BindingPassion (13 page)

By the time the light of pre-dawn began to crawl through the
chapel windows, even Mary was so tired she was starting to doze on her knees.
Brianne leaned against the side of a pew, eyes closed, hands clasped together
tightly.

The agony of doubt and fear had settled to a heavy dread and
exhausted acceptance. When plodding footsteps approached the chapel, Mary
almost feared too much to turn and see who came. But she drew a deep breath,
braced herself, and went to meet Derwyn when she saw him standing at the door.
Brianne roused and followed her.

Mary couldn’t tell aught from his expression, save that he’d
had a long, arduous night.

“My lord?” she asked him, her heart pounding with dread.

“Lives yet,” Derwyn said, the words drawn by his exhaustion.
“And like to survive this, I’m thinking. Thomas believes his heartbeat is
stronger now and he seems more alert.”

Relief made her light-headed. Her vision started to fog, but
she didn’t realize she’d begun to collapse until she felt Derwyn’s arms under
her and realized he’d picked her up. He took her back to her solar and advised
her to get some rest. She begged him to let her know when she could see Philip,
and he promised to send word.

When Brianne tried to linger, Mary chased her off to her own
bed. Mary slept until well after noon. Isabel waited quietly, mending
stockings, in a corner of the room near the window, when she woke. Mary sent
her off to ask about Lord Philip. The girl came back smiling.

“They say he’s past the crisis and is now sleeping,” she
reported. Mary found the tears flowing again, this time from relief and joy.
She wondered she had any tears left in her, so many had leaked out over the
last day. Once dressed and fed, she stopped in the chapel to say a prayer of
thanks, then went to knock quietly at the door. An exhausted-looking Sir Thomas
answered.

He repeated what Isabel had said.

“May I see him?” Mary asked. “Just for a moment.”

“He’s sleeping, my lady,” he said.

“I know, and I’ll not disturb him. I just want to…” Her
voice broke. “I want to touch him and reassure myself he’ll survive. She raised
her arms. “I have no weapons or aught else to harm him. Stay with me, but let
me but see him for a moment…”

She expected another out-of-hand refusal and was surprised
when Sir Thomas drew a deep breath and nodded. He walked with her across to the
bed.

The room smelled strongly of recent illness, and clothes lay
scattered here and there in disordered heaps. Mary’s attention focused on the
man in the bed, however. She noted with relief that his chest rose and fell in
regular rhythm, but little else about him gave her joy. Even in sleep his
expression showed the strain of the recent ordeal. Deep shadows lay under his
eyes like bruises, his cheeks were very hollow, and sweat matted his dark hair
close to his head.

But he was breathing, and when she touched his wrist, she
felt the beat of his pulse. His skin was warm and a bit damp. Much as she
wanted to see him open his eyes and smile at her, she wouldn’t disturb this
sleep he needed so badly.

When the tears started again, she backed away so they
wouldn’t drip on him. “Are you well, my lady?” Sir Thomas asked as he escorted
her to the door.

“Aye,” she answered. “It’s just the relief. I prayed all
night for him in the chapel. I could not stand to lose him. Not now.” She had
to stop crying. She’d done more of it than she’d done in years. More than she’d
done at the deaths of her parents and brother.

“You deny, then, you had aught to do with poisoning him?”

“Aye.” She struggled for control. “I know you’ll not believe
me, but I love him deeply. Losing him would destroy me.”

“He punished you not long ago for taking too much on
yourself.”

“And did he tell you also of how we reconciled afterwards?”

Sir Thomas nodded. “Such things can be feigned.”

“Aye, ‘tis true, and I have no words to convince you of the
truth. Yet I do mean to discover who did this deed to my lord. You’ll be
guarding him until he’s well enough to protect himself?”

Sir Thomas nodded. “One of our men will be with him at all
times for the next few days.”

He looked startled when she said, “My thanks for that, Sir
Thomas.”

She left and went down to the kitchens.

After some questioning of various people, she finally found
the girl who’d brought the pitcher of wine to the head table. She was small,
thin, timid, and no more than twelve. When Mary called her over, she looked
almost sick.

Mary asked about her delivering the wine, and panic streaked
across the child’s features. She had evidently heard the rumors that the poison
delivered to Lord Philip had been in the wine and recognized her own peril.

“Aye, I did, my lady,” she said, stumbling over the words.
“But I didn’t put aught into it. That I swear!” She sounded as though she
didn’t expect anyone to believe it.

“Where did you get the wine?” Mary asked.

“Master Steward handed me the pitcher.”

“And did anyone stop on you on the way to the table or get
near to the wine?”

“Nay, my lady. No one.”

“When you brought the wine to the table, what did you with
it?”

“I placed it on the table. Between yourself, my lady, and my
lord.”

“Did you see anyone touch it after that? Or do anything with
Lord Philip’s cup?”

The child looked utterly distraught. “Nay, my lady. I did
not. But I didn’t do anything myself either. I swear it. I fetched the wine
from Master Steward, brought it to the table, put it down, then turned away and
came straight back here for another. I did naught to the wine before I brought
it.”

Mary took pity on her. “I know you didn’t. Please tell this
not to anyone else for now, but I’m reasonably sure the poison was put into my
lord’s cup rather than into the pitcher.”

Relief broke over the girl’s face and brought a sweet smile.
“Thank you, my lady.” Then she frowned. “I’m that sorry about my lord and I’m
very glad he’s getting better. He’s a fine lord and we’re all that proud to
have him here. Everyone I know says the same thing. None of us would wish him
harm. I understand not why anyone would put poison in his cup.”

“I understand it not myself,” Mary agreed with her.

She questioned the steward, who reported that he’d gotten
the wine directly from the cellar and it hadn’t been out of his view until the
girl came to take the pitcher to the great hall.

Mary sought out others who’d been present at dinner to ask
what they remembered about the head table and the movements of people there.
Most recalled little. Servants had gone back and forth to the head table,
delivering food and drink. A few told her of Sir Thomas moving around to
retrieve something from near Mary’s seat, which brought him close to Philip’s
cup, and others remembered that Derwyn had gotten up to fetch something. No one
could reliably add to what she herself had managed to recall. She asked
specifically about Ross, Warin and John, thinking they might harbor enough resentment
against Philip for disciplining them to try to harm him. But John hadn’t been
at the meal, Ross sat in a corner far from the lord’s table and never ventured
close to it, and Warin had been beside a young woman who vowed he’d never left
his seat.

In the end she was left mystified. Aside from her servants,
the only persons who had been close enough to slip something into his drink
were herself and his own men.

Philip recovered more rapidly than anyone expected. Within
two days he was back on his feet, eating and drinking normally, complaining
only of a residual sore throat and some weakness.

Mary didn’t see him until he came down to the great hall to
break fast on the third morning following his long night of fighting off the
effects of the poison. He’d lost weight and still had remnants of the dark
shadows under his eyes, but he looked wonderful to her. Servants and others
stopped him as he entered the room, remarking on how well he looked, telling
him how glad they were to see him, wishing him well. Her heartbeat picked up
speed and her breathing grew tighter as she waited for him to notice her.

She wasn’t sure whether his men had told him of their
suspicion of her, and if they had, whether he would believe it. Surely he
wouldn’t. Surely after their nights together, after her surrender and
acceptance of him, he couldn’t credit it. But he trusted his own men.

He looked up and saw her. The smile that lit his face
reassured her. She went to him and, heedless of the others in the room, walked
straight into his arms. He wrapped her up and held her against his body, then
tipped her face up to kiss her. The usual fire swept through her when his mouth
moved on hers, fueled to even greater heat this time by the frightening memory
of how close she had come to losing him. For a time she knew nothing else, but
when he released her, the chatter and cheers surrounding them penetrated her
awareness.

“Tonight,” he whispered in her ear. “You must come to me
tonight.”

She nodded.

Duty called them to other tasks for the day, but Mary found
it impossible to keep her thoughts from wandering to him and anticipating the
evening. Time moved too slowly to suit her. Each hour passed in slow motion.

Eventually though, they made it through the day and the
dinner at the end of it. They all watched carefully everything he ate and
drink, making sure he took nothing that hadn’t been tasted by someone else
first. Mary noticed during the meal that he looked tired, and she worried that
the day had worn him out. Perhaps the activity with him would be too much. Then
she had a thought. He saw her smile and teased her about it.

“I hope that look is anticipation,” he whispered so only she
would hear.

“Aye, it is,” she said. “I hear cook has developed a new
pudding that she says is quite spectacular. She plans to bring it out tonight.
We’re to test it for worthiness to serve during the Christmas-time.”

“I have something for you far more savory than pudding.”

“You cook, my lord?” she asked, feigning shock.

“I know how to heat up a sweet morsel until she boils over.”

“And can you stir the pot and thicken the juices properly?”

“My lady, I can conjure a mix that fires the palate, tickles
the tongue, and warms the belly. What more could you ask from a savory?”

“Ah, but the savory might have a surprise in store for the
cook.”

Mary dissolved into delighted giggles at his look of
pleasure and anticipation.

That evening when she crept into his solar, she wore only a
light wrapper with no shift beneath. She’d sent Isabel to her bed and made sure
the hall was deserted before she ran down it and in at his door. He lay on the
bed, hands folded thoughtfully beneath his head, staring at the ceiling, but he
turned to her with a wicked smile. When he started to rise, however, she sped
to his side and laid a hand on his chest to hold him down.

“Nay, my lord, stay as you are. You’ve been ill and are
still not fully recovered, so this even, I’ll do the work and you’ll lie here
and accept.”

“You’re forceful tonight,” he said.

“In your interest.”

“Oh, I am entirely interested,” he said.

Mary unlaced his shirt and pulled it over his head, then
disposed of his slippers and breeches. She couldn’t keep from running a hand
along his leg, then up across his belly and along his chest. The feel of solid
flesh and hard muscle reassured her. She loosed the wrapper and let it slip off
her body. He gasped at the sight of her.

“Have I told you recently how beautiful you are?” he asked.

“Nay, not for at least the last ten minutes.”

“Then come here and allow me to remedy that.”

She joined him on the bed, stretching out next to him. With
her hands and mouth she worshipped his body until he could no longer lie still.
He stopped her, though, long enough for him to pull her nipples into his mouth
and suck on them until she squealed. When he ran his teeth over them and bit
down carefully, causing her a frantically arousing mix of pleasure and pain,
she arched her back and moaned.

He started to move over her, but she stopped him. “Nay, my
lord. Allow me.”

She pushed him back down, then rolled and levered herself
up. She threw a leg across him and sat, straddling his belly. His hard cock
prodded at her backside until she shifted, positioning herself over it. She
rubbed herself against it, teasing him until he groaned, then she pushed down
and back, impaling herself on his shaft.

“Mary!” The word came out as a prolonged groan of ecstasy.

She moved over him, pumping herself up and down on him. He
reached up and took her breasts, pulling on the nipples, pinching and squeezing
until the pressure built inside her. She leaned forward to kiss him. Their
mouths joined in a long, hot kiss, tongues tangling, and lips nipping at each
other. But she couldn’t ride him in that position, so she straightened up and
began the lift and push movement that drove his cock satisfyingly deep into her
womb. Heat worked its way all through her, and the pressure built with each
stroke. She felt him pulsing quicker and pushing faster, so she increased her
pace to match his rhythm.

Mary pushed herself down on him as hard as she could. It
touched something deep inside that rolled all through her, jerking her into a
near-unbearable tension of need. It was pleasure too exquisite to be borne
long. She raised herself and lowered again, and this time the push of him
against a special place in her womb throbbed like a dagger’s thrust of
pleasure. It exploded within her, sending her over the edge into a throbbing
completion. Her spasms sparked his release as well, and with a long groan, he
released his seed into her.

She collapsed on top of him, panting and still riding wave
after wave of aftershocks. They lay together, breathing hard and holding tight,
until they calmed down. Mary found herself reluctant to let him go, and she
held his cock tight inside her. From this angle, she could study his beloved
face, stroke the elegant line of his temple, cheek and jaw, run her fingers
into his hair, stare into the deep blue eyes, and drown in the love she found
there.