Entreat Me (23 page)
His senses reeled. She smelled of flowers and tasted sweet. Her slim body entwined with his, soft and eager. The only other woman he’d taken in this bed had been Isabeau, and those encounters had nothing to do with lovemaking and everything to do with war. This contradictory creature, both waspish and loving, bewitched him. He’d cheerfully spend the rest of his days tangled in the covers with her.
He switched to her other breast, lavishing it with the same attentions, while his hands slid down her sides to the linen loincloth and stopped. He abandoned her breast to nuzzle the hollow of her throat. “The red sovereign is truly a tyrant,” he grumbled.
She shook in his arms with silent laughter. “Don’t complain so. You’re not the throne upon which she sits once a month.”
“No, only the miserable supplicant who kneels before her.” He stroked her legs down to her calves and trailed his tongue over her collarbones. “I want to please you.”
Louvaen pushed against him, shoving until he rolled to his back and she lay atop him once more. Her loose hair fell forward, surrounding him in a sweetly scented curtain. “You are pleasing me,” she assured him. “I’ve not shared a bed with a man in a long time, not since I lost Thomas, and you are as fine a man as he was.”
Ballard’s breath locked in his chest as he met her steady gaze. She scolded with the sharpness of a well-honed axe blade, but her unexpected, forthright compliments shocked him speechless. She kissed the tip of his nose before shimmying down his length to disappear beneath the blankets. He lifted the covers to peer at her. “Louvaen, what are you doing?”
He fell back against the pillows on a gasp as her tongue laved a meandering path up the inside of his thigh. His nails raked the sheets when her lips closed over his bollocks and sucked them gently into her mouth. The sounds erupting from his throat rang bestial in the darkness; thin whines and low growls interspersed with ragged breaths. He hadn’t expected or even hoped for this when she reappeared in the solar. He was still stunned by their interlude in the buttery. The gods who’d turned their backs on him centuries earlier now chose to grant him the boon of Louvaen’s affections. He wasn’t a man to turn away so gracious a gift.
As she’d done in the buttery, she milked him until he flooded her mouth with hot seed and reduced him to a quivering mass of muscle and blood that tumbled through his veins like rapids. Perspiration trickled down his temples and dewed his belly even after he kicked the blankets off to cool down. He licked dry lips and worked to slow the pants that heaved in and out of his lungs. Louvaen crawled from the foot of the bed, confiscated his share of the covers and nestled down into his side.
“That was lovely,” she purred in a smug voice. “We should do it again very soon.”
Ballard wondered how soon was soon and if he’d survive a third encounter. He spooned around her wrapped form, unwilling to crawl under the sweltering blankets just yet. He tucked her head against his shoulder and encircled her waist with one arm. “This is how your husband died.” He nuzzled her hair. “Satisfying the desires of his lusty, demanding wife.”
Her soft chuckle tickled his shoulder. “No, though he swore more than once I was trying to kill him with my enthusiasm.”
Ballard thanked those newly generous gods for having him meet Louvaen after she was widowed, otherwise he would have challenged Thomas for her. “He was a fortunate man.”
She tangled her fingers with his. “I was a fortunate wife. Thomas was exceptional. A man who dealt with the dead but embraced life with great joy. He taught me to laugh.”
“You still grieve him?” How could she not? Every word she spoke about her husband resonated with admiration.
“I do, though the pain lessens with each year.” She turned in Ballard’s arms, and in her features lingered an old sorrow. “He died of the plague.”
Ballard winced, recalling the mockery Ambrose, Gavin, and he had made about the nature of her husband’s demise, some directly to her. She’d either responded with a sharp insult or a smiling negation. Death came to everyone. Even he and Gavin, with their lifespans stretched unnaturally long by the curse, would die—either by each other’s hand or Ambrose’s mercy. Sometimes joking about it kept the fear of death at bay. No one joked about plague. “I’m sorry, Louvaen. Had we known—”
She pressed a finger against his lips to halt his apology. “I bear no ill will and neither would Thomas. To be honest, he’d laugh at your conjectures and offer a few of his own.” She grinned. “Several townsmen swore when we married that he’d be dead in a week; scolded to death or knifed in his sleep.”
He captured her hand and kissed her palm. “Ah, more fortitude than sense.”
She arched an eyebrow. “You’re just as guilty of that charge. You bedded me.”
“Considering that I’ve had you once days ago and been at your mercy twice today, I think it’s safe to say you bedded me, Mistress Duenda.”
They exchanged grins and slipped into a contented silence. He nearly groaned when Louvaen ruined the moment by asking “Do you miss your wife?”
Did he miss her? Only during those times when he retreated to his cell in the storerooms and rode out the flux in a fit of convulsions and agony that made his eyes bug out and his voice go hoarse from screaming. Oh, he missed fair Isabeau then, prayed for the ability to roll back time. He’d negate contracts, turn her over to Cederic with a smile, and declare no two people deserved each other more; that or kill them both and bury their bodies far from his demesne.
“No, ours was an arranged marriage over lands. There was no affection between us.” An understatement of colossal proportions, especially in light of the time he shared with Louvaen. Isabeau had lain in his bed colder than one of Duenda’s corpses and oozing revulsion for him thick as melted tallow. It had taken all of Ballard’s effort to work up an erection and bed his wife. He could give lessons to Louvaen’s husband on fortitude. “I didn’t wish for her death, but I didn’t sorrow when she died.”
“I think that is something to sorrow in itself.”
If she only knew. He shook his head to rid himself of darker thoughts. Louvaen’s lips were soft under his as he kissed her. “This isn’t how I want to spend tonight with you—talking of dead husbands and dead wives.” He wanted many nights with her like this. “And considering you literally just sucked the life out of me, I’m about to either die or fall asleep on top of you.”
Louvaen countered his statement with a wide yawn. She turned her back to him once more and settled into the curve of his body, lifting the covers for him to join her. “You promised you’d warm me if I slept in your bed, and these blasted cold sheets aren’t going to warm themselves.”
He did as she ordered, uttering a contented sigh when she pressed against him skin to skin. His flesh burned hot, and he longed for the caress of the frigid air on his limbs, but it was a small price to pay to have Louvaen in his arms. He kissed the fragile skin at her temple, heard her mutter a sleepy “Good night,” and fell asleep soon after.
Dawn came far too early for his liking. He awoke at her first stirring. Sometime in the night he’d rolled away from her and thrown off the blankets. She’d promptly stolen them. The only part of her visible was the crown of her head at the top of the cocoon she’d fashioned. He gathered her into his arms. “Are you awake, termagant?” His breath puffed out in a warm cloud that dissipated in the cold air.
A muffled “Maybe,” drifted from the swaddling. “What hour is it?”
“Sunrise.”
Quick reflexes saved him from taking an elbow to the face as Louvaen exploded out of the covers, fell through the bed curtains and onto the floor with a thud. Ballard swung out of the bed in time to watch her sprint across the chamber and snatch her shift up from the floor where he’d dropped it the night before. He stood in front of her, eyebrows arched, as she struggled to pull the garment on, hopping up and down and growling in frustration as she tried to squeeze her head through one of the armholes.
“Louvaen,” he barked, losing patience.
“What?” she snapped back, arms bent at odd angles as she battled with the shift.
He clutched her shoulders. “Hold still,” he commanded. She did as he ordered, feet shuffling impatiently as he adjusted the shift. It slipped over her head to cover her body.
She blinked at him and scraped wispy clouds of tangled hair away from her face. “Thank you.” She glanced past him. “I need my robe.”
He touched her elbow as she sidled around him. She’d surprised him with her reaction to the news it was dawn, as if she feared the weak light leaking through the slats at the window. “So eager to leave me?”
Louvaen paused, her eyes almost silvery in the dim light. Her gaze caressed him, lingering on his morning erection. Ballard exhaled a surprised “umpf” when she launched herself at him hard enough to rock him back on his heels. His hands slid across her back to hold her close and keep his balance. She kissed him as if starved, her tongue sliding between his lips to ravish his mouth and demand the same response from him. He was only too happy to oblige.
She ended their kiss on a shuddering breath and pressed her palms against the sides of his face. “Lackwit.” She admonished him in a thin voice. “If I had the time, I’d be on my knees right this moment to give you a proper good morning.” She grinned at his groan and wrestled out of his embrace to retrieve her robe. “Cinnia sleeps like the dead but wakes with the clerics. I don’t need her catching me sneaking out of your chambers at daybreak.”
Ballard raked a hand through his hair. “Don’t tell me the girl doesn’t know you’ve rumpled the sheets a time or two in your life. That isn’t innocent; it’s thick.”
She laughed. “If she were stupid, I wouldn’t have to worry about this at all. Cinnia is; however, as clever as she is beautiful. And stubborn. I’m having a difficult time as it is convincing her to resist Gavin’s charms until she’s wedded. Coming from the mouth of a hypocrite, it will be impossible.”
He resisted the urge to embrace her—afraid he might not let her go—and settled for petting her untamed hair. “The rules for a widow are far different from those for a maiden.”
Louvaen sighed and leaned into his caress for a moment. “We both know that, and so does she actually, but she’ll use any reason she can find to weaken my argument. I’ll still win, but I’d rather not make it harder on myself.”
She gave him a final peck on the cheek before dashing out of his bedchamber. He listened to her light steps as she crossed the solar, then the stealthy creak of the door as she slipped into the corridor. “Virgins,” Ballard muttered to himself as he sauntered to the garderobe. “Troublesome, useless creatures.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ballard went about his morning preparations in a much more leisurely fashion than Louvaen, devoting a few minutes to scraping the rough stubble off his face and tying his hair back before traipsing downstairs to break his fast.
Breakfast was a haphazard affair with Magda glaring at him and Gavin while they sopped bread in their ale. “Don’t let anyone rush you two.” She clutched her broom as if it were a mace. “It isn’t as if I need the room and that table to prepare for this evening.” Ballard wondered who she’d whack first.
Gavin eyed her warily, gobbled his bread and gulped down the ale. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked to his father. “If you act as my striker, we can get that length of pulley chain repaired and replaced on the bridge by early afternoon.”
Ballard nodded. “I’ll meet you in the smithy. He hid a smile behind his cup as his son rose, edged past Magda and fled the kitchen.
“Six gone, one to go.” The housekeeper set the broom aside and cleared Gavin’s place.
Ballard settled in his chair, stretched out his legs and ignored Magda’s disapproving frown. “Chased all the rest off before they could eat?”
She gave an unapologetic sniff. “Only you two took your time getting to the table. The others ate and went about their tasks before you came down the stairs.”
He rolled his eyes. Magda made it sound as if he’d sauntered in at midday after a morning spent lolling in bed. A pleasant thought, and an indulgence he would have embraced if Louvaen hadn’t shot out of his chambers at the crack of dawn like her hair was on fire. “Where are the lovely sisters?”
“Cinnia’s bower for now, up to who knows what. She promised she’d be down in an hour to help me make pies. Your shrew is to meet Ambrose in the great hall later to decorate for Modrnicht.”
Ballard spat the mouthful of ale he’d just taken back into his goblet. “Is that wise?”
Magda shrugged and paused in her sweeping to lean, smirking, on her broom. “Probably not, but entertaining. We’d have a true Modrnicht then—one which follows the old ways and offers sacrifice—because one is bound to kill the other before we ever sit down to the feasting.”
Despite Magda’s dire prediction and her penchant for bloodshed that equaled Louvaen’s, no one tried to kill anyone else during the hectic preparations for Modrnicht. For Ballard, the day was like any other at Ketach Tor. He helped Gavin in the smithy for hours, working the bellows to keep the forge hot and pounding metal until the tinnient chorus of hammers rang in his ears long after they’d smothered the fire and taken the newly forged link to repair the bridge. They then set to work repairing the roof of a storage building that had caved in from the weight of accumulated snow. The anemic sun sat low on the horizon by the time they finished and made for the kitchens.
When evening fell, he went downstairs to join the festivities. He’d dressed with care, outfitted in a velvet cotte the color of Louvaen’s eyes, and a sword belt tooled with decorative scrollwork and inlaid at intervals with ruby cabochons. Even his boots were free of caked mud and polished to a rich sheen. Such finery was wasted on him, he thought. No amount of costly velvet or polished gemstones could overcome his disfigurements, but he’d succumbed to vanity anyway in the hopes Louvaen might admire him.
The head table, unused for centuries, sat in the middle of the hall. Its great size once accommodated as many as fifty people at dinner. Ballard recalled the times he’d hosted banquets when King Waleran’s nomadic court had taken up residence at Ketach Tor for weeks. Keeping so many people fed had decimated his larder, thinned his hunting grounds and put a sizeable dent in his coffers. While he was loyal to his king, Ballard had celebrated when the court left his castle for another fiefdom and another nobleman to impoverish.
Magda had set only one end of the table. A white tablecloth covered the surface and was dressed with embroidered napkins and lit beeswax candles set in silver holders. Silver plates shimmered under the candlelight and shared space with several platters of food and pewter pitchers filled with spiced wine and sweet milk. Cushions covered the benches, and a dantesca chair occupied the space where the castle lord sat. A small heap of bundles wrapped in silk, linen and wool sat to the side—gifts to the women for Modrnicht.
The hall dripped with green garland swagged along the walls. Beribboned oak galls and rowan berries nestled within the branches, and his nose twitched at the cool scents of evergreen and dried artemisia. The greenery glowed with soft light—a trick no doubt employed by Ambrose—that added to the hall’s warm ambience.
Ambrose joined him by the fire, garbed in fine robes of brown and amber silk. He handed Ballard a goblet of wine and tapped his in a wordless toast. He stared at the mezzanine between the stairs. “I’ve learned the sisters abducted Magda, bound her hand and foot and are right now forcing her into a silk bodice and tying ribbons in her hair. Gavin’s gone up there to rescue her.”
Ballard chuffed in disbelief. “I’d sooner believe the sun rose at midnight or that ram you wethered last week grew a replacement pair of bollocks.” He scrutinized his sorcerer for a moment. “Methinks you’d very much like to see your woman in velvet and ribbons.”
Ambrose’s nonchalant shrug didn’t fool Ballard for an instant. “It would be a change from the usual apron and wool frock. I don’t think Magda owns a hair ribb...” He trailed off, and Ballard followed his gaze to the second floor.
The women of his household had flocked to the top of the stairs, laughing and waving to the two men who watched them from the hall. Gavin appeared behind them, a richly dressed gander surrounded by an equally bright-feathered flock of geese. He bowed over Cinnia’s hand and led her down the stairwell first. Cinnia wore a gown of the deepest green that hugged her curves and swept into an elegant train that rippled behind her as she descended the stairs on Gavin’s arm. Her fair hair shimmered in Ambrose’s spelled lighting, and as always Ballard had to look away from such sublime beauty.
He turned his attention to Magda, Joan and Clarimond. Next to Cinnia all three faded, but he nodded in approval at their gowns of blue, yellow and rust, their hair bound in intricate braids or covered in gossamer veils. Ballard glanced at Ambrose who stared agog at a blushing Magda. He reached out and nudged the sorcerer’s mouth closed. “Good thing we aren’t in midge season, Ambrose.”
Ballard returned his gaze to the group and settled on Louvaen. He inhaled sharply, as stunned by the sight of her as he had been by Cinnia, except he didn’t look away. Dressed in a gown the color of new blood, she raised the front hem to clear her feet and scowled. The fabric fell in sinuous folds over her body, hinting at the long line of her legs and lending her pale skin a pearlescent luster. She’d curled her hair and swept it back from her forehead, emphasizing the arch of her eyebrows and high swoop of her cheekbones. She turned to twitch her train to the side, and Ballard mewled behind clenched teeth at the sight of her elegant back, bared to just below the shoulder blades and partially concealed by her long curls.
Merciful gods,
he prayed silently.
Please let the red sovereign be gone.
A hard shove against his shoulder jerked him out of his pleading reverie, and he turned to scowl at a smug Ambrose.
“Good thing we aren’t in the midst of battle,
dominus
.”
Ballard didn’t answer and left Ambrose to follow him as he crossed the room to meet Gavin’s entourage at the bottom of the stairs. He bowed low before each of the women, even Clarimond and Joan who blushed and giggled at the sight of their lord’s deference. Louvaen’s gaze met his and stayed as she passed him on the way to the table. A faint smile curved the corners of her mouth, growing deeper as his hand reached out to skim the folds of her gown. Desire, hot as her gaze, swamped him, and he barely stopped himself from yanking her into his arms.
They gathered together while Ambrose poured a round of spiced wine or sweet milk and leered at Magda’s modest cleavage. Toasts were exchanged as were blessings for good health, bountiful harvest and peaceful days. Ballard claimed a space next to Louvaen and spoke low enough that only she heard him. “It’s fortunate I’m a man of fortitude and sense, Mistress Duenda, because you test both. The next time you appear in my hall garbed like that, I will hoist you onto the table and take you amidst the plates of apricots.”
Louvaen kept her eyes on Gavin and Cinnia as the two would-be lovers ogled each other. She gave no indication his words affected her except for a stranglehold on the stem of her goblet and a voice gone husky. “That promises to be sticky, my lord—and delightful.”
He had his hand on her elbow with the intention of marching her up the stairs to his chamber, Modrnicht and Cinnia’s delicate sensibilities be damned when Magda destroyed that plan. She clapped her hands and gestured imperiously for everyone to sit and begin the feast. “We didn’t work like dogs all day for this to go uneaten. Take your places. No different from the kitchen mind, just more to clean afterwards.”
Ballard growled softly, and this time Louvaen cut him an arch glance. “The night’s young, Ballard, and my body is mine again. If you wish, I’ll bring the apricots myself.” She smiled then and left him to take her place on the bench by her sister.
They started with dishes of dried apples and pears drizzled in honey, capon pies, potages of mutton stewed with potatoes and carrots and salted fish simmered in a saffron broth. Platters of roasted goose followed, along with a pork loin slathered in a sauce of almond milk and butter. Dragees of cheese wedges and spiced lumps of sugar completed the meal, and the wine flowed as freely as the conversation. As was his wont, Ballard remained quiet through the feast and concentrated on not being too obvious in admiring Louvaen. Magda’s culinary masterpieces were wasted on him. He might as well have been chewing on one of his boots for all the attention he paid the food. Louvaen sparred with Ambrose, laughed at Magda’s acerbic jokes and licked honey off her fingers in a way that had Ballard gripping his fork so hard, he bent the metal. He tugged at the high collar of his cotte and prayed dinner would end soon.
Afterward, they grouped before the hearth, and Magda brought forth a small log cut from an ancient oak tree. She placed the piece of wood on a table Ambrose had moved in front of the fire. A knife and stack of kerchiefs bleached white as milk joined the log. As the eldest woman in the room, Magda held the honor of initiating tribute to the goddesses and the female ancestors of their small group. She lifted the knife and slashed a shallow cut into the center of her palm. Blood dripped through her clenched fist onto the log where it tracked tiny rills across the bark’s ridges. She wiped the blade and passed it to Ambrose who did the same. The rest followed suit until the top of the log glistened red in the candlelight.
Magda intoned her salutation in a voice pitched low and canted. “We honor the all-Mothers; Sigel of the Sun, Erce of Earth, Fulla of the Moon, Helith of the Stag, and Nerthus of Fertility.” She squeezed her hand a second time, and more blood dripped onto the log. “For Ilene of Fallaharen who bore me and raised me well.”
She stepped aside as Ambrose went next, followed by Clarimond. Both paid respect to Magda who gazed lovingly at her lover and her daughter. Joan declined when her turn came and remained where she stood, her gaze shuttered. Ballard caught Louvaen’s puzzled expression. He whispered in her ear. “Orphaned as a babe. She never knew her mother.” Compassion softened Louvaen’s features.
Cinnia went next. “To our mother, Abigail Hallis, who sang me to sleep, dried my tears and loved me.” She clenched her fist and gave Louvaen a watery smile.
Louvaen stepped forward and allowed several fat drops of blood to hit the log before she relaxed her hand. “To our mother, Abigail Hallis, who took up a nonborn child and loved me as her own.”
Ballard frowned when Ambrose went rigid. His gaze snapped to Ballard, and his mouth compressed against his teeth in an obvious bid not to blurt out whatever hovered on his lips. Louvaen continued her venerations.
“To Gullveig who gave me life and died for the effort. I hope I’ve made you proud.”
The sorcerer looked as if he’d burst into flame if he stayed silent any longer. His gaze pleaded for an audience. Distracted by Ambrose’s strange behavior, Ballard bled onto the log and venerated his mother as well as his father’s gentle-spirited leman. If he didn’t fear rousing Isabeau’s enraged spirit, he’d thank her as well; she’d given him Gavin. Gavin obviously thought as he did. Like Joan, he shook his head and stepped away from the log. This time Cinnia wore a puzzled look. Louvaen’s shrewd gaze rested first on Gavin and then on Ballard, silently questioning why neither of them had honored Isabeau’s name.
