The Champion (56 page)
Her breasts were high and round with tight pinkish-brown nipples, her belly flat with just the faintest silvery marks to show she had borne children. His instinct was to seize and engulf, but past experience had taught him that skill lay in delicacy, and his touch was feather-light, the gentlest brushing of thumbs over erect nipples, and then the suckling flicker of his tongue. She whimpered and pressed herself deeper into his lap, rocking upon him. He cupped her buttocks and rode with her, squeezing her back and forth against him, taking a dangerous step nearer to the edge of the abyss.
He moved one hand down to the exposed band of soft skin at the top of her thigh where her leggings met the loin cloth, and stroked. Again she gasped. Unfastening the ties here was tricky, but rewarding, because the motion of his fingers was a gentle pressure on sensitive flesh and each brush of knuckle or side of hand made her shudder and softly cry out.
Alexander wanted nothing more than to tear off the loincloth and thrust himself into her, but he held off, knowing that his goal would also be his rapid undoing. He tried to pace himself, slow move by slow move, concentrating on her tension to try and diminish his own, but it became increasingly difficult as she writhed against him, her mouth, her hands, the sway of her hips in constant rhythm, inviting and inciting.
He found the end of the loincloth and loosened it, managed to find a way inside, and stroked softly with the pad of his thumb. She had been kneading his spine, but now with a strangled cry, her nails were suddenly sharp half-moons gouging his skin.
‘Now?’ he asked raggedly.
‘Oh God, sooner than now!’ she sobbed.
He felt her striving on the edge, as close as himself. Their mouths joined in a driving kiss. He lifted her from his lap, tore away the loosened loincloth, and unfastened his own. She lay on his cloak, her eyes half closed, her hair spread abroad, her body open to him. There was one last, fleeting moment of control, an instant to admire and be admired, then it was gone as he covered her, and she welcomed him with arched spine, clutching arms, and tight, smooth walls that gripped and yielded with each surge of his body until there was nothing but the white-hot desperation for release. And as he broke within her, he felt her shatter with him, her cries muffled against his chest.
There was a small Welsh harp standing on the coffer. Alexander picked it up and ran his hands gently over the strings.
Wrapped in his cloak, Monday sat by the fire where they had made love and sipped from a goblet of wine. ‘Beguile me a little,’ she said with a languorous smile. ‘Sing me a troubadour’s song. Something new, something you have never sung for anyone else.’
He pursed his lips in thought, and brought the harp back to the fire. ‘A troubadour’s song.’ He kissed her mouth with slow deliberation, and drank of her wine. ‘Usually the singing is a preliminary to the bedding,’ he said with humour. ‘A persuasion to open heaven’s gates.’
Monday arched a mischievous brow. ‘You seduce women all the time, you mean?’
He smiled. ‘I used to, until one of them crept up and stole my heart.’
Leaning against him, she caressed his shin and calf with her toes. ‘I love to watch your fingers on the strings. I would imagine them on my body when we were on the tourney circuit, and be terrified lest anyone should read my thoughts. And then you would go off and sing to other women, and return to camp looking as if they had drained you to the marrow. Jesu, the times the palms of my hands bore the marks of my fingernails in jealousy.’ She flashed him a look, half humorous, half annoyed. ‘You would ruffle my hair and ask me what there was to eat. Sometimes you even kissed my cheek with the smell of another woman on your skin. You had no idea, none at all.’
‘No,’ he said, a note of regret in his voice. ‘Not until it was too late.’ He coaxed a ripple from the harp strings, and began to pick out a tune in a minor key. ‘I never intended to hurt you, I swear I did not.’
Monday shrugged. ‘It is in the past now.’ Her eyes suddenly sparkled. ‘I don’t have to imagine now, because I know.’ She raised her head and kissed him, breaking away before the embrace kindled out of control. ‘Sing for me,’ she prompted again, gesturing at the harp.
Alexander cleared his throat. ‘I don’t know if I can,’ he said. ‘You have tied my voice and my loins into a single tight knot.’
‘Then your singing should indeed be persuasive.’
He laughed at that, the tension easing, and half closing his eyes, set himself to honour her.
The first song was in the manner of the troubadours as she had suggested, in the Provençal tongue, a tale of a languishing squire and unrequited love. The second was his own, composed on the spur of the moment whilst he sang the first.
Dissolved the glory of the summer day,
Drawn close the veil of winter night
And now the verdure of the meadow bray
Lies buried ’neath a shroud of white.
Brooks are silenced by a grip of ice,
No creature moves; no songbirds call.
And love as fickle as a gambler’s dice
May like the petals fade and fall.
For how long will sweet nectar last?
Drunk from the cup when skies were blue.
Now winter’s come and summer’s past
To test the heart if love be true
But I have filled the chalice deep
With wine as bright as stars above,
And warmly will the winter sleep,
Wrapped by the warmth of one I love.
He shrugged, declaring that it needed a deal of reworking, but Monday thought that it was perfect as it stood, straight from his mind to the harp, the tune as haunting and silvery as an icicle. Finally, he sang her another song in a language she did not understand, although once more the tune was poignant and beautiful.
‘Welsh,’ he said. ‘I heard it in the hall of a Welsh lord when I had custody of Abermon keep for the Marshal. It’s by one of their poets, Hywel ap Owain, in praise of his love.’
‘It’s beautiful.’ There was almost a tear in her eye.
‘It doesn’t do you justice.’ He laid the harp across his knees. ‘But yes, it is a beautiful language. I know a few words. I can say my greetings and farewells; raise a cup, declare yes and no. There was little time to learn more before I had to leave.’
‘Do you wish you could go back?’
Rubbing his chin, he thought for a moment. ‘It was the first place that I have felt truly at home since my father died and Wooton Montroi became my brother’s property,’ he said slowly. ‘And I know that I ruled Abermon well. I was proud of the time I spent there.’ He gave a pragmatic sigh. ‘But it was my first such post, and William Marshal already had an older man in mind for the permanent tenancy. Besides,’ he added with a smile, ‘if I had remained at Abermon, I would never have found you, would I? There will be other opportunities.’ He pulled her against him, and the harp slid from his lap in a soft jangle of surprised notes. ‘Now tell me,’ he whispered against her lips. ‘How persuaded are heaven’s gates to open?’
Monday stroked his thigh, the palm of her hand massaging higher until she reached the firm heat of his renewed erection. Playfully she circled it in her hand, pulling it away from his body, then letting it spring back. ‘Why don’t you knock and find out?’ she murmured.
Isobel’s Christmas gown was of sapphire-blue silk, the same shade as her eyes, and a perfect foil for her pale-blonde hair. Pirouetting before the mirror in her chamber, she performing dainty little steps in her vellum-thin kid slippers, admiring herself with narcissistic delight.
‘Oh, you’re so clever!’ she cried to Monday with a clap of her hands that in an older woman would have been affected, but in Isobel was just the spontaneity of an exuberant child. Her action caused the seed pearls and silver braid hemming the sleeves to gleam and sparkle. It was in the fitted style, clinging to Isobel’s figure, which was fast developing the curves of womanhood. Indeed, Monday had had to let the garment out on its first fitting that morning.
‘I am glad you like it, madam,’ Monday answered, and thought with no recourse to false modesty that she had indeed surpassed herself this time. The Queen’s court gown was breathtaking, but then so was the Queen. ‘But you could dress in sackcloth and ashes and you would still be beautiful.’
Isobel wrinkled her narrow, pert nose. ‘I wouldn’t want to do that,’ she said, taking Monday’s words literally. She danced a little more before her own reflection, then clapped her hands again. ‘John will love me in this. You must have a present! Everyone has presents at Christmas!’
Monday smiled at the girl. ‘I have all that I desire for this Christmas season, madam; I am to be married on the morrow,’ she said, and glanced at the betrothal ring on the heart finger of her left hand. It was of plain gold, but with two clasped hands forming part of the hoop, and the inside of the band was inscribed with the words
Vouse et nul autre
– ‘You and no other’. She and Alexander had bought it from a London goldsmith on the day after their sojourn by her fire, and sworn an oath of betrothal before witnesses. The betrothal in itself was as binding as marriage in a court of law, for it had been sealed by their physical union. To all intents and purposes they were man and wife.
‘Even more reason for you to have a gift!’ Isobel cried, and summoned one of her ladies to fetch her jewel casket.
Monday began to feel uncomfortable. It was well and good to be paid in coin for creating a gown for the young queen, but to be presented with a more personal token made it harder to keep their dealings distant. Isobel might not care that she was bestowing presents on her husband’s former mistress, but Monday did, almost as much as she minded calling a child of thirteen ‘madam’.
‘Who is he?’ Isobel took the enamelled casket from her maid and threw back the decorated lid on glints of silver and gold, the gleam of river pearls and the sultry flash of gemstones.
‘A knight in the lord Marshal’s employ, madam. We are to be married tomorrow by one of the King’s own chaplains, Father Ambrose.’ Which was what she and Alexander had decided upon. Hervi, in his capacity of her former guardian, was to give her away in lieu of family.
‘Do I know the bridegroom?’
‘I think not, madam, Alexander de Montroi.’ The mention of his name brought a tint of pink to her cheek and a flush of warmth to her loins.
Isobel shrugged in agreement. ‘No, I do not.’ She rummaged among her jewels, selecting and discarding several. Monday compressed her lips and wished to be elsewhere. Having decided to give her a gift, the Queen was now obviously struggling to find something with which she could bear to part. Monday wanted to declare that it did not matter, that she desired nothing, but decorum held her rooted to the spot in silence.
‘Here, a pretty brooch,’ said Isobel. ‘Wear it at the neck of your gown for luck, and think of me.’ She held out a silver disc with a spiral plaitwork design and a red glass bead at its centre.
‘Thank you, madam, you are kind.’ Monday accepted it with a modest curtsey and prepared to make her escape.
‘I didn’t really like it anyway,’ Isobel confided sidelong, with a total lack of guile.
Monday declined to say that so much was obvious. Then the door to Isobel’s apartment opened, and John walked in, accompanied by his three dogs.
Her heart sinking, Monday swept a curtsey, and for her pains was surrounded by the three smelly, far too friendly hounds. As once before, John had to rescue her by whistling them to heel.
‘Do you like my gown – do you?’ Isobel danced before her husband as she had been dancing before the mirror.
John beckoned Monday to rise. ‘It is not as beautiful as its wearer,’ he complimented with an indulgent smile, ‘but yes, it suits you well.’
‘Guess what, Monday’s getting married tomorrow, and I gave her a silver brooch.’
‘Married?’ John’s eyebrows rose, but so at least did his mouth corners. After one swift glance, Monday kept her eyes lowered.
If Isobel had been able to read atmospheres, her hair would have stood on end. But she was innocent and ignorant, which the other two were not. As it was, she looked up at John through her lashes and clung to him like a puppy. ‘You should give Monday a present too, my lord, for her wedding.’
John gazed fondly down at his wife, then flickered a lazy glance at Monday. ‘Yes,’ he murmured, ‘why not? It behoves me to be generous in remembrance of … services rendered.’
Monday’s face flamed. This was unbearable. ‘You have been generous enough, sire.’