A Knight and White Satin

by Jackie Ivie

  “Please, my sweet?” He sat, cuddling her on his lap, and whispered it in her ear as he did so, lifting her hair out of his way. “This hour will be all I have.”

  “How can he…be so mean?” she cried.

  “He is na’ one of the lucky ones, love. He does na’ ken how it is between us. Redmond did his best orating for us, but he failed. In a fashion.”

  Dallis shoved the heels of her hands to her eyes, shuddered through three breaths, then four. She held the fifth one. Held it to the point of pain before letting it ease out. Payton continued the strokes of her hair and back.

  She moved her hands away, opened her eyes to his, and was lost. Eyes that blue and that soul-filled couldn’t exist. Yet, they did. For her.

  “You’re treated fair?” he asked.

  She nodded. “You?”

  He replied in the same. “The bairn?” he asked.

  She moved a hand to cup the swelling that hadn’t seemed to change. “He moves much more oft. ’Tis impossible to count the times.” She tried to laugh, but her voice croaked and she quieted.

  “I ken I should be grateful for this time. But I am na’. I am even more angered.” He’d lowered his chin and gave the watchers his challenger look.

  “Nae, Payton, nae.” Dallis touched his chin and brought his gaze back to her. “If I have the same hour, I doona’ wish it spent on anger. Please?”

  “I should be grateful he does na’ allow Kilchurning the same hour.” He ground it through clenched teeth, and Dallis cried out.

  “Nae! And if he does, give me a skean. I’ll carve his heart. Gladly.” Her voice hardened and that seemed to release him from the angered look on his.

  “Dallis? You must na’ have thoughts like these. And you truly must na’ act on them.”

  “Why na?” she asked bitterly.

  “Because it may harm the bairn. And after you, my son is what matters most to me. Ever.”

  “Payton? I swear this bairn is yours,” Dallis said solemnly.

  He grinned. “You think I doona’ already ken that? Right here?”

  He put his fingers around one of her hands and placed it on his chest, right above his heart. Dallis’s eyes filled with tears again, and she blinked rapidly to dissolve them away. It was a vicious effort to do it, especially as he moved his gaze from her and blinked in the same rapid fashion.

  “This is na’ what I wished to say. And I have rehearsed all morn.”

  “At least you knew. I wasn’t even informed!”

  “I knew…because I earned this. And I’ll earn it again on the morrow.”

  “The…morrow?”

  “Aye. Redmond has made my bargain. I get one hour. Every day. At dusk.”

  “Oh, thank him! Thank him, Payton. For me.”

  She was peppering his face with kisses again, and stopped only when he put his hands about her waist and put her back on his lap.

  “You…doona’ fight again. Do you?” She whispered it.

  “Nae.”

  “Truly?”

  “I would na’ wish to come to you with a face battered and bruised and a body marred with more scars. Not when all I get is an hour.”

  “Redmond is a wizard to work such a bargain!”

  He nodded.

  “You have one quarter hour remaining.”

  Both of them turned to the gathering at the door. It was impossible to note who’d spoken. Lady Evelyn was standing with her back to them, looking small and frail amid them.

  “It canna’ be!” Payton said.

  One of them nodded. Dallis turned back first.

  “Check your timepiece. It’s wrong, I tell you!”

  Dallis moved his face back to hers with her hands. Gazed lovingly and for long moments into eyes that had spellbound her from the moment she’d met him, and then tilted her head.

  “Time is short. I must spend it na’ in angered words, but with my hands, and my eyes and my ears. To memorize and hold dear to my heart. You ken?”

  “Dallis?” He whispered.

  “Aye?”

  “I love you. Only you. Ever.”

  She caught a breath, and then couldn’t stop the smile that was so wide, she knew it split the sides of her mouth. Then she was pressing kisses against the perfection of his lips again. “And I love you. I love you, Payton. I love you.”

  Something broke within him, and she was hugged to his chest, while his mouth devoured hers, and his heart thudded to a race of sound, with hers right behind it.

  “Five minutes.”

  The announcement broke them apart. Dallis sat atop him, watching him inhale and exhale in great motions as she did the same.

  “Time is short, my love,” she whispered, when she had her heart and breathing back under control.

  He nodded.

  “I’ll write you, Payton. I’ll bring you letters. Each night. I swear it.”

  “I would return it, but I have never been friendly with a quill and ink,” he replied, with a self-conscious smile.

  “I will treasure anything you give to me, Payton. Anything.”

  The babe moved then, startling her, and making her gasp. Dallis watched as he seemed to note exactly what had happened and nodded.

  “My bairn is strong.”

  “Of course,” she agreed.

  He huffed a huge sigh. “This span of time we are apart…it will be as nothing when compared with the life I will give you once we are free of here. You ken?”

  “I ken,” she whispered back. “’Tis all I think on.”

  “One minute.”

  They both jumped and watched as their eyes both widened.

  “So little time.”

  “I love you,” Dallis told him. “I will dream of you. Of this time. Of the time we can be together, and when nae king can keep us apart.”

  “As will I.”

  He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers reverently, and then stood, with her still in his arms.

  “’Tis too soon,” Dallis told him.

  He nodded.

  “They have na’ called the time, yet.”

  “Parting will na’ get better with the fight of it, Dallis, love. I know verra few things, but that I ken well.”

  She nodded, but didn’t dare blink in case the moisture in her eyes obliterated him for her.

  “Time!”

  Payton placed her on her feet at the door.

  “Must you blindfold her?” he asked, using his angered voice.

  Dallis put her hand on his arm. “If it gets me my time with you, they can blind me and tie me. You ken?”

  He looked at her for long moments, spellbinding her as always.

  “You must leave now, Laird Dunn-Fadden.”

  Payton bowed to them and swiveled, placing his back to her as he walked to an opposite door and went through it. And then slammed it so hard the door jamb rattled and the torch in the closest sconce blew out.

  Dallis put her hands out for her blindfold, and that’s when she saw that Lady Evelyn was sobbing silently with the tears Dallis was forcing back. She went to the old woman and held her. The guards didn’t stop them. Holding her aunt’s hand tightly, with a guard on either side of them was how they were sent back.

  Chapter 22

  “Oh…please, Payton?”

  He shook his head.

  “But…nae one will see. Aunt Evelyn assures me.”

  Payton looked over at where the spinster aunt was studiously ignoring the couple, her eye on a delicately wrought treasure box.

  “The spinster does na’ control the king’s guards,” he replied. “Now, cease that!”

  He had a hand caught to where she’d moved hers, stopping her exploration of his thigh right above the knee where the kilt barely covered. Dallis looked up at him through her eyelashes, and moved sinuously and amorously against him. He made it easy, since he’d put her into a slant on the bench seat, after kissing her into a state of desire and frustration that made everything on her body tremble and shake and lurch
. And crave.

  “We’ve na’ had guards watching over us for over a month. Longer. They trust us. Or they tire of us.”

  “Your aunt will see.”

  Dallis giggled. “Aunt Evelyn will na’ say a word.”

  “She’ll still see,” he hissed.

  “This room has angles, Payton. Closets. Shadowed…recesses.” Dallis lowered her voice, and wriggled again where he still had her buttocks on his lap. Then she smiled slyly as she felt the stirring exactly where she wanted it. He must have known what the look meant because he immediately pushed back into the bench, and away from her.

  She responded with a fingertip, moved from his knee to his arm, bare, warm, and powerful. She trailed her nail along sinew and skin, feeling the bumps of his shivers before she reached his shoulder. She got more firm substance against her buttocks, as well.

  “Dallis.” He had a pleading expression in his voice that was replicated in his eyes. “I’m a man. Verra desirous of you. And your…body. You canna’ call on my response this way, and leave me wanting.”

  “We have time,” she replied, licking her lips.

  “We’ve used half our time. I ken. I’m watching the clock.”

  Dallis put her finger to her mouth and licked it. Then she put it back on his arm. He wasn’t just shivering. That was a tremor scoring his frame, making the wood support of their bench respond to it, as well as making his groin stiffer, and larger, and stronger, and hotter.

  “You doona’ ken what you do!”

  He was snarling now, making absolute thrills course her body, centering to where the darts of her nipples were barely contained in the dress’s bodice as it was. She watched him glance there, scrunch his eyes shut, and shake some more.

  “Payton….” She drew his name out like a caress, moved both hands to the neckline of her dress and slid it even lower, until the dark shade of her breast tips were near to popping out. Then she licked her fingertip again and touched it to his lower lip.

  His eyes flew open, moved instantly to where she was displayed for him, groaned, and then he moved his gaze to hers. There wasn’t much blue color showing through the black of them. Dallis studied them, and couldn’t see any blue color at all in the shadows thrown by the torches far enough away as to be useless for close scrutiny of any kind.

  “Vixen.” He said it between his teeth, but he was on his feet, holding her tightly against him and moving to the darkest reach of the room, far from prying eyes and listening souls.

  “’Tis your son…making me so,” Dallis whispered, urgency staining her voice as she pulled at his head, lowering him to grasping lips, and taking everything he was trying to keep from her.

  “That’s right. The bairn. What will he think of this?”

  He was swiveling her, facing her away from him, lowering her to her knees onto a settee, and Dallis near cried out at the loss, until she felt the lift of her skirts, the touch of skin, and then she was filled. Completed, totally, and with such relief, she gushed her pleasure with more than mewing sounds.

  “I have…some time…a-fore I worry over our son’s opinion. Or lack of one.” Dallis replied, ending the whisper with a moan of sound.

  Payton rocked back, before shoving forward again. Filling her. Moving away. Filling. Dallis bit on her tongue to keep the cries of pleasure from sounding, while the slight grunt noises Payton was making filled her ears.

  “I mean…what of him…now. Jesu’!”

  He was moving, leaning forward in a curve, pressing warmth and weight all along her back, and making the back of the settee she leaned on creak with the motion. Then, she knew why, as both hands shoved her bodice down, filling his palms with her, and making it even harder for her to contain any noise from the sparks of ecstasy flowing through her.

  “Ah…Dallis. Love…”

  The whisper was hoarse and rough, and filled with a low tone that sent Dallis into more raptures, and more release, and more bliss. She held it to her, keeping the breath as long as possible, before going back to panting small gasps that matched his increasing tempo.

  He moved a hand, gripping it to the sofa back at her nose. She knew it was for stability, as the strength of his thrusts got harder, stronger, swifter, alternately filling and then emptying from her. Again. Over and over and over until Dallis had to lower her head, and hold her breath through another burst of pure bliss. Payton moved the other arm then, looping it around the space between her growing belly and her breasts, to hold on to her.

  “Dallis. Ah…Dallis…Love. You’re a temptress. An enchantress. A siren.” He moved a knee onto the bench beside hers, making the structure groan worse. “Brought to life…just for me. To torment me. Torture! Ah…Dallis! Doona’ move. Na’ now! Na’—!”

  His whisper had intensified throughout the words, as well as his strokes, pushing her with dominating effect at the settee, making it rock backward with them. Filling her, lifting her, and shoving at her until the back of the bench stopped him. Dallis arched her back, grabbed at his head and twisted enough to join lips with him. That’s how she contained the full breath of groan he gave, filling the cavern of her mouth as he stiffened completely, and held her in place for what seemed an eternity of pleasure. Then he was shuddering with discordant tremors while the arm tightened even further about her.

  “Oh, my God. Dallis. We should na’ have done that.”

  Payton was pulling from her, dropping her skirts into place as he did so. Dallis turned around to sit, pressing her thighs, knees, and ankles tightly together to hang on to the heavenly feeling for just a bit longer, while she rearranged her bodice back into place with hands that trembled.

  She looked up at the shadow outline of him, since any torchlight was at his back, and smiled. “Perhaps, na’,” she replied finally, “but I thank you. And my attendants will thank you even more this eve.”

  “What? And you’re to cease that!”

  He had his hands on his hips now, and nothing about his stance displayed a man who’d trembled in place sheer moments earlier. He looked massive, virile, and fit. Dallis licked her lips. She knew he could see her face, since the light was full on her.

  “What?” She was all innocence and lack of guile, but ran her tongue all about the bottom of her upper lip anyway. And settled for the swift, strong outlay of breath he made, since that was all he gave her.

  “That! You are to stop that! You doona’ understand how it is with a man! I live in torment! I sleep with torture. I think of nothing but the sweet pleasure I receive from tupping you…and I canna’ think! I work at the list in a rough attempt to escape it. Take dunks in the cistern at the top walls of this castle and beg the fates that ’tis cold enough to assist me. And then it starts up again! Jesu’!, Dallis! Assist me with a bit of this!”

  She giggled.

  “You laugh? I bare my soul…and you laugh?” His voice caught.

  “Payton…I must confess.”

  That stopped him. “To what?” he asked in the stillness that came from holding his breath.

  “I have been a termagant. A shrew.”

  “Nae.” He answered. “You?”

  “Aye. And I think all knew why, although I dinna’ tell them.”

  “Why?”

  “You.”

  He straightened. She had to imagine the perplexed look that would be on his face, since she couldn’t see it in the shadowed alcove he’d put her in.

  “Me?”

  Dallis nodded. “Aye. You. There is an issue with my frame now, Payton. I canna’ rest, either. I canna’ sit and sew as they require. I canna’ sit still long enough! I am restless. My every thought is beset with…images. Sensual images. And if I seek sleep…’tis worse! My nights last forever, and I daren’t nap!”

  He’d tilted his head. “Women…suffer this, too?”

  Dallis looked down. “I doona’ ken if all women suffer it. I only ken that I do. And it is a massive need, Payton. Near consuming.”

  He moved to sit on the bench beside her, mak
ing the wood give slightly with his weight.

  “You doona’ think less of me?” Dallis whispered.

  He pulled her into his embrace, holding her against the scratchy wool of his kilt band.

  “I think I love you more, if ’tis possible.”

  “Five minutes!”

  The door opening somewhere around the side of the wall portended the entry of a guard. Dallis heard her aunt answering.

  “Thank you, Reginald. We will be ready.”

  Dallis giggled. “You see? We had time.”

  Payton was smiling, too. She had the torchlight to thank for showing it.

  “You are verra gracious to me, dearest husband. I am now replete and famished. And your son needs feeding.”

  She stood, put her hands to the mound that had rapidly out-paced her bosom in the six weeks she’d been in captivity, and put a hand toward him.

  “Well, then. Go. Eat. Feed the lad.”

  He stood with her, looking down at her, and the babe responded with a roll move as if readjusting. Dallis gasped.

  “What is it?” he asked, instantly solicitous.

  “Your son,” she replied, and watched the look of total satisfaction cross his face.

  “I thank you, Wife. For this visit.”

  “One minute!”

  Both of them looked in the direction the words came from, turned back, and yawned. In tandem.

  “I just may be able to sleep. Deeply.”

  He lifted her into his arms and carried her from the alcove, and into the brightness of torchlight over by the door they used. Then, he set her on her feet next to Lady Evelyn.

  After a nod to both ladies, he turned, leaving without a farewell or another look at her. They’d decided it from the first week. She knew it was best, but still she watched him until he went through the other door. But this time, he didn’t slam it.

  “I’ve brought something to show you.”

  “Beyond what you’ve already shown me? You’ve a wicked streak, Wife.”

  He was teasing. It sounded it. He couldn’t be angered. Not after the romp she’d put him through the moment the guards had left and Lady Evelyn had gotten engrossed in her needlework. His wife had the most luscious body. She had a haven made for a man’s loving. He hadn’t been mistaken the first time, and he wasn’t now. She was the best at tupping. Ever. He was too content to argue, almost too drowsy to pay attention.