The Holding - Book 1 in The Medieval Knights Series (21 page)

"Two voices joined would create a harmony that a solitary voice lacks," William encouraged. "Shall we join and create a stirring song that will cause the people of our hall to sigh and weep?"

With a jolt, Cathryn remembered that they stood in front of all their people. She felt that she had suddenly been found undressed before them all.

Eager to end their conversation, she said quickly, "Yea. Perhaps."

"Then let us go to a private place where we may compose a composition that declares the twining of our hearts." And at her alarmed look, he added with a boyish grin, "In song."

He was well named. Hardly had she suspected that they might be engaged in battle when he had won with quiet efficiency and was escorting her from the hall, her compliance affirmed by her own lips. He was le Brouillard in name and act, for he had surrounded her and overwhelmed her as thickly and with as little warning as the fog shrouded the wood. She was enshrouded. Enshrouded now by his hand upon her arm as he propelled her from the familiar faces of the hall. Those faces were raised in good-natured laughter and well wishes at their departure; why, even John the Steward was smiling in his quiet way!

He was light of step upon the stair, though he all but carried her with him. It was when he led her to his chamber that the fog began to break.

"This
is the private place?"

"Is there any more private or more suited to the joining of..." he began suggestively, his gray eyes the color of a smoky fire.

"Words! You spoke of words!" she cried out in rising alarm.

"Yea," he acceded mildly, a smile hovering at the corners of his mouth. "Thoughts and hearts were also mentioned. But it still holds that we must go to a private place for joining."

He was stubborn. She had not understood that with such clarity yesterday.

"I am much fatigued," Cathryn maneuvered. "I will be fresher on the morrow."

"There is much of myself I would share with you. I would not wait," he said, "though on the morrow there will be more sharing still."

That sounded to her ears like a threat. His smile did not dissuade her from the conclusion.

"How long do you think it will take for us to compose a simple song for the people of Greneforde?" she argued suspiciously.

"I was not thinking of a simple song, but one of many variations connected by a single theme. Verily—" he smiled, his eyes darkening—"it could take us years to perfect."

"Verily," she bit back, "if it will take years, there is no rush. I will retire."

"In truth, since it will take years, we must not waste a moment and must strike while the mood is upon us."

"The mood is not upon me," she spit out.

"But it is upon me," he said with thick politeness; he had not thought her so obtuse.

"Then follow its dictates as I will follow mine."

"'Tis a mood that must be shared, and, as your husband, I would share it with you."

"As your wife, I would follow my own course."

"As my wife—" he smiled fully—"I must ask that you follow mine."

And so they had reached a stalemate. She could think of no retort to his latest high-handedness, and stopped to look about her. He had maneuvered her again and most effectively; during their verbal sparring, he had edged her into his chamber and now stood between her and the door. Only the fire was lit. The room was full of shadow, but she could plainly see the white of his smile as he leaned against the heavy door and closed it.

There was no doubt now what was coming, though she could not credit it. He had told her clearly just twenty-four hours ago that he cared only for Greneforde and would not seek her out. They had spent the better part of their time together this day in verbal sparring. Such was not the behavior of a man seeking a woman. She had taken much comfort in that.

There was no comfort to be taken in the way William was behaving now.

He moved from the door, and she backed up a step and another and another until she finally stood at the foot of the bed. Logic told her that she should not stand so near the bed, that she should move to some far-off corner. Logic also said that any defensive move she might make was hopeless. Logic was a cold ally.

"Your movements are as fluid as the most delicate of waterfalls, Cathryn," William softly complimented. "I discover that I could watch you in motion for hours and not tire of the sight."

She stood rooted to the floor planks at the foot of the bed, all desire to move away stolen by his words.

William smiled. "And now you do not move, but await me at the place where we will lie together. You are a most accommodating wife."

"What need we to lie when composing song? 'Tis a most unusual habit," Cathryn challenged.

"Certain compositions cannot attain their full measure in any other fashion, I assure you." And when she looked at him with brown eyes brimming with suspicion and hostility, he amended, "Nay, I will teach you."

With liquid grace rare in one so muscular, William skimmed through the darkness toward her. She could see him, but it was more that she felt his coming nearness and jerked away instinctively. He had changed toward her; she could feel it. She could not account for it.

His touch featherlight, William caught one be-ribboned plait, catching her as if by a leash. He began to loose the binding, murmuring as he did so.

"Your hair is a rich bounty, Cathryn, with both moon and sun caught and held within its strands. I watch it move as I watch you move, and it seems a thing alive and separate, willingly giving its heavy beauty to generously enhance the fragile loveliness of your slender perfection."

He had released her hair, and now it fell in a heavy and shimmering mass to the back of her knees.

"'Tis hair," she said curtly. "All of God's creations have it in one manner or another."

William smiled and lifted the weight of it in his hands, forcing her to face him.

"He was most generous in His manner with you, lady, and I am grateful and appreciative of His generosity."

His eyes were the color of wood smoke and burned as hot. She would swear an oath before Father Godfrey that his eyes were burning her flesh and causing a licking unease to flit about within her. How else to explain the sudden heat of her skin and the tremors rippling from her throat to her stomach? Something was not right within her; she knew that with certainty. She must escape this room and this man, if only for a time, to gather her composure more firmly about her. She said the first thing that came to mind, thankful that it was the truth.

"Father Godfrey is prepared to say the evening mass in remembrance of the dead. All has been arranged after much planning. I would not miss it."

William slowly released his gentle hold upon her hair, studying the petite features of his wife. What she said was true, and he knew now for whom the mass was to be read; it was no light matter to be cast aside. Her burden for her brother's death was heavy—that he understood full well—but he also understood something he had not even an hour before. His wife at her coldest was Cathryn at her most vulnerable; her rigid composure and lack of emotion were her final defensive barriers.

Cathryn was now as cold as he had ever seen her. Her back was straight, her chin high, her hands folded, and her eyes blank. But within the blank brown she turned to him, he was certain he detected the spark of passion. It was that passion he was intent on fueling.

"Tomorrow will serve just as well," he said gently, and when she made to argue, added, "for the dead have all eternity where one thousand years is as a day."

She could say no more, that much was clear. He was a man set upon sating his own desires, and none knew better than she that a man in such a state was beyond reason or courtesy or compassion. And so she prepared herself for the assault that she knew was fast coming.

He reached again for her and she did not pull away, to her credit. Though his touch was gentleness itself, she could not subdue the shiver that passed down her spine.

"Come, Cathryn, you are chilled. I will build the fire and warm you."

Because of his words, she did not expect his next action. He pulled her full against him and released the strings that held her faded gown together at the back. With a single tug, she stood in but her well-worn linen shift, the length of her golden hair more of a covering than the cloth.

Large hands caressed the skin of her back, skin both hot and cold together, until they wandered to the full mounds where back and leg were joined. These they cupped and stroked, the fingers dipping between them more than once. And all the while, with her downturned face buried in his chest, William breathed his words of seduction.

"Your skin is as the rarest silk from the East; it is so soft beneath my hand, and the color is of a finer and more luminous gold than any man could fashion. You are as late summer grass, golden and moving with effortless grace beneath the waning sun, illuminated as you are touched by its fire."

His hands traced the curve of buttock and hip and waist and shoulder until they rested momentarily beneath the slight weight of her bosom. His mouth brushed her hairline, leaving light kisses at ear, temple, and brow. Cathryn stood unmoving and unmoved.

"When first I saw you as you stood in the great yard of Greneforde," William whispered, dropping kisses upon her face as quickly as spring rain fell upon the earth, "I thought you looked as splendid as a golden candlestick that graces the finest church in any land. I thought you the most beautiful of women, Cathryn."

His mouth teased the corner of hers, and she trembled deep within herself. William felt her trembling.

"You are beautiful, Cathryn." And his mouth possessed hers.

So slowly and so gently he had moved with her, and so still she had been. So wrong he had been about the passion he had seen struggling to life within her, for it was not passion awakening but panic suppressed. His kiss, with his hands upon her breasts, urging her nipples to plump life, caused panic to surge within her.

Wriggling free of his grasp, Cathryn gave him her back and stood facing the fire.

"Men want a wife pleasing to the eye," she said with bile. "That you are so easily pleased gives me cause for thanksgiving, for a man not pleased with his wife's face is a man hard to please in all things."

It was not the reaction that he had been hoping for, and he was no fool to follow a strategy that was a proven failure. His acceptance of her, his desire, his approval, were not enough, it seemed, to warm her heart. He was not persuaded that she had no heart beating within her breast, though he knew that was what she wished him and all others to think. There was hope in that.

Pulling a stool closer to the fire, he made no attempt to answer her. They held their positions for a score of heartbeats, Cathryn staring into the flames, her dark eyes black voids framed by silvery hair, and William sitting with the light caressing his black curls and catching the molten glow of his gray eyes. With one hand, he reached out to clasp her wrist and encourage her onto his lap. She came reluctantly. But she came. William rubbed her back with slow strokes, much as one would stroke a dog. They both calmed with each measured stoke, their eyes upon the fire.

His hand grew warm with the friction and he welcomed it, for he was remembering his time with her last night, and the friction that memory caused within his soul was not welcome. He had done little better than rape her, married or not. It would have done little to endear him to her, especially as she had a history of nightly rape to strangle the natural desire that God gave all women. The thought gave him fresh hope to feed the struggling hope within him; God had designed Cathryn to receive pleasure at her husband's touch, and with God, all things were possible. This night was not over yet.

"It has been a full day that we are one in the sight of God," William observed quietly.

Cathryn had cautiously lowered herself so that she leaned slightly against William's chest; she found his touch on her skin strangely comforting. His words caused her to jerk upright.

William ignored her physical reaction and continued to rub her back.

"We became one the moment that we pledged our union before God and Father Godfrey, Cathryn," he clarified. "It is our words that bind us; our bodily union only bears the testimony of what our words have accomplished."

She sat silent, unsure of what he expected of her, unsure of where he was leading, as she ever was with le Brouillard.

"You may rest in my guidance on this, wife," he joked, "for Father Godfrey is of the opinion that God's inspired word is for all conversation, not just for the mass, and I have traveled the breadth of a continent with him. He is a talkative man," he finished with a melodramatic sigh.

Cathryn again held her tongue, but she could not stop the smile that tickled the corners of her mouth. Luckily her back was to William, so he would not note her loss of composure.

"We pledged before God and man that we would live out our lives as one, and God takes our pledges very seriously, lady. I am sworn to love you as I love my own body, and this I do," he vowed. "We are one flesh, Cathryn."

And suddenly she knew the purpose of le Brouillard.

"You know," said she with suppressed horror.