Devil at Midnight (15 page)

“William saw a lynx,” Michael said, glancing up briefly. He smoothed the doubled blankets with brisk motions. “I warned everyone not to bed down too far away.”

“Good thinking,” Christian said. He eyed Michael’s actions with a dismay that he had never felt before. The night was too cold to suggest different arrangements. Michael was his closest and his most trusted friend. They often slept back-to-back when on campaign. Their company suited each other. It simply did not feel so suitable now.

“Mind you,” Michael went on, plunking down on the blankets to tug off his boots, “I am unconvinced that Philippe and Matthaus will listen.”

Christian rubbed his forehead, too aware of Grace beside him. With an effort, he turned his thoughts to Michael’s concerns. “They will be all right, I expect. It will be light soon, and chances are that wildcat is more interested in the local chamois goats than us.”

Grunting, Michael lay down and pulled the top two blankets up to his neck. His pack was his pillow, lumpy though it was. “They could show some self-control.”

“If they love each other, it must be difficult to have to sneak around all the time.”

Michael rolled halfway back to look at him. “If they
love each other ...
Christian, are you forgetting that what they do is against God’s law? You would think they were Florentines!”

Christian fought a smile. Wherever one lived, the sin of sodomy always seemed to be imputed to some other town’s citizens.

“This is not funny,” Michael said. “There are not so many who would turn your blind eye.”

“You are right. My morals are abominable.”

Because he truly could not hate anyone, Michael laughed and lay down again. “Do not stand there all night, Christian. This hillside may have good sight lines, but it is freezing.”

Christian shot a look at Grace, who shrugged at him. She did not know how to handle this situation any more than he did. Resigned to behaving as he normally would have, Christian dragged off his boots and squirmed in next to Michael.

“Are you armed?” Christian asked as Michael rearranged the blankets and pressed his back to his.

“My knife is under my pack, as if you did not know my habits. I claimed second watch for us, by the way.”

Grace was giggling as she sat next to him in dirt that, sadly, had no chance of dirtying her. Christian glared, but her amusement did not abate.

“I’ll be sleeping with
two
men,” she explained between gasps for air. “I never imagined being a ghost would be this racy.”

Even as he frowned, she kissed his forehead and snuggled close, on her side now with her knees bent up. The warm hum of her nearness caused his spine to relax against Michael’s, who was shivering just a bit. Christian felt one of Grace’s hands settle atop the bend of his waist. The heat that had been ebbing from his loins threatened to flood back.

“Behave yourself,” he muttered.

“What?” Michael asked, not asleep yet.

“Nothing,” Christian said impatiently. He could not look away from Grace’s eyes, now mere inches away from his. They were twinkling far too brightly with dangerous ideas. It should not have been the case, but her boldness was as compelling to his lust as her innocence. He had hardened enough already for his braies to feel snug. When her palm slid from his waist to his hip, he feared he was in trouble. When she swept her thumb gently up his hip bone, he knew he was.

“I have you where I want you now,” she murmured.

He couldn’t even hiss her name between his teeth. Michael would have asked again what was wrong. Delight fought dread as he realized his clothes were no barrier to her spirit hand. Grace gnawed her lip as she reached through them for his throbbing erection.

“I wish I could see what I was doing,” she said.

She was doing quite well blind. Her energy lapped into him, blurring their separate edges as she rubbed his shaft, until the nerves beneath the surface of his stiffened member felt like liquid sparks were sliding over them. Christian closed his eyes and fought a shudder. He did not think she could bring him to release this way; the pressure was too subtle. It felt good, though. So good the tip of his prick began to well up.

Grace wriggled closer still, her misty lips brushing his like silk. “You could touch yourself if you need more friction.”

She always wanted that, and he was starting to want it for her—if only to watch how it aroused her.

Resisting temptation, he shook his head. She had left a space between their bodies where her knees bent up, and he was bracing his weight slightly forward there. His hand was clenched into a fist, submerged half in, half out of her spectral gown. He doubted he could be quiet enough for climax, not with Grace so close by. She called sounds from him he could not hold back, and—friend or not—there were sides to Christian that Michael did not need to know about.

Grace looked at his fist and then back at him. “Is that what you want? Do you think it would help?”

He did not understand what she meant ... until she curled her own hand into a fist and, rather than continue to stroke him, punched it straight down his aching prick. Christian gasped at the immediate increase in sensation. A muscle in his thigh twitched, jerking his knee forward and into hers. Grace pulled her fist back, and that motion tingled strongly, too.

Faster
, he thought, his throat tightening on a moan he could not let out.
Mary in heaven, do that faster.

“Faster?” Grace offered.

He swore silently even as he nodded, unable to resist. She could make him spill his seed this way, maybe not quickly, but he thought she could. He only had to keep his mouth shut, and to stay leaning away from Michael when he went.

He told himself his excitement was now too high to ignore. He needed to sleep, to relax, and he could not do that while he was so hard. Her touch pushed and pulled through him as if his flesh were thick water, each time nudging him a fraction closer to ecstasy. The wave of his anticipation built by tantalizingly small degrees. His thighs were hot, his heart pumping, his prick so full in its skin it hurt. The pain was not without its pleasure. He tensed the muscles of his stomach, pulling the feelings in. When that actually worked, it took all his strength to keep his breathing even.

Grace’s breathing certainly was not. Her face was so close, so real. She had three tiny freckles beside her full, parted mouth—a constellation to steer by. He saw her pink tongue glisten when she wet her lip, could almost taste it himself.

“Christian,” Michael said, twisting around to shake his shoulder.

Embarrassment boiled his face, as he had not felt since he was a boy being tongue-lashed by his father before a crowd. What was he thinking, playing at this with Grace where his friend could not ignore it?

He sat up, prepared to offer an apology, though he had no idea what to say. As little as possible, hopefully.

“Something is wrong,” Michael said. “Hans is walking this way.”

Michael’s eyes were worried but not offended. He had not been aware of what Christian was doing. He had shaken him for some other reason. Christian’s thoughts took a moment to reroute themselves, the strength of his relief slowing them. Michael was no longer looking at him. He had turned to watch Hans’s approach. Through the black tree trunks behind him, the eastern sky was lightening to gray.

“Sorry to disturb you,” the veteran said once he was near enough. “It is Charles. He has returned from Mistress Wei, and William and I are not sure he is ... himself.”

“Who else would he be?” Michael asked.

“Come,” Hans said, rather than explain.

The still pulsing remnants of Christian’s arousal made rising awkward, but he ignored them. Grace rose as well, her anxious gaze on his face.
Sorry
, she mouthed when he looked at her. Christian let his fingertips brush her arm. She was just a girl playing with her budding power over men. Christian was responsible for what had almost happened in Michael’s company.

“Charles is in one piece?” he asked as the veteran preceded them to the central fire.

Hans’s scarred mouth grimaced. “More or less.”

Christian understood what he meant soon enough. Charles was standing—or swaying—within a small circle of watchers, every one of whom had his eyebrows raised. Lavaux was there, staring daggers, and another of his father’s men, a black-haired Basque whom everyone called Mace due to his artistry with that weapon. Given the racket Charles was making, Christian thought it lucky the entire company had not drawn nigh.

“I am beauteous,” Charles was declaring, spinning in a wobbling circle with his arms outspread. “Beau-tee-ous.”

“You are drunk,” Christian said.

Charles laughed hysterically at him. “Not a drop of it. Even one. Only the sweetest swiving of my life. Thought I would swoon when my seed burst free. That wench’s queinte was tight enough to crack walnuts!”

William caught him as he swayed too far and fell over.

“Sweet William,” Charles cooed, trying to pat William’s cheek but employing such questionable aim that he got his nose. “Always there when we need you.”

“She gave him
something,”
William said to Christian. “Look how pale he is. And his pupils are as big as bilberries.”

“Pussy,” Charles giggled. “She gave me sweet, hot, dripping wet pussy.” He rubbed his neck as if it pained him, but Christian could see no wound. “Saints above, I am tired. Think someone else will have to take my turn on watch.”

With a lengthy sigh, he passed out in William’s arms. Lavaux and Mace exchanged glances, obviously thinking they would not mind this sort of exhaustion. Mace went so far as to rub his own neck in an echo of Charles’s gesture. Beneath his fingers, a ragged scar slanted from his ear to his collarbone. The marks made Mace look as if someone had once tried to saw his head off.

The last person Christian wanted to witness Charles’s peccadillo chose then to stride over. Gregori stopped on the opposite side of the fire from Christian, his feet planted wide like a standing bear. The glow from the logs cast uncanny shadows up his broad face. His thick black eyebrows looked inches high.

“What ails him?” Gregori demanded.

“Drunk, we think,” William said before adding, “sir.”

Christian’s father grunted. It was not clear whether he believed this story. His cool eyes shifted to Christian. “You should keep your men in better order.”

“Yes, sir,” was the only thing he could say.

If Nim Wei had drugged Charles, he was suffering no ill effects by the following night. In truth, he was annoyingly hale and hearty, begging seconds from Oswald’s supply of bread and telling anyone who would listen that he had never felt so good in his life.

When Nim Wei requested that William lead her second mount, Christian expected Charles to take umbrage. Charles was a competitive soul—sometimes stupidly so—and Christian knew he would have relished rubbing Lavaux’s nose in a repeat conquest. To Christian’s surprise, Charles shrugged off Lavaux’s attempts to bait him over being replaced.

“I had my hour in paradise,” he said good-humoredly. “Some women are too blessed by nature to scatter their bounty on just one man.”

This was not a sentiment any of them had heard Charles express ... unless it was in regard to himself.

“What got into him?” Michael asked as the rest of them tramped more sleepily down the wooded slope to the traveler’s road. The cold had hardened its ruts, but this was preferable to spring mud. Not wanting to discuss Charles’s amorous adventure, Christian hiked his pack up and shook his head. Philippe walked ahead of them, his wavy brown hair ruffling in the wind where it had blown out from under his mail coif. His gray eyes looked black in the darkness—pretty eyes, Christian supposed. Creases rayed around them when he grinned over his shoulder at Michael.

“I think the more pertinent question would be: Who did Charles get into?”

Matthaus elbowed his friend affectionately for his quip, which was enough to make Michael frown.

Christian nudged Michael’s arm before he could speak, his mail shirt cold even through his sleeve. “Leave it alone,” he murmured. “It is their business.”

He did not wait for Michael’s reaction to his advice. Michael’s disapproval was his own affair, and Christian’s eyes were following Grace anyway. She had flitted ahead of him this evening, following their little column off to one side. He found it disconcerting to watch her walk through the occasional boulder, but pleasant to see her high spirits. It had not occurred to him that she might enjoy this journey for its own sake. He supposed she had not had the freedom to run wild when she was alive. Now and then she hesitated, checking how far back he was before darting forward in a breathless rush. Christian smiled to see it. His Grace was trying her wings.

She had plenty of room to stretch them. They were deeper in the mountains, the craggy peaks that loomed above them well streaked with snow. Here and there, stony fortified houses perched, lonely strongholds for the families who eked out an existence in these valleys. Grace seemed to like the look of the towers by moonlight. She craned her neck as they passed each one.