Knights Page 15

  For how long would Gloriana be lost to him if that happened—an hour, a day? Forever?

  Dane shivered, then turned on the overstuffed mattress and, although he did not want to awaken Gloriana, held her a little more tightly. He had never known such intensity of feeling or such fear. To think that all these years she had been growing and blossoming at Hadleigh, a spirited flower, waiting for him, and he, the fool’s fool, had deliberately stayed away.

  What precious and mysterious stuff time was, more worthy of cherishing than gold or gems—and so much had been wasted.

  He raised his head, the better to look at Gloriana. Her face, translucent in slumber, ivory-gold flesh flushed with faint pink from their passion, seemed beautiful beyond bearing. He, who prayed only by rote when forced to attend mass or vespers, offered a silent, eloquent prayer that he might be a worthy husband to this woman, bringing her honor and giving her naught but joy.

  As if she’d heard his unuttered plea to heaven, Gloriana’s lashes fluttered and she opened her eyes. “I hope we’ve made a child,” she said.

  “So do I,” he answered gruffly.

  “What will you say to Mariette? She has come so far—”

  Dane touched Gloriana’s nose with a fingertip. “I will say, dear wife, that I am sorry, and offer to send her back to her home in France. With a suitable escort, of course.”

  Gloriana rested her head on his shoulder. Her hair, a wild tangle of gold-tinged copper, felt like silk against his skin. “It may be that Edward will court her. My handmaiden, Judith, told me that she fancies him.” She paused, then looked up at Dane in a parody of guilelessness. “Mariette, I mean.”

  “I know whom you meant,” Dane replied with a grin, giving her a painless pinch on the backside. “Mayhap losing me will not break the mademoiselle’s heart after all.”

  “Mayhap,” Gloriana teased, batting her dense lashes.

  He raised his eyebrows and tried to look fierce. “Impudence,” he accused. “I shall have amends for that, milady.”

  A fetching blush heightened her color, but the look in her eyes was, beyond doubt, saucy. “How may I appease you, my lord?” she asked, in a voice no less impertinent for its dulcet tones.

  For an answer, Dane gripped her by the waist and, moving swiftly, raised her up and set her down again, astraddle his hips. Her glorious eyes widened as she felt his manhood beneath her, swollen to the size of a pillar in a Druid temple and ready to conquer. The tips of her succulent breasts turned hard as brook pebbles.

  “Are you contemplating your fate, milady?” Dane asked.

  She nodded, biting her lip, and shifted slightly, as if to take him inside her.

  Dane was as eager as she, but he knew, if she didn’t, that pleasure was heightened by anticipation. He had taken her quickly the first time, and there had been several skirmishes after that, but now he wanted to savor every sensation.

  Gloriana cupped her hand under her breast and bent to brush Dane’s mouth with the taut nipple.

  “Brazen little tart,” he said, and punished her with a single lap of his tongue, quickly withdrawn. “Where have you learned such wanton ways?”

  She groaned, disappointed, and tried to get him to take her breast. “In your bed, my lord,” she answered breathlessly. “Please, Dane—”

  “What?” he asked, running his hands from her shoulders to her buttocks, which he weighed and then squeezed between his fingers. “’Please, Dane’—do what?”

  Gloriana had started to squirm a little, and he hoped she couldn’t guess what she was doing to him. “You are a wretch.”

  Dane brought one hand around and spread his fingers over her belly, while his thumb delved between the moist lips of her femininity and found the small, hardened bit of flesh where her passion was centered. Plying that nubbin, he watched with enjoyment as Gloriana arched her back and whimpered, thrusting her wonderful breasts forward, tempting him almost beyond his capacity to endure.

  With his free hand, he squeezed one of her nipples lightly, preparing it. “I am waiting, Gloriana,” he said, “for you to tell me what you want.”

  She flung herself forward, with a little cry, burying her face beside his head in the pillow, wriggling moist and hot on the pad of his thumb. “Ooh—I would have—I would have you take suckle from my nipples, my lord, and—oooooh—I don’t know what to call it—to have you inside me—”

  Dane found a breast and drew on it hard with his mouth, though he had ceased working her womanplace with his hand, lest she find an early, lesser release before the more acute and enduring one he planned for them both. Gloriana grasped his face in her hands, as if she feared he would break away and withhold the attentions she wanted so feverishly.

  In truth, he could not have turned from her, except to scramble for the other breast, because he needed to take, in those moments, as much as she needed to give.

  Gloriana reared back when they were both gasping, riding him as he heaved beneath her. But they were still unjoined, and Dane, though near the breaking point, was not willing to surrender so soon. He pushed her backward, onto her heels first and then onto her back, and thrust his face between her legs as he wanted to thrust his manhood. Knees drawn high and wide apart, Gloriana gave a lusty cry of exultation and welcome, and he followed every rise and fall of her hips, every frantic twist and turn.

  When Dane sensed that she was ready, he drew back, though she clutched at his head and hair and sobbed in protest. Kneeling between her thighs, he looked down into her face, silently asking permission and at the same time giving warning. Then, arranging her, he found her moist entrance and, after teasing her briefly, eased inside. His need was savage, but Gloriana was tender yet, having been breached for the first time just hours before, and he would not hurt her.

  Trembling, her pink-and-gold flesh shimmering with perspiration, Gloriana arched her back to receive him and made a low, keening sound in her throat. Her hair fanned out around her on the bedclothes like an aura of fire, and Dane was stricken by the sight of her, by the sweet torment of possessing her. For a moment he believed his calloused, soldier’s heart would truly break, like some fragile trinket bought at the fair.

  Gloriana’s thighs tightened rhythmically against his hips as he probed her, deeply, slowly, over and over. Her hands were never still upon his back, now caressing, now clawing, now grasping his buttocks, now trying to part his shoulder blades. Pain and pleasure encompassed him, until he could not discern one from the other, and still he moved upon her, in and out, in and out.

  Dear God. How long could he bear such ecstasy without perishing of it?

  “Dane,” Gloriana whispered, as one in a fever. Her fingers trailed down his face, over his chest, making circles around his nipples, playing upon his taut belly as he strained.

  She quickened under him and then flexed, her exquisite body like a fine bow drawn taut, and he felt her small, hot muscles constrict where they sheathed him. While she shuddered, gasping his name as though it were a litany to save her from the splendid suffering of climax, Dane erupted inside her with a low sound from deep in his belly, more like the growl of a mating wolf than the moan of a man. He held himself rigid, spilling his seed into her—once, a second time, a third. When she had wrung the last of his essence from him, he collapsed and lay trembling in her arms, his head upon her breasts.

  She murmured to him, comforting him in that ironic way of lovers who, having roused the fire in the first place, would douse its blaze and salve the burns as though in recompense.

  Dane, for his part, had no trouble putting a name to the tangle of emotions she had wrought in him. He called them love.

  Gloriana slept again, holding Dane close, and awakened at twilight, feeling ravenous. With a gentle shake, she roused her beloved and rolled, laughing, from beneath him just when he would have taken a nipple in his mouth. He raised himself onto an elbow and watched her with gleaming eyes as she went naked to the table and began to eat, grabbing up bits of bread and cheese and cake
at random.

  Dane got up, as lean and graceful as a panther she had heard about once. Or had she actually seen such a creature, long ago, in the unborn future, in that place called America? She had a vague impression of cages, like small dungeons, a great menagerie full of noise and fury.

  But Kenbrook was circling her, slowly, wearing a mischievous smile that set her heartbeat racing, and Gloriana forgot the moment of sadness she had known and laughed again as he pounced and snatched the honeycake from her fingers.

  After that, they fed each other, playing at first, then performing their own lovers’ communion. Dane emptied his tub out a tower window, then heated water for Gloriana, with painstaking patience, over a large brazier She bathed by candlelight, while Dane explored the strings of the harp with light passes of his fingers, stumbling across the occasional tune.

  When Gloriana had washed, and soaked away the virgin’s soreness, Dane dried her with a soft cloth, and the sensation of being cared for, attended, and nurtured was so blissful that she was nearly transported by these things alone.

  She donned a chemise, which rested whisper-soft against her skin, revealing the shadows of her nipples and the thicket of curls at the joining of her thighs. They ate again, this time with more decorum, and by then the twilight had come. Using a flint, Dane lit the lamps, and they sat upon the great bed, with their backs pressed to the headboard. The master of Kenbrook Hall read aloud, from a script of quaint poetry, to the mistress, who did not hesitate to correct his few mistakes.

  When they tired of reading, they played chess, the board perched between them on the feather-stuffed mattress, and Dane did not know victory that night. Finally, he put away the game and doused the lamps. They made love again, sweetly and slowly, without urgency, and then they slept.

  When Gloriana awakened, the tower room was brimming with sunlight and Dane was up and groomed, standing at the northern window, looking out. He wore a green tunic and trunks, hose and soft leather boots, and Gloriana felt a twinge of sorrow, for he looked like a man who expected to travel.

  As if he’d sensed her gaze, Dane turned and favored her with a devastatingly brilliant smile. “Arise, my lady,” he said, “and make ready. Our captors approach, to confer freedom upon us. Do you suppose an angel told them that we have, at last, sealed the bargain our proxies made so long ago?”

  Gloriana could not keep herself from smiling, so engaging was Kenbrook in both form and countenance. “I do not think angels speak of such things,” she said, rising and pulling on a chemise and then the brown kirtle she had worn the day before. She would have liked to bathe, but she was oddly self-conscious that morning. Besides, Dane had spotted Gareth and a party of men riding toward the hall, which, coupled with the fact that the marriage had been well and truly consummated, meant their time as intimate captives would soon be at an end.

  Dane left the window and came to stand before her, resting his hands on her shoulders. “I must contradict you, milady,” he said tenderly, “for angels do surely speak of love. Were it not so, you would not have sworn your passion so fiercely in my arms last night.”

  Gloriana bunked back tears. For once, they were made of bliss, those tears, and not of sorrow, but still she refused to shed them. “Flatterer,” she accused, slipping her arms around his neck. “You call me an angel now, but methinks you had another sort of being in mind before, when we were at odds.”

  He gave her a lingering, knee-melting kiss. When it was over, he cupped her chin in his hand and smiled into her eyes. “You possess a rare and peculiar grace, milady, in knowing when to be an angel and when to be otherwise.”

  Far below the castle window, the hooves of horses clatterd on the ancient cobblestones. Soon, the idyll would be over, for to gain one form of liberty, another must be forfeit. “You, by contrast,” she retorted shakily, attempting to smile, “are never angelic but always ’otherwise.’”

  Dane’s blue eyes were bright with merriment and light, but he saw into her heart, however darkly, and narrowed his gaze in concerned speculation. “What troubles you, Gloriana? I see something hiding there, behind that incomparable face.”

  She sighed. Gareth and his troops were inside the hall now, their words and footsteps were audible on the steep stairs. “When the—” She paused and flushed, though she willed herself not to. “When the proof of our consummation is known and we are let out—”

  The clamor was drawing nigh, almost at the door.

  “Yes?” Dane prompted, as though they had all the time ever meted out to mankind.

  “I wish to know how you will treat me, my lord,” Gloriana said, with rising resolve. “Am I to live and work beside you, as your true wife? For I promise you, whatever pretty sentiments I may cherish toward you, I shall flee if you attempt to imprison me.”

  The lock was turning in the great timber door even as Kenbrook laid both hands to Gloriana’s face and brushed the high ridges of her cheekbones with the pads of his thumbs. “You shall be my wife, Gloriana,” he promised. “Here, at Kenbrook Hall. And this will be our chamber, while the rest is restored. Our sons and daughters will be conceived here, and born here as well, if that pleases you.”

  Gloriana blinked. There was a short rap at the door, but that was only a formality. The portal would swing open within a moment. “What of Mariette?”

  Dane kissed her forehead, even as the doors creaked open and Gareth’s brawny oafs entered, braced for combat. Kenbrook paid them no heed at all. “I shall return her to France, if that is what she wants. If not, she may marry another, such as Maxen, the Welshman, or our own Edward, or enter the abbey. Neither she nor any other will be my mistress, Gloriana—not as long as you love me.”

  “Accord at last!” boomed Gareth, in delight, from the region of the door. “Be gone, you louts—there is no need here for such as you.”

  Reluctantly, Dane took his gaze from Gloriana’s to find his elder brother. The guards, in obedience to their lord’s command, were removing themselves, with many a grumble and backward glance, from the bridal chamber

  “I need not ask. Kenbrook, if you’ve made the lovely lady your own,” Gareth said, with a mingling of self-congratulation and something else that might have been the mildest envy. “It is plain, from the glow about her and the shine in your own eyes, that the alliance is no longer a sham, but genuine and fruitful, as God meant it to be.”

  Gloriana slipped her hand into the crook of Kenbrook’s elbow, lest he be provoked by this sermon to do violence, but the gesture proved unnecessary.

  Kenbrook was indeed in high spirits. “You see rightly, my brother,” he said. “Will you take wine to celebrate our good fortune?”

  Gareth made a wry face, obviously thinking of the tactic he had used the day before to render his brother temporarily helpless. “Even if I live to walk the earth for ten and ninety years, Kenbrook, I shall never taste any wine of your offering.”

  Dane raised an eyebrow, one arm resting loosely around Gloriana’s waist, holding her against his side. “You do not trust me, my lord?”

  “Where all else is concerned, my faith in you is as steadfast and enduring as the walls of this keep. In the matters of your imprisonment and brief incapacitation—however pure we all know my motives to have been—I am not so ingenuous as to think you will fail to seek revenge in like measure. Though we have been apart these many years, after all, it was I who raised you, and I know well the devious workings of your mind.”

  Gloriana saw an unsettling glint in Kenbrook’s eyes, and Gareth surely did as well.

  “Take note of your own words,” Dane said, and though he spoke mildly, it came to Gloriana that venom is venom, however sweet. “They are wise ones, and true.”

  An awkward silence followed, then Gareth cleared his throat. “As I said before, it is clear from your aspects that all is well between you.” He glanced briefly toward the bed, where the marks of Gloriana’s surrender did indeed color the sheets, beneath the tumbled cover. “Therefore, I shall not ask to see
the—er—proof.”

  “You are not only generous,” Dane remarked in that same quiet, innately dangerous tone of voice, “but prudent as well. As it happens, the lady Gloriana and I plan to make our home here. You may leave whenever you wish.”

  Gareth opened his mouth, then closed it again, like a fish cast up on the bank. Gloriana, too, was surprised, for she’d expected the transition to be a more gradual one.

  Red from throat to scalp, Gareth hesitated only a moment, then turned and strode out of the tower room, leaving the great doors agape behind him. Gloriana watched her brother-in-law go and felt sadness crouching in the back of her heart, behind the new and complicated emotions Dane had awakened in her.

  “Pray,” Kenbrook said with gentle amusement, “do not mourn so, milady. My brother and I will make our peace in our own way, and in good time, I think. Meanwhile, you need not be estranged from Gareth or anyone in his household.” He took her hand. “Now come, Lady Kenbrook, and I will show you parts of this hall you cannot have known before.”

  Gloriana followed him out of the great circular room into the passage she had last seen as a captive, bound and wriggling. They descended the stairs swiftly and entered the great hall, which was so old that there were no fireplaces, but only pits in the floor and smoke-holes high above, to let in the rain. The place was a ruin, but Gloriana loved it and knew it for her home.

  “I used to play here, with Edward,” she said as Kenbrook dragged her along. As fast as she moved, as long as her legs were, she could barely keep up with him, and her words came out breathless. “He was Artos—Arthur, the warrior king. And I was Guinevere.”

  Dane stopped at the head of another set of stairs and turned to look into Gloriana’s face. In the deep shadows of the room, shGrievere could not make out his expression. His voice, however, was wry, and bore a hint of mischief.