He Calls Her Jasmine (8 page)

“Henry’s messenger arrived only yesterday. Sir Tomas was about to ride out this morning as you rode through Harrow’s gates to raise troops from Hedgewick and my other holdings.”

Rolfe thought of Jasmine, her hopes of regaining her lost memory, and despaired as to what the coming battle might do to her fragile mental balance. “I would not tell her who we go to fight.”

“‘Twill be a difficult secret to keep, I think. Even now Brianna has likely told her your wedding celebration comes on the eve of a great battle.”

“There. You will wear this for your wedding.” Lady Brianna pulled an undergown of shimmering gold silk from a coffer by the window. “I like it not on me, but with your vibrant coloring, it will be beautiful.”

“Thank you.” Jasmine doubted any garment would be less than fetching on the countess, whose unusually short blond curls framed a classically beautiful face. Even now, so soon after she’d given birth, her waist seemed small enough for her lord husband to span it with his two hands. “I will wear it gladly. I fear Hedgewick’s attics provided little in the way of ladies’ garb.”

“It matters not. I was dragged to the altar to wed with Giles, wearing boys’ clothes, with soot and tar smeared in my hair and on my face and hands. You see, I tried desperately to escape him. Now I thank the saints I did not.”

The way Brianna’s expression softened told Jasmine the match that had begun by force had become a love match. Having seen Lord Giles, who looked much like Rolfe only sterner, Jasmine had no problem imagining Brianna having fallen quickly in love.

“Is this the tunic you were seeking, my lady?”

Brianna took a practically transparent garment from the hands of a man—the biggest, most unusual-looking man Jasmine had ever seen. She tried without success to drag her gaze from his shining scalp, practically beardless face and…his naked chest and the colorful open vest he wore over ballooning pants. He reminded her of some of the erotic pictures in Rolfe’s book.

“Thank you,” Brianna murmured. “Jasmine, this is Arnaud. He is my right hand when my lord Giles must be about on the king’s business. His services this night will be my gift to you and Rolfe. Go, Arnaud, tell my husband and brother the bride will be ready soon.”

His services? Surely Arnaud could not be the eunuch of whom Rolfe had spoken… “This is too fine, my lady. I cannot—”

“Silence. You wed with my beloved brother-by-marriage. Naught is too fine a gift to celebrate his good fortune.”

Confused, for she brought naught but herself to
Rolfe
, Jasmine stood silent while Brianna and two serving women fussed over her hair and fought over which of the fine girdles
Rolfe
had selected as her bride-gifts looked better with the shimmering sunburst of
sarcinet
and the gold
undergown
beneath it.

The picture book image of a woman and her lover, attended by a huge, exotic man who was not a man, made Jasmine wonder. The possibilities intrigued her. Did Arnaud pleasure Brianna when Lord Giles was off fighting the king’s battles? Did he join the two of them to re-enact the scenes that had fascinated her so? She tried to control the lust that had her nipples tingling and her honey flowing slickly down her thigh, but the erotic images wouldn’t go away.

“I think the rubies,” Brianna said decisively, crisscrossing the long rope of gold chain interspersed with brilliant faceted stones. “We will sew you another gown that does justice to the sapphires and diamonds Rolfe also gave you as bride-gifts. Come, let us get you wed, so that you and my brother may enjoy the pleasures of the marriage bed for a few hours ere he rides out again on the king’s business.”

An heiress. The only surviving child of an outlawed earl he was bound to set out to fight on the morning after wedding her. A marriage prize too rich to aspire to, yet he was waiting here in Harrow’s great hall in all his finery to take her before God and his lord brother’s household.

Rolfe straightened the red velvet tabard that bore his family’s device worked in gold thread and glittering gemstones. He adjusted the jeweled belt that held his dress sword in a jeweled scabbard. In his sweating hand he clutched the ruby-encrusted gold ring he’d soon place on Jasmine’s small hand.

Perhaps if he fought valiantly and well, Henry would ignore the fact he’d wed the only living child of the Earl of Summerfield without royal consent, and let him live.

Mayhap, if he distracted himself with the activity around him, he could get his mind off the probable consequences of listening to his cock and his heart instead of his brain. He scanned the room, finding his two knights lifting their tankards with some of Giles’s men while servants scurried about with food and drink they’d hurriedly prepared for a wedding feast.

And Giles, richly-garbed as befitted a belted earl in black velvet with the deVere device worked across his chest in diamonds and silver. He strode across the hall to join Rolfe. “They come now,” Giles said, his gaze leading Rolfe’s to the staircase that led to the Lord’s Tower.

When Rolfe saw Jasmine his doubts fled. He’d do anything, risk anything, to keep this exquisite creature for his own. She wore her raven hair loose, crowned with a wreath of herbs and flowers, her golden gown belted with the ruby girdle he’d brought back from the East…and a knowing, very unvirginal smile lit her beautiful face when she saw him.

They made their vows and drank the toasts, broke bread and fed each other the tenderest morsels from the plate they shared. They laughed at the antics of traveling minstrels…danced…partook of the honey cake the cook had hurriedly prepared to celebrate their nuptials.

“We will prepare your bride for you, my brother,” Brianna told Rolfe before spiriting Jasmine up the stairs.

Surprised, for he’d expected no bedding ceremony, Rolfe turned to Giles. “All know we anticipated our vows. I presented the bloodied sheet to your priest, as proof that Jasmine might already carry my son.”

“The bedding is Brianna’s gift to you. She lends you Arnaud this night.”

Rolfe’s cock swelled in his chausses. “Arnaud minds not?”

“Would you mind servicing a woman as fair as your bride?” Giles shook his head, as though Rolfe had taken leave of his senses.

“Nay.” Tonight, his wedding night, seemed far removed from the villa Giles had captured near Constantinople. And he, very different from the frightened, injured boy his brother and the houris in the seraglio had tried to comfort after the death of his captors. “You showed me then that giving a woman pleasure could bring almost as great satisfaction as receiving it. I’ve not forgotten that day. Or the houri who let me lick her cunt and bring her to pleasure with a great glass dildo. ‘Tis grateful I am that I use these lessons now to enhance the pleasures I bring my lady with my cock.”

Giles laughed. “How does your Jasmine like the embellishments you wear in it?”

“She seems fond indeed of that jewelry. I thought perhaps to give her some of her own.” The idea of putting his mark permanently on the parts of Jasmine that now belonged only to him made Rolfe’s balls tighten and his cock grow stiff. “How long will it take for Arnaud to ready my lady?” he asked.

“I gave him the time it took me to finish a bottle of her father’s finest wine and wash away the grime of battle from my body. Your bride, however, does not require the effort it took Arnaud to rid Brianna of the tar and soot she attempted to use as a disguise—and you need not a thorough scrubbing. We’ll share another bottle of wine ere I take you to her.”

Brianna and her ladies divested Jasmine of her bridal finery, folding it neatly and laying it atop the coffer of clothing and jewels Rolfe had brought from Hedgewick. She stood, her loose hair arranged to veil her nakedness, expecting at any moment for Rolfe to be propelled into the herb-laden bedchamber by his brother and those of the knights and men at arms who were sober enough to climb the steep, curved stairs.

Instead, Arnaud came in. And the ladies in waiting departed. “Arnaud will ready you for your husband.” Brianna poured two goblets full of rich-smelling red wine and handed one to Jasmine. “His services this night are my gifts to you and Rolfe.”

“Lie on the bed, my lady,” the giant ordered, his voice soft yet rumbling, as if it came from deep in his barrel chest.

Jasmine hesitated. Though ‘twas titillating to imagine being attended by two lovers, she was loath to violate a vow made before God. The priest’s solemn words reverberated in her head.

…keep yourself only unto him, until death do you part.

“Go on, little sister. ‘Tis no sacrilege. Arnaud, tell Rolfe’s bride you mean him no dishonor. That your intent is to bring him greater pleasure on his wedding night. I leave you now. Rolfe will join you shortly.”

The giant took a step toward her and clasped both of her hands. “Feel my hands, my lady. They are as soft and smooth as yours. I have no beard, no warrior’s hard body. Most important to your lord husband, I have no cock or balls. My only road to pleasure is to bring satisfaction to my mistress.” Exerting gentle pressure on her hands, he dragged them to his empty crotch. “Tonight it pleases her for me to pleasure you in the ways of the infidel. Lie down, and I will prepare you to accept Lord Rolfe’s great sword.”

Sexual excitement warred with fear. Jasmine lay near the edge of the bed upon a linen towel that had been left there. Velvet hangings at the foot of the bed obscured her view of the door. A breeze carried the sweet, musky scent from a hundred glowing candles—and a foreign, pungent but not altogether unpleasant smell—to her nostrils, making her fight to keep from sneezing.

That scent intensified when the giant eunuch sat beside her and began anointing her with a cool, thick substance. Her arms…calves…thighs…her cunt…

“What do you do?” she asked, alarmed at the tingling sensation that followed his touch.

“I make your skin smooth for your lord’s pleasure, my lady Jasmine. While the paste works, I will pleasure you with these.” He held up a stiff feather from a falcon’s wing, a pair of ben-wei balls, and a string of large round pearls like the ones Rolfe had inserted in her cunt after their first mating.

Jasmine felt her honey begin to flow when Arnaud very gently spread her pussy lips and slipped the mercury-filled balls inside. Her arousal intensified with the motion he set off by laying his big hand on her belly and rotating it in a lazy circle. His other hand went to her anus, already sopping with her own juice, and she felt him inserting the pearls, one by one, past the tight opening and into her sensitive rear passage.

“Oh, yesss,” she purred when he began stroking her slick, wet slit with the tip of the feather she’d seen. She lifted her hips, setting the balls in motion inside her cunt. ‘Twas all she could do to suppress a scream.

Arnaud deserted her quim and turned his attention to her puckered nipples. “I need my husband now!”

“Not yet, my lady. I will remove the paste first.” As though it pained him to do it, he withdrew the ben-wei balls, bending to lick the juices off her cunt before he lifted his head and began bathing her with a warm, wet sponge.

He had her so hot, she thought she’d die.

When he finished he slid the towel from beneath her, leaving her bare skin in contact with fine, soft sheets. Taking her hand, he brought it to her cunt. “Stroke your satiny channel. Feel how soft and smooth you are, my lady. ‘Twill increase your pleasure, and Lord Rolfe’s.” He caught the end of the string of pearls in his hand and laid them in hers. “Withdraw them. Slowly. One at a time. ‘Tis another means of giving pleasure to yourself when your lord must leave you on the king’s business.”

Impossibly, painfully aroused, Jasmine tugged gently, popping the pearls out of her body slowly, deliberately, as the eunuch instructed. She’d expected release, but her agitation only increased. She reached out for Arnaud even as she screamed for her husband, but he had moved out of her reach.

A creaking hinge and a sudden burst of a breeze hailed Rolfe’s arrival. Not caring that his brother and a dozen drunken knights gawked at her unclothed body, Jasmine held out her arms to her magnificent, heavily aroused and equally naked husband whose jeweled cock rose proudly from its nest of soft dark hair. The ribald suggestions the men shouted at him served to make her honey flow more copiously, its journey down her slit made more erotic by the contact with her newly bared skin.

The door soon slammed, leaving her alone with Rolfe—and Brianna’s giant eunuch.

“Your bride eagerly awaits you, my lord Rolfe,” Arnaud said, his demeanor as calm as if he had not just touched every inch of Rolfe’s wife’s naked body, aroused her to such a fever pitch that she’d begged him for release. “Do you wish me to leave?”

“No. I wish for you to stay and help me give my lady pleasure. “‘Tis her fantasy to be fucked by two men at once, and I’d see it fulfilled. Come, join us in my marriage bed and together we shall make her most erotic dreams come true.”

Jasmine watched, aghast yet incredibly aroused, as the eunuch removed his garments and strapped a leather harness about his empty, hairless loins. A harness that held a beautiful blue blown-glass dildo—not large, as she assumed his own manhood must once have been—but well shaped and gently curving toward his slightly rounded belly.

While Arnaud readied himself, Rolfe sat cross-legged on the bed and stroked Jasmine’s satiny channel, dipping two fingers into her sopping cunt and taking her slick, hot honey to his lips. Arnaud soon stretched out at her other side and began anointing her breasts and belly with oil made from precious herbs and spices.

Her own ragged breathing filled the silence, its pace and volume increasing along with Rolfe’s as her lust blossomed, threatening to overtake her ere she could savor erotic sensations she’d experienced before only in her fantasies. “Fuck me now, my lord husband,” she begged, her desire already at a fever pitch.

“In good time, sweeting. Spread yourself for me.” Rolfe’s voice sounded unsteady, as though passion had overcome him, too. He held himself still, though, the only motion in his body the pulsating of his mighty rod against her hip.