Sweet Enchantress (21 page)

Sweat dripped from John's face onto Beatrix's ecstatic one. The rhythm of their pumping bodies was fast and furious. Mayhap, he could persuade the countess to let the country lass return with him to England for a spell. "For all your rutting, John, your arse resembles more a boar's than a stallion's.”

Taken by surprise, John shot back onto his knees. “
Paxton! What the hell—”

Paxton's laugh was grim. “
You have better things to do them seduce country wenches, Captain Bedford. Meet me in the Justice Room.”

John scra
mbled into his clothing and, bestowing a peck on Beatrix’s bewildered face, hurried off to the Justice Room to meet with his commander. The big man was pacing like an unsettled mastiff. “Trouble, Paxton?”

"Aye, trouble. Denys Bontemps is slitting the throats of Montlimoux cattle and peasants alike. He is as
elusive as a field mouse and as dangerous as a Pyrenees bear. I leave again to go after him.”

John decided to risk the truth. "To go after him
—or to escape yeself.”

"Myself?”

“Aye, yeself.”

Paxton planted his hands on the desk. "Now listen to me. We are here for one purpose only. Not to fertilize the Languedoc maidens with English brats. Not to come to terms with my past. On
ly to prepare for Edward’s invasion.”

John recog
nized the clenched jaw and flaring nostrils as a sign for him to retreat from the subject he had introduced. "Do you really think the French will accept a foreign ruler, Paxton?”

He shrugged his massive shoulders. "We
English have always had foreign kings. Nor-mans, Germans, Scotch, Welsh, Angevines. And we are none the worse for it. At the most, a few French barons might have to yield to English ones.”

"Me thinks that not everyone will yield to us. Not Denys Bontemps
—nor the Comtessa de Bar.”

Paxton's mouth flattened into that adamant line that John recognized as intolerant of interference. "I will prevail, Captain Bedford. Believe this if nothing else.”

"Paxton has
gone out riding, my Lady Dominique.”

She
turned her gaze from John’s soulful eyes and stared up at the ceiling. "My Lord Lieutenant is restless these days.”

He shifted from one foot to the other. "There are many administrative matters to attend to around the county, my lady.”

She pushed herself up in the bed and closed her eyes at the dizziness that overtook her. Three days abed was too much.

“
Please, sit down, John.” When he remained standing, staring at the tiled pattern of the floor, she said, "Please? I need so to understand your lieutenant. My husband. John, I know you care for him greatly. I love him, too. Please help me to understand him!”

Reluctantly, John went to fetch a stool from a corner of the room. He sat beside her, clasped his hands dangling between his
spread legs, his gaze fixed on her embroidered coverlet. "What is it ye wish to know, my lady?”

She wrapped her arms around her knees. "What drives Paxton now? What drives him at all? His anger, it frightens me.”

John’s mouth tightened. "That night you fire-walked. You must understand that he was secretly afraid of what it could mean.”

"I know he does not understand me. But does he even understand himself? Oh, John, I know he must be suffering at the loss of our child, but so am I!”
The pain of that loss was like an open wound. It was as if she could actually feel the blood seeping, seeping, from it. Her heart hurt!

"Aye, he is suffering.”
John raised an abashed gaze to hers. "But 'tis more to it than the loss of the wee one, my lady.”

"I know. You do not have to say it. I should never
have taunted him about woman's life- giving power. Tis just that since men cannot experience birthing directly they fear us, they fear that separation they remember from birth.”

John's smile was wan. "I do not understand ye either, my lady.”

Her short laugh was mildly self-derisive. "I expect not. But I know that I am meant to learn something from this relationship I have entered into with Paxton of Wychchester. And I sorely need your enlightenment, John.”

He seemed to be concentrating on the way
his thumbs interplayed with each other. His words were almost mumbled as he broke his silence about his commander. "Well, ye see, my lady, Paxton’s wife—”

“
Elizabeth of Pembroke?”

"Aye. She was highborn, French on her mother
’s side. Provencal French. As I under-stand it, Elizabeth was enchanting and fun-loving but, also frivolous and self-centered.” He stopped, but she knew there was more he could say. "Go on,” she prompted.

"A story is told about her as a girl, about a trick she played upon her dowager aun
t. The old lady had a lap dog that she adored like her own child. Anyway, one day when the aunt was watching from a balcony overlooking the nearby river, Elizabeth picked up the dog and pretended to play with it. She wandered closer to the river, calling the dog. Then, when near the bank's shrubbery, she screamed that the dog had jumped from her arms into the river. The aunt saw the animal being carried away by the swift current, and fainted."

"
’T’was no accident?”

"Actually, the animal floating down the ri
ver was not a dog but a piglet Elizabeth had pilfered from a family of the demesne’s serfs and substituted for the lap dog behind the concealment of the shrubbery. The old dowager was delighted to discover her lap dog safe, but the family of serfs lost a piglet that would have provided for many meals. To them, it was a great loss.”

"
As Paxton’s wife, she was still as fun-loving?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “
I suppose ye could call it that. Up to the time she found she was with child.” He made a grimace. "Ye see, she went to a midwife to rid herself of Paxton’s unborn babe.”

Dominique's held breath rushed from her. "Oh, no.”
She could better understand Paxton's attitude. Could understand he had learned to hide his vulnerability, especially those who could wound him most; those in a position to become dear to him. Nevertheless, she was still hurt by his inability to trust her.

A full four we
eks passed, four weeks of grieving and recovery, four weeks of rejection, of barely speaking should she and Paxton pass in the corridors of the immense chateau. Her soul was hurting, desolate and crying out for communication with him.

One night, she lay alone, awake when all the countryside slept. Tears that had quietly and willfully spilled over her lids had left dried
tracks on her cheeks. Suddenly, candlelight stole across the room to blind her. She put up a shielding hand.

Paxton stood at the foot of her bed. The light of the candle he held shimmered over the muscles and tendons of his naked body. "I tried to stay
away, Dominique. But the traditional six weeks, 'tis too long.” The slightest smile tugged at his mouth. "You have been like a plague in my thoughts, giving me no rest.”

She would have wished that he would have said that he loved her and needed her. But those
few words would have to do. She sat up, the sheets falling away to reveal her breasts, bare and still overly full from the pregnancy. She held up her arms. He blew out the candle and, setting it on the chest, knelt over her welcoming body.

He buried his f
ace between her breasts, taking great gasps, as if her smell alleviated his own pain. Together, the two of them sought assuagement in one another. He loved her far into the dawn, until their bodies were surfeited with pleasure.

But the pleasure ebbed each
time as quickly as it had come. Because Paxton could never understand the joys of intimacy and warmth, she could never allow him the opportunity of breaking through her emotional barrier.

As it was, his virile sexuality weakened her physical
resistance. She could not help but resent the way he had invaded her senses, moving without restriction into her thoughts. When he took his leave, she felt curiously disoriented and drained, yet filled with a burgeoning need of him again and again.

She tried
to minimize this need by reminding herself that she was the triumphant one during those moments of merging, because she could achieve the greater pleasure without giving any of herself away.

The tall man with blond hair and beard did not mix well in the crowd of boisterous men who drank at the noisy wharfside tavern of Bordeaux. His regal mien was suspiciously eyed by tavernier, maidservant, and sailors alike.

His companion who tipped the tankard with him
was much taller and heavier muscled, though not as handsome, but his arrogant posture would have proclaimed him the equal of King Edward. And of those in the tavern, only Edward knew that the man had in fact been baseborn.

Edward took a draught of the ale, inferior in his estimation to English ale that w
as blended from the same Bordeaux grapes. What he would have preferred would have been brandy. The marvelous golden fluid, that
eau d'or
, would have restored some of his flagging energy. "The time we have been awaiting has come. Philip has demanded that I go to Avignon and pay homage to my right dear cousin, swearing in the cathedral to become the King of France’s man for the Duchy of Aquitaine."

Paxton nodded, his smile slight. "As your proxy, I would be delighted to journey to Avignon to b
ear faith and loyalty to the Valois.”

"And your wife? From what I hear you dare not leave her
alone to foment rebellion with that
routier
Bontemps against you.”

This time Paxton's smile twisted into a grimace. "I dare anything, Monseigneur," he said, leaving off the address of "your Majesty.”
"Even dealing with the sorceress of Montlimoux.”

Edward leaned forward. "Paxton, of all my commanders I trust you most. So
be warned, your wife cannot get in the way of our—”

"I shall take care of my wife.”

CHAPTER XVI

“
As a representative of the Duke of Aquitaine, it is required that I pay homage to King Philip.”

Dominique might love Paxton, but that did not alleviate her suspicions of him. She had absolutely no desire to leave her fiefdom, much less participate in the political affairs of the French, who for centuries had laid claim to Languedoc and her county. H
er county was one of the precious few not within the French fold.

“
Montlimoux needs someone to administer its affairs,” she said. "I prefer to remain here.” Resuming her rule of her county would no doubt restore some of the loss of identity she had felt at Paxton’s usurpation.

“
John is quite capable of administering the county’s affairs for a few months’ time." Paxton did not even glance up from the sheet of parchment he was scanning.

If only the fire of his love would bum as deeply for her during the day as
it did in the unguarded and abandoned hours of the night. “I see.” If only he would reach out and touch her hand, smooth the hair from her brow, wrap his arm around her waist, splay his hand across her stomach, once more flat. Some gesture that demonstrated she meant something more to him than merely a chatelaine.

"Paxton, i
s your insistence on my accompanying you to Avignon some sort of revenge for the loss of our child?” She braced her hands on the escritoire. "Do you still blame me for the unborn babe’s death?”

He settled back in his chair and stared up at her with measuring eyes. "Revenge? Why, Dominique, I
thought you would enjoy associating with the most learned minds of the world.”

Clearly, he would continue to circumvent the issue. "How thoughtful o
f you.”

His gaze narrowed on her, his mouth took on a stringent curve. "Besides, your Francis will be there.”

"He is not my Francis.”

He picked up the quill pen with which he had been writing. For him, the work was laborious, but he preferred doing his own
writing to dictating. "You are quite correct, of course. The Bishop of Beauvais is the Pope's man.”

He resume
d penning his missive. How easily he dismissed her from his mind as well as his presence! She snatched up the oxhorn of ink and hurled it at him.

"God take your
—” Before he could even finish the oath, he was out of the chair and around the desk. Ink splattered his doublet, and a few drops flecked his face, wild now with fury.

She whirled to flee, but her skirts were too heavy. She barely made it to
the door when his hand slammed it shut. Surely, the thud resounded throughout the chateau.

He jerked her around to face him. He looked as if he wanted to throttle her. She was pres
sed between him and the door. "'Tis the right and privilege of the husband to discipline an errant wife,” he gritted.

Her tilted chin, her flashing eyes, taunted him. "And what is it you wish to do to me?"

His anger matched hers. Blood pounded in his temples, and his teeth clenched. "By Christ’s thorns, I do not know what to do with—”

She leaned her head close to his, and with her veil gently wiped away the drop of ink sliding down his jaw.

The resulting quiver crept all the way through to the hands that gripped her. His eyes, as brown as stones beneath deep waters, glazed with the sudden heat that seized him.

"I do not understand you, Dominique," he rasped.

His mouth claimed hers in a kiss rapacious with anger and passion and the need to subjugate. She was the embodiment of his fears. She did not let his mouth master hers but responded kiss for kiss, her teeth catching his bottom lip, her tongue dueling with his. Her breathing was heavy in her ears, her thoughts cloudy. She was rapidly losing her centeredness.

His hands deserted her shoulders to tear open the laces binding her corse
ted breasts. They burst free to fill his kneading hands. “You burn me, witch,” he muttered against her hardening nipple. “Set me afire. So that I no longer know what is true or false. Right or wrong."

She cradled his head against her. “
Is it wrong to love me, Paxton?”

"Aye.”
He tore away her bodice and pushed up her skirts about her thighs. "Aye, 'tis wrong to love a woman who bewitches as you do.”

She laughed hysterically at this indirect declaration of love. Her laughter goaded him on, and, pulling her do
wn onto the floor with him, his hands pushed her skirts high on her thighs.

Her laughter turned to tears of rage. She would not let him dominate her. She rolled atop him and
had to smile. Her breasts swaying gently above him captured his immediate attention. "Perhaps, my Lord Lieutenant, I can persuade you that this time, at least, my position is best.”

An abashed half grin eased the strain of his expression. "Aye, I think you can.”