Chapter 29
“A moment of your time, m’lord,” said the crackly voice of Master Finch. Edward turned about to see his sergeant-at-arms hovering at the stable door. He raised an eyebrow.
In the first place, it was unusual for the old, scarred wolf to seek him out anywhere but on the training field. Finch was a bit of a loner. Today, he looked almost morbidly discomforted.
In the second place, only the brave had been willing to approach Edward for the past several days. He found fault with everything and had the endless ability to demolish the well-being of everyone.
In other words, he was in the grips of a foul temper. That usually indicated a loss of control. Edward despised not having control. If ever he was losing, which did not often happen, he knew it was a temporary thing. One that, when he found a solution, would ultimately give him what he wanted.
Not, however, in this instance. He still did not have a way to capture Lily’s heart.
“Hellfire man, you look as if you’ve swallowed a hedgehog,” he told his sergeant.
“Aye, and possibly two, m’lord.”
“Well, what is it?” snapped Edward when the old wolf just stood there, humming and hawing, his eyes darting in every direction as he cast about for the words he needed.
“See, it’s like this. She be too slight by half, if ye get my meaning, and I’m horrible afraid she’ll do an injury to—“
Edward stiffened at the word slight. “Who are we talking about?” he bit out savagely.
“Why, that would be the mistress, she be no more width than a willow wand, like, and I’m horrible afraid that a sword, even a waster, is too weighty for her. Not but what she has some deftness on her feet.”
“Master Finch,” said Edward in carefully measured tones as he felt his blood turn to ice with fear and fury in equal parts, “tell me by all that is holy that you are not training my wife in the gentle art of swordsmanship?”
The scarred wolf hung his head in misery while he tried again to assemble the words he needed to make his reply.
But Edward didn’t wait to discover what Master Finch had to say. His ground-eating strides were already carrying him toward the Great Hall.
The object of his ire, Edward noted, watched him barreling toward her from across the length of the hall and immediately retreated up the stairs.
“Good,” he told her when he caught up with her, “you’re going in the right direction.”
“What direction might that be, my lord?” said his impudent wife.
Edward jolted to a halt. He grabbed Lily’s wrist and drew himself to his full height. “Do not be pert with me, woman,” he bellowed.
All the Great Hall heard him over the general babble, but in truth, their Lord was known to have outbursts such as this on occasion, more so just recently.
Few took much notice. They had seen him fuss over his new bride, excessively so, and knew well that this outburst was nothing untoward.
His lady seemed to take it well in her stride, so why should they not?
Lily twinkled just a bit and unpeeled his fingers one by one from her wrist. Or tried to. She may as well have tried to dislodge the sun. “I am not hard of hearing, my lord. Whatever I have done to displease you, the next county over doesn’t have an interest in your likes and dislikes.”
Somehow or other, Lily got to his bedchamber with her wrist still attached to her arm.
With sublime calm, she tilted her head in the earl’s direction. “Do we adults have something to discuss?” she asked cheerfully.
Edward sent her a withering look and pretended he did not hear her emphasis.
He released his hold on her and stalked across the room to the window embrasure, its precious glass glittering in blues and gold.
Golden too were the rich bed furnishings, the bindings on the heavy wood chests and coffers, and the sumptuous fabrics covering the carven chairs set before the fireplace.
Above the massive four-poster bed hung the Black Raven sigil on its silver field with a glittering chain about its neck.
Edward poured himself some wine. He did not offer any to Lily, knowing that just about everything made her sick these days. “No, we don’t,” he said with an emphasis of his own. “But you,” he said, pointing his goblet at her, “will give me answers to my questions.”
“I would be happy to,” said Lily, sitting primly on the edge of a chair, as bright and innocent as spring.
Edward ground his teeth. “Explain to me what right you have to waste Master Finch’s time and place him in the impossible position of having to teach you how to injure yourself—and I might add, my unborn child?”
Lily’s mouth formed a perfect o.
She nodded. “I wondered how soon you might get to know of it. Yes, well, do you see, I just thought knowing how to wield a sword might come in handy. Bandits and such…”
She waved a hand airily.
“No, I don’t see,” Edward shouted. “I don’t see at all. Why, Lily, why can’t you just behave?”
Lily had to bring her fingers to her mouth to stop herself from giggling.
The scourge of the battlefield in all of England reduced to complete bafflement, she found it irresistible.
She found him irresistible with his wicked smile, his dimple, and his thunder, the wrath that came and went with a single tender brush of his powerful hands.
Oh yes, and he now displayed the arrogance that came naturally to him.
He shot her a look that plainly told her not to push any further.
“I think it would be a good skill to have,” said Lily, not unreasonably. “I know,” she said brightly, “why don’t we have a contest?”
“If we are to have one, I would contest that you have no discipline at all,” said Edward darkly.
“I accept. Let us put it to the test.”
“Lay out your terms,” he told her warily.
“If I win, I get to have six months of training with Master Finch. If I have not shown competence by then, I will concede. If you win, I give it up for good. How does that sound? You can even choose your own weapon for the contest. Set the conditions.”
He looked at her with narrow eyes. Propping one well-polished boot atop the opposite knee, he sat back into the window seat. “Weapon of my choice?”
She nodded.
“Just so,” he said. “We begin now. As you are the challenger, I control the contest. Are we agreed?”
“As you wish,” said Lily with a little smile on her lips. She did enjoy their contests. Usually, they ended in his soft, luxurious featherbed so ostentatiously dominating the bedchamber, no matter who won.
“My terms follow yours, with a caveat. If you win, you get your six-month training, which is what you want. If I win, you give up your swordplay. I also get what I want, but I will choose the time of naming what that might be. Are we agreed?”
“That doesn’t sound absolutely fair, but I won’t quibble. So long as I can voice my objections if I do not like what you decide upon.”
He shrugged. “If you accept my terms, we play. If not, your swordplay is ended as of now.”
For another moment, she thought about it, and then she nodded her head. “I will risk it. Agreed.”
“Good, take your clothes off.”
Lily’s eyes grew wide. Their contests usually ended that way. It was a novel way to begin. “All of them?”
“Every last stitch.” He almost smiled. Lily felt her pulse race.
Edward sat in his chair, his goblet dangling from his fingertips as he watched her silky body reveal itself in all its ripeness.
He never tired of seeing her long-legged form, the sweep of her elegant back, the slight protrusion of her belly hardened his groin to iron.
Her lush white breasts, fuller now with her pregnancy, were gorgeous.
He was soon pulling off his own clothing in his eagerness, but he was not unaided.
Lily was as keen to touch him as he was to claim her. She came to him, sailing into his embrace like a golden bark festooned with nothing but her loveliness.
He kissed her sweet mouth, and she gave him her honeyed response. She plied small kisses to the corners of his mouth, his chest, and neck, and everywhere she could reach. Always, she returned to his lips and fed the wildness of his passion.
She’d lost much of her shyness over the past three months and was eager to explore the bunched muscles and sinews of his body. Eager to help him unbutton and divest himself of his remaining apparel.
The maleness of him was a fascination to her, he could tell. She traced gossamer fingers down his taut stomach and made the muscles jump. On went her exploration, daring, silken, dangerous to his control.
Her hand closed like a satin glove around his shaft, and she stroked him mimicking the passionate way he caressed her.
Edward closed his eyes as pleasure flowed swift and dark in his blood.
Soon though her lips replaced her fingers.
Her cherry-red mouth played outrageously along the shaft and a groan of pure animal want broke from him.
Watching her work the tip with her lips and tongue, fired him with new and greedy thoughts, and he knew the tipping point was all too near.
One sweep and he had lifted her in his arms, and carrying her to the bed, laid her down.
He followed, his burgeoning erection straining between her soft thighs.
Holding back took all his restraint, so desperate was his need to be inside her.
He came up on his elbow, watching the silver pleasure inundate her as his fingers probed and opened her.
“Look at me, my flower,” he told her, his voice gruff and commanding. When she did, her eyes were captured by his gold-flecked ones, and part of her will fell prisoner to his raging desire and made her breath quicken.
He could feel the muscles on his neck and chest contract as he raised himself above her, clasping her slender hips steady as in one sure stroke, he invaded her.
Lily gasped with the shocking pleasure and sought to answer him, stroke for stroke.
He would not allow it.
“Nay,” he told her in breathy murmurs, “you will not move even a finger. I am going to teach you the lesson of self-discipline, for that, my beautiful Lily, is what you lack the most. Then we will see who wins.”
“Oh, unfair, Edward,” she moaned, for at that moment he began to thrust and withdraw repeatedly, building to an unrestrained explosion, but shy of setting it free. On the sweet torture went, while he held her captive. She lay locked inside the cage of his body and his will.
And all the while, pleasure was banked on pleasure and untamed desire climbed higher and unendurably higher. And when she reached but a fraction from climax, he held still, poised in mid thrust, and with steel-like control remained unmoving.
His ragged breath, the conflagration in his eyes, gave away the truth, that he did not altogether escape. He tortured himself as he tortured her. But he controlled their mating dance, and experience gave him advantages she did not have.
He lifted himself higher on his elbows and captured her lovely face, stroking her tumbling hair from her brow, chastely kissing her forehead, only just brushing her lips with his own.
“Do not close your eyes, my lovely flower,” he told her, his voice rough with desire. “You must look on your downfall, for have I not told you, I intend to win?”
She did not, could not reply. He sensed the pent-up desire that wound her tight as a spring, a coil ready to spiral out of control.
Then, just as the passion began to ebb, he started again.
Again, he played the same tune, on and on. Her head thrashed from side to side. The torment held her fast. The pulse in his temple jumped with the effort.
“Edward…” she pleaded, her voice breathy.
“You want something from me, Lily?” he asked seductively, his words gentle, beguiling. “That is well, for I want something from you.”
“Oh, please,” she begged, “anything, anything.”
Edward released the constraint on her limbs. At once, she arched, reaching for him with trembling arms. The need for gratification overwhelmed thought or reason.
She clung to his broad shoulders, but he immediately stopped moving. Holding still, he took her face in his hands once again, stroking her hair and kissing her lids.
“So now, now you will speak truths here,” he said, and the timbre of his voice dragged her from the galloping race toward the promise of fulfilment…fulfilment just out of reach.
Lily blinked at him. He should have been in the throes of his desire, but he was not. He controlled the game, his hand steady, his heart sure.
“I want you to give me what you swore to withhold from me. Undo your oath and give me your heart. Willingly.”
Looking down at her, he saw a spark that lit her beloved face, brought it utterly alive.
“Edward, that I cannot do.” She forestalled any response he might have made by setting a finger to his lips. “My heart, I already gave you, these long days since, when you gave me yours for safekeeping. Most willingly.”
He stared at her, his eyes hot with passion. He would dissemble no more. “How wise you are, my lily flower, to know that I had given it, before even I knew I loved you.”
“And I you,” she promised. He claimed her mouth and took up the melody of their passionate dance and brought them to completion that was both a beginning and an end. One that held all the promise of an enchanted future.