At Her Service (Swords of Passion) (8 page)

She could barely breathe with the fullness of his magnificent possession. The size of the emerald that filled her nether hole filled her loins with mad delight and she thrashed upon the bed.

He pinned her hands to the sheets. “I will take you now, pretty woman of mine. And in this claim, you will see that a man may claim more than a woman’s sweet cunt.”

If she had the breath, if he’d given her a moment, she would have told him she knew that. Knew that now more fully than she ever had with Alphonse. Ever could with any other man. For this man was her love. Her lover.

And as he plumbed her and gave her the sensations of his shaft and his other jewel of love, she knew not which to name the more enthralling. For she adored both. And as he pumped his seed into her greedy little body yet one more time, she milked him in her own ecstasy that must have shook the walls of the keep. Afterward, she lay back, his heavy flesh collapsed upon her, and asked if there could be more she did not know about the art he taught.

“Aye, my treasure,” he murmured, “but first, we must rest. For I have more to show you, and you will never forget these next moments in my arms.”

She claimed there could be no higher glory. Then she wound herself around him and would have fallen to sleep when Omar once more knocked upon the door.

Simon struggled to his feet and trudged to the door. This time as they stood talking in that odd language, she peeped around the hangings to note the tall dark man’s sharp face lined with worry. His gestures were brusque as he pointed towards the guard house. As Simon closed the door upon him, he gave his man an order that had Omar smiling with evil delight.

“What is the matter?” Elise asked, when Simon returned to her and began to dress. “What has happened?”

“Omar tells me you have a visitor.”

Simon secured his tunic and tied his belt then extended his hand. “Come, my dear one. You must have a bath and dress in your finest. You do not want this guest to smell upon you the joy we’ve shared.”

She cupped her mound. “No matter who this is, I do not want to wash away our child.”

“My sweet,” Simon bent over her and brushed her wisps of hair from her cheek over her ear, “we have loved so often here that I wager you now could be carrying our babe.” He grinned broadly, though Elise could see it was an expression that did not light his eyes. “If not, we have many more days and nights to plant a child within your ripe womb. Come now, up.”

She rose naked, enjoying the pinch of her nipples in the gaudy clamps, the smooth bulk of the emerald in her ass, the fragrance of their musky juices coating her thighs and the dreamy suppleness of her well-loved body. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “Kiss me,” she murmured to his lips, empowered by his loving to face all odds, “and tell me who is here.”

He stared into her eyes for one long moment and finally relented. “
Crosby
.”

Chapter Six

Rumour had it that Phillip Crosby had been a nasty youth. As a man he remained rude to his widowed mother and crude and cruel to his female serfs. “To belong to him as a wife or even have him as a neighbour,” Elise confided in Simon as the man in question strode towards them, “was never my ambition.”

Simon squeezed her forearm as they watched the blond-haired man approach them towards the dais of the great hall. “He has the pinched and greedy look of a man too well coddled.”

“My lady.” Phillip bent a knee in French style to Elise. “I am pleased you receive me and my men.”

“I have little choice when you present yourself and your five men at my castle gates.”

His tiny brown eyes bored into hers as he cast off her tartness with more pap. “I thank you for your hospitality.” His gaze drifted to Simon’s. “Since our hostess does neither of us the honour of introductions, I will offer you my greetings, sir.”

“Offer me nothing,
Crosby
. Well you know who I am, else you would not be here.”

“I am offended,” Phillip declared with hauteur.

“I care not what you are, man,” Simon growled. “State your business, then you may retire to the guard house.”

“My business is with the Countess and her husband.”

Elise could not contain the smile that curled her lip. “Pray tell, what is that business, Phillip? My husband cannot hear it, but I will.”

“The earl is too ill?” Phillip asked.

As if he did not know. As if he had no spies in this house. Elise snorted. “He has been ill for some time, and well you know it. Again I ask, what is your business that you have the presumption to come to me here when my lord husband is abed and as added affront bring your retainers with you?”

“Bah! You know wild boar are about. Why, I hear someone recently took another here,” Phillip flared his nostrils at Simon, “and did so with a dagger, no less.”

Simon scoffed at him. “You brought five men in full mail over fifteen miles in a snow storm to tell us what we already know?”

“You are most unkind.”

“And you,” Simon seethed, “are most unwelcome.”

Phillip inhaled and set his jaw. “I must speak with your husband.”

“No.”

“You then, Elise. Alone.”

“That is not possible,” she told him. “State your case now.”

“I have come to propose an alliance.”

Elise bit her lip to keep from laughing in his face. “That is unnecessary.”

“You and I,” he replied between clenched teeth, “know you need protection.”

“Aye, that I do.”
From you. From John. From the winds of misfortune once my husband is gone and Simon, too.

“This man cannot provide it.” Phillip tipped his head towards Simon. “He is here only to insult your honour.”

“Ah,” Elise crooned, “and you would save me from that blemish.”

“You know I can. I have the power, the men. Joined to me, you will have a greater buffer from the Scots.”

“Hmm. I would.” She nodded. “But then who would buffer me from you?”

“You—you would need none from me!” he sputtered. “I would be your loyal friend.”

“Phillip,” she spoke softly and leant towards him, “I have known you since I first wed my lord and came here as his wife. You were then a young man of little calibre and have not yet grown in character or kindness. You have not the knowledge of what it is to be a loyal friend, and I have no desire to watch you promise what you cannot give.”

“The Scots come closer, Elise. They assemble, I am told, a hundred miles from me. And they will care not for your need of loyalty or character.”

“If they come,” she told him praying she had the means to somehow keep the fiends contained in their homeland, “they will overrun you first, Phillip. And I will seek my sovereign’s help before I seek yours.”

“You will regret this,” Phillip warned.

She smiled, serene in her own conviction. “I may regret that I could not thwart them, Phillip, but I will never regret the refusal of any offer of help from you.”

“The least you can do is give us better quarters. In fact, I demand a better room than the guardhouse. ‘Tis cold there with only one fire in a vast common room. I am your equal, and I deserve a room here in your keep.”

“There are none available,” she shot back with hot satisfaction. “Either sleep where we put you, or return home in the storm.”

“I resent the insult.”

“I resent you came to bully me.” She waved him off. “Leave us.”

Phillip surveyed her top to bottom as if she were a whore then narrowed his gaze at Simon. “Aye. I leave you to your rutting.”

Elise felt Simon’s body stiffen. “What we do is none of your business,“ she told him. “You may dine with us here in the hall tonight, but tomorrow I will send you homeward. At daybreak, you and your men be ready.”

“Or?” he taunted.

Simon took a step forward to tower over the man by many inches. “Or we turn you out with what you have on your backs.”

* * * *

Dinner was a sad affair with Phillip sullen on one side of her and Simon, silently furious, on the other. Never known for his brilliant conversation, Phillip harped in her ear about the Scots barbarism, their numbers and their arms.

“Elise, I tell you that you make a mistake to think too lightly of their threat. They have harassed my lands since my grandfather was a boy. Your husband knows this. He and my father led a foray years ago to ward them off. They pushed them back because they were quick and well armed. You and I can do the same. Permit me to come speak with you privately.”

“I told you nay,” she countered.

“I am far better than you have heard of me, Elise. I am not the boy I was.”

She considered him, his pouting mouth, his lax jaw and his dishevelled hair he had not even combed to come before her tonight and dine. “Nay, you are not.”

He leaned closer. “I am a worthy match for you. Once your husband dies—”

Elise stiffened at his effrontery. “Say no more, Phillip.”

“You will consider me, then?” he whispered, his eyes eager with joy.

“Never.”

He shot to his feet. “I must see your husband.”

“He is incapable of seeing anyone.” In fact, she had looked in on him earlier, and he was fitful, muttering of his first wife and thinking Elise was his mother.

“It is an insult for me to come here and not see him,” Phillip seethed. “I demand to pay my respects.”

“Very well. A few minutes.” Elise rose and summoned her servant at the front table. “Cleve, take Lord Crosby to the earl and let him greet our master and no more.”

Cleve walked to the dais and nodded at Phillip to show him the way. “Sir, I beg you the stairs here quickly.”

Elise pursed her lips as she watched him leave for the back of the hall and the way to Alphonse’s bed chamber. “He is a pestilence upon this clime,” she murmured to Simon. “I wish he’d find a bride to keep him in bed awhile.”

Simon snorted. “No right-minded lord would hand over his girl to that cur.”

“As long as John does not hand over any more land or power to him,” Elise told him with distaste, “I shall be safe. But John may fear the Scots more than he fears Phillip’s inadequacies.”

“Come now, my dear.” Simon took her hand. “You and I have much to do to ensure John’s future.”

She grinned up at him, regardless of what her serfs would see or say about her loving look days or years from now. “Aye. You promised me another treat. And I am your most ardent student, my Knight Divine.”

His silver eyes lit with the fires of heaven. “Come quickly, then. The night grows cold, and I am hot to show you new adventures.”

* * * *

Simon asked first however for a bath for himself. Heaven knew, he needed the release the hot water brought his body. Dealing with
Crosby
had churned his insides, and loving Elise required more serenity than dinner in that man’s presence had brought. Besides, Simon liked the way Elise eyed him leisurely from the chair.

“‘Tis delightful to see you wet, sir.”

He roared with laughter at her words. “Saucy woman,” he teased and relaxed backward in the copper bath. “Come wash my hair.”

“Mmm…” She shook her head. “What if I prefer to wash other parts of your body?”

He narrowed his gaze on her and pointed to his side. “Come here.”

She licked her lips, rose from her chair and stood, gazing down into the copper tub. Her examination had his manhood thickening, and his balls tensing. “You are quite beautiful,” she told him on a wisp of air.

“If you come here now,” he rasped with hard need, “I will show you how your beauty strikes me.”

She grinned and tossed her head. “Ah, what can you show me that I have not already seen?”

“How your loveliness strikes me at this moment,” he whispered and grasped his rod beneath the water.

She stood her ground. “I will show you instead how your beauty affects me.” And at that she began to work at the tie that closed her over-tunic to whisk the garment to the floor. Her under-tunic came next, and suddenly, she was naked to him once more. But instead of coming to him, she began to caress her breasts. Pinching her nipples, she sighed and let her head fall back so that the arch of her slender throat was laid bare to him. She reached up, removed the pins from her hair and let the wealth fall about her slender shoulders. The blonde curtain of her curls concealed one breast and cupped another.

“Elise,” he breathed. “Come to me, my darling, and let me suck your pretty nipples.”

Her eyes opened, and she smiled like a cat as she let her hands drift lower to her waist and her navel and her frothy little nest. She played in her nether hair, her fingers twisting and pulling at her mound. She moaned, and he did too when she delved into her slit with eager fingertips and parted herself for him.

“What do you think, my Knight Divine?” Her voice was husky with need. “Am I ready for you?”

Her lips were bright pink and glistening with her body’s sweet syrup. “Nay,” he forced himself to tell her. “You can do more to bathe that cunny for me.”

“Oh, aye,” she agreed with a gush of enthusiasm and spread her legs wider to tilt up her hips towards him. “I think a bit of this would be good,” she crooned and sent her fingers up inside herself to bring down more juice and caress her nub. But when he would have guessed she had reached a point of delight, she groaned and pulled her fingers out. Then she turned and bent over to show him her pretty heart-shaped ass. “I need you to put your jewel inside me here.”

Near to bursting with his seed, he almost choked in laughter on her double entendre. “My emerald or my rod?”

She glanced over her shoulder at him and let a sensual fire light her eyes. “My darling, I think it must be both.”

He swallowed hard. “What have I created here?”

She spun to face him once more and ran her hands from her bush up her lithe and swaying body to her breasts then to her throat and lifted her hair to let it fall about her once more. “A woman who loves to love you, my lord.”

“Aye,” he breathed the affirmation and felt the pain of their coming separation as if a knife were cutting open his guts. He rose with a start, the water cascading from his body.

“Sweet man,” she said on a bare sound. “You are a dream come true.” Her eyes flew to his. “Love me again.”

He left the tub, grabbed a towel to give himself a few swipes and reached for her. In one sweep, he caught her high up into his arms then he was carrying her to the bed. She wiggled in delight and began to tickle him.

“You torment me?” he asked with fake harshness.

She giggled and reached for his armpits.

He gripped her wrists and pinned her to the bed. “You want to play?”

“Aye!”

“I’ll show you play.” He kissed her quickly and left the bed to once more find his pouch.

“Ooh…” she murmured, rubbing her thighs together. “What more do you have?”

His nostrils flared. He had known she would make a good lover. For him and no other. But to see her delight and hear it drove him to mad joy. As he approached her, he wound the silken ties about his fists, cautioning himself not to bind her too tightly. “These are for you and me.” He forced her wrists above her head and bound them together with a sailor’s knot. “There,” he said, sitting back on his heels and admiring the sinuous figure before him. “My prize to do with as I please.”

She writhed in tortured delight. “I cannot bear the delay.”

“Oh, you must, pretty lady.” He ran a hand down the front of her naked body and loved the way she undulated at his touch. “For there is so much more to teach you.”
And if I had all the time before I die, I might not have enough to show you all the ways I can delight you best.

“Simon,” she beseeched him. “You go far from me. Come to me now. No sadness here.”

“Aye,” he snapped back to the moment. Then he rose and went to the tub to snatch up a cup, the soap and his razor. “Lie still,” he whispered, “and let me bathe this pretty cunt and bare it to me.”