Tempt Me With Kisses (21 page)

The black-haired and voluptuous beauty, who was past her prime but still could make men’s heads turn, lifted Sir Ralph’s hand from her buttocks. “I said no.”

Sir Ralph closed his gaping mouth, obviously taken aback by so much irate, full-lipped, full-breasted pulchritude glaring down at him.

“If you can’t keep your hands to yourself, Sir Rodent or whatever it is you call yourself, you’ll have to go.”

“A man gets lonely traveling,” he pleaded.

“I’ve heard it all before, so save yourself the trouble,” she snapped, her hands splayed on her hips.

Sir Ralph seemed to recall where he was, and who he was. “I am a Norman knight, my girl, and after the reception I received from your overlord—”

“Which was very rude,” Caradoc’s deep voice rumbled from the doorway.

Sir Ralph turned to see the man’s body almost filling the doorway and he began to tremble. “My lord, I—”

“I ask your forgiveness,” Caradoc said as he came inside, closing the door behind him. “I was upset about the rain, and then my brother’s message, and I took out my ire on you. For that, I beg your pardon.”

Caradoc tried not to notice the stunned and slightly disgusted look on Bronwyn’s face, and the blatant shock on those of the laborers and shepherds gathered there as he sat on the bench beside Sir Ralph. “Will you allow me to pay for your refreshment here, and then return to my castle with me?”

Sir Ralph shook his head. “No, no, my lord. That’s not necessary. I really must be on my way to my own holding. As you so justly point out, I have been taking rather too much time.”

Caradoc swore silently. He would try once more nonetheless. “It may rain for some days. Hardly suitable weather for travel.”

“I have not far to go. Only another hundred miles or so.”

Not far? For a man who liked his comforts as much as Sir Ralph probably did, that was surely an epic journey.

But if the man really didn’t wish to linger, there was nothing he could do. He certainly wasn’t going to beg.

“As you wish,” he said, rising.

Perhaps there was one thing he could do to try to make amends. “Bronwyn, I shall pay for Sir Ralph’s stay here.”

She nodded, and never had he seen less respect in her eyes as she looked at him.

Maybe he shouldn’t have come after the Norman; maybe he should have let the man go, and damn the consequences. At least then he wouldn’t be standing in Bronwyn’s tavern humbling himself like a beggar at the gates.

“Godspeed, Sir Ralph,” he said as he turned on his heel.

“Farewell, my lord,” Sir Ralph said as he watched the savage Welshman leave.

That night, as she lay in bed tense and expectant, Fiona wondered if she should even try to sleep, or simply accept that she was too anxious. Ever since her confrontation with Caradoc over his treatment of Sir Ralph, her whole body had seemed poised on a sword’s edge with her pride on one side, and hurt and humiliation on the other.

She still felt as wounded and raw, her hopes as dashed and destroyed, as when he announced that she had made him feel like a whore. What man of his pride, his stature, could truly care for a woman who made him feel thus?

She should have subdued her temper, just as she had told him to conquer his. Although she was still sure she was right—it was a mistake to offend Sir Ralph or any man who came from the king—she should have found a more diplomatic way to upbraid him. She should have stayed with Sir Ralph and done all she could to persuade him that not everyone in Llanstephan was an enraged, wild-haired Welshman. Instead, she had acted no better than Caradoc.

Afterward, she had wanted to tell him that she was sorry for her outburst, but she never got the chance. He had charged out of the hall into the rain like an enraged bull, and when he had returned, soaked through once more, the servants had been preparing the hall for the evening meal. By the time he had changed, it was time to eat.

Father Rhodri had given another one of his “blessings,” this time denouncing the moneylenders at the temple, a thinly disguised jibe at both the Normans and anybody who traded for a living, like her father. This was his most upsetting grace yet, for she had loved her father dear, and to hear him equated with greedy, blasphemous men enraged her. Nevertheless, she had stayed silent, but only with much effort and because she had already quarreled with her husband once that day.

During the grim and silent meal, Cordelia kept shooting them both scornful looks, her lip practically curling all the way to her nostril. There was no denying that their quarrel had not been dignified; perhaps she should consider this a part of her punishment.

Caradoc, of course, seemed to take it all in stride, as he did any of his sister’s reactions, and if he was still upset by their argument, he made no sign. He made no sign if he was sorry, either.

Indeed, he betrayed no feelings at all, and he sat far enough away that he couldn’t even touch her by accident.

At last the bedchamber door opened. She instinctively clutched the bedclothes to her chest as Caradoc strode into the room, the rushlight in his hand illuminating his fierce face from below, making him look like the very embodiment of a savage warrior race.

Her heart quailed in view of his expression, and she waited with dread for him to speak.

He didn’t say anything. He set the rushlight on the table near the door very slowly and very carefully, as if he was afraid he might accidentally set something on fire; then, without so much as a glance in her direction, he began to disrobe.

Perhaps he was no longer angry.

That was a hopeful thought.

Of course, the cooling of his rage didn’t diminish the fact that his display of temper might have put everybody under his rule in jeopardy.

Caradoc took off his tunic. He threw it over the chest, then his shirt followed.

She tried to banish any critical thoughts. She was his wife, he was her husband and lord over her as well as the estate.

That didn’t make him wise, though.

Still, for the sake of what they had already shared, perhaps silence and apparent wifely docility was the best path to take.

Even if the notion was far from pleasing.

She had to move out of the way quickly as he sat on the bed to remove his boots.

Was he planning to ignore her all night? What would she do if he did?

As she held her breath, he lifted the bedcovers and joined her. He lay still, not moving.

A horrible, terrible thought stole into her mind. What if Ganore was right and his ardor was beginning to cool—and his apparent affection for her with it?

Foolish again, she may have been. And desperate to come here, still dreaming of the dark prince in the tower, and believing that once wed, she would be happy ever after.

If Caradoc wanted this marriage annulled, he could find a way, especially now that he had her dowry to pay an unscrupulous clergyman to find an obscure blood tie that would make their union illegal in the sight of God and the eyes of the law.

If he annulled their marriage, she would be left penniless. She had not signed any agreement before the marriage guaranteeing her any rights to even a portion of the money.

She would be all alone in the world, and penniless. Cast out and abandoned. Not loved as she had hoped, but rejected. She would not be the one leaving of her own choice and volition; she would be banished like a criminal.

She could not let that happen.

Nor could she believe that all she had shared with Caradoc was merely lust. That he had her bounty and her body, and gave nothing in return.

He cared for her. She saw it in his eyes, heard it in his voice, when they were alone. He was not like Iain, whose words meant nothing. Caradoc spoke volumes, but not only with his voice.

So would she. She would show him that she was sorry she had lost her temper. She would tell him, without words, that she cherished him and rejoiced that they married. Most of all, she would convince him that she belonged here, in his household and in his arms.

She slid close beside him and laid her hand on his muscular chest. He turned his head and looked at her, his expression unreadable in the darkness.

Watching him, trying to gauge his reaction, she began to caress his chest, brushing her open palm lightly over his nipples. His lips parted as his breathing quickened, and then he closed his eyes as she continued her gentle assault.

She laid her leg over his hips and inched closer, pressing her warm, willing body against him. She leaned over him and teased his mouth with hers.

No, she would not give up, any more than she had accepted that what Iain offered was the best she could ever expect from a man. She needed Caradoc, and the way he made her feel cherished and necessary in a way Iain never had.

She deepened her kiss, slipping her tongue between Caradoc’s firm, soft lips to plunder his mouth. With wanton abandon she stroked and caressed his body, arousing him as if her life, her hopes, her future depended upon what she did now.

With a loan moan, Caradoc shifted so that she was beneath him. He cupped her face in his strong, broad hands.

Incredibly soft hands, especially for a man, she thought vaguely as his mouth crushed hers in a passionate, heated kiss. She had heard that the lanolin in sheep’s fleece, used as a base for so many salves and ointments, made the flesh of a shearer’s hands as soft as a baby’s, and now she knew that was true.

His hand combed through her hair, spreading it around her. His fingers skimmed over her heated flesh with the lightest touch, as if she were too delicate for more. His hips, the fulcrum of his strong body, pressed against her, the sensation intense, and welcome.

Yes, oh, yes, her mind and her heart cried, a chorus of bliss and relief and pleasure, as her passionate need increased.

He wanted her, at least like this.

At least for now.

She would not think like that. She would believe their marriage would last forever. She
must
believe it.

As his firm, soft hands meandered over her flesh like a trickle of water seeking a downward course, she surrendered to the excitement he created. She sighed as he broke the kiss to slide his lips along the side of her neck, then below to pleasure her breasts.

Feverish, anxious need exploded within her. It was as if all the emotions of that day had been bottled up and changed in the heat of an alchemist’s fire into sharp craving. She shoved away the remorse of mistakes or words said in that different heat. This was her lawful husband, and she would gladly do her duty as his wife. If there was one thing she did not regret, it was having the right to be in this bed with this man.

She could not get close enough to him, could not feel enough of his naked, straining body.

She must be naked, too.

With blatantly hungry eyes he watched her as she sat up and yanked up her shift, the sensation of the silk as she removed it adding to her ardor.

She fell back and pulled him to her, seizing his mouth and thrusting her tongue between his virile lips, ignoring the rasp of the stubble around his mouth. She kissed and stroked and caressed and touched as if they had only moments to love and she must make the most of it.

She touched his shaft, hard and anxious, and swiftly positioned herself. He pushed inside her and she met him thrust for thrust, her hips instinctively bucking. With furious, wild passion, she loved him as if they were doomed never to be together again. He, too, caught the fever of her passion, and responded in kind, with primitive, glorious abandon.

It seemed to last forever, this powerful, surging union, with her poised on the precipice of release. Like a long, keening wail, her body stretched, so anxious with hungry need every muscle was tight with it.

At last, with a strangled cry and throat-deep growl, release broke like waves tearing down a wall.

In the next moment, Caradoc groaned, his whole body tense, before he collapsed against her, sweat-slicked and panting.

She lay still, her own breathing rushed and shallow as the tension ebbed away.

This sating of mutual need and desire would not be the sum total of all that was between them. It was but the beginning, she assured herself as she put her arms around him and held him to her.

Please, God, do not let it be all that is between us…

“Married?” Iain demanded as he stared at the wool merchant he had befriended in the tavern near Shrewsbury. It took every bit of self-control he had not to shout the word. “She’s married? To a nobleman, you say?”

Having encountered Heribert of Hartley in a wayside inn, and graciously subdued the urge to run the man through for purchasing the property that should have been his, Iain had steered the conversation all the way from the weather to the state of the roads to the price of wool and finally to any news of a fellow wool merchant’s daughter. He had been delighted that the man had news of Fiona MacDougal—until he learned what it was.

“I agree it’s astonishing,” Heribert said, shaking his head as he lifted the mug of ale, oblivious to how close to death he had been. “I didn’t believe it myself the first time I heard it.”

“A nobleman marrying a merchant’s daughter seems like a fable,” Iain replied with a false smile. He managed to sound merely interested in a bit of choice gossip, instead of seething with anger and frustration.

“I’ve heard it from more than one now. She arrived at his estate practically on her own, and two days later, they were wed.”

“She must be a beauty, for that to happen so fast.”

More than a little drunk, the merchant leaned forward and spoke in what was supposed to be a conspiratorial whisper. “Oddly enough, she’s not. Why, she’s nothing much at all. Looks too much like old Angus MacDougal for my taste, and then there’s her red hair.” He made a face to show what he thought of red hair, then gestured at Iain with the mug he held. The ale slopped unnoticed over his hand. “I thought you said you’re from Dunburn, too.
You
must have seen her.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with the MacDougals. I am a poor soldier, you see, and MacDougal was well to do.”