The Temptation (The Medieval Knights Series) (41 page)

She breathed a sigh and shook her head against his touch and his words, but he would not let her escape him.

"You know nothing of what I want," she said.

She smelled of rain and wood and wool, like wind and forest in the night, like the very earth itself. Natural. Warm. Dark. He buried his face in her and breathed hard, his mouth opening upon her like a babe's first breath, hurried and urgent and necessary.

That was wrong. She could not be necessary. Only Baldwin was necessary. Only Jerusalem was urgent and urgently in need. His own needs did not signify. He could have no needs beyond the fulfillment of his vow.

But he needed her. In this moment, this now, he needed her.

It was her worst betrayal of all. She had made him need her. Made him want her. Tempted him to forget the beauty of golden Jerusalem in her dark embrace. Tempted him to stay.

"Aye, I do know. I know your wants very well," he said, holding her hard against him, pressing against her stubborn will.

"Sunnandune is mine," she said, trying to twist free of him. She was too small for that. He could hold her until the end of time. She would not work free of him. "I will not abandon Sunnandune."

"Not abandon her? You have not seen her for a decade," he said, setting her feet upon the ground and holding her hands in his, trapped. "Give her to me. I will see that all is well with Sunnandune while you are in the abbey."

She opened her eyes and looked hard into his. She shook the water from her eyes and shook back her hair. "You will keep Sunnandune, but you will relinquish me?" She laughed softly and her eyes flooded with sudden tears. "You must think me a fool, my lord. I will give you nothing. You will take nothing from me. Nothing," she said on a croak of emotion.

"Nothing?" he said, grinning without a trace of humor or goodwill.

She took the very heart of him, the part that made him a man, the vow he had made to Baldwin, and pressed it into the mud with every word she spoke. She would give him nothing? Oh, aye, that was true. She had given him nothing from the moment he had set his eyes upon her, but that was over. She would give him something. In that instant, it was the one and only thing he wanted from her, and he would have it.

Let Baldwin and his wishes wait; Hugh was done with waiting.

"Oh, you can and will give me something, little wife. You will give me what I have wanted of you from the start."

"I have nothing. There is nothing," she said, pulling hard against his hands. A fruitless resistance. He pulled her close to him, towering over her.

"I want you, Elsbeth," he said, his voice a whisper of raw intent "I want your body under mine. I want your breath in me. I want your skin red with my caresses. I want your blood to cover me."

"Nay, I cannot give you that," she said, her eyes wide and black, like the very night itself.

"Then do not give," he said slowly. "I will take what I want from you."

Chapter 21

He was done with words. Done with vows. Done with careful, measured living. He had lost all. He would not lose this.

He dragged her by her hands, bound within his own, dragged her to the edge of the wood. Her feet slipped in the mud, her gown was soiled past knowing its color. Her hair was a tangled mass of black that hung around her face and torso like the fabled banshee of old.

He did not care. Let her curse him. Let her pray him into hell when this was done.

He would have her anyway.

She was his wife. He had the right to take her. God help him, he had the will. Nothing she could say would stop him from this course.

Elsbeth said nothing to stop him; she only planted her feet and refused to walk to her own deflowering. He did not find that odd. He knew his wife as well as any man could know a woman. She would endure what was to come. She would not fight outright, yet she would not quite submit. Such was Elsbeth.

He did not care for any but his own needs, his own wants. He was miles past caring. Let her fear; she would learn that there was nothing to fear, learning what every woman since Eve had learned.

All had been denied him, including this. But no more. He would have her.

Holding her, trapping her, he ripped at the laces of her bliaut.

"I want to see your skin. I want to see it in the rain. I want to see your nipples rise in the cold, and I want to warm them with my mouth," he said. His voice was guttural. He hardly recognized himself. Well, he was far from Jerusalem, the place that had shaped him. He did not know himself in this strange land of water and cloud.

He did not care.

All he knew of himself was the wanting of her.

"Stop," she said, shivering in the cold. Or perhaps she trembled in fear. He did not care which. All caring had been washed out of him, leaving nothing but the fire of passion and need.

"Nay," he said.

"You will not stop?" she asked, her voice small and wet. He did not look to see if there were tears. He did not care if she cried.

"Nay, I will not stop," he said, peeling her bliaut from her shoulders and pushing the sodden fabric down. It was heavy going, but he was a knight of the Levant; he was more than a match for wet clothes on a frightened maid.

The linen of her shift was transparent in the rain and thin as a veil. Her nipples were dark and hard against the white of it, her skin slick with rain and cold to his touch. He looked quickly up at her face. Her eyes were closed, pressed tight against the world, her pulse racing in her throat. Her lips trembling.

"I am your husband," he said.

He did not need to say it. They both knew he had the right to her. They both knew his taking of her was long past due.

"I am your wife," she said, and he heard the pleading in her voice. She was his wife and he was stripping her bare along a well-trod track, taking her along the edge of a wood in the mud of incessant rain.

He did not care.

All he wanted was the feel of her around him, beneath him, part of him. He wanted her heat and her lightness and even her fear. Whatever he could have of her, that he would take, without regret. Without shame. Without guilt.

He had to have her. She had to adjust herself to it. There was no more to it than that.

"Then be my wife and give yourself to me," he said, pushing her down into the wet grass and mud that bordered the wood.

"You would take me here? Now?" she said, trying to lift herself up, trying to keep herself clean of the mud.

"I would take you anywhere, Elsbeth," he said, staring into her eyes. He wanted her too much to stop, too much to think or reason or hesitate. "Even now."

"Why?" she said, her legs pressed together against his seeking hand. "Is it because I will not give you Sunnandune?"

"It is because you will not give me yourself," he said, knowing it was the truth the moment the words left his lips. "There is no thought in me for Sunnandune. Not now. Now, it is only you. Only us."

Her breasts were bared to him, white and soft in the rain, her veins blue in the cold. Her bliaut was tangled with her shift, twisted and wet; he could not free her of it. Well, he would take her as any eager man took a woman, by the simple lifting of her skirts, plunging into her warmth when all the world was cold and dark. So it would be with Elsbeth. She was his wife. He had the right to her dark heat. There was no sin in this, no matter the look in her eyes.

'"In the mud you will take me," she said hoarsely. "Is that the way of it in Outremer?"

He pulled her hands from her skirts, holding her down, lifting the heavy weight of wet wool from her legs. He bared her legs and hips, until he could see all. Her linen wrapping blocked him. Ever it blocked him, but no more. Not now.

"Aye, in the mud and rain and even in blood will I take you. Set your mind to it, wife. I have it not in me to wait another hour for you. Make your peace with it."

He tore at her wrapping, ripping it from her, pulling it off her, this shield that had defeated him for so many days. She would have that shield no longer. He would prick her, marking her always as his. She could hide in the abbey for a hundred years and she still would be his.

The wrapping came free. White but for a tiny spot of old blood. She no longer bled.

"You were ready for me," he said, accusing her.

"I bled just this day," she said, swallowing hard, facing his anger. She was bared to him now. There was no more escape for her. "I was bleeding this dawning."

"But you are not bleeding now. God is good," he said, and the very way he said it seemed to deny the certain truth of that statement.

"But not to me," she said, holding her face up to the rain, staring into the sodden sky.

"Will you fight me?" he asked, ignoring her blasphemy. Even that would not stop him. He wanted her beyond the reach of kings and angels.

The world was stripped of all but this need to have her. Yet he did not want her unwilling and unready, he only wanted her and, for once, wanted her to want him in return. Her heat matching his. Her need a match for his own. He wanted to prepare her, and he could do little to bring her to heat if she forced him to hold her down.

"I fight you even now, yet does it stop you?" she said in hoarse whisper. "I am a woman. You will force me to submit, is that not so?"

What was it about Elsbeth that tugged at him? She
was
his wife. This was her place, to give to him her body whene'er he had need of it. As it was his duty to give himself to her. That she did not seem to want him had no place in their vow.

"Yea, you are to submit, yet it is not my wish to force you. Give yourself to me, Elsbeth. Think not of Sunnandune or of Jerusalem. Let this be only of us," he said, slowly easing his hands from her.

The rain had slackened to a mist though the clouds stayed heavy and low upon the treetops. It was chill. His wife was lying naked in the mud and long grass of England. How that he could not feel shame at such an act?

Because he wanted her beyond any shame.

He was, indeed, for from Outremer.

"Will you fight me?" he asked again.

"My lord," she said, "I would bargain with you."

"A bargaining?" he said, his voice heavy. "You prove you are your father's daughter with the words. Are you so cold of heart, then, when all I feel is burning? I want you. I know little beyond that. There is nothing beyond that. Beyond this."

He was kneeling between her legs, the rain dripping from his surcoat and his hair, a penitent at the shrine of Elsbeth. Seeking succor. Mercy. Acceptance.

Her dark eyes huge, she said, "I bargain for my life, Hugh. Release me to Sunnandune and I will submit softly to your every touch," she pleaded.

"Do not ask it of me," he said. "Let there be only us in this mating, Elsbeth. No kings or kingdoms, no fealty and no vows, only us. Can you give me that? Can you give me just yourself, just this once? I have labored long and hunger much, I will confess," he said in soft entreaty. "Do I ask so very much?"

"I have little cause to trust you, my lord, and I fear the thing you ask with all my heart," she said, looking deep into his eyes. "I have run from what you ask all my life. I made a vow that I would not do this very thing."

"I understand the weight of a vow, little one," he said. "I do. Yet can we not leave even vows behind us? I want to take you to a place where there is only us."

"Is there such a place?" she whispered, laying her hand against his chest. "I have never heard of it."

"There is. With you, there is," he said, lifting his surcoat from him. "I will not hurt you, Elsbeth. Not in this. Never in this."

He was wet through. His mail he would keep, knowing the temper of the place and its lord, but he would remove what he could. A sign of respect or tenderness for her, he knew not. He cared not.

"All maiden's fear," he said, helping her to sit up, to sit on his thighs, her legs wrapped around him. "I will ease you through. If you allow it."

"If I allow?" she said, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face against his throat. Her nose was cold.

"Aye, for unless you want to be comforted, I can do nothing to please you. 'Tis in your power, little one."

The words, the thought, pleased her, he could see that. She had so little power in her life, except the power of prayer, and that was a power she pressed to the limit of time and endurance. She sought power, did Elsbeth, and found it in small measure. Well, what woman had power in this world? But if it pleased her, then he would give her what small power he could.

And suddenly that was all he wanted—to please her.

Had these English rains washed away all ambition from him, then? He did not know. Perhaps it was past knowing. For now, Elsbeth was entwined around him, reaching for her power with the mailed knight beneath her hands. He held himself still and let her find it.

"Will you hurt me?" she asked, her breath against his neck, warm and moist.

"I will do all to prevent it. Now and always."

"Then take what you will, my lord."

"There will be no taking in this, little wife, but only giving. Will you give yourself to me?"