Conrad laughed again. “You should know. You will have men telling you this often.”
Carys shrugged nervously, setting the grain bowl aside and going in search of the broom to begin sweeping the steps. Conrad followed her around like a puppy. When he saw her collect the broom, he took it gently from her hands.
“Allow me, schönes mädchen,” he said, smiling at her. “You should not do such work.”
She was still blushing when he took the broom away and began sweeping the steps. “What does that mean?”
He looked at her. “What?”
“Whatever you called me. What does it mean?”
His gaze lingered on her before turning back to his sweeping. “It means beautiful girl.”
A bashful smile creased her lips. “Would… would you teach me your language sometime? I should like to learn it.”
He bowed gallantly. “I would be privileged.”
She fought off a wider smile, knowing the blush on her cheeks had deepened yet again. Carys watched him sweep the steps, an odd feeling blooming in her chest that she had never experienced before. It was warm and tingly and made her light headed. She felt as if her ribs were going to explode. Watching Conrad sweep the steps, she couldn’t help but smile.
He was fairly beautiful, too.
*
Elizabeau had awoken warm and naked in Rhys’ arms. She lay there for a few moments, orienting herself and remembering the events of the night with crystal clarity. She remembered every touch, every sensation as if it had only just happened. It brought a feeling of total comfort, total joy, and she burrowed in closer against him. Her face was pressed into the soft matting of dark hair on his broad chest and she inhaled deeply, feeling his scent wash over her. It was the moment she had always dreamed of with him and it was more, and better, than she could have ever wished for.
Rhys’ arms tightened around her instinctively as she snuggled against him. He had been awake for quite some time, afraid to move, afraid to break the spell between them. He had been sure he would feel differently about what he had done come the dawn, but in truth, he still did not regret his actions. They had been the most natural of things, as he had always been meant to have her. But he did breathe a prayer of thanks that he had still possessed the presence of mind not to take her innocence. It had taken nearly all his strength not to, but for now, the strength had held out and he was grateful.
When she burrowed into him, he pulled her close and buried his face in the top of her hair, smelling the soft strands. It was then he realized that she was doing the same thing to him; he could feel her breathing deeply against his chest. With his hands caressing her hair, her body, he spoke.
“Are you awake?” he asked softly.
“No,” she murmured into his flesh. “I am still asleep, still dreaming of you.”
He smiled. “As I am of you also,” he kissed the top of her head. “Did you sleep well?”
“So well that I cannot begin to describe the bliss. I never want it to end.”
His smile faded. “Nor I, but it is unfortunate that it must. It is shortly after dawn and we must get dressed and press on.”
She pulled her face out of his chest, gazing up at him with a delightfully sleepy face. “Where are we going?”
He smoothed the hair from her eyes. “Ogmore.”
Her first instinct was to cry and rage. After the night they’d spent together, she had convinced herself that the only thing that existed was their feelings for each other. No king, no Teutonic prince… but the reality was that their bliss was to be a stolen moment, never to come again. She struggled to be grateful for it.
“Of course,” she murmured. “How long will it take?”
He finished brushing hair from her eyes and was now simply stroking her face. “We should reach it by tomorrow.”
She looked at him seriously, knowing there was nothing more she could say or do to delay or otherwise alter her future. They had been through it, too many times, and they both knew what must be done. Strangely, after last night, she felt more fortified to face it.
“I would suspect that after the prince and I are married, we will return to his homeland,” she said, realizing her throat was constricting with tears as she spoke. “I do not know when I will see you again. Do you think that de Lohr will permit you to accompany me back to Saxony?”
He touched her face tenderly. “Probably not. Once this mission is complete, we will move on to other things. I cannot say when we will meet again.”
She was trying very hard to be brave. “Then I will see you in my dreams every night. And I will relive this moment in my heart for as long as I live.”
He gazed down at her, feeling the powerful pangs of grief. Until last night, he had been doing an admirable job of maintaining his emotional control. But after what he had experienced with her, he realized the dam had been breached and it would be close to impossible to stem the tide. After a long moment, he pulled her into his arms and squeezed tightly. Elizabeau threw her arms around his neck and squeezed back.
Rhys’ face was buried in her neck, feeling her hair and silken skin against his rough cheek. His eyes were closed as he dreamed of a world where they could be together, just the two of them, and awaken like this every morning for the rest of their lives. His hands roamed her body freely, feeling the silky flesh beneath his touch, moving to the rounded swell of her buttocks and gripping them with his big hands. He pulled her pelvis against his, knowing he already had a massive erection. But he wanted to feel her against him. His mind was muddled with warmth and love and passion, so much so that it took him a moment to realize that she had parted her thighs and had wrapped her legs around him.
He was losing ground fast. His heart began to race and he pulled back to look her in the eye.
“Nay,” his breathing was coming in ragged gasps. “You must not…”
She put her hand over his mouth and ground her hips against his. He could feel her wet heat against his member, made worse when she thrust her hips forward and pulled herself along the length of his shaft.
“Rhys,” she put her lips against the hand that was over his mouth, her hot breath mingling with his own. “This moment is all that I have lived for. To give myself to the man I love, who loves me in return, will make my life complete. This is more than lust or foolishness; this is an affair of the heart and body at the deepest level. I will never feel this way again and I will never feel you again. I am not so naïve that I believe all women go to the marriage bed as virgins but I have an advantage; I was able to give my innocence to the man I love even though he will never be my husband.”
She removed her hand from his mouth and replaced it with her lips, kissing him ferociously. Rhys responded as he knew he would, with power and submission, with strength and adoration. He could feel her grinding her hips against him, moving her wet heat the length of his engorged manhood.
They were still on their sides, facing each other, so she was able to lift herself up along his torso. As tongues plundered and bodies began to sweat, she managed to perch herself on the tip of his swollen phallus. Rhys could feel her and he knew what was about to happen; if he had any sense, he would have pulled away. But she fit against him so perfectly and her body against his was so natural, so instinctive, that he could not stop what was about to occur. When she tightened her legs and thrust her pelvis forward again, he slipped more than half of his long, hard length inside her wet and pulsing passage.
Elizabeau gasped at the sting, the newness of the sensation. She tore her mouth away from his, panting as she became accustomed to the feel of him within her body. Rhys realized it was the most miraculous sensation of his life and also the worst; it was everything he knew it would be and he wasn’t even fully embedded in her. His mouth was suckling on her throat as she gasped and, with a growl, he took hold of her tender buttocks and thrust forward, driving himself to the hilt and listening to her cries of pain and pleasure.
The deed was done. There was no turning back. With on
e hand on her buttocks and another on her breast, he impaled her on his phallus again and again, listening to her soft, joyous gasps, feeling her body respond to his as he had never experienced in his life. It was as if she were made for him, every part of her, and he fit against her and within her like a piece of a puzzle. Their tender kisses resumed and he realized she was weeping softly, so he kissed her tears away before claiming her lips once more. He could feel her body rattle with his powerful thrusts, her soft weeping in his ear that encouraged him onward. Even after he climaxed, he continued to thrust into her and was rewarded when her body released around him. He could feel her tender walls pulling at him. Still, he continued to move within her, to kiss her, to caress her buttocks and breasts. When it ended, he knew quite irrevocably that it was not the end. It was the beginning of something he could not begin to comprehend.
Elizabeau lay in his arms, sniffling faintly, weeping with the joy and pleasure of it. Rhys held her tightly, his gentle kisses raining on her hair and face, her shoulder, until he felt himself growing hard again and he resumed another round of tender thrusts. Elizabeau moaned softly as he moved within her once again, her arms wrapped around his neck as she completely turned herself over to him. This time, Rhys took his time with her, holding her slender softness against him as he made love to her, his actions infused with the deep love he felt for her more than the overwhelming lust. When they finally found their release, it was together. When she fell into an exhausted sleep with his body still within her, he did not have the heart to move. He lay there and held her tightly, his mind wandering as the sun rose.
My God… what have I done?
Rod was a good knight and very astute. He had followed his brother’s path to St. Briavels and was told that the master had left the day before towards the southwest. So Rod followed along the path presumably taken by his brother, riding hard and fast. Based on what Rhett had told him, he knew that his brother would be taking the lady to Ogmore Castle so he could only assume that Rhys was taking the coastal route to get there.
Rod followed the Wye Valley from St. Briavels to the Severn River and followed the river to the sea. He reasoned that Rhys would not hide in any of the smaller towns along the road simply because it would be too difficult to blend in with the crowd. As big a man as he was, he would be easy to locate so Rod presumed he would find him in a larger town with more people to cover his tracks.
Rod stopped in Chepstow, the first larger town he came to, and investigated three inns but no one had seen a very large man and small, red-haired woman. Rod even hung around for a short while as seven well-paid street urchins ran about the town looking for a massive knight with black hair. But no one caught a glimpse of such a man so Rod spent the night there and then moved on.
The next major town after Chepstow was Caldicot. It was actually a collection of several smaller towns along the seaport, so Rod started at the northeast end of the town and began to move from one inn to the next. After checking five such establishments, he came across another collection of orphans milling in the street and, after some persuasion and a few coins, the children set out to find the enormous black-haired knight. Rod told them that he would settle in a tavern somewhere around Caldicot Castle and wait for them.
Some of the nicer inns in the center of the town were filled to capacity. Apparently, several merchant vessels had made port the night before and it was standing room only. Rod moved out of the area and to the north near an unattractive area known as Highmoor Hills and settled in one of two unnamed, unknown taverns in the vicinity. It was quiet and less traveled and he settled down to a meal of cheese, brown bread and some kind of meat. Just before the serving wench left the table, he asked her the standard question that he had asked countless times before over the past two days.
“I am looking for a big knight with black hair and blue eyes, bearing the seal of de Lohr,” he said as he drank from his cup. “Have you seen such a man?”
Much to his surprise, the girl nodded. “I have, m’lord.”
Rod perked up, slamming his cup back to the table. “Are you sure? Where?”
The girl pointed up the steps. “Up there. The door on the left.”
It was too good to be true. Rod looked up to the landing she was indicating. “Is he a very big man with black hair and blue eyes? He looks rather like me. And there is a woman with him.”
The wench nodded again and continued to point up the stairs. Rod was on his feet, taking the steps two at a time. They were rickety steps and groaned under his weight. Reaching the landing, he went to the door on the left and pounded on it.
“Rhys,” he called. “ ’Tis me. Open the door, man.”
The room on the other side of the door was perfectly silent. Rod pounded again. “Rhys,” he hissed. “Open the damn door.”
More silence. Just as Rod was about to pound again, the door flew open and a very powerful arm reached out and yanked him into the room. Rod stumbled in and fell to his knees, stopped from falling on his face by the position of the bed. He crashed into it and stopped his momentum. When he looked up, it was into Elizabeau’s startled features. She was in bed and, from the way she was clutching the sheet against her chest, quite naked. Rod put a foot underneath his body and turned to his brother as he stood up.
“Why in the hell did you do that?” he demanded.
Rhys’ face was taut with anger; clad only in his breeches, he looked disheveled. “Because you make enough noise to let every one of John’s assassins within a ten mile radius know that we are here. Do you not know anything of stealth, you idiot?”
Rod made a face at him. “ ’Tis good to see you, too.”
Rhys let out a frustrated hiss and rolled his eyes at his younger brother. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. “What’s happened?”
“I came to find you and the lady,” Rod didn’t want to be too obvious about looking to the apparently-naked woman in the bed. “That group of men you fled from at Whitebrook were not assassins. They are the lady’s betrothed and his escort. I’ve been sent to bring you back.”
Rhys’ expression didn’t change, but inside, he felt as if he had been hit in the stomach. “What?” was the only thing he could think to say.
Rod looked at his brother as if speaking to a simpleton. “Those men you fled from yesterday,” he repeated patiently. “It is the prince betrothed to the lady. Conrad is his name.”
Rhys’ head began to swim with surprise. “But why did they go to Whitebrook? Who told him she would be there?”
“De Burgh,” Rod replied. “He knew of your plans and sent the prince to Whitebrook when the path to Ogmore became too dangerous. It would seem that John’s assassins are trailing the prince as well.”
Rhys stared at his brother a moment. “You are sure it is him?”
“Positive. His Germanic is so thick that you can hardly understand a word the man says, so he must be who he says he is.”
Rhys maintained his gaze a moment longer before finally averting his eyes, nodding his head as he did so. “Very well,” he said in a strangely subdued tone. “Then we will return to Whitebrook right away.”
Rod watched his brother’s passive movements before finally turning to the lady still on the bed. She sat there, wrapped in the coverlet, her wide eyes staring off into the room. She looked like she was made of stone, just sitting there, staring. Another glance at Rhys showed that he hadn’t even looked at the lady; he was preparing to dress. The mood of the room was strangely heavy and Rod suddenly felt like an intruder. He cleared his throat.
“Well,” he said, moving for the door. “I have a meal waiting for me downstairs. I’ll wait for you there.”
“Have my horse brought around if you would, please,” Rhys asked him quietly.
Rod nodded and, with a lingering glance at his brother and the lady, quit the room. He didn’t know what exactly was going on in that little chamber, but he was no fool. He could guess.
When he was gone, Elizabeau continued to sit on
the bed as Rhys pulled his tunic over his head. He struggled to stay focused on the task of dressing, knowing that if he were to look at Elizabeau, he would crumble. He kept his back to her as he pulled on his boots, moving to the wall where he had put his pieces of armor. Bending over to retrieve his greaves, he was caught from behind by a soft, warm pair of arms encircling his waist.
He put his big hand over the warm ones clasped at his belly. He didn’t even know what to say to her, afraid that saying anything would cause them both to break. After the morning, he knew the woman was tattooed onto his heart as surely as if she had physically done such a thing. He couldn’t even think straight at the moment and struggled to collect himself.
“ ’Twill be all right,” she squeezed him tightly. “Everything will be all right.”
Rhys paused in dressing, feeling the odd sensation of tears stinging his eyes. He hadn’t experienced such a thing since he had been a young boy. Everything was swamping over him, emotions he could no longer control, feelings he no longer had rein of.
“I do not know if I can do this,” he hissed, words bursting forth from his mouth as he tried to stop them. “Even as I know that I must, I do not know if I have the strength to.”
She squeezed him again, her cheek against his broad back. “You do indeed have the strength,” she assured him softly. “You are the strongest man I know, the most righteous and the most noble. You can do this.”
He turned to look at her; it was a huge mistake. With her golden-red hair mussed and her sweet face glowing in the early light of morning, she looked like an angel. He suddenly dropped to his knees, enfolding her into his arms and burying his face in her belly. Elizabeau held him tightly.
“My sweet darling,” she crooned. “We have such precious memories, memories only between the two of us that no one can ever take away. I do not regret those memories, not for one moment. They are everything I knew they would be. If I cannot have you for the rest of my life, then at least I can have that. I am strangely satisfied and wholly grateful.”
He took a long, deep breath and looked up at her, his brilliant blue eyes glowing. She stroked his scratchy cheeks as he spoke.
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