At about the point when she felt an unrelenting urge to squirm against the saddle, they arrived at the Guildhall. She worried that she would not be able to stand on her languid legs when he lifted her to the ground.
“That wasn't fair,” she hissed.
He took her hand and led her into the Guildhall. “I only play to win, Christiana, and I make my own rules. Haven't you learned that by now?”
CHAPTER 13
DAVID LEANED IN the shadows against the threshold of the hall, watching the dancers whirl around the huge bonfire in the center of the courtyard. Couples romped together in a round dance on the periphery of the circle, but near the center a group of women performed an energetic exhibition alone. Oliver's woman Anne led the group, since she danced professionally on occasion when the opportunity and pay were convenient. Serving girls and women from the ward surrounded her. In the thick of it, her face flushed with delight and her eyes sparkling with pleasure, swung the elegant figure of Christiana Fitzwaryn.
The lights from the bonfire seemed to flame over the women in a rhythm that matched the beating drums. The whole courtyard and house glowed from that huge blaze and from the many torches lining the buildings and the back garden. The fires tinted the night sky orange, and from a distance it probably appeared that the house was burning. No doubt the priests would insist that the scene, with revelers giving themselves over to all of the deadly sins, resembled the inferno of hell itself.
People filled the courtyard, the gardens, and the rooms of the house. Men and woman perched on the roof of the stable. To his left several couples embraced in a dark corner.
A loud laugh caught his attention and he leaned back and glanced into the hall. The milling bodies parted for a moment and he saw the laughing man sitting by the fire with a girl on each knee. The gold embroidery on the red robe was the only proof that this man was a king, for Edward had shed his royal persona as soon as he slipped through the gate with his two guards after sending his wife and family home after the Guildhall banquet. He was well into his cups now, and long ago the party had stopped treating him like the sovereign and simply absorbed him into their merriment.
David returned his attention to his wife. He enjoyed watching her even when she didn't move at all, but her freedom and pleasure in this dance mesmerized him. Like her King, she had quickly succumbed to the unrestrained mood of this second party, and David had delighted in watching her joy as she feasted and drank and traded jests with the neighbors from the ward.
She moved beautifully, languidly, imbuing even this base dance with a noble elegance. Her lips parted in a sensual smile as she twirled around, enjoying at last the ecstasy of movement that she had vicariously felt so often before.
He watched and waited, suppressing the urge to walk to that fire and pick her up and carry her away.
He wanted her. Badly. He had wanted her for weeks, and their night together had only made the wanting more fierce. He had spent the last days in a state of perpetual desire.
Her innocence that day had disarmed him in a dangerous way. Her passion had no defenses, and her total giving and taking had burned down his own. Unlike the experienced women he usually bedded, she knew nothing about protecting herself from the deeper intimacies that could emerge in lovemaking, knew nothing about holding her essence separate from the joining, knew nothing about keeping the act one of simple physical pleasure. She had felt the closeness for what it could be and had simply let the power come and wash over them both. He had seen the wonder of it in her eyes and felt her amazement of it in her grasping embrace and had almost warned her to be careful, for there could be danger and pain in it for her, too. But he had not warned her, for that deep intimacy brought a knowing of her that something inside him craved and in the end he also proved defenseless against the magic that he hadn't felt in so many years.
His gaze followed her, his body responding to the seductive moves of her dance. In his mind's eye she looked up at him and touched his face and his chest and sighed an “aye” that asked for all of himself.
A figure strolled in front of him, mercifully distracting his heated thoughts. Morvan drank some wine as he walked, casually surveying the dancers.
The drums and timbrels beat out a frenzied finale and then the dance ended abruptly. All around the fire, bodies stopped and heaved deep breaths from their exertions. Christiana and Anne embraced with a laugh.
She thought that Anne was Oliver's wife. He would have to tell her the truth, he supposed.
Morvan caught Christiana's eye and gestured for her. She skipped over to him with a broad smile. He bent and said something, and David watched the happiness and pleasure fall from her face and her body like someone had stripped it off.
She threw her arms around him and spoke earnestly, entreating him no doubt to stay longer. Morvan shook his head, caressed her face, and pulled away.
He walked toward the gate. Christiana gazed after him, her straight body suddenly alone and isolated despite the crowd milling around her. David could see her composed expression but he had no trouble reading the sadness in her.
Her whole life, her whole family, her whole past was leaving the house now.
He pushed away from the threshold and went to her. He draped her cloak over her shoulders, and she glanced up with a weak smile before her gaze returned to the retreating tall man.
He smiled and shook his head. He strode after Morvan, calling his name. A part of him couldn't believe that he was going to do this for her.
The young knight stopped and turned. He came back and met David partway. They faced each other in the fire glow.
“You are leaving, Morvan?”
“Aye. It is best if I go now.” He glanced at his sister.
“You must come and visit her soon. She will want to see you.”
Morvan looked over in surprise.
“Her life will be much changed and it may be hard on her,” David continued. “I would not have her unhappy. Come when you will. This house is always open to you.”
Morvan looked more surprised yet. He nodded and smiled a little. “I thank you for that, David. For both our sakes.”
David walked back to Christiana. The cloak was falling off and he wrapped her in it more warmly, embracing her shoulder.
“What did you say to him?” she asked, her gaze still on her brother.
“I told him that he must visit you whenever he wants.”
“Did you, David? Did you really?” She turned to him with a bright smile. Her unaffected surprise and gratitude wrenched something inside him.
“I know that he is all that you have, darling. He only sought to protect you, and I can blame no man for that. I would not stand between you.”
She nestled closer to him and looked into his eyes with an almost childish innocence. “Not all that I have, David. Not anymore. There is you now, isn't there? We have each other, don't we?”
He embraced her and she placed her head on his chest, her face turned to the shadows that swallowed her brother's tall body. David laid his face on the silky cloud of her hair.
All that she was, all that she was supposed to be, left through that gate. The life she had led and had been born to live, the position assured her by her blood, returned to Westminster tonight without her. He didn't doubt that she understood that. She knew what this marriage had taken from her.
He kissed her hair and closed his eyes. He could give it back to her. All that she was losing and more. It was in his power to do so. The offer still stood and would be made again, of that he was sure. He had only to play out the game as planned but change the final move. He knew exactly how to do it. He had been considering the possibility for weeks.
As if reading his thoughts, she tilted her head and looked up at him. “You are very good to me, David. I know that you will take care of me and do all that you can for me.”
He bent to kiss her and her parted lips rose to meet his. A tremor shook her and she pressed herself against him as she embraced him tig
htly. His mind clouded and the restraint of the last hours cracked.
She grasped him as desperately as he did her, her mouth inviting his deep kiss. Perhaps it was the wine and the dance. Maybe it was her gratitude over Morvan. He didn't care. He would accept her passion any way that it came to him.
They stood thus at the edge of the fire glow, two bodies molded together, banishing the separateness, the sounds of revelry echoing around them. He kissed her again and again, wanting to consume her and absorb her into himself.
He found the sanity to pull his mouth away. “Come upstairs with me now,” he whispered, his face buried in her neck, her scent driving him mad.
“Aye,” she said. “Now.”
He turned her under his arm while he kissed her again. Somehow he found his way blindly across the courtyard, into the building, and up the stairs. A group of revelers discreetly poured out of the solar when they arrived, and he kicked the door closed behind them.
In his chamber he threw off their cloaks and fell on the bed with her, covering her with his body, feeling her pliant length bend up into him. His head emptied to everything but the feel and smell of her. He tried to check himself, tried to calm the thundering storm that controlled him, but the deep, probing kiss he gave her turned fierce and needful when she took his head between her hands and pressed him closer.
He managed to remove her surcoat without tearing it, but the cotehardie's lacing defied his practiced fingers. He plucked at the knot as he kissed and bit the tops of her breasts. Finally, in a fury of frustration, he moved aside, turned her on her stomach, and stared at the recalcitrant closure.
“Hold still,” he muttered, pulling out his dining dagger and blinking away the obscuring passion. He rose on his knees and slid the blade under the lacings. “It is an old wedding trick. Your servants tied a knot that cannot be undone.”
She laughed beautifully, lyrically, and then turned on her back, joyfully helping him push down the gown. When it was gone, she got to her knees and flew to him as if the separation had lasted an eternity.
He lost himself then. In a frantic whirlwind of caresses and kisses, they managed to pull off his clothes. With cries and gasps and little ecstatic laughs, her hands met his on his belt and shirt and finally poured heatedly over his skin. He pushed her shift down from her shoulders, uncovering her breasts, and bent her back so that he could revel in their sweet softness.
Her cries undid him and unraveled his last thread of control. He pushed the shift up her hips and felt for the moisture of her arousal.
“I promise that I will give you slow pleasure later,” he said as he laid her down. “All night if you want. But right now I cannot wait, darling.”
He spread her legs and knelt between them. She looked up at him, her dark eyes full of stars.
He gazed at her lovely face and her round white breasts. The shift bunched at her waist and the hose were still gartered at her knees. He pushed the bottom of the shift up higher, exposing her hips and stomach. He touched the pulsing, swollen flesh between her thighs and watched the pleasure quake through her.
The fantasies of his desire pressed on him relentlessly. Despite her ignorance and his need, he could not resist them all. He bent her legs so that she was raised and open to him. Her ragged breathing broke through his fog, and he glanced and saw the flicker of wariness and surprise in her eyes.
“Do not be afraid,” he said as he lifted her hips. “I want to kiss all of you. That is all.”
He knew that he could not indulge himself thus for long. His own body would not let him. Nor, it turned out, would hers. She writhed and cried out from the shock and intensity of this new pleasure, and soon he felt the first flexes of her release.
He left her and came up over her, bringing her legs with him, settling them on his shoulders. She thrashed in frustration that he had brought her to the edge of the precipice but no further.
“Soon, darling. I promise. When we are together,” he said soothingly, and he rose up and entered her with one thrust.
His whole body shook from the torturous pleasure of it, but the tremor itself gave him back some of his control. Extending his arms, he stroked into her, his consciousness filling with the exquisite sensation that came from tottering on the edge of his own release.
She watched him as he moved, her hands caressing his shoulders and chest in that open, accepting way of hers, her sparkling eyes and soft sighs telling him that he filled other needs besides those of her body. The emotions seeped out of her and around him and embraced them both as surely as their arms had entwined moments ago.
He felt her tensing, stretching, for her climax. His own control began crumbling. He reached down between their bodies to give her release. As the frenzy possessed her she grabbed fiercely for him, arching her hips up against his thrusts, pulling him with her into the delicious oblivion.
He rarely sought a mutual release. In fact he avoided them. Now, as their passion peaked and shattered together, he felt her ecstasy even as his own split through him. For an unearthly instant the lightning of the storm melted them into one sharing completeness.
When they were done, he stayed with her, kissing her softly while he moved her legs down, letting himself enjoy the glorious expression on her beautiful face. He rolled over to his back, bringing her with him so that she lay on him. He held her there, her head on his chest and her knees straddling his hips, and watched his hand caress her pale back and hips.
After a long while she lifted her head and cocked it thoughtfully. “I hear lutes,” she said.
“You flatter me.”
She giggled and thumped his shoulder playfully. “Nay, David. I really do. Listen.”
He focused his awareness and heard the lyrical tones amidst the distant noise of the party. He moved her off, got out of bed, and disappeared into the wardrobe.
Christiana waited, still floating in the wonder and magic of their passion. It seemed that the lutes got louder.
He returned and pulled the coverlet off the bed. “They are for you. You should acknowledge them.” He draped the warm cover over his shoulders, and she got up and joined him in its cozy cocoon.
The door to the stairs leading to the ivy garden was open, and they went out on the stone landing. David lifted her up and sat her on the low surrounding wall, tucking the coverlet securely around her legs.
Below in the tiny garden she could see four men with lutes. They sang the poetic lines of a love song. She recognized the deep bass of Walter Manny.
“Who are the others?” she whispered.
“They are all from the Pui. It is a tradition when one of them marries.”
They began another song. Torches lit the larger garden, but here the singers were only dark forms in the shadows. Above them the clear night sky glittered with a hundred stars. David stood beside her, holding her under their cover, nuzzling her hair. There was something incredibly romantic about being with him in the cold night with the intimacy of their joining still hanging on them while the music played.
Walter sang the next song alone. It possessed a slow, quiet melody that she had heard only once before. It was the song that David had sung that day in the hall, the one she had found so sad at the time. Now she realized that it wasn't sad at all, just soft and beautiful. It had sent her off thinking of Stephen that day, and she hadn't really noticed the words, but this time she listened carefully.
It wasn't really a love song, but more a song that praised a woman and her beauty. The words spoke of elegant limbs and noble bearing. Her hair was described as black as the velvet night, her skin pale as moonlight, and her eyes like the diamonds of the stars.…
She grew very still. She listened to the rest of the lovely song that described her. David had written this. He had played it in the hall for her that day, and she hadn't even heard it.
Walter's voice and lute closed the melody. She looked up at the shadow of the man beside her. Her heart glowed warm and proud that he had honored her in this way, so long
ago, even as she treated him so badly.
“Thank you,” she whispered, stretching up to kiss his face.
They listened to several more songs, and then the four musicians walked forward and bowed to her. “Thank you, Walter,” she called quietly.
“My lady,” he replied, and the shadows swallowed him.
“What a marvelous tradition,” she said to David as they returned to their bed. “Have you done that?”
“Aye, I've spent my share of cold winter nights in gardens singing to new brides. We stay until she acknowledges that she has heard us. On occasion the groom is so enraptured in bed that it takes hours. We give him hell afterwards then.”
She laughed and rested her head on his shoulder.
“It was a wonderful wedding, David.” A din still leaked through the windows from the continued revelry outside and below. “I had so much fun. Anne says that I dance very well for an amateur. She said that she will teach me more if I want.”
“If it pleases you, you should do it.”
“I like her. I like Oliver, too. He is an old friend?”
“From when we were boys.”
“Have they been married a long time?”
A peculiar expression passed over his face. He looked so handsome now, his golden brown hair falling over his forehead, his deep blue eyes regarding her.
“Christiana, Oliver sells women. Anne lives with him but is not his wife. She is one of his women.”
“You mean she is his whore? Anne is a whore? She does this with strangers, for pay? He lets her, and even brings the men to her?”
“Aye.”
“How can he? He seemed to care for her, David. How …”
“In truth, I do not know.”
She pictured Anne, with her pretty brown curls and sweet but worldly face. “It must be horrible for her.”
“I suspect that most of her isn't really there with them.”
Could people do that? Join like this and not even care about it, not feel anything? Or just take the pleasure and close their eyes to the person giving it? It struck her as a sad and frightening thought.
By Arrangement Page 17