The Conqueror

by Kris Kennedy

  “Did I take your bathwater?”

  He quirked an eyebrow. “Am I that dirty? Your message has gone off.”

  “And you’ve my undying thanks. For too many things to count.”

  He stood squarely in the centre of the room and stared into the brazier fire, deciding it was better by far not to look at her. Her hair was drying in a curling mass of dark silk, tossed over her shoulder. The crimson tapestry had slipped off one shoulder.

  A light tap came on the door. He waved Gwyn into the bedchamber and opened it. Maude stood with a tray of food in her outstretched arms.

  “Food, my lord,” she whispered, as if it were a most secretive package.

  He smiled faintly and took the proffered offerings. “Come,” he called to the dark opening of the bedchamber, laying the tray on the table. “Eat.”

  It took all of five seconds for her to arrive at the edge of the table, curling her toes and nearly drooling. He watched as she descended on the simple fare with a gusto uncommon among soldiers on campaign, wondering idly if she would gnaw through the wooden plates once all the food was gone.

  “Good,” she mumbled through a mouth filled with bread crust and cheese.

  “Umm.” He splashed more ale into her mug and thumped it down in front of her.

  Nodding her thanks, she sloshed a solid third of it down her gullet before coming up for air. He shook his head, bemused.

  Becoming aware of his scrutiny, she lifted her head from the feeding trough to look at him. He stared back.

  “Aren’t you going to sit?” she asked.

  He dropped onto the small bench opposite her, tilted the bench back, and crossed his arms over his chest.

  Dark green eyes travelled the length of his torso, then back to his face. “And eat?”

  He obediently picked up a hunk of cheese and popped it into his mouth.

  Her lips curved into a smile. “You are quite biddable.”

  “Oh, quite.”

  “Always?”

  “More so than you, I’ll wager.”

  The laugh that greeted this was utterly marvelous. Her face was dissolved in gentle laughter, and the dark tresses pulled back over her shoulders revealed delicate features of shoulder and neck. His gaze travelled down, drawn to a nasty bruise discolouring her exposed skin.

  The bench thumped forward. “You’re hurt.” He ran a finger over the bruise on her shoulder, a soldier’s swift appraisal. A ripple of goosebumps sped under his hand. He froze.

  She was blushing a pale shade of pink. Dark, wet hair hung in tangled locks across the scarlet linen and her white shoulder, creating a startling contrast in colours. The combination of such an ethereal face and the sudden, innocent desire dawning there made him snatch his hand back as if burned.

  “I’ll tend it when you’re done,” he said roughly.

  She ducked her head and muttered some inaudible reply. She could have said Stephen’s army was marching for the inn and he wouldn’t have heard. Such a hard, hot pounding hadn’t surged through him in many a year. It was so powerful and close at hand he felt short of breath.

  “What did you say?” he asked, dimly aware she’d been speaking.

  The query brought her head up, which he did not want at all. It would be better if she kept her head wrapped in a poultice all night long. No, he amended, glancing at the body concealed beneath a thin layer of linen and nothing else, her entire body should be swathed in woollen, wrapped from hairline to toes.

  “I said, I did not expect such a thing as all this from my night,” she murmured. “Did you?”

  He groaned audibly. This would never do. She could be swathed in sacks and buried under a haystack and it would not help. Already the image of her stretched out and sighing beneath him, black hair streaming over the pillows, was more vivid than the whole past year of his life.

  “Nay, I never expected such a thing as you.”

  She smiled faintly. “Fools, I think we agreed.”

  “Without sense.”

  “Entirely.”

  He drew back, leveled his tone. “I would have you regain yours, Raven, ere something happens you’ll be sorry for.”

  “Sorry?” She shook her head, her smile fading. “I think not. I have regrets, ’tis true—”

  “So do I, and I would not have this night become one of them.”

  She looked around, at the worn furniture, the glow of the brazier coals, water dripping down the stone pathways in the walls in narrow, silent rivulets. “I am convinced we too often measure regret against the ways of the world.”

  “There are worse things.”

  “Even so, that would not protect me tonight. The things of the world are far away right now. I can scarce recall them to mind.”

  “I can,” he said firmly. “You like mushrooms, but hate eel. You think yourself foolish, but wish for a certain blue gown. You can afford neither the dye or cloth, so never buy a bolt of a lesser fabric. Your steward—William of the Five Strands, no?—does not see to the fish traps as he ought. The harvest was never fully brought in this year, and may never be again. Too many have died. Once, you had a dream of the window in your mother’s bedroom being fitted with stained glass, like a chapel, for she’s an angel to you now, and it would bring her closer to home.”

  Gwyn’s lower jaw started to fall open as he worked his way through her panicked ramblings from the beginning of their ride, partially verbatim, partly paraphrased, but dead on in content. By the time he reached “an angel to you now,” she was staring open-mouthed.

  “Pagan! I did not even know you were listening!”

  “Oh, I was listening,” he murmured in a steel-edged voice, his restraint drawn to snapping. “And you ought listen to me right now, little bird: Be careful.”

  “Sensible, you mean.”

  “Most assuredly.”

  She paused, and he had a momentary thought he might escape unscathed. That she would do the prudent thing, save him from this rampaging desire. But her next words smashed the thin hope, taking him with it like water over a falls.

  “Sense is only one way to know a thing, Pagan,” she whispered. “I’m sure we could find another.”

  In a single move he was up, around the table, his arms around her waist, pulling her to her feet. He swept her hair off from her face. The half-dried curls picked up coppery glints from the firelight and her hair glowed in a black-fire curtain of silk around the delicate, sense-damaging beauty of her face. Their lips were inches apart; he could feel each shaky breath she dragged into her lungs.

  “God forgive me,” he muttered, then plunged in after his words.

  Their mouths locked, hard and greedy. He claimed her with no gentleness; the moment was betide and he moved in with unchecked assurance. Her hair was like silk, and her skin hot. Her lips were parted wide beneath him, her tongue meeting him with every stroke. He gathered fistfuls of her hair, gripping the dark silk with savage passion, and cupped them at the nape of her neck. When she dropped her head back and moaned into his mouth, it almost broke him.

  Gwyn knew nothing but that her life was changed forever. Wide-open and demanding, his hands engulfed her ribs. He bent her backwards and plied her mouth wide, hunting deep in the recesses of her mouth, dragging free shuddering sensations she’d never dreamed of before, pulsing, hot, greedy urges.

  He pushed her backwards with gentle, insistent hands and, when her buttocks pressed against the table, he stepped between her knees. Flexing the muscles in his thighs, he lifted her off the ground and pressed her onto the table, his hands and mouth like a well-informed thief intent on its plunder.

  His body was a wall of heat and muscle, the tapestry a thin veil he would heed only so long. His powerful thighs were between her knees, muscles pressing forward. His hands were everywhere, coaxing her body into moves she’d never imagined before, bending back, reaching up, her hips sliding in an unconscious rhythm. Firm, thick fingers cupped her head and lifted her half off the table to his mouth, until her torso was
stretched against his and she could feel his hammering heart. His arousal was hard and pushing ever closer to the place that quivered and wept moist desire. Invading her.

  “Do you know what I want to do to you?” he rasped against her lips. She was nodding, knowing nothing, certain of everything.

  His hand slid up her ribs and closed around her breast. Gwyn’s world slewed sideways. He was a magician, he knew exactly what he was doing to her, working her with expert caresses, making her cry out in longing and hope for some unknown release. Never before had she felt heat where she felt it now, sizzling through her blood, throbbing between her legs. He moulded his hands against the tapestry like it was her skin, seducing her, loosing little rivers of hot wanting that pulsed up and down her spine, laying claim with such breathtaking skill her body bucked of its own accord.

  When her body shuddered, Griffyn almost took possession of her right there. Spread her thighs apart with his knee and plunged himself into her wetness. The hot place between her thighs stroked against his erection, pushing, prodding, dangerous, perfect pleasure. Tongue, lips, sucking, teasing, the woman was good and he ached to slide her legs apart and make her fill the room with howls of pleasure. Her hands were around his neck, her thighs quivering on the tabletop, her body arching backwards into his invasion. She was ready.

  A pounding erupted at the door. Bham, bham, bham!

  Someone was hammering at the door.

  He ripped his mouth away. “Leave us,” he growled, but the door was flung open before the words were out.

  “Pagan!” Alex ran in shouting. “There’s news!”

  Griffyn spun, planting his body in front of Raven’s, his hand going reflexively for a non-existent sword.

  Alex put his heels to wood. “Pagan?” he said more quietly, and hesitantly. His gaze avoided lifting over Griffyn’s shoulder. “There’s news.”

  Griffyn nodded, but his words were soft-spoken and lethal. “Go. Now.”

  “My lord.” Alex bent his head and retreated out of the door.

  Gwyn sat up. They were frozen in their positions for half a minute, then he felt her shift behind him.

  “I should just shrivel up and die now, really,” she said quietly.

  He turned around. Poor idea. She was barely human, all hot desire and imagination. Quivering body, dark hair spilling over the table, tapestry beginning to part and reveal silky inner thighs, debauched she would be if she did but inhale again.

  He spun on his heel and crossed to the opposite end of the room. Outside the storm had descended with riotous enthusiasm. Propping the heels of his hands on the wall, he dropped his head and stared at the floor, trying to calm his breathing.

  A rustling drew his attention back to the table. He shifted his gaze to peer under the length of his outstretched arm. She was sliding off the table. Her feet hit the ground with a small thump.

  “I believe ’tis my turn to say I am sorry,” she said.

  He looked away and shook his head. “Nay. ’Tis I, again, who am at fault.” His muffled words rose up from between his outstretched arms.

  “No.” He heard her coming, the soft padding of her feet, the slight whisper of the ridiculous tapestry trailing behind her. He spotted a blotch of red fabric out of the corner of his eye. “You told me,” she insisted. “You warned me.”

  He took one hand off the wall and rubbed it along his jaw. He drew a deep, centering breath. “And I knew you were not one to listen. I should have left.”

  Her hand touched his arm briefly, then dropped away. “I knew what was happening.” Her face flushed pink. “I mean, I did not know, but I…I am sorry. I will be…good.”

  Feeling slightly relieved that they were talking again rather than wrapped in a lust-pounding embrace, he pulled back from the wall and looked at her skeptically. “Does that mean obedient?”

  A smile pressed against the corners of her lips. He could see the dented dimple beginning to peek out again. God, to have a woman like this.

  “I expect it does not, but we may hold out hope,” she observed dryly.

  He chuckled low in his throat, feeling strangely weary after this battle of seduction. “Mistress, if ever you become docile, may God have mercy on all our souls.”

  “He will surely spare a pagan.”

  “He will surely damn me for what I was about to do.”

  “But I would not.”

  God’s truth, she was perfection. Brave spirit, intelligent eyes, body of a seductress, she was funny and sweet and like nothing he’d ever known before.

  Not for him.

  He turned and strode out the door.

  Gwyn watched him disappear with long, self-assured strides, leaving her heart hammering in her chest so swiftly she worried for her health. She fell asleep with a smile on her face and no Ache in her heart for the first time in twelve years.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Alexander was waiting when he emerged into the narrow corridor. Griffyn said nothing as he pulled the door shut and started down the hallway. Alex fell into step beside him.

  “How long were you at the door?”

  “I wasn’t at the door. I was downstairs, intent on matters holy.”

  Griffyn gave him a sideways glance as they thumped down the stairs. “Holy? Sounds serious. I wouldn’t have expected it of you, Alex.”

  “I’ve been known.”

  “To what?”

  “Do what we all do—seek redemption. Or vengeance,” Alex added as they swung into the gathering hall.

  His men sat in a small circle in front of a brazier, trying to keep themselves warm in the dampness permeating the room. Outside the storm battered against the walls. The wind screamed, then went silent, losing its voice momentarily. On the table, a candle flame flickered wildly, pulling upwards towards the ceiling, then squatting low and fat around the wick, huddling close for its own warmth.

  Griffyn pulled a blanket over his shoulders and sat on a bench amid the circle of shadowy men. They all looked back at him, oddly quiet. Griffyn scanned their faces.

  “Redemption or vengeance.” He turned to Alex. “Why do I have the feeling you are expecting one or the other from me tonight?”

  “There’s news.”

  “What?”

  “Ionnes de l’Ami is dead.”

  He lifted a mug and splashed ale into it. The only sign he’d even heard was his knuckles tightening into whiteness around the handle.

  “When?”

  “A fortnight ago. They’ve been trying to keep it quiet.”

  “Who’s ‘they’?” he asked in a tone devoid of emotion. The foul traitor, the focus of his silent enmity for these seventeen years, dead? The man who had betrayed his father, forsworn his oath, stolen Griffyn’s home, broken his heart, dead? And not by Griffyn’s hand?

  “His heir.”

  “Heir? The son died years ago.”

  “There’s a daughter.”

  Griffyn stared into the flames. “I forget. What’s her name?”

  “Guinevere.”

  He entered the bedchamber long after the moon had risen and watched as she slept. Her hair drifted across his pillows like some dark, exotic silk. Her face lay half pressed against his pillows, her stunning body stretched beneath the blankets.

  De l’Ami spawn.

  God was cruel. Ionnes de l’Ami had been too many things to count. The worst of enemies and closest of friends. He had once saved Griffyn’s father’s life, deep in the depths of Palestine. He’d been the man whom Griffyn once called ‘Uncle’ and thought threw the very stars into the sky.

  Griffyn collapsed onto a bench by the bed and leaned forward, forearms on his thighs, watching Gwyn but not seeing her.

  He had been young back then, fewer than eight years to weigh against the centuries-old destiny awaiting him, back when de l’Ami had been ‘Uncle’ and the summers had been long. The laughing, grey-haired bear, Ionnes de l’Ami had known Griffyn’s destiny, cared for him more than his own father did. Taught him some of his ear
liest lessons: how to wield a sword, the right way to carve a duck, the importance of laughing at oneself.

  Oath-breaker.

  Liar.

  Betrayer.

  His hand went to the key around his neck. Your inheritance. I am sorry, Griffyn’s father had whispered, then died. About time, too. Past time.

  His father’s half-mad ravings those last few years had been awful, and unbelievable. His violence more awful and unbelievable yet.

  Griffyn no longer had time for the rages of old men, deformed by greed and cunning too long practiced. Everoot was his inheritance, and this little iron weight around his neck was surely not the key to the castle. That rested in his name and sword arm. And he was finished with people standing in his way.

  He felt like pounding the wall. He smashed his fingers through his hair and sat forward, grinding his elbows into the tops of his knees. What, then? Ionnes de l’Ami was dead, so he was to wreak his vengeance on a woman who was two at the time of the betrayal?

  To what end? he asked himself bleakly. Stake her up by the fingernails and she still wouldn’t be the one who’d hurt him.

  He stared down at his fists.

  Every truth he’d ever believed, every person he’d ever trusted, every lesson he’d ever learned, had turned out to be false. How could she ever be the exception?

  Everyone got infected with the sickness of soul. Everyone who knew of the hallowed treasure in Everoot’s vaults got corrupted, deformed. Ruined.

  Which brought him sharply around to Marcus fitzMiles. Endshire was sniffing around Everoot’s skirts, was he? If men at their best were greedy and corrupt, Marcus was a worm in the muck. Let him try to batter the Nest—she had defences Marcus hadn’t dreamed of.

  Griffyn sat back and crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes narrowed in on the candle flame. The old King Henri had put Marcus’s father, Miles, into a baronage because the wily royal dog saw the virtue of keeping his enemies close to hand. It was a prudent move. Not prudent enough, though.

  First father, then son, had taken several vows to honour the old king’s daughter Mathilda as successor, as had the rest of the English nobility. Then, when it suited his purposes, Marcus had turned to King Stephen. As had the rest. And, when it further suited his purposes, he set himself to imprison beautiful women and stock his own coffers forthwith.