He Calls Her Jasmine (9 page)
“I would pay proper homage to my lady,” he told her when she’d done as he bid. Then he bent his head and took her in his mouth. The velvet stroke of his tongue on her labia drove her wild, and his hot breath bathed her channel and made her cunt weep to be filled with his throbbing cock that even now pulsated against her knee.
When Rolfe turned her to face him on her side, she went willingly, propping her leg behind his head to facilitate his access. She felt Arnaud’s large hands spreading her arse, then circling her anus the way he had before inserting the pearls. Now, though, it wasn’t a pearl he worked beyond that tough barrier but something larger. The false cock she’d watched him strap on. It was blunt, and slick with the same oil he’d used to anoint her tingling nipples.
She felt herself opening, like a rosebud, as the eunuch worked his dildo deeper into her rear passage while Rolfe kept tonguing her cunt. Arnaud’s soft hands, so different from Rolfe’s callused ones yet strangely sensual, massaged her breasts, making her nipples grow harder and longer.
Full. But not full enough. Jasmine wanted Rolfe’s huge cock stuffing her cunt, his talented mouth suckling at her breasts…plundering her own mouth while he fucked her cunt and Arnaud pleasured her arse.
“My lord, I die,” she said, whimpering at the sensual overload even as she wanted more. “Fuck me. Put your hard, hot cock in my cunt and help me find release.”
He moved quickly, sliding up her body and filling her. As if they’d done it a hundred times before, he and Arnaud set up a rocking rhythm, stretching and filling her, then retreating only to fill her again. Sandwiched between their large bodies, she was bombarded from all sides with erotic sensations.
She felt full…stretched. The two cocks moving in and out, separated by the thin wall that separated her
cunt
and her
arse
, felt incredible. Her juices flowed, hot and slick, as one cock plunged in and the other withdrew. Ebb and flow…only the flow didn’t stop.
Rolfe’s mouth felt hot on her breasts that were already tingling from Arnaud’s gentle touch. His teeth grazed her tender nipples as he latched on and began to suckle. The eunuch stroked the undercurve of her breasts while he settled his cool lips at the back of her neck and sucked at the sensitive spot just below her hairline.
Every cell in Jasmine’s body threatened to explode. When Rolfe took her mouth and filled it with his tongue, plunging it in and out in tandem with the thrusts below, her cunt convulsed around him, capturing his cock and wringing out his seed while her arse clenched and shuddered around the false cock there. Rolfe was still spurting his hot life into her when the most intense climax of her life left her limp and exhausted.
“Never say I don’t fulfill your every fantasy, sweeting,” Rolfe told Jasmine the following morning. “I will miss you whilst we do King Henry’s bidding.”
The day had broken warm and dry. A gentle breeze caught a forelock of Rolfe’s sable hair and tossed it back against his chain mail hood as they hurried across the bailey toward the horses. Jasmine brushed a speck of dust from the ruby-red silk tunic she wore over a gray linen undergown.
‘Twas a perfect day but for the troubled look on her husband’s face—and the implication inherent in the glittering plate armor he and what seemed to be an army of knights had donned atop chain mail. Sunlight reflected off polished shields and deadly tips of lances affixed to each destrier’s heavy saddle.
She shuddered when she noticed the deadly-looking mace that hung from Rolfe’s sword belt along with a broadsword in its tooled leather scabbard. Surely God would not have given him to her, only to take him away in battle. “What is this battle you go to join?” she asked as he set his helmet onto his head.
He raised the nasal and met her gaze. “‘Tis King Henry’s fight against the robber barons of the North. He bids us join the siege. Keep safe, my love. We will return ere long.”
Jasmine tried to focus on Rolfe’s parting words, but foremost in her mind over the coming weeks was a growing premonition that some ill would befall her bridegroom and she would be left adrift to bear his son—a woman without a past and without resources other than the charity of her husband’s family.
Usually pristine streams that crisscrossed Summerfield ran red with blood, and bodies lay strewn across the bailey and in the great hall. Rolfe stood, his bloody sword still drawn, before a fireplace large enough to accommodate the reclining length of two large men. The fireplace Jasmine had recalled so vividly.
His bloodlust drained, leaving him breathing in the acrid, metallic smell of his enemies’ lifeblood. He wondered how long ‘twould be ere his own life would be forfeit.
“A fine prize this will be for one of King Henry’s favorites,” commented a knight from the army of one of the marcher lords. “A great estate and Earl William’s buxom daughter. I warrant she’ll be glad enough to be freed from her cloister.”
Cloister? Had he wed with a Bride of Christ? “The earl sent his only daughter to a nunnery?” he asked, recalling Jasmine’s dream—and her fear that she’d been a holy nun.
“Yes. Though I never met a lady less suited for the religious life. Earl William vowed to give her to the Church if God spared his heir, and when the boy rallied briefly, he packed Lady Joan off to a cloister in the Midlands. Useless, though. Young William succumbed to his injuries a fortnight after she was gone.”
“Know you which convent?”
“St. Benedict’s. The king has sent a troop of his men riding hell for leather, hoping to intervene ere she takes binding vows. It surprises me that you haven’t heard—Henry ordered her taken to
She’s already there. Swelling with my seed
. A messenger had brought that news to him and Giles a few days ago. “I had not heard.”
Earl William lay at the top of the tower stair, a broadsword still clutched in his lifeless hands. Rolfe stared down at him, seeing instead his bride’s fair face. How could this man have been so evil as to treat his own flesh as a human sacrifice? He wished his father by marriage yet lived so he might have the pleasure of skewering him.
“My lord?”
Rolfe looked up into the frightened eyes of a serving woman. “You need not fear. We do not harm women or children.” He wiped his sword on his surcoat before returning it to its scabbard. “Are there more of you abovestairs?”
“A few. My lord, what will happen to us now that
he
is dead?”
“Your lady will return with her husband.” The man King Henry chooses for her as soon as my body is as cold as that of her sire.
The woman’s eyes widened. “But Earl William sent her to be a nun.”
“That may be, but your lady is no nun.” Despite his exhaustion, Rolfe felt his cock stir at the thought of Jasmine—Joan—and her definitely un-nunlike qualities in his bed. “Go now. Tell those who cower in fear that we will not hurt those who come in peace. There are dead who need a Christian burial.”
“You what?” King Henry roared that evening, after the bodies had been removed from the hall and a fire burned brightly in the great fireplace of Summerfield.
“I married the woman I called Jasmine. I know her now to be Lady Joan, Earl William’s daughter. Even now she quickens with my son.”
His fists clenched, the king stared down at Rolfe. “Had you not fought valiantly for me, did I not owe my life to your lord brother, you would lie dead at my feet. As it is, you may forfeit your life soon enough. Tell me, how did you come upon this woman you call Jasmine?”
“On the way back to Hedgewick, which I hold in my lord brother’s name, I heard a disturbance along the road. A band of brigands were about to ravish a lone woman when I dispatched them all to hell. When the woman regained consciousness, she knew nothing of who she was or from whence she came.” Rolfe’s knees hurt from kneeling on the cold stone floor, but he dared not ask to stand.
“So you kept her for your carnal games?” Henry’s voice dripped sarcasm.
“Yes, sire.”
“You did not think that she might have come from a cloister a few kilometers away from where you found her?”
“Nay. My lord, she wore no veil. Her hair hadn’t been cut. And, no disrespect intended for I love my wife dearly, she acted like no nun I’ve ever encountered.”
The king questioned Rolfe further, then bade him rise. “Can you tell me honestly you had no idea of your wife’s true identity when you wed with her?”
“Nay. Though I wasn’t certain until I saw yon fireplace that my lady had described, I suspected she might be the demoiselle of Summerfield. Though I knew I might be put to death for my audacity should that prove true, I loved her enough that I wished to wed with her and ensure our son’s legitimacy.”
Henry sat, motioning for Rolfe to join him on the settee. “I must think on this. On the one hand, I owe you as well as your brother gratitude for your strength in arms. On the other, you have made it difficult for me to reward a more worthy, stronger knight with Summerfield and its heiress while you yet live. How many years have you?” he asked, suddenly changing the subject.
“Four and twenty, sire.”
“When did you earn your spurs?”
“Eight years ago. During the battle where my lord brother took a Welsh arrow meant for you.”
“‘Tis said you’re a swordsman without equal. And that you are lethal with your lance. But I’ve heard naught of your ability to manage an estate or mete out judgment to those who serve you.”
Rolfe took heart at the possibility that Henry was considering letting him live—not making Jasmine a widow ere she brought forth his son. “My lord brother will tell you I’ve whipped Hedgewick into shape. ‘Twas a hotbed of rebellion, with its serfs an undisciplined lot, when Giles put me in command. I know ‘tis naught compared with Harrow…”
“Or Summerfield,” Henry commented. “The Scots continually harass the borders, and even now after I’ve restored order, the harsh life seems to foment disputes among the northern barons. I’d thought to replace Earl William with an older, more experienced knight.”
The king raked Rolfe with a steely gaze. “Think you that you could control the North in my name?”
“Yes, sire.”
“Then we shall test your mettle. My messengers will escort your lady home. I will call a tourney. If you defeat the challenges I warrant will be made by nearly every marcher lord, I will give you Summerfield—and your life. If you do not, I will give your widow to the man who defeats you.”
“My ladies, a troop approaches. They bear King Henry’s standard.”
“Order the gates opened, and tell cook to prepare refreshment,” Brianna told Arnaud.
He’d said they’d spied the king’s banner. Not the silver deVere unicorn upon a field of black. Jasmine’s throat tightened, and the small hairs on the back of her neck prickled as though they knew something was amiss. And she noticed that though Brianna smiled, she hugged her infant son closer to her breast as though she, too, feared the message they soon would hear.
“I bear greetings from your lord husband.” The well-fed king’s man handed Brianna a crumpled parchment. “I also bring word from King Henry. He orders that we escort the Lady Joan, whom you know as Jasmine, into his presence at Summerfield. We leave tomorrow at daybreak.”
Joan?
The name meant nothing to her, but her fingers suddenly felt icy cold though the weather was warm and sunny. “I beg you, sir, tell me my lord Rolfe has not suffered a grievous injury.”
The messenger laughed. “Nay, the young rascal is unscathed. For now. He may not be so lucky when the king’s tourney is done.” He proceeded to explain the manner in which the king had chosen to deal with the problem of Rolfe having wed with her, without Henry’s knowledge and consent.
“Rolfe is a fierce fighter,” Brianna said, her tone soothing as she looked up from her embroidery. “He will prevail. According to my lord Giles, he won his considerable fortune in tourneys here and in Europe.”
Brianna’s words did little to allay the fear in Jasmine’s heart then or later, while she packed the healing herbs she hoped Rolfe would not need. Bile rose in her throat, causing her to run for the garderobe as she’d been doing regularly for the past few weeks.
She could barely fathom that before Rolfe had rescued her, she’d apparently scaled a high wall and escaped from the Convent of St. Benedict three short days ere she’d have been forced to take her vows. Yet that was what the king’s messenger said he’d learned from the prioress at the cloistered nunnery.
Now, because of her, Rolfe’s life and fortune depended upon his skill at arms. Her future, as well, according to the messenger. The idea of wedding and bedding the knight who slayed her love brought up the rest of the meal she’d barely managed to choke down.
“Sir Rolfe will prevail, my lady. My mistress bids me to try and banish your anguish for a while.” Arnaud’s gentle hands warmed her heaving shoulders.
The human contact helped, but the only satisfaction her body sought now only Rolfe could provide. “Thank you, no. Tell the lady Brianna I wish to be alone tonight, to prepare for my journey and pray for my husband.”
When three days later she saw the three towers of Summerfield in the distance, memories flooded Jasmine’s mind. The battle…the dismembered body of her betrothed husband…her brother Will, grievously wounded and hovering near death. Her sire, turned madman sworn to wreak vengeance on the bastards who’d cost him his only son and heir. Her brother rallying, saying a few words…and her father ordering her sacrificed to a living death in the cloister of St. Benedict as thanks to God for having saved Will’s life.
All was quiet, unlike the busy countryside she now remembered. The sun was sinking in the west, its orange glow lending a surrealistic glow to the dark gray stone walls. The castle gates loomed ahead, drawbridge lowered and portcullis raised, as though the king’s party was expected and welcomed.
