Once Upon a Knight (18 page)

It took three more trips into the wagon and then back to the firepit with her supplies before she had the iron stand in place and her pot atop the fire, and then she had to locate the burn again to get some water to boil.

Through it all, she might as well have been alone, since Vincent hadn’t said or done anything for so long she was beginning to doubt he was still there. He was planning on treating her to isolation and solitude? He hadn’t noticed that she’d lived her entire life with those conditions? What was wrong with the man that he’d show her that heaven was available within his arms and then leave her be? He wasn’t the type to leave his new wife stranded, was he? Could that be the reason behind his argumentative nature? He had to have a reason to leave so he wouldn’t feel guilty—therefore he invented one?

What was wrong with the man that he’d think that way? And why was she so ready and willing to believe it of him without one shred of proof or anything other than her own supposition? She was usually right—but not always.

She was just about ready to call out for him when there was a loud rustling coming from directly before her. That was followed by the rush of a body through the woods, holding a live pheasant in front of him as he flailed with it.

“Quick! A skean!” He was wrestling with the bird, and it didn’t look easy.

“Why dinna’ you kill it first?” Sybil was asking it as she searched for a blade on the ground.

“Nae…time!”

“Most hunters bring down their game first,” she informed him while standing with a long knife, unsure of where to swing it or even if she should.

“Must you use arguments…now?” He panted the words out before gripping the bird’s legs with his left hand, swinging it downward while reaching for her knife with his right hand. He had the head lifted off on the return swing of the pheasant upward.

Sybil’s mouth dropped open. She’d never seen such dexterity or such a display. She didn’t think many had.

“There!” Vincent dropped the bird right beside the firepit, where the flickers of flames glistened on droplets of blood that had showered just about everything, including the bottom of her skirts.

“There?” Sybil countered, moving her gaze from the carcass on the ground beside her feet all the way up his frame to meet his eyes.

He was grinning and making her heart feel like it swooped to the pit of her belly before rising up to her throat to start beating with an intensity that was painful. She couldn’t even breathe. She watched as the absolute glee on his face slowly evaporated and changed, leaving him staring at her just as solemnly as she was him. He swallowed, but it looked more like a gulp.

“Sup,” he said finally.

“It will be…some time yet.”

“It will?”

“It’ll take a spell to pluck and skewer it. And then it has to roast.”

He grunted. “I’ll be at the burn.”

She nodded.

“Washing.”

Sybil looked down at where her skirt was soiled and back up at him. He was looking at her with an indecipherable expression, given the darkness about them and the flickers of fire that were all she had for light.

“You have something to say?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“You’re supposed to be arguing,” he replied.

“So are you,” she whispered back.

He tilted his head to one side, looked down at her, and smiled slightly. “True. All true.”

He was acting aggressive again, and his stance changed accordingly. He straightened, put his hands on his hips, and looked like he was preparing himself for the argument he was trying to create. Sybil smiled.

“Go. Wash yourself,” she replied.

He sucked in a great breath, making his chest expand with it, the movement showing all the shadows and valleys of his musculature in what firelight there was. Sybil watched and was still looking as he relaxed again with the exhalation. He was too much male and too finely formed to get any words of anger from her, especially as he had all of it displayed in little more than tartan and sweat.

“What if I say nae?” he asked.

Sybil giggled and watched the resultant inhalation of breath that made everything puffed up and large on his upper chest and well-defined since it put on display all of the ropelike tendons of his belly. That was visual, and stimulating, and causing her legs to tremble a bit as she lowered herself to the bird and started plucking at the feathers.

“Wait a bit, then. I’ll join you,” she whispered. “It would give me great pleasure to wash you—all of you.” Her voice lowered on the words, due mainly to her own embarassment at having said them. When she looked up again, he was gone.

The thrumming sound of a cloudburst woke him near dawn as heavy raindrops pelted the ground beside him. That was immediately followed by the smell of wet fur from the wolf seeking shelter beneath the wagon beside him, and then Vincent’s awakening was completed by the chill of being soaked to the skin by what was quickly becoming a pond as rivulets of water searched out and found where he was lying.

Vincent swore and pushed himself up out of the depression of ground that hadn’t seemed accomodating when he’d first decided it would be the best place for him to sleep and felt even less so now. He watched the swirl of water in front of his nose as well as the amount of water that was dripping off him. He’d taken this space on purpose, and he’d vowed to make it work. He couldn’t leave her side. Not yet. He didn’t dare. No matter how inhospitable it was, or how uncomfortable. But the only other place suitable for sleeping was in the creation of quilts and covers she’d made into a bed atop the floorboards of the wagon, and was probably cacooned in now.

Dry. Warm. Comfortable.

Vincent was holding himself in a slant that his arms were guaranteeing in order to keep his nose out of the water and wondering over the why of everything. It was the best he could manage with a mind still fogged by the depth of his sleep and the abruptness of his wakening. Everything felt foreign. That was odd. He wasn’t immune to sleeping on the ground, but he rarely slept on his belly. And he almost never slept as deeply as he must have. Which was even more odd. This particular patch of ground had felt too hard for such a thing, while everything on his body had been aching and straining and desiring and angered at him for not just finding the lass and releasing himself in her honeyed depths—so much so that he didn’t even think he’d find sleep.

Vincent shook his head and watched the ends of his hair trail through what was turning into a quagmire since good earth absorbed water, and while the ground beneath the wagon had been dry, it was also very good, dry dirt. He had to ponder on all the oddity. This sleeping as he had…Vincent rarely slept so deeply. He didn’t know why. It was ingrained from his time in his mother’s womb or something. Perhaps it was self-preservation, since he never knew what threat might come at him. That was one reason he woke as quickly and moved as rapidly once awakened. And he couldn’t do that unless he slept on his back or side—never this way.

His arms were starting to itch from the chore of holding him in such a prone position. That must be due to their sleep-imbued state rather than any weakness. Vincent always kept himself in perfect physical condition. He’d been in positions requiring such strength on more than one occasion. There had even been one time when he’d been almost caught abed with one of the mighty Douglas wives
and
her daughter in the ducal chambers at Tantallon Castle. That had required holding himself aloft atop one of the ceiling beams until the Douglas had decided the innocence of his women and left the chamber.

“Ugh.”

Vincent grunted as he went to his haunches, feeling the slick wetness of water as it siphoned from his kilt onto his legs, thighs, and even his buttocks from beneath his belt. Memories were senseless, as was his vow to stay away from the woman who had caused all of this, the woman now bearing his name.

She was probably even wearing one of her little pink chemises.

Vincent bent his head and peered out, watching the raindrops continue to hit at the ground beside the wagon, making great splashes with the force of their landing, while Waif snuggled into a small ball of wet fur beside one of the wood chunks Vincent had used to brace the wheels against movement. By every indication of the wagon he was directly beneath, she still slept, too.

After putting him into a state of frustration—she slept? He didn’t know how she did it. It couldn’t just be her expertise about a cook fire, although she had that. She’d roasted them a sup of perfectly done pheasant that had his mouth watering with the flavorings she’d used. She’d halved the bird before skewering it, halving the roasting time and showing her ingenuity at doing so. It definitely wasn’t her musical talent. Throughout the preparation time and the mixing and basting of their sup, she’d been humming. She’d been right about one thing. She couldn’t sing, if her tuneless humming was any indication.

He didn’t know what it was about this particular woman that made everything in him desire her and only her. The harder he tried to put the woman from his thoughts, the greater the longing grew to press his frame onto hers and make her mouth cry aloud for his caress—and his only. He didn’t know why. All he could do was ponder on it.

Nearly the entire time she’d thought him engrossed with his bath at the burn he’d been watching and hovering and wondering over his own cravings. It was true that he’d dipped himself into the stream, washing the leavings from the bird off him, but he hadn’t tarried. He’d come right back to her the moment he could. It was if she had an invisible circlet about her, and he was damned to stay within its confines. That was why he hadn’t a skean handy to kill the bird in the first place. He hadn’t been hunting; he’d been watching her. Surreptitiously. Keeping his distance and wondering at his sanity and the extent of a lust he couldn’t kill. He couldn’t even mute it. The pheasant had simply been unlucky enough to move through the space between Vincent and his bride.

His bride.

Vincent licked at his lips, wiped his hands along his wet, plaid-covered thighs, and ignored the tremble deep in his loins at the continued thought of her…and what he’d seen of her just this past eve. After she’d finished putting as much of her sauce on the bird as it would hold without dripping in the fire, she’d gone to the burn. She’d been slipping her laces from their holes and peeling the shift from her frame and making the tremble start within him just with the watching of it. She’d even undone her hair, uncoiling each braid and finger-combing it into a dark mass that slipped over her hips and grazed the backs of her knees. She was bending and swaying throughout the combing ritual, too, as if to a silent tune. Each movement had swept that curtain of hair across her body, touching it, caressing it…. Vincent had leaned back against a tree then, feeling the hard throb of his arousal scraping against the damp wool of his kilt as he watched her, desired her, panted for her, and silently begged her to continue.

And then she’d disappointed him and slipped beneath the water…fully clothed! Fanning her hair out as she did so. He was beginning to think she did this to him on purpose. He just didn’t know why.

He’d watched her the entire time. He’d tried to convince himself it was for her safety. That was a lie. They could have been attacked by hordes of stunted little dark men named Sir Ian, and Vincent would have been unable to take his eyes from her. He’d had them affixed to her the entire time.

Vincent had barely kept the low, hoarse groan to himself. His entire frame felt primed and ready to pounce and demand and respond to and pleasure that woman. If he let it. But he wasn’t going to allow it. Not when she’d used her potions on him like she had! And not when she’d forced his hand to the altar.

Everything about her methods was totally unfair.

He’d vowed to ignore her. No matter how difficult it would be. No matter how much he pondered the course of events. He had to be near her. So be it. He didn’t have to like it. Neither did she. He’d added to his vow. He was going to make her regret wedding with him. Forcing his hand like she had.

He hadn’t known how bothersome such a plan was going to be. Nor how hard. Senseless. Useless. Forcing an argument with her had failed. Ignoring her was failing. Everything he’d tried was failing. She even denied him the act of watching her at her bath? Vincent was grinding his jaw at how unfair all of it was, and that was when she’d walked out of the water and changed everything. The opacity of her gown as it clung to every portion of her had cursed him then with such raging desire, there wasn’t anything shy of an ice storm that could temper it.

Vincent didn’t know what was wrong with him. It had taken every bit of his strength to reach the fire before she did and to squat nonchalantly beside the roasting bird on its spit. And keep the puddle of excess tartan in his lap while he did so. He didn’t dare look toward her. Not then.

It was useless. He’d done everything to keep his desire from taking over his life, allowing her the win again. And here it was, not yet day. He should have been slumbering still rather then living through all of it again. He was turning into a slave of his own body.

Vincent made up his mind. He was finished with ignoring her and his own pinings. It wasn’t working. Perhaps he’d been going about it wrong. He should have been sating himself. Over and over and again and again, and as many times as it took…for as long as it took. Such a thing should prove boring after a time. It always had before. And then she’d lose her power over him.

Vincent crawled out from beneath the wagon and stood, working at his belt with fingers that were clumsy. It wasn’t with the cold and wet. It was with the anticipation. The downpour made it hard to draw breath, but it was excellent for sluicing away the muck from lying in a quagmire beneath the wagon. Vincent unwound the soaked plaid from his body, wrung out the worst of the wet from it, and then slapped it into a fold of material that he looped over the bench railing at the front of her wagon.

He felt each drop hitting him with force, pelting him in the head, over the back and shoulders, down his legs. Vincent didn’t allow the rain to bruise any of his front side. He kept to a slant as he made his way to the opening in the back of her tent and climbed in. Then he was lifting the bottoms of the cover from the perfection of her legs.

Darkness filled her dream, a cold darkness that spiraled until it was its own being, stirring mist and clouds at the passing of it. There was a mountain peak, just glimpsed. And then there was the stunted fellow at the core of it. The one with dark, smoldering eyes. Penetrating eyes that were watching her…memorizing her. Sybil narrowed her eyes on him until her eyelashes shadowed the figure into obscurity. It didn’t look to be the dwarf, Sir Ian. But…who then could it be?

The fascination with the figure still startled her, as much as did the fingers that were reaching out to her, blessing the dark, dank mist with a hint of light and hope and desire. She stirred, tensed…arched.

Fingers touched her at the ankles, both ankles, wrapping the flesh there with frosty cold strangely tempered by such heat that the frost turned to wetness that dripped with little effect. Unless she concentrated. Sybil tensed slightly as the wet-covered fingers filtered through the edge of her dream, feeling exactly like clouds were supposed to feel. Sybil made a low murmuring sound in her throat, demonstrating how pleasurable such things felt, and her appreciation at receiving them. Then the fingers became full hands…hands that were sliding up her lower legs…to her knees…and then farther, plying their way to her apex with a skill that existed only in the realm of dreams.

She tossed her head to the other side, letting low sighs escape as the hands were followed by what felt like a tongue slipping about the tender flesh behind one knee, and farther up her thigh, putting massive heat in place. And then blowing on the spot until it chilled. Doing it again. Higher.

Sybil’s hips began rotating, doing gyrations of motion as the hands and mouth explored farther up her legs, nearing her core and making everything taut and readied, and yet soft and aching at the same time. And pulsing with need that every moment prolonged, while every movement of his made everything more excruciating. He wasn’t moving closer. He was using the torment of his tongue on the front of a thigh, his fingers raking her sides in order to pin her in place as massive weight moved into place amidst her parted thighs. And he was chuckling. He found it amusing? The dark man she’d so feared and worried over was denying what she wanted? What fairness was there in that? She’d been cursed with finding an unsuitable love…one that she couldn’t have. This wasn’t what it meant. It couldn’t be. That would be too cruel.

Sybil became a creature of want and passion and fury. She was lunging and squirming, doing anything to get his attention back to the area he’d brought to such a state of lust that her shift was stuck to her entire body with moisture. Nothing was working. Then she was reaching, unclenching her fingers from the hem of the short shift and filling them with solid handfuls of thick hair. She was close to begging him.

“Na’ so fast, Wife,” came a growl of voice near her belly, and Sybil’s eyes flew open.

“Vincent?” The name was whispered, and her fingers slackened and lost grip.

“You expected another?” he asked, his breath heating the flesh he hovered over.

Sybil absorbed the shock of it. It couldn’t be. Vincent Erick Danzel wasn’t ugly. He wasn’t dark. He wasn’t small in stature, and he certainly wasn’t insubstantial and vague. He was all-over handsome, and he was all male. There wasn’t a bit of him that was weak. He was rock and sinew and muscle and strength. All of which was getting defined and learned and caressed once Sybil’s fingers gained flexibility and dexterity back to them as the shock curbed and became certainty. She skimmed her hands over him, every stroke making the satinlike skin–covered muscle vibrate to every touch.

She’d never before questioned her intuition and dreams. She didn’t now. It was just such a shock. Vincent Erick Danzel wasn’t dwarfed, waifish, or dark—except perhaps with regard to his character. Sybil nearly cooed with the realization of what this meant—and her luck. This handsome blond Viking fellow was the unsuitable man she was destined to fall in love with. She didn’t question it. She knew it. She’d been blessed beyond the bounds of any curse.

“You like that?” he murmured against her flesh as he misinterpreted her pleasure.

“Aye. Oh, Vincent.” Sybil stumbled over the words, because at last he’d decided to bless her with the feel of his mouth latched onto where he suckled, igniting fires throughout her frame and making everything even more heated and pliable and female.