Pleasurably Undone! (13 page)

The morning, after a night of restless sleep disturbed by quite shocking dreams, hardly seemed more promising. The breakfast parlor was populated by heavy-eyed guests sipping coffee, while many seemed to have decided to stay in their rooms.

Jonathan was seated at the far end of the table when Sarah entered with Mrs. Catchpole. He rose with the other men, then resumed his seat with a fleeting glance in her direction.

She was still pushing her omelette listlessly around her
plate half an hour later when Lady Dereham appeared at her side. ‘Lord Redcliffe has asked if he might speak with you in my sitting room at your convenience.’

Sarah stared. Her chaperone sat bolt upright, looking for all the world like a pointer that had sighted game. ‘Sarah, dear! We must—’

‘Do not disturb yourself, ma’am. I will escort Sarah.’ Bel had her out of the room before Mrs. Catchpole could react. ‘You look very well, my dear. There is no need to go and primp. Here we are.’ Bel opened the door, gave her a little push and closed it, leaving her alone with the Earl of Redcliffe.

‘Oh.’ It was not the most intelligent thing she could have found to say. Sarah bit her lip and regarded his unsmiling face.

‘Sarah. I have, this morning, written to your father. I thought I should show it to you before I send it.’ He held out a sheet of paper.

‘Written?’ She took it. The words were out of focus.

‘Yes. I realize that to call would be more conventional. It was my intention to return to Saint’s Ford Manor and do the thing in style, but now…Sarah, there is no way I can wait.’

‘You intended to come back to me?’ She stared at the firm black letters, willing them to make sense.

‘Of course. I had to lose the highwayman, speak to my bankers about the settlement, have a haircut—all the things a hopeful suitor needs to do.’

‘Suitor? Why?’ She thrust the letter back at him. ‘I cannot seem to focus.’

‘Sit down then, and I will read to you.’ He guided her to the sofa, then stood before the hearth and cleared his throat.

‘“Sir Hugh, I write to inform you of my intention to pay my addresses to your daughter, Miss Sarah Tatton. I cannot
pretend that my attachment to her was not sudden. In fact I believe it was, if not love at first sight, then most certainly love from the first moment she allowed me to press a respectful salutation upon her lips.”

‘You spoke?’

Sarah shook her head, dumb with delight.
Respectful salutation?
That must be the first kiss that he took when they met. He was making it sound as if he had met her for the first time here, when in fact…

‘“My standing and circumstances you may ascertain from an inspection of the
Peerage.
In regard to my intentions as to settlements, I trust the enclosed papers from my lawyer will prove satisfactory…” etc., etc.’ Jonathan folded the paper.

‘Well, Miss Tatton? You are, I believe, of age, which means that I need not await a response from your father but may do this now.’ He went down on one knee beside her. ‘Sarah.’ His voice was husky and she found she could not breathe, just stare into his eyes, trapped by the intensity in them. ‘I love you. I think I loved you from that first kiss. I
knew
I loved you when I felt the pain of thinking you had offered me payment for lying with you. My fault, I confess, was to go and leave you without explanation, but I did it intending to return as an entirely respectable suitor. Like an idiot I wanted to surprise you, to have everything in place, perfect. Do you forgive me?’

‘Oh, yes. I love you, too, you see. I don’t need everything to be perfect, I just need you.’ She had found her tongue, and her eyes focused clearly on his face and she reached out and cupped his cheek with a hand that was steady.

‘And you will marry me?’

And instead of answering, she simply leaned forward and kissed him and never noticed until afterward that her cheeks were wet.

‘Lady Redcliffe, you are blushing.’ Her new husband set Sarah on her feet beside the wide bed and bent to kiss her. ‘Now what, after all the things we have enjoyed together, can be making you shy now?’

‘This is different,’ she confessed, reaching up to undo his neckcloth.

‘Yes,’ Jonathan agreed, leaving her fully clothed while she undressed him and then slowly, gently, unveiling her body until they stood facing each other in the twilit room, naked. ‘I love you and now you are mine.’

‘I know. And you are my husband and we no longer have to be careful. Will you show me how to love you?’

And without answering with words he lifted her onto the bed and began to woo her with lips and tongue and gentle, wicked fingers until the familiar, insistent throb took over and her head began to turn, restless on the pillow, and her own hands stopped caressing and could only hold him and he shifted his weight and lay between her thighs.

‘Don’t be frightened.’ He moved slowly, nudging, and she smiled, heady with pleasure, tingling with anticipation.

‘I’m not frightened. I just want you so much. Want you inside me, to be around you, to hold you in every way I can.’ It felt strange and powerful, the inexorable, heavy pressure, but her body seemed to know what to do and was accepting him. She shifted, searching for the best position, and then he smiled and surged against her and she gasped, pain flickering past to be replaced by an overwhelming sense of completion.

Jonathan stilled above her, his eyes intense on her face. They were so closely joined that she could feel the pressure of his hipbones, the tantalizing brush and weight of his testicles, the friction of his body hair. And then, as she dared to
breathe again, to relax, she could feel him inside her and realized that she could tighten around him and that when she did he groaned and closed his eyes and thrust.

She could match the surging, deep rhythm, tightening, caressing, and his eyes opened again and the look in them took her breath and she held on and let herself fly until he thrust deeper than ever with a hoarse cry and she felt him convulse inside her, spilling life and heat into her, and she let go and joined him in the velvet darkness.

Sarah came to herself to find they were wrapped together, her head on his breast, their legs twined. ‘In August,’ Jonathan said, his hand stroking possessively down her body, ‘I asked you for the most precious thing you possessed. Thank you for giving it to me.’

‘My virginity?’ Sarah queried, raising herself on her elbow to smile at him.

‘No.’ The deep green eyes smiled back. ‘Your heart, my darling.’

‘How could I help it?’ She bent and kissed him. ‘A highwayman stole it quite away.’

Terri Brisbin

Welcome to the beginning of my new series of stories about the knights of Brittany! Four sexy, brave warriors—three illegitimate and one noble—were fostered and raised together and became a fighting force in Brittany during the rise of William of Normandy. Three followed him to England in the hopes of wealth and lands and power—oh, and wives, of course!

This short story, “A Night for Her Pleasure,” is loosely based on the theme of the O. Henry story,
The Gift of the Magi,
and is about two people in love who only want to do or be what the other person wants or needs. Trying to ignore their own desires and dreams, Simon and Elise spend their wedding day learning about each other and pledging that they will be exactly what the other wants in a spouse. The results are not quite what either expects, but when the heart is involved, nothing goes as expected.

I hope you enjoy this sensual story about the path of love, which is linked to
The Conqueror’s Lady.
Please visit my Web site at www.terribrisbin.com for more information about me and my current and upcoming releases.

Enjoy!

Look for the second in Terri Brisbin’s
Knights of Brittany trilogy
The Mercenary’s Bride
Coming July 2010

Rennes, Brittany
Spring, 1066

“L
ook at her,” Simon ordered, nodding in the direction of his—wife. It still felt strange and new to him to call her that—not difficult to understand, because they had only married that morning. “Just look at her.” His blood heated just glancing at her.

Giles, Brice and Soren all turned to look across the crowded hall to where the women sat in various groups during the wedding feast. Elise had made her way over to her mother and her cousins and sat chatting with them, all the while enticing him with her innocent demeanor and simple beauty.

“She seems to be in good spirits, Simon,” Brice offered. “Though I am surprised she is here.”

Simon turned and realized that his friends were looking at the wrong woman. Before he could correct them, Giles interrupted.

“As am I. Alianor looks unseemly happy for a woman who is losing her lover and protector to the clutches of a wife.” Giles held up his cup in a salute to Simon and then to Soren.
“Mayhap she will be looking for a new one, Soren. What think you of her beauty and manners?”

Soren opened his mouth to speak, but laughed instead. “I will wait to see how smoothly things go between Simon and his wife. He may be back in Alianor’s bed sooner rather than later and my efforts would all be for naught.”

Simon’s graphic curse stopped further discussion of his mistress and startled some who stood close by their group. Turning his back to them, he lowered his voice.

“I was speaking about Elise, you fools, not Alianor.” Simon drank the rest of his wine in one swallow. “Bastards,” he cursed under his breath.

“Without a doubt, my lord,” Giles said, nodding to Simon. Stepping closer, he smacked Simon on the back and laughed. “We but sought to ease the moment.”

“Am I that obvious then?” Simon could feel the tension growing within him over the coming night…and taking Elise to his bed. He’d wanted her from the moment he watched her dismount in front of his keep, and now that she was his in the eyes of the law, he only wanted her more.

“Just as much as any other groom, Simon,” Brice offered.

Glancing across the room again, he watched as she smiled and nodded at something one of her women said. His body reacted strongly to her beauty and femininity. And the thought of holding her in his arms, touching her skin, tasting her essence and initiating her into the pleasures of the marriage bed this night made him harden yet again.

Then, as he watched his friends appraise her, the heat of jealousy pierced him. The three drew women to them like flies to the sweet, and he had no doubt that with their experience in the ways of wooing women, if any of them turned their real attentions to her, they could show him up for the rough,
brutish man he truly was. It was only the hope that he could be different for her, different
to
her, that allowed him to believe he could make her happy in this marriage.

As though his thoughts had called her name, Elise raised her pale blue eyes and met his gaze. Tossing the hip-length waves of auburn hair over her shoulder, she tilted her head to the side. His throat tightened and his mouth grew dry, but his blood pulsed and his heart raced as the corners of her mouth lifted into the gentle smile he was coming to crave. Soon, she would truly be his. The sound of his friends’ whispers drew him from his lost moment and back to the problem facing him of the coming night.

“She is yours, Simon. Surely you know that even as everyone in this gathering does,” Soren assured him. “What is it that has your ball—trews twisted in a knot?”

The others laughed at their friend’s witticism, but Simon did not. Taking in a breath and letting it out, he turned to face them. In a lowered voice, he finally admitted his deepest fear.

“She is a virgin.”

The others looked one to the other and then back at him.

“Of course she is, Simon. Her virtue has been well guarded by her family. Even her dimwitted father knew enough to keep her from his plans,” Giles answered.

Elise’s father had backed the wrong noble in the dispute between the imprisoned Duke Conan and his usurping uncle Count Eudes who tried to wrest control of the region from him. Simon’s family, connected to both sides of the embattled family by blood, had remained out of the fray, but he suspected that Eudes and his progeny would still come back into power in the duchy. With their cousin William making noises of war in their direction and pressing ahead with his plans to claim England as his own, Simon could believe any number
of machinations would move those out of favor back into favor and change the balance of power between Breton, Normandy and the other duchies and kingdoms.

“Ladies such as she deserve poetry to woo her and to gain her love. Contracts and marriage will not do it,” Simon began. He might be known as a lover of women, but he’d never wooed one in his life—certainly not one so fair and so feminine. “She is so delicate, and I,” he said, “I am so…so…”

“Worldly?” Soren asked, finishing Simon’s sentence but not with the word of his choosing. “Most women appreciate those years of experience in a man.” Soren laughed loudly and smacked Simon on his back. “Lady Alianor was heard to say just that on many occasions.”

Simon wheeled around and walked away from his friends. Even knowing that too much wine and the festive, somewhat bawdy mood had loosened their tongues, Simon would probably punch one or all of them soon—and
that
would bring an end he did not want to their marriage feast. It would show Elise the very side of him he anguished over even now. So he grabbed a pitcher of wine from one of the servants and stalked off up the stairs to the top floor, where he could be alone and watch the hall from the balcony.

By the time he reached the alcove above, a lovely widow had already approached Soren, clearly with hopes of a liaison for the coming night. Shaking his head over how easily the fairer sex fell over themselves at the feet of the “Beautiful Bastard,” Simon took a deep drink of the wine in his cup and swallowed it.

“The lady is in love with you already, Simon. You have nothing to fear with her.” Giles reached his side and looked down over those gathered below them. “Take her gently, and all will be well between you.”

He held out his empty cup and Simon filled it before his. “I have always favored my father’s family,” he offered. “We are not known for our grace or small statures.”

“Ah, but to have watched you fight with your sword in battle is to know the lie of those words. And small or large, it will all work out if you have but a care for the lady’s pleasure first.”

Simon again drank down most of the wine in his cup before Giles pulled it from his grasp.

“If you continue to drink at this rate, the only thing the fair Elise has to worry about is you falling asleep on top of her.” Giles eyed him once more. “Have you never taken a virgin before?”

He said nothing, but that was answer enough for his knowing friend.

“See to her pleasure first and then to your own. Once she has found hers, she will be more accepting of allowing you yours.” Giles drank the rest of his wine.

It seemed like a sound plan, but the strength of Simon’s desire for Elise was there in his body already for his manhood rose hard against his breeches. Would he be able to maintain control of his passionate urges when presented with Elise, naked in his embrace, finally his alone to claim?

Then, as though he had the ability to read another’s thoughts, Giles added, “You might want to seek relief before you approach your lady’s bed this evening.” Giles did not meet his gaze, but looked instead at those below.

In spite of having not visited the fair Alianor’s bed since Elise’s arrival two months ago, somehow the thought of seeking another did not sit right on him, so Simon shrugged in reply.

Giles reached out and smacked him heartily on his back. “Begin mayhap by settling her to your nearness and your touch? Surely you have kissed her? Touched her, even? Pray
tell me that you have managed at least that, in spite of her mother’s constant presence and ever-watchful eye.”

Simon laughed aloud at that. “Her lady mother would do well as a jailer in Duke Conan’s prison tower. Nothing, I fear, gets past her steely gaze or biting tongue.”

Giles laughed too and shook his head. “Now that she is yours, you must begin to claim her. Step-by-step, my lord, much as you train your horses.”

Simon barely controlled his laugh at that one. Giles and the others, with their illegitimate status, had little need to use finesse and little opportunity to approach virginal ladies. Most wellborn ladies did not welcome their interest.

“My friend, I would advise you never to let any woman, especially a lady, hear you compare her to a horse. You will find yourself without the warm welcome you so crave before you can blink your eyes.” Simon turned to the stairs and nodded. “Come. I think it is time to begin gentling my wife to my touch.”

“Fear not, Simon. All will be well by morning. The lady truly wedded-and-bedded and you will be at ease.” Giles’s expression grew serious. “But just in case your way is not successful, I will place a book of poetry by your bed so that you can use it if needed. ’Twould seem that ladies do like the soft words and pledges of love.”

Simon did smile then at his friend’s attempt to take his fears seriously. Agreeing with a nod, he made his way down the stone steps to seek out his wife. He had hours of feasting before nightfall and he was eager to begin wooing his wife.