Not today, she reminded herself.
She turned and examined the books on the high shelf. “Can I look at one?”
“Which one do you want?”
“The biggest one.”
He lifted the large folio down, placing it on the table, covering the cryptic drawings. Christiana sat in the chair and carefully opened it. She stared in surprise at the lines and dots spread out in front of her.
“It is Saracen, David.”
“Aye. The pictures are wonderful. Keep turning.”
She flipped the large sheets of parchment. “Can you read this?”
“Some of it. I never learned to write the language well, though.”
“Is this forbidden?” she asked skeptically. She knew that the church frowned on certain books.
“Probably.”
She came to one of the pictures, and it was indeed wonderful and strange. Little men in turbans and odd clothes moved across a world drawn to look like a carpet.
“Will you teach me to read this?”
“If you wish.”
He took down the harp and leaned against the table's edge beside her, looking down at the book while he plucked absently on the strings. The instrument gave a lovely lyrical sound. She continued turning the pages, glancing on occasion at the man resting close to her now and the compelling fingers creating a haunting melody.
Toward the back of the book she found some loose sheets covered with chalk drawings. Spare lines described tents on a desert and a town by the sea. She knew without asking that David had drawn them.
Beneath them, on smaller sheets, lay the faces of two women.
One of them riveted her attention. The face, beautiful and melancholy, appeared vaguely familiar. She realized that she studied an image of his mother. It felt eerie to be facing a dead person thus, but she examined the face closely.
“Will you tell me about her?” she asked quietly.
“Someday.”
She turned her attention to the other face. “Who is she?” She gazed at the sloe-eyed exotic beauty captured forever with careful, fine lines. She knew that she pried but she could not ignore the worldly way this woman's face looked at her.
“A woman whom I met in Alexandria.”
As with the likeness of his mother, there was much of the artist's feelings in the sensitive way this woman was drawn.
“Did you love her?” she asked, a little shocked by her own boldness but not too much so. He had become much less a stranger since she stepped into this chamber.
“Nay. In fact, she almost got me killed. But I was enchanted by her beauty, as I am by yours.”
Something in his quiet tone made her go very still. She lifted her gaze and found him looking at her and not at the book and its drawings. Looking and waiting. He was good at that. Something in his eyes and in the set of his mouth told her that he contemplated waiting no longer.
He saw her and wanted her and paid the King a fortune to have her.
He had stopped playing the harp. Her pulses pounded a little harder in the renewed silence. Total silence. Not a sound in the whole house.
She returned to the book and very carefully turned the page, burying the drawings. Another painting loomed but she didn't really see it.
“Do you know that I have only seen your hair down once, at the betrothal,” he said. She sensed his hand reach toward her even before his fingers fell on her head. “Even in the bath it was bound up.”
The light pressure of his caress sent a tremor through her. The bath. The wardrobe. His hands and his touch.
“Take down your hair for me, Christiana.”
His tone fell somewhere between a request and a command. She leaned back in the chair, away from him.
She would marry this man very soon. She shouldn't be afraid of him. But her quickening blood and unworldly spirit shouted to her that she should get away from him now.
She looked at him, silently asking him to remember their conversation in the garden and to understand and wait a little longer. “Morvan is probably at the shop, David. I should go and meet him.”
“I left word that we were coming here.”
“Then he most likely waits outside. He will not enter. I should not leave him there.”
He gestured to the window. “It looks out on the courtyard. See if he awaits you.”
She eased out of the chair and past him, and turned on her tiptoes to glance down at the deserted courtyard.
His quiet voice flowed over her back and shoulders. “He will not come. He accepts that you belong to me now. As you do.”
She went down from her toes and looked up at the clear afternoon sky. A part of her wanted desperately to fly out that window. But his touch and words and the expectant silence of this house had awakened those other feelings, and that exquisite anticipation licked through her.
“You frighten me sometimes,” she said. “I know that you should not and that you have said that it isn't fear, but a part of it truly is.”
He was quiet for a moment. The house seemed to quake with its emptiness. “Aye,” he finally said. “For a virgin, part of it truly is.”
She sensed him move. She felt his presence behind her. She both awaited and dreaded his touch, her spirit stretched with tension like a string pulled taut.
His hands gently took her waist and she sighed at the feel of each finger. His head bent to her bare shoulder. He kissed the little scratches, and then her neck. She closed her eyes, savoring the delicious closeness of him.
“Take down your hair, Christiana.”
She raised her arms and clumsily fumbled for the pins that held her hair. She pulled out the intricate twists and plaits, terribly conscious of how weak and vulnerable she felt, wonderfully aware of those fingers splayed around her.
The heavy waves fell section by section down her neck and back, all the way to his hands. She shook her head to release the last of them, placing the pins on the windowsill.
He nuzzled his face in her unbound hair, and his breath tingled her scalp and neck through the tresses.
His hands turned her to him and took her face, cradling it gently like something precious and fragile. He kissed her tenderly, beautifully, and fully, and she trembled as his mouth made the low tension and excitement sharpen and rise.
He prolonged the kiss, taking her in an embrace that pulled her to his warmth. She held her arms open at his sides for one worried moment before accepting him.
She sensed a change in him after that. His kiss deepened, commanding her desire. His hand cupped her breast. She gasped and closed her eyes, waiting for the delicious sensations.
They undid her completely. Her limbs went languid as heat poured through her body. His soft hair brushed her face as he lowered his mouth to the skin exposed by her low-cut cotehardie, kissing the top swell of the breasts that his fingers caressed into peaks of yearning.
Fear told her to stop him but the desire would not let her. Rivulets of pleasure merged into a fast-running river, and struggling against its current seemed futile and impossible.
His fingers played at her and the pleasure became a little frantic. I am drowning in it, she thought as his mouth claimed hers again.
He lifted his head and looked down at her, watching her responses to his touch. She gazed at the parted lips and deep eyes and knew that there would be no help from him this day.
He began guiding her toward the chamber door.
She thought about where they were going and what he wanted. “I don't…” she whispered even as she took another step.
“It is why you came, is it not? For reassurance that this marriage need not be so terrible?”
She resisted at the threshold. His hand returned to her breast and his lips to her neck.
“You said … you said that today you wouldn't …”
“I said probably,” he murmured. “And I lied.”
He took her face in his hands again. “His shadow is between us and I would banish that ghost. Today we even
the accounts and turn the page. It will be easier for you this way, too.”
She read the decision in his eyes.
“Do not be afraid. I will wait until you are ready and until you want me. It will be all right. I will make it so,” he promised.
I am helpless against these feelings, she thought. It is unnecessary to fight them. This is inevitable anyway. I am his forever.
She turned her face and kissed his hand.
He lifted her in his arms and carried her into the chamber.
CHAPTER 11
HER THIN ARMS encircled his neck and tightened as he approached the bed.
It will be all right. I will make it so. Brave words from a man who hadn't taken a virgin since he was sixteen. Still, he would indeed make it so. Whatever lies he told her today, that would not be one of them.
He should have known. She's just a girl, Andrew had said. One moment they are brave and the next shy. Remember?
He sat on the side of the bed and settled her into his lap. He kissed her until the arm grasping his neck loosened a bit.
Innocent and ignorant. All during dinner it had been all he could do not to stare in astonishment. While he ate and spoke, his mind had recalculated what this revelation meant. Perhaps it made today unnecessary and he should wait. Perhaps it made it essential. In the end his own desire chose the course. He would not let her leave without claiming her. He wanted her and there was only one way to possess her securely.
She touched his face in that tentative way, and his desire surged. He took her mouth hungrily and fought back the cataclysmic storm that threatened to thunder through him. Slowly and simply, he reminded himself again.
He caressed her breasts and when her arms tightened this time it was not in fear. Her body relaxed into his. She tried to imitate his deep kiss and probed cautiously and delicately. The artless effort almost undid him.
The joy he found in her innocent passion surprised him. He had never sought it in other women. It shouldn't matter with Christiana either, but it did. He felt her body responding to him and listened to her sharpened breathing. He delighted in her awkward embrace and in her startled gasps when his hands raised a new pleasure. He reveled in the knowledge that despite what had occurred with Percy, no man but himself had ever aroused her.
He kissed her again, savoring the soft taste of her and the compliant arch of her back. His hand sought the lacing of her cotehardie, and he began undressing her.
The virgin stiffened for an instant as the garment loosened, but then those glittering eyes watched his hands ease the gown off her arms and down to her waist. Her mouth trembled open and her eyes closed as he touched her breast through the thin batiste of her shift.
A small hand left his shoulders and caressed down his chest, and the thunder tried to erupt again. Her fingers slid under the flap hiding the closures to his pourpoint. He watched her earnest expression as that hand fumbled down his chest. Aye. Having chosen to yield, the sister of Morvan Fitzwaryn would not play the reluctant victim.
He slid the straps of the shift down and uncovered her beautiful breasts. His gaze followed the path of his fingers as he traced their high, round swells. Her breath quickened and she buried her face shyly in his shoulder.
She was beautifully formed, pale and flawless. Her skin was not translucent and white like so many Englishwomen, but rather had the opaque tint of new ivory. It was the color of the bleached beaches along the Inland Sea. He caressed her, whisking and grazing the tight nipples, and her whole body reacted. With a faint moan she arched into his touch. The light brown tips beckoned like an offering. He lowered his head and gently kissed one before taking it into his mouth.
She almost jumped out of his arms.
He held her firmly and looked at the startled shock in her eyes. He kissed her cheek reassuringly.
He lowered his kisses until that sweet breast was in his mouth again. Jesus, the man must have barely touched her. No thought to her at all. If Idonia hadn't found them, he would have brutalized her.
A picture of that formed in his mind, and his spirit reacted with a surge of protective anger followed by a wave of tenderness. He played at her with his tongue and teeth until her bottom pressed against his thigh in her search for relief. He reached back and pulled down the bed coverings. Slowly and simply, but before she left him he would show her the glory of the pleasure. She was all that mattered this time.
He rose with her in his arms and turned and laid her down. Dark eyes, liquid with passion, regarded him cautiously. He gazed down at her lying there, naked to the waist with her clothes falling around her hips, and he considered leaving her thus. She looked sweet and fresh and reminded him of the girls of his youth lying back in hay and grass. He thought of the carpet of ivy in the small garden below. If he lived until summer, the warm starlit nights promised a special ecstasy.
Gently he pulled the cotehardie and shift down her slender curves.
Christiana bit her lower lip as shock and excitement merged at the sight of him undressing her. She watched her naked body emerge. When the gown and shift were gone, he untied the garters at her knees and slid off her hose.
A prickly expectation twisted in her. The fear had not completely disappeared. It acted like a spice in the stew of emotions and sensations that boiled inside her.
He shook off his pourpoint and removed his shirt before lowering down beside her. She watched his hard body come to her, and sighed with relief when he was in her arms again.
She let her hands feel his shoulders and back, and she noted the ridges of scars there. He moved into her caress. The heady warmth and closeness overwhelmed her. That strange pounding need went all through her now, shaking her from shoulders to toes.
He kissed her deeply while his hand followed the tremor, sliding down her stomach and belly, reaching down her thighs and legs. Possessive, hot and confident, his caress took control of every inch of her. Her body arched into his touch and rocked to the rhythm of that hollow hidden pulse. Everything began to spiral into the need now. Her breathing, her blood, her awareness, even the pleasure flowed to and from it.
He cupped her breast in his hand and rubbed the tip with his thumb. “I am going to kiss all of you now,” he said. “Do not be shy. Nothing is forbidden if it gives us both pleasure.”
And he did kiss all of her, his mouth pressing and biting and drawing down her body, creating new pleasures and surprises and leaving her breathless. Down her stomach and belly, down even to her legs. Several kisses even shockingly landed on the flesh of her thighs and then on the soft mound above them and she cried out as long, hot streaks shot through her.
His lips closed on one breast while he caressed the other and the excitement rose to a frantic level. She grabbed desperately at his back and hair. His muscles felt tense beneath her fingers, and his breath sounded ragged to her ears.
He rose up and loosened the rest of his clothing. She reached down to help and her hand brushed his arousal. She felt a reaction all through him, and she bravely touched him again as he kicked off his clothes.
Fear spiked through the oblivion of desire.
Impossible …
He returned her hand to his shoulder and then stroked down her body to her legs. Teasing her thighs apart, he slid his hand up and under to her buttocks. His arm pressed up against her while his tongue and lips aroused her breasts.
The pounding need exploded, obliterating the renewed fear. She pushed down against the pressure of that arm offering relief but only bringing torture. Her whole body wanted to move in abandoned, base ways, and she controlled it with difficulty. Over and over she bit back wanton cries that threatened to fill the room.
The warm water of his voice flowed over her. “Do not fight it, Christiana. The sounds and moves of your desire are beautiful to me.”
Gratefully she submitted to the delirium. When his hand came forward, she opened her legs without encouragement. She felt no shyness or shock as he caressed her, only a torturous desire that would sure
ly explode into flames if it was not fulfilled.
The sensations of his magic touch led her into madness. Gentle caresses created streaks of concentrated pleasure. Deliberate touches summoned a wild and desperate excitement.
His quiet voice penetrated the wonderful anguish. “Do you want me now, Christiana?”
He touched her differently and she cried out. She managed to nod.
“Then tell me so. Say my name and tell me so.”
In the distance somewhere she heard her voice say it. The frantic need completely took over and her hips rose to meet the body coming over hers.
She reveled in the feel of his long length along her and the total closeness of their bodies. She delighted in the concentrated passion transforming his face as he looked at her.
He took her slowly and carefully and she marveled at the beauty of it. With gentle pressure and measured thrusts he seduced her open. The feared pain was not really pain at all but only a stretching tightness lost in the wonderful relief of him filling that aching need. Without thinking, she rocked up to meet his gentle invasion.
She froze as a burning shock stopped her.
He kissed her softly and pulled back. “It cannot be helped, darling.” He thrust and a sharp pain eclipsed the pleasure for a flashing instant.
His body didn't stop and the hurt and its memory quickly disappeared as he withdrew slowly and slid in again. It felt desperately good. Instinctively she embraced him with her legs, holding him closer, taking all of him to herself. She found his rhythm and rocked with it in a soundless chant of acceptance.
Nothing, not the songs or his touch or Joan's lesson, had prepared her for the intimacy that engulfed them. Skin on skin, breath on breath, limbs entwined and bodies joined … the physical connections overwhelmed her senses. Each time he withdrew, it was a loss. Each time he filled her, it was a renewed completion. It awed her and she sighed her amazement each time they rocked together.
He paused and she opened her eyes to see him looking at her. The careful mask was gone and those blue eyes showed the depths that he never let people see. She moved her hand and touched the perfect face, then let her caress drift down to his neck and chest.
By Arrangement Page 14