Once Upon a Pillow Page 6

  She owed losing her virginity not only to Nicholas, who was slated to die, but to the church, to Trecombe itself.

  With such happily unassailable logic guiding her, Jocelyn made early for her chamber that night, leaving Nicholas still at the table, talking with the sheriff who’d returned with him. Jocelyn hadn’t heeded much of their conversation. Her thoughts were unraveling along lines that left her flushed and light-headed, so much so that at one point Nicholas remarked upon her state and asked if she was feeling well. Soon after, she excused herself.

  But thinking and planning a thing, she soon discovered, were not the same as doing it. She made for her room and removed her threadbare gown, wishing that she had something handsome to wear, settling instead for a loose chemise that tied at the throat and fell straight to her feet.

  She hesitated a moment before having the girl unbraid her hair and comb it out, so that it lay like a sheet of darkness about her shoulders. She bit her lips and stared at her reflection in the polished metal before dismissing the servant.

  Then, taking a deep breath, she lit the rush torch from the hearth fire and, like a soldier entering the battlefield, stalked down to the chambers Nicholas had commandeered as his own. Marshaling her courage, she entered his room quickly and stopped inside the door. She looked about in surprise.

  The small chamber was as Spartan as a novitiate’s cell. The bed, a chest, a table, and a chair composed the lot of his furnishings. No tapestries covered his walls. No vessel filled with wine stood awaiting his pleasure. No fire burned in the hearth, only a few sullenly glowing coals. Alongside the chest stood a dented but well-oiled sword, standing in its worn scabbard.

  The reminders that the man she’d come to give herself to was a warrior nearly sent her scurrying back to her room. But she was no coward and feared the loss of what she’d not yet known worse than blows. She stayed.

  She glanced at his bed, but could not bring herself to lie where another woman had been with her husband. Instead, she quickly piled blankets and a thick sheepskin in her arms. She could make a bed in front of the fire, but she was not comfortable with the thought of being so blatantly exposed by its light. Instead, she chose a place beside the great chest, within the fire’s warm circle, but shadowed.

  She lay down flat on her back, folding her hands at her waist and closing her eyes. Intently, she listened to the sound of her own breathing and forced it to a slower pace. She waited.

  He didn’t tarry long with the sheriff. Within a short while she heard heavy footsteps in the outer hall. Then the door swung open and a light appeared. He stood huge and masculine in the doorway, his back to her as he addressed someone in the hall. Her heartbeat tripped over itself. Would he be gentle? Would he be swift? Would he take any care at all with her?

  “Nay, I’ve never had a squire, young Keveran, nor do I intend to start. To bed with you, boy.” The tone of Nicholas’s voice was good-natured but unutterably weary. “Tomorrow you’ll wish you’d stayed at the wainwright’s for I am unused to waiting for what I want, and unwilling to wait more than a second longer than necessary for what I’ll have. We’ll put in a full day and then some.”

  She frowned, pondering what this meant but then she heard the door close. She squeezed her eyelids tightly shut, feigning sleep, and heard the sounds, somehow lonely, of a man moving about a nearly empty room.

  She knew the moment he saw her.

  For a long moment there was silence. Then she heard the whisper of leather-soled boots moving near. Then the heat from his body washed over her and his breath fanned her cheek. Why didn’t he do something? Why didn’t he—

  Fingertips brushed her cheek, a gossamer touch of such delicacy she would have sworn butterfly wings drifted across her skin. She held her breath. The touch returned and lingered this time, trailing sensation across her lower lip.

  No one had ever caressed her before. There had been awkward kindliness in some of the nuns’ rare embraces, and Gerent’s occasional rib-bruising, drunken jocularity, but never tenderness, never this breath-stealing care. Her neck arched, her lips parted, and she sighed.

  His fingertips played along her jaw, his thumb tipped her face up… For a kiss? Please. She wanted so much to be kissed.

  Instead, his touch drifted down her throat to the pulse beating wildly at its base. With a simple, deft movement, he twitched the knot, loosening the collar. His hand slipped beneath the cool cloth, trespassing lower still, gently pulling the neckline down lower…lower…

  Her breath caught in her throat. His fingertips brushed the full upper swell of her breast, teasingly close to exposing its crest and the nipple that strained tight and swollen, eager for his touch.

  She kept her eyes shut, closed against the reality of him, the dense, masculine actuality of him, steeping herself in the fantastical sensations. It was easier this way, imagining a phantom lover bestowing these gentle caresses, a phantom lover with slender, graceful hands and a peace-loving nature. Not this dark giant with blood in his past…and his future.

  His hand moved back up to her shoulder, slipping under her neck and cradling the back of her head. Then, light and ephemeral as April snow, his lips touched hers.

  It was surpassingly wondrous his kiss, as enticing as his spices, honeyed and delectable and addictive. She sighed as his lips burnished hers, opening to sip his mint-sweetened breath. He held his lips softly against her parting lips, trembling slightly. And then? Then he eased her back to her pallet. And released her.

  She waited for something more. She wanted more. She wanted whatever a husband and wife might do in the privacy of their chamber. Her heart pounded in her chest, her skin prickled, hot and tight, her thoughts seemed mired in a pool of anticipation and anxiety.

  But nothing happened.

  She opened her eyes, looking about accusingly for the man to whom she’d offered herself. He stood by the hearth, turned away from her, his hand braced on the lintel, his head bowed. She twisted in frustration and her eye was caught by the glint of metal on the chair beside his pallet. His dagger. Unsheathed.

  She nearly groaned as yet another opportunity to dispatch this huge, masculine problem presented itself. Once more, the reckless brute had his back to her.

  Silently, she slid from the pallet, moving on cat’s feet behind him. He didn’t move. He simply stood with an inexplicable air of resigned vigilance in the tension of his broad shoulders, the cant of his big body. He looked as alone as she so often had felt.

  Amazed at herself, she placed her hand gingerly upon his back. The muscles beneath her fingers jumped. She wet her lips.

  “Sirrah, you are tired. You should sleep.”

  For a moment he did not answer.

  “Sir?”

  “Sleep does not come easily to me of late,” he finally answered. “Do you have some wifely draught that might aid me in my search of peace?”

  By the saint! He might as well just ask her to murder him. She spoke shortly, angered more with him for his lack of caution or with herself for her cowardice she could not say. “No! No, I have no herb craft.”

  “A pity,” he said, and turning she saw that he smiled and that there was a new warmth in his smile and that the odd assessing quality she’d sometimes seen in his gaze had fled before it. “But then, the night holds wonders a sleeping man cannot enjoy.”

  Her breath caught in her throat. The look he bent on her was suddenly searching and faintly predatory. And it was this slight, irrefutable resemblance to Gerent, the stalking quality in the way he turned toward her, that sent her back apace. His eyes narrowed.

  She marshaled her courage. She lifted her chin. “I have come to fulfill my wifely obligation,” she said staunchly.

  He did not seem surprised. He only regarded her between narrowed forest green eyes that glinted in the firelight. “Have you? How dutiful of you. But you are dutiful, are you not, Jocelyn? Dutiful and virtuous.”

  He laughed slightly, but it was a humorless sound.

  “Keep y
our virtue, Jocelyn. I’m not Gerent. I learned self-mastery from the harshest of teachers.”

  She stared at him wide-eyed. “I don’t understand.”

  He leaned back against the wall next to the hearth, the shadows immediately covering him, leaving his voice disconnected from his corporal form. He had a beautiful voice. “I’ve been many places in the world and I have seen countless sacrifices. Too many. But this, dear wife, isn’t an altar and I’m not a priest.”

  “But, I don’t understand,” she repeated. She was bewildered, somewhat provoked, a good deal more humiliated, but she’d never been one to let pride guide her actions. Trecombe would have never survived Gerent if she had.

  He cocked his head and even in the darkness she could see the gravity of his expression. “I will not say that I do not want you, Jocelyn. My body trembles with want. My loins are afire to feel the sweet release promised by your body’s embrace.

  “But in a Saracen dungeon, Jocelyn, I saw men who’d had everything taken from them, pride, hope, and dreams. I’ve had a lifetime of taking what I wanted and having what I needed taken from me. No one will ever take what I treasure away from me again. Be that honor, hope, this holding. Or you.”

  She shivered at the sudden ferocity in his gaze. He saw it and banked the fires he kept so well hidden, his face once more composed and calm. “But I’ll not take either. I’ll only accept what you give.

  “So go back to your pallet, Jocelyn, or take off your gown and touch me like a wife touches her husband.”

  She couldn’t do it. He asked too much. She’d been a maid too long.

  She turned and fled his room, racing down the corridor to her own chambers. Only once there did she pause, her thoughts a maelstrom. He roused her admiration with his dignity and her fear with the desire she’d seen burning in his eyes.

  Thenceforth, whatever else happened, she would never again confuse Nicholas with Gerent Cabot.

  Chapter Five

  Do you think it too ostentatious?” Jocelyn asked, the honest worry in her voice vying with the pleasure lighting her eyes as she whirled about in her new gown.

  The sunlight pouring through the solar windows glinted off the raven dark braids that swung out as she spun. The soft blue color of the gown brought out the apricot hue in her cheeks, the ripe, succulent tint of her lips. She fairly glowed with pleasure.

  Nicholas struggled for a smile but had to settle for a nod before forcibly returning his attention to the heavy ornate staff the guild masters had presented him with that morning. As a tribute of appreciation, they’d said. As a token of their approval, Jocelyn had remarked under her breath.

  “It’s fetching,” he said shortly, hoping she’d not take offense at his shortness, but unable to say more when she looked like that and stood so near and toyed so heedlessly with his heart. “Perfect.”

  Irresistible. “Perfect? Perfection is not found this side of heaven.”

  He looked up, catching her eye and holding her gaze. “Isn’t it? I could have sworn different.” She turned away, but not before he saw the blush sweep up her throat or her flattered smile.

  There was a time when he would have felt a fool for speaking such flirtatious nonsense to a woman, but it was easy to say such things to Jocelyn. Perhaps because he believed them. Each day she grew more relaxed, seeming to shed years right before his eyes, turning from a severe, disapproving chatelaine into this pretty, lighthearted girl.

  But such a boon did not come without its price. It took all of his self-control not to throw her over his shoulder and take her to his, nay their chambers, and be done with this torture.

  With unseeing eyes, he stared down at the staff he held. He’d only himself to blame for the plight he found himself in. He’d been its architect. He’d wanted to calm Jocelyn’s fears, to reassure her that they would be together only when she willed it so.

  Well, he’d succeeded in convincing her. He’d succeeded so well, in fact, that here it was nearly two weeks later and he’d still not tasted his wife’s charms. As for the lust he’d been at such pains to deny, it ate at him like acid.

  Simply put, his wife’s friendliness was going to drive him mad. He looked up as she whirled once more, shyly preening as she smoothed the soft wool over her hips. It was like her. She valued things, from the alewife’s skills to the way the light fell on the budding rowan tree.

  She’d given her life for this place, these people, and never asked anything back. How could he fail to admire her? And there, between admiration and lust, lay a fertile bed for love. Yes, he’d grown to love his wife and growing in love, grew even greater in desire.

  It was a hell of a circle.

  Now, if he could just trust her not to kill him—

  “My lord!” Keveran burst into the chamber unannounced, fear breaking his voice. Nicholas stood up, and set down the staff, his hand reaching for the battered sword that was never far from his person.

  At once, Jocelyn went to the lad, austerity and purpose falling like a curtain over her features, hiding the girl she’d been a moment before. “What is it, Keveran?” she asked.

  “Sir Guy is coming!” the youngster blurted out.

  “Aye?” asked Nicholas calmly. “What of it? He is welcome as our neighbor—”

  “It isn’t neighborly what he’s coming to do. He’s coming to challenge you to another joust. This time to the death!”

  Jocelyn turned her head quickly toward Nicholas, a question and an accusation clear in her expression.

  “I haven’t seen the young dog since I unseated him,” Nicholas answered tersely. What did he have to do to make her believe that he wanted nothing but peace in his life?

  “It’s true, Lady. Guy Moore has been in Glastonbury licking his wounds. But my father says he hasn’t healed them, he’s only kept them open.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Jocelyn said, straightening up and looking about angrily. “What does he hope to accomplish with your death?”

  “The land. The manor. The fields. The mill.” Nicholas looked at her. “You.”

  “He couldn’t be such a fool to think I would accept him.”

  “Of course, he’s a fool,” Nicholas said in a dangerous voice. He picked up his sword. “No one else but a fool would challenge me. Keveran, when he arrives, fetch him hither. Then I will—”

  “No,” Jocelyn said.

  Nicholas turned. His wife had moved away from the boy, and stood, tall and regal, in a pool of sunlight. “No.”

  He struggled to keep his fury in check, knowing how she loathed violence. He glanced at Keveran. “Begone, Keveran. Do as I say.”

  As soon as the boy had left he returned his attention to Jocelyn. She remained where she’d taken her stance, her face colorless and her eyes dark. “What say you nay to, my lady?”

  “No joust. No fighting. It only begets more fighting.”

  “If I refuse to fight, others will soon know of it. Such refusal amongst men, Jocelyn, is an invitation to take what another owns, abuse what they do not want of it, and use what they do.” He looked at her in telling silence.

  She understood. She trembled but her gaze did not waver. He felt torn by conflicting desires, the one to comfort and deny what he knew must be done, the other to force her to concede that he was right, and see in his ability to protect her his worth, not his worthlessness.

  “Do not meet with him, Nicholas,” Jocelyn asked between stiff lips. “If you do, it will be the beginning of an unending line of men waiting outside my door to challenge you. And each day they come, you will grow more accustomed to their challenges, more accustomed to spilling their blood and more accustomed to having your own spilt.”

  Her lips quivered. Her eyes blazed behind a chrysalis of tears. “But I won’t become accustomed to it! I never did!”

  “You are wrong—”

  “I thought I was wrong!” she broke in, trembling where she stood, her body tense. “I thought you would prove to be more than a man with a sword. But give a man a sw
ord and sooner or later he’ll wield it.” She spoke derisively, her dark eyes flashing with contempt.

  “You are like all the rest, all the godly knights lusting after battle, not content lest you have marred something, brutalized someone, defeated, cowed or beat another.”

  “Is that what you believe?” he asked, his voice dropping. The air between them crackled with the accumulated tension of the last weeks. All the desire, the hope, the longing seemed suddenly futile and wasted.

  “What else can I think?” she countered fiercely. “With the first man to tip his sword in your direction, you rise like a dragon, all fire and fury, the promise of battle in your eyes and in your fisted hands. I’d rather—”

  The remainder of her sentence was lost in the sound of clattering footsteps and shouts of warning from the outer hall. The door to the chamber crashed open and Guy Moore stood framed in the doorway.

  Nicholas regarded him coldly. His golden hair streamed down upon his shoulders. A silver clasp glinted on his shoulder, pinning back the rich, dark red cloak and exposing the gold threads adorning his saffron-colored surcoat. His pale doeskin gloves were likewise enriched as were the cuffs of his leather boots.

  The overweening pup had dressed the part of Saint George come to slay the dragon.

  Well, he would not be disappointed. For Nicholas certainly felt the part of a beast watching the cave door, enraged at any challenge to the treasure he guarded. Why hadn’t his bride even named him “beast”?

  He looked at Moore and laughed, sudden bitter realization returning him to his once vaunted recklessness. She would never come to him of her own free will. And he would never force her. They would be forever thus, he standing outside her chamber longing for entry, she guarding herself against his supposed nature.

  Maybe she was right. Maybe, after all, he would never be more than a human destrier, a hulking dragon, making mayhem with fists and blade. But, by God, if that was all he was, it was something at which he excelled.

  “What do you want, Moore?” he asked, stepping in front of Jocelyn.