"I cannot understand why I am so dry-mouthed," she remarked, a complaint that amused him although he said nothing, focusing on her smooth navel and gently flaring hips.
He had touched her there but now he was greedy. He must see and taste. Savouring the moment, he eased her skirts down over her bottom, letting the mass drop away.
His first glimpse of that dark triangle made him go hard again. Reluctant to relinquish the paradise of her bosom he bent his head and began to kiss her nipples as his hands quickly explored her tiny waist before dipping to her freshly-exposed behind.
Outside, incongruously, a donkey began to bray in the darkness, and a man cursed it. Ranulf heard the rustle of the river, and Edith's skirts as she wriggled against his fingers. He pulled her toward him, and she surprised him by pitching forward onto her hands and knees, and lowering her head.
Her backside was another paradise: round, unblemished, glistening in the lantern light. An inviting prospect.
He kissed her nicely-presented bottom, loving how round yet firm she was, how smooth. He wrapped his hands across each raised cheek, fondling her bottom and her thighs. Her forearms were rigid, he noticed.
"Rest on me," he instructed softly, scooping an arm about her tender, tiny waist, pillowing her navel on his brawny, hairy forearm. He circled her raised nether cheeks with his other hand, marking how she pushed back against his roving fingers.
He kissed and softly nipped the back of her neck where her hair plait had lately laid. Recalling her wide, anxious eyes at his own size and her clear arousal in this position, he whispered, "Do you like making love this way?"
"The single time it was done to me, yes." She groaned, laying her head on the sheets and closing her eyes as he caressed her over her haunches and between her thighs.
Once only and she had no choice? Her previous men-folk had been worse than pigs!
"It will be excellent with me, sweeting," he promised.
He began a long, slow, trailing fondle, round her bottom and down to her sweet intimacies. He took his time and his pleasure from her response, reaching with his other hand to caress her bush from the front, too.
Olwen had been warm and slow and steady to please. Edith was hotter in nature, or more starved: in a few more strokes her face crimsoned and she stiffened in rapture. He embraced and caressed her as she blossomed in her release, ready to stop and cuddle if it should prove too intense, if she was well-satisfied.
"You!" she managed to gasp, trying to roll over and embrace him, but he kept her hung over his arm.
"Edith." She was close again, making small endearing squeaks that he might tease her about one day, but not tonight.
"You are as snug as your gloves," he praised, deepening his caresses. She revelled in the attention, her mouth open in a long gasp of wonder.
But he could wait no longer. Withdrawing his fingers, he piled the cloths beneath her so she was curved nicely over them. Cupping her full breasts with one hand, he guided himself into her.
Her parts embraced him in warmth and silken, pliant strength: she welcomed him. Wanting to plunge and plunge, he steeled himself to take care, experiencing sensations he had never encountered before as he slowly sank his full length into her. Then they were sheathed together.
"Lord!" he heard her breathe. "Lord, Lord."
"Too much?" He began to shift back, but she backed up with him.
"More!"
Her plea released him and he reared and bucked within her, accelerating as she screamed her satisfaction. On and on they moved as one and his yielding powered and stormed within him. Then, as he felt her strong young muscles clamping about him as she spiralled again into further desire and release, he too was flying.
He bellowed her name, tumbling against her, drawing her with him as they sprawled on the bedding, together and content at last.
Chapter 23
They dozed, waking a little after midnight when all was silent in the camp. Ranulf lit the lantern again and asked if he might comb her hair. As he loosened her plait and combed, Edith feeding him raspberries, he remarked, "I would do this for Olwen, when she allowed it. A woman's hair is a glorious thing.
Will you tell me of Adam?"
"Will you tell me of Olwen?" Edith asked at the same time.
Both laughed and Ranulf flicked her softly with the comb. "You first."
She told of how her father had chosen Adam, from a village five miles off to the south. "He spoke in a different way so at first I could hardly understand him." She told how Adam brought his tools to the family forge and how relieved she was that she would not need to move from her home.
"And your brother was not a smith?" Ranulf asked, leaning now on an elbow, with the comb stuck in his hair.
"Is that a hint?" Edith delayed answering by pointing at the comb.
"Nay, I do not like my head touched. But your brother. Gregory?"
"He had skill with words and writing." Edith hesitated, wondering if she should admit more. "He was a sickly child, always coughing. He would have fared very badly in a forge."
Ranulf stroked her with a foot, his dark eyes glittering in the lantern light. "There is more here, princess. So what did Gregory become?"
"A priest."
"Is that all?"
Edith knelt up and stretched, knowing the movement would distract Ranulf. "All for now," she answered. "Now, you say of Olwen."
"Scold, scold," came the mild answer, "but very well. Tell you if the rumours are true, you mean."
She did not ask how he knew of them, or even what they were. By his agreement just then, he had allowed things to lie fallow in her life and she must do the same for his.
Not murder, though, sister, warned Gregory in her mind.
But Ranulf was speaking.
"Olwen and I were betrothed at seventeen and she came to our family when she was eighteen. I thought her as pale and beautiful as the moon, and as remote. I was a callow lad and she seemed so fine.
"We were married and we did poorly together. My talk was all of the jousting ground and hunting, all man-stuff that did not interest her. In bed I was too fast, too eager. She put up with me as a good wife should but I did not give her pleasure.
"Then she fell pregnant and that brought us together. I spent less time in the tourney grounds and more time with my lady. I took trouble to discover what she enjoyed. I learned to play the small harp, which she loved. I asked her about strewing herbs."
He rubbed the back of his neck, a gesture of awkwardness, and scowled. "I admit I was such a clod-head I did not think of these matters myself, but my mother did not want Olwen pining when she was with child."
Listening, Edith bit down on the response that his mother had not overly-concerned herself until her daughter-in-law had been pregnant. She sensed Ranulf had not spoken of this much, if ever. She wanted him to speak, to break free of some of the shadows and shackles of the past that she had sensed about him the first time they had met, by the river that still rustled close in the darkness.
"It worked. Olwen and I grew closer. She began to ask for things, certain actions and caresses from me, in bed. But then she miscarried the child. She was heart-scalded, and so was I.”
“What did the mid-wife say?” Edith asked, sitting up and shaking her loosened hair over her shoulders as extra warmth. It was not cold, but there was a sneaking breeze.
“Ah, yes, this is your providence, too.” Ranulf flashed her a look of pride that made her smile, and then he leaned across, popped a slice of apple into her startled mouth, and resumed.
“The mid-wife said our next would be hale and hearty and I stopped my father from remarking on our cows in calf, for I saw it upset Olwen. She cried in my arms in bed and I told her I loved her and that our child would surely be in heaven—Olwen was much distressed at the thought of our babe in purgatory.”
Once Edith would have muttered about nonsense, but now she said nothing and hid her face behind her hair.
“She still snapped at me, or was cold during th
e day, but after the harvest that year she was more settled and looking forward to Christmas."
He fell silent and plucked the comb from his hair, staring at it. "Olwen gave me this. As a gift. I would comb her hair, when she allowed it."
"What happened?" Edith prompted softly, as the silence drew on.
"Giles came. Merry, good-humoured Giles from the south, visiting his northern estate. I knew Giles from jousts and from when we had trained together as pages. I was glad to see him, for his talk of royal fashion and courtly scandal filled the spaces between Olwen and myself and he set my parents' household alight. He brought gifts: a rosebush for my mother, a new knife and sheath for my father, a pair of richly embroidered gloves for Olwen. He suggested I get Olwen a puppy, something to fuss and pet, and when I did so and she seemed so happy, I blessed his coming."
He sighed. "I was an idiot. A dog, however appealing, to take the place of a child! I had no sense."
"You were young," Edith said. "And Olwen was away from her home and family."
"And I never took her back to her parents. It never occurred to me. When she fell quiet I talked more and Giles talked most of all. He spoke constantly of France, of the hunting there and the chances for plunder, of how Edward our king rewarded knights who fought for him in France.
"I spoke to Olwen about it. If I had a season or so fighting in France and did well for plunder, we might build a household for ourselves on a piece of land my father would give me. Olwen liked the notion of our own place."
"No woman wants to share a hearth," Edith murmured, recalling her fights with her mother.
"I had men and followers from tourneys. They were keen to go with me to France."
He sighed and rubbed his eyes.
"On the night before we set out, I quarrelled with Olwen. She wanted to travel with me for part of the journey and I forbade it. I wanted to make haste, without a woman's train to slow me and my men down. I told her I would write and send messages and heralds and gifts." He shrugged. "I ignored her tears."
"That was cruel!" Edith burst out and Ranulf was already nodding his head.
"Aye, aye! I was greedy for treasure and profit, for adventure. I thought not of my wife, left at her in-laws'. I see it now and I saw it then, too, late, when I was in France.
"Oh, I kept my word. I wrote to Olwen. I sent many words, many heralds, many gifts."
"But you did not go back," Edith said, recognizing the crux of the matter between them.
"How could I? My men would have thought me unmanned. And Giles kept saying the gifts would placate her."
"You were with Giles in France?" Edith had good reasons for wishing to be clear on this.
Ranulf nodded again. "We camped as one squad, his men and mine. We raided together."
Edith flinched, understanding all too well what such raids would mean for the French villagers.
"Giles was with you?" she repeated faintly.
"Why this concern for Giles? Yes, he stood shoulder to shoulder with me, always, including the siege of Montefleurs, where we were bogged down for months."
"So you could not leave then?"
"King Edward would have flayed alive any truant from there as a deserter! As it was I could scarcely send out a message, but I did what I could."
He looked down at his knotted fists. "At first I could not understand why I never had word back from Olwen. I had letters from my mother, but not my wife. Then my mother's letters also stopped."
His mouth set in a grim line. "Month after month. Nothing. Then, when I returned to England and sent word north of my return, I had new letters from both Olwen and my mother before I reached home. I did not understand it—why those letters had reached me, and mine to them, and yet my earlier ones had not."
"Letters and messages can go astray."
"It was worse than that. A rumour had reached Olwen and my parents that I had died in France. Even though they knew I was now alive because of our latest exchange of letters in England, it was a shock to them, seeing me in the flesh. For months they had thought me dead and had mourned me as dead. Olwen told me that when she received my latest letter she scarcely dare believe it was true. She feared it could be some cruel trick. Except—"
He broke off, then started again, in a rush. "Olwen seemed glad to see me, yet not. At times she was warm to me, then not. I would find her crying in the garden. If she smiled at a squire, I would rot with jealousy and quarrel with her as soon as I could. She and my mother did not speak to each other. Father was always off hunting.
"I hastened to have our place built. I prayed to God Almighty that it would please her. I watched her like a falconer watches a hawk, and envy gnawed at my heart and bones. We bickered endlessly over trifles. I upbraided her for nothing—for missing out the honey in my tisane, for continuing to wear a gown another man had admired when I demanded she consign it at once to our clothes chest, and other foolishness. Even as I heard the words tumbling out of my mouth I knew I was wrong. But I could not seem to stop it.
"Then, on our first night there together, sitting in our new solar, she confessed. She had indeed written to me at first, while I was in France—"
“But when she received no word back from you and your letters to your mother came, she stopped,” Edith broke in.
Ranulf stared, although to Edith this was nothing wonderful, merely sense. “Go on,” she said.
“During the time she had thought me dead in France, Olwen had lain with other men.”
“She had thought herself a neglected wife first, and then a widow.”
“Indeed, Edith. It is as you say. She said my parents did not know and she begged me not to shame her further by telling them."
He fell silent and Edith scarcely dared to draw breath. Should she ask, or leave the matter? Yet what had he done?
Dare I know the answer? Was he understanding and generous? If not, what chance for me? What chance for us?
Ranulf sighed and spread his hands. "I understood then, how greatly I had hurt her, even if it was down to mischance, and how my filthy behaviour continued to wound her. I was ashamed that Olwen should fear me so greatly. She was a beautiful young woman, with needs and wishes. I had been dead to her and parted from her in a poor, grudging way, without any further word from me, or so she believed. Worse, my mother had received letters from me, at least at first, and she had none!"
"She would feel hurt and humiliated," Edith murmured. "I know I would have done."
"I wager Olwen was the same—in truth I know she was! And even I, thick-headed in my marriage as I had been, even I saw that injury. So why should I demand of her a lasting solitude? I forgave her. And I never, ever told my parents. I wager that they may have had their suspicions, but I soon made it clear to one and all that Olwen was my beloved wife.
"That night and following there were no shadows between us, and no more petty envies. We were at last in truth husband and wife, living in our own place, making our own way, looking forward to children.
"But it was not to be. Three weeks after we were truly and fully reconciled, Olwen went out riding early with her maids. She took a dreadful fall off her horse. She died before I heard the news, before I reached her."
He looked beaten down now and the moonlight silvered his hair, making him a pale, aging, grieving ghost.
"We had such little true time together, and the rest so marred. I wish to God we had done better."
Edith took his hands in hers and held them tightly.
Chapter 24
"I am sorry," she said. She kissed his hands. "So very sorry."
He looked at her in that stark, lost way she had seen by the river and then cast himself into her arms. She hugged him tightly, saying over and over, "It was a pity and a shame and I am so sorry, so sorry."
Seeking only to comfort him, she kissed him.
He kissed her in return and now their kiss changed, becoming deeper, more urgent.
Suddenly, still in her arms, he became very still. "I would not
wish you to think I do this for diversion."
"Why should we not turn to each other?" she asked gently, wanting to show him that she understood his tangled feelings of loss and pity, lust and comfort, even anger and shame. Had she not felt the same over Gregory?
"With such a little, with just a little more thought, I could have made her happy," he whispered against her throat.
"You did make her happy, Ranulf. Truly." She traced the dark line of his jaw with a finger, marvelling at the golden stubble there. "I should know—I did not appreciate what joining with a man could be, before you." She kissed a scar on his ear. "Olwen was happy."
He nodded, then raised his eyes to her face. "But I would not wish you to think I feel less for you."
"I know that, too." She scooped a sheet over them both and rocked him against her, ignoring the slow building ache in her breasts and hips. If Ranulf wished only to sleep in her arms, then so be it.
"Edith?" He rolled out of her arms onto his belly. "May I—That is, may we —”
Suddenly she understood why he was on his stomach, hiding away from her. She smiled, allowing the sheet to fall away from her breasts.
"Make me happy, Rannie," she whispered.
He had done so, too, she reflected, wriggling contentedly in his arms as he slept. He had explored her and coaxed her to explore him. He had pampered her. He had eased into her, always taking his weight on his arms, hanging over her like a golden harvest moon.
Only when she was more than ready, opening her legs ever wider, lifting her hips to him, kissing his chest and mouth, did he move in her more urgently. Soon, with her squeaked encouragement, he was powering into her, his hard flesh cracking against hers like thunder. On and on the pleasure piled and grew in her and when it was released she screamed with the blinding force of it.
Ranulf matched her passion, chanting her name as he hammered into her. It was her name he roared at his finish and her name he muttered, half-snoring, as he coiled his long limbs about her and slept.
Delight kept her wakeful and although she had dozed now she was refreshed and ready for more. For a while she was content to kiss her amazing lover, smiling at his grunts of acknowledgment. Then he turned and she cast herself onto her back to watch the stars.
Love and Chivalry: Four Medieval Historical Romances Page 100