Silken Threads (37 page)

Graeham felt it, and responded with a
spontaneous flexing of his hips, stroking her deliciously from
within, although his erection was waning. He continued this gentle
thrusting as he untied the sash of her wrapper.

Throwing the silken robe open, he gazed on
her with that look of drowsy desire she’d become so familiar with.
“How beautiful you are, Joanna.”

“Let me see you, too,” she pleaded, tugging
at his shirt. “Take this off.”

He managed to peel the sodden garment off,
wiped his face with it and tossed it into the rushes. His chest and
shoulders, gleaming with sweat, enthralled her. Joanna caressed him
as she’d wanted to for weeks, savoring the planes and ridges of his
hard-packed muscles beneath her hands.

He glided his hand downward, over her
stomach, to the patch of hair now tangled with his, all the while
moving within her in a steady rhythm that she couldn’t help
matching. At first his touch was light and airy, maddeningly
so.

She closed her hands over his shoulders,
writhed unselfconsciously.

Only when she begged him to did he intensify
the caress, lightly probing and stroking, but always backing off
just as satisfaction beckoned, until she was thrashing beneath him,
moaning like a woman possessed.

She threw her head back, trembling. “Oh,
Graeham...oh, please...”

With a groan, he sank deeply into her,
pulled out, and plunged in again, still touching her as before.
Even as she teetered breathlessly on the edge of climax, some part
of her was dimly aware that he’d regained his erection. He was
making love to her again without even uncoupling from the first
time.

She cried out rawly when she fell over the
edge, lost in pleasure that exploded over and over and over, stoked
by the driving rhythm of his thrusts. As her climax ebbed, he fell
on her and kissed her deeply. His body slid against hers in an
ever-quickening rhythm, sweat trickling between them, his restless
hands in her hair, on her breasts, her hips.

Joanna clung to him through a second
shattering climax as her fingers raked his hair, his back. There
was a violent energy to their lovemaking that made her feel wicked
and beautiful and utterly abandoned.

As her pleasure subsided, he seized her
hips, his face darkly flushed, a low, almost pained sound rising
from his throat. Swiftly he slid out of her, leaving her shockingly
empty. He thrust against her once, twice, then stilled, taut and
quivering, holding her so tightly she could barely breathe. Heat
pumped wetly between them, then he sank, panting on top of her.

A few moments later, after she’d caught her
breath, Joanna said, a little shyly, “I...I didn’t know men could
do that
—
make love twice in a row that way.”

Raising his face from the crook of her neck,
Graeham chuckled. “Neither did I,” he said, and kissed her
soundly.

* * *

“I’ve never been in such a big bed,” Graeham
said later that night, after they were settled upstairs in the
solar.

It was a surprisingly beautiful chamber,
airy and whitewashed and inviting. Her bed was enormous, with a
feather mattress and white curtains they’d drawn around them.
Candlelight glowed through the curtains, burnishing her lush body,
curled up with his in a comfortable, naked embrace. He basked in
the soft weight of her against him, the coolness of the linen
sheets beneath them, and most of all the sense of intimate
companionship that was so novel to him, and so wonderful.

“You were mad to insist on coming up here,”
she murmured against his chest. “I thought you were never going to
make it up that ladder.”

He trailed a hand through her extraordinary
hair, heavy silk falling through his fingers. “I wanted to sleep
with you.”

“You must have wanted it a great deal. You
grimaced with every step.”

There were still a few rushes caught in her
hair. He pulled one out and dropped it onto the rush-covered floor.
“I’ve never slept with anyone before.”

She raised her head to look at him.
“Never?”

He shook his head. “In the dorter at Holy
Trinity, and now in Lord Gui’s barracks, everyone has his own
cot
—
no bigger than the one downstairs in your storeroom.
I’ve never shared a bed.”

“Not even...” She looked away from him and
resettled her head on his shoulder. “Not even when you were with a
woman?”

“Oh, I’ve tupped in beds, of course,” he
said. And many other places
—
behind Lord Gui’s wash house
with the laundresses, in pantries and butteries with the serving
wenches, in dark Paris doorways with whores
—
but he knew
better than to think Joanna wanted to hear any of that. “But when
the tupping was over, I always left.”

“Your lovers never wanted you to stay?”

“They weren’t ‘lovers,’ Joanna, they were
just...accommodating women.”

“Prostitutes?”

“Sometimes,” he said, uncomfortably aware
that she might be thinking of Leoda. “More often than not, just
women who gave themselves freely. They never meant anything to me.
Sex with them...it was more a bodily function than anything else, a
way of gaining relief. It wasn’t like it was with us, downstairs.
That was...”

“Magic,” she said softly.

He curled his arms around her and kissed her
hair. “Aye. And you’re a witch who’s caught me in her spell. A
beautiful, wanton witch.”

“Wanton!” She buried her face against his
chest. “Nay.”

He chuckled at her foolishness. “Wanton in
the best way. You felt so...unbridled in my arms, so responsive and
unrestrained. And I felt the same way
—
you made my feel
that way. ‘Twas the first time I’ve ever lost that sense of being
separate and apart. You made me feel as if I were one with
you
—
that we were a single being, together. Does that make
any sense?”

“Aye. I felt the same.”

“I’m afraid I wasn’t very gentle,” he said,
remembering how she’d reacted when he first entered her. She was as
tight as a virgin, or how he imagined a virgin to be, never having
lain with one. He’d never been with a woman whose body fit so
snugly around his. It felt incredible
—
so hot and tight and
slick
—
but it unnerved him, too. “Did I hurt you? I hope I
didn’t hurt you.”

“Nay
—
not at all.”

He knew she was just saying that to spare
his feelings. “It must have been a long time since you were with a
man.”

“Five years,” she said. “I caught Prewitt in
this bed with the poulterer’s wife and banished him to the
storeroom.”

He chuckled. “I’d wondered what he’d done to
deserve such a fate. I suppose I should have known. There was no
one, then, even when your husband was abroad for months at a time
and you were all alone?”

“Nay. I was a married woman.”

“In name only.”

“It still would have been adultery. And, by
and large, men steered clear of me, because I was a wedded
woman.”

“They didn’t keep their distance once you
were widowed, I’ll wager.”

“Nay, but I kept my distance from them. Most
men just want an uncomplicated tumble with an experienced woman.
They want to use me, same as I’ve been used all my
life
—
and just for sex. Some of them are married,
betrothed...All they want from me is my body, and only for as long
as it takes to ease their lust. I despise the notion of being used
that way. They very idea makes me sick.”

Some are married, betrothed...
Graeham felt a little red-hot stab of contrition deep in his
stomach. He was all but betrothed to Phillipa. Yet...wasn’t Joanna
betrothed as well? Surely it would be official by now.

He cleared his throat. “I know about Robert
of Ramswick.”

She twisted her head to look at him. “What
about Robert of Ramswick?”

He brushed a lock of hair off her forehead,
striving for a gentle, nonjudgmental tone. After all, was he not
also guilty of infidelity to his betrothed? “I know he asked you to
marry him, Joanna.”

Her eyes lit with comprehension. “That day
he came here while I was doing laundry. You overheard...”

“Enough to know what he was about.” He
embraced her tightly, possessively, and nuzzled her fragrant hair.
“I hate to think of you as his wife
—
as any man’s wife
but
—
”
But mine?
He squeezed his eyes shut against
the impossibility of their situation and the pain he knew would
come eventually. “I’m happy for you that you’ll be wed to a man of
such high rank. That is, I want to be happy for you. I’m trying to
be happy for you, but
—
”

“I’m not betrothed, Graeham.” She twisted
around so that she was lying on her stomach, her legs entwined with
his, her breasts resting on his chest, soft and heavy, and looked
him in the eye. “Not to Robert, nor anyone else.”

“But didn’t he ask you
—
”

“Aye. I turned him down.”

“Truly?” As gratifying as this news was, it
was also somewhat perplexing
—
even astounding. Robert of
Ramswick was young, handsome, and judging from his willingness to
take little Alice into his home as a ward, a very good man indeed,
a man worthy of Joanna. On top of it all, he was a landed lord.
Marriage to him could have rescued Joanna from the poverty into
which she was slipping all too quickly. “Why did you turn him
down?”

“Aside from the fact that I’m not in love
with him?”

“That wouldn’t have stopped you from
entering into such a favorable marriage.” One thing Graeham had
learned about Joanna Chapman was that she was a pragmatic woman, a
woman who did what had to be done, who stiffened her backbone and
persevered. It was one of the qualities
—
the many
qualities
—
he admired about her.

“Nay
—
that wouldn’t have stopped
me,” she admitted. “But as it happens, Robert is in love with his
cousin. He only asked for my hand because he needed a mother for
his children, and he thought it would kill his parents if he
married Margaret. I’m happy to report that he came to his senses.”
She smiled in a way that made her look like a self-satisfied little
girl. “They were formally betrothed in a ceremony in Ramswick’s
chapel a few days ago. Hugh went. They’re to be wed in the early
part of August.”

“What of Lord Robert’s parents?”

“Robert was right, they objected to the
marriage, but they didn’t have any luck talking him out of it. Hugh
says they attended the betrothal ceremony
—
still very much
alive
—
so I suspect they just need time to get used to the
idea.” She frowned. “How could you have thought I was betrothed to
Robert after...what happened downstairs?”

“I...suppose I thought you were too...swept
away by passion to be thinking of him.”

She smiled a bit sardonically. “In my
opinion, passion is something one must give oneself permission to
be swept away by.”

He shook his head, grinning. “Sometimes I
think you’re
too
pragmatic.”

“No, really. I wanted you tonight,
desperately. I’ve wanted you ever since you came to live here.”

“Really?” Graeham said, absurdly gladdened
that the passion that had consumed him day and night for the past
six weeks had not been unrequited.

“But no matter how deeply I desired you,”
she said soberly, “I would never have acted on that desire had I
accepted Robert’s proposal of marriage. Infidelity to your
betrothed is still adultery. The Church says so, and it’s what I
feel in my heart. It’s betrayal. It’s wrong.”

Graeham felt a little pinch of guilt deep in
his stomach. He’d always loathed the idea of
infidelity
—
not so much because of the Church’s
condemnation of it, but because of the circumstances of his birth.
Once he spoke the words, “With this ring I thee wed, and with my
body I thee honor,” he would honor with his body only the woman who
wore his ring, forsaking all others.

He supposed he’d always intended to be
faithful to his betrothed even before they exchanged vows at the
church door. Certainly he had. It was the right thing, the
honorable thing, and he was an honorable man. Yet he’d spared not a
thought for Phillipa when he tore Joanna’s wrapper open and took
her on the floor of her salle.

Of course, there were mitigating
circumstances. He’d never met Phillipa. He had no feelings for her,
no sense of devotion or attachment that made it seem like betrayal
to bed someone else. And, too, their betrothal was as yet informal;
no contract had been drawn up, no betrothal ceremony conducted. Yet
were those not mere formalities? He and Phillipa were promised to
each other. In the eyes of both of them, they were already
betrothed.

Making love to Joanna was, indeed, a form of
infidelity, in spirit if nothing else. Graeham did feel a twinge of
guilt, but no real shame, no sense that he’d sinned in any
meaningful way. How could he feel remorseful to have shared his
body, his soul, with a woman he loved so deeply, so...

“Oh, God.” He couldn’t love her, mustn’t
love her, yet of course, he did. How could he not? Part of him
rejoiced to have found a soulmate; another part
—
the part
that craved a proper home and family and the land to make it
possible
—
felt a sense of dread at this new turn of
events.

This could not end well, he and Joanna. The
only way he could be with her would be to reject Phillipa’s hand in
marriage and the Oxfordshire estate that came with it, withdraw
from Lord Gui’s service and return to England. He’d be a landless
soldier with no overlord, no money, no prospects. He would have
Joanna
—
if a woman like her was willing to settle for a
penniless cur with no property of his own
—
but he would
lose his hopes, his dreams, his very future.