Ransom My Heart (17 page)

But suddenly, her arms were around his neck, drawing his head down toward hers, her fingers tangled in his soft hair, her lips already parted to receive his.

Those strong golden arms, the ones she'd longed to have round her, imprisoned her, clasping her so close to his broad chest that she could hardly breathe. Not that she could catch her breath anyway, since he was kissing her so deeply, so urgently, as if she might at any moment be torn away from him. He seemed to fear that they'd be interrupted again. Only Finnula realized, with a satisfaction that surely would have shocked her brother, had he known of it, that they had all night long. Accordingly, she lengthened the kiss, conducting a leisurely exploration of those arms she'd so admired. Why, they really were every bit as perfect as she'd imagined.

Abruptly, Hugo lifted his head, and looked down at her with eyes that had gone an even deeper green than the emerald around Finnula's neck. She was panting from lack of breath, her chest rising and falling quickly, color bright over her high cheekbones. She saw the question in his glance, and understood it all too well. He didn't know that she had already made her decision, that it had been irrevocably made for her the second she'd seen him
without that beard, and her heart—or something very like her heart, anyway—had been lost for good.

Well, maybe her decision had been made the second that bolt had slid into place. What did it matter? They were strangers in a strange—well, strange enough—place. No one would ever know of it. This was no time for his oddly misplaced sense of chivalry.

“Not
now
,” she growled, knowing full well why he'd stopped kissing her, and what his questioning look implied. “God's teeth, man, it's too late—”

Whatever Hugo had been planning to say, her impatient cry silenced him upon the subject forever. Tilting her body back in his arms, Hugo rained kisses upon her cheeks and the soft skin beneath her ears, his mouth tracing a fiery path down the column of her throat to the neckline of her gown. Finnula, still anxious for the taste of his lips on hers, drew his head toward hers again, then gasped as his fingers closed over one of her firm breasts.

The sensation of his mouth devouring hers, his hands on her straining breasts, was threatening to overwhelm Finnula. It was everything she'd suspected it would be…only so much more. The room seemed to sway around her, as if she'd drunk too much of Mellana's ale, and Hugo remained the only stationary, solid mass within her line of vision. She clung to him, wanting something…and she was only just beginning to understand what that something was.

Then, when his knee slipped between her weakening legs, and she felt his hard thigh against the place where her legs joined together, the resulting shock that shot through her was like nothing she'd ever experienced before.

Suddenly, she understood.
Everything.

And the next thing she knew, both his hands had slipped beneath her, and he was lifting her in the air. Finnula squealed in
stinctively as her head neared the timber beams overhead, then gasped as Hugo's mouth pressed hotly over one of her nipples, caressing it through the linen of her kirtle with his tongue. Laughing, she looked down at him, admiring his clean-shaven face from this new angle, then felt guilty for giggling. Surely, what they were about to do was no laughing matter…

And then, suddenly, he tossed her onto the bed, where she bounced for a few seconds, before he joined her there, bereft of his shirt and braies.

Finnula stopped giggling at once. She'd seen naked men before—she and her sisters had done their fair share of spying at the village pond—but never one as incredibly well-made as Hugh Fitzwilliam of Caterbury. Bronzed all over from the Egyptian sun, his skin was stretched taut over rippling muscles, marred only by a few long-healed, but vicious-looking scars. The golden hair that furred his chest and arms was echoed on his legs, and a thick patch of it nested between his legs, where—

Finnula quickly lifted her gaze, her lips parting. But Hugo wasn't about to give her a chance to reconsider. Lifting her skirt up to her knees, he pulled off her boots with quick, precise tugs. Finnula wouldn't be distracted, however. Rising up on her elbows, she said, “Perhaps—”

But Hugo had already taken up one of her bare feet in his hands, and began kissing its delicate arch. Finnula gasped and tried to pull her foot away, shocked by the intensity of the sensation—and her body's instant reaction to it.

But Hugo stopped kissing the sole of her foot only to burn a trail of kisses up her legs, his tongue branding her calves, the backs of her knees, the insides of her thighs—

That was when Finnula fell back against the pillows, certain he would stop. Surely this had gone far enough. But instead of stopping, Hugo took hold of one of her wrists, pulling her into a
sitting position, and in a single, practiced motion, whipped her kirtle over her head, leaving her naked to his glance—all but the emerald pendant—as well as to his touch.

Finnula instantly tried to cover herself with her hands for modesty's sake, forgetting that he had already seen her undressed, back at the spring, and that all this had been her idea in the first place. But Hugo kept hold of her wrist, and a second later, his heavy, masculine weight was pressing her down against the bed, making escape impossible. Again, his hard leg pressed against the slick crevice between her thighs, and again, she felt a jolt of desire throughout her entire body. She arched instinctively against him in response, and it seemed as if just seconds later, instead of his thigh, it was the velvet head of his penis that pressed against her.

Finnula had thought initially, based upon her first view of it, that incorporating Hugo's length was going to be a daunting prospect. But now she found that she didn't care…her desire outweighed all anxiety and inhibitions.

As for Hugo, he seemed unaware of her initial hesitation. His mouth hot on hers, he slid smoothly inside her. Finnula gasped, recognizing that perhaps this wasn't going to be quite as easy as she thought…until, hearing her quick inhalation of breath, he withdrew a little, and looked down at her uncertainly, and she realized that she had, in fact, been wrong. She
could
contain all of him without being broken in half…and also that the pain of losing one's maidenhead—which, apparently, had been lost long ago, no doubt on the back of Violet—had been grossly exaggerated by her sisters. Now she felt only completely filled by him, and her need for release was of primary concern.

But Hugo had no way of knowing that. “Finnula?” he asked uncertainly, aching to continue, but not at all certain what her feelings on the matter were—though he rather hoped she was game. “Are you—”

Rather than reply verbally, she arched against him, silencing him with her lips and signaling her need. And Hugo, with a cry that might have been one of exultation (though it was difficult to tell, since it was muffled against her mouth), plunged deep within her.

She climaxed almost at once, crying out against his mouth as wave after wave of release crashed over her. His own release came just seconds after hers. His heart pounding, his breathing hard, his first words were of concern for her, as he asked raggedly, “Did I hurt you, Finnula?”

“Hurt me?” she echoed dazedly. “I should say not.”

His head sagged in relief, until it lay upon her slender shoulder. Finnula didn't know how long they lay like that, but the fire had died to a ruddy glow and all the candles had burned themselves out before Hugo finally lifted his head and kissed her again, this time gently.

“You changed your mind at the last minute, didn't you?” was his unexpected observation.

Finnula reached up to stroke some of his overlong blond hair from his eyes. “Only for a second.” She paused, embarrassed. “'Twas a fairly daunting prospect,” she went on vaguely. “I didn't believe it could be done, or that if it could, I'd survive the accomplishing of it. But I did”—she shrugged—“and I enjoyed it.”

“You are a strange woman, Finnula Crais,” Hugo said, one finger lazily tracing circles around her shoulder, sending shivers up and down her arms. “So stubborn in so many ways, with your leather braies and your poaching and your temper. Yet beneath it, so kind and giving—”

Finnula sighed. He was very heavy, and now that their desire had been sated, and she was no longer buoyed by passion, her weight could no longer support his. She pressed a thumb to his bare hip.

“Move,” she said, and he obligingly rolled from her, but, wrapping a brawny arm around her waist, brought her with him, until her body lay in the curve of his, her back to his chest, his arm beneath her cheek. He let out a satisfied grunt that she didn't understand until she saw the faintest of pink stains upon the mattress.

“Oh, no!” she cried with dismay, rising up one elbow. “Mistress Pitt won't like that at all.”

Hugo pulled her down again, and studied the stain over her shoulder with some surprise. That had not, apparently, been the source of his good humor.

“Explain to me again,” he queried, one tawny eyebrow lifted, “how it is that a widow should be a virgin?”

“I told you,” she said sleepily. “I was only married for one day. My husband died before—well, before.”

“Unfortunate man,” Hugo murmured, pressing his lips to the spot beneath her ear that made her toes curl pleasantly. “Fear not for Mistress Pitt and her bedclothes. I will leave her coin as recompense.”

Finnula smiled again, her eyes drifting closed. Her last conscious thought, before sleep overcame her, was that it was strange how well their bodies fit together, her and Sir Hugh's. It was almost as if they'd been made for each other.

H
ugo was amused the next morning when Finnula, waking slowly next to him, stiffened and tried to roll away from him, as if nothing had changed between them. Catching hold of her arm, he pulled her back into bed, and found her giggling and compliant once he'd reminded her of the pleasure his body was capable of giving hers.

Never, Hugo knew, had he met a woman more passionate in bed, both giving and demanding in equal portions, than Finnula Crais. She was as bold as the bawdiest prostitute, yet gentle as the untried virgin she'd been before Hugo had robbed her of her innocence. She did not seem to regret the hours they'd passed together, however. Indeed, when she looked up at him now with those mist-gray eyes, they seemed filled with self-satisfaction, as if she'd learned the joke of a lifetime.

Seeing her translucently pale skin in the bright morning sunshine that slanted through their room's single window, Hugo could think of nothing but making love to her again. It was exactly the way he'd felt upon waking yesterday morn, the only difference being that today, he could act upon his desire. He did so, promptly, vowing to himself that it was a pleasure he was going to experience every morning, for as long as possible.

Sliding a hand between her slim thighs, Hugo lowered his head to capture Finnula's lips with his. She stiffened against the pressure of his fingers, as he'd known she would, then melted against them a minute later, when his other hand moved to caress her small breasts. Guiding her with his hands, Hugo urged her to straddle him, and when her slick tightness encompassed him, sheathing him in her warmth, it was his turn to writhe.

The braid in which Peggy had tied her hair the night before had come undone during their loving, and now all those glorious auburn curls cascaded around her face and shoulders, forming a sweet-smelling curtain around them as they moved together. Hugo watched Finnula's beautiful face as she experienced yet another climax, holding on to her slim hips and plunging himself deeper and deeper into her, until at last he followed her into mindless pleasure.

This time it was she who collapsed against him, and he wrapped his arms around her, marveling at her fine-boned beauty and wondering at how such a petite maid was capable of arousing this raging lust within him. He felt that he would never be sated of his need for her, and this thought was a sobering one.

After all, he was not Hugh Fitzwilliam, simple knight of Caterbury. He was Hugo, Earl of Stephensgate, and this girl was the daughter of his miller. Finnula Crais, though she wasn't aware of it, was his vassal, and he had a feudal duty to protect and nurture his vassals. Granted, his father had abused those very people he'd
been sworn to protect, but Hugo was not his father, and would right all of Lord Geoffrey's wrongs as soon as he reached Stephensgate.

That didn't change the fact, however, that he had deflowered this girl, an act which rendered her unmarriageable to any other man.

Not that Hugo would ever now allow such a marriage to occur.

No, Finnula Crais and her fate was his responsibility, and his only concern was how he was going to get her to give up the leather braies. They looked very charming on her, but he certainly wasn't going to allow his wife to traipse about, dressed like a boy, for any man to leer at. No, she was going to have to start wearing gowns, like the one she'd worn the night before, the one that had clung to her curves so tantalizingly.

On top of him, Finnula stretched, catlike, and said, “If we're going to get to Stephensgate by nightfall, we should leave here soon.”

Hugo grinned at her, and gave her bare bottom a smack. “Still your prisoner, am I?”

“Don't get the idea that anything's changed.” She slid down from him, resting her head upon his bare chest, and stared down at the source of their pleasure, now lying limp against Hugo's thigh.

“I think I understand Mellana a little better now,” Finnula said, thoughtfully.

Hugo looked down at her long eyelashes and small, expressive mouth. “You mean how she came to be pregnant?”

“Aye. I couldn't understand how she could do such a thing before, but now I see how it might happen. If Jack Mallory pleasured her half as much as you pleasure me, that is.”

For a moment, Hugo was tempted to tell her the truth about his identity. After all, Finnula could be as pregnant as her sister now, and Hugo wanted to assure her that if that was the case, she
needn't concern herself over the fate of the child. But somehow, he thought the revelation that he was the Earl of Stephensgate might spoil what would otherwise be one of the finest mornings in his memory.

And so he remained silent, watching with pleasure as Finnula rose and began to pad about the room, as unconcerned by her nakedness as she'd been at the spring.

They washed and dressed, Finnula donning her wifely disguise once more, hampered this time by Hugo's frequent caresses. The sight of her in a gown rendered him positively mad again with lust, and what should have taken them a few minutes took them more than an hour. By the time they left Dorchester, Finnula riding sidesaddle out of deference to her kirtle, the sun was high in the southeast, all of the previous day's clouds blown away, the sky a vast canopy of blue overhead.

Finnula chattered amiably about their luck that no one had recognized her or her mount, since apparently Violet was as well-known in the community as she herself was, and Hugo only half listened, admiring instead the way the sunlight brought out the gold highlights in her curls. Hugo found himself envying the emerald between her breasts, winking in the sunbeams, nestled so comfortably where he only an hour before had lain his head.

Such thoughts, he told himself, were maudlin and nauseating, and he couldn't understand why he was mooning over this girl, when he'd already bedded her. He was usually cured of any admiration for a woman the minute he was through making love to her, but his regard for this girl seemed to increase with every passing hour. Making love to her had only added fuel to his feelings for her. He was in a sorry state indeed, and he knew, with a sinking heart, that there was only one cure for it.

They had ridden for some time before Finnula complained of a cramp in her leg, and insisted upon stopping so that she could
change back into her braies. Hugo rolled his eyes, wishing he'd burned the leather garment back at the inn while she'd slept, but the sight of Finnula's bare bottom in the sunlight caused him to forget his disapproval of her, and he dismounted and joined her in the little copse in which she'd hidden to change clothes.

Making love out of doors had never been very satisfying for Hugo, since in the past his partners had invariably complained of dirty hems and the hardness of the ground, but Finnula didn't seem concerned about either, once he'd managed to arouse her to a point where it didn't matter what lay beneath them. She was reluctant at first—until he touched her between the thighs, and then she seemed to melt against him, becoming as pliant as a kitten. It was an interesting trait, and one that Hugo intended to remember for future occasions. It would be a handy tool to use, he thought, to cool her ire when he revealed his true identity.

After that brief bout of lovemaking in the woods, Finnula, suddenly affectionate, agreed to his suggestion that she ride in the saddle before him, and they were seated thus together upon entering Stephensgate at last, a few hours later.

Finnula had taken to pointing out landmarks to him, proudly showing off her village and the demesnes surrounding it, and Hugo, who hadn't seen his home in over ten years, enjoyed the tour. The village seemed smaller than when he'd left it, instead of bigger, which he knew to be the case. As at the spring, the trees seemed larger, but the cottages smaller and the people older—much older. He'd been shocked to learn from Finnula's not-very-respectful description of the parish priest the fact that Fat Maude, from whom Hugo had learned all that he knew of the art of pleasuring a woman, was still conducting business from her cottage on the far side of the village.

But he was in for an even bigger shock when they rounded a bend and approached the millhouse, situated on the gently flowing
river and looking very much as it had ten years previously, when Hugo had passed it without a thought to its inhabitants, one of whom he now had perched rather intimately in the saddle before him. Gathered in the yard before the neat, two-story house was a multitude of men and their mounts, including, he learned when Finnula stiffened before him and whispered it, the shire reeve.

“Oh, no,” Finnula groaned, burying her face in her hands. “And all my brothers-in-law. What can they think I've done
now
?”

Hugo kept a firm grip on her narrow waist, guiding Skinner steadily toward the house and the group of men clustered outside it. A rowdy band they looked, too, each one larger than the next, and all of them pointing and glowering at them.

“Whatever it is, I know you're innocent,” he said, trying to keep his voice from revealing the amusement he really felt. “You've been with me the past three days. Unless it's something you did before you left—”

But Hugo's assurance was broken off by a thunderous shout. One man tore free from the group and came hurrying toward them. Hugo recognized him by his bright red hair and furious expression. Brother Robert. There was no doubt about it.

“Finnula!”

The man was surprisingly tall, nearly as tall, Hugo judged calmly, as himself. He was strong, too, his shoulders thick from years of hauling wheat and flour sacks. As Hugo pulled Skinner to a halt in front of the millhouse's watering trough, Brother Robert and about a half-dozen other men approached at no mean pace, their faces masks of anger.

Hugo felt Finnula panicking against him, and as if she were a nervous pony, he shushed her.

“You don't understand,” she fretted. “He's like to kill me!”

“He won't lay a hand on you,” Hugo assured her.

Brother Robert halted about a foot from the trough, and, glar
ing up at Hugo with narrowed gray eyes that were an echo of his sister's, he growled, “Is this the bastard, Fairchild?”

From out of the crowd of brothers-in-law stepped Matthew Fairchild, nervously holding a weather-beaten hat in his hands.

“Aye, Robert,” he stammered. “'Tis the one I told you of.”

“Unhand my sister, sirrah,” Robert snarled, “and dismount. I've a score to settle with you—”

“Robert!” Finnula cried, all her fear forgotten as she rushed to Hugo's defense. “How dare you speak that way to Sir Hugh! Apologize at once!”

“I'll apologize and be damned,” Robert declared, his massive hands curled into fists at his sides. “His name isn't Hugh, and there's no sir about it. Will you unhand my sister, man, or must I drag her down myself?”

Hugo wasn't amused anymore. The presence of Matthew Fairchild could mean only one thing: that the serf Evan had told what he'd seen in the Fairchilds' barn…only Hugo's stolen kiss had been interpreted by Finnula's protectors as something considerably more serious. He realized that Robert had every right to be furious with him, however misconstrued the provocation.

“What do you mean, his name isn't Hugh?” Finnula's voice was rich with scorn. “You don't know what you're talking about. His name is Hugh Fitzwilliam, and he's a knight just back from the Crusades. He lives in Caterbury—”

“He isn't, Finnula,” rumbled a man almost as large as Brother Robert, only portly, besides. From the richness of his garments, this man Hugo judged to be Sheriff de Brissac, the one Finnula feared. He seemed to have a certain regard for the girl, however, as he looked up at her, his mouth set grimly within a thick—though neatly trimmed—black beard. “Why don't you come down from there, Finn, and let your sisters take you inside?”

Hugo saw Finnula lift her head. Crowded in the doorway to the
millhouse were five women, each crowned with a head of flame-red hair, except for one, who wore braids of pale gold. This one he judged to be Mellana, for she was weeping energetically and crying, “'Tis all my fault! Oh, Finn, will you ever forgive me?”

“No one's taking me anywhere,” Finnula announced stubbornly, digging her hands into Skinner's mane, “until someone tells me what this is all about.”

Hugo bent to speak into her ear. “Finnula, you'd best do as the sheriff says. This is a matter for men to settle. Go inside with your sisters.”

“There is no matter to settle,” Finnula declared hotly. Her gray gaze swept the group of men until it landed upon the one she sought. “Matthew Fairchild, what tales have you been spreading about me?”

“None but the truth, m'lady,” the nervous farmer insisted. “My boy Evan saw it all—”

“Your boy Evan saw nothing,” she said scornfully—and rather boldly, considering she was telling an outright lie.

“Nothing! He said he saw that man kissing you,” Robert declared, jabbing a furious finger at Hugo, “and that afterward you hit him, trying to escape his embrace. But when Evan brought Matthew out a few seconds later, you had gone already, taken against your will by that bastard—”

“That is the most ridiculous pack of lies I ever heard,” Finnula scoffed. “'Tis true we kissed, but 'twasn't against my will, and as for being taken—”

“Finnula,” the sheriff said calmly. “I've been to Caterbury this morning. There never was any Sir Hugh Fitzwilliam hailing from there. There isn't any Fitzwilliam family for miles around.”

Hugo felt, rather than heard, Finnula's gasp. She'd gone still as a statue in the saddle before him. This, he knew, was bad. Very, very bad.

For him.

“Now be a good girl,” the sheriff went on, “and get down from there, so I can speak to this man in private.”

Hugo prodded Finnula gently. “Do as he says, love. I'll explain it all to you later, but for now, go to your sisters.”