Chapter 15 #2
“Who?”
“Golden Hart’s friend.”
He gave her a considering look. “It was just a message. Nothing to bother you.”
He drew her into his arms. “I gave up Golden Hart some time ago. There could be trouble if that all comes out, but it’s unlikely now. After all,” he said with a smile, “you were always the one most likely to expose me.”
An answering smile tugged her lips and turned into a grin. “Mmm,” she murmured, looking him over. “Speaking of exposure . . . I want to see you naked again.”
“I’ve never seen you naked,” he said. “Will you stand in the sunlight in just the glory of your hair and let me worship you?”
Madeleine blushed. “If you want,” she said shyly.
He grinned. “If you’d understood English that day in the woods, you’d know what I want.”
“What did you say then?”
He swung her around so that her back was against him and held her as he had then. There was no cloak to confine her, but Madeleine had to give a little thought to her poor herbs.
“I told you how beautiful your curves felt,” he said in English, running his hands over her. “How sweetly heavy your breasts. How I wanted to lick their fullness all over and tease your nipples to aching, then suck them soft, suck them hard until you were wild for me.”
Madeleine’s body leaped within his confining arms. “You didn’t do that then,” he said. “That’s how I knew you didn’t understand.”
“My body didn’t understand then,” she said.
“I confess, I thought you knew the language of love.”
“What else did you say?” she asked breathlessly.
He laughed and slid his hand down to her thighs. “I told you how warm and moist you were, just waiting for me. I promised to be slow in loving you, to stroke you softly to your pleasure, then when you couldn’t bear it anymore, I’d take you hard and strong.”
Madeleine pressed back against him. “I can’t bear it anymore . . .”
He laughed against her neck, kissed her nape. “Insatiable wanton. Have pity on the poor male.”
She could feel the bulge of his desire and shifted her bottom against it, heard his breathing falter. He turned her slowly. Madeleine heard the herbs fall but didn’t care.
Their heated kiss was interrupted by a shout. They broke apart and saw one of the castle guards trotting over to them.
Madeleine was flooded with embarrassment to be caught in such an embrace. Then she remembered she’d recently made long, desperate, passionate love at the edge of a path where anyone could have seen them.
Aimery glanced at her red face and laughed. “If anyone did see us, they doubtless only felt jealous. I’d better go and see what’s amiss while you take time to recover your composure.” His eyes were warm and loving, and he touched her cheek gently. “Later,” he promised.
Madeleine watched him stride away. She welcomed the chance to accustom herself to the wonderful thing she had found, a union that went beyond bodies to hearts and souls.
She was reluctant to return to the castle and disrupt this idyll with day-to-day concerns.
She picked up her herbs, then wandered a bit more, gathering a few more plants but mostly gathering dreams of a golden future.
When, much later, she entered the bailey of Baddersley Castle she asked the guard where Aimery could be found.
“He rode out, Lady,” said the man.
She stared at him. “Out? Where?”
“Don’t know, Lady. He went on a journey with three men.”
An icy foreboding assailed Madeleine. But no. She wouldn’t think that of him.
“Just three men?” she demanded of the guard. “He didn’t take Lord Geoffrey?”
“That’s right, Lady.”
“He must have left a message,” she said.
“Doubtless with Lord Hugh, Lady.”
Madeleine hurried to the training grounds, desperate for reassurance. “Hugh, what message did my husband leave for me?”
He raised his sweaty brows. “None with me, Lady Madeleine.”
She deliberately summoned the memory of Aimery’s tender parting like a ward against evil. “Do you know where he’s gone?”
“No. He said he’d likely be gone a sennight, maybe longer. He may have left word with Geoffrey.”
“A sennight?” Madeline echoed with horror.
The squire was her next quarry. “Geoffrey,” Madeleine demanded, “where has Aimery gone?”
The young man paled. “Er . . . he didn’t say, Lady.”
“Doesn’t that strike you as strange?”
She saw him swallow. “He said earlier he thought of visiting the other manors . . .”
“Without you? With only three men?”
He bit his lip, then offered hopefully, “It was doubtless something to do with the messenger, Lady Madeleine.”
Madeleine’s fears abated. At last. An explanation. She poured herself a beaker of ale. “What messenger?”
“A messenger passed through from the queen en route for the king. He spoke to Lord Aimery.”
The beaker never reached Madeleine’s lips. “The messenger didn’t bring a written message to Baddersley?”
“No, Lady Madeleine.”
Madeleine put the beaker down untouched and went into the solar, remembering at last that when she’d admitted she didn’t know whether he was a traitor or not, he had not affirmed his loyalty, but said, “Nor do I.”
The whole golden scene fell into a new, bleak pattern. As soon as she’d moved to thwart his plan to join the rebels, he’d turned her up sweet and rutted her senses clean out of her. What a fool he must think her.
How convenient that a royal messenger had passed through at such a time, doubtless just stopping for refreshment.
What would Aimery claim the message had been?
A request for some vague minor service which would cover his journey to meet Hereward and Edwin?
What a fool he must think her. No royal message came by word of mouth and he wouldn’t go on legitimate business without Geoffrey.
Tears of betrayal burst in her eyes and she threw her much-abused basket at the wall just as Dorothy came in. The woman hurried to pick up the spilled herbs.
“I’ll gut him!” Madeleine muttered. “I’ll put teasels in his braies so he’ll dance from here to London.” She tore off her kirtle and shift. “He won’t have to worry about the king gelding him, I’ll do it myself!”
“Who? What?” The woman stared at her.
Madeleine realized she was standing stark naked and grabbed clean clothes from a chest and put them on. “Aimery de Gaillard, the low, scheming bastard.” She scrubbed at the tears streaming down her face. “He played on me like a lyre—a right pretty tune, too—then sneaked away . . .”
“Lord Aimery rode out in armor with three men and two packhorses, Lady.”
Madeleine swung on her. “And what has that to do with anything? He said he wouldn’t go!”
Dorothy rolled her eyes and poured her mistress a goblet of wine. “Drink this, Lady. You’ve been too long in the sun.”
Madeleine took a deep draft. She felt painfully used. Then she had a worse thought. All his recent thaw dated back to the time she’d threatened to betray him to the king. Was that all it had been, a way of besotting her out of her honor? Her misery was as sharp as a blade.
There was a rap on the door. Dorothy opened it, and Geoffrey entered hesitantly.
“Yes?” said Madeleine curtly.
“Lord Aimery did leave a message, Lady Madeleine.”
Hope burst in her, full-blown. “What?” she demanded. “How could you have forgotten?”
“It is not to do with his journey,” Geoffrey said. “Or not about where he’s gone . . .”
Madeleine could have screamed. “What is it?”
Like a boy repeating a lesson, Geoffrey said, “He said he was sorry. And he’d pick up where he left off on his return.” The squire looked at her and added warily, “He departed in a mighty hurry, Lady.”
Geoffrey, too, left in a mighty hurry, a hair’s breadth ahead of a flung goblet.
“Oh, he will, will he?” muttered Madeleine. “Over my dead body . . .”
“Lady Madeleine!” moaned Dorothy, wringing her hands.
“He’ll never do this to me again,” said Madeleine fiercely.
“No matter how my body clamors, I will not be used like this again.” She seized the carved crucifix from the wall.
“You are my witness, Dorothy. I promise—nay, I vow—never to lie with Aimery de Gaillard again until he proves he is true to the king and me both!”
Dorothy went pale and crossed herself. “Oh, Lady, take it back. You can’t deny your husband.”
Madeleine hung up the crucifix again. “It is done. Well. Let’s get back to work.”
As she checked the kitchens and the pens of poultry awaiting death, Madeleine’s thoughts were all of Aimery.
He’d ride into Baddersley in a week or so, and she’d be able to tell him then just what she thought of him.
He’d ride into Baddersley with a perfect explanation of his absence, and she would happily beg his forgiveness for her wicked doubts.
He’d be sent back to Baddersley in pieces . . .
A wave of nausea passed over her at the thought of him blind, or without hands or genitals. She sent up fervent prayers for his safety. “Only send him safe home to me,” she whispered, “and I’ll make sure he does not stray again.”
How she was to achieve that she didn’t know.
Someone cleared his throat. Madeleine looked around to see a soldier. “Lord Hugh sends to say Odo de Pouissey approaches with four attendants. Are we to admit him?”
Odo? What more shocks could the day bring? He was someone she’d rather not see, but she couldn’t refuse hospitality. “Of course. I will come to greet him.”
The man trotted off. Needing something to bolster her dignity, Madeleine took the time to enter the solar and drape a wimple over her head and shoulders.
By the time she reached the hall doors, Odo was swinging off his horse in the bailey.
He came over and gave her a familiar kiss on the cheek, then looked around.
“I see you and de Gaillard have been working on the place, but it’s not much even so.
A proper stone castle and walls. That’s what a man needs these days. ”