Maid Until Midnight

by Joanne Rock

  It was one thing to trust this man with her body. With her innocence. It was another to admit a weakness for him that he could use against her. What if he did not yearn for her?

  She knew that some men—many men—spilled their seed far and wide. Perhaps she had not pleased Simon half so much as he’d pleased her.

  Shame warmed her cheeks.

  “I hope I keep that blessing.” He tipped her chin up to meet her gaze. “But I must confess that I have every intention of wedding you, Matilda. I would prefer your first time be as my legal wife so that your father would never question the union.”

  The heat inside her cooled and for the first time she realized that the fire had dimmed to glowing coals. She tensed, feeling foolish for her fanciful thoughts..

  Had he been calculating how to manipulate her all along? Of course he had. He held her captive, didn’t he? She was simply too blind to see that he’d only wanted one thing all along. Her father’s wealth, just like all the others. The great pain of betrayal staggered her.

  “You worked to show me passion while you remain cool and aloof. Always moving toward your goal of a bride.” Yanking the corner of the blanket harder, she pulled more wool between them, cocooning herself in the fabric. “I see you are far better at playing games than I am.”

  “You misunderstand.” He gripped her shoulder in one hand. “I did not want to ruin you. I had to maintain some restraint.”

  “How wise to keep your eye on the prize. Or the dowry in this case.” Liquid heat built between her eyes. She had never felt so vulnerable. Wrenching away, she stumbled off the tick, dragging the blanket with her.

  “Matilda.” His sharp tone infuriated her.

  To think of all she’d been about to give him...

  “Matilda.” He raised his voice as he stood, casting a long shadow over her. “If I could afford to think only of passion, I would choose you. I would take everything I could from this night and worry about marriage in the morning.”

  She found her kirtle and slid it over her head, needing some barriers between her and the man who’d set her soul on fire with his kisses and then frozen it with cleverness and cunning.

  “How noble of you to withhold yourself for my sake.” She would walk home in the dark if she had to, but she could not stay in this cottage with him another moment.

  “But there is more at stake than marriage. Or the dowry I need.”

  “At least you admit it.” She scooped up the gold brocade surcoat and dropped it on top of the kirtle. “I pity the poor maids who are not as well financed. How lucky am I to pay for my pleasure with my family’s coffers.”

  “Stop.” He gripped her wrists, making it impossible to tie the laces on her garment. “I arranged for a marriage for more than wealth, but I cannot deny that was part of it.”

  Anger flared in her breast as strongly as desire had burned there so recently. She clamped her lips closed, having nothing further to say.

  “You sought compassion? Well, so did I. Except that I didn’t seek it for me.” His cool blue eyes bored into her.

  She tried to look past her resentment to make sense of what he was saying.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I require tenderness in a wife.” His voice hit a ragged note. “Tenderness in a mother.”

  Surprise took the place of anger. “Excuse me?”

  “I need a compassionate mother for my six-year-old daughter, Rowena.” The words seemed torn from him, as if part of some secret admission. Which made no sense. What man wasn’t proud of his children?

  “I didn’t know you were married before.” She wondered about the woman who had won this aloof man’s heart.

  “My wife died three years ago.” He released her, his arms falling at his sides, his powerful chest heaving as if from the old grief. “My daughter needs a mother more than most. She is...slower than other children.”

  Matilda spied deep emotion in his eyes. Anguish. Fear, even. Her heart thawed a little at the sight.

  “Slow?” She hadn’t heard a child described that way before, but she had the feeling she knew what he hinted at.

  “Aye.” His jaw flexed, his expression turning stony. “There are those who would label her an idiot and lock her away. But I will do everything in my power to make sure that never happens. Even if it means losing you.”

  Chapter Five

  The lord of Glen Rising came to his senses by midnight.

  He’d dispatched Will, Simon’s squire, to return to Simon with the message in the hope Matilda could be properly wed. He’d even welcomed the nuptials to take place at Glen Rising Keep, an invitation Simon had to decline for fear of treachery. Instead, he departed the cottage to return to Longford, where a priest awaited them. Married two days hence in the comfort of his own keep, he had not consummated the union in the hope that Matilda would come to understand his reasons for needing the marriage. He’d hoped she would forgive him in time. Therefore, he’d left her in peace during the nights. He sent his retainers to obtain the rest of the dowry he’d bargained for a year ago, and to secure Matilda’s belongings.

  Yes, he had been spared a siege and a mother had been secured for Rowena, but his bride had barely spoken to him since that evening at the cottage.

  A fortnight later, he could stand no more of her censure. He had seen her conversing with his daughter when she did not think he noticed. And he had been warmed by Matilda’s tenderhearted mothering of his daughter. He’d been right to do this for Rowena since few people had ever treated her with such open warmth before. Yet Matilda remained as distant as ever toward him?

  Tonight, instead of waiting for her to take her place beside him in the great hall, he sought her chamber instead.

  His knock was answered by a sweeter tone than he’d heard from her in days. But then, she did not know who was knocking. Perhaps she thought a maidservant had arrived to help her dress.

  Turning the handle, he stepped into the chamber to the scent of heather flowers on a tendril of steam. Instantly, he realized she must be at her bath, the fragrance emanating from behind a privacy curtain in the corner of the quarters.

  “Clare?” Matilda called from behind the screen of a heavy blue tapestry that shielded the dressing area. The sound of water sloshing confirmed his suspicion that she was in the bath. “Have any trunks arrived?”

  He longed to step closer, drawn by her voice. He had not meant to invade such a private moment. But now that he was here, the vision of her undressed and near proved too difficult to resist. Pivoting, he locked the chamber door.

  “Clare?” she called again, the sloshing going silent while she awaited a response.

  “I will have your trunks brought up shortly,” he replied, drawing in the scent of the heather and remembering their time on the straw-and-heather tick in the cottage near Glen Rising.

  The fragrance created a potent reminder of what they’d nearly shared.

  “Simon.” The anger in her voice came right through the faded tapestry that depicted a maid with a falcon perched on one gloved hand.

  Anger seemed better than coldness, however. At least that was an emotion of passion.

  “Do you require any assistance?” he asked, stalking closer.

  “I require privacy,” she snapped.

  “I begin to worry I’ve given you too much already,” he returned, pausing just outside the privacy screen. “A fortnight is a long time for a man to contemplate what might have been if I had not insisted on treating you with honor.”

  He reached to part the folds of the fabric, pulling aside the barrier.

  She grabbed a scrap of linen with a yelp and flung it onto the surface of the water as if to hide what lay beneath. And although he could not help but glimpse high, round breasts bobbing at the surface of the bath, he was most captivated by the fire in her molten steel eyes.

  “Honor such as this, sir?” she demanded, her blond tresses piled on her head in a twist of damp curls. One hand clutched the sopping linen to
her breasts while the other curled around the edge of the large wooden tub.

  The high color in her cheeks recalled to his mind another time when he had ignited such a flush. All at once, he remembered her taste.

  “Nay.” A sudden thirst assailed him that could only be quenched with her kiss. How had he withstood the long nights without her? “The kind of honor that insisted I tell you the truth of my need for marriage. A need that began as practical, and ended up decidedly passionate.”

  His breath grew heavy, as did his staff. He hovered at the edge of the tub and then skimmed his fingers lightly along the soapy bubbles.

  “I’ve learned there is no passion without compassion.” She shifted in the water and one pale, glistening knee made an appearance as she drew it closer to her chest. “You taught me that when your games and your touches proved heartless and self-serving. There is no passion when there is cunning.”

  With an effort he tried to stifle his hunger for her long enough to argue.

  “It is compassion that made me wait to visit your chamber. Compassion that wanted your first time to be special and not some groping game you might later resent.”

  Her grip on the tub tightened, her body tense when he wanted her languid and warm beneath his. He retracted his fingers from the bath and stared at her across the heather-scented steam.

  “Compassion demands I protect my daughter at all costs,” he continued, frustration crawling up his spine and tightening on the base of his skull. “And now that we are wed, that same compassion compels me to protect and honor you always, even when passion urges me to pull you out of the tub and take you every way I’ve wanted to since that night in the cottage.”

  Every instinct he possessed screamed at him to reach into the water and show her what they’d both been denied. But he forced himself to turn away, his eyes focused on the door.

  * * *

  Matilda felt his words drop down into the well of her heart and send ripples of warmth to the places inside her that had been cold.

  “Wait.” She gathered the linen towel close and stood dripping in the tub. “Is there truly a need that is not merely practical? A desire for marriage that rests on more than fortune and convenience?”

  Her heart pounded so loudly she feared she would not hear his answer. But they were wed and she was afraid she’d already lost her heart to him. What did it matter if she risked herself with him yet again? Every night she had half hoped he would come to her to consummate their marriage, and every night she was partially relieved, hating the way she’d fallen so easily for his touch.

  But what if he had been as affected by their time together as she had been?

  What if he wanted her with the same fever that kept her awake at night, thinking of him? Mayhap they could build on that.

  Now, Simon turned slowly. Blue eyes raked over her, making her very aware of her bare body beneath the towel. She had only a moment to contemplate what he was thinking behind that liquid gaze. Because the next thing she knew, she was lifted from the water and crushed in his arms, soaking towel and all.

  “There is more,” he growled against her skin before he kissed her neck, his tongue stroking a path to the base of her throat while he carried her to her bed.

  He tossed her gently into the thick mattress of fine feathers that felt like falling into a cloud. Tapers burned at the bedside even though the hour was early. She’d been spoiled here with baths and fine food, perfumes and treats of all kinds. His thoughtfulness had been evident in her surroundings from the moment they’d set foot in Longford, but she’d been too mad at him—too embarrassed at her own naïveté to appreciate how he’d been caring for her from afar.

  “I will show you how much more,” he continued, stripping off his damp tunic and pulling away her wet linen. “And you will never question the depth of my desire again.”

  His mouth fell upon her breasts and feasted there, drawing a heated line down the valley of her cleavage and reminding her of the wicked things he’d taught her the last time he’d kissed her thus. She gripped his shoulders, pulling tight against her.

  “It is not practical for me, you see,” she murmured, her hips twisting against his chest in an effort to get closer as he kissed her belly and her hips. “My dreams have been plagued with memories of what we did and what might have happened that night.”

  The satisfied male groan reverberated against her throat as he kissed his way back up her body.

  “You are all I dream about,” he confided, tugging the satin tie from her hair and loosening the waves she’d tried to keep out of the tub. “I’ve wanted you every second.”

  She closed her eyes and gave herself over to the moment, inhaling his clean scent and tasting the light saltiness of his flesh along his shoulder. He rubbed a finger over her lips and slid it inside her mouth, surprising her with the invasion. When he removed it, he used that same digit to touch her intimately, playing in the wetness he found there.

  Heat surged through her, creating little shocks of pleasure in her breasts and in her womb, concentrating in a sharp ache between her thighs.

  “I am ready to be your wife,” she whispered, wanting to know the feel of his body joined with hers. To feel connected with him always.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck, not giving him much room to unfasten his braies and position himself between her thighs. But she wanted him close, needed to feel him tight against her after the long, empty nights without him.

  “You are mine now,” he reminded her, the words a warm breath in her ear as he edged her thighs wider, making room for himself.

  You are mine too, she thought, cupping his face in her hands and staring up into his eyes.

  “There is a moment of pain,” he said, his gaze soft on her.

  Gentle.

  The rest of him throbbed against her, every inch of him hard and straining as he edged his way inside her.

  She nodded, understanding, accepting.

  When his hips thrust forward, she cried out, her nails digging into his flesh. Scoring him. She didn’t realize it until the pain subsided and she found her fingernails there, half-embedded. Quickly, she loosened her grip and kissed one shoulder where the dark red half-moons lay.

  “I’m sorry.” She tucked her forehead against his neck.

  “It is not half the pain you bear. But it will ease.”

  “It’s better now,” she assured him, thinking it could be nice if— “Ooh.”

  He moved inside her and she felt the sweet, liquid heat build again, the same one he’d called forth that night in the cabin.

  Was it possible to feel such pleasure so soon afterward? The question evaporated as the tension coiled deep within. He nipped at her breasts, licking a path around one tip. She locked her legs about his hips, squeezing. His thighs moved against hers, his body so powerful.

  The release hit her hard and suddenly, wringing her insides again and again while she rode out the lush spasms. Pleasure seized her so thoroughly she could hardly tell when his own fulfillment began. Soon, they shouted together, a chorus she had been waiting for ever since he’d first kissed her.

  When the last of the twinges settled and they lay beside each other on her bed, Simon covered her with a soft down coverlet, tucking the fabric close to her chin. Then he smoothed her hair away from her face, the whole mass a wild tangle from their efforts.

  “I am yours now,” she said, and twined their fingers together under the blanket, watching his face in the dimming light of late afternoon. “And I will protect you and Rowena too. At all costs.”

  For a moment, his eyes misted, his father’s love obvious. His jaw flexed for a long moment before his gaze cleared and he held her palm to his chest.

  “That is more than I could have hoped for. But I gladly accept for both our sakes.”

  “She is a beautiful girl. When I have felt angry inside and resentful at you, Rowena has lifted me up with simple pleasures like stargazing or flower picking.” Long before Simon had come to h
er chamber, she had felt a softening toward him because of Rowena.

  If she had a daughter such as that little girl, she would have moved heaven and earth to insure she was kept safe from the real simple minds of the world—the people who wanted to lock away anyone different.

  “I am blessed with both of you, my wife. My love.” He kissed her forehead and her temple, making her feel more treasured than she’d ever been back at Glen Rising when the wealthiest men of the realm had vied for her hand.

  A tender happiness took root inside her, a new appreciation for her warrior knight husband. She understood all that was not spoken in his declaration. All the promise of deeper emotions yet to come.

  “I look forward to watching that love grow every day for many years to come. You have shown me a depth of warmth and compassion I did not guess you possessed.” She pressed a kiss to his shoulder, flicking her tongue along the collarbone to taste his skin. “But I confess I would like to learn more about the passion.”

  His lips curled into a smile that she hoped to see more often.

  “Then I promise to give you a thorough education. Starting right now....”

  * * * * *

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