By Possession (13 page)

“That man is smart enough to surmise that you are much more,” he muttered, forcing her closer, sealing her against his body. His mouth claimed hers with a punishing kiss.

Surprise made her resist and she twisted her head away. His mouth scorched her neck, finding spots where its heat seemed to flow directly into her blood, arousing visceral sensations that channeled the anger and worry into emotions just as tempestuous but offering a different release. He liberated her hand but captured her head, holding it to his assault, commanding submission. Blood already riled by excitement burned hotter, pulsed faster. Their shared danger and heated confrontation had left her raw and exposed. The relief and worry and anger of the last hours
merged into a blind need for reassurance and she mindlessly relented and joined his passion and the venting it offered.

He took her mouth as if he sought to consume her, but her own spirit responded with something more than passive consent. She broke her arms free from his domineering hold and circled his neck, bowing against him. Her tongue and lips met his in contention, continuing their argument with a wordless sparring, refusing subjugation. Desire prickled her skin, weighted her belly, and pulsed above her thighs. Her mind dulled to everything except the feel of it all and the reality of him, alive and whole. Their passion ascended to a savage peak before slowly subsiding into a clouded valley of vulnerable connections.

She found her head against his chest, his arms wrapped around her body, his lips pressed against her temple. “Offer your life to him or anyone like that again and I will strangle you,” she whispered.

He laughed quietly. “I said before that you are a vicious woman.” He gently separated from her. “We must go, Moira.”

She did not want to leave their embrace and lose that brief, wordless joining of friendship and desire. She moved away reluctantly and forced her emotions into sensible order. “Do you know the village of Whitly?”

“Aye, it is just across the border into the lands of the neighboring Dominican abbey. Some of our people live there.”

She told him about Sir Richard and his advice. Addis nodded. “Richard was my father's steward. If anyone at Barrowburgh can be trusted, it is he. And if Simon follows, he will not risk the uproar that an attack on an abbey village would cause.” He looked to the cart. “We cannot delay by bringing it. Get what you need, and we will try to have someone retrieve it later.”

She ducked into the trees and found her sewing basket. She plucked some clean veils and shifts from one of her trunks and stuffed them inside. He mounted the horse and took the basket from her, then extended his arm again. Once settled astride behind the saddle, she slid the basket over her arm. Holding on proved a little precarious with her burden, and she tottered with the animal's gait.

Addis took the paths leading to the road south, then moved to a faster pace. She looked at the strong back in front of her face, knowing that she had complicated things again by permitting that kiss.

Do not let these feelings overwhelm you, she chastised. Remember who he is and will be and what must happen a few months hence. Picture him on those stairs, and never forget what it means. He will stand there again someday, and at his side will be another Claire. Whatever passion he shows for you now is the result of danger and proximity and convenience. Have no illusions about this.

She continued laying it all out, her common sense forcing harsh reality atop her heart's quandary. She felt confused and emotionally naked, and very glad that she would not have to speak or meet his eyes for a few hours at least.

After a few miles Addis left the road and headed across country. She was sure she would be bounced off the horse now. Unexpectedly, he reached behind and lifted her right hand from its grasp on the saddle. Pulling gently, he led it around his body and placed its palm on his abdomen.

The movement brought her forward against the support of his back, and after a few moments she let her shoulders and head relax against him. She succumbed to the comfort of listening to the muffled beat of his heart. The new position steadied her and made the horse's gait less uncomfortable. He did not release her hand, but kept it flat under his throughout their journey, pressed to his body.

The sun hung low when they approached the village of Whitly. Addis paused at its outskirts.

“Three manors share it, but it is on abbey lands,” he explained. “Close to half the people are ours.”

Moira peered around his shoulder at the longhouses and cottages. “Help me get down, please. I am sore from riding.”

He offered the support of his arm while she slid off her perch. She smoothed her skirt and stepped away. He knew that it was not soreness that had made her dismount. She did not want to ride in behind him and face the assumptions that might raise. He glanced to her careful expression while they moved forward. He would have trouble with her still. She did not accept it yet, did not see the inevitability of it.

The houses emitted sounds of families eating their supper but they were noticed at once. Men appeared in doorways and women at windows. A few boys darted up the lane. By the time he stopped his horse near the church a knot of men was waiting.

“I seek Lucas Reeve,” he said while he dismounted.

A white-haired man lumbered over from a nearby threshold, wiping his beard on his sleeve. “I be Lucas.”

Addis turned. He let the gray eyes examine him and watched the shock of recognition when the gaze slid along the scar. “I am just come from Barrowburgh. Sir Richard, my father's old steward, suggested I stop here tonight. He said that I would find a welcome in this village.”

“Saints be praised,” Lucas muttered with widening eyes. A broad smile slowly broke across his weathered skin. “Saints be praised!” he hooted. He threw out his arms to the growing crowd. “ 'Tis the lord's son, the one what died!” He flashed a toothy grin and winked. “Of course, I'm hoping you didn't die for real since you be
standing here now and if you are dead that makes you a ghost or demon, don't it?”

The villagers swarmed and word passed up the lane. Lucas gestured Addis toward his house. “Come and eat and drink. There's food waiting and there will be more once we get the women cooking again. We will feast your return and pray our thanks to God for delivering you and sending you home to us. The people of this land are badly in need of you, that's for sure.” He ushered Addis into his house and pressed him down onto a stool. “Come from Barrowburgh, did you? I'd have given my eyeteeth to see that devil's face when you rode in those gates.” He pushed a wooden bowl of soup at him. “Meat, wife! Send the boy out to kill some fowl.”

Men followed and the chamber became cramped. The next few hours filled with ale drinking and food arriving from neighboring homes. Lucas's wife held court by the hearth, supervising the celebration. Addis could tell from the meager offerings that Simon's greed had left these peasants with little to spare. Still, sounds of revelry filled the building and its croft and toft. The sun set while the villagers squeezed to the table to fill Addis's ears with complaints about Simon and his oppressive fees and corrupted hallmotes and disregard for common rights.

To refuse the hospitality would be an insult to these people, and so he suffered it. Moira had melted away from his side at the church, and now she sat among the women. More than a few curious glances had slid her way at first, and Addis had no doubt that she had read the question of everyone in the house. She answered it by ignoring him. Her garments made her a part of them, but her lady's manner and speech set her apart, and to be on the safe side they finally decided that she must be the latter.

The ambiguity that she successfully established regarding her relationship to him was borne out by the smiles
eventually cast his way by a tawny-haired girl named Ann. Inviting smiles, and eyes that focused on the right side of his face and managed not to see the left. The village slut, he surmised.

“My daughter and her husband have gone to a fair, and their cottage is empty,” Lucas explained at one point. “They would be honored, I know, if you made it yours. 'Tis the new one at the far end of the lane, and I'm sure that all is right, but we will see it is prepared for you.”

The last thing Addis wanted was the whole village accompanying him to that cottage. Nor did he want Moira's disinterest to convince them that she was so separate from him that she required a bed in one of their homes. Suppressed desire simmered in his body and he maintained his patience with these peasants only through concentrated effort. “My woman will take care of it,” he said.

Lucas glanced to her. The ale made him bold. “She is …?”

“She is a bondwoman of my manor at Darwendon. She has business to the east and I escort her since I head that way too.” It was the God's honest truth, but he trusted Lucas to get the message.

Lucas absorbed this without comment but his gray eyes flickered. No villager would approach that cottage this night or next morning. A sharp glance from the reeve and the slut's expression dulled. Addis turned his attention to a man asking the lord to bless his children.

There were rules regarding hospitality that one could count on in any village, and Moira waited for the offer of a bed or pallet in one of the women's homes. When the night wore on and the offer did not come, she admitted that despite her attempts to convince them otherwise, these people had reached certain conclusions about her
and Addis. Her own behavior had been indifferent toward him, so the only explanation was that Addis had said something to the reeve and Lucas had silently passed the word. She resisted believing that because of what it implied, but the petulant retreat of tawny-haired Ann provided the final evidence.

Despite her averted eyes she had been very alert to him the whole time and now the knight at the table began to press on her awareness. The knowledge of what he planned to do to her began to intrude on her thoughts with astonishing explicitness. Despite the seductive memories attached to those images, despite the man commanding her attention through the sheer power of his presence, the shadow and bondwoman sadly recognized the disaster for her life that his intentions would create.

She tried to rehearse the denials that she had worked out two days ago, but in light of that kiss today she doubted that they would carry much weight. She could explain away that first transgression as an accident. Today had been something else. Welcome. Necessary. Born of an uncontrollable euphoria that had existed separate from the practical plans that she had made for her life.

What could she say to him?
I lost my head because I was relieved for your safety
. Partly true. That had possibilities.
If you think about it, it was merely a kiss of friendship
. Aye, and pigs have wings.
I will not do this thing with you, Addis, I am most firm about that. My resolve is like steel
. Unless, of course, you kiss me again, in which case I will melt into a puddle of lust and abandon every shred of common sense.

The memory had her melting already. A heady warmth tingled in her hips and flushed through her limbs. Hollow, hungry sensations streaked through her core. She quickly looked at the handsome face and saw it again above her while he summoned her passion as if it were his to demand at will. He had not given her any more attention than she
had him this evening, but she had sensed his consciousness of her over the hours as surely as if they still faced each other in that embrace.

She turned and found Ann eyeing her critically, as if she measured the competition. I forfeit, Moira responded with her eyes. Truly. Do not listen to Lucas. Be bold. Think of the benefits to you and your family if you please the lord. He might even let you live in the castle until he marries again.

Moira looked over to see Addis bending his head toward a man but his eyes found her. His gaze struck her as invasive as ever despite its shielded warmth, and more than a little dangerous. For a few beats of timelessness the whole chamber emptied of everyone but the two of them and his expectation of what lay ahead. An unwelcome thrill spiraled down from her neck to her loins and a low, fearful excitement blotted through her.

Ann, deciding the lord's largesse was worth a few risks, ended it by stepping between them, carrying some ale. His attention shifted to the lithe young body approaching. Moira felt like a cornered rabbit suddenly liberated by the hunter's distraction.

Ann was well practiced in getting a man's attention, and her breasts grazed his arm while she smiled vivaciously and filled his cup. Addis's lids lowered. A few of the men smirked. Moira's good sense heaved with relief, but her heart felt a foolish spike of jealousy.

“Pity, ain't it?” a voice said quietly at her shoulder. Lucas's wife, Joan, had closed in for some confidential gossip. “His face, that is. He was the most beautiful boy.”

Moira never noticed that scar much, at least not as something so unusual. It was just a part of him, like his eyes and hair. Of course, she had seen him when the wound truly cut his face in half, so this remnant appeared to her a minor thing.

“They say the hip is worse,” Joan continued, bending closely to encourage confidences. She had drunk her share of ale this night. “I know some of the women who tended him when he returned. Horrible, they said. Sure he would die, they were.”

She had seen that wound at its worst as well. “Not so horrible if he walks and fights still.”

“Aye, a miracle of sorts. Perhaps his young bride prayed for him and God listened. Didn't do much else, from what is told. Rarely saw him all those months, and never helped with his care. Surprised us all that the wedding was held at all. A proud and selfish girl.”

“Not so proud. And young and frightened. Lady Claire was my friend.”

Joan pursed her lips, sorry to lose that topic to misplaced loyalty. “They said he'd never walk right again.”

I know.

“Better off dead, some said.”

Aye. Including Addis
.

“But even before he was healed, he ordered them to help him stand. As soon as he returned here. Despite the pain, he would walk the length of his chamber holding on to servants, several times a day, back and forth. They cried describing it, those men who helped him did. Like watching a man being tortured, they said. Would beg him to stop, but he would not. Some say the hip healed different because of it, that it kept him from being crippled. I say it was the prayers of his father that done that, and maybe of his lady, if she bothered to pray for other than herself, that is. He went on that crusade before he was whole, you know. Still weaker than he should be, and the wounds still mending inside. Said he went to repay God for sparing him.”