The Warrior's Wife (27 page)
“Lady Godsol, that was a fine meal, indeed.” Stephen de St. Valery’s words rang in Glevering’s hall.
So deeply had Kate been concentrating on scraping her own trencher clean that she started. Setting down her spoon, she looked at the knight. Sir Stephen had a thatch of dark brown hair and eyes as green as grass.
Almost all of Rafe’s closest companions had come to bide with them that week. Seated beside Sir Stephen was Sir Simon de Kenifer, a slender man with pale brown hair and blue eyes. At the opposite table were Sir Josce, the scarred Sir Hugh d’Aincourt, and the quiet, polite Sir Alan FitzOsbert. Kate found herself wishing that Gerard and Emma had come as well; she could have used another female as an ally against all these males. But Emma was battling the same temporary sickness that Kate had just surmounted and Gerard was unwilling to leave her side.
“My thanks, Sir Stephen,” she said with a smile.
“Aye, my wife is an excellent housekeeper,” Rafe said from his seat beside her at the high table, his voice warm with pride.
Kate shot him a happy but narrow sidelong look. “Fortunate for you that I am since you never thought to ask after my housewifely skills when you took me for your own.”
That made her husband laugh, naught but happiness in the sound of his amusement. Rafe caught her hand, his fingers twining with hers in a caress that Kate had come to know these past month as a reflection of the pride he felt for her. Kate couldn’t help but smile. Mary save her, but she loved him so. That he still respected and cherished her despite the wrong they’d done before their vows were said still amazed her.
As he read her affection for him in her gaze, Rafe’s dark eyes fair glowed with pleasure. Lifting her hand, he brought her fingers to his lips to touch a kiss to her knuckles. Although the caress was but brief, there was more than a hint of the desire they both still shared for each other in the touch, enough to wake that flame at Kate’s core.
Rafe’s expression softened with the reflection of her own passion for him. Kate drew a sharp, pleased breath. There were times when she swore the heat they made between them would consume them both, but it never did.
Indeed, she had chosen well in her husband--if it had been her choice at all. More than once these past three months she’d told herself that the Lord must have planned their marriage, for there was no doubting the rightness of their union.
Keeping Kate’s hand in his, Rafe turned his gaze out into Glevering’s hall and eyed his friends. “Enough chitchat, Stephen, until my wife is finished with her meal,” he warned the knight. “This last week I’ve learned it’s dangerous to come between her and her meat. I vow that child of mine gnaws a hole in her gullet.”
“Rafe!” Kate cried, both amused and piqued by his comment. It was true. Who could have guessed that a babe in her womb could make her so hungry, especially after the sick misery of those first weeks?
Stephen sent his host a cheeky grin as his eyes glowed with mischief. “I cannot speak for the rest of us,” the lift of his hands indicated the other men in the room, “but I’m not surprised that any child of yours, Rafe, born or unborn, might have fierce appetites.”
Beside Stephen, Sir Simon choked as he sipped his wine, his face reddening as he fought to laugh and breathe in the same instant. At the opposite table Sir Josce, Sir Hugh and Sir Alan all howled.
Kate shot a glance at her mate. Rafe was watching her, a touch of concern in his gaze. She nearly snorted. As if she cared a fig for what he might have done prior to their union. Nay, she knew well enough that she owned him now, body and soul, and that was all that mattered.
It was her three months as Rafe’s wife that gave Kate the confidence to speak as she would. “I see you all know my husband very well, indeed,” she called out then screwed her face into an expression of innocence. “What say you? Shall we fill these evening hours trading tales of my husband’s past? Perhaps you’ll tell me of those appetites of his.”
Beside her Rafe blanched. His eyes were round as he considered the wisdom of inviting his past into his present. Taking pity on him, Kate tightened her fingers around his hand then brought their joined hands to her lips. In the presence of his friends, she staked her claim of ownership by pressing a kiss to his fingers.
“And I,” she went on, stifling her urge to laugh, “will tell you how I’ve tamed whatever wild urges he might once have harbored to turn a young lion into a toothless married beast.”
A moment’s breathless silence held in the room. Rafe’s astonishment at this tweak was so complete that his jaw dropped. Reaching out, Kate placed gentle fingers beneath his chin and urged his mouth to close.
“Poor dear. See how he suffers,” she called to the men in the hall. “Be warned, all of you. This is what happens to a man when he loses the taste for all but one dish.”
Her brows lifted. Her mouth quivered, so hard did she fight her smile. Even as laughter brightened Rafe’s eyes, they narrowed. No warning of his could have stopped her.
“Oh, but Lord, how he craves that dish,” she said, her words breaking with laughter.
Sir Josce roared at his friend’s expense. Sir Alan pounded the table in approval while Sir Hugh held his sides. At the other table Kate’s words had so astounded Sir Stephen that he came straight up off his bench, knocking it and Sir Simon into the rushes as he did so. Poor Simon could do nothing but lie on his back and laugh.
Beside her, Rafe growled. Kate shrieked and pretended to resist as her husband snatched her into his lap. All thought of avoiding him ended as Rafe’s mouth came to rest against hers, even as he still laughed.
“Shall I show them with this kiss just how much I crave you?” he murmured against her lips, taunting.
It didn’t matter that his friends watched. Kate’s arms slipped up until she joined her hands at her husband’s nape. Rather than reply Kate caught his lips with hers and showed him what he already knew. Rafe’s arms tightened around her. Against her hip, Kate could feel his shaft’s reaction.
His friends hooted and whistled. Rafe’s mouth smiled against hers. Giggles overtook Kate. Bracing his brow against hers, Rafe looked down into her face.
“They approve of you, but then I never doubted that they would since you are the only wife for me,” he whispered, happiness shining from his face. “God help me, but how I love you.”
Just as always happened when he told her this, her heart melted. “As I do you, husband,” Kate replied, touching a tiny kiss to his lips, then slipping off his lap.
With Rafe’s friends still hooting and throwing comments at their newly wedded comrade, Kate stood to shake out her skirts. As she prepared to sit again her glance caught on Dame Joan standing near the hall door. Both Ernulf and Joan had found life at Glevering under its new master too pleasant to resist. Since then Kate had taken Joan into her heart. It would be the bailiff’s wife and no one else in her birthing chamber some six months hence.
Behind Joan stood a single travel-stained man. Kate frowned her question. Joan’s hand lifted. That’s all it took to convey the message. Whatever word that man carried, it was important.
“Rafe,” Kate hissed to her husband, directing his attention to the newcomer.
With a gesture Rafe bade the man come into the room. Their interest piqued by this diversion, his friends sobered. Sir Josce sat suddenly straighter as recognition flashed over his face. Dread followed.
“Arnold of Haydon,” he called. “Why come you here, when you should be at Lady Haydon’s side during my lord sire’s absence?” Lord Haydon was escorting his middle daughters back to their convent school.
Grief twisted the messenger’s face. He dropped to his knee before his lord’s bastard son. “It’s terrible news, sir,” he cried. “Your lady stepmother bids me bring you home to her. Your sire is dead.”
This novel, and the three that follow it, were written under the pseudonym of Denise Hampton. It was a strange series of very unfortunate events that led to my having to take on a nom de plume, most of which had to do with counting beans. It seems that when Barnes and Noble reported returns on my seventh book, Lady in White, there was a computer glitch and the returns included not just the Lady in White books returned, but all the returns on the previous six books as well. In fact, according to B&N's accounting they returned more books than they originally ordered. There was no protesting. If the computer said that's what they returned, than that's what they returned.
As any author will tell you, having huge returns on a book is a black spot that cannot be overcome, not with print outs and certainly not with logic. The damage was mortal and Denise Domning, which really is my name, had to die. Some time before that I had visited England with a friend and managed to finally get to Hampton Court. It was mid-winter and frigid and the place still resonated for me. So, when it came time for me to pick a pseudonym, Hampton leapt to mind.
Starting over didn't last. After selling my fourth book to Avon, I, as well as a number of other Avon authors, was dropped when Avon sold to another publishing house. That's when I started "not writing" in earnest. Don't know what that is? That's me, fading away to become a ghost writer, then a web designer as well.
Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed Rafe and Kate, and their sort of Romeo and Juliet story. Josce's story follows this one, then Ami's comes next. If things go well, someday some of their other friends may appear in books as well.
As a thank you to all of you out there who turned Rannulf and Rowena into best sellers, I'm offering my novella "An Impetuous Season" FREE on my website.
Click here to download it
In case this is the first book of mine you've read, here is the full list. And thank you!
The Graistan Chronicles (sometimes known as the Seasons Series)
The Lady Series,
although two doesn't quite a series make. There were supposed to be more. Hmm, I wonder... .
The Warrior Series
The Warrior's Wife
(previously The Warrior's Damsel)
The Warrior's Maiden
(previously My Lady's Temptation)
My only Regency era book
. I'm sorry. It was too modern for me. I'm better off back when guys just bashed each other with hunks of steel.
Monica Sarli's Memoir
Men-ipulation
And then there's Monica Sarli's memoir that I co-wrote.
Men-ipulation
is a memoir of addiction and recovery. After fifteen years abusing Cocaine, Crack and (her personal favorite) Heroin, Monica chose on August 4, 1986 to clean up and hasn't looked back-even though cleaning up cost her everything she valued in life. For anyone struggling with addiction or who loves someone suffering with addiction, this is a book you won't want to miss. (And, yes she really talks like that...all the time.)
By the way, I'll note here that I am title defective. For the first five books, my fabulous stepdaughter
Amberly Neese
came up with the original and very clever idea of using the seasons, and the publisher ran with it. Beyond that, well, I count on the kindness of editors and others.
If you want to keep up with me or send me a note, please feel free to email me at
[email protected]
or visit my website at
DeniseDomning.com
where you can read my blog. I'll warn you, the blog has nothing to do with writing. Instead, it's the chronicle of how my husband takes me on a journey into Green Living and Permaculture. I have a feeling this will turn out to be a mangling of "Under the Tuscan Sun" and "Green Acres".
Wish me luck (I'll need it) and happy reading!
