and then his body shook. The place between them and the back of her undergown dampened as he released his seed there. With a loud exhalation, he rested his head against her shoulder and she felt his heated breaths against her skin.

  Confused and feeling very vulnerable in his embrace, she pushed free and stood there, unable to face him. How could something so wondrous occur between enemies? How could she respond to his touch as she had? This was different from helping her people and aiding him as a result. This was a personal betrayal of her father’s memory.

  And, in spite of knowing that, her body yet throbbed as small waves of pleasure pulsed through her, duller each time, but a reminder of her weakness.

  Giles mumbled something behind her, whether in his tongue or badly spoken English she knew not, and then he stepped farther away, opening one of the chests that lined the wall with her clothing in it. Handing it to her without looking at her, he remained turned away while she gathered the soiled gown and pulled it over her head, replacing it with the clean one before climbing back into the bed. A heaviness now lay on her heart and she could do nothing but pray it would lift.

  She heard him walking around the chamber, preparing for the coming night, and she waited for him to climb in next to her. Turning on her side away from him, she allowed the tears that had threatened for days to flow now, in silence, for all that she had lost and still stood to lose in the coming months.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘W hat the hell did you do to her?’ Brice whispered furiously, his voice kept low so others would not hear. Giles’s friend looked around to make certain no one stood near and then repeated his question. ‘What happened between you?’

  ‘Nothing happened, Brice. Now see to your duties,’ Giles ordered, hoping Brice would take his hint and stop asking anything more.

  ‘She looks like a dog that�
��s been kicked down, Giles. She did not even rise to my bait as we broke our fast. She has done nothing but insult my intelligence, my plans and my actions these last days since you asked me to watch over her and the work she does for you. And this morn, she arrives at table and will not even meet my eyes.’ Brice glared at him. ‘Nor yours.’

  When Giles tried walking around him, Brice stepped the other way and blocked him there. ‘What did you do, my lord Taerford?’

  Giles huffed out a breath and looked heavenward, praying for patience in dealing with his friend. ‘I pleasured her,’ he admitted.

  Brice crossed his arms over his chest and narrowed his gaze, watching Giles’s expression. ‘Against her will?’

  ‘Nay! I would do no such thing.’

  ‘And the problem lies…where?’ Brice asked, probing as a healer dug at a splinter.

  ‘She cried.’

  Giles shook off his hold and walked out into the yard. There was much to do today and he really did not have the time to waste worrying over a woman’s tears in their marriage bed. He had not even forced himself on her and yet…yet. Brice caught up with him and they walked towards the stables.

  ‘I thought you were not going to bed her until you know if she is breeding or not?’

  ‘I did not,’ he answered. ‘But this was a simple bit of…?’ He could not think of the phrase so he waved Brice off. ‘I did not hurt her.’

  ‘Did you frighten her?’

  That question brought him to a halt. Was that the problem? Had the response of her body to his touches and kisses frightened her? If so, did that mean she was innocent? Certainly she was inexperienced, that much was clear to him. He would swear on his mother’s soul that what had happened to her last night, under his hand, had been the first time she’d reached sexual release.

  He glanced over at his friend, who stood waiting for his answer as though she were under his protection. ‘I may have. But why is this of concern to you? Have you nothing better to do with your time here than to plague me with questions about my bedplay?’ He crossed his arms and glared at his friend. ‘I wish Soren was here now for he could entertain you with stories of his exploits and you would leave me in peace over this.’

  ‘You asked for my help to watch over your wife, Giles, and to discover if she is still in league with Edmund. Work with her, you said. Judge her worthiness, you said. Discover if she is a traitor to you or a spy for your enemies, you said. I do not do this for the amusement, my lord. The work of a reeve and steward are more than I wish to do.’ Brice crossed his arms over his chest matching Giles’s own stance and glared back.

  Truly, though Brice did not serve him, he had been invaluable during the attack to chase the rebels from Taerford and in these first few weeks of trying to organise the people and lands now his. He but waited on the king’s word and the king’s men to continue on to what would become his fief, Thaxted, in the north. And they both waited on news of Soren’s recovery from his battle wounds.

  ‘Your pardon, my friend. I did ask for your help. And your service has been very useful to me. It is just that this is a private matter, between the lady and myself.’ He realised the falseness of his words as soon as he said them.

  ‘Not learned that lesson yet, have you, my friend?’ Brice replied sarcastically.

  And, as if to prove the point, the very subject of their discussion made her way out into the yard and towards where they stood, stopping along the way to speak to some of the men working there. The part that made Brice’s point in the argument again was the way everyone there looked first to the lady and then at him and back to her again. It seemed they all thought her in some way injured or mistreated…by him. He looked at Brice and hung his head in surrender.

  Brice clapped him on the back. ‘Their lady is an innocent, raised amongst them and the one thing standing between them and their new invading Norman lord,’ he began.

  ‘Breton,’ he corrected.

  ‘It matters not to these people. She stands for them and you rejected her on your wedding night.’

  ‘I did not reject her,’ he tried to explain, but Brice stopped him.

  ‘You have not bedded her and they know it. But you gave them hope when first you saw to their protection and then when you asked for her help. They believe that they could survive with you. Now, this morn, they only know that something ill transpired between the two of you and they take her side.’ Looked at from that eye, Brice was correct.

  ‘I think it will take no more than a week before I know for certain. Either the lady bleeds or…’

  ‘She approaches now.’ Brice turned to her. ‘Have you told her that you are leaving?’

  ‘Nay. Though I wish to see her mood lighten, I have no wish to see the joy in her expression at the news.’

  Brice laughed then, long and hearty, drawing attention.

  ‘You will not find the transition from foreign bastard knight to lord an easy one either, Brice. I wish I could be there to see how you fare when faced with these very same problems.’

  ‘I intend to learn from your errors, Giles.’ Brice nodded to the lady. ‘Do you seek me or your lord husband, Lady Fayth?’ he asked in a louder voice.

  She came to stand before him and yet did not raise her eyes to meet his. ‘I did not know if you had asked Lord Giles for permission to go to the village, sir,’ she said to Brice.

  ‘Why do you wish to go to the village, lady?’ Giles asked. ‘You can speak your request to me.’

  Her veil covered her head and her hair and wrapped around her neck, keeping everything he liked most from his view. He realised that this Saxon clothing covered its women from head to toe, showing little difference in a stout figure like Emma’s or a slender one like the lady’s. Mayhap Simon’s wife could be prevailed upon to send some of the dresses she wore to Fayth? The more form-fitting style appealed to him.

  He brought his gaze back to the veil, for it was all he could see of her until she raised her head a little. The white fabric also brought out the dark circles still under her eyes. At least she would sleep well while he was gone these next few days.

  ‘I, we, my lord, have taken inventory of all supplies and foodstuffs in the keep and the other manor buildings, but my father stored much of the produce, wool and weaving in the village. I need to go there to…’

  He watched her as she spoke but all he thought of was the night before when she’d writhed under his touch. He wanted to see the flush of sexual arousal on her cheeks and to see the way her eyes gleamed when she cried out her release. He wanted to see her smile once more.

  ‘Brice can do that,’ he offered, now concentrating on her words and not his fantasies.

  Brice’s continued glare told him of his failure to do it well. The lady was more valuable than all of the supplies or stores in the keep and village and he could not afford to let her out of the safety of the keep’s walls. ‘I would not have you exposed to the dangers outside these walls, lady. I want you to stay here until my return.’

  Fayth did look up then, startled by his words. ‘You are leaving, my lord?’

  ‘Oui. Aye. The king has granted me lands and I must ride the borders to see the extent of them. The map I have is only the most rudimentary and tells me nothing of their conditions or uses.’

  ‘I could tell you that, my lord. I have ridden these lands since I was a child.’ He did not know if her offer was to help or to keep him from going out onto the lands beyond the manor and village.

  ‘The king granted me your father’s lands and more, lady. My property includes eighty hides of land.’

  She gasped at the size of it, for it was more than double her father’s property. ‘But Lord Leofwyne owns the land to the north and east of these lands,’ she said, shaking her head.

  ‘He fell in battle, lady. His lands are forfeit to the duke.’ Giles had spoken the words softly, but their effect was as though trumpeted throughout the keep. She paled before him.

  ‘How many others? How many Saxons were kil
led by your Duke William?’ she cried out. She’d only just begun to think on such things, lost in her own battle not to accept the pleasure he offered, but now, with his declaration about the extent of his reward for battle service, she needed to know.

  He grimaced before answering her, so she knew the number would shock her. His expression became flat, his eyes dull and his lips tightened in a thin line across his face.

  ‘Close to four thousand, lady. So far as could be told, all of Godwin’s sons. Harold’s housecarls fought at his side and perished. The great earls of Mercia, Sussex, Wessex, Kent and East Anglia. Many more that I cannot put a name to.’

  His voice carried no gloating tone and she thought she could hear sympathy in his words and that surprised her. ‘And their lands and people are given away?’

  ‘The duke has the right,’ he began, but then he stopped and did not try to justify the actions.

  Fayth could not comprehend the amount of devastation caused by this single battle, except that life in England was changed for ever by it. Her stomach churned at the thought of never seeing uncles, cousins and other kin again. And how did the women fare without their men to provide for and protect them? Surely not all Saxon lords had daughters to use to legitimise the gifts from the duke and to cement the invaders to their conquered peoples.

  From Edmund’s words, she believed that many Saxon lords still lived and were gathering in the north to push the Normans out of their country. He mentioned that the witan voted Edgar the Atheling as king and that support was growing throughout England for him.

  Horrified that she’d been sitting here, safe in the keep and succumbing to the pleasures of the flesh with this man while not knowing the truth of her people’s, the Saxons’, fate shamed her. And not being brave enough to face her captor, be he husband or not, and to find out filled her with resolve. Her shame became her strength and she asked the question that had haunted her days and nights. The one that would either give her hope or ruin any chance of living in peace with her husband.