She released one of his hands to reach up and lay her cool palm against his cheek. He closed his eyes, savoring her touch. “If you’d just listen to your instincts,” she gently berated, “instead of making everything so damn complicated, you wouldn’t jump to such asinine conclusions.”
When he opened his eyes, she was grinning at him. As usual, her good humor was infectious, and he found himself smiling back.
“You scrutinize everything,” she said, “question everything, dig and dig, searching for answers. Your torment is self-induced. You can make it stop. You can. Don’t turn all that doubt in on yourself. Save it for the lecture hall, where it belongs. Where you belong.”
“Do I?”
“How can you question it? When I watch you up there, engrossed in your disputatio, it’s as if you come alive, as if you’re doing what you were born to do.” She took his face between her hands. “Try accepting who you are. Everyone has the right to that much.”
Rainulf couldn’t think of anything to say, nothing to match her guileless eloquence, at any rate. Instead he encircled her with his arms and drew her close, burying his face in her fragrant hair. They held each other for a long time without speaking, a healing, silent embrace. She felt so warm beneath the thin wool of her kirtle, so human. God, how he needed her.
He stiffened. He couldn’t afford to need her. What was happening to him? What was he letting happen?
Corliss looked up at him, questioning him with her eyes. When he avoided her gaze, she released him. She chewed her lip for a moment, and then smiled enigmatically. “You’ll get used to it.”
“To what?”
“Being in your skin. Feeling what you feel and” — she shrugged— “not fighting it.”
“I’m too old to get used to anything new. And some things” —like you, like how I want you and need you— “ought to be fought.”
She held his gaze for a moment. “Perhaps. Perhaps not.” Turning, she continued down the stairs, and he followed her to the great hall, where the rest of the household was finishing its noon meal. She began walking toward the high table, but he stilled her with a hand on her shoulder.
“Thorne’s not the only one who’s in your debt, Corliss. I am, too. Forever. Anything you need, anything you want, you need but ask me, and it shall be yours. I couldn’t have borne Martine’s death. She’s all the family I’ve got.”
“What of your brother in Rouen, the baron?”
“Etienne?” Rainulf’s face lost expression. “I doubt I’ll ever see him again. That’s for the best. He and I are... We’re very different. Martine was always... close to my heart. She was always special.”
He searched her eyes, struggling to come up with the right words. “I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to thank you.”
“You’re letting me live in your home,” she pointed out. “You’re keeping me safe from Roger Foliot. That’s thanks enough.”
“There will never be thanks enough.”
“There you are!” Peter said, joining them. “You must be hungry, my lady. Come sit.” His expression brightened. “Or perhaps you’d prefer to take some bread and cheese with you while we go hawking.”
“Ah...” She glanced quickly at Rainulf. “I’m sorry, Sir Peter. I’d quite forgotten about the hawking.”
“Little surprise,” he said. “It’s been such a trying morning for you. I hope you haven’t changed your mind, though. A bit of fresh air will serve you well.”
“Yes, I suppose it will,” she murmured.
“Would you care to join us?” Peter asked Rainulf blandly.
Rainulf shook his head, knowing that it was common courtesy, not a desire to make the afternoon a threesome, that had prompted the invitation. “Nay, I think I’ll go to St. Dunstan’s, as I had planned.” He ducked into the stairwell, adding, “I’ll be back in time for supper.”
* * *
It was late afternoon when Corliss returned from hawking with Peter. She washed quickly and exchanged her dusty kirtle for an emerald brocade tunic suitable for supper.
Rainulf had been right; Peter was good company. He was quick-witted and charming and an excellent conversationalist. It impressed her that he spoke little of himself, trying instead to draw her out with questions, mostly about her family and background. She deflected them as smoothly as she could, bearing in mind Rainulf’s advice to offer as little as possible about herself until Roger Foliot was no longer a threat.
Although she knew Peter fancied her, he didn’t attempt any liberties or say anything inappropriate. She was grateful for his chivalric reserve, for although she liked him, there was no question of any kind of romantic involvement. For one thing, her feelings for Rainulf, ill advised though they were, prevented her from being seriously attracted to another man.
Even had that not been the case, such an attraction would be pointless. She and Peter were almost as far apart in rank as she and Rainulf. If the attentive young knight knew that “Lady Corliss of Oxford” was actually the daughter of a Cuxham villein, he surely wouldn’t waste any time courting her. More likely he’d toss her onto the straw in an empty stable stall, throw her skirts up, and be done with it. For, despite his affability, he was, she reminded herself, a highborn Norman. With the exception of Rainulf Fairfax, they were all alike. They used women like her for sexual release, saving their lofty affections for ladies of their own rank.
Felda came to lace her up and dress her hair. “Milady and the baby are asleep,” she said. “I finally talked milord into going downstairs for something to eat.” She shook her head as she settled a jeweled circlet onto Corliss’s veiled head. “I never thought to see a baron bathe his own baby. You wouldn’t believe how gentle he was. I’ll remember it to my dying day.”
Felda pronounced Corliss “magnificent,” pinched her cheeks, and left. Corliss wished she didn’t have to go down to supper alone, but she finally got her courage up and slowly descended the stairs. As she neared the great hall, she heard men talking, and paused to listen.
Rainulf, Peter, and Guy were congratulating Thorne on Wulfric’s birth.
“A son,” Thorne said proudly. “And all boy!”
“Ah, you checked, did you?” Rainulf asked, sounding amused and a good deal more relaxed than the last time she spoke to him.
Thorne chuckled. “Aye, and it’s the size of your thumb!”
There was a moment of silence. Corliss grinned at the mental image of Rainulf and the two knights examining their thumbs. Presently there came a chorus of whistles and exclamations of awe. Corliss cleared her throat and stepped out of the stairwell, whereupon the men rushed to hide their hands behind their backs.
Thorne coughed. “My lady.”
“Gentlemen.”
Peter quickly recovered his composure and took Corliss by the arm. “Would you do me the honor of sitting next to me at supper, my lady?”
She glanced at Rainulf and found him frowning. For a moment, he seemed about to speak, and she thought—hoped—he might ask her to sit with him. But then he schooled his expression and—almost reluctantly, it seemed—turned away.
“Aye, Sir Peter,” she said, forcing a tactful smile, “I’d be happy to.”
Chapter 12
“We’d like you to be godmother to Wulfric,” said Martine, sitting up in bed with the baby asleep in her arms. Thorne, sitting by her side, reached over to caress Wulfric’s thick shock of gold hair and wipe away the trickle of milk that escaped from his half-open mouth.
“Me?”
“If it weren’t for you, there would be no baby to baptize tomorrow.” Martine smiled toward her brother, standing near the bedchamber door. “Rainulf will be his godfather.”
“I’m... I’m honored,” Corliss said. “Truly.”
Father John, the barony chaplain, cleared his throat. “There is something I’m obliged to mention before you agree.” He glanced uneasily between Corliss and Rainulf. “The sacrament of baptism spiritually binds the godparents not only to the
child, but to each other. Under canon law, lifting up the same child from the font is an impediment to marriage.”
“We didn’t realize...” Thorne began, his brow furrowed.
“Ah,” Father John said. “Then perhaps you ought to think about choosing another godmother.”
A great silence descended on the chamber. Presently Rainulf cleared his throat. “She can serve as godmother,” he said tightly. Drawing in a breath, he added, “We can both serve. There’s no problem.”
Thorne and Martine exchanged a look. A great sadness welled up within Corliss, a sadness reflected in Rainulf’s expression of grim resignation.
“He’s right,” Corliss said in a monotone. “There’s no reason we can’t both serve as godparents. Thank you for asking me. I gladly accept.”
* * *
Rainulf received the naked infant and held him above the big marble font, nodding to Corliss, who took hold of the feet. The afternoon sun streaming in through the stained-glass window overhead bathed her face in multicolored light. The sight transfixed him for a long, breathless moment.
A hand closed over his arm. “Immerse the child,” Father John whispered.
Together, he and Corliss dipped a squalling Wulfric into the water, then lifted him up. Father John anointed the babe’s forehead with sacred chrism and tied a white cloth around it, then took him into his arms.
Corliss smiled at Rainulf, and after a moment’s hesitation, he smiled back.
So this is how it’s to be. I’m to continue on as if I don’t ache with wanting her, as if it doesn’t hurt just to look upon her.
We’re to act as if we don’t care.
So be it. If she can do it, so can I.
* * *
Corliss lay in bed, gazing at the light from beneath the door to Rainulf’s chamber. Tomorrow they would begin their return journey to Oxford. She looked forward to the trip with a fair measure of anticipation, for it meant they’d have two days alone together.
She’d missed him during their visit to Blackburn. In truth, she’d seen him only at supper, for he spent his days at St. Dunstan’s and his evenings closeted in his chamber reading books borrowed from the priory’s library. When she awoke during the night—as now—she would see the light beneath his door, no matter how late it was. Sometimes, if she lay very still and held her breath, she fancied she could hear the soft whisper of pages being turned... the creak of his chair.
She’d had little opportunity to talk to him, and none to ask him the question that had obsessed her for the past fortnight, ever since their arrival at Blackburn. It was a question she couldn’t ask just anybody, only a trusted confidant, someone who wouldn’t laugh at her ignorance or look askance at her for asking such things.
Only Rainulf. He was the only one she could have asked, except they hadn’t been alone together for two weeks, and it wasn’t a question one blurted out over roast stag at supper.
She studied the pale strip of lamplight beneath his door—the only light in her pitch-black chamber, it being well past midnight.
She could ask it now. She could get up and throw a wrapper over her shift and knock on the door of his chamber. They’d be alone. No one to overhear her foolish question or laugh at her ignorance or think her immoral for contemplating such matters.
Biting her lip, she stared at the ribbon of golden light.
She could.
* * *
Rainulf thought he heard something as he turned a page of the Decretum—two soft thumps. He listened for a moment, heard nothing more, and returned his attention to the volume of canon law on the desk in front of him. The prohibition against godparents marrying had come as news to him, and he sought—for the sake of curiosity only—to confirm it in print. Not that he doubted Father John’s knowledge, and not that it mattered. It didn’t. Not to him personally, at any rate—
There it was again, a little louder. He turned toward the door to the chamber adjoining his. Corliss?
Saving his place with a piece of straw—a habit acquired during his university days—he donned a shirt over his chausses and opened the door.
He forgot to breathe when he saw her standing there in a silken shift and wrapper, her sleep-tousled hair curling around her face—the very picture of seductive innocence. She had her lower lip caught between those perfect white teeth; when she released it, the lip was reddened and swollen. He did breathe then, a sharp inhalation that filled his senses with that exotic, maddening perfume of hers.
A jolt of sexual longing shook him, and he turned away abruptly, wondering what she was doing here in his chamber in the middle of the night. To cover his awkwardness, he sat back down and picked up his book. “Couldn’t you sleep?” he said, his voice rougher than he would have liked.
“There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you about.”
He hesitated, uncomfortably aware of her breasts and hips beneath the thin silk.
She took a step back. “I suppose this isn’t a good—”
“Nay. Come in.” He laid the book aside. “Have a seat.”
He followed her gaze as she looked around the chamber, realizing belatedly that his bed was the only place left to sit, since he’d taken the one chair. “You can sit here,” he offered, rising.
“That’s all right.” She drew aside the curtain and sat on the edge of the big bed. “I’m comfortable here.”
He had often—too often—envisioned her on his bed in her nightclothes... or less. During the past fortnight he had struggled to keep from entertaining such thoughts, immersing himself in monastic life and exhausting himself with endless nights of reading while the rest of the household lay sleeping. He’d been successful, for the most part—at least during his waking hours. At night, she still came to him in his dreams... dreams in which they surrendered to each other, heart and soul and flesh... dreams from which he awoke shaking and sweating and moaning her name.
It was getting harder and harder to keep his desire for her in perspective. When she’d first come to Oxford, it had been easier; he’d been long used to self-denial. You were proud of it, you sanctimonious bastard. Proud and complacent and self-righteous. Better than everyone else because you could resist the human needs that held them captive.
When had it started to change? When you started to change... When Corliss changed you. When she made you smile. When she made you want. When she made you care.
Whatever it was she’d wanted to ask him was evidently difficult for her. She fingered her wrapper nervously as though working up her courage. In the uneasy silence, he found himself reflecting, as he often did lately, on how much simpler his life would be if he’d never met her. As it was, all he wanted anymore was to be with her. To talk to her. To touch her. God help him, to make love to her. The need for restraint, although he hated it more than ever, hadn’t changed; he still wanted the chancellorship, didn’t he? But the effort it took to exercise that restraint had increased a hundredfold.
He watched her run her hand over the quilt. She regarded him thoughtfully for a moment and then looked at the carpeted floor. “What I wanted to ask you is a little embarrassing.”
“You needn’t be embarrassed with me.”
She took a deep breath. “It has to do with the story Thorne told when we first arrived. The story about the Rhineland widow. What was her name...?”
“Sigfreda.” He wasn’t sure he liked where this might lead.
“That’s right. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and there’s a part of it that I just don’t understand. The part where she... screamed.”
No, he was definitely sure he didn’t like where this was going. “What don’t you understand about it?” he asked carefully.
She met his gaze for a moment and then looked away again. “Why she did it. Why she screamed.”
“You don’t know?” She shook her head. He wished he had a brandy. “‘Twas exactly as Thorne said. She was... enjoying herself.” Very much.
“Enjoying herself.”
; Rainulf nodded.
“I still don’t understand.”
Oh, for pity’s sake. “Climaxing,” he said shortly.
Her eyes grew wide as wagon wheels, then narrowed. “Women don’t...” Her expression became indignant. “You’re teasing me. I trusted you to tell me the truth.”
“Teasing you! Have you never—” He bit back the question, since it was evident that she never had. “Don’t you know that women can... achieve that kind of pleasure, too?”
She cast him a skeptical look. “Nay. I’ve never heard of such a thing. And I’ve certainly never...” A hot blush spread upward along her throat, staining her face pink.
This revelation surprised Rainulf. After all, she was so earthy, so comfortable with herself. And she was hardly inexperienced. She’d been married at sixteen. To an old man, he reminded himself. The mistress to another old man. Men who clearly had never bothered to satisfy her. What fools they had been, to have such a woman in their beds—so young and beautiful and passionate—and use her so uncaringly. How often had he imagined Corliss writhing in ecstasy beneath him, crying out as she dug her fingers into his back... He adjusted his long shirt to hide his sudden, fierce erection.
Her eyes searched his. “You’re telling me the truth, aren’t you?”
“Of course.”
“What does it feel like?”
He licked his dry lips. “Corliss, I’m sorry. I can’t discuss this with you.
“But—”
“Ask Martine about it. She’s a woman. And you two seem to get along so well.”
“Aye, but I’ve only known her a short time, and... I’ve always been able to ask you everything.”
“Ask Martine,” he repeated.
“I’m asking you. Tell me what it feels like. I just want to know. I feel so ignorant, so foolish, not having even known such a thing was possible.”
“Corliss... Nay. I can’t. Besides, I really don’t think it can be described. Perhaps someday you’ll remarry and have a husband who cares enough to show you—”
“I’ll never remarry! I’ll never know what other women know, I’ll never feel what they feel.” Her voice quavered; her eyes glistened.
Lords of Conquest Boxed Set Page 194