Rose Bride (34 page)

Her heart was racing with every thrust of his tongue. Not content to lie entirely passive beneath such a kiss, she fought back, moulding her mouth to his so that their lips at least could move sensually together.

She felt his jerk of surprise and took advantage of it, her mouth following his, tasting him hungrily.

Abruptly she pulled away.

Now it was her turn to tease him, dragging hard on his lower lip until he growled. Then she kissed the corner of his mouth, his chin, his rough throat, the veins standing out along it like whipcord.

‘Margerie,’ he hissed, and grasped her chin, holding her prisoner while he drew their mouths back together. This time the kiss took fire, her tongue mating fiercely with his, their bodies mating too.

Virgil cursed against her mouth. She guessed he must be near the edge. He rose up above her, thrusting deeply and urgently, forcing his thick length in to the hilt, and Margerie felt the sweet sharp pain of not quite being able to accommodate him. She clenched around him, panting now, urging him on, telling him without words that she needed it hard, that she welcomed his aggression.

Now only his lower body was moving, his cock slipping wetly in and out, his upper body almost still, every muscle in his chest and arms tensed to stone.

She wondered why Virgil did not simply take his pleasure, as he had said he would, but continued to prolong their fucking with this steely control.

Then it struck her. He was waiting for her to take her pleasure first.

The thought shook her to the core. For all his anger and his icy commands, Virgil had never intended this to be a rape.

The pleasure which had been tight-coiled inside her for some time now abruptly found its release, as though that realisation alone had allowed it to rise and overwhelm her. Her walls clenched about him hard, then again, and again, and yet again, one dancing ripple of sweet pulsing joy that rose and fell, twisting inside her, the pleasure lashing like lightning straight up her spine to her brain, so that her scalp tingled with tiny shocks and she forgot everything, even her name, in a wondrous tide of physical release that drowned her entire being.

Margerie screamed, unable to bite the sound back, and felt his hand clamp down on her mouth, silencing her. His skin tasted of sweat, so heavy she struggled to breathe, her chest heaving for air.

You will be silent
, he had commanded her, and she had disobeyed.

Shame at her own lack of discipline made her remain as still as possible, very rigidly not allowing her hips to move as pleasure burnt through her, despite the temptation to grind her sweating body against his – and somehow the restraint of
not
being permitted to move intensified her pleasure a thousandfold.

His hand slipped from her mouth. ‘Wanton,’ he growled, his eyes glittering, watching her through the darkness.

He had been holding still inside her while she came, but now he plunged deep, his strokes driving hard and swift, pinning her to the soft mattress with the weight of his lean body. She did not resist, burying her hot face in his chest, her body limp with pleasure.

At last he gave a hoarse cry, his head thrown back, his whole body shuddering violently against hers, and a delicious liquid heat spread throughout her belly as he achieved his end inside her. Then he rolled off her almost immediately and collapsed beside her on the soft mattress, panting wildly.

She lay in sweaty torpor, exhausted and relieved in equal measure, sure now that the worst must be over. He was furious with her, thought the child in her belly was probably Munro’s, but the fire was still there between them. It had not been doused by his anger.

And she was in love with him, her tenderness for him growing with every moment they were together.

This could still work, she found herself thinking sleepily, and was shocked when he suddenly swung out of the curtained bed and, to judge by the sounds of rustling, began to dress again in the darkness.

‘Where . . . Where are you going?’ Margerie whispered after a few agonising moments, unsure whether to remain submissively silent or challenge him.

It was their wedding night, after all.

‘That is none of your concern,’ Virgil told her, and her heart sank. The curt anger was back in his voice, nagging at her, driving the chill deeper into her heart. ‘Go back to sleep. We make an early start in the morning.’

And with that her husband left the chamber. Left her to sleep alone on her wedding night and went God knew where.

He had not forgiven her. However brilliantly their bodies might fit together, she was still – and always would be, she now realised – the wife Virgil had not wanted. The ice about his heart was too thick to admit her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Virgil sat his grey gelding, staring across the muddy fields in the early spring sunshine. He was broodingly aware that his mood was dangerous and he ought to ride home. It had been almost a sennight since he had brought his new wife home to Applegate. And in all that time, he had not visited her bed again, having installed her in the master bedchamber and then chosen to sleep in his damp old room instead, as though pretending to be a boy again.

The strain of staying away from his bride was doing nothing for his temper though, and he knew it. But there was a greater danger in allowing himself to use her delectable body as he pleased. For every time they lay together, he came away feeling as though Margerie had peeled another bloody layer from his skin, and the wound was becoming more and more tender.

Wanton, he had called her. For having taken pleasure at his mounting.

Lie still while I take my pleasure . . .

What had possessed him to speak so coldly to his wife on their wedding night? To use her like a whore with no caresses or soft words of love, leaving her to sleep alone once his coupling was done?

‘Why am I so angry with her?’

His horse shifted under him, not knowing the answer. Virgil did not know the answer either. He rubbed a gloved hand across his forehead, bewildered and more than a little guilty.

‘I offered her marriage of my own free will, knowing the child was most likely not mine. I was not coerced into that offer. I was not even deceived.’

Yet he knew himself furious and resentful, all the same. Margerie had the power to bring him to his knees, and he knew it. Yet this was a woman who might be carrying another man’s child in her womb. Virgil would look at her and feel tender, and then come straight back to that truth, to the hard knowledge that he had been her second choice. That without this unfortunate pregnancy, she might still be warming Lord Munro’s bed.

He had his pride. How could he allow Margerie to see the power she wielded over him? Better to show her coldness than risk revealing how weak he had become.

During that intense coupling on their wedding night, he had known a swift fierce joy, and then just as abruptly a terrible fear of being unmanned. Of losing his hard-won control and ending up on his knees.

Descending to the tavern’s public rooms, he had found them empty but for the grizzled old landlord, and had drunk deep with the man for hours, then slept on the wooden settle until dawn, waking with a thumping head and a foul taste in his mouth from all the cheap wine he had consumed.

It had not been an ideal start to his marriage. But he was here now, married to his one-time mistress, and life must go on.

He had sent a note over to his mother at Christina’s. Now Margerie had been given ample time to speak to his housekeeper, Mrs Hayes, and formally assume control of the household keys, it seemed a good time for the two women to meet and be introduced.

He did not know why his mother was still staying with Christina, though he had been relieved not to find her at home when they arrived on that first day. But it was clear such a state of affairs could hardly be allowed to continue. Once he returned to court, Margerie would be left alone here at Applegate, apart from the servants. And his conscience nagged at him not to abandon his bride to a lonely existence in a strange household, but to provide her at the very least with female companionship while she awaited her confinement.

So he had penned a note to his mother, hesitating over the wording, for he knew Christina would of course read the note.

Mother, you may have heard by now, but I was lately wed to a lady of the court, one Margerie Croft, granddaughter of Thomas Croft, late of the king’s service. My wife is now safely installed at Applegate and likely to remain here for some considerable time.

I must leave to resume my duties at court within a few days, and therefore beg you to return and make my bride’s acquaintance.

Your dutiful son, V.

He could not help wondering how Christina would take the news. Again his conscience pricked him. He should have told Christina himself, face to face. He owed her more than this furtive secondhand note. But he had to admit that he did not relish the task.

Likely to remain here for some considerable time.

Only a fool would not understand that to mean his bride was already with child. So he had waited for the inevitable explosion. Three days had passed, yet to his astonishment and irritation no reply had come to his note. Yet he knew from Master Hayes’ testimony that both his mother and Christina were still in residence at the manor house, for they had been seen at church.

This morning he had taken his horse out, pretending to himself that he merely wished to ride the bounds of his property and check for any holes in the hedgerows and withy fences where errant sheep might slip either in or out, when in fact it was at the back of his mind all the time to ride over to the manor house, and confront both Christina and his mother.

He had wanted to ride out with Margerie for several days now, show her the grounds himself while the sun was shining and winter at last seemed to be retreating.

But Margerie had repeatedly refused. ‘I am still not quite well, I fear,’ she had told him, watching him with anxious eyes, her face pale. ‘Perhaps another time, if you do not mind.’

He had not argued. He hated the wariness in her eyes, suspicious that she was afraid he might punish her for refusing. As though he were an ogre looking for any excuse to beat his wife. Besides, he was not assured of the wisdom of a woman in her condition sitting a horse.

Applegate was no grand estate of course. But although he had avoided returning for years, it was his home and his inheritance, the place where he had played – and suffered – as a boy. Despite the crueller memories, there were some happy ones too. Perhaps Margerie would eventually come to love it as he did. And perhaps one day his own son . . .

Carefully, as though unthinking that thought, Virgil gathered the reins in his gloved hands, and clucked his tongue at the horse.

‘Come, Thunder,’ he commanded.

He spurred the gelding forward and over the low hedge between his property and Christina’s. When he arrived at the front of the house, the place seemed deserted so he walked his horse round to the stables. Looping the gelding’s reins over a post, he called for a groom, but none came.

He frowned. ‘Where is everyone?’

There was a sturdy unfamiliar cob standing saddled in the yard, also tied up, his hooves and hocks splashed with mud. He pondered it for a moment, wondering if Christina had a visitor, then his attention was caught by the sound of a sharp cry from one of the open stable doors.

It was a woman’s voice. ‘Ah no!’ she was crying in what sounded like acute fear and pain. ‘Oh God, no, please!’

His hand fell to his dagger hilt, and he strode to the door, then stood frozen at the sight of his beloved friend Christina, his fragile, delicate Christina, bent over a bale of last season’s straw at the back of the stable. Her gown had been tossed up over her hips, displaying a shapely bottom and thighs, and a man in hose and leather jerkin was labouring between them.

‘Yes, by Christ!’ The man looked like a stablehand, and indeed sounded like one too, his language coarse as he thrust and jerked and swore at her.

His head thick with rage, Virgil ran across the stable, almost slipping in the horses’ muck, and dragged the startled man from his pleasure.

‘You’ll die for this rape, sirrah!’

Virgil knelt on the man’s chest, pressing his dagger to his straining windpipe, though in truth he would have liked to place that dagger somewhat lower on his person.

‘Christina, are you . . . God’s blood, are you hurt?’ He had heard her cry out in shock at his intervention, but did not dare look round. ‘Fetch . . . Fetch help from the house. I will guard this villain. You need not fear, I am here to protect you now.’

‘Yes, Virgil,’ she bit out, ‘so I can see.’

He turned his head then, surprised by her icy tone, and saw that Christina was not running to the house, but standing resolutely behind him. There was straw in her unbound fair hair, and she was smoothing down her skirts with an unsteady hand. There was a spot of red burning in each pale cheek, and he slowly realised it was sexual excitement, not fear, that had put that colour there.

‘This fellow was not . . . not raping you,’ he said slowly, as understanding dawned. ‘He is—’

‘My lover,’ she finished for him succinctly.