Chapter 24
“Chess is like battle, Gwen. The object is to outflank the enemy. You must think carefully on your next move.”
“I am thinking,” she grumbled. Richard was the enemy. That was the easy part. Beating him was the hard part. She frowned and reached for her bishop. Before her fingers closed over it, she glanced at her husband.
He watched her intently. She hesitated, then grabbed her queen instead. Too late, she saw the mistake.
“Checkmate,” he said, blocking her king. “If you’d went with your first instinct, I’d not have won.”
Gwen leaned back in her chair. “I’m not any good at this.”
“Yes you are. Your problem is you allow yourself to jump to the wrong conclusion too quickly. If you learn to take your time, you will be much better.”
Gwen picked up her king and toyed with it. A fortnight had passed since he’d brought her down from the battlements. They spent more time together now, making love, talking, going for long walks. “Who taught you how to play?”
“My father. He was very good.” His eyes became clouded, distant. Gwen’s heart lurched. She wanted to go to him, soothe him, chase the clouds away.
“My father never taught me anything,” she said suddenly. Dear God, what had made her admit that? She never spoke of her father to him. She cringed, waiting for his condemnation of the man he hated.
“’Twas his loss,” Richard said quietly.
Gwen shrugged it off. Some wounds were still too raw to share with anyone. “’Tis all right. I had Alys and Einion. My father had Wales.” She wisely left Rhys off the list.
“Who is Einion?” he asked, his eyes flashing.
“My father’s seneschal.”
Richard relaxed. “You mean the old man with the white hair?”
“Yes. Owain reminds me of him sometimes.”
“Owain is a good man. He’s been with my family for years.”
“Aye, he told me.”
“What else did he tell you?”
Gwen’s eyes widened. She knew him well enough to know this was a demand. “Nothing, my lord. Should he have?”
Richard rubbed his temples. “Nay, of course not. Forgive me for snapping at you.”
Gwen rushed to his side. Standing behind his chair, she replaced his fingers with hers. “Of course I forgive you,” she whispered.
He sighed and leaned his head back, his eyes drifting closed.
His lashes were so thick and long that Gwen had to resist the urge to touch them, to feel their silkiness beneath her fingertips.
She laid her cheek on top of his head, rubbing it against his hair.
God above, she cared for this man too much, and she couldn’t stop.
More than ever, she wanted to share his life, wanted to know him and be a part of him.
Her fingers traveled in slow circles. “Did you grow up here?”
“Aye,” he said. “Here and London. The coast sometimes. I have a castle on Mor Iwerddon. We shall travel there in the spring. You will love the beaches and cliffs.”
Gwen smiled. The Irish Sea. She loved the way he used Welsh so naturally. She could almost pretend she’d married a Welshman and settled in Wales.
They usually conversed in French, but whenever they made love, he inevitably slipped into Welsh. She didn’t think he was conscious of it. It was so natural, so intimate, something Anne or Elizabeth could never have shared with him.
“What of your mother and father?” she asked. “What were they like?”
“My father was a warrior, one of the best. He remained loyal to King Henry during the Barons’ Revolt when so many of them followed Simon de Montfort.”
Gwen swallowed. “I-I’m sorry he died. You must miss him terribly.”
He stiffened, then relaxed just as quickly. “Aye,” he said on a sigh.
“And what of your mother? What was she like?”
“I don’t remember her very well. ’Tis terrible, isn’t it?
But she died when I was five, and ’twas so long ago that I remember little beyond the fact she was beautiful and sweet.
My father never got over her death. He used to call for her sometimes, long after she was gone.
Then he’d remember and Owain would have to lead him to his chamber. I’d hear him crying and…”
Gwen’s fingers stilled. She pressed her lips to his forehead. “What, Richard?”
He clasped her hand and laid it against his heart. “Nothing, cariad. I am talking too much. You are terribly full of questions today,” he said, pulling her into his lap.
Gwen brushed a lock of hair off his brow. “’Tis not unreasonable for a wife to want to know her husband.”
“Nay, I suppose not.”
“Sometimes I feel as though I’ve known you forever,” she said, caressing his cheek. “Other times, I feel as if I know you not at all.”
He caught her fingers and kissed them. “Your eyes are the color of the Mediterranean where it kisses the shores of Corfu,” he said, his voice soft and silky. “’Tis all gold and green, hardly blue at all.”
“Where is that?” she asked, breathless.
“’Tis one of the Greek Isles.”
“You’ve been many places, haven’t you?”
“Aye. Wondrous places. Horrible places.”
“Tell me about them.”
“We started in Southampton,” he murmured against her mouth. “We stopped in France…” He nibbled her earlobe. “Then sailed around Spain…”
Gwen’s breath caught. His voice was low, passion-drunk, indelibly male. Little shivers of delight raced along her spine.
He fanned fiery kisses along her throat. “Portugal…”
His fingers had been working her laces and he pulled her gown aside to kiss her shoulder. “Gibraltar…”
“Mmm, Richard,” she gasped, her body tingling with arousal.
“Morocco…” he said, his lips as hot as the Sahara itself whispering along her collarbone. “Sicily…”
He dipped into the valley between her breasts. “Italy… the Greek Isles…”
He opened her gown enough to reveal a soft nipple. Gwen’s hands strayed to entwine in his hair. His tongue traced a lazy circle around the little bud, then he sucked it into his mouth.
Gwen moaned her pleasure.
“And the Holy Land,” he said before attending to the other pouting nipple.
“Mmm, Richard. I don’t want to talk any longer.”
“Why not?” He leaned back and closed her gown.
“Don’t stop now!”
“You must learn to savor your pleasures, sweet. Think how many times more exciting it will be if we wait.”
Gwen pouted. “I don’t want to wait!”
“We must. ’Tis almost time for the evening meal. If we are absent from the hall one more time, people will talk.”
“Stubborn man!” she said, hopping from his lap. “They are already talking. And besides, mayhap I will not wish to make love later.”
An irritating grin spread over his handsome features. “You want me, Gwen. You’ll not deny me.”
“Oh, you are a devil!”
His grin widened. “Aye, mayhap so.”
Gwen eyed the chessboard. Tease her would he! She’d show him she wasn’t so easily rattled. “Let’s play again,” she said. “I’ll beat you this time, I swear it.”
Richard laughed. “All right, cath wyllt. We’ll see who still has their wits about them.”
Gwen leaned forward to gather her pieces. Her gown was still unlaced and her breasts threatened to spill free.
“You are doing that deliberately,” Richard said.
Gwen blinked innocently. “Doing what?”
“Trying to tempt me.”
“Are you tempted?”
“I’d be lying if I said no. But you can’t have your way with me that easily, wench. It’ll take more than that to seduce me.”
Gwen straightened. “And just what will it take?”
He smiled. “Tell you what, if you win this game, I will do whatever you command me.”
“Anything?”
“Anything.”
“Then prepare to lose.”
Gwen threw herself into the game with relish. She ignored his hot gazes when he was trying to distract her, and managed to distract him once or twice when she opened her dress to reveal a naked breast. He would swallow and try to remember his move, and she would smile demurely and say “Sorry.”
Still, she was surprised when he lost, since his skill was the greater. But she didn’t dare question her good fortune.
He sat back and laced his fingers behind his head, grinning lewdly. “Ask and ye shall receive.”
“Bar the door.”
When he returned, she stood and pressed against him. “Kiss me,” she whispered.
He did, blindingly. Gwen had to remind herself she was the one in control. If she weren’t careful, the seducer would become the seduced. She pulled back and put her hands on his chest while she caught her breath.
“You’ll have to do better than that,” he said, inching her gown up her body.
“Nay!” Gwen cried, pushing away from him. “You must do what I say. Now, undress.”
“Demanding little hussy, aren’t you?” he said, smiling as his hand went to his sword belt.
Gwen licked suddenly dry lips as his clothes peeled away.
His bronze body was hard, magnificent, breathtaking.
When he stood only in his braies, Gwen couldn’t stop admiring him.
She wanted to touch him, wanted to feel the tremors beneath his golden flesh when she explored him with her mouth and her hands. “All of it,” she said.
“What about you?” he asked as his braies dropped to the floor.
Gwen shed her clothes in a heap. When she went to him, she said, “I want to touch you.”
His eyes darkened. “Cariad, you are supposed to make me do things to you, not the other way around.”
“You said anything, remember? And this is what I want,” she finished, standing on tiptoe to press her lips to his neck.
“You seek to torture me,” he murmured.
“Nay, I seek to pleasure you.” She circled his nipple with her tongue, smiling against his skin when he sucked in his breath.
Her hands roamed over him, delighting in the solid muscle and the quivers rippling through it.
He was like a hot-blooded stallion, well trained to the saddle but dying to break free and run.
Gwen closed her eyes, feathered kisses down his chest, over his abdomen. Her hand closed over his thick shaft and he groaned. “Does it hurt for me to touch you like this?”
His laugh was strangled. “It will hurt if you stop.”
Emboldened, Gwen traced it with her finger. It was a curious weapon, with a life of its own it seemed as it bucked beneath her touch.
Gwen had a sudden thought. When he touched her with his tongue, it nearly drove her mad. Would it be the same for him?