Fatal Truths (The Anarchy Medieval Romance) (21 page)

Alex silently thanked Stephen. After all, he couldn’t disobey a king! He grasped Elayne’s hand. “Quick, upstairs.”

They dashed towards the staircase that led to his chamber. But he wasn’t fast enough. His brothers had beaten them
to it and now blocked their way.

Romain grinned. “
Tsk, tsk,
mon frère
, trying to escape without a proper escort?”

He and Laurent
hunkered down. Romain pointed to his shoulder. “Up.”

Shaking his head,
Alex reluctantly let go of Elayne’s hand and allowed himself to be hoisted atop his brothers’ shoulders.

Four burly young men appeared with a chair,
inviting Elayne to sit, then they lifted it onto their broad shoulders.

Alex kept looking behind him as they made their unsteady way up the stone steps, worried
Romain’s inebriated friends might accidentally pitch Elayne out of the chair, but she seemed to be holding on tightly to the arms. Her laughter warmed his heart.

Suddenly Henry,
Claricia and Faol appeared, ascending the staircase, Claricia carefully holding up the skirts of her gown.

“
Maman
,” she shouted. “Wait for us.”

Alex wanted to laugh. He’d been so intent on getting Elayne into bed, he’d forgotten all about saying good night to his children.
The responsibilities of being a father sometimes slipped his mind. From his perch he looked down on the hopeful threesome. “Your
Maman
and I are going to sleep together this night in my chamber, and you will sleep in yours.”

Henry turned to his sister.
“Told you.”

Claricia stamped her foot and scowled, tightening her grip on the folds of her gown. “But you didn’t say goodnight.”

Elayne had been chewing on her knuckles, he suspected in an effort to stifle her amusement, but now she sobered, and asked her bearers to lower her chair.

She sat on one of the steps and Henry and Claricia snuggled into her
, one on each side. Faol tried to push in but gave up and squeezed his big body onto the step below.

Contentment flowed over
Alex as he watched his new family. Romain and Laurent squeezed his hands. A vivid memory struck him so forcefully he almost fell from their shoulders. He and Romain had sat here as small boys with their father.

“I remember,” he rasped. “
Maman
was sick and Papa sat here with us, his arms around our shoulders, comforting us.”

Romain nodded.
“We didn’t know then she was
enceinte
with Laurent.”

Alex
slipped from his perch and came to sit on the step below Faol. “It was thoughtless of us to leave without wishing you goodnight.”

Henry nodded
soberly.

Claricia smiled
coyly, leaning into her mother.

Elayne pecked a kiss on their foreheads.
“Goodnight, my children.”

Alex rose, holding out his arms to Henry. The boy came into his embrace willingly. “Goodnight, Papa. Sleep well.”

Elayne chuckled, her face red.

He put Henry down,
then picked up Claricia. She hugged him fiercely. “Goodnight,
Dadaidh
Lix,” she whispered. “I love you.”

Alex couldn’t speak, unable to think what he’d done to deserve this happiness. He put the child down. “
I love you too,” he croaked. “Go now to
Tante
Marguerite. Rosetta must be wondering where you are.”

Claricia’s eyes widened with glee. She turned to follow Henry and Faol who’d already started down the steps, but seemed to change her mind. “
Maman
, what did the King mean that you’ll be bearing fruit? You’re not a tree.”

Alex struggled to keep his
demeanour serious as he put a hand on her shoulder. “I think you should go ask
Tante
Marguerite that question.”

ELAYNE AND ALEX LAY UNDER THE COVERS still fully clothed, holding hands, exhausted by a fit of giggling that had seized them the moment their
escorts
left the chamber.

Remaining clothed had
been Romain’s idea so the Bishop could enter and bless their marriage bed. “He’ll never know you’re still clothed, and why would he care? Just take off your doublet, Alex, and pull the linens up to your chins. This way we’ll get rid of him faster.”

Keeping a serious and respectful expression on their faces had been difficult as the cleric sprinkled holy water and recited the blessing.

Elayne and Alex had earlier discussed their suspicions that Romain and Laurent, with the help of friends, planned to strip their brother after the Bishop left, and tease him in front of his new wife.

They
too had a plan. As soon as Alex made a show of removing Elayne’s clothing, the boisterous group left, pouting and casting aspersions on Alex’s ability to have fun.

“
Romain’s right,” Alex rasped. “I never did know how to have fun.” He eased over onto his side to face her and put a hand on her waist. “Until I met you.”

She turned her head and smiled at him, content beyond imagining at the love burning in his eyes. She put her hand over his. “
I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the love you’ve brought into my life, Alex. I didn’t know what love was until I met you.”

He leaned over to kiss her. His warm lips tasted of spiced wine. She opened her mouth
, craving his tongue, his breath, thirsting for his moisture. Cradling her face in his hands, he nibbled her lower lip, then sucked on it before plunging his tongue in again. When he broke them apart he whispered, “You taste wonderful. I want to see your body. It’s been too long.”

His deep voice bathed her in a warm, vibrating glow. She felt at once calmed and excited. Though his words were arousing, they were uttered with love.
“Undress me,” she whispered into his mouth.

He helped her sit up. “Move to the edge.”

He knelt in front of her and ran his fingertips up her skirt, easing down first one, then the other garter, then peeling off her hose. She leaned back on her elbows, watching him as he kissed her toes, one at a time, stoking the fire building in her loins.

She’d long since lost the veil she’d worn in the chapel. Alex unpinned her hair, licking his lips as it fell around her shoulders.

“Stand up,” he commanded, reaching for her hand.

He bent to grasp the hem of her blue gown and in one quick movement pulled it off over her head. Her chemise clung to it and came off at the same time, leaving her suddenly completely naked,
her hair standing on end. He tossed the garments away, his eyes raking her from head to toe, but she felt no nervousness. She wanted him to look at her, but she wondered if he could tell she was
enceinte
.

“You’re a goddess,” he rasped.

She held out her arms. “And you are my blue eyed god.”

He yanked off his linen shirt and threw it onto the pile of discarded clothing. It struck her then that he really was
sculpted like a Greek god, an Adonis, lean, muscled, beautiful. Her throat was a desert. All the moisture in her body seemed to have pooled between her legs.

He took hold of her hands, placing them on the laces of his leggings. “I want you to take them off.”

Glancing at the bulge at his groin intensified the aching need. She untied the fastenings and quickly eased his leggings and braes from his hips and over his arousal. “I don’t want to hurt you,” she said hoarsely.

He was as big
and thick as she’d remembered in her dreams and fantasies. She pressed her body to his, feeling the warmth of his engorged flesh on her belly.

You have planted a child there, my love.

He shoved the leggings down over his knees and kicked them off. “Lay down, I want to taste your sweetness.”

Her body still held the memory of
the blissful sensations he’d ignited the last time he’d put his mouth on her. She lay back, opening her legs without hesitation.

He licked and suckled and drank like a man newly delivered from the desert. She played with his hair, relishing its softness. “I love that,” she murmured, cupping her breasts with her hands
, brushing a thumb over each nipple.

He flicked his tongue back and forth over her happy nub. She squeezed her nipples, arched her back and let herself fall into an abyss of bliss, where there was no
necessity to breathe, no need for sounds—only the intense feelings mattered, sensations that flowed into her womb, her spine, her toes, the top of her head, spasms of pleasure that went on and on.

~~~

ALEX HAD NEVER ACQUIRED THE SKILL of playing a musical instrument, but he was a maestro now as Elayne’s body responded to his touch.

As her breathing steadied he lay on his back and pulled her on top of him, burying his face in the fan of her hair, inhaling the faint traces of the sprig of spring jasmine she’d worn
for the ceremony.

She came to her knees and straddled him. “I need you inside me,” she whispered, her eyes still darkened with desire, her voice sultry.

His cock saluted as the swollen tip touched the wet heat of her woman’s place. She lowered her body onto his, taking all of him quickly.

“Don’t move,” he rasped. “
I want to feel you pulse on me.”

She stilled
, reaching one hand behind her to fondle his
couilles
, never unlocking her gaze from his.

His heart swelled when she began to
croon softly.

Car tant vous
aim, sans mentir

Qu'on
poroit avant tarir

La haute mer

Et ses ondes retenir

Que me
peusse alentir

de
vous amer.

Sans fausser; car mi penser,

Mi souvenir, mi plaisir

Et mi
desir sont sans finer

En vous que ne puis
guerpir n'entroublier

The words of the haunting love song weren’t in his language, but it was close enough that he recognized it. “Where did you learn to sing in
Provençal?”

She smiled.
“At home, in Scotland. More than one
troubadour
made his way to the court of King Dabíd.”

She moved up and down on him slowly, only once, still cupping his
couilles
.

“
Dieu
, it doesn’t get much better than this,” he rasped as need built within him. “Do you understand the words?”

She pouted. “Of course I do.”

She sang to him again, this time in his own language. “I love you so much, truly, that the deep sea could dry up, its waves held back, before my love for you lessened.”

She rode him faster as she sang. “
’Tis true, for my thoughts, my memories, my pleasures and my desires are perpetually of you, whom I cannot leave or even briefly forget.”

The lilt of her beautiful
voice, the love in her eyes and in her words, the grip of her tight, wet sheath conspired together to carry him to the edge of ecstasy. He turned her onto her back and lifted her hips, pulling her legs to his chest. He curled his arms around her calves as he thrust in and out, in and out, the inexorable rhythm finally releasing him as his seed erupted into her body. He called her name again and again as euphoria washed over him, cleansing his soul.

Long minutes later, a
s his breathing steadied, he kissed her legs, tracing his fingertips over her thighs when his sated cock slipped slowly from her body. “God willing, we’ve made a child this night,” he whispered.

She smiled.
“Impossible,” she replied, taking him off guard.

He gathered her into his arms. “Don’t worry, Elayne. You will bear more children. It may take us a while, but—”

She giggled. “No, I mean we already made one before.”

It took a moment or two before he understood. He
carefully placed a hand on her belly. “You’re
enceinte
?”

She put her hand atop his, her eyes wide with happiness. “Perhaps I
’m carrying the next
Comte
de Montbryce.”

He came to his knees beside her on the bed and leaned over to
bestow a reverent kiss below her ribs. “I thought my joy complete, but you’ve proven me wrong. We’ll name him Bernard Alexandre Rambaud Robert de Montbryce.”

She laughed heartily, renewing interest
in his
couilles
. “That’s a mouthful. Maybe he’ll be known simply as Barr.”

He frowned.
“Barr?”

She eased up to support herself with her elbows.
Her beautiful breasts were bigger now she was with child, the areolas darker. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed, but then it had been a while.

Her voice jolted him from his preoccupation. “Don’t you see?
B-A-R-R.”

“Hmm. Barr de Montbryce. It does have a certain appeal.”