Hellion (43 page)

Then one day in midwinter she was surprised to find him in the mews when she arrived for her mid-morning visit.

“Good morning, my lord,” she said pleasantly.

He nodded curtly.

“I had been told that it was your custom to come earlier to the mews. If I disturb you, I will go,” she told him.

“There is no need,” his harsh voice grated.

Isabelle went immediately to Couper and took the merlin up upon her gauntlet. “Good morning, my darling,” she said gaily. “You are looking particularly beautiful this fine gloomy day.”

The merlin chittered back at the sound of her voice.

“She is very responsive to you,” Hugh growled.

“I raised her from a nestling,” Isabelle told him quietly. “She was a gift from my husband.”

“He was a falconer?” Hugh asked.

“Aye,” Isabelle said. “He was a fine falconer. Once he showed me how he trained a gyrfalcon to hunt for cranes.”

“In the spring you will show us,” Hugh replied. “There are cranes in the marshes hereabouts. I should like to hunt them.” Then he turned abruptly and left the mews.

That night at table, however, he spoke indirectly to her, telling his mistress what she had told him about hunting cranes. “We will all hunt them together, will we not?” he said.

“Who was the gyrfalcon trained for?” Guy asked her.

“The king,” Belle answered with a half-truth.

“Your late husband trained a gyrfalcon for King Henry?” Vivienne d’ Bretagne was impressed. “He must have been a fine falconer.”

“He was,” Belle replied quietly.

Later in their chambers, Guy could not swallow back his jealousy. “You spoke of him as if you loved him,” he accused her.

“Loved who?” Belle asked, not certain what he meant.

“Your falconer husband. Your rough-spoken Englander!” His eyes were almost black with invidiousness.

“Of course I loved him, else I should not have been so unhappy when my brother destroyed him,” Isabelle said.

“Why did he kill him?” Guy demanded.

“Because my half brother lusted after me,” she replied, quickly inventing the tale. “He tried to rape me, and my husband came upon us. He beat my brother for it. It is not wise to beat your overlord, is it? My brother hanged my husband for his crime, and he and my half sister drove me from our father’s estate. Now you know the whole tale. Does it ease your jealousy any, my lord?”

“No,” he said, but the anger was gone from his voice.

“What will ease it?” she asked him softly.

“To hear you tell me that you love me as you once loved your falconer. To hear you say it, and know that you mean it,” Guy d’ Bretagne burst out.

“Cannot your sorcery make me love you?” Belle said quietly. She was rather surprised by his intensity.

“True love cannot be forced! You mock me,” he said angrily.

“I do not!” Belle cried, fearing the dangerous look in his eye.

“Aye,” he said slowly, “you do, my pet, and you will be disciplined for it. Come! You will help me to fashion your own punishment.” He dragged her from their bedchamber into his magic room. Saffron glared at them balefully, his nap disturbed, as Guy lit the lamps. Flouncing down from his perch
upon the table, the cat departed. “Give me the silver cup!” Guy commanded her.

With shaking hands, Belle obeyed. Suddenly this room had become very frightening to her, the lamps and the firelight casting ghostly shadows upon the stone walls. And yet how many pleasant afternoons had she spent here? He had taught her to make several lovely creams and ointments that were used to improve pleasure and heighten the skin’s sensitivity. She had, beneath his careful eye, mixed potions over which he had murmured strange incantations, but would not tell her what their use was. One had the most delicious ingredients: rose water, myrtle water, orange blossom water, distilled spirit of musk, and just a dash of a waxlike substance called ambergris. They had bottled it in crystal flacons encased in silver filigree.

Guy d’ Bretagne took the cup from Isabelle. He had assembled several jars, containers, and bottles upon the table. Fearfully, she watched as he poured a dollop of clear springwater into the cup, adding a large pinch of something, stirring it vigorously, and then holding it out to her. “
Drink it!
” he said in a fierce tone.

Isabelle shrank back. “Do you mean to kill me, then?” she whispered. “Do not, I beg you! I will do your bidding, my lord!”

“I told you once that I did not mean to kill you, Belle, but you have greatly displeased me, and I will chastise you for it.
Now drink!
”

“What is it?” she quavered. Oh, God! His eyes were boring into her, and she could feel the all-too-familiar weakness sapping her will.

“It is called cantharides,” he said softly. “It will arouse you as you have never been aroused before, and until it pleases me, you shall not be satisfied.” He pushed the cup at her.

Despite herself, Belle accepted it, and drank the liquid down. It had an almost musty taste. He held out a piece of colewort to her. This herb, she knew, induced a love trance. The
ancients, he had told her, had used it in their orgies. Unwilling, but afraid, she chewed the herb down, helpless to his will.

He led her back to the bedchamber, ordering her to remove her garments as he removed his. When they were both naked, he made her stand in the middle of the floor. He poured powdered purple cyclamen root in a circle around her, murmuring incantations all the while. Isabelle was terrified as she had never been before. What was worse, she was beginning to feel dizzy. Her blood felt boiling hot in her veins, and every single bit of sensation had drained from her entire body to center itself with a throbbing urgency in her sex.

Guy d’ Bretagne smiled cruelly, seeing her distress. “Ahh, my pet, you are beginning to understand, aren’t you? It will get worse before it gets better, I promise you. Do not move from this spot. I must fetch something I forgot in the magic chamber.” He hurried out of the room, then returned. “This cream is called kyphi,” she heard him say.

“The kyphi will make your skin exquisitely sensitive, my pet,” he promised her, and in short order he had rubbed it into every bit of her flesh, even between her legs. Then, pouring a thin trickle of juniper oil atop the cyclamen powder, he lit it so that it caused a circle of flame to surround her. Again he muttered strange words she could not understand, all the while moving about the outside of the circle.

Then Guy d’ Bretagne stepped over the flames into the circle of fire, putting a strong arm about his victim. His other hand began to caress her body. “How soft you are,” he said low, kissing her earlobe, his tongue then exploring its pink whorl.

Isabelle moaned. His touch was gentle wherever his fingers and mouth met her skin, but the agony was almost excruciating because of the intense throbbing of her sex. “
Please
,” she sobbed. “
Please!
”

“You see, my darling,” he told her, “I do not have to resort to the strap to punish you. How far more exquisitely painful this little chastisement is, eh?

“Open your legs for me,” he commanded, and she quickly complied. “Now,” he said in a deceptively gentle tone, “spread yourself for me with your fingers, and show me your dainty little pleasure pearl.” Again she obeyed, and he continued, “If you close yourself to me without my permission, the torture you feel now will be nothing to the spell I shall cast upon you, Belle. Do you understand me, my pet?”

She nodded, wondering nervously what new torment he was about to inflict upon her helpless body. She watched nervously as he sat cross-legged directly before her and drew from nowhere a long feather with a sharply pointed tip. He applied the tip directly to her pleasure pearl. The sensation was the most pleasurable, yet painful feeling. Her eyes widened in shock. Relentlessly, he worked the feather back and forth across her exposed sex, sometimes giving her a moment’s respite by sliding the tapered feather up and down her nether lips. “You are going to kill me,” she managed to gasp.

He smiled cruelly. “You are bearing up quite well,” he noted, and reaching out with his other hand, he lifted a goblet she had not seen before to his lips. These objects seem to come from the air, she thought.

“The drink I am drinking is called satyricon,” he told her. “It will ensure that my weapon does not flag this night.” Finishing his potion, he flung the cup from him, but she heard no sound of the vessel falling to the stone floor.

Finally, Guy d’ Bretagne dropped the feather with which he had been teasing her. The ring of fire had burnt itself out. “You may close yourself for the moment,” he said, and taking her hand, he led her from the enchanted circle to a goatskin rug before the room’s fireplace. “Kneel down,” he ordered. “I shall first take you as a stallion mounts a mare in a field.” Moving behind her, he plunged his unusually swollen manhood into her burning sheath.

Isabelle cried out, half with relief, half with pain, for he was enormous tonight, and deeper within her than he had ever been before. It was only the beginning. For the next several hours,
he used her in a variety of positions; having her anoint his manhood with goat suet in between, which had a profound effect upon a man’s performance, and his was unflagging. She was but half conscious when he finally decided she had suffered enough. “You will never again mock me, Belle,” he told her, and then, making a motion with his hand, he willed her into sleep.

When Isabelle finally awoke, she found herself in their bed, but Guy was nowhere to be seen. She lay quietly, hoping that she was alone in the room. Every muscle in her body ached, and her love sheath felt raw and sore. Guy d’ Bretagne had shown a side of himself last night that she hoped never to see again.
And why
? Because she had said she loved her husband, and he had obviously felt threatened by it.
Cannot your sorcery make me love you
? That had been the innocent question that had caused him to erupt with violence and anger.

The question slipped unbidden into her head.
What true sorcery had she ever seen him perform, or Vivienne, either, for that matter
? They made potions and lotions, it was true, but never once had she seen them turn anything into something else. Never once had she seen them call the wind, or make the rain stop. Was that not what sorcerers did? Any old witch woman in the forest could make love potions and ointments. Sorcerers did really important things, or so she had always believed. Other than Hugh’s very odd condition, she had seen no real magic of a serious kind. And what of that passionately uttered cry he had made in his anger? “
True love cannot be forced.
” Was it possible there was no magic?

And if there was no magic, what kind of a woman did that make her? Possibly a very gullible one; a very foolish one; a very stupid one. Once, perhaps these decendants of the great Merlin had been keepers of powerful magic, but somewhere in the intervening centuries that magic may have lost its potency. Were they using the memory of it to frighten their neighbors, to keep others at bay? Why else had Guy d’ Bretagne subjected her to such a night of brutal passion? If he had any real power,
he would have simply cast a spell to make her love him and forget her husband. He would not have been angered by her love for a supposedly dead mate.

“What an incredible fool I have been,” Isabelle of Langston said softly to herself; and then she was filled with a burning anger. What amusement she must have provided Guy and Vivienne with over these past few months.

Still they must not guess her suspicions. She must remain Guy d’ Bretagne’s obedient mistress for Hugh’s sake, until she could find a way to free him. As long as she could make Guy believe she was acquiescent, she would be safe. Even without true magic, he was a dangerous, powerful man. Unless he believed she was really his, she faced the danger of being sent away,
or worse
.

“You are awake at last,” he said, and she started at the sound of his rich, musical voice. Coming into her view, he seated himself upon the edge of the bed. “Have you learned your lesson, my Belle?”

She nodded, casting her eyes down in apparent abject obedience.

“And you will love me, putting from your mind any others for whom you might have ever held a tender passion,” he commanded her.

“Have I not warned you, my lord Guy, that love is dangerous as well as sweet? I do not want you weakened by it. I enjoy your strength, for it is like none I have ever known in a man,” she said daringly.

“After last night you must surely know I cannot be weakened,” he replied. “
I must know that you love me!
”

You have lied to me, she thought to herself. I shall now lie to you, for it will, I am certain, help me learn the truth of you and gain my beloved Hugh’s release. “After last night,” she murmured softly, “how can you doubt my love for you, my lord Guy? Did you not behold my ecstasy? Could I have obtained such rapture with a man I did not truly love? Yet I have heard it said you discard those who care for you. I have
but sought to retain your favor and remain within your sweet custody. I never meant to displease you, my dear lord.”

She loved him!
he thought.
And
, she had said his name for the very first time. In all the months he had kept her by his side, she had never once uttered his name, always addressing him formally, and most properly, as
my lord
. His heart soared with delight, and pulling her into his arms, he declared, “The knowledge that you love me has made me the happiest of men. Your love will not weaken me, Belle. It will but give me greater strength.” Then he kissed her, and for a brief moment Belle let herself be swept away, melting into his embrace, that he not be made suspicious.

In the back of her mind, however, was a new knowledge. The power of the d’ Bretagnes was most probably a false one.
There was no true magic!

Chapter 15