The Marriage Bed (The Medieval Knights Series) (30 page)

Smiling, she stretched again, and noted that she was alone in her bed.

Alone, when he had promised to stay with her. He had promised not to leave, even for the space of the night, and it was a promise he could not keep. No matter that he had absolved her of guilt in Adam's death, no matter that he had driven her to her pleasure. No matter that he had spoken to her like a wife, a treasured and precious woman to be protected and defended for all her days. His days with her would be brief.

How could she have forgotten?

Last night had been duty. Today would bring more of the same. Day upon day of duty until she bore a child and Richard hurried back to the abbey. Perhaps he would not even wait until the child was born, but would feel he had done his part when life plumped her belly; after all, it was
her
duty to bring forth a healthy child.

Again she awoke alone in her bed. Richard was gone, busy with his prayers, no doubt. Duty following duty. She should be at her prayers as well.

She straightened the coverlet over her prone body and turned her eyes toward the wind hole. She did not rise. It was a gray day, heavy with cloud; the sun was completely overcome. A brisk wind snaked its way into the wind hole, bringing the smell of rain and raw earth. She pulled the cover up over her nose.

Last night. She did not want to think about last night.

All she wanted to think about was last night.

The terrible intimacy of what they had done together, the biting and kissing, the scents and tastes, appalled her. Intrigued her. Embarrassed her. Aroused her.

Richard had been ferocious in driving her to her pleasure.

Isabel shivered and buried her smile beneath the marten fur that lay upon her bed.

She had known he possessed such passion; their stable kiss had revealed it. Yet she had not known where such passion led.

It would be difficult for her to give that up when Richard rejoined the Benedictines. Would it be as difficult for him? Nay, he had made his meaning clear when he had first taken her; he had not wanted any part of the passion of the marriage bed. He had made all as clear as sunshine with his toiling repetition of
I do
not want.

Yet she had done the same, said the same with her mouth while her heart felt differently, and duty had had no part in it. Perhaps it had been the same for him.

Perhaps? She had lived her life out hoping and dreaming that perhaps Richard would love her and want her and need her. She was grown. It was time to put dreams aside when duty was so clearly before her.

Isabel forced herself out of bed to stand on the cold floor, the lack of sun and her nudity chiding her to hurry. She was a step from the basin next to the wall when the door to the chamber opened wide. Richard stood upon the threshold, and grinned hugely.

Before he could say a word, she was back in bed, the coverlet protectively embracing her shoulders and covering her completely.

"Good morrow, Isabel," he said. "I came to see how well you fare, yet I can see you fare quite well."

"I am well," she said stiffly. He had thought her ill, to stay so long abed. It was long past the dawn. "I will pray at Terce."

"You need not keep the hours of a Benedictine," he said.

Yet where had he been? Not with her.

"You do," she said, her eyes as cool as the morning.

"Out of long habit only. You need not acquire my habits."

Naturally not, since he would be returning to the abbey and she would not.

"And you seem incapable of acquiring new ones. But then, you have not the need."

Richard closed the door behind him. In his hands he carried a mug of ale and a fistful of bread; he came as servant, to break her fast. She was a churlish bride to be so sour.

"Untrue," he said evenly. "I have discovered many habits I did not anticipate a fortnight ago."

"And many sorrows," she said, taking the ale with an apologetic expression.

"Nay, sorrows I have always had. To you I bring tribulations."

"This does not taste like tribulations," she said, sniffing at her ale, trying for lightness when her heart was so heavy. 'Twas not his fault he had been trapped into a marriage not to his liking. He would leave her, aye, when his duty to her was done. Did any woman fare better? Now he was hers, if only for a season. In truth, what did being churlish win her but an uneasy stomach and a sore head?

"You have a kind tongue," he said, sitting on the edge of the bed. His hair fell forward over his brow, a dark and shining leaf against pale water, his eyes the blue of dreams.

"You are the first to remark upon it. Some say my tongue is sharp, even bitter."

"None who have tasted of it would say so," he said seductively.

"Now you are kind," she said over the top of her mug.

Would it be so difficult to spend a season or two with this man? She had yearned for just such intimacy, such bonding, all her life; why cast all away because the pattern of the dream was not to her liking? The weave was hers, let God fashion the pattern; she would be content with it. Mayhap He would give her three years. Three years with Richard was no tribulation.

"I am not kind," he said. "You know this best of any. I am proud."

"You are," she agreed pleasantly.

"Clumsy."

"Only with words," she soothed, patting his hand compassionately, her smile as sharp as talons.

"Some would say I am too solemn," he said, toying with her fingers.

"I have always preferred the word 'grim.'" She smiled cordially.

"I have heard the word 'handsome'—"

"But never in your hearing," she finished.

"Stalwart?"

"Determined."

"Pleasant? He frowned, his black brows low and compressed.

"Polite," she said instead.

"Romantic?" He slipped a band of gold set with emeralds onto her finger. Her wedding band.

It was beautiful.

It was perfect.

It was not as she imagined it.

It was better.

"Hopelessly," she said, leaning forward to kiss him, dropping the protective and unnecessary barrier of her blankets.

He wrapped his arms around her and she was instantly warm. The wool of his tunic rubbed against her skin, irritating and arousing her at once. He was fully clothed, his hair combed, his teeth cleansed, his boots on; she was naked and arrayed in nothing but her hair.

Perfect.

He nipped her ear.

"I have marked you. You are dotted with bruises," he said.

She twined her arms around his neck and arched against him. He lifted her onto his lap, her legs straddling his hips.

"I should be about my prayers and the duties of the day," she said against his neck. She felt his pulse jump beneath her lips and smiled.

"Nay, it is my duty to worship you with my body. This will I do," he said, running his hands over her breasts, palming her erect nipples.

"You are ever about your duty, I have observed," she said, kissing her way to his mouth.

"And?" he said, lifting her hips with his hands and controlling her rhythm against his straining length.

"And," she gasped, "never have I been..."

"Aye?" he asked, holding her derriere in his hands while his mouth trailed across her breasts.

"...been... so impressed with your..."

He spread wide her cheeks, and she came down hard and wet upon the wool of his tunic, his manhood a rod that pulsed with eagerness. His mouth snagged her nipple, suckling hard. Sensation shot through her like sunlight through clouds, hot and bright, a welcome burning.

"...diligence!" she finished.

He bucked beneath her, holding her down to rub against him, his hands hard upon her hips, his mouth merciless at her breast. She strained against the fabric, wanting his possession, desperate to have him enter her.

He dallied.

His hands left her hips and gripped her head, holding her for a scorching kiss while her body sought futile union with his.

"You admit to being impressed," he said against her mouth, his lips sliding over the flushed and tender skin of her throat, hovering at the swell of her breast. His hands spanned her back, holding her away from him by the width of a finger. She wanted his touch, to feel the heat of him, the solid strength of him, the hard and pulsing length of him.

He refused.

"By your devotion to duty? Aye," she moaned, searching for his mouth.

"Ah, duty." He smiled. "Hard words upon Isabel's lips."

"You think to insult me," she smiled lazily, "but is it not my duty to find pleasure in the marriage bed? This I do. Or try to do," she added.

She groped at the fabric which encased him, searching for the opening that would release him to her, pulling and tugging, her hands frantic. Whining her distress that he would not spring free.

Richard bucked hard against her, crushing her against the promise of him, flicking her nipple with his tongue.

"You lack restraint, Isabel. This I have noted often."

"And you, Richard, have all the gaiety of a shroud."

"A shroud?" he said. "You followed long after a shroud. What was it that you found so compelling?"

His hands played upon her breasts, and when she came close to finding her way past the wool that protected him from her hands, he snatched them off, holding her two in his one. Her hands he held behind her back, a gentle cuff she could not break, her breasts thrown forward toward his mouth, her legs wide and open upon him.

Struggle she did not.

"Compelling," she breathed as his mouth teased her nipple, his free hand likewise flicking the other into hot sensation. "Why, 'twas your body, if you must know."

His hand snaked down, skimming lightly over ribs and belly to hover near her curls. Her aching need grew by the moment, and she twitched her hips uncontrollably toward his hand. In a single movement, he plunged a finger into her, sliding deeply and easily, while he bit hard upon her distended nipple. She groaned and threw her head back, straining toward his hands.

"And that," he murmured, his eyes sparkling like summer stars, "was the reason you watched me in the yard, season upon season? To watch my body?"

He had removed his hand. She could feel herself drip upon him, her body's call for release from this exquisite torment. He looked at her, his mouth a half smile of predatory domination, his hold on her secure.

"Summer I preferred," she said, her voice a rasp of shattered passion, "for then you would take off your gambeson."

"Summer is upon us," he whispered.

He was asking her to watch him train, in Richard's subtle way. He wanted her to watch him. He wanted her eyes upon him, wanting him, desiring him.

"I am eager for it," she said, her eyes alight with impatience.

"Ah, Isabel, ever eager," he said softly.

Her hands still held behind her, he released his shaft with a quick movement of his fingers. He sprang forth with all the vigor of life. She quickly lifted herself above him while he held his shaft ready for her. She slid down, impaling herself on his sword, groaning at the contact, the fullness of possession. She kissed him hard upon the mouth, breathing his scent, sharing his air, and then she rode him. Hard. Fast. The size of him glorious. Reveling in her body's effort to accommodate him. Reveling in him.

Her hands were freed and around his neck, urging him to take her breasts. He complied, his hands quick and light upon her nipples, his mouth at her throat.

Her pleasure came long and swift, hard and effortless, slicing through her to carry her off, out of herself, into the air of heaven to tumble in a twirling spiral into the sun. Powerful. Frightening, if not for Richard's arms around her, Richard's mouth on her skin, Richard's scent in her nostrils. Because it was Richard, she was not afraid to soar beyond all the boundaries she had known.

Even now, his seed might be planting itself within her.

Isabel relaxed against Richard, his hands easy on her back, stroking her, soothing her, easing her back to earth. She lifted herself off of him, the scent of their mingling strong. He kissed her gently and with shared smiles they fell back upon the bed to lie softly in each other's arms.

She most assuredly had achieved her pleasure.

She grinned and sighed, turning into his arms, wrapping herself around him with arms and legs.

"You have found the joy of duty, I think," he said, his voice a rumble in his chest, stroking her hair.

Duty; aye, there was joy in duty. Her duty was to bear a child, and it could have begun now, today.

Today,
she thought, frowning. Each time he spilled his seed within her, she was one day closer to losing him. She could not stop it, or stop him. Richard was most adept at bringing her to her pleasure, and she was most thankful for his skill.

Is this what Bertrada had felt in his arms?

The thought took hold and would not leave her. She did not want thoughts of Bertrada here, to defile her marriage bed. But Bertrada was between them, always.

Did Richard think of the woman he loved while he lay with his wife?

Richard, attuned to Isabel as he was to no other, felt the change in her.

"Have I used you too hard, Isabel?" he asked, one hand still on her hair, the other light on her arm flung over his chest. "My passion—nay," he snapped, sitting up, dislodging her, "let me name it aright, my lust comes upon me strong and hard. I do not control it as I should. As I must."

Isabel sat up with him, her eyes troubled and searching. Her hair tumbled down her back, black against white, bounty against delicacy; she was a woman of rare delicacy. He should not have taken her as he did. Yet had he not wanted her to know the man she had bound herself to for life? He had told her of Bertrada; let him now tell her of his darker sin, of which Bertrada was only the evidence. Did he even need to speak? Did not Isabel, of all women, know the heart of his shame?

Even now he shrank from speaking it, wanting to hide it from the
eyes
of men, and from Isabel most of all. He did not want to lose her. Confessing this, he surely would. But the time for hiding, if ever there was such a time in the life of an honorable man, was done. He would keep silent no longer. He would hide from Isabel never again.