Betrothed

  She led him down another set of rough cut stairs and then another almost tunnel-like corridor. His eyes quickly adjusted to the sporadic sconces marking the way. He thought the lit wicks a waste of oil but that they were burning indicated daily use of the corridors. He wondered briefly how close they were to the secret passageway. Did other tunnels warren beneath the keep? ‘Twould be one of his first discoveries when he took possession. Secret escape avenues and hidden caches of reserves would be great assets to Bennington’s new lord.

  “This is where all of the ale and wine are stored?” he asked craftily. No need to reveal he’d been here before. Now he knew how to reach this escape from inside the castle.

  “Aye.” The dingy lace-trimmed cap slid a bit to the side at her emphatic answer.

  “Even that which is for d’Allyonshire’s private consumption?

  More wrinkles formed on the cragged forehead. She was thinking—perhaps too hard for Simon’s liking.

  “Several casks of Norman wine are in that corner.” Granya pointed a gnarled finger to at neat pyramid of oak barrels. “He brought those upon his last return from across the water. ‘Tis served only to the earl and special guests.”

  “Just so,” Simon said with immense satisfaction. Anxious to get the business over—the sooner done, the sooner he could ride in the front gate—he pulled down the tapped keg. It took some doing as he wasn’t accustomed to heavy work but he got the barrel down to the dirt floor. Adding the powder from his pouch took but a moment and after resealing the vent, he rolled the barrel back and forth to mix in the toxin. After all his trouble, he didn’t want the stuff merely to settle on the bottom.

  Sweat trickled down his temples as he rolled the barrel back to the stack. His hands on his back, he arched, stretching his ill-used muscles. That was when he noticed the old lady creeping towards the doorway.

  “Where are you going?” he asked with suspicion.

  “I thought you only wanted hiding places for you and a couple of men.” Her voice crackled with fear now instead of her usual malice. “You don’t be planning a warrior’s combat.”

  “D’Allyonshire will be dead, what matter the method?”

  “I’ll not be part of murder,” Granya denied as she reached the threshold.

  Simon moved, closing the distance between them easily. He was younger, faster and more determined. No nosey bitch was going to get in his way again.

  He snatched the cane from her grasp and raised it over his head.

  The first blow brought the woman to her knees.

  The second finished her off.

  The third and fourth were purely for Simon’s pleasure.

  He tossed the cane aside and turned to the barrel. He needed to finish his work. The cask needed to appear undisturbed or someone might take it into their heads to taste the contents.

  Replacing the cask was harder. Lifting the barrel from the floor required more strength than lowering it. But he did it.

  Looking around, he noticed marks on the dirt floor left by the barrel. Using his foot, he scuffed away any sign of his deeds. Satisfied, he turned to the door. The old woman lay crumpled. She was of so little account in Simon’s mind, he had momentarily forgotten her.

  He stared at the body with distaste. It was her presence, not her death which revolted him. The old woman represented more work when he would rather be away—preparing for his triumphant entrance.

  He could not leave her in the stores, but where could he stash the body? He tried to remember what other rooms they had passed by on their trip down. Bennington was a generous keep with hundreds of denizens running about the place. How could he be certain the body would go undiscovered for the necessary length of time?

  Then he thought of the death of another inconvenient wench. He couldn’t think of the name of Isabeau’s bitch of a mother. She didn’t matter—but the stairs? A set of stairs could serve his purposes yet again.

  Simon hefted the body into his arms. The bitch’s frail appearance had disguised a sturdy weight, but maneuvering her was easier than replacing the nearly full cask of wine to its perch. Laden down with the lifeless body, he better appreciated not needing to hold a lamp to negotiate the corridors.

  Once he reached to the ground floor and the staircase, he looked up the steep flight of stairs and choked back a groan. He looked at the body then over his shoulder. He was far enough away from the storerooms as to not raise questions. He climbed two stairs, turned awkwardly in the narrow space and the tossed the corpse to the stones below.

  Dusting his hands, he surveyed the last piece of his work. They would assume the wounds had occurred in a tumble down the stairs. Why wouldn’t they?

  With only the thought of tomorrow’s triumph, Simon headed to his tunnel.

  C hapter 34

  Donovan lifted his nose from the crook of Isabeau’s neck. He could feel the throb of her still racing pulse. Her sweet scent was enough to make his manhood stiffen once more. He shifted his upper weight to his elbows so he could look down at her face.

  Her chestnut hair had come undone and lay spread around her flushed face. Her eyes remained clouded with passion and a ready smile curved her swollen rosy lips. Her naked breasts continued to caress his chest as she tried to calm her rapid breathing.

  He leaned down to kiss her nose. She tilted her chin to offer her mouth as a kitten would arch for a scratch. The action was so natural, he could not help but compare it to Marta’s repeated withdrawals from his touch.

  Isabeau’s hands still clutched at his shoulders as if etching their imprint there in stone. When Donovan rolled to his back, she easily followed; landing sprawled across his sweaty chest. Missing his mouth, she dropped a kiss on the edge of his jaw. Her eyes widened in surprise when she tried to sit.

  “We are still attached!” she gasped in embarrassment. Her cheeks flamed a deep pink that he thought went well with the sparkle in her green eyes.

  With a roar of laughter, he tilted his hips. The effect on them both was immediate. Isabeau shivered as another climax quaked through her slender body while Donovan’s manhood sought deeper possession. His hand circled her waist while his hips pumped for his own quick release.

  He kept their bodies joined even after she sprawled limply over him again. She seemed in no great hurry to move, nor did he. He savored the silky feel of her white skin against the length of him. He coasted his fingers down the knobs of her spine from her nape to the skirts, still bunched at her waist. When she only sighed, he continued petting.

  “You are a loud little kitten when aroused,” he teased.

  “And you have the roar of a lion.” Her retort lost heat as it was muffled against his throat. “As we both seem to be felines, I guess we are well matched.”

  Laughter and pride at her quick wit bubbled up from deep in his belly. Never had he thought find humor in the marriage bed. Not after Marta.

  “What troubles you, my lord?” Resting across his chest, she had propped her chin on her hand. With the other hand, she smoothed at the furrows on his brow.

  “You seem in no hurry to extract yourself from my embrace,” he answered with an honesty surprising even him.

  “I have never... Have I disgusted you with my wanton behavior? ‘Twas not that of a countess. I should return to the keep.”

  He held her in place when she would have moved from her perch.

  “Nay,” he commanded gently. “Stay as you are—for a while yet. I am not disgusted. Far from it. Your generosity gives me the sun, the moon and the stars!”

  “Stars… Isabeau whispered with wonder.

  I am quite pleased that you find pleasure in a duty my first countess abhorred. Duty? How I hate the word.”

  She ceased her pitiful struggles and searched his face. He could sense her concern.

  “ ‘Duty?’ But you have turned your honor and services to the king into legend.”

  “Meeting an enemy on the battlefield was easier than visiting my ‘dutiful’ countess in the marriage b
ed.”

  “How so?”

  He watched expressions flit across her oval face. Curiosity warred with disbelief.

  “Marta found no pleasure in the deed.”

  Disbelief won.

  “How could she not?”

  He smiled ruefully at the doubt in her voice. He reached up to brush a lock of hair from her face. “Marta had no liking for a husband’s possession.”

  “But surely... Were you not then so skilled in the sorcery as you are now?” she asked suspiciously. “I have heard some of the serving maids whispering of the skills of their men and I know not all husbands take your care.”

  Laughing, he gave her a squeeze. “She did not enjoy men.” A sennight ago pride would have kept him silent, but Isabeau’s enthusiasm seared through her initial virginal trepidation. Her reactions went a long way towards erasing the ghosts of Marta’s rejection.

  “I do not understand.”

  “Marta preferred the touch of a woman.”

  “But how could…” She twitched her hips where he was still buried deep inside her. “How could she find pleasure when another woman does not have your parts?”

  “I know not, nor do you need to,” he stated with surprising ease. He lifted her and craned his neck enough to lick first one nipple then the other. “I only know that I will not mind the trip to the countess’s chamber now that you will be waiting for my visits.”

  “You did not find pleasure with her either? No, how could you,” she answered her own question. Her voice became more distracted when he latched his mouth on her nipple and began to suckle in earnest. “Blanche said that a man -- could find release -- in a woman’s body even if… She were drunk with the juice of the poppy… But…”

  She whimpered when he pulled his mouth away but he needed to see her eyes.

  “I knew I needed an heir but my feet felt weighted with lead with each step closer to the marriage bed and never once did I find my wife waiting in my chamber.”

  Isabeau glanced down at her distended nipple still glistening from his mouth before she looked back to his face. She licked her lips and he wondered what she tasted.

  “You would not find it improper if I should visit your chamber?” she asked as her gaze drifted down to his mouth.

  He shook his head. “I would unwrap your body, layer by layer, as a hungry man peels fruit. You would be welcomed any time,” he assured her before pulling her down to his mouth once more.

  “Unwrap my body?” Isabeau murmured.

  Sometime later, after a slow and leisurely loving, Donovan found the strength of will to drag his sated body from Isabeau’s embrace. He prided himself for not staggering to the creek bank. Only when he retrieved one of his torn sleeves did he remember the wound on his arm.

  The reminder of Isabeau’s vulnerability brought a scowl to his face. He dipped the sleeve in the cold water and mentally wiped away his worry before turning back to Isabeau. She lay where he left her, drowsily watching his approach.

  “’Tis my turn to tend to your wounds,” he informed her as he held out the wet cloth.

  She covered a delicate yawn with her hand.

  “I have no injuries.”

  He kneeled beside her and rested his empty palm on her belly—holding her in place. “Don’t you?”

  Giving her no warning, he began to clean the remnants of her virgin blood and his seed from between her white thighs. He thought her maiden’s embarrassment caused her initial wriggling but the soothing cool rag caused her to relax, her knees to fall open.

  She had been temptation. She had given herself to his care. He had broken her maidenhead. By their marriage contract, she had sealed her fate the second she allowed him entrance to her body. Isabeau was his wife—his countess—and his lover.

  He bent over to press a reverent kiss in that most private place.

  “I would that you could take me again,” he whispered against her curls. “But we must return to the keep. Mayhap you can nap in your chamber on our return.”

  Donovan sat up reluctantly and curled his fingers around her wrist. She looked fragile in his grasp, yet he knew her woman’s strength.

  “I can’t leave yet.” Isabeau frowned. “I should stay here as I am a while longer.”

  “As you are?” Refolding the cool cloth, he brushed it from her throat, trailing it between her breasts to rest again at the apex of her thighs.

  She blushed brightly as she tried to push his intruding hand away. “Blanche said I am to be still for at least an hour to ensure my lord’s seed has a chance to find purchase.”

  “Blanche said—Blanche said.” He tried to mimic his future countess as he moved to cover her lower belly with his splayed hand. Her skin was cool against the heat of his palm. “Already, I can feel the curve of my seed growing inside you. My son or daughter seems anxious to come into being.”

  “Surely it is too soon to know?”

  He pounced on her doubt. “How many babes have you birthed?”

  “None. How many have you birthed.”

  “I fathered Christian so I have the superior knowledge,” he bluffed smoothly. “Now, stand up and I will help you dress.”

  She eyed him with great suspicion but she allowed him to assist her to her feet and then to put her clothes back in order. While patient with his clumsy fingers—he was perhaps more practiced at dispensing with a woman’s clothes than dressing her—she looked at him with speculation.

  “Donovan?” she asked as she watched him yank up his leggings then pull his tunic over his head.

  “H-mm?’

  “Do you have many lemans?”

  He poked his head through the neck hole and looked at her through narrowed eyes.

  “Nay.”

  “Good. In spite of Blanche’s lessons, I find the idea of you sharing your bed with another…” she paused.

  He waited patiently while she searched for the word.

  Isabeau finally chose. “Hurtful. I know a husband is not necessarily bound only to his wife—especially one as powerful as you—but I do not want to share you.”

  Isabeau would be jealous? He found her professed possessiveness novel and oddly—comforting. A wife who welcomed his embrace? Marriage with Isabeau was promising to be a different venture than his previous experience.

  Hands on hips, he eyed her from nose to toes then back again. “I vow to be as faithful as my countess. But I promise you this—should even your gaze stray to another male—I will impale him with my broadsword and roast him over the nearest spit.”

  A demure smile spread over Isabeau’s gentle features. “There will be no need for such violence.” She crossed the distance between them and lifted on tiptoe to whisper against his ear. “You can impale me with your broadsword anytime you wish.” Her emphasis on ‘broadsword’ left him in no doubt as to her meaning.

  He laughed and pulled her into a tight embrace, smothering her taunting giggles with a deep kiss. Then, still enjoying each other’s bodies, they brushed and pulled moss, leaves and grass from their clothing and hair. Life with Isabeau was going to be more of an adventure than any missions completed in the king’s name.

  They made fast work of packing their picnic remains. Then he signaled the well trained dogs that had imperturbably guarded their bower. He pulled Isabeau towards the nearest path with their linked fingers. The only time during the trip back to the castle that he released their grip was when he told her to hold while he took a quick detour into the brush. He retrieved the vile knife still embedded in a tree, knowing she thought him seeing to his personal needs. He did not disabuse her of the notion. Donovan wanted nothing to erase the mysterious smile bowing her pink lips.

  The trip back to the castle took much longer than the one into the woods. He wasn’t the only one to stop on the path. A stolen kiss, the brush of a hand along the other’s arm. Both of them knew, once inside the bailey, their every move would be watched.

  Tempted as he was to enter the bailey boldly through the front gates, he
thought better of it. While proud of his lady’s affection towards him, her welcome was still new enough for him to savor it in privacy. Her reputation was also a consideration. He wanted none to speculate on the extent of their intimacies. Rather than wait until the coming Saturday, he was determined to wed on the morrow—soon enough for her to endure the ribald jests. After the latest assault on his person—as well as their tryst—he felt it imperative to protect Isabeau with his name and titles.

  He would speak to Father Matthias immediately and then to his scribe. He would have his instructions noted and signed and then send a messenger to the king. Should anything happen to him, he could trust Carstairs to protect his countess.

  They made it through the postern gate and succeeded in circumventing the outer bailey with no one the wiser about their absence. They traversed the path near the jakes without notice. Even the hounds cooperated by keeping their muzzles silent.

  At a little used door on the west wall, Donovan bowed over Isabeau’s hand and gave her a kiss. She blushed, a deeper pink at the simple courtesy than she had on the night he had issued his test—when she had waited in his room and bared her body for his pleasure.

  Donovan watched her disappear into the shadows of the inner castle before turning away. He needed to speak to Carstairs, but first he would see to the arrangements with Father Matthias. The priest could pray over their marriage before the evening meal. Conscious of the smile curving his mouth, an unusual sensation, Donovan contemplated sharing Isabeau’s bed. Suddenly, the distance between his and the countess’ chambers seemed too far, not the previous dreaded obligation.

  He had taken no more than two strides when he heard Isabeau’s terrified scream.

  C hapter 35

  Isabeau paused just inside the doorway. After being in the sunlight, she needed a moment to let her eyes adjust to the dimness of the shadows. She pressed a palm to the cold stone of the wall and fought the temptation to turn back. Leaving Donovan’s side, even for the few hours before the evening meal, was harder than she dreamed possible.