Lord of a Thousand Nights (23 page)

She collapsed into his tight embrace against his chest, feeling limp and raw, his fullness connecting them. He lifted her chin and gave her a tender kiss.

Carefully he slid down and rolled until he hovered on his arms above her. He gently withdrew and entered her again. It hurt, but it hurt less the next time, and soon she didn't care about that. Something like that climb to heaven began again, only the sensation was broader and richer this time, and centered where they were joined. Ian's slow rhythm teased at it, and she grabbed at him desperately, raising her hips to meet him.

He paused. “You are going to make me hurt you more if you do that, Reyna.”

She looked into his dark, absorbing eyes. That beckoning sensation made her shake her head.

He moved again. The quivering intensified, and she saw him sense it, recognize it, know its meaning more surely than she. Gaze locked on hers, reading her reactions to her reborn passion, he brought her along with him, until the pleasure became one emotion shared by
two and their mutual awareness created a connection that astonished her. He kept them linked in the unity a long time, leaving her overwhelmed, stripped of will and thought, floating in a place where his size and power and desire dominated her own. Only at the shattering end did she close her eyes.

She still grasped him tightly long after her tremors had passed. His deep breaths filled her ear. Her soul felt exposed, and her body boneless. He seemed disinclined to move or speak, and she was grateful for that. She wanted to hold on to him a little longer in the silence. His weight was comforting and protective, a barrier against the world that would soon tilt back into reality.

He rose up. “I am crushing you.”

She began to protest, but he eased them to their sides, limbs still entwined and bodies still joined, and pulled her against him. She was grateful for the proof that he did not want to end this sweet mood either. The prize taken or the gift given? It had been both of those things.

A sharp burst broke through the spell, startling her.

“It is just thunder,” Ian said. “A storm has come up.”

She hadn't noticed. She listened to the downpour and watched the lightning make dim highlights on his face. His eyes, inches from hers, were closed.

“Is it always like that?” she asked.

“I will not hurt you again.”

She glanced away. She hadn't meant that.

His hand touched her face and she looked over to find him watching her. “Nay, it is not always like that, but sometimes it is. It depends on you and me.” He untangled her legs from his hips so she could be more comfortable, and pulled her into an embracing sleep.

Hours later Ian found himself awake and looking at her again. The storm's wind had blown out the night
candles, and only the dimmest moonlight outlined her form. She looked very small and vulnerable, with her slender body nestled against his. He wanted her again, but he made no move to wake her.

As if sensing his gaze, she stirred in her sleep. Her eyes opened. She went suddenly rigid, and he realized that the darkness had assaulted her.

“I am here, Reyna. There is no need to be frightened.”

She turned to him, and her body relaxed. He pulled her close and soothed her with caresses until she stretched drowsily.

“What now, Ian?” she mumbled sleepily.

“What now?”

“Aye. What now, with this reckless marriage that you kept because you wanted to bed me? You have had me. What now?”

He heard the assumptions that her question contained, and the fears it revealed. He couldn't blame her. She couldn't know that his feelings for her were more complex and confusing than simple lust, or that what had happened this night did not happen very often at all. Her opinion of his constancy, of his value as a husband, had every right to be low.

“Now we give each other pleasure in this bed, and have children, and if fortune wills it, we grow old together. That is the way with marriage, is it not?” he said.

And the rest depends on you and me
, he silently added. He thought about her openness and giving this night.
Mostly me.

Chapter FIFTEEN

L
ips on her cheek nudged Reyna to consciousness. “We must rise, wife. Morvan will be leaving soon.”
Wife.
Her lids fluttered open. She responded to his kiss a little feebly, feeling awkward at finding herself in his arms. She sought some casual remark that would hide her disconcerting shyness. What did one say to a man with whom one had done such things?

He threw off the sheet and swung to his feet. His glance fell to the bedclothes. “Are there clean ones here? We should remove these.”

She saw the bloodstains. He was right, they would not want the servants seeing that. She pulled on her shift and fetched new linens from a chest. She tucked them around the mattress while Ian washed and dressed.

Performing these routine tasks together possessed an intimacy almost as heady as their lovemaking. It emphasized the reality that her life had changed forever in ways yet to be learned, and that this man dominating the chamber now owned her.

She wasn't sorry when Ian left to send a servant to her. She had the woman heat some water and comb out her hair, but made her leave before she scrubbed off the evidence of her virginity.

Wife.
Not darling or love or some other endearment, but then, she hadn't expected any. She understood his reasons for making and keeping this marriage. He had made that clear in the garden, and then again last night when she asked him. He wanted the convenience of a woman whom he desired when he craved pleasure, and eventually children.

It was what most men sought, and she should be grateful that he had wanted her enough to go through with it. Ian had saved her from Duncan and Aymer, and would protect her from injustice in Robert's death. She had learned last night that what he expected in return would hardly be onerous to give. And yet she felt sad while she washed herself, as if their lovemaking had exposed a hidden corner of her heart that ached for something it knew she would never have.

She arrived in the hall just as Morvan and David prepared to depart. Her heart lurched while she observed their leave-taking from their wives. The expressions on the faces of both couples displayed unmistakable emotions—complete trust, eternal desire, and blissful contentment.

She suddenly understood her nagging melancholy. Deep friendship and exalted passion were combined into one powerful love in the unions standing in front of her. She herself had known the first with Robert, and had finally tasted the latter with Ian. But she would never know them both with one man. She should not be jealous, but the ache ripped rawly and she had to look away.

Reyna began reclaiming her position as the mistress of
the household at once. Her marriage to Ian had hardly laid to rest the suspicions about her, and the firm expressions worn by most of the servants suggested it had only made things worse. She knew that to them this marriage must appear very convenient indeed, and not in ways envisioned by Morvan. No one dared challenge her, but they obeyed in a stiff, silent way that made their opinions known.

After the midday meal, she retreated to the solar for some time alone. She looked for the
Summa
by Aquinas that she had been rereading and found it on the desk, not on the shelf where she had left it. On top of it was a metal box that she did not recognize. It had been there last night, she remembered.

She curiously opened it. Documents lay in a folded stack inside. She idly lifted the top one and read it. It was her marriage contract to Robert, and it described the dower lands that he had reassured her about.

The next document described Robert's entitlement from Maccus Armstrong, and below it lay a large, thickly folded sheet. She opened it and saw Robert's testament.

She read it with amazement. Lacking an heir, he had left everything to
her
.

That was what Ian had meant that morning when he spoke about the lands she would inherit. She also understood his reference in the garden to how this marriage would secure the land to him more completely. If Morvan failed at Harclow, Ian could claim Black Lyne Keep through her.

That bleak ache ripped again. This was the real reason Ian had kept the marriage, not desire for her.

She suppressed her disappointment and gazed at the parchment in puzzlement. Where had Ian found these documents? Who knew about this testament? She examined
the signatures of the witnesses. One was the priest in Bewton; the other she did not recognize. Not retainers or castle folk, then.

She had just replaced the parchments in their box when Ian strode into the solar.

“The day is getting warm, Reyna. We will go to the river and bathe.”

They mounted the horses waiting in the yard, and trotted to the secluded place where the women went to launder in a placid pool formed by some rocks near the bank.

Ian untied a bundle from his saddle. Reyna recognized the sheets that she had removed from their bed. He weighted them with rocks, and then hurled the cloths into the center of the river. She watched the water swallow the evidence of Robert's secret, realizing that Ian's generosity on that score had not been nearly so selfless as she had thought. If the world discovered that she and Robert had not had a true marriage, the value of that testament and marriage contract might diminish to naught.

Ian sat on the trampled high grass and began pulling off his boots. “I have decided that you will teach me to swim. You were right. It is a useful skill for a soldier to have.”

Reyna undressed. She felt exposed and awkward walking into the pool naked beside Ian, and was grateful when they reached water deep enough to cover most of her body.

She debated how to teach someone to swim. She couldn't remember learning herself. It had simply happened while she played in the lakes as a child. “You can not swim unless you learn to let your body float,” she explained. “I will hold you up at first. Everything is lighter in the water. Now stretch out.” She slipped her arms
under his back and hips, a little too mindful of the skin and muscles over her hands and the magnificent beauty of the body which she supported.

She stepped away. He submerged a few inches, but no more.

“It is a pleasant sensation,” he said. “A little un-worldly.”

Reyna looked at his length shimmering beneath the water's ripples. Floating thus
was
a pleasant, unworldly experience. For a brief while one felt unbound by the earth. Just like Ian, with his strong awareness of his senses, to recognize and name the small joy for what it was.

Within an hour, Ian became a passable swimmer. He discovered that he could swim underwater and began sneaking up to lift her high and throw her forward in a confusion of limbs and splashes. They played like children, and their laughter banished the awkwardness she had been feeling with him all day. Finally, tired and sated, he took her hand and led her to the bank.

The warm sun and light breeze quickly dried them. Ian lay with his eyes closed, a river god lounging by his domain. He made no move to dress, but Reyna slipped on her shift.

Her movement made him open one eye a slit. “It is a little late for modesty, Reyna. Besides, if I were of a mind to take you again I would have done so already, in the water.” He pulled her down beside him. “Rest with me. The sun and breeze are delicious.”

They
were
delicious, creating cool fingers that fluttered over heated skin. Reyna closed her eyes and savored the sensation, concentrating on it. Her limbs grew languid under nature's light caress.

“You keep moving my book,” she said. “The Aquinas. When I look for it, it is never where I left it.”

“It is overlarge and in the way.”

“Perhaps I should take it to my chamber, then.”

“I will keep the books in the solar. If you insist on reading philosophy, you can do so there.”

Insist? “You do not approve of my reading philosophy?”

“I do not approve or disapprove, but I think you are too young for it. Philosophy has no meaning without the wisdom of experience. How can you agree or disagree if you know nothing of life yet?”

“Rational thought can lead to truth, separate from experience, Ian.”

“I do not dismiss philosophy, Reyna. I just decided long ago that it has limitations. And I have no patience at all with the philosophers and theologians who turn away from the world.” He spoke lazily, as if his conclusions had been so self-evident as to require little thought.

She rose up on her arms. “They do not turn away from the world, but warn that it is a distraction.”

He plucked a wildflower from the grass. “Smell that,” he said, holding it to her nose. He stroked the bud against her cheek so she could feel its velvet caress. “How does that make you feel, Reyna? Distracted from the true path? The ancients never thought so. It was left for our Christian philosophers to reject the world as corrupting and take refuge in their rational theses.”

She took the flower and sniffed. “Have you no respect for their lessons, Ian?”

He laughed. “I have great respect for them, as far as they go.”