Lords of Conquest Boxed Set

by Patricia Ryan

  She threw her head back, trembling. “Oh, Graeham...oh, please...”

  With a groan, he sank deeply into her, pulled out, and plunged in again, still touching her as before. Even as she teetered breathlessly on the edge of climax, some part of her was dimly aware that he’d regained his erection. He was making love to her again without even uncoupling from the first time.

  She cried out rawly when she fell over the edge, lost in pleasure that exploded over and over and over, stoked by the driving rhythm of his thrusts. As her climax ebbed, he fell on her and kissed her deeply. His body slid against hers in an ever-quickening rhythm, sweat trickling between them, his restless hands in her hair, on her breasts, her hips.

  Joanna clung to him through a second shattering climax as her fingers raked his hair, his back. There was a violent energy to their lovemaking that made her feel wicked and beautiful and utterly abandoned.

  As her pleasure subsided, he seized her hips, his face darkly flushed, a low, almost pained sound rising from his throat. Swiftly he slid out of her, leaving her shockingly empty. He thrust against her once, twice, then stilled, taut and quivering, holding her so tightly she could barely breathe. Heat pumped wetly between them, then he sank, panting on top of her.

  A few moments later, after she’d caught her breath, Joanna said, a little shyly, “I...I didn’t know men could do that—make love twice in a row that way.”

  Raising his face from the crook of her neck, Graeham chuckled. “Neither did I,” he said, and kissed her soundly.

  * * *

  “I’ve never been in such a big bed,” Graeham said later that night, after they were settled upstairs in the solar.

  It was a surprisingly beautiful chamber, airy and whitewashed and inviting. Her bed was enormous, with a feather mattress and white curtains they’d drawn around them. Candlelight glowed through the curtains, burnishing her lush body, curled up with his in a comfortable, naked embrace. He basked in the soft weight of her against him, the coolness of the linen sheets beneath them, and most of all the sense of intimate companionship that was so novel to him, and so wonderful.

  “You were mad to insist on coming up here,” she murmured against his chest. “I thought you were never going to make it up that ladder.”

  He trailed a hand through her extraordinary hair, heavy silk falling through his fingers. “I wanted to sleep with you.”

  “You must have wanted it a great deal. You grimaced with every step.”

  There were still a few rushes caught in her hair. He pulled one out and dropped it onto the rush-covered floor. “I’ve never slept with anyone before.”

  She raised her head to look at him. “Never?”

  He shook his head. “In the dorter at Holy Trinity, and now in Lord Gui’s barracks, everyone has his own cot—no bigger than the one downstairs in your storeroom. I’ve never shared a bed.”

  “Not even...” She looked away from him and resettled her head on his shoulder. “Not even when you were with a woman?”

  “Oh, I’ve tupped in beds, of course,” he said. And many other places—behind Lord Gui’s wash house with the laundresses, in pantries and butteries with the serving wenches, in dark Paris doorways with whores—but he knew better than to think Joanna wanted to hear any of that. “But when the tupping was over, I always left.”

  “Your lovers never wanted you to stay?”

  “They weren’t ‘lovers,’ Joanna, they were just...accommodating women.”

  “Prostitutes?”

  “Sometimes,” he said, uncomfortably aware that she might be thinking of Leoda. “More often than not, just women who gave themselves freely. They never meant anything to me. Sex with them...it was more a bodily function than anything else, a way of gaining relief. It wasn’t like it was with us, downstairs. That was...”

  “Magic,” she said softly.

  He curled his arms around her and kissed her hair. “Aye. And you’re a witch who’s caught me in her spell. A beautiful, wanton witch.”

  “Wanton!” She buried her face against his chest. “Nay.”

  He chuckled at her foolishness. “Wanton in the best way. You felt so...unbridled in my arms, so responsive and unrestrained. And I felt the same way—you made my feel that way. ‘Twas the first time I’ve ever lost that sense of being separate and apart. You made me feel as if I were one with you—that we were a single being, together. Does that make any sense?”

  “Aye. I felt the same.”

  “I’m afraid I wasn’t very gentle,” he said, remembering how she’d reacted when he first entered her. She was as tight as a virgin, or how he imagined a virgin to be, never having lain with one. He’d never been with a woman whose body fit so snugly around his. It felt incredible—so hot and tight and slick—but it unnerved him, too. “Did I hurt you? I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

  “Nay—not at all.”

  He knew she was just saying that to spare his feelings. “It must have been a long time since you were with a man.”

  “Five years,” she said. “I caught Prewitt in this bed with the poulterer’s wife and banished him to the storeroom.”

  He chuckled. “I’d wondered what he’d done to deserve such a fate. I suppose I should have known. There was no one, then, even when your husband was abroad for months at a time and you were all alone?”

  “Nay. I was a married woman.”

  “In name only.”

  “It still would have been adultery. And, by and large, men steered clear of me, because I was a wedded woman.”

  “They didn’t keep their distance once you were widowed, I’ll wager.”

  “Nay, but I kept my distance from them. Most men just want an uncomplicated tumble with an experienced woman. They want to use me, same as I’ve been used all my life—and just for sex. Some of them are married, betrothed...All they want from me is my body, and only for as long as it takes to ease their lust. I despise the notion of being used that way. They very idea makes me sick.”

  Some are married, betrothed... Graeham felt a little red-hot stab of contrition deep in his stomach. He was all but betrothed to Phillipa. Yet...wasn’t Joanna betrothed as well? Surely it would be official by now.

  He cleared his throat. “I know about Robert of Ramswick.”

  She twisted her head to look at him. “What about Robert of Ramswick?”

  He brushed a lock of hair off her forehead, striving for a gentle, nonjudgmental tone. After all, was he not also guilty of infidelity to his betrothed? “I know he asked you to marry him, Joanna.”

  Her eyes lit with comprehension. “That day he came here while I was doing laundry. You overheard...”

  “Enough to know what he was about.” He embraced her tightly, possessively, and nuzzled her fragrant hair. “I hate to think of you as his wife—as any man’s wife but—” But mine? He squeezed his eyes shut against the impossibility of their situation and the pain he knew would come eventually. “I’m happy for you that you’ll be wed to a man of such high rank. That is, I want to be happy for you. I’m trying to be happy for you, but—”

  “I’m not betrothed, Graeham.” She twisted around so that she was lying on her stomach, her legs entwined with his, her breasts resting on his chest, soft and heavy, and looked him in the eye. “Not to Robert, nor anyone else.”

  “But didn’t he ask you—”

  “Aye. I turned him down.”

  “Truly?” As gratifying as this news was, it was also somewhat perplexing—even astounding. Robert of Ramswick was young, handsome, and judging from his willingness to take little Alice into his home as a ward, a very good man indeed, a man worthy of Joanna. On top of it all, he was a landed lord. Marriage to him could have rescued Joanna from the poverty into which she was slipping all too quickly. “Why did you turn him down?”

  “Aside from the fact that I’m not in love with him?”

  “That wouldn’t have stopped you from entering into such a favorable marriage.” One thing Graeham had learned about Joanna C
hapman was that she was a pragmatic woman, a woman who did what had to be done, who stiffened her backbone and persevered. It was one of the qualities—the many qualities—he admired about her.

  “Nay—that wouldn’t have stopped me,” she admitted. “But as it happens, Robert is in love with his cousin. He only asked for my hand because he needed a mother for his children, and he thought it would kill his parents if he married Margaret. I’m happy to report that he came to his senses.” She smiled in a way that made her look like a self-satisfied little girl. “They were formally betrothed in a ceremony in Ramswick’s chapel a few days ago. Hugh went. They’re to be wed in the early part of August.”

  “What of Lord Robert’s parents?”

  “Robert was right, they objected to the marriage, but they didn’t have any luck talking him out of it. Hugh says they attended the betrothal ceremony—still very much alive—so I suspect they just need time to get used to the idea.” She frowned. “How could you have thought I was betrothed to Robert after...what happened downstairs?”

  “I...suppose I thought you were too...swept away by passion to be thinking of him.”

  She smiled a bit sardonically. “In my opinion, passion is something one must give oneself permission to be swept away by.”

  He shook his head, grinning. “Sometimes I think you’re too pragmatic.”

  “No, really. I wanted you tonight, desperately. I’ve wanted you ever since you came to live here.”

  “Really?” Graeham said, absurdly gladdened that the passion that had consumed him day and night for the past six weeks had not been unrequited.

  “But no matter how deeply I desired you,” she said soberly, “I would never have acted on that desire had I accepted Robert’s proposal of marriage. Infidelity to your betrothed is still adultery. The Church says so, and it’s what I feel in my heart. It’s betrayal. It’s wrong.”

  Graeham felt a little pinch of guilt deep in his stomach. He’d always loathed the idea of infidelity—not so much because of the Church’s condemnation of it, but because of the circumstances of his birth. Once he spoke the words, “With this ring I thee wed, and with my body I thee honor,” he would honor with his body only the woman who wore his ring, forsaking all others.

  He supposed he’d always intended to be faithful to his betrothed even before they exchanged vows at the church door. Certainly he had. It was the right thing, the honorable thing, and he was an honorable man. Yet he’d spared not a thought for Phillipa when he tore Joanna’s wrapper open and took her on the floor of her salle.

  Of course, there were mitigating circumstances. He’d never met Phillipa. He had no feelings for her, no sense of devotion or attachment that made it seem like betrayal to bed someone else. And, too, their betrothal was as yet informal; no contract had been drawn up, no betrothal ceremony conducted. Yet were those not mere formalities? He and Phillipa were promised to each other. In the eyes of both of them, they were already betrothed.

  Making love to Joanna was, indeed, a form of infidelity, in spirit if nothing else. Graeham did feel a twinge of guilt, but no real shame, no sense that he’d sinned in any meaningful way. How could he feel remorseful to have shared his body, his soul, with a woman he loved so deeply, so...

  “Oh, God.” He couldn’t love her, mustn’t love her, yet of course, he did. How could he not? Part of him rejoiced to have found a soulmate; another part—the part that craved a proper home and family and the land to make it possible—felt a sense of dread at this new turn of events.

  This could not end well, he and Joanna. The only way he could be with her would be to reject Phillipa’s hand in marriage and the Oxfordshire estate that came with it, withdraw from Lord Gui’s service and return to England. He’d be a landless soldier with no overlord, no money, no prospects. He would have Joanna—if a woman like her was willing to settle for a penniless cur with no property of his own—but he would lose his hopes, his dreams, his very future.

  “What’s wrong, Graeham?” Bracing herself on an elbow, Joanna tenderly stroked his face, her breasts lightly brushing his chest.

  He closed his eyes, still so deeply moved just to hear his name on her lips at long last...awed to finally be able to take her in his arms and unite his body with hers. “Nothing’s wrong,” he lied. “Just keep touching me and everything will be all right.”

  She shifted just slightly, which brought the silken curve of her hip in contact with his quiescent manhood. As she kissed and caressed him, her subtle movements against him rekindled his former arousal. He stiffened, rose. Joanna felt it and sat over him, straddling his lap and guiding him to her damp little entrance. She sighed, her head thrown back, as she lowered herself onto him in increments, her womanly chamber stretching gradually to accommodate him.

  She looked so golden and enchanting and provocative making love to him this way—but it was dangerous. “You should let me be on top,” he said. “Otherwise I won’t be able to pull out.”

  “I’ll take care of that,” she said. “You tell me when.”

  “What a capable woman you are,” he said, threading his fingers through her hair to pull her down for a kiss. “How did I ever get along without you?”

  “Are you happy?” she asked as she tupped him, the bedropes squeaking with each slow, luxurious stroke, her body undulating gracefully atop his, her hair cloaking both of them like a silken mantle.

  Once it had been his “presumptuous question.” Now it was hers. He smiled, caressing her back, her hips, her firm round bottom as it rose and fell, coaxing him closer and closer to an ecstatic crisis of the senses. “Aye. Deliriously happy. Are you?”

  “Oh, yes. God, yes. If I could stay like this forever, here, with you, just like this, no past, no future, just the two of us, I think I’d be happy forever.”

  “So would I,” Graeham said, wishing with all his heart that it could be so and wondering for the thousandth time how everything had gotten so wonderfully, terrifyingly complicated.

  Chapter 22

  “There’s something I’d like to ask you, Ada,” Joanna said as she spooned the last of the porridge she’d brought into her new friend’s mouth the next morning. “You may think it a bit odd.”

  Ada swallowed with difficulty, coughed and said, “What is it?”

  “It’s about your husband.”

  “Rolf?”

  Joanna nodded as she tucked the empty porridge pot back in her basket. She was loath to tell Ada too much right now, when there was nothing the ailing woman could do about it but lie in this bed and fret. Earlier, before Joanna had left for her daily visit to the le Fever house, she’d paid a young boy a penny to deliver Graeham’s note about the planned murder to the sheriff who lived closest to West Cheap.

  “I can’t tell you anything about Rolf,” Ada said. “I haven’t seen him since before Lent.”

  “I know. But when he was still visiting you up here, did he...seem like himself? Was he acting unusual at all?”

  Ada stared tiredly at nothing for a moment and then shook her head. “He always acted unusual, to my way of thinking. I’ve never understood him. Why?”

  Joanna shrugged and fiddled with the basket, tucking the napkin back over it with exaggerated care. “I suppose I just think it’s odd that you haven’t seen your own husband in four months.” Thinking of Graeham, she added, “I’d hate to go that long without seeing my husband.” They’d been up all night, whispering together and making love; many times they resolved to go to sleep, but then one of them would say something that got them talking again, and as they talked, he would slowly caress her with those gentle, clever hands, and she would end up reaching for him...They never did get any sleep, and this morning Joanna was as tired—and happy—as she’d ever been.

  “I thought you did used to go that long,” Ada said, “when Master Prewitt was abroad. You told me just last week that you didn’t miss him at all.”

  “Ah.”

  “Ah,” Ada repeated with a gently mocking little smile. �
��I feel the same way about Rolf.”

  The two women laughed together companionably, but it seemed to take the wind out of Ada; her head fell back listlessly onto the pillow. It pained Joanna to watch someone she’d grown to care for waste away like this.

  “Some water?” Joanna offered.

  Ada shook her head weakly. “Too hard to swallow. Would you read me some Psalms?”

  “I’d be happy to.”

  Joanna read for longer than usual, apprehensive about leaving Ada alone in this house, knowing what she now knew, even though Ada wasn’t in any immediate danger; it was still quite early in the morning, and the adulterated tonic was presumably to be administered later this afternoon. Nevertheless, Joanna had resolved to return and keep watch over Ada after she spoke to the sheriff.

  As Joanna read, Ada’s eyes drifted closed; so did Joanna’s. The only thing that kept her awake was anxiety over Ada. She kept glancing nervously at the sleeping woman’s chest to make sure it continued to rise and fall; it did.

  When she returned the psalter to its little shelf, Ada opened her eyes. “There was something,” she said in a soft, muddled tone.

  Joanna sat back down and took Ada’s hand, which felt terribly small and cold and fragile. “Go back to sleep.”

  “There was something Rolf did,” Ada said, enunciating the words slowly, “that I thought was unusual. ‘Twas spring—after Easter, but before Pentecost, I think.”

  “About a month and a half ago,” Joanna said. “I thought you hadn’t seen your husband since before Lent.”

  “I haven’t. But one day—’twas in the afternoon—Aethel came up here in quite a state. She said that Rolf had ordered me to dress for a journey, and Aethel was to pack my things. He said someone would be coming for me.”

  This was the day Graeham came to take her away and was attacked in the alley, Joanna realized.

  “Aethel helped me to get dressed,” Ada said, “and she put all my things into traveling bags. I was bewildered at first, but then it occurred to me that perhaps my father had summoned me home. I was so excited to be leaving this house. Even though I was ill and I knew the journey would be hard on me, I was thrilled to be going home. I sat over there at the window that overlooks the street, and waited.” The spark in her eyes dimmed. “But no one ever came.”