The Maiden and Her Knight (18 page)

With fevered hands she reached inside his tunic, touching the hot flesh of his muscled chest. His right arm about her, his left slowly slid up her bodice to cup her breast. Through her plain woolen gown his thumb lightly stroked her nipple, sending wave after delicious wave of sensation through her. Her nipples tightened, and a low murmur of longing rose in her throat. She wanted to be naked, or clad only in her silk shift which grazed her body like his touch.

“Oh, sweet Allis,” he murmured as his lips traveled from her mouth along her jaw.

When she had first seen him, he had seemed a savage, a primitive outsider who had no place in her ordered world. As he grabbed her scarf and tore both it and her barbette off, he seemed again savage, primitive in his passion. But now she gladly fled her closed and constrained world where she was imprisoned, and as she embraced him, so she embraced her own primal urges, free to express all the savage need he roused in her. He was man, she was woman, and here in the forest, they were in their own paradise, alone and apart from the world, at liberty to love.

Her hair, loose and free, tumbled about her shoulders. “Oh, God, your hair,” he whispered into her ear. “I love your hair. I love your eyes. I love everything about you, my love. My love.”

She arched back, giving herself more fully to him, letting him know she was his to love. His knee slipped between her legs and instinctively she pushed against it, driving her pelvis forward. She reveled in the incredible sensation of pleasure and desire that created. His arousal pressed against her and that inflamed her even more. Determined to share this, to ensure that he felt all that she did, she brought her hand around to stroke him.

His breath caught in his throat as he took hold of her hand and held it still. “Allis?”

Panting, restless, not wanting to stop, she looked up into his desire-darkened eyes.

“I want you, Allis, but not now. Not here,” he murmured, letting go. He was as aroused as she, yet there was something else lurking in his dark eyes, a caution that she did not share.

Her body grew warm not with passion, but with the sudden realization that he possessed more self-
control than she, that he could have done with her whatever he wished, and she would not—could not—have refused.

But then he said, “I want more time to love you the first time as you deserve to be loved, and in the finest, plumpest featherbed in all England.”

Her dread disappeared. He was not stopping to force her to see that he was more in command than she, but only to voice a sincere wish.

His brow furrowed. “I should not presume—”

“That I want you?” Feeling suddenly and wonderfully free, she boldly caressed him again. “Bed or no bed, I am already yours forever, Connor.” Emboldened, she grabbed his tunic and tugged him to her. “Your kisses are very potent, sir knight, and I would have more of them.”

His smile began in his deep brown eyes, then encompassed the rest of his face. “Would you, my lady?”

“Indeed.” She leaned against him, wanton and demanding. “Shall I beg?”

“Never.” He kissed her tenderly, but she felt the underlying passion waiting for liberation. “I will gladly give you all the kisses you desire.”

He brought his lips to hers for another long, leisurely kiss, as if they had no cares in the world save pleasing each other, and she once again caressed the evidence of his desire.

“Stop that, you brazen wench. We have not the time,” he growled as he slowly lifted her hand away. Still holding her hand, he grinned with wry delight. “
O'r annwyl
, I sound just like Caradoc. Perhaps he is frustrated, too, and that's why he sounds so annoyed all the time.”

“Are you frustrated?”

“My lady, you have no idea.”

She ran her fingertips along his length. “I believe I do.”

“If you do not stop this touching, it may be most humiliating when the others return.” He held her hand in place, as if daring her to continue. A heady mixture of excitement and daring possessed her that proved irresistible. “How so, sir?”

His eyes dark with unassuaged longing, he raised her hand to his lips. “I am not about to explain.”

He didn't immediately kiss the back of her hand. Instead, his tongue flicked out and tickled the tender flesh between her fingers, jolting her to the soles of her feet. “By the saints!”

“Not the place I would most like to do that,” he remarked with another devilish grin that seemed to say two could play her arousing little game.

So they could. She grabbed his right hand. Slowly and deliberately, not taking her gaze from his startled and flushed face so she could watch his reaction, she sucked his forefinger into her mouth.

His eyes widened and his color deepened. “Where did you learn to do that?”

Triumphant and delighted, she let go. “Brother Jonathan.”

“Brother Jonathan?”

She wrapped her arms about his neck. “I didn't mean it like that.”

“Thanks be to heaven!” His arm circled her waist and held her wonderfully close. “I was beginning to think I was totally mistaken in the man.”

“He's a priest!”

Connor's expression grew serious. “Allis, I met some supposedly holy men in my travels whose be
havior would shock you to the core of your being. I was fairly certain Brother Jonathan wasn't of that ilk until you said that.”

She took his hand again and kissed his fingertips one by one. “Brother Jonathan says a person's fingers are very sensitive.”

His chest rose and fell rapidly. “He's right about that.”

“He taught me to use my sense of touch when it came to healing. Remember how I felt your wound in the tent?”

“Yes,” he replied in what was more a sigh than a word.

Seeing how her actions affected him, a new and awesome sense of power came over her. She suddenly felt that with just the touch of her lips on his body, she could be as powerful as any man. And as he became tenser and tenser, as her power seemed to increase, she realized that this incredible power made them equals.

The tree branches rustled above them as they kissed again, their mouths joining in a slow, languid union. Parting their lips by silent mutual consent, their tongues entwined sinuously in a lithe, lazy dance.

“Alllliiissss! Sir Cooooonnor!”

Edmond's voice seemed to come from very far away, outside the walls of their momentary paradise. Nevertheless, their time alone was obviously at an end, and she reluctantly withdrew from Connor's arms. “Edmond must have decided to race back, too.” She raised her voice. “We're coming!”

She leaned her head against his chest. “Alas, I fear we must go back.”

His expression told her he was as sorry about this as she. “Alas, you're right.”

She began to put her hair back under her scarf, but as she did, Connor caught a stray lock and pressed it to his lips. “I wish you would wear your hair loose.”

“I couldn't start to do that. What explanation would I give? That Sir Connor of Llanstephan prefers it that way?”

He leaned forward and kissed the side of her neck. “No, I suppose you couldn't do that.”

Sighing with both pleasure and frustration, she twisted away. “At least, not yet,” she said as she attached the barbette.

That finished, she tilted her head to study him. “Would you cut your hair if I asked you to?”

“Only if
you
asked me to.” He frowned. “Are you going to ask me to?”

She studied him another moment. “I think not. I think I prefer you to look like a savage.”

He crossed his arms. “A savage? Is that how I appear to you?”

Unable to resist the tantalizing temptation, she ran her hands along his upper arms, her fingers gently gliding over the rise of his muscles. “To me, and to a lot of other people, and I would not be at all surprised to learn you know that and count upon it.”

“Whatever for?” he demanded with an indignation that was completely undercut by the blush creeping over his cheeks.

She tried not to show how much that blush, and the masculine vulnerability it revealed, delighted her. “To frighten them, of course.”

All pretense of annoyance fled as he smiled with sly devilment and tugged her close again. “Does it work?”

“I must say, it certainly makes you seem quite…virile,” she admitted as she wound her arms about his
neck and looked up into his dark eyes, which twinkled with merriment.

“Then I will not be cutting it off?”

She ran her hand through his wavy locks. “Not for my sake, anyway.”

He began to nuzzle her neck, moving with delicious little nibbles toward her ear as her whole body shivered with anticipation and excitement. “You know, I fear I may soon have no secrets from you, my lady.” He held her even tighter. “Are you cold?”

“Are you lost?” Edmond called out.

With even more reluctance, she backed out of Connor's wonderful embrace.

“No!” she shouted. She gave him a mischievous look. “No, I'm not lost, and when you hold me, I am anything but cold.” She went to the shrub and picked up her horse's rein. “Alas, sir knight, we must return to the others.”

“I believe I shall have a little word with Edmond about all this racing,” he remarked as he grabbed Demetrius's reins and hurried after her, once more taking her hand in his. “It's not dignified…or something.”

They both laughed softly as they quickly headed back toward the meadow. She gloried in the simple act of holding his hand for as long as she could, as if they were any young couple in love, and without a care in the world. “I've tried. Besides, we weren't exactly being dignified ourselves.”

“We're older.” He chuckled. “God's wounds, that's what Caradoc always used to say when he got to do something that I didn't. I fear I'm turning into my older brother.”

“Is that so bad?”

“I suppose not—but he's not much fun. Very grim and serious, Caradoc.”

“You were very grim and serious when you first came here.”

“Well, I was here to win a good ransom in the tournament.”

“Losing cheered you up?”

He halted and pressed a quick kiss to her forehead. “Not exactly,” he said with that wry self-mockery that charmed her. “By some miracle, I have won something far better.”

“You have won my heart, at least, Connor,” she said, grave despite his smiling eyes, “but that is no miracle to me. You are the finest, truest knight I have ever met. Or if there is a miracle, it is that you came into my life and brought an end to my sorrow and loneliness. My love is a small recompense for that, but all I have, is yours forever.”

He gently took her by the shoulders and looked down at her, love shining in his eyes. “Allis, if we had all the time in the world, I could not begin to tell you how happy you make me, and how blessed I feel.”

“Where
are
you?” Edmond demanded peevishly.

“Sadly, we don't have all the time in the world,” she said as, the spell broken again, she once more started hurrying toward the sound of Edmond's voice.

“There you are!” Edmond declared when they reached the meadow and found him waiting.

Puzzled, he looked down on them from the back of Firebrand. “What are you doing in the woods? I thought Demetrius wanted to gallop.”

“I decided against it,” Connor said.

Edmond's eyes narrowed. “You look all red.” He studied Allis. “So do you.”

A moment's awkward silence ensued, until Allis suddenly realized Edmond was alone. “Where are Isabelle and Sir Auberan?”

“Oh, back there,” Edmond replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Isabelle wanted a drink from the river. Sir Auberan stayed with her.”

She trusted Auberan as much as she would any vain young fool around her pretty sister. “You shouldn't have left them alone.”

“Why not? You were alone with Sir Connor.”

“I'm older.” She swung herself into the saddle. “I'm going after them. Edmond, help Sir Connor find a way to get on his horse.”

She dug her heels into her mare's sides and set off at a gallop across the meadow.

“N
o, Auberan, I do
not
want to kiss you,” Isabelle protested as she gently shoved him away.

Around them, willows bent over the water, and the slender branches of the trees dipped into the river.

Auberan put one foot back into the ferns along the river bank to steady himself. “Isabelle, please, let me,” he pleaded, wrapping his arms around her again. “Once. Just once, that's all I ask.”

“No!” She pushed harder.

As he let go of her, his feet slipped on the bank. His arms flailing helplessly, he stumbled backward into the river, then splashingly struggled to stay on his feet. The river was very shallow here, so there was no danger of him drowning, but it was rocky, so it was not easy for him to regain his footing.

“Perhaps that will cool your ardor, Sir Auberan,” Allis declared as she drew her horse to a halt.

Despite her stern tone and expression, she wasn't angry, at least not at Isabelle.

“How long have you been there?” Isabelle's sodden would-be lover demanded, looking more like a damp dog than a knight.

“Long enough to see my sister push you into the river, as you deserve.”

“I didn't mean to push him into the river,” Isabelle said. “He slipped and fell.”

Allis had seen enough of the altercation to know that she most certainly had pushed Auberan in, and he deserved it, too.

Mounted on Demetrius, Connor appeared on the river path beside her, Edmond behind him. “An odd time to bathe, isn't it, Sir Auberan?”

“Isabelle pushed him in.”

“Why?”

“He was behaving improperly.”

“Ah.”

“I was merely attempting to express my affection for Lady Isabelle,” Auberan retorted with affronted dignity.

“Yes, that's all he was doing. I don't think everybody needs to make such a fuss,” Isabelle declared. She gave Allis a pointed look. “Especially people who have been off somewhere themselves.”

“What I do or don't do is none of your business, little sister,” she replied, feeling a moment's regret that she had given in to the impulse to be alone with Connor. A quick glance at him, so tall and regal beside her, banished that regret.

After all, Isabelle was just a girl, and whatever she
said could be easily dismissed as a sibling's annoyed gossip. As for Auberan, given his embarrassment, she was quite sure he would not be keen to explain the circumstances of his soaking.

Her sister moved toward the edge of the bank and offered her hand to Auberan. “Let me help you.”

“Be careful he doesn't pull you in, too,” Allis warned.

With a sour glance over her shoulder, Isabelle muttered, “I will.” Then, smiling at Auberan, she grabbed his hand and helped him clamber, shivering violently, out of the freezing water. “We had better get home at once, before you catch a chill. Perhaps Edmond would ride ahead and ask Merva to warm some chicken broth.”

“All right,” Edmond readily agreed, turning Firebrand and spurring him into a gallop.

Isabelle shot Allis another pointed glance. “Sir Auberan is our guest, after all, and we should always take good care of our guests. Isn't that what you are forever telling me?”

With that, she took Auberan's hand just as Allis had taken Connor's and walked with him to their horses. Although dripping, Auberan helped Isabelle to mount, then clambered onto his own horse.

“I believe she is upset with me,” Allis noted as they began to follow them.

“And I think I have been supplanted in your sister's affections. I'm glad of that, but I must say it's a little humbling to be replaced by that particular fellow.”

“You may retain your pride. I know Isabelle, and she's angry, so she's making it
look
that way.” Which unfortunately meant she could still be harboring fantasies about Connor.

As distressing as that was, Allis couldn't blame her. Connor was the sort of knight who inspired maidenly dreams. “I'm hoping it's just a youthful fascination that will soon pass.”

“Has she had other ‘youthful fascinations'?”

She felt a twinge of dismay. “No.”

He gave her a comforting smile. “She's a sensible girl, then. When she understands how we feel, she'll probably be upset for a while, but then find a more suitable young man to admire. She's pretty and sweet, and soon enough knights will be flocking around her like bees to honey.”

Once again, he lifted a burden from her shoulders. “Although I think you're right, I have to say the prospect of being under siege by an army of young knights intent upon winning Isabelle's affection is a little daunting.”

“Be of good cheer, my lady. You won't have to endure it. You will be in Wales, with me.”

She saw that he was absolutely serious and, feeling a shadow on her happiness, pulled her horse to a halt. “I cannot leave my family. They need me.”

He caressed her hand and a winsome smile crossed his face. “Forgive me another selfish speech, Allis. I have been thinking of a little piece of land where I have dreamed of building a home. But that can wait until Isabelle is well married and Edmond comes of age. Or if you never want to live in Wales, I will make my home wherever you choose. I will be with you, and that is the most important thing.”

Her heart filled with gratitude as well as relief. “Oh, Connor, I would go to the ends of the earth with you if I had only myself to think of. But I promise you, once
Isabelle is wed and Edmond of age, we will live in the place you have dreamed of. All I dream of is being your wife, and after all your travels and hardship, you may choose where that will be.”

His smile beamed, a delightful reward for what would truly be no sacrifice.

“Besides,” she continued merrily as she nudged her horse into a walk again, “I think I should get to know your family. You are certainly coming to know mine.”

“And I'm liking them very much, but not so well as the eldest.”

Exchanging smiles, Allis and Connor continued to follow the sodden knight and the proud young lady back to Montclair as if they had nothing but happiness before them and all the world was young.

 

Auberan and Lord Oswald stood in the dark chapel. Clouds covered the moon, so all was dark, save for the dim illumination of the votive candles.

“She herself helped me from the river,” Auberan bragged as he finished describing what had happened.

He left out the part about her refusing his kiss, making it sound as if he had slipped when he had been about to embrace her and that she had been very willing.

“Indeed?” Oswald muttered as he strolled toward the candles. He bent forward, glanced up at the statue of the Virgin, then straightened without blowing any out.

“Yes, and she was most concerned about my health afterward. She ordered chicken broth for me, and stayed by my bedside while I ate it.”

“I see. Like a mother tending a sick child.”

Auberan blinked. “I suppose so,” he stammered, “but she held my hand as we walked to our horses.”

Oswald barely refrained from rolling his eyes and his hands itched to draw the jeweled dagger stuck through his belt, and do with it what it was made for: to deliver the coup de grâce—a quick and merciful death. This bungling fool really didn't deserve to live. If
he
had been in Auberan's place, he would have had Isabelle of Montclair flat on her back on the riverbank, half naked and begging for him to take her.

He adjusted the wide leather belt around his long, dark blue wool tunic and thought of her fresh young beauty. Maybe he was wrong to give her to Auberan. It might have been wiser to seek her for himself. There would have been the matter of his present wife, but she could be disposed of with little trouble. A bribe to a bishop, and an unfortunate blood tie making the marriage illegal in the eyes of the church could be discovered.

Well, he had not, so he would simply have to stay with his original plan. At least Rennick could be counted on to do as he was told without making a mess of things. To be sure, he had taken longer than he had expected in the matter of the recalcitrant chatelaine of Montclair, but only because he seemed to have some genuine feelings for the girl, try as he might to hide or ignore them. Fortunately, he had finally succeeded before he had to be replaced.

“Do try to make her see you as a lover, not an invalid,” he chided the incompetent would-be seducer.

“I almost kissed her before I slipped.”

Almost
kissed her. Good God, the fellow was truly pitiful.

Rennick might be right. Family connections or no family connections, Auberan could indeed prove to be more of a liability than an asset. “Then hopefully next time you are alone with her, you will not be near a river and so have more success.”

“I'm sure I will.”

Oswald strolled around the altar, taking note of the costly embroidered cloth covering it. What a waste of money. “Where were the others while you were with Isabelle?”

“Edmond had gone back to join Allis and Connor.”

Oswald smiled like a teacher watching a slow pupil finally catch on. “And where were they?”

“They stayed…” Auberan finally grasped an important point. “Are you going to tell Rennick?”

His footfalls loud in the silence, Oswald sauntered toward Auberan, who had not moved from the middle of the empty chapel. “I don't think I'll have to.”

Auberan frowned. “Shouldn't he be back by now?”

“He had other business to attend to before he could return.”

“What other business?”

“That is not necessary for you to know, my young friend. What is necessary for you to know is that you should not be
trying
to kiss Isabelle. You should be kissing her—and more.”

Auberan didn't meet his gaze. “I'm doing my best.”

“Do better. We have not got an eternity for our plans to mature.”
Or you
.

“When do you expect to take action?”

“When the time is right.” Oswald circled his nervous young companion, happily intimidating him some more.

“Richard is in England now, for once.”

“Yes, but if the time is not yet right, we must wait.”

“For what?”

“As I said before,” Oswald growled as he once more faced Auberan, “we must be certain we have the support of many before we move. Besides, if Richard is not in England, we can always pay one of his own men to do the deed and make it look like a wound received in a battle far from here.”

That was not at all his plan, but he was not about to tell Auberan the truth. “I sometimes thank God Richard is not a peace-loving man. Arrows go astray so easily.”

“Arrows are the weapons of peasants and foot soldiers.”

He stifled a long-suffering sigh. “What does it matter, as long as it does the task required and from a safe distance?”

“I had not thought of that.”

“No, I didn't suppose you had.” He had no more patience for dealing with Auberan. “Go back to the hall and Isabelle, and do try to be more of a warrior and less of an invalid.”

Auberan bowed and obeyed, leaving Oswald in the chapel to contemplate not his sins or the grace of God, but the destruction of Richard and his own rise to power.

 

Connor had nearly forgotten how good it felt to have the wind in his hair and the freedom of cantering on Demetrius across an open meadow. The day was not as fair as yesterday, with low gray clouds promising rain later, but he didn't want to make Demetrius wait another day.

He had been selfish enough already. Not that he
was feeling particularly guilty. He had been too happy being in the forest with Allis, holding her in his arms and kissing her sweet lips.

On the other hand, both he and Demetrius needed the exercise. In his case, sleep was long in coming these days as he envisioned a future with Allis to love and cherish. And other things, too—especially Allis in their bed, naked and waiting.

She was everything he could want in a lover, responding with fierce enthusiasm and exciting him beyond anything he had ever felt. Glorious, wonderful Allis, so serene and wise and dutiful, those qualities masking a passionate nature that perhaps he alone fully knew and appreciated.

Yet she was so much more! Wise, patient, loyal, tender, she would not make merely a wonderful wife. She would be a wonderful mother, too. Indeed, in many ways, she already was, for she was as much a mother to her brother and sister as she was their sibling.

At last he slowed and turned back toward Montclair. Perhaps when he got back, he would see Allis and have another chance to speak with her. Perhaps he would have another chance to be alone with her. Yesterday, as soon as they had arrived back at Montclair, she had been summoned by the cook over a question of the meats for the evening meal, and had to leave without much of a farewell.

He glanced at the sky, noting that the clouds were thickening. A storm was definitely brewing.

Then, suddenly, at the edge of the forest, he spied Allis mounted on her horse. She wore a cloak of rich green wool, the silk-lined hood pulled up over her head, yet not so fully that he couldn't see her face. Beneath the cloak, the black skirt of her gown peeked out.

She was like a dream, the embodiment of hope and happiness.

As he spurred Demetrius into a trot and rode toward her, he saw Bob and Harry. They were behind her, mounted on the sort of horses common soldiers were generally assigned.

“Good morning, my lady,” he called out as a low rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. “Not the best day for riding, perhaps,” he noted as he reached them.

“I wanted to nonetheless. I am merely going to the river and back again. Would you care to join me?” Her eyes sparkled with mischievous delight.

“I would be delighted.” He turned Demetrius, so that their horses were side by side. They began to walk toward the river, Bob and Harry dutifully following behind. “You have an escort with you, I see.”