No sooner had the whisper escaped her lips than Piers claimed her mouth with his own. He wrapped his arms around her and half lifted her off the floor, as if trying to absorb her.
His mouth was slick and cool and wet, and she met his passionate need with one of her own every bit as fiery and demanding. Her fingers clawed at his belt, and Piers turned them both until Alys’s back was toward the bed. He let her down onto her feet and then brought his hands over hers, stilling them. She whimpered.
“I am unlearned in the manner of a lady’s clothing—it would be best for your gown should you remove it yourself.”
Alys glanced down at the perse gown which now held so many memories. And now it would mark her emergence into her life as a married woman. “You mean this old rag?”
Piers only smiled, and took a step back from her to give them both room to move. She undid her laces quickly, and when she was to slide her gown from her shoulders, she noticed him watching her. She paused, her face pinkened, and then she lifted her chin minutely.
Her eyes never leaving his, she pushed the left yoke of her gown away from her collarbone with her right hand, slowly, slowly, the fabric bunching and damming before it finally slid away. She caught the right side of her gown quickly before it could fall, and bringing her left arm across her chest, she slid her right arm free.
She paused, glanced down at his hands which had frozen in the action of removing his belt. “I’m a bit ahead of you already,” she said pointedly.
He was staring at her exposed skin above her gown. “I’m in no hurry,” he said hoarsely.
Her eyebrows rose briefly and one corner of her mouth lifted. “Very well.” She slowly, slowly brought her arms from her chest, and the gown slid away by its own sheer weight. In an instant, Alys stood naked before him.
“Alys,” he choked. “You are so beautiful.”
She smiled, feeling proud, powerful. Her eyes flicked to his chest. “Your tunic, milord.”
Piers’s hands started up the motion of undoing his belt once more. He dropped it to the floor with a dull clunk. His fingers found the ends to the intricate laces on his chest, and Alys was surprised at the ease with which he untangled them. Piers pulled the thick garment over his head, and she saw his nipples puckered in the cool air of the chamber. He glanced down at the erection deforming his hose, and then looked boldly to Alys once more.
Alys sat on the edge of the bed and raised each knee in turn, removing her feet from the circle of gown on the floor before taking off her shoes. Piers gasped when she lifted her heels and slid beneath the heavy coverlet, the motion parting her legs for a brief moment. He lifted one leg and put his foot on the edge of the bed frame, untying his own boot, then the other. Alys watched him openly, her cheek propped on one hand, the other holding the blanket to her chest.
Piers stepped out of his boots and then began to unfasten and remove the expensive woolen hose. He stood a moment at the side of the bed he was about to share with Alys, naked, shivering. She looked at his body boldly, his manhood, and then back up to his face where the pupils of his eyes seemed to have doubled in size. Alys herself felt heated and flushed and ready to be loved.
Piers gave her a moment of pause. “Alys, have you ever—”
“No,” she answered right away, saving him from asking fully. “Aren’t you the fortunate man? A pure, sweet virgin in your bed on your wedding morning.” Her smile grew with the daring and love she felt. “At least for the next few moments.” She held the blankets aside, an invitation.
Still, he hesitated. “Are you frightened?”
Her smile faded away. “I’ll never be frightened of anything ever again with you by my side.” She gestured with the blankets. “Come.”
He slid into the cocoon she offered, her slightly warmed skin feeling afire once pressed against his cold flesh. Her arms went around his neck and she pressed her breasts against him while her mouth sought his. Her nipples felt like hard little buttons, the hair between her legs whispered at his rock hard thigh as she drew her knee over his hip. His hands seemed to each span the width of her back and waist as he pulled her to him, pressed his hips forward. She groaned at the feel of his rough skin on her flesh.
He skimmed his right hand down over her buttock and then reached beneath it with his fingers to find her, and when he touched her with a firm swipe, she mewed into his mouth. Piers rolled her onto her back and pulled away from her mouth.
“Take hold of the blanket,” he commanded. Then he slid beneath, backing carefully over her until his shoulders were between her legs. And then he tasted her.
Alys cried out, and she reached her hands down to find his head through the blanket. He nipped and licked and explored with his tongue until she was panting, and then he began to ready her with his finger.
“Piers,” she gasped. “Please.”
She was so close to achieving her own pinnacle, and she knew it even without ever having proper knowledge of it. He slid up her body once more, leaving his hand in place. When he was over her, her moist heat touching him, bucking against him, Piers arched his hips and used his hand to push the head of his penis into her. He left his hand between them, holding his weight on his other forearm, and continued to rub her with his thumb.
He licked her lips, sucked at her tongue. Alys raised her hips up and took an inch of him; Piers followed her motion back to the cot and gave her another. She knew she was small, and she had witnessed that there was still so much of him left to give her. She knew a moment of fear.
She whimpered and pressed upward once more, her passion urging her past the discomfort, opening to him, taking him in. He pushed forward and was at half.
Alys cried out and gripped his waist. Piers withdrew only slightly, enough to give his hand room to increase their ministrations for a moment. Then she was panting again, and Piers sank into her. Withdrew. Deeper now. His fingers moved faster.
Alys began to move in counter rhythm with him, her swollen flesh pulsating, crying out now with longing, and impatience. With two more thrusts, she took the full length of him. A pair more, and Alys felt a wild expansion in her, an explosion, and she arched away from the magnificent bed to gain every bit of him. While she held him like a grasping fist, he gave his length to her fully and hard, and a moment later he filled her.
Alys covered his face in tiny kisses as he panted into her ear, “I love you, Alys. I love you. I love you …”
They made love twice in as many hours, slowly, savoring the familiarity of the act more each time, as well as committing to memory those private details between lovers. The heat of a sigh, the length of thigh against thigh. The curve of a shoulder and the pattern of gooseflesh raised by a kiss and a breath. The reward of separate climax, and for Alys, a repeat of such a miracle before they collapsed together on the sheets a final time.
A servant had rapped on the door, offering food, which Piers had accepted with such effusive thanks that Alys had giggled while he shut and bolted the door, balancing the heavy tray on one hand. He slid the tray with exacting care onto the large square table near the hearth and then rejoined her beneath the thick blankets. They stared out the window, curled together, at the glow of afternoon sunlight—all they could see from their position on the bed. Simply blue sky and sunlight.
“Are you going to tell me now?” Piers prompted, rousing Alys from a half doze.
“Tell you what? I told you so?” she teased.
“I believe we’ve already covered that bit.” His fingertips skittered down her side to pinch the curve of her buttock. “I want to hear the wild tale you told your sister that gained you return to court.”
Alys smiled, although being behind her, Piers could not see. “I simply told her the truth—what had happened to you and to the both of us in the wood. That I loved you, and that you needed me.”
She felt him go still behind her. “And that was it? Sybilla let you go without argument?”
“Not exactly,” Alys admitted. “After I told her tha
t, she still insisted that I return to Fallstowe. And so I agreed. Sybilla risked her life for me, risked Fallstowe, by coming directly into Edward’s home. I owed her, for that and for many other things that I never even realized before you came into my life. And I thought you didn’t want me—you did little else but try to get me to leave you for weeks. I thought mayhap it was because you didn’t love me after all.”
“Alys, I—”
“Shh,” she interrupted, and patted his forearms, wrapped around her middle. “I’m not finished. When we reached the gates of the city without detection, Sybilla stopped. She turned to me and said, ‘Alys, I want you to be happy. You have shown great bravery in standing by Piers alone these many weeks. You are not a child, and Clement Cobb is a piece of shit.’”
“She called him a piece of shit?” Piers said in a laughing voice.
“She did, although she did not explain her change of heart about him. She said she wouldn’t allow me to marry him now were he the last titled man in the realm. She said she trusted my judgment, and if I found you worthy, then so did she.”
“I’ll be damned,” Piers mused.
“It was also a fact of standing behind her vow,” Alys admitted. “Remember, she’d told me when I left Fallstowe that if I found a man at the ring who would have me, he was welcome to me. Sybilla places great value on keeping her word.”
“Thanks be to God.”
“Indeed. She embraced me, kissed me, told me that if things did not go in our favor to come home to Fallstowe, and then she left me at the gates.”
“I think I love her,” Piers said, his amazement clear in his voice.
“I know I do,” Alys said softly.
After a long, peaceful silence, Piers said, “On our return, I would go to Ira’s town. See who would join us at Gillwick.”
“I think that is a wonderful idea,” Alys said firmly.
“It will be more difficult than just that,” Piers said, and Alys could hear his doubt. “There are so many, and Gillwick is modest. I don’t know how I will house them all, how much strain Gillwick’s coffers can withstand.”
“Worry not about it, husband,” Alys said, squeezing his arms to her, snuggling her head into the pillow and closing her eyes with a sleepy yawn. “We’ll visit Sybilla en route to Gillwick.”
Piers was quiet for a moment before he gave a wary, “Why?”
“Besides the fact that I carry the king’s message, you still have to claim my dowry,” Alys murmured. “I’m certain Sybilla will have it ready for us when we arrive. It is quite a large amount.”
Piers gave a disbelieving huff. Then he kissed Alys near her ear. “I will do whatever I can to help your family,” he said. “I’ve never had one before. Barring an act of outright treason, I will stand with Fallstowe when the king sends his man.”
“I know,” Alys said quietly. Her eyes were open once more, and she was staring out the window. “I know you will, my love.”
But there was much Alys had failed to ask Sybilla in all their years as sisters. The eldest daughter had kept her mother’s secrets well, but if the Foxe matriarch was to survive the king’s wrath, she would have to learn to trust someone other than herself.
Alys did not know if she honestly wanted to learn the truth.
Edward was coming for Sybilla, true, but that meant sweet Cecily was also at risk. The sooner Alys’s quiet, pious middle sister was safely ensconced in her beloved nunnery, the better.
She closed her eyes again. No matter now. She had her husband, and at his side, they could do anything. Anything at all. She was drifting off to sleep now.
“I love you, Piers,” she murmured.
“Love you, my woman.” He kissed her temple.
That night Alys dreamed of sweet music, and her mother, and her husband’s babies. And she dreamed of Fallstowe—beautiful, grand Fallstowe.
Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of Heather Grothaus’s
NEVER SEDUCE A SCOUNDREL,
coming soon from Zebra Books!
February 1277
Fallstowe Castle, England
Cecily Foxe was fairly certain she was going to hell.
She had been standing alone for the better part of two hours following the lavish supper, struggling to maintain a serene expression while she watched the revelers and their atrocious behavior. It was proving increasingly difficult. Men drank so heartily and hastily that the fronts of their tunics were dark with wine, and most women recklessly attempted to match pace with them. Unmarried couples danced, although the lewd displays of bodies touching so intimately could hardly be defined as such a supposedly innocent activity.
Cecily bristled as she watched even the least of the nobility, the humble, the homely, the meek, carry on with members of the opposite sex. Even poor Lady Angelica, who had a lazy eye and spat upon anyone unfortunate enough to be engaged in conversation with her, was being twirled about Fallstowe’s great hall with sordid abandon. Cecily had clearly seen the young man currently in possession of Lady Angelica unabashedly grasp the woman’s breast.
Only Cecily stood alone.
No one had asked her to dance. No young lord dare come near and whisper lurid suggestions to her, proposing they steal away from the hall for an hour of private sin. She was a lady of Fallstowe, wealthy beyond comprehension, powerful by her connection to Sybilla, perhaps even wanted as a criminal by the crown. Unmarried. Both her eyes pointed in the same direction and she kept her saliva properly in her mouth when speaking.
And yet they all simply pretended she wasn’t there.
To everyone who knew her—nay, even knew of her—she was Saint Cecily. Middle daughter of Amicia and Morys Foxe. Slated for a life of quiet, gentle sacrifice. Although she had yet to formally commit to the convent, Cecily already fulfilled many of the obligations put upon one under holy orders. Up to even the wee hours of that very morn, she had assisted Father Perry in the countless and tedious preparations for the Candlemas feast, and in general, she looked over Fallstowe’s charitable responsibilities, tending the ill and dying, duteously prayed the liturgy of the hours.
Most of them, any matter.
She seldom raised her voice in a passion of any nature. She did not lie, nor indulge in gossip. She was obedient to her older sister, Sybilla, the head of the family now that both of their parents were dead. She was not ostentatious in either dress or temperament, preferring to wear costumes so closely akin to the habits of the committed that strangers to the hold often greeted her with a deferential incline of their heads and a murmured, “God’s blessing upon you, Sister.”
Cecily knew she was admired and even revered for her restraint and decorum. She was not outwardly bold, like young Alys, seen now dancing gaily with her new husband in the middle of the crush of guests. She was not obviously ambitious like the eldest, Sybilla, who ruled Fallstowe with a delicate iron fist. Cecily had spent the greater part of her score and two years carefully cultivating her gentle qualities. Molding herself to them.
And yet, at that very moment, her supposedly meek heart was so full of discord, she was quite surprised that she had not already burst into flames where she stood.
The dancers continued to whirl past, little carousels of gaiety and color around massive iron cauldrons which blazed with fires fed by the brown and brittle swags of evergreen and holly that had festooned Fallstowe’s great hall since Christmas. Although the blessed candles burned in their posts, the remainder of the celebration was largely pagan, bidding farewell to the barren winter while at once beckoning to the fertile light of spring. Cecily knew that her elder sister had purposefully sought to emphasize the heathen aspect of the celebration—unfortunately, Sybilla seemed to thrive on wicked rumor.
The Foxe matriarch herself weaved through the crowd now, both adoration and jealousy following close at her heels as she made her way toward Cecily. The men hungered for Sybilla—those few who’d once held her let their eyes blatantly show the aching memories of their hearts, and the many
who had not been honored with the privilege of her bed pursued her without care for their pride. Sybilla was powerful, desirable; Cecily was not.
As if to emphasize this point, Cecily again caught a glimpse of the primary object of her bitterness.
Oliver Bellecote.
He could have been your husband, a wicked little voice whispered in her ear.
“Hello, darling.” Sybilla had at last fought her way through the pulsating throng to stand at Cecily’s side, her slender arm pulling the two sisters together at the hip. “I would have thought you to be abed an hour ago.”
Cecily was careful to keep her tone light. “This may well be my last feast at Fallstowe, Sybilla. I would remember it.”
Sybilla gave her sister’s waist a gentle squeeze, but did not comment on Cecily’s reference to Hallowshire Abbey. The two women observed the debauchery that ruled the supposedly holy day feast in silence for several moments. Then Oliver Bellecote whirled past once more, causing Cecily to lose control of her suddenly wicked tongue.
“I am quite surprised to see him,” she said, thankful that, at least, her tone was casual.
“Who? Oliver?” Cecily felt more than saw Sybilla’s shrug. After a moment, she said quietly, “I suppose I must call him Lord Bellecote, now.”
Cecily’s heart thudded faster in her chest, and her indignation made pulling in her next breath difficult. “August has not been dead a month, and yet he is here—still behaving as if he hasn’t a care in the world or one whit of responsibility. It’s indecent and disrespectful. To his brother and to you.”
Sybilla drew away slightly, and Cecily could feel her sister’s frosty blue gaze light the side of her face. Cecily’s ear practically tingled. She hadn’t meant for her comment to come out that way at all.
“I am not offended by Oliver’s presence, Cee, nor by him enjoying himself at Fallstowe. Although ‘tis no secret that Oliver oft exasperated him, August loved his younger brother. And Oliver loved August.”
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