Enchantress Mine (42 page)

“Then there
is
someone!” she pounced, and flung herself at him pummeling his broad chest.

He caught her slender wrists and prevented damage to his person, and laughingly replied, “You threaten me with direst consequences if I admit to previous loves, and are disappointed that I do not.” He wrapped her in his embrace, and looking down into her face said, “I love you, Mairin of Aelfleah! As to my life before we met, I admit nothing. I deny nothing. What was is past for me, and you are all that matters.”

Her heart pounded wildly at his passionate declaration, and her lips softened as his mouth met hers. The kiss was a deep and an ardent one. His tongue swirled about hers in fiery love play. Both forgot Eada who, with a smile of remembrance, turned away from them and concentrated upon her sewing. Mairin was just barely aware that her husband had lifted her into his arms, and was carrying her up the stairs to their private chamber. Her head fell back upon his shoulder, and she sighed softly with contentment.

Setting her upon her feet he began to undress her and Mairin reciprocated his actions, pulling his clothing from him with unhurried haste. Together they fell to the bed wrapping themselves about each other in their fervor. They kissed and they kissed until Mairin’s mouth ached with the sweetness of their love. Her hands reached out to caress his body as he caressed her with lengthy, hungry touches. His back was so long. His buttocks so tight. His chest hard with muscle.

Josselin groaned with pleasure at her touches, and let his lips wander at will. She was so soft. The texture of her skin was like a rose petal. Her breasts seemed to melt into the curve of his palms. Her little belly quivered like the waters of a forest brook as it tumbled over the pebbles in its streambed. He suckled upon the hard nubbins of her nipples making her whimper. Tenderly he sank his teeth into her delicate flesh, and the sound she made was like a plea.

He was a little ashamed that he could not wait. He simply had to have her! She obviously felt the same way for the moment he moved to cover her body with his she parted her legs for him accepting his hard length within her. He used her fiercely, pressing forcefully into her softness and she eagerly welcomed him with equally tempestuous thrusts of her hungry body. Unable to control himself at all he felt his seed explode with a rush pouring from his hard flesh to flood her throbbing womb.

“Yesss,” she breathed hotly into his ear. “Oh, yes, my lord and my love!” and she shuddered with the force of their shared passion.

Their bodies were wringing wet, and they lay panting beside each other for he had automatically roled from her so he would not crush her. “I have never,” he finally managed to gasp, “known a woman who had such capacity for love.”

“Yet I cannot conceive,” she said softly.

Josselin pushed their pillows up against the back of the bed, and half-sitting he pulled her into his arms drawing the coverlet over them. “Sweeting, you lost the child before St. Matthew’s Day. You were not able to couple with me before Twelfth Night, and that is barely three and a half months ago. It is not that long. You will conceive before this year’s harvest, I am certain. Do not fret yourself. If I am not worried why should you be?”

“If I had not been so foolish we would now have our first son, and I would be so proud to meet the king again. He will wonder why we have no child, and think he has done you a disservice rather than a kindness in seeing us wed.”

“Nay, enchantress. Should he ask I will tell him the truth. That while I fulfilled my obligations to him you were left alone to face the wrath of Eadric the Wild. I will tell him of how you saved Aelfleah, and outwitted the rebel. The king will be proud of you, Mairin. He greatly values loyalty and courage.”

“I am glad,” she said wryly, and encouraged by his loving words, feeling a little less sorry for herself. “ ’Tis all I will have to offer this time. I envy the queen her family.”

“Do not,” he said. “I love my lord William, but his children are an unenviable lot. Young Robert is too much his mother’s son. Richard, Agatha, and Adeliza all fancy themselves greatly. Adela and William Rufus are two peas from the same pod. Bad-tempered brats who will only have their own way. There is not one of them can match their father, and therein lies the tragedy.”

“You are too harsh in your judgments, I think, my lord. These are but children you speak of, and as they grow they will surely change for the better.”

“Nay, Mairin, I am not hard. I am realistic. Remember I grew up at the Norman court. Robert of Normandy is fourteen and his sisters Agatha and Adeliza are thirteen and twelve. They are grown. When Earl Harold came to Normandy several years ago a match was arranged between him and the king’s eldest daughter, Agatha. Then Harold killed the Welsh king and forced his widow into marriage, which left poor Agatha jilted and shamed. So the king next arranged a match for the lady Agatha with Herbert, Count of Maine, but he died. Now my lord William has arranged a match for his daughter with Alphonse of Leon, but the girl refuses to go, and swears she will die a virgin. Our Blessed Lady deliver me from children like that!”

“It is obvious,” said Mairin, “that the king’s children are never disciplined. If they were beaten more often they would be the better for it.”

“Did your father beat you?” he demanded.

“Of course not! I did not need it, but my brother, Brand, was forever feeling father’s leather strap. Once father wore out three stout birch switches in one beating on Brand. Brand was very strong and equally stubborn.”

“Josselin laughed. “Well, I shall indeed beat our children if they need it, but with you for a mother I doubt they will ever feel our wrath, enchantress.”

“If I can but conceive,” she worried.

“You will, sweeting,” he said tenderly, kissing her brow. “Now perhaps we should make another attempt.”

She turned her head so she might look up at him, and her mouth curved itself into a sensuous smile. “Whatever you desire, my dear lord, my love. Have I not said mother raised me to be a dutiful and obedient daughter?”

Josselin laughed softly. “Mairin, my dearling, sweet enchantress mine, I have been married to you long enough to know that your dutiful obedience is only for those things that please you.”

“Then perhaps, my lord, I should dress and return to my sewing,” she said.

“If it pleases you, lady,” came the cool answer.

“
Josselin!
If you send me from our bed I shall never forgive you!” she cried.

Pulling her back into his embrace he chuckled, saying, “And if you really believe me, and go, lady, I shall never forgive you.”

“Villain!” she retorted, and gave his tawny hair a rough yank.

Then their lips met once more in passion, and after a long sweet while they came together again.

“
H
elas, this dampness will surely kill me!” complained the Duchess Matilda irritably. “A king’s house should not be built on the edge of a river’s bank.” Standing upon a little stool she gazed curiously out of the window at the Thames. It was a placid, muddy river, not at all like the rivers of Normandy, or Flanders where she had been born and raised. Still it seemed to generate more moisture and dankness than any river she had ever known. She had never been so cold in her entire life, she thought. Perhaps it was because the sun did not shine as much here in England as it did in Normandy. Nothing ever had time to dry out. It made her cranky, or perhaps it was the child she was currently carrying that altered her moods these days.

Her children. The duchess sighed.
Robert, her eldest
. So charming, witty, and well-spoken, but a boy who gave away too much, made lavish promises he could not keep, and was far too eager for his father’s duchy in Normandy which he was not yet wise enough to govern. God only knew she loved him, but he seemed unable to attain his early promise and that worried her deeply. William had amassed such great holdings, but Robert, his chief heir, showed no signs of being strong enough to retain them.

Richard, her second-born, was too much like Robert, but he lacked ambition. Richard simply found life amusing, and had little hope of much more. Perhaps he worried Matilda most of all, for she believed a boy should not be so bored with life, nor should his direction be so aimless.

Then there was the troublesome Agatha, their eldest daughter. Matilda had left Agatha at home in Normandy to meditate upon her sin of great disobedience to her parent’s will. A small smile touched Matilda’s lips for a moment. Agatha was every bit as stubborn as her mother had once been, but she would never tell her daughter that. Agatha needed no further encouragement to rebellion.

Of their three sons only the youngest, William Rufus, had accompanied his mother to England. Matilda grimaced. He was her own son, and yet she found him a most appalling child. She had brought him with her in order to allow his four younger sisters a respite from his constant and unmerciful teasing. He gave them no surcease whatsoever, and only one of them was capable of matching his vile disposition, and thereby that one, Adela, at four showed every indication of being as nasty as her male sibling. She already pitied the man Adela would marry, for even beating Adela regularly did not seem to sweeten her temperament. The duchess placed a protective hand over her belly. Pray God and his Blessed Mother that this child was another son. A son like her beloved husband, William.

“Madame.”

Matilda turned from the window. “Yes, Biota?” she said to her serving woman.

“You asked that Josselin de Combourg be brought to you when he arrived. He is awaiting your majesty’s pleasure even now.” Having been with Matilda since infancy, Biota knew Josselin well. He was one of her favorites.

The duchess stepped down from her stool. There was a smile upon her pretty face. “Ask him to come in, Biota,” she said. Then she turned to her ladies. “Attention, mes dames! We have a visitor.”

Like a small flock of chattering birds the queen-to-be’s ladies clustered about her, giggling and preening. They all remembered the handsome Josselin de Combourg, and knew how well he had done here in England. Biota hurried to the door to admit the visitor who entering gave her a hearty kiss on her ruddy cheek, and whispered something that caused the older woman to blush though she chuckled, and smacked at him fondly. Matilda thought she had never seen him looking so well. He was taller than her husband by several inches, and handsomer than William, bless him, had ever been. Another smile spread across her lips. She had had a weak spot for Josselin since he arrived as a gift from William to serve her as a page in the turbulent days before their marriage. She could never forget his kindness to her in those years.

“Josselin de Combourg my dear friend,” she greeted him holding out her tiny hands to him.

He took those two little hands, hands no larger than a child’s, and kissed them reverently. “My gracious lady Matilda! How happy I am to see you, and to see you blooming with obviously good health. Is it what I suspect?”

Matilda laughed, and nodded. “Yes, Josselin, I am once more with child. This one to be born in the autumn, and pray God it is a son! But tell me of you, my friend. I have not seen a great deal of my lord William since he first came to England, and when we did meet I had so many other things to talk with him about. It is not easy being responsible for my husband’s holdings in his absence. I remember him telling me that he had found an estate for you. Is this so?”

“Yes, madame. The king rewarded my service to him with a beautiful little estate in the west near the border with Wales. I am even now raising a small castle there to keep the king’s peace. If you can spare me the time, madame, I will be happy to tell you all my adventures since my coming to England.”

“Oh, I should so like that, Josselin! William has not had much time for me since I arrived. These English are yet being troublesome. I have traveled most simply, escorted only by Bishop Hugh of Lisieux and my youngest son. I have not even a minstrel to amuse me and wile away the long hours. First, however, I have what I hope will be a surprise for you. I have brought with me amongst my ladies an old friend of yours.”

Josselin looked genuinely puzzled, and the women about the queen giggled.

“Come forward, Blanche de St. Brieuc!” the queen cried gaily, and her women playfully pushed Blanche forward with much merriment.

“Josselin, my dearest lord! Are you not surprised?” Blanche stood smiling fatuously at him, her fingers worrying the twisted golden rope of her girdle. She was wearing her favorite blue, and had silver ribbons braided in her golden hair.

For a moment Josselin felt genuinely ill. All he could think about was how he was going to explain Blanche to his wife for Mairin would be furious with him. He had honestly never expected to see Blanche de St. Brieuc again. What in God’s name was she doing here? Why had she followed him to England?