The Marriage Bed (The Medieval Knights Series) (10 page)

She had followed him to the stable. It had been spring, late spring, and the air heavy with sunlight and birdsong. The odor of hay had been strong, smelling like the earth and sun combined, smelling like life. Dust had been in the air, golden and shimmering, and Richard had been a dark column of strength standing in the honeyed light of the open stable door. Seeing her, he had stepped back into the shadows, his eyes tracking her as she followed him in. No matter how dim the light, she would not lose him.

She had said nothing, too afraid to speak, too afraid he would bolt if she gave him the chance to run. He said little, none of which she could remember. It had meant nothing to her then, and she had not kept it as part of her treasured memory. She had searched him out, wanting him alone; she had succeeded, a rare occurrence.

She had walked toward him, cornering him near a stack of hay, her route sliding and circuitous, trying to ease him. Just wanting to get closer, to be closer. Just wanting to be near him.

His eyes had looked as dark as ebon, all the blue lost in the shadowed corner of the stable. His hair had fallen forward over his brow, a glossy black stream that she yearned to hold in her hand, to caress, to bathe in. She stood close enough to do it; she was close enough to touch him. And she had. Not his hair—she was not so bold as that—but... she had to touch him.

She laid her hand on his chest, so broad and so muscular, and felt the rise of breath and the beat of heart. His heart was pounding, she could feel it beneath her hand, and then she felt the tremor of his sharp intake of breath. He was so warm, so close. She had him, in her hand.

She did not say his name aloud, but she said it with her eyes. And he read her, knowing she was calling to him, wanting to bury herself in his touch, wanting more. His touch, his nearness, satisfying nothing. She was more hungry for him than she had ever been.

He read that in her; she could not speak it, but he read her hunger. He could read her so easily, and she was so grateful that he could. And never more than in that moment of intense and naive longing.

He groaned and swallowed the sound, grabbing her to him in the same instant. His arms came around her, hard as iron, as he kissed her mouth. It was not a gentle kiss, yet he was gentle in his fierceness. She was not afraid. Nothing he could do would make her fear.

He held her to him as if afeared she would bolt if he but let her loose. She would never willingly take a step away from Richard. He had to have known the truth of that.

His tongue found its way into her mouth, and her arms wrapped around his waist, under the arms that held her to him. When she opened happily to his kiss, when the warmth and wet of him was all she remembered ever knowing, he moved his hands down to the flare of her hips and pulled her against his arousal.

They groaned into each other's mouths in sweet distress and longing.

She had known then what she hungered for, and she had known that Richard was the only one to satisfy her.

She had ground her hips against his length, seeking succor and relief, whimpering into his open mouth, twining her fingers in the silky length of his hair. Wanting him. Trusting him.

He had pulled her from him then, with as much gentle fierceness as he had begun the kiss. She had clung, she remembered that well, her arms around his neck and her mouth seeking his, open and wet and blindly searching. Her hunger running strong. Her body aching and empty.

Richard had pushed her away then, his breathing hoarse and harsh, his eyes glittering.

The kiss was done.

All that she carried was the memory and the mark of Richard upon her soul.

He had gone to the abbey, pledging his life to God, within the week.

She had known the cause to be herself, though he had said no word to blame her. His eyes told her all she needed to know of responsibility. Yet she could not forget the kiss. She did not want to.

"You'll need no kohl to deepen the luster of your eyes," Joan said. "You need no artifice to heighten your feminine allure."

Isabel looked down at her distended nipples and flushed skin; she ducked her head and smiled, taking the ribbing in good stead.

Nay, she needed nothing but a bed and a darkened room to drive all thoughts of a celibate life from her husband's mind.

Chapter 9

The sun was still high when she finished her toilette. The day was too long to spend it in her chamber, especially when she could go out and feast her eyes on Richard. All plans to remain sequestered vanished, and she left the room eagerly, leaving Elsbeth to tidy the space. Joan and Aelis accompanied her, Aelis making for the bailey and Joan the solar. Isabel made for Richard, wherever he had hidden himself.

Louis was ascending the stair as they were descending. They nigh bumped against each other in the close confines of the stair tower.

"Your pardon, Isabel," he said on a laugh. "I have found you with too good a will, it seems."

"You searched for me?" she asked, smiling. Could aught go amiss on such a day? "I am here, as are we all."

"Lady Joan." He nodded. "Aelis. Edmund was gearing for the quintain when last I saw him," he said with a grin.

"Excuse me, Isabel," Aelis said, squeezing by them on the stair. "It is such a lovely day. Shall I pick some straw lily for your chamber? It will add a romantic touch, I think."

"That would be most welcome, and gather some of the roots, if you would. We must resupply our medicinals," Isabel answered to Aelis's disappearing back.

"Think you she can find straw lily blooming beneath the shadow of the quintain?" Joan asked with a grin.

"She will find what she seeks there, of that I am certain," Louis answered.

“To be sought and then found," Joan mused. "'Tis a young woman's sport. I seek my diversions in the solar, and there they happily await me. Unless you have need of me, Isabel?"

"Nay, follow your inclinations, as I will mine," Isabel answered, thinking only of Richard.

They continued down the stair, Joan making her way across the hall to the wall that divided the solar from the community of the hall. A small room, it was private and well lit and a welcome respite for the ladies when the company of men grew tiresome. Isabel could not imagine a day when she would retreat behind a wall to escape the company of Richard.

"I would have words with you, Lady," Louis said when Joan had left them.

"I am yours, then," she said, her eyes scanning the room for Richard, hardly aware of Louis's words and not at all aware of his intent.

They stood in the shadow of the wall where stair tower and hall met and merged. It was dark and quiet. Louis did not move into the hill light of the hall, but kept Isabel with him in the shadows. The tables were being set for the meal, the boards laid atop the trestles and the benches positioned beneath; the hall was full and noisy. She could not yet find Richard among the throng at their labors.

"You are most gracious, Lady Isabel," he said, searching her face.

She felt his perusal and turned to face him fully; seeing his look, she smiled. "Not at all. What would you say to me?"

"I congratulate you on a match well made. You are content?"

Isabel smiled fully and said on a laugh, "I am well content."

“That is well," he said with some hesitation.

"Yea, it is well that I am content, I will agree with you," she all but laughed. "What is amiss that you look so troubled over my supreme contentment?"

"I would have you stay contented, Lady."

"As would I. We are still in perfect accord, Louis. If you seek an argument, you must choose a different topic."

"I would have you stay contented," he repeated, his green eyes intent upon her face, "but the lord of a vast estate must do more than confer with his clerk." With a subtle movement of his hand, he showed her where Richard was, off near the solar wall, conferring with Jerome.

Isabel felt the laughter seep out of her like a slow wound. Richard looked very scholarly, his hands on the parchment of contracts and agreements. A lord must fight to hold and keep all under his care safe and secure. How long had it been since Richard had used his sword arm for other than crossing himself?

With Louis at her side, stalwart and solid with muscle, she considered the specter of Richard as she had not yet done, forcing herself to see more than the dream of him. Forcing herself to see the man to whom she had pledged her life and her lands and her people.

He was more slender than he had been at Malton.

Here he was, closeted within the shelter of Dornei's walls on a day fair and mild. Why was he not practicing arms or hunting for meat? Why stay indoors? So as not to miss the next office of monkish prayers? Such a lord as this would lose all that her forebears and his had fought to gain and hold.

Richard was the husband she had prayed for, aye, but not this monkish man. A man of war was needed to lead Dornei and Warefeld to prosperity, not a man of prayers.

None of these traitorous and newly born thoughts did she share with Louis, but the seed was planted in her mind and heart.

"He has much to learn of Dornei's accounts," she said in mild defense.

"Aye, and that can be done when the moon is up or the weather foul," he answered.

"He would not wait for the chance of rain to learn his duty."

"And others may not wait for their chance," he said in warning.

She could not ignore it. Word of a Benedictine lord would spread on the wind, bespeaking Dornei's vulnerability. Even now, Warefeld sat untended, her lord recently dead and the one born to replace Hubert and Geoffrey sitting in a warm hall reading the accounts. No, it could not be borne. Their lineage demanded more.

"Prayers and accounts have their purpose," she said mildly, "as do arms. You have a thought which would guide me?"

"I have a plan," he said bluntly. "Release me."

"Release you? This is your plan?"

To release Louis to run wild in the land, broadcasting Dornei's weakness, was not a plan she was prepared to follow. How well could Louis be trusted?

"I will not betray," he said, looking as trustworthy as always.

Yet, how well could she trust him? He was a knight, and of a fact, all knights swallowed deeply of ambition.

"You have not yet paid homage to my husband as Lord of Dornei," she said.

"I will do so on my return. I will swear him fealty without pause," he promised.

He was asking her to trust him in a world where misplaced trust could kill.

"You will vow, here to me, that what you are about will aid Richard?"

"Not only Richard, but Isabel," he said, his entire demeanor bespeaking earnestness.

"You will vow?" she repeated, searching his face for falseness and deceit.

"I will vow. This is for Dornei's gain."

She paused on the precipice of decision. He was Louis; she knew him. Yet how well could any man be known when such a prize as Dornei stood in his path? But his eyes were so earnest and so intent. Could she distrust the urgency of his gaze?

"Then go," she said, her decision made. "God guide you in your endeavor."

Louis smiled and kissed her hand in response. She smiled in return, praying to God that she had done well to trust her heart.

* * *

From across the long hall, over the noise of tables and benches being dragged into place, through the gloom of stone, Richard marked the kiss and the answering smile. And liked it not.

The girl Isabel had become a woman in the year he had become a monk, but how far a woman? As far as Nicholas suggested? Isabel had the fire of desire buried but lightly beneath her skin, this he knew too well, but would she have betrayed all honor and chastity by giving her body to a man not lawfully hers? Nicholas would have him believe it of her. However, he was not disposed to believe Nicholas in anything.

The kiss Louis had bestowed upon Isabel could have been merely a kiss gently passed between a knight and his lady, a kiss of chivalry and of friendship.

The kiss he had bestowed upon Isabel had been neither gentle nor chivalrous, but full of fire and instantly consuming, as tinder to flame. Unexpected it had been, but long fought against. He had lost that fight, for an instant, for the instant in time it took for a man to want a woman and begin the road to claiming her. He had lost the battle within himself and had taken Isabel with him into carnal defeat. She had come with him happily enough and with no apparent regret.

She did not look regretful now, with Louis still touching her hand, fondling her with a near caress.

Jerome, standing next to him, he had forgotten completely in his study of his wife.

Adam rushed to her side then, an obvious witness to the kiss, and forced Louis to release her hand. Adam, with his soft smile and bright ways, coaxed a laugh from her, a laugh she seemed more than eager to give. Louis remained at her side as well, his smile subdued and his manner contained: a suitor outmaneuvered.

And her husband watched all from his side of the hall.

Richard looked around him in that moment, struck by the weight of uncomfortable quiet. All in that hall watched Isabel. All in that hall watched him watch Isabel. Including Isabel. Of course Isabel; jealousy was a woman's snare. He knew that well enough.