Townsend, Lindsay - The Snow Bride (BookStrand Publishing Romance) (22 page)

The fist smack landed, stinging, on her left cheek, followed swiftly by one to her right. “Yes!” she cried, as more light, quick, relentless slaps set her bottom and intimate parts and breasts into a throbbing jingle of mindless pleasure.

“Such a lush and juicy ass.” Magnus still praised her, fondling her bottom, smacking each cheek, each spank a little harder, a little faster than the last. Again, her desire surged, and she begged him—harder, harder.

“Have me!” she howled, lifting her quivering haunches to his smarting, spanking hands, wanting more and longing for him to drive himself into her.

At last he turned her, raising her head and mouth to his. He tasted of salt and his own sweet maleness as his lips possessed, conquered, and teased. Rising into his embrace and climbing into his lap, she wrapped her arms around his broad, muscular back and heard his breath stop as their bodies collided. He scooped a big hand into her bodice, cupping one of her breasts and cursed as the smooth, rich fabric tore.

“Rip it off me,” she whispered, reading that desire in his stark, scarred face.

“Do not tempt me.” He growled. “Or I will do more.”

She reared up, taking his mouth again, plunging her tongue between his teeth as she twisted her fingers through his black hair, taunting him. The heaviness of her limbs had been swept away by a sparkling desire, more heady than wine. “Do your worst, sir,” she whispered against his taut throat, rubbing her breasts against his hairy chest.

A shooting star fleeing across the heavens, could not have been faster. In a dazzling blur of action, Magnus used the speed he had been famed for in the crusades and, gripping both sides of her gown so she would not be scored, rent it top to bottom. As she gasped at his strength, he tugged off his own clothes, allowing all to flutter in a puddle of dull and bright cloth by his feet.

Still perched on one of his knees, she licked at his naked belly but missed. He had seen her slight movement and anticipated it, swooping his own head low and tonguing her navel, then lower. He caught her hands and held them easily by her wrists with his own, chuckling deep in his throat as she drummed her heels against his legs. It was like striking warm stone.

“Shameless, you are,” he hissed against her. In a swirl of motion, he raised her off his lap then lowered her onto the wooden platform, kneeling down and keeping her in place by a warm, heavy arm. His left hand was already busy running up her thighs as he blew a loud kiss into her belly. “Here we are, out in a woodshed—”

“No one comes after nightfall,” she countered, her voice rising as his questing fingers and now his tongue tracked over her shivering body, closer and closer to her hot, molten center.

Clothes spilled everywhere as he finally entered her, almost knocking over the brazier in his single-minded ardor. His lovemaking wild and rutting, he slammed into her, their flesh smacking together in a blurring, fierce rhythm.

For both it was intimate and exciting, tender and overwhelming. Magnus roared his pleasure, feeling no longer wounded or ugly. Elfrida knew rapture she had never known before, feeling no longer lonely or feared but cherished and desired.

Chapter 15

Cold woke Magnus, and the aching in his limbs. He found his tunic rolled under his head and three cloaks tugged round him. Elfrida was fanning new flames from the brazier and casting anxious glances his way. He smiled, and she broke off her task and hurried over.

“Will you have some food?” She blushed, as if uncertain or uneasy of his mood. His heart ached in tenderness for her.

“Yes, please.” He enjoyed being fussed over and tended and watched her closely, for the pleasure of staring. She had put on her blue gown, hiding the ripped side seams by belting it closely.

“There has been more snow,” she remarked, bringing him a flask and half of the pie. He broke off a piece and offered it back to her, and she smiled. “You look well, Magnus.”

His missing foot ached like the devil, but he was not about to admit that. “And you, my heart.”

He patted the place beside him, and she came and settled at once. “We should learn each other’s tongue, do you not think?”

“For certain, yes. How many languages do you know?”

The rest of their sparse but delightful breakfast was taken up with snippets of
London
speech, Greek, Latin, Arabic, and French.

Elfrida learned the words for mead or wine in all of these and then startled him afresh. “Will you be sick today?”

“Sick?”

“So you do not go out hunting.” She touched one of the amulets about her neck—strange how he had not noticed those last night, unless she had removed them all. “It brought little news and not much luck yesterday for you.”

It was her tactful way of alluding to Denzil’s attempt to kill him, Magnus thought, as he finished the pie and yanked on his damp clothes. “Today, pray God, we shall do better,” he said.

Elfrida nodded, her face solemn. Her amber eyes glittered. “I have a plan for that.”

She told him, and he laughed then admitted that it might just work.

We have to do something
, Magnus thought. He opened the door to the wood store and stepped out into bright, fresh snow.
Every day that passes and Christina is gone, the hunt grows harder. I wish to God I could remember that tall, skinny Denzil, and that the days were not so short.

Elfrida wished that none of Magnus’s men were going hunting, even if, as Gregory Denzil claimed, the castle needed the meat. Leaving Magnus in the garderobe clutching his belly and pretending to be ill, she waved off the ragged group with their nets and spears, surprised to find herself sending even the flea-ridden Mark her wish for a safe journey. Mark’s devotion to Magnus had warmed her to him. In turn Mark was becoming less ill mannered toward her, always giving her a terse nod in greeting.

Gregory Denzil had surprised her, too. With Magnus claiming he was sick, she had worried that Denzil might refuse to leave the keep himself and send out only a few men. Instead he seemed as keen to hunt as he had the previous day and took more than half his guards and soldiers with him.

“You are still here, he thinks I am tied to the garderobe, and his men get restive if they feast too long,” Magnus observed when she climbed the stairs and waited on the garderobe landing until there was no passing page, maid, or squire to overhear their conversation. “What have you done with the three lads?”

Elfrida guessed he meant Meat, Ale, and Pie. “I left them in the great hall.” She did not add they were playing dice.

He scowled. “Dice and ale?” he guessed, with a snort. “They are supposed to be your escorts and with you for your safety.”

She shrugged. “I can heed myself, Magnus. We should get on.”

He looked her up and down, his eyes lingering on her tightly cinched waist and her careful use of her cloak pins to gather together and secure the torn side seams of her gown. She felt herself blush, conscious of the cloth brushing against her bottom like a hand. “What now?”

As if sensing her confusion, he took her hand and kissed it
.
“Remember our agreement last night?” he asked gently. “We are peers by day and all places—in bed, too, if you will it,” he added, even more softly. “I am no bully, Elfrida.”

“No, you are not,” she admitted, wishing all the same they could return to last night.

He smiled and squeezed her fingers. “To business, then. You will need to be more warmly dressed.”

“I will have my cloak.”

“We shall both have better. I had a mind we should plot ahead. Yesterday on the hunt, I dropped a bundle into a holly bush outside the castle walls. We shall recover it when we follow the laundress.”

“If she walks out today at
noon
.”

“Why not? You say she has on other noondays.”

“That is what I guessed, for she seemed most busy and particular and pointed at the sky most clearly. But I could not
talk
to her. And even if I guessed right, my plan may come to nothing.”

“Your plan is as good as any. As for the woman, the squires can watch out for her and let us know if she goes out early.”

“Do you think it will take long?”

Magnus spread his one good hand. “’Tis in God’s arms. We must pray and hope. For me, I do not think it will be long. To be a guard is a toilsome job and to watch outside in winter, even on a day as bright as this, the worst of all. They will soon grow bored and keep more and more indoors, or out of the weather, at least.”

“May it be so,” Elfrida muttered, making her words a wish-charm.

She and Magnus put on their cloaks and returned to the great hall. There, Magnus explained to a disinterested, nose-picking guard with a gaping ulcer on his leg that they would take a stroll in the snowy pleasure garden of the castle.

The guard yawned his assent and sent three young, beardless soldiers with them who kicked at snowdrifts and pulled ivy and honeysuckle off the snow-covered garden trellis. Soon the three had found a sunlit, windless spot between the stone walls of the keep and its gatehouse, and they watched out from there.

Magnus winked at Elfrida, but she dared not smirk.
So far
, she thought, and began the next part of her plan. In plain sight of the youths, she brushed the snow from a frosted turf seat, wide enough for two, and sat down. Magnus settled beside her.

“Why are they not wary or at least interested?” she asked him, leaning against him as if sharing a loving confidence. “And have all the able men gone out?”

“There will be some in the stables and gatehouse. For the rest, Denzil likes to keep his troops busy and out of mischief, and you are a girl and I am a cripple.”

“They have seen you fight!”

Magnus laughed, and his shaggy hair curls shook. “Bless you for that! But no, they saw me wrestle, and they believe Denzil allowed me to win.” He jerked a thumb at the three lounging against the sun-warmed wall like thin, gray cats. “I know the kind. I was one myself.”

Never
, Elfrida thought, flexing her hands beneath her cloak. She glanced at her knight, hoping he would not spot her concern. It would be bone-grindingly cold, idling out here.

“I have marched and watched in harsher climes than this. Sun as hot as a griddle stone, night as dark and bitter as a cave.”

He never missed a thing
. “We must lie down soon,” she warned.

“No doubt you have a charm to keep us warm.”

Elfrida smiled. “I will do my best,” she answered sweetly.

She did her utmost as she had promised, finding a spot in full sun, scraping away the snow, and banking it round into four shallow walls. She then tore at dead honeysuckle shoots on the trellis and gathered them. Magnus nodded at some dead rose stems, and when she nodded, he ripped at them, seeming oblivious of the thorns as he collected an armful.

By now the three lads were feigning disinterest and tossing snow balls at each other. But they watched closely as Magnus prodded through the snow with his peg leg and gathered pebbles and stones.

Glad he understood her intent, Elfrida quickly made a fire and began to heat the stones. She found a sweeping brush abandoned by a frozen pond and used that to jab the hot stones out of the fire and out on the frosted earth, making a rough bed of rocks. The youths’ curiosity changed to leers as she swung her cloak off her shoulders onto the stones and Magnus did the same with his cloak. Then, with the fire still crackling and burning, she and Magnus lay between the cloaks and pulled the hoods over their heads.

They lay together in a snug embrace, hearing their guards sniggering.

“We could complete this picture and make love.” Magnus shifted against her in a way that might suggest lovemaking to anyone watching.