The Temptation (The Medieval Knights Series) (13 page)

"I am in flux," she said, pulling against his hands. Her breasts heaved toward him, and he smiled as he licked her. "I cannot."

"Nay, you cannot," he said, moving his mouth up to her throat, kissing her, a trail of kisses that would leave marks any hunter could follow. "There is only torment here tonight between us. We will be one in our torment. That is the oneness we will share. I share even that with you gladly, Elsbeth. You are a maid to make a man lose his reason. Am I not wary, I will lose myself in you."

Nay, it was not so. He was not wary. He was wild, and he was calling to some secret wild desire in her that had no place in her life. She was calm and reasonable. She was composed and holy in her aspect. She was not in torment, no matter what he tried. Only God could torment a soul.

Yet Hugh could torment her body. And so he did.

The pain of frustrated longing built in her. It was a fire that, once ignited, burned hot and bright. She had no way to dampen it. He held her arms above her head, kept her hips imprisoned by his leg. With his mouth and a single hand upon her body, she writhed in an agony she did not know the earth possessed.

Her breasts were heavy, throbbing, her nipples swollen and aching, tender to his touch yet craving it. 'Twas madness. Her eyes she kept closed and she turned her head from him, trying to deny what he unleashed with every lick and bite and nibble. This could not be. It must not be. She thanked God that He had given her the gift of her blood, for now she understood that it had been a gift to save her from herself and not from Hugh. She could not have turned from this branding, this call of heat and fire and smoke. She was turning toward him even now, craving him; only her blood protected her in this darkness of desire.

It was as Ardeth had said. It was all as she had said.

"Are you praying, little wife?" Hugh said, taking her earlobe into her mouth. "Are you praying for release from me, or from the torment you suffer at my hands?"

He kissed her then, his tongue a living flame that consumed her. Her breath was his. Her will was his. Her very heart beat at the sound of his voice. She was lost. Only her blood kept her safe.

"Or are you praying," he said, his mouth hovering above her, his lips brushing against her lips, "simply for release?"

"Release me," she said, pulling again against his restraining hand.

"Nay, that is not the release I was speaking of. This fire in you has but one release. When your blood stops, you shall find it. I will give it unto you."

"Give it to me now," she said. "Let me go. In all ways, let me go. Please." She had to escape him; before her blood passed, he must be gone from her life. Her vow to Ardeth could not be sold for a kiss from a golden man of a golden city.

"Open your eyes, Elsbeth. See me," he said softy, his hand against her cheek.

She did. The room was dark and yet too bright, the fire too hot, the air too still. Her skin was tender, and she shivered at the look in her husband's eyes.

"You are in torment," he said. "Say it."

"Release me," she whispered. Her throat was parched as if she had not drunk in a week.

"Say it," he said, "or you will find no rest this night, as I will not, to have such a woman at my side and be unable to have her. I want you, Elsbeth. This wanting is a fire, bright and hot, and I am burned. I only wish to share this torment. Do not let me burn alone."

He looked embattled by desire, his pulse jumping in his throat, his forehead damp with sweat, his eyes fever-bright. He looked a man tormented.

Something shifted in her, like a wave upon rocks, something violent and elemental. In a single instant God and her vow were cast aside, for just an instant. For just a moment in time, she gave him what he asked for. She could not deny him in that moment, and that was a torment of a different sort, a torment of the soul.

"You torment me," she said, her voice throaty with suppressed desire. "I am tormented. My skin burns. I ache. I want."

He looked deep into her eyes and then he released her slowly, his hand trailing down her arms, soothing them, igniting her.

"I also want," he said, kissing her brow. "I want you. I will find no rest until I have you."

She crossed her arms over her breasts, closing
him
out. He smiled and pulled her arms from her self-embrace and laid his head upon her breast, wrapping his arms around her, holding her to
him.
His breath was on her breasts, and she stirred in carnal discomfort. She could feel him smile against her skin.

"Find what rest you can, little wife, as I find mine. We have found our oneness for tonight. Sweet torment, Elsbeth."

Sweet torment. He said it well.

The night would be long indeed.

Chapter 7

"Away! I must... Away with you!" she said, pushing him from her.

Hugh leapt from the bed, his hands fisted and ready to attack, his eyes blinking. He looked at her. He looked behind him. He looked at her again.

"What is it? Where is the danger?"

"Can you not get you gone? The danger is here," she said, pointing to the juncture of her legs.

"Ah," he said, nodding, brushing the hair out of his eyes. "Can I help?"

"Yea, by leaving you help much," she said, sliding out of bed with her hands pressed between her legs.

After he had backed out of the room, she approached the bucket. It was almost full. She was almost out of wadding. She was thirsty. She was cold. All to the blame of Hugh. Had she slept alone, all would have been well. He had made it so that she could not well attend to her own needs. He had done it apurpose. He had nearly said so. All because he had wanted to torment her. Well, he had succeeded and succeeded well. Perhaps she should have encouraged him to stay and watch while she dealt with her blood flow; that would have been fair recompense. A torment of her own devising.

* * *

"A rare sort of torment, to have a man like him in your bed and yet not have him at all," Jovetta said in the quiet of the kitchen.

"I do not think Elsbeth thinks herself in torment," Marie said. "I have heard it said that she has no liking for men."

"What sort of woman was no liking for men?"

"A woman with the lord of Warkham for a father?" Marie countered.

They stood in a bolt of light cast upon the worn wooden floor. Dust and flour and stems and cores and bones were littered about them. The kitchens of Warkham were not well run. The cook of Warkham, John, had a particular loathing for the lord of Warkham and used his ladle as a weapon of resentment. It was his misfortune that the lord of Warkham had an inferior and unrefined palate; he noticed nothing beyond whether his food was hot or cold.

"Do you think she will decry?" Jovetta asked, wiping a rag over the worktable.

Marie shrugged and went to fetch a broom. John might have little care for his kitchen, but she disliked endless hours of idleness.

"It would be a rebellion of sorts. I do not think it in Elsbeth to rebel," Jovetta said.

"I think anyone may be pushed to anything," Marie said.

"You do not know her," Jovetta said. "We are of an age, and she was ever well set in her tasks—Ardeth and Gautier both made certain of that. A most dutiful daughter they managed between them. I do not think it in Elsbeth to defy her father."

"Ever since Eve it has been in every woman to defy any lord. Given the right cause," Marie said.

"Hugh of Jerusalem is hardly the right cause," Jovetta said with an audible sigh.

Marie laughed and kept sweeping. “Throw yourself in his way and see if he will not catch you," she offered. "He certainly must be hungry for a woman, since his own is forbidden to him."

"You think I have not?" Jovetta said with a grin. She had a lovely figure, and knew it well. There were few men in Warkham who had the means to marry, and the one who did was paying court to Marie. Jovetta found her amusements where she could, with whom she could. "He pays more attention to his horse and squire."

"In that order?" Marie asked, laughing.

"Aye, in that order," Jovetta said. "But his squire is a man to make a maid look again and yet again.
I wonder if the men of Outremer are all so fair as these two. Mayhap it is the holiness of the very air that makes them so beautiful."

"He is a comely man," Marie agreed.

"Comely? If you did not have Walter of the mill at your heels, ready to offer marriage at the crook of your finger, you would not say merely comely."

"'Tis better for me to remember Walter, a man I might attain, than to think of men so far above our sphere and reach."

"Above our sphere, aye, but above our reach?" Jovetta laughed lightly. "I think I can reach Raymond. I do not want to hold him long, only hold him hard between my legs. I think I can reach for that and find success."

"And the babe that might come from such reaching?"

"I will take care. I know a thing about stopping the making of a babe."

"Really?" Marie asked, laying her broom aside. "And who taught you that?"

"Oswina, the midwife's apprentice."

"She was a scold! Besides, she has run off. I would not lay my life on any words of counsel from her lips."

"Scold or not, she was an apt apprentice. She had practice enough in serving Warkham."

The dust was disturbed by the entry of a man into their midst. The very man of their speculation.

"May I beg a drink?" Raymond asked.

Jovetta turned and smiled with all the abandon of a woman on the hunt. Marie blushed and averted her eyes.

"Surely, Raymond," Jovetta answered.

"You know my name?" he asked as she went to fill a mug of ale for him.

"Aye, and the name of your lord and the name of his horse," Jovetta said.

Raymond smiled. "Then you know more names than I. What is yours, wench?"

"Jovetta."

"A lovely name."

"I thank you, though I had no hand in the choosing of it," she said with a grin.

Raymond smiled in response, taking the ale from her, their fingers brushing, and then turned to Marie. "And your name?"

"Marie."

"The name of our Savior's mother. What name could be more beautiful?" he said.

"The name of our Savior?" Marie answered tartly, resuming her sweeping.

Raymond grinned and said, "Ah, a warrior maid and her weapon, a broom."

"Nay, my weapon is my tongue."

"Then wield it against me again, Marie. I know well how to defeat a woman's tongue."

"And what weapon do you use in this battle, Raymond?" Jovetta asked.

"My own tongue, of course," he said.

"What talk is this?" Father Godfrey demanded, coming into the kitchen as the rain began to beat down in the bailey. "This is not proper and does not lead the heart and soul down the path of righteousness. I had thought better of the men of the holy city," he said, looking hard at Raymond.

"Your pardon, Father," Raymond said, bowing.

The women bent their heads in contrition, whether because they were truly contrite or only shamed at being caught, only they knew.

"Well you should ask my pardon. Will you lead these weaker vessels astray?" he asked, sweeping his arm toward the servant girls. "Is this how you serve Hugh and the needs of Jerusalem?"

"Nay, Father," Raymond said. "'Twas only idle talk."

"And does the Lord smile on idleness in any form? He does not. I am about the business of the Lord. I would strongly urge you to be about the business of your lord. I am most certain Hugh does not encourage this in you."

"Nay, Father, he does not," Raymond said in perfect solemnity. "I stand in submission to your will and his."

"Good," Father Godfrey said, leaving the kitchen with a warning glance for the women.

"Did you speak true?" Jovetta asked when she was sure the priest had left them. "Is your knight so hard of purpose?"

"Hard?" Raymond asked with a smile. "I would not give any answer that would shame him or me. Let me say only that I have yet to earn his displeasure for speaking to a woman."

"And so we are back to the topic of your tongue and what you may or may not do with it," Jovetta said.

"Jovetta!" Marie said.

"What did Jovetta say?" said a voice from beyond the kitchen wall. In the next instant, a small, dirty, fair-haired girl ran into the kitchen from the rain. She was also very wet.

"Denise, you should not be here," Marie said. "Lady Emma will not be pleased that you are not where she has left you."

"I am not pleased that she keeps leaving me," Denise said. "I do not see why she cannot have a turn at being displeased. I have had turns enough."

"Who is this chit?" Raymond asked, throwing back the end of his cloak.

"Chit?" Denise said, eyeing him. "Who is this gangling lad of wrist bones and knuckles?"

"Lad? I am no lad. I am squire to Lord Hugh of Jerusalem."

"Lord Hugh must have been very easy in his choosing," Denise countered.

"Denise!" Jovetta hissed. "Back to the solar with you."

"She is fostered here?" Raymond asked. She looked a villein by her dirt, yet her clothes were of fine weave and color, and none but the lady of the holding and her women entered the solar.