She spoke first. “It was considerate of you,” she began then had to stop. If her voice was ragged now, it was not because her throat was constricted. She was aware that there was not a constricted passage left in her body. Even her veins seemed open and flowing. “It was considerate of you,” she began again, “to have spared me the burn of your beard.” Her voice was low and came from deep inside her. “But it seems I’m never to be relieved of your weight.”
He shifted slightly atop her, grasped a handful of her hair and tugged it away from her forehead, cheeks and neck. He placed his lips on the skin of her nape but did not kiss or rub. Instead he breathed her in. He placed his other hand under her hip and moved his still-greedy fingers as far toward the apex of her thighs as possible. The longer he lay on top of her, the more he fell out of her.
“Never,” he agreed.
She felt the meaning of the word rumbling up from his chest more than she heard it. He was not going to concede a moment before necessary. She wiggled to release herself from the thorough grip of his body.
“Surely you don’t object,” he said lazily.
She wiggled more. “You’re crushing me.”
He grasped her shoulders and gave them a little shake. He lay very still atop her. His body lost its relaxed laziness. So did his voice. “Surely you don’t object,” he repeated into her ear. This time his low, deep voice held a note of purring, playful challenge.
She discovered an interesting new and pleasurable form of submission. “No, sire,” she replied with exaggerated humility, “I do not object.”
Having obtained her capitulation, he said readily, “Very well.” He grunted and rolled off of her, giving her a little spank as he did so. He settled himself beside her. He stretched luxuriously then lay on his side facing her.
She turned over slowly, trying to regain control of desire -drenched limbs. It took more of an effort than should have been necessary for such a simple movement. The floating feeling of earlier was gone, and in its place was a heavy ripeness that seemed to bloat her thoughts and slow her reactions. She got no farther than turning over heavily on her back and sinking, exhausted, against the pillows and mattress. She tried to arrange the covers around her. Her efforts were ineffectual.
His hand slipped in under the flimsy bed covers. He placed his palm possessively on the flat of her abdomen. At his touch, she rolled her head against the pillow to look at him in the dark. It was a mistake. She had underestimated the effect of looking at the man with her emotions still swirling through her. She felt his shadowy glance mingle with those surging emotions to restructure the woman who had dwelled inside her all these years and who had kept her alive.
With Canute, afterwards, she had always felt either bloodied or bruised, but always unbowed. With Beresford now, with his glance upon her, she had the distinct feeling of lying slain on a field of battle. She had never anticipated responding to a man so thoroughly. She had never anticipated allowing a man that much power over her. She closed her eyes and turned her head away from him. Still, she was aware of his hand upon her stomach. She did not dare move away from his touch. She did not want to, either. And she did not want to want it.
“There are other ways,” he said at last.
His voice fell like a veil around her in the darkness, surrounding her. “Are there?” she inquired, almost at random.
“But only one other I like so well.”
She dared herself to ask, “And what is that other way?”
He was very long in replying. “You’ll find out.”
She was not sure about this, but knew a challenge when she heard one. “Will I?”
“Yes.”
She took the chance of looking at him again. This time, too, it was a mistake. She had survived her marriage to Canute by remaining constantly on her guard. This night she had not been wary enough. She had not been wary at all. She looked away. The oddest image came into her head, of Beresford kneeling over her defeated body, his hands outspread and raised in victory. She decided that his gesture was conventional, not triumphant, for his victory over her had been too easy. That was it, then—the effect of his flat, conventionally victorious “Yes.” She had no experience with this kind of surrender to interpret it as anything other than defeat.
She winced at the image, but she was too tired to rise up and fight it—fight him on his own terms. Or was her muddled brain misperceiving this as a battle? She did not know, and she was too tired to decide the issue. Not a weary tired, but a rather pleasant tired. A deserved tired. Yes, she deserved a little rest after the past days and weeks and months and years.
Her thoughts kept turning, but they crunched rustily, like creaky old gears. She knew that she should not let his “Yes” hang there unanswered. No, that would be a very grave mistake, and she set about to imagine every conceivable, effective response she could make. Somewhere between imagining the most banal and the most brilliant response, she drifted off to sleep.
She awoke much later when the red of dawn was filtering through the shutters. She snuffled awake with a dreamy snort, then her senses blazed to life when she realized what was happening to her. The word that formed on her lips was an immediate No, but with great effort she prevented herself from uttering it.
He was there beside her, seeking, exploring, demanding. He gave her little time to accept him. He gave her no time to reject him. However, he did dare her to deny him. His voice was very quiet and provocative when he said, “Surely you don’t object.”
This was a “No” she could submit to saying and even, perhaps, enjoy. “No, sire, I do not object.”
Chapter Twelve
Half an hour later, Gwyneth decided that her best defense was to get out of bed. The light that was dribbling through the shutters was becoming brighter by the minute. According to the bells she had lately heard, it was a little past prime.
Her limbs did not move easily, and a sense of pleasurable heaviness slowed her down. She wondered if she was going to have to learn to walk all over again. Before her feet touched the floor, there came a knock at the door.
She glanced over at Beresford, who was stretched out beside her in motionless repose, one arm raised behind his head. His eyes were open, staring unblinking into the distance, and his breathing was deep. At the knock, he broke his placid pose by rising fluidly to a sitting position. He gestured for her to get back into bed with a nod of his head then tossed off the bedclothes covering his legs. He got up, walked straight to the door, unlatched it and opened it to reveal his splendid nakedness to whomever might be standing on the other side.
From the bed, Gwyneth could not determine who had come calling at such an hour. She guessed, from the way Beresford was speaking, that it must be a page, although she was aware that her husband was as likely to speak equally rudely to one of his peers. She also guessed that the news was not particularly good—which made sense, given that the hour of the call suggested something urgent. She could not hear enough of the conversation, however, to know the nature of the bad news. Nor was she to learn what it was from Beresford, who, after a brief discussion, dismissed the messenger with a curt nod. Then he closed the door and walked to the hearth, where his clothes lay in an intimate heap with hers.
As he sorted through the clothing, she watched the movements of his naked body with fascination. She asked, “How did you know when you went to the door undressed that it was only a page come with a message?”
He raised a garment here, another there, flinging several items over his shoulder. “I didn’t.”
“But what if someone else had seen you? Someone more important?”
He shrugged. “What could they expect?”
He was right, of course. Anyone knocking on Beresford’s door in the early morning after his wedding night could hardly expect him to be anything but undressed.
“Is aught amiss?” she asked next.
“It was serious enough to keep me from wringing the young fool’s neck for the intrusion.”
/> His tone did not invite further discussion, and she fell to watching him perform the simple task of dressing himself. The activity struck her as most extraordinary. She wondered if she would ever be able to imagine him truly dressed ever again, for her impression of his body in its nakedness was so stark that she did not think clothing would ever fully hide it from her. After he had donned his chausses and she had studied the effect of his half-clothed body, she decided that a man like Beresford, when stripped of clothing, was not really naked at all, for he had nothing to hide. Rather, he was simply in his skin.
He completed his second skin with shirt and tunic. His feet were quickly shod, and he bent to retrieve his belt, which, instead of fastening around his waist, he slung around his neck. He ran his fingers through wild, uncombed curls, hardly taming them, then picked up the tray next to the hearth and came toward the bed. She was surprised when he sat down at her side and placed the tray on the floor next to the bed. He reached over and took from her fingers the sheet that she was holding at her breasts, pushing it away so that he could look at her.
At first she was embarrassed by his scrutiny of her breasts, then curious about his intent look and finally aroused by the contemplative desire she saw awaken in his eyes and in the slight softening of his hard mouth. He reached out and touched the tip of one breast, teased it to its peak, then moved to the other and toyed with it, too, as if it were an intriguing object that he did not quite understand. He spread his hand over her left breast, and she was sure he could feel the rapid thumping of her heart. He let his hand fall. He bent to pick up the bowl of fruit and set it on the bed between them. After cutting the wine in the goblets with water from the ewer, he handed her a cup.
He said, “We never got to this last night.”
She accepted the cup and took a sip to wash her mouth. “Do you have time for it now?”
“No,” he said, and drank his watered wine. He selected several strawberries from the bowl, ate them in a gulp then lifted a greenish plum. He popped this into his mouth and pursed his lips as he bit into the sourness. He made a sound of satisfaction.
She chose daintily among plump berries, red and purple. “Well, then?” she asked.
He made quick work of his wine and the fruit and put his goblet down on the tray at his feet. When he straightened, he looked at her, clasping the ends of the belt slung around his neck with his hands. He said, “I’ll be leaving after midday.”
“Where are you going?”
He did not choose to answer that. Instead, he said, “I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”
“You’ll be gone more than a sennight?” she inquired.
He reflected on that, then quirked his brows. “Possibly.”
“You might miss the tournament, then?”
He had apparently forgotten that detail. He reconsidered. “I’ll return before the tournament.” His voice was confident.
“But we shall celebrate the Trinity without you.”
“Yes.”
He volunteered nothing further, and she was not going to beg. He apparently thought some information was none of her business. She sipped her wine and picked out several more berries.
He said, “You can lie abed for as long as you like and descend to the hall at your leisure. I will request of Adela that you remain here at the Tower, during my absence.”
She was rapidly adjusting to these new plans. She recognized this as a dangerous moment, one when the course of their marriage would be set. She put up defenses against the effect of his touch and the look in his eyes and her own nakedness. Still, she luxuriated in the feelings produced by the night they had just spent together, and her sleepy sensuousness gave her an idea of how to handle him. It was the most obvious strategy in the world for a woman to use with a man, but it seemed strikingly new to her, even daring.
She shifted her legs so that she was sitting on her heels, with the sheet pooling in her lap. She pressed her arms to her sides, framing her breasts and pushing them forward a little. “Perhaps I would like to accustom myself to my new home,” she said, lowering her lashes and her voice.
“I wish to know that you are safe here at the Tower,” he said.
“How can I not be safe in my own home?” she returned, looking up at him directly. She did not know how to be coy, and she did not think that coyness would work with a man like Beresford.
“I wish to know where you are.”
She smiled. “But you will know exactly where I am.”
“And how you go along.”
She decided not to respond to that. Instead, she smiled more warmly at him, cocked her head and shrugged prettily.
His eyes left her face to fall on her bared breasts. Then he glanced away, so that his profile was to her. She could not see the expression on his face when he replied neutrally, “You may suit yourself.”
It was likely that he did not truly care where she spent the next several days. Nevertheless, she felt a measure of victory, as if life were returning to her.
Her moment of victory did not last long, for he surprised her by drawing her to him. He placed his lips on hers, and she tasted wine and berry juice, both sweet and tart. The buckle of the belt around his neck pressed against her, and the cold metal stung her warm skin. The sting, his lips, the wine, her surprise and her own feminine strategy prompted her to kiss him back. Knowing that he could not stay at her side, she let her kiss promise and linger, for it would cost her nothing. Feeling his quick response of passion, she did not hesitate to let her kiss linger and promise even more. His grip on her shifted accordingly.
She was still holding her empty goblet, and his rough movement caused her fingers to loosen from the stem. The goblet fell on the bed next to her thigh, and the remaining two drops of wine spilled out onto the sheets. She broke the kiss when she realized she had dropped the cup, and looked down in dismay at the delicate red stain. Before Beresford could see what had happened, she placed her hand over the spots and leaned on her arm, as if she were simply propping herself up. She made it seem as if she had meant to end the kiss, smiling sweetly at him and letting her lids flutter down languorously.
He drew a deep breath then rose from the bed. He looked dazed and had to shake his head once to clear it. He slid his belt from around his neck, secured it deftly at his waist and patted it, feeling for his sword, which was not there. He looked around for the blade and spied it lying before the hearth. He picked it up and held it in his upturned palms, weighing it idly. Then he bowed ever so slightly and said, his voice rough, “Perhaps I shall see you later this morning in the hall, madam, before I leave.”
He left the room, and she fell back upon the pillows, letting her breath out in a whoosh. She felt as if she had kept herself in control and had gotten the better of him with that kiss. Yet the blood red wine spots on the sheet had struck her as a sign that she had lost a particular kind of virginity to him this night, and she knew that she was playing a dangerous game of power with the risky strategy of sexuality.
Later, the same three serving women from the morning before came to her with bowls of fresh water and towels, for which she was grateful. At Adela’s orders, they had brought her her dark blue kirtle and light blue linen bliaut to replace the formal clothing she had worn the previous day. They gathered her wedding finery from its heap on the hearth, helped her wash herself and brushed her greatly tangled hair. They primped and prodded her as they had the day before, giggling now at what must have occurred during the night rather than in anticipation of it. Their chatter was light and inconsequential.
When they caught sight of the spots on the sheet, they turned wide, speculative eyes on her, for everyone knew she was a widow.
“Wine,” she said coolly and nodded at the tray on the floor by the bed.
One of the women felt the opportunity was ripe to ask what they were all dying to know. “So, my lady Gwyneth, tell!”
Gwyneth did not misunderstand, and had the day before prepared her response to such a deman
d. She smiled and said, “My husband was very kind.” It amazed her to say the words, for they had the unexpected merit of being true.
“Beresford kind?” echoed one.
“How interesting,” said another thoughtfully.
“Very interesting,” exclaimed a third, “to imagine kindness allied to his strength!”
Gwyneth felt a blush creep up her cheeks. No voluntary action on her part could have better convinced the trio of women of the impression she wanted them to have, namely, that she was a well-satisfied wife.
When they had coiffed and dressed her, the women accompanied Gwyneth out of the bedchamber and to the stairway that would take her to the hall where she would break her fast. Before they arrived at the stairs, Gwyneth put a hand on the arm of the serving woman whom she judged to be the most friendly. She said lightly, “Prepare me for the worst, Auncilla. What, in your opinion, am I to encounter below?”
“And what would the worst be, my lady?” Auncilla replied.
“You see, it was difficult enough for me, as a foreigner, to be the center of all eyes yesterday and the preceding days, and I would like to avoid being the object of curious attention this morning, if possible.” Gwyneth smiled. “Is it too much to hope that the interests of the court have turned to a subject beyond that of my marriage?”
“Oh, as to that, my lady, yes!” Auncilla chirped happily. “It seems that Duke Henry lost interest in Malmesbury, after all, and instead of heading east toward London, he has turned his forces west and south toward Bristol! It is most unexpected! So King Stephen—but we all know that it is really Adela—called for troops to be raised to meet Henry at Bristol.”
Simon’s Lady Page 15