“A youngest son, eh?” Her father shifted in his saddle, a puzzled expression on his face. “ ’Tis curious, indeed. How did a lad of such meager beginnings come by his skills, then? ’Twould seem a man would keep such a strong worker at home.”
“Perhaps there were too many mouths to feed,” Rosalynde speculated, wondering herself about the mystifying man she’d bound herself to. Like her father, she felt there was more to Aric than was immediately apparent. And as her father did, she wished to know the truth of it. But not now. Especially with Sir Gilbert in temporary residence at Stanwood.
“He was no doubt not a sterling son,” Sir Edward mused. Then he straightened on his horse. “I can forgive the mistakes of his youth so long as I have reason to trust him as a man.”
“Do you trust him?” Rosalynde was unable to resist asking.
Her father was slow to respond. “Aye, I do. At least I trust him to do his part in a fight. But that does not mean you should abandon your efforts, Rosalynde. Today would be a good day to approach him, while the castle is quiet. There will be few enough quiet days in the next weeks. Perhaps you could send for him, say … oh, I don’t care why. Because you would have him fitted for a new tunic,” he suggested with a vague gesture of his hand. “Use whatever excuse you like. Just give it another try.” Then, with an encouraging smile, he turned his horse and joined the waiting group of hunters.
In a matter of minutes they were through the gatehouse and on their way to the thick forests that stretched as far as the eye could see around the Castle Stanwood. Rosalynde was left standing on her block, contemplating her father’s final words and debating whether she should approach Aric again. It wasn’t her father’s request that prodded her to it, however. Rather, it was Cleve’s vague allusions that troubled her. His conversation with Aric made no sense to her, yet her entire future—and Aric’s—seemed to hang upon it. She could not rest until she knew how he had managed to sway the heretofore implacable Aric and actually convince him to leave.
She found him at the horse pen beyond the stables, staring intently at the horses fenced there. Come upon from behind, with his wide shoulders hunched thoughtfully while one foot was propped upon the second fence rail, he struck her once again as being possessed of the most extraordinary air of nobility. There was an aura of power about him, as if he naturally expected others to bend to his wishes. As her pace slowed to an unconscious halt, she felt an intense pang of regret. Nothing ever came out as it should, she thought morosely. No one she loved ever stayed. Not her mother. Not her brother. And now not Blacksword either.
He turned his head sharply. Then when he recognized who so silently watched him, he altered his stance at the fence. “Is there something you want of me?” he asked curtly. His gaze was hard as he raked her with it, yet the anger she saw there was not cold and icy. Rather, it burned her with its ferocity and seared her with its thoroughness.
“My father sends me on a mission,” she answered honestly. “He would have me learn more of your dark past. He likes you,” she added with a bitter smile. “He would keep you among his men-at-arms.”
His expression lifted marginally at her truthful revelation. He leaned back against the fence, studying her well before he replied. “What would you know?”
At this unexpected response, Rosalynde became even more confused. Cleve had revealed that Aric would leave after the tourney. Why, then, was the man now becoming so agreeable? Still, she was too curious about him to forgo this opportunity to learn more of his vague past. “In the years since you left your father’s house—”
“I robbed and pillaged, and took whatever I wanted from whomever I wished.” He straightened up and started toward her. “I honed my skills on villein and noblemen alike, and I devoured young maidens like yourself. Is that what you wish to hear?” he finished sarcastically as he stopped mere inches from her.
“That … that’s not true,” she whispered hoarsely, as much dismayed by his cruel words and taunting tone as she was by his sudden nearness. As if the heat of his strong body reached out for her, she felt an answering warmth rise quickly in her, lifting all her senses to a new and sharper awareness of him.
“I devoured you, didn’t I? You sacrificed your virginal feast to my insatiable hunger, didn’t you?” He mocked her unmercifully. “Isn’t that how you would describe it?” His eyes bore down into hers with a fury she guessed born of her rejection and Cleve’s as-yet-unnamed threats. Panicked by her chaotic emotions, she stumbled back a pace.
“No … no, it wasn’t that way.”
“No? Then pray tell, describe it to me.”
Rosalynde shook her head in confusion and stared at him with wide, haunted eyes. “Why are you doing this?” she whispered. “Why?”
But he did not answer. As if he struggled with his own emotions, he only stared at her, his eyes dark and opaque with his own private tortures. Then he lifted one hand and touched her chin briefly. The smile that lit his masculine face seemed to mock him even more than it did her.
“Why not buy my answers, Rose? As you did before. For a kiss you might learn something to appease your father. For an embrace, a fact he would value. Perhaps you would pay the ultimate price.” His eyes burned her with their piercing strength. “Throw yourself on the altar of pure physical pleasure and finally know the truth about the man you wed.” He took her suddenly by both arms and pulled her hard against the rigid length of him. “Know the truth, my sweet thorny Rose, unless you fear it.” Then before one of the few watchmen could turn and notice his too-bold handling of her, he thrust her away from him.
For Rosalynde, however, the damage was done. It was impossible for her to remain aloof from him, to treat him as if he were just another of her fathers men. Too keenly did she feel the imprint of him against her. Too painfully did the sweet ache of longing fill her. She wanted him, yet she would see him gone. She trusted him with her fathers life, yet she knew that already he had tampered irreversibly with her own. Was ever a maiden so accursed?
“I do fear it,” she confessed in a voice that shook with repressed emotions. “I fear you.”
“ ’Tis right that you do, fair lady. Do not press me or you shall feel the full weight of my anger.”
He turned from her and stared once more at the horses, clearly dismissing her from his presence. Yet she could not go. She watched in helpless confusion as one mighty war-horse broke away from the rest and ambled toward the taciturn man. As Rosalynde remained where she was, too shaken to move, the tall black horse nudged the man’s arm, demanding a caress, seeking a treat. When Aric rewarded him with a dried apple and then a scratch between the ears, she struggled with her feelings. She had hurt him with her rejection, and that knowledge sat heavily upon her. But whatever had passed between him and Cleve had aggravated the situation even further. Unaware of the soft plea in her voice, she spoke again.
“Why do you not leave here now?”
She thought he would not answer, for his attentions remained focused on the huge, amiable animal. Then he shifted slightly. “You are more than anxious to be rid of me. You make that clear enough. But ’tis my intention to stay at Stanwood.”
“To stay!” Happiness leapt foolishly in her heart, to be swiftly followed by renewed fear for him. “But … but Cleve said …”
His head twisted sharply toward her and his flint-hard eyes pinned her once more. “Your rabid pup made a bargain with me. He thinks, of course, that he shall win and that I shall leave. But I have no intentions of losing, Rose. You may mark my words well. I will not lose and I will not go.”
“What of Sir Gilbert?” she whispered. “He is bound to identify you eventually.”
“He will not see me, because he does not expect to see me.” Then his mouth curved in a mirthless grin. “Of course, you can end the suspense, if you like. Simply tell him of me.”
Rosalynde was stung by his easy disregard of her honest concern for him. She was angry, but primarily she was hurt. However, she would sooner die t
han let him know how his cruel words cut her. Her voice was brittle and her eyes bright with fettered tears when she responded to him.
“You like the suspense, the intrigue, and the danger. Well, perhaps I do as well. If you wish to court disaster, so be it. I’ll not intercede again on your behalf.” She started to turn away, unable to maintain this charade of nonchalance any longer. But Aric stopped her with an angry jerk, then hauled her rudely around to face him. Beyond them the big war steed whickered softly, and Aric’s furious gaze flicked briefly away from her to scan the empty bailey.
“I would speak to you privately,” he said quietly, although his eyes glittered with emotions.
“N-no,” Rosalynde answered shakily, as her heart’s pace trebled from both fear and anticipation.
“Why this sudden hesitation?” he taunted, his face just inches above her own. “You said you sought information for your father. I’ll give it to you now, only come into the stables. Unless, of course, that was not your true purpose in seeking me out.” He released his harsh grasp on her then stepped back a pace and gave her a brief mocking bow. “Your servant, milady.” Then he strode into the barn, as arrogant and unrepentant as ever.
Rosalynde stood against the fence, bracing her weight against it as she struggled to calm herself. How easily he played her emotions against her. How deftly he ferreted out her vulnerabilities and used them to his own ends. Yet knowing all that, she still could not resist the challenge he had given her. She did want whatever information he might reveal, she told herself, if not for her father, then for herself so that she could more easily shield him from the threat of Sir Gilbert’s discovery. Yet as she finally forced herself toward the stable, she knew with a sinking sense of doom that those practical reasons had nothing whatsoever to do with her real reason for following him.
In the dim light of the stable she saw him in the shadows near a crude ladder. Up the ladder he went, seemingly unaware of her presence until he cast a bold glance at her as he disappeared into the loft. Rosalynde refused to hear the voices of warning clamoring in her head. Her pulse beat high in her throat as she reached for the ladder and looked warily up into the dark hole that was the loft. Then, holding her skirt in one hand, she mounted the steps, one by one, until she was half the way into the storage loft. Suddenly, before her eyes could accustom themselves to the absence of light, she was plucked from the ladder by two sure hands, stood firmly on the floor, then easily spun around to face him. Her breath caught in her chest as she stared up at his harshly drawn face, lit only faintly by cracks in the slanted roof above them. But instead of the kiss she expected—the kiss she wanted above all else—what she received was an ungentle shake and the hoarse threat of his voice.
“Ask your question,” he ordered.
“What?”
“Ask your question. ’Tis why you came, is it not?”
“Oh … I …” Rosalynde faltered and unreasoning tears stung her eyes. “My … my father would know for certain if he … if he may count on your loyalty in battle,” she finally managed to say.
“It seems I answered that once before.” He drew her against his chest and his voice lowered to a husky rumble. “Kiss me, Rose.”
She went into his fierce embrace without hesitation. Molded to his body, pressed within his steely clasp, she surrendered completely to his demand. On tiptoes she reached up to meet his lips, fired with a recklessness completely foreign to her. She felt his hesitation and his anger. His lips were hard and punishing, meeting hers, then forcing her back as if he must let her know that he—only he—was in control. But her pliant acceptance of him became her triumph, for as her mouth opened to him, accepting the heated plundering of his tongue, she sensed a change in him. The rigidness of his body relaxed, and as he bent over her, he fitted her to him more naturally.
When he lifted his head they were both gasping for breath. In the dark, low-ceilinged space she could hardly see him. But beneath her hands and against her body she could read him well, and she was much encouraged.
“He can rely on me,” he whispered against her ear, then searched out the sensitive curve of her lobe, sending tremors of delight through her. “What else would you know?”
Rosalynde closed her eyes tightly, trying to focus on his words as he pressed languid kisses down her neck, circling his tongue in the exposed hollow of her throat. “I … He …” She took a sharp breath and concentrated. “Why did you leave your father’s house?”
His mouth abandoned its sultry task and she felt his gaze on her face. Reluctantly she raised her lashes, fearing to see unpleasant reality intrude on this most turbulent of interludes.
“That answer will cost you dearly,” he murmured. She felt one of his hands move down her back to sweep across her derriere. Then his palm pressed her intimately to him and a wave of shameful heat rose in her belly. His hand slid back and forth. It was a mere matter of inches, and both her skirt and kirtle rested between his hand and her skin. Yet in that slow, seductive rhythm he raised her emotions to a new and fiery level.
His lips slanted across hers, and his tongue slid into the warm depths of her mouth. In and out he stroked the sensitive skin of her inner lips. Back and forth his palm stroked. Then his thigh pressed between her legs, opening her to his further sensual assault. Rosalynde was gasping for breath, drowning in a splendid storm of pent-up emotions and physical desire. When he finally pulled his mouth from hers, she let out a helpless moan of disappointment, then let her head fall weakly against his warm chest.
“I left to fight with the Empress Matilda and then Prince Henry, first in Normandy and later in England.”
Rosalynde hardly heard his husky answer to her question. His words hardly registered in her mind. Yet as he held her there against him, his heart thudding a mirrored rhythm to her own, she realized that he was waiting for her next question. She did not reason out what it would be. The words came without thought, more from her heart than her head. Nor did she fear the price he would demand.
“Why have you stayed? Why do you continue to stay?” His answer was swift in coming, and it stole her breath away.
“For this,” he whispered as his teeth tenderly caught the fullness of her lower lip. “For this,” he murmured as his hand curved around her breast and his thumb stroked with intense accuracy across her already-hardened nipple. “For this,” he groaned as his other hand pressed her possessively against the thick swelling at his groin.
Everything that was feminine in Rosalynde gloried to the answer he gave. He stayed for her. He risked her father’s anger and Sir Gilbert’s swift punishment for her. He did all this for her. Could she risk any less for him? At that moment, none of the practical reasons that made such a liaison between them impossible mattered in the least. She refused to remember that he had once professed to want her for Stanwood only. He was a man who wanted her to the point of grave risk to himself. And she wanted him beyond all caring. That was all she need know.
As she rose to meet his masculine domination, she knew it was inevitable. She had no answers for the future, but she pushed that dampening thought from her mind. He wanted her, and though that was not quite the same thing as love, at that moment it nonetheless felt very much like it. God knew that she had begun to love him with an intensity strong enough to sustain them both.
He lay her back upon a stack of empty sacks. Her girdle fell aside; her gown was unlaced and tugged swiftly over her head, and yet she did not recall him relenting in the devouring kiss he pressed upon her. His tunic and chainse were torn from him, as much by her own eager hands as his own. Then he lay down over her, pressing her slender form into the cushion of rough-woven burlap.
“Be mine,” he murmured as his lips teased hers apart with gentle nips from his strong teeth and silken strokes of his tongue. His hands caught both of hers, bringing them above her head. The full length of him weighed down on her, imprinting her, it seemed, with his possessive mark. One of his thighs parted her own, resting intimately against the dam
p warmth of her most private place. Her breasts rose with every labored breath to rub his shirtless chest, and even through her kirtle she felt the coarse caress of the curling hairs sprinkled lightly there.
She squirmed against him, restless from the building heat inside her. She wanted to touch him. She wanted to run her fingers through his long, golden hair and slide her palms against his damp, overheated skin. But he would not release his hold on her hands, only grasping both her wrists in one of his hands and leveraging himself up on his other elbow.
“Do you burn for me?” he whispered huskily against her throat as he marked a trail of sensuous bites and kisses down to her collarbone and across one shoulder. He slid his hard male torso against her, torturing her with the heavy weight of his arousal against her linen-clad belly. Then his mouth moved down her chest, kissing the soft upper swells of her breasts through the thin garment. When he found her nipple, he teased it at first, flicking back and forth across its puckered peak, wetting the kirtle and sending her senses reeling. Then his lips fastened on the dusky nub, and he drew it deeply into his mouth.
At once Rosalynde’s entire body lifted against his much heavier weight. As he alternately circled her sensitive nipple, then lightly bit and sucked on it, she strained up to him, wanting to get away, wanting to get more—wanting everything. From one nipple to the other he moved, offering it the same torturous caress. But now his other hand drew one of her knees up, so that his insistent arousal pressed directly against the center of her desire. In dire need of the completion he teased her with, Rosalynde thrashed her head back and forth and struggled to free her hands.
“Please,” she begged, her eyes closed in passionate thrall. “Please,” she panted in unashamed longing.
“How sweetly you beg me, my fiery wife. How good your words sound to my starving body.” Once more his lips closed on one of her nipples, biting until the passion approached pain, then soothing with hot, wet circles of his tongue. “ ’Twould be my pleasure to keep you ever thus, tied helpless beneath me while I explore your tempting body and teach you all the lessons of passion.” His loins ground against her as he slid up and down against her belly. “Would you like that, my hot honey Rose? Do you long for such torture at my hands?”
The Rose of Blacksword (Loveswept) Page 30