By Design (23 page)

Her mouth quivered into a little smile. She appeared awkward and embarrassed, but also warm and beautiful. She looked down at the crusty splotches on her arms and knees. “I am covered with clay. I will get the linens dirty.”

He rose, and handed her into the chair. “Sit here and we will wash it off.”

He brought over the bucket and knelt before her. He took a rag and began wiping off the drying clay.

She permitted it. Like a soldier exhausted by battle, she sat limply, her lovely legs dangling from the chair, while he took care of her. The mood of that first night, when she bathed in his kitchen and then slept beside him, emerged again in the silence.

The bed might be chaste, but it would be intimate. In her need she seemed to accept that.

He rose and held out his hand. She scooted off the chair and took it.

He began to snuff the candles.

“Can we bring one? The last time, when I woke, for a moment I thought…”

He lifted the longest one. “It should burn most of the night. I want you to know that it is I who am beside you.”

He led her into the bedchamber and set the candle on a chest. It gave a faint light, but enough.

She stood thoughtfully, as though she could not decide how to do this. With a little shrug, she lifted the sheet and climbed onto the bed and huddled on the far side.

He smiled at her embarrassment, and undressed. He slid under the linen beside her curving back.

She had not asked to stay so she could be alone. He touched her shoulder. “Come here.”

She turned into his arm as if she had been waiting for the request. She fit against him perfectly, warm and feminine, with her head on his shoulder and her breath on his chest.

Her braid hung along her arm. He lifted it with the hand holding her close and used the other to release the tie. Unplaiting her hair occupied him for some time, while he enjoyed having her there.

She relaxed. Her body grew pliant, molding neatly. She nestled closer, and rested her hand on his chest. His body
stirred in a quietly pleasant way. He had promised that this bed would remain chaste as long as she wanted, and it would. But not forever. She had taken the first step to freedom, and he would guide her the rest of the way.

He spread her unbound hair over her arm and the sheet. The low light made it a glittering sea of gold.

“What happened to her?”

He did not think that this part of the story would comfort her much. “He tired of her, and she came back.”

“Did she come back whole?”

She understood what had happened far too well, but then it was her story, too. “Nay.”

“Where is she now? With your uncle still?”

“She died about a year after.”

“Did she kill herself?”

The frank way she posed the question chilled him. “Nay.” And she hadn't. But she had embraced death. She had not fought it.

“I thought of doing so. Once, on the way here, we stopped by a lake. It looked so peaceful. Soothing and placid and clean. It just entered my head to walk in and not come out.”

His heart swelled. He stroked her arm with his fingertips and hid his reaction.

“But I needed to take care of Mark. He was only twelve then. That stopped me. And anger did too. Fury that we had been made victims. Instead I swore on my father's memory to undo all that I could, for Mark at least. To get our home back, and to know some justice about that man. I will, too. You were right today. I was asking Sir Gerard about champions. I save the coin from my statues to hire one. Someday I will send a knight to make that man pay for all that he did to us. I will issue a challenge to that devil, and he is so vain that he will accept it.”

It was an admission born of the intimacy of the bed,
and the rawness of her sorrow. She shared her heart's thoughts, but she also gave him fair warning. She might have faced it all today, but she had not changed her mind.
I will not be staying, and now you know why
.

He would not argue with her about it now. Some other time he would point out the futility of her dream, and the necessity of putting the whole of that time aside.

They lay quietly in the poignant mood of her revelation. He kissed her head, just once, to let her know that he did not judge her badly for that moment of weakness by the lake. She had chosen to fight the deadliness and not surrender either her life or her soul to it. He admired her strength, no matter where she had found it.

“You were wrong about what you said in the garden,” she whispered. “When you left. I do not want you to think that. Your touch did not make me remember.”

“I am glad to know that. It pained me to think I had hurt you.”

“You did not. In truth, it made me forget for a long time, up to a point. I did not think that possible. But that was frightening, too, because I can not let myself forget, can I? I can not make it right if I do not remember.”

She spoke as if she was working something out in her mind—something having to do with her and him and their embrace.

He considered his response carefully, trying not to make one out of self-interest. “You must live this as your heart tells you, Joan. But if I were you, I would forget when I can, and remember when I must.”

She fell silent for a long time. She barely moved at all, but he could tell that she did not sleep. The expectation of unspoken words beat in the quiet. He could not say them. It had to be her.

Just when he accepted that she would not, she surprised him.

“Do you want to kiss me?”

“You know that I do.”

She thought about that. “Even though it can not be … even though …”

“Even though.”

“It is not because you feel sorry for me, is it? I could not bear that.”

He slipped out of their embrace and turned to look down at her face. “Do not think me better than I am. My interest in you had never been selfless, and it is not now. I think that the day will come when the pleasure does not die for you. I am vain enough to think that I can make that day come soon.”

A small, crooked smile played on her lips. “I will feel very foolish, knowing that it will not be what you want.”

“Whatever it is will be enough. I will make sure that you do not feel foolish.”

Emotions flickered in her eyes. Doubt. Caution. Desire. She had raised the possibility, and he could not leave the decision entirely with her now. His body would not let him. If it was not time, if it was not good, they would both know it at once.

He lightly touched the mouth that had so recently gaped with grieving sobs. “I will not ask for anything more than you can give. Do you trust that?”

She nodded. He could only imagine the leap of faith that took. She had to know how vulnerable she would be.

“Then let us go slowly, so that nothing frightens you.” He kissed her soft lips, testing. After a moment she kissed back. Her arms rose to accept him. Her trust flattered and pleased him, and checked the ferocious response that threatened to roar through him.

He kissed her patiently until he felt her arousal building. He resisted caressing her until her caution and embarrassment disappeared and her arms clung more tightly,
and then he just gently stroked her arm, waiting until she was ready for more.

He indulged himself, tasting the delicate skin of her throat and tonguing the sensitive edge of her ear. Feeling the tiny tremors in her cheeks with his fingertips. Sensing the heat rise until she stretched and flexed and turned her face so his mouth could reach the most sensitive spots on her neck. Since he had put aside his own satisfaction, he could enjoy the languid path of this lovemaking.

He lured her lips open. Warmth and softness and intimacy absorbed him. With sensations blurring his mind, he never lost touch with her reactions. Even as he entered again and again, and forced control over his mounting desire, he remained alert to the unspoken language of her arms and body and quiet gasps. With a strict resolve he clung to his promise that nothing was going to frighten her.

A new tension entered her embrace. Her body arched in an invitation. He nuzzled her ear. “Do you want me to caress you?”

“Aye,” she breathed.

He palmed down her side, along waist, hip, and thigh. She moved into it with an elegant stretch. A lovely muffled gasp breathed into him. Her passion rose quickly then. Trusting and willing, she let him bring her with him.

She was so lovely in it. He stopped kissing so that he could watch the way she molded into the long, slow paths of his hand. She turned slightly, beckoning him to her breast.

Not yet. He intended to go very slowly. He had a goal beyond this night. He would show her just what this might be, so that she would return again and again, until the day came when she gave herself to him. He would fill her with new memories, so that the old ones would no longer find room to live.

He turned her onto her stomach. She faced him, wide-eyed. He kissed her cheek in reassurance, and then pushed her hair aside so that he could look at her. The shift draped softly down her back and bottom to the middle of her thighs. Beautiful legs stretched out below.

He bent and kissed along her spine through the fabric, down to the little hollow at the small of her back. Her body flexed and her breath shortened in reaction. He enjoyed her whispers of pleasurable shock as much as the feel of her warmth on his lips.

Desire conquered her surprise. Her body moved in ways that she did not control. He moved the shift up so he could taste her skin, and bent low to kiss her thighs. She parted them slightly, volunteering a new vulnerability. He smelled her arousal, and a musky moisture touched his lips.

He had to forcibly pull himself away from what she unknowingly offered. A pounding heat entered his head and blood, and the decision to take this farther than he had planned simply happened, the natural conclusion of her ready responses.

He moved the shift higher, unveiling her. Her back dipped and her bottom rose at the exposure. He pushed it to her shoulders, and then slid it off until she was naked in the candle glow, as he had seen her that first morning and imagined her so often since.

He caressed her round, taut bottom. It tensed firmer and higher. He explored lower. Her thighs parted more. Short, anxious cries sang out on each of her breaths, muffled by the pillow.

He gently kneaded the back of her thighs, his fingers brushing closely to the source of the wetness slicking her skin. A melody of anxious pleasure poured out of her.

A touch on her shoulder was all it took for her to turn, clawing him to her in a tight embrace. She joined the
kisses fiercely, opening to the hungry joining that did nothing to relieve the pounding in his head that her innocent eroticism stimulated.

Her kisses turned frenzied. Her cries rang with frustration. She pulled him closer and kept turning into his caress. She tottered on the brink of the abandon that had surprised her under the tree in the garden.

He could take her there, he could give her fulfillment, but he wanted to know she had chosen it. He caressed her inner thigh in offering, and pressed his lips to her temple to soothe her. “What do you want, love? Tell me.”

No response at first. Then a whisper, no more than the spirit of a voice. “Everything. Let us try. I want everything with you.”

He had not expected that. An inner voice warned that tonight was too soon, but need and triumph roared louder. “You are sure?”

“Aye. Please.”

He touched her intimately, testing. In the garden, her pleasure had died with that, and he waited to see if it would again.

A flexing, defensive and cautious, tensed through her.

Then it slipped away, and she spread her legs.

No thought, then. No debate. Hunger sent a blaze through his head. He moved on top of her.

Another flexing. Somehow he forced himself to stop, waiting.

Again she conquered it. She pulled him closer, and kissed him.

He started, reining in his body's impulse to quickly grab the gift.

A tension. A chill. With his first touch it shivered all through her.

He stopped again, barely breathing from the effort it took. A primitive yell in his head urged him to ignore it.

She did not push him away. She did not resist, but he knew what had happened. She would not stop him, but they had gone farther than the memories would permit.

He hovered there, pressed at her heat, battling the desire that insisted he finish it. The urge almost overwhelmed him. Gritting his teeth, cursing himself, he pulled away and pushed her legs together.

They closed on him. That was all it took. He accepted the release, and the relief.

He opened his eyes after the instant of pleasure. Her hand covered her eyes.

“I am sorry,” she muttered.

“It was too soon, that is all. I should have known that.”

“I thought that I could.”

“I do not want your bravery, Joan. I do not want you to force yourself. When it is time, you will know.”

“At least I did not leave you … at least you are not… that would have been … I would have felt even more foolish then.”

He kissed her until her embarrassment fell away, then pulled her to nestle in his embrace for the night.

“The next time we will not rush things, and I will see to your contentment, too.”

“I am content enough. I do not think I could know more.”

She could, and she would. But that would wait for another night.

He wrapped her in his arms, so that she would not feel foolish, or anything except protected. She fit against him very neatly, as if she had been molded to match him.

C
HAPTER
16