Claudia Dain (33 page)

"Only if she needs help in swallowing wine," Edward said.

Avice cast him a look of pure disgust and said to Baldric, "Go. She will need you. We will find Roger, wherever he may hide."

"I do not think he hides," Edward said as Baldric moved into the shadow of the tower gate and disappeared within it. "Especially when a kiss from your lips awaits him."

"Flattery?" Avice said with a sneer. "It does not become you. Stay your course, my lord. I need no false flattery from you to stay mine."

He hated her.

He hated flattery, and he had somehow found the words in his mouth and out before he had known what he was about. She mocked him more gently than he mocked himself.

"Lady, you speak true.
I
will attend," he said, taking her by the arm and propelling her toward the stables. "Let us get this done and behind us. First Roger, then the kiss."

"Then the payment you owe me," she said, looking up at him as he moved her along. Her eyes were the light blue of a clear spring sky, her lashes black and long, her brow and cheek softly freckled, as if gentleness had a place in her heart. How he hated her for that lie. She was all bite and tooth and snarl, her soul fed on vanity and deceit, her mouth full of venom.

How would he ever sing her praise if she should win this wager?

He had small cause to worry. She would not win. Roger was not the sort to take a kiss from a maid betrothed. For all his laughter, Roger was a very sober sort of knight.

It was well that Avice did not know that.

"Aye, then the payment I will not refuse. I meet my wagers since I hold my honor dear. Have no fear of that," he said, burying his own sudden fear that, of all women, Avice might well be the one who could move Roger past his honor.

"I have good need of fear when men suddenly sprout words of honor over a simple wager," she said, dragging her heels. "Let go of me! I can find my way to the stables of Stanora without aid from an errant knight.

"Fine," he said, releasing her. They had reached the stables in any case.

"Fine," she repeated, straightening her sleeve where he had twisted it.

They marched into the stables side by side, each unwilling to give to the other the primacy of being in the lead. At least he knew that was true of himself. Why could she not deport herself as a woman ought? She was bold and arrogant and proud and impossible.

He hated her.

He hated her so much in that instant, with the sun lighting random strands in her dark hair to gleaming copper, with the light skimming her skin so that it glowed like pearl, with the air pushing her hair about her back in a caress of warmth, he thought he would die if he did not take her under his hands and break her into pieces.

And so he did.

Or tried to do.

He took her by the shoulders and pulled her to him, wanting her to break, wanting to break her heart upon his hands, wanting to break her pride into shards that he could use to pierce her stony heart, wanting to crush her until every part of her was branded into his skin, obliterating her, owning her, destroying her, taking her.

But Avice was not a woman to be taken and destroyed. Avice would not break. Not even for him.

She pushed him from her, pulling his hands free of her, stepping back into the light and sound of the bailey.

"My wager is with Roger," she said. "There is none of you in this."

"Roger is not here," he said stiffly, like a man in a dream.

Of course Roger was not there. His horse was there. But Roger being there or not being there had nothing to do with his need to touch her and break something within her.

"My wager is with Roger," she said again, her breath shallow and her eyes wide and dark.

"Your wager is with me," he said. "You will act it out upon Roger."

"Roger is not here," she said on a breath.

"Nay, he is not."

"And if I act it out upon you, will the wager be met?" she asked, staring at his mouth.

He was a fool. He hated her. She hated him.

He wanted her mouth on him. He wanted it and her and he wanted her willingness, even if it was a lie. Even if it was all of wagering and none of winning hearts or breaking souls.

"It will be met," he said.

And at the words, she flew at him. He caught her up against him and it was like catching a storm of want and passion and fury. She wrapped herself around him, legs and arms, one hand gripping his hair and another clutching at his back. One leg she twined around his calf, the other stood on his foot, and she moaned against his mouth just before she opened wide and took him in.

She was fire. Blazing wet heat. Sweet breath. Sharp teeth. Wicked tongue. All set upon him, devouring him as he devoured her.

He was lost in her. Lost so deep that he forgot hate, forgot pride, forgot honor, forgot all in the long fall into her passion.

He grabbed her by her taunting fall of hair and pulled it, licking and biting his way into her mouth and down her neck and to her bosom. He wrapped his other arm about her, hard and low, grinding his hips against hers, pressing himself into her through the barriers of wool and chivalry. This was raw need. There was no chivalry left in him.

She did not fight him, though she pulled at his hair and tugged at his tunic, pulling at the throat of it, seeking his skin and kissing what she could reveal. When that did not satisfy her, she pulled at the hem and rolled it up his torso, exposing his belly and chest to her hands. She rubbed him, stroked him, fired him.

And he was fired. He pulled her legs apart and lifted her to straddle his thigh. She moaned and pulled his face back up to hers, laying her mouth upon his, opening herself to him and letting him dive deep into her. Taking her. Tasting her. Invading her.

She rubbed herself against the length of his thigh, twitching against him, running her hands over his chest, feeling the play of muscle and sinew and skin, marking him with her scent. Branding him with her memory.

He lifted her skirts, his hand reaching down and grabbing the hem. He had to feel her. He had to feel if she was hot and wet for him. He had to mark her as she was marking him.

To take her.

To destroy her.

To break her upon his passion until she was nothing but raw need and gasping heat.

With a hand, she stopped him.

With a moan, she slid down his thigh, away from him.

With a sigh, she left him, pushing back her hair with both hands, searching for a wall to lean against with unsteady hands.

Her eyes were black holes of want, her breath ragged, her bosom heaving. He reached out to her, taking a step to close the gap between them, to renew the heat he could feel coming from her. With a raised hand, she bade him stop.

He stopped and pushed the hair back from his eyes.

"No more," she said, panting.

"More," he insisted, though he kept the distance she requested. "There is more."

She shook her head and crossed her arms over her breasts. "Not for us."

"Just let me touch you."

"Nay. No more," she said, and it was a plea for mercy, not a demand.

He had her almost to the point of breaking. But she pled for mercy. He did not know how much mercy was in him.

"Avice," he said, hearing the breaking need in his own voice and uncaring that she had unmanned him.

"I am betrothed," she said, her voice shaking. "Would you have me dishonor both him and myself? Of how much more can we partake before honor breaks beneath the weight of passion?"

"I do not know, nor do I care," he said. He did not know himself. When had he ever thrown honor from him without thought?

Since all thoughts were of Avice.

"I care," she said. "I am betrothed," she said again. "There is no unmaking it."

"So I am to be unmade."

"As am I," she said, staring into his eyes, her very soul in the look she gave him.

It was that look he would take with him when he left Stanora.

'Twould have to be enough.

"Come," he said, looking at the ground beneath her feet. To look into her eyes would be to forget what shards of honor remained to him and take her in the hay of the stables. "Let me take you to your father. He has great need of you now. I will steal no more time from you, Avice."

She hesitated, and then she walked out of the stable and into the light. He followed, keeping careful distance between them. With slow steps they walked up the hill to the hall. All about them, people walked and talked and worked. How strange that was, as if nothing at all had occurred.

* * *

She was not as drunk as he thought she was, to judge by the self-satisfied gleam in his eyes and the smirk on his mouth. She could hold her wine as well as any man. And had done so more than once.

It was only that, with the wine mingling so joyfully with her blood, she could admit that he was a very handsome man and might have a point or two that was deserving of praise. That did not mean she ought to marry him. That certainly did not mean she was going to let him bed her. No man would ever find his way between her thighs. She had to keep him out of her, away from her. She could not let him in. She could not. That had been decided long ago.

Juliane shook her head at the thought, frowning meaningfully at the tabletop.

"But what will you do to stop me?" Ulrich asked, his voice a whisper at her shoulder. "Your hawk is hooded, Juliane, and no horse could find his way up those twisting stairs to your chamber."

Had she spoken? She had not intended to. "You forget about the dogs," she said stiffly, looking him in the eyes. He had beautiful blue eyes and the straightest nose. His mouth was lovely as well. Not that any of it mattered. She could not want him, could not fall to passion and desire. In her falling, all would fall.

"The dogs?" Ulrich said, taking another small swallow of wine and passing the cup to her. She took her swallow and reached for the bread. The platter was empty. "How many dogs?"

"One will do," she said, eyeing him coldly, using her finest le Gel expression, whereupon he burst into laughter.

"You leave nothing to chance, do you?"

"I am a careful combatant," she said.

Too much wine. She must tell him nothing of the truth.

"I am glad," he said. "It is good for a damsel to be careful. Yet you have little need for caution now, with me. I am to be yours. I will defend you against all."

"I can defend myself," she said out of habit, looking down at his hands on the table.

He had wonderful hands, large and long-fingered and sprinkled with the lightest touch of downy hair near the wrist joint. A man's hands. Callused. Muscular. Many-veined. Her heart jumped awkwardly in her chest just from looking at his hands.

Best not to look at his hands, then.

"Yet there is no need to defend yourself against me," he said softly, taking her hand and lifting it to his mouth, whereupon he kissed the inside of her wrist with restrained hunger. A shock of heat and longing slid through her veins. "You need only give yourself to me, Juliane. Think only on that," he breathed against her skin, his eyes gazing into hers.

"I will not fall to you," she said, the only thing she remembered in the heat of his eyes and the soft melting of his mouth upon her.

He nibbled his way up the inside of her arm, and she did nothing to stop him. There was a fire in her belly and in her brain, and she could not see her way out of the throbbing heat of him. She could not fight this, not all alone. Where was Baldric? Where was Morgause?

"Then fall with me," he said. "There is no loss in that. A double fall, where two become one and fall together. A single falling to mark us. A fall to bind us. A fall to melt our hearts until they are forged into a single beating." He took her hand and placed the palm upon his neck, over the pounding of his pulse and the thick muscle where neck met shoulder. His skin was hot and smooth. She wanted to lay her mouth there and taste him, feel the blood rush under his skin and against her lips. "Come, fall with me, Juliane. I will hold you in this falling, sheltering you, protecting you."

"Taking me, having me," she whispered, staring at his mouth.

"Aye," he answered in shared whisper. "But taking only what you will freely give. Give yourself to me, Juliane. I will cherish thee."

"Juliane?"

Into the misty haze of desire, her uncle called. Conor's voice broke the weaving spell of passion and wine and Ulrich's promise; Juliane shook herself free of it and looked to where Conor stood at the entrance to the stair.

"Juliane," Conor repeated. "The contracts are complete, awaiting only Ulrich's signature. Your father awaits. 'Tis time to be married."

* * *

'Twas quickly done. Ulrich signed the marriage contract, gaining both Juliane and St. Ives in an instant. Avice and Maud stood at her back, Walter at her side, all looking appropriately grim. She could hardly fault them. Father Matthew gave a shortened and hurried version of the ceremony binding them in God's sight. Her father smiled and nodded his blessing. She did not nod in return.