Chapter 22 #2
"Of course. You must choose your women as you wish. Anything else?"
"Well," she said, "if you insist on finding me sugar crystals from the East..."
He pulled her into his arms, a fierce flare of joy in his eyes. "You are sweet enough already." After a crushing silence he said, almost hesitantly, "That was a yes?"
Tears did spring to her eyes as she nodded.
He pushed her back to look at her, and the joy in his face made her cry some more.
"An excellently negotiated surrender, little castle." He wiped tears from her cheeks. "Christ's crown, but you'll fit right into my family. Did I ever tell you that you remind me very much of my mother?"
His kiss this time was thorough, and under the heady knowledge that they were to be married, that she would soon lie skin to skin and more with this man, passion bubbled up in Aline like water from a cracked rock.
But when the kiss ended she had to break the news that Galeran insisted that they go home to get Hubert's consent.
"Yet more time in the north?" he groaned, but he was smiling as if he'd never stop, and had her tight against his body as if he'd never let go. "I'll perish."
"Perhaps I should find you the pelt of a white bear." She ran her hand over his chest, wishing she could touch his skin.
"Or cuddle up to me at night. No. That would be fatal."
"Fatal?" She ran her fingers up to his neck, where at least there was skin to be touched. "People don't die of a little self-restraint, you know."
He captured her hand and kissed her fingertips. "Witch. Some of us know what we're missing."
"Some of us are more practiced in self-restraint," she retorted, snatching her hand free with a grin. Before he could pursue the matter, she pulled him out of the granary, eager to find Galeran and Jehanne and share the news.
He went willingly enough, but murmured, "Throwing challenges from the walls again, my green cadet?"
* * *
Warned by those words, Aline wasn't totally surprised when Raoul appeared in her room that night.
She shared a bed with Jehanne, while Winifred slept on a pallet on the floor by the baby's crib. Raoul had woken her with gentle hand and quiet voice, and now gestured to her to go with him. Driven by curiosity and a simmering excitement, she put her hand in his to be pulled to her feet.
But standing there in her shift, she mouthed, "What do you think you're doing?"
"Taking up your challenge." He gestured toward the door.
Aline knew she shouldn't go, but as always, she couldn't resist his challenges. She did glance back at Jehanne, the notoriously light sleeper, and thought she saw a smile.
So much for chaperones and guardians!
An excitement was building, almost stealing Aline's breath, but for the moment she was intrigued by practicalities. How would he find a private corner in this crowded house?
This upper floor contained the hall and three linked rooms leading off it.
The women's chamber she'd shared with Jehanne lay farthest from the hall.
The door led into the men's chamber full of Lord William's snores, and where Raoul and Galeran had pallets on the floor.
Beyond that they entered the solar, where Hugo, Mary, and two daughters slept in a big curtained bed, their personal servants sprawled around the floor.
Picking her way through the room, Aline heard rain. He couldn't be taking her outside.
The hall would be jammed with servants.
Quite a challenge, even for an experienced warrior.
He led her to the corner between the hall and the solar, where stairs ran down to the lower floor. But the lower floor, she knew, was used by the vintnery servants and the men-at-arms.
The stairs were wooden, and a straight flight turned at a flat landing. He stopped there under a narrow window and slid down to sit, taking her with him, tucked cozily against his side.
"Very clever," she whispered, knowing she was about to be soundly defeated by a master. She could hardly wait.
"Elementary scouting." He kissed her gently on the cheek, almost as her father might, or as she might nuzzle against Donata.
And yet the feelings were different, and the excitement within her became a shiver.
He rubbed her arms gently, as if she had shivered from cold, speaking to her in a voice so soft, she felt she picked up words from his breath on her skin rather than from sound in her ear.
He spoke of his arrival at Heywood and his first sight of her, of the progression of his feelings from curiosity to interest, from admiration to obsession, from obsession to love. It was a devastating assault, melting any lingering resistance into aching tenderness for him, for her beloved.
And all the time his hands worshipped her without ever doing anything that could be considered improper at all.
Had he stolen her from her bed to talk and cuddle?
And how could cuddling be so unsettling?
Restlessly, she shifted so she was closer, so her left hand could touch his chest, stroke him as he was stroking her, learn him through touch in the dimness.
Such a mighty chest, covered only by a light linen tunic.
Such broad shoulders so well layered with muscle.
Such a hard belly. She suspected that she could bounce on his belly and he'd hardly notice.
He shifted too, moving his leg over hers.
So she explored the hard, well-trained muscle of his thigh through the cloth.
At the hem, however, she encountered naked flesh, roughened by hair.
In her mind she could see golden hair on golden skin.
She hesitated only a moment before sliding her hand under the cloth, her mouth suddenly dry, her heartbeats clear to her, every one, even though she didn't dare explore higher.
"I've wanted to feel your hand on me like that, Aline," he murmured, shifting a little so his hand found the edge of her shift, and her naked thigh. She felt calluses as he worked up to cup her buttock.
Aline sucked in a breath and swallowed. "I thought even the tortures of the damned wouldn't make you dishonor me."
His tormenting hand did not move. "We are to be married. There is no dishonor in this. But even so, I will not make love to you tonight."
"Oh." She hoped she didn't sound disappointed. "What will we do, then?" His hand had moved to the small of her back and circled there. She could have purred.
"Just test your defenses, my green cadet, and show you a little of what you're missing." Breath warm against her neck, he whispered, "Your defenses are totally inadequate, you know. See the army now, massed around you, pennants flying, blades glinting in the sun. Hear the drums of your defeat."
He must mean her thundering heart. "I'm not sure about this," she said.
"Do you fear surrender to your rightful lord?"
"I fear being discovered here like this with you."
He chuckled. "No one is likely to find us unless you cry out."
"Why would I do that?"
"Remember Dame Helswith's house?"
She stared at his shadowy face. "Are you going to hurt me, then...?"
"I will do my best never to hurt you, Aline. But it is possible to scream with pleasure."
Before she could express her skepticism, he covered her mouth in a powerful, conquering kiss that reminded her strongly of Waltham. Just from curiosity, she felt for his scabbard, and found it empty.
He chuckled, but didn't stop kissing the wits out of her.
A part of Aline—the well-bred, well-trained almost-nun—urged that she struggle and scream just to prove that she was a good woman. The sensible part said she could struggle and scream if it got to the point where she really wanted to.
Scream the alarm, that is. She didn't believe she could ever be brought to scream with pleasure when it would bring people out to catch her at this.
She settled to learning this business of kissing, mouths open, tongues engaged. When his hand found her breast, it enhanced the pleasure of his hot mouth and she kissed him even more enthusiastically, running her fingers into his hair to hold him close to her.
He disengaged and moved her a little. That's when she realized she'd scrambled on top of him like a child climbing a rock. If she was trying to appear to be a reluctant conquest, she was failing miserably.
He cupped her breast, raising it so his mouth could play with her through the fine linen cloth. From stroking, her fingers in his hair turned to clutching. "What are you doing now?" But she kept it quiet.
He raised his head long enough to ask, "Don't you like it?" Since his hand still pleasured her other breast, Aline managed only an inarticulate noise.
He seemed to interpret it correctly, and returned to his labors.
The sensations were quite extraordinary. Rather like a high fever in the nicest possible way. Still, Aline thought smugly, she was not even tempted to scream.
Then he slid her shift off her shoulders and down so his mouth found her naked flesh, just as his hand found the place between her thighs that was even more sensitive than her breast. Aline did almost let out a squeak of astonishment, but managed to control it.
It wasn't that she was surprised to be sensitive there. She'd heard talk of the pleasure to be found by rubbing between the legs. She'd tried it, though, and it hadn't seemed exciting enough to sin for. Clearly, she thought, clutching at his sleeve, she'd been doing something wrong.
For an assault on a castle, his stroking hand was remarkably slow and gentle.... Except inside her, where something hot flared.
"Mining," she murmured.
He raised his head from her breast. "Yes, I'm yours."
"No. Yes. I mean, mining. You're mining me. Undermining my walls."
He laughed softly. "I've been undermining you for weeks, little castle. Burrowing under your walls. Placing tinder there ready. Tonight I'm putting torch to tinder so that heat will crack your bastions, and you'll be defenseless before me."
"I think I already am...."
"Shall I stop, then?" She heard by the laughter in his soft voice that he knew the answer.
"No, but..."