Erinsong (21 page)

His smile glinted at her in the failing
light. Brenna turned her head to kiss him and found to her surprise
that her newly spent body quickened to him again. But this time she
welcomed the pleasant ache, knowing it was the harbinger of future
delight. The length of his erection pressed against her thigh,
sliding over her skin in a slow knock that would not be denied.

“I promised to wait till your wanting
exceeded my own,” Jorand said, his voice ragged with need. “Are we
there yet?”

“Oh!” She ran a teasing hand over his chest,
giving some of the hairs around one nipple a light tug. “ ‘Twould
seem we’re not quite done, are we?”

“Not if there’s a god in that Christian
heaven of yours, we’re not.”

He covered her mouth with his, taking her
lips with a feverish urgency she answered with passion of her own.
As the kiss deepened, she slid a hand down and brushed the side of
his stiff phallus.

“What are you doing?” He grabbed her
hand.

“Only what ye did to me,” she said with
feigned innocence. “I’m a gifted student, Jorand. I learn very
quickly. Did I never tell ye that?”

When she stroked him again, his eyes rolled
back in their sockets. “You’re gifted all right.”

“Then let me pleasure ye.”
He allowed her to push him onto his back and then folded his hands
under his head with the air of a man about to undergo torture. She
touched his shaft again, enjoying the smooth
ness of his taut skin and the way the big thing raised
itself, seemingly of its own accord, to meet her
hand.
Brenna had the feeling she was
making friends with
an unknown beast, one
she wasn’t entirely sure was safe.

He is monstrous big.

How in the world was she to
take him in? She chewed her bottom lip. After all the pleasure
he’d
shown her, would it still end in the
pain she dreaded?

“Stop, Brenna.”

“Have I hurt ye?” She jerked her hand
away.

“No, I can’t take any more,
and I don’t want it to be
this
way.”

“Then how is it to be? What would ye have me
do?”

“I’ve given that some thought.” He lifted her
and set her astraddle his hips. “Don’t do anything that hurts you.
But do something soon,” he said through a clenched jaw.
“Please.”

Brenna looked down at him,
wondering at his will
ingness to let her
take the lead. She had no clue where to start. So she leaned
forward to kiss him, finding honey under his tongue. His hands
massaged her breasts again and warmth spread down
to her womb. She gasped as she felt the tip of
him en
ter her.

Their eyes met.

“Trust me, Brenna,” he said. “I’m trusting
you.”

She nodded wordlessly and
sat back, letting more
of him in. He
filled her snugly and she expanded to hold him. But his forward
progress was stopped by her thin barrier. Brenna knew there was
much more of him to come. She pulled forward and he slid out. They
groaned together, each despairing of the lost
connection.

Brenna suddenly realized
why she ached. She
longed for him to fill
her, whether it hurt or not. Using her hand, she guided him in
again.

“It doesn’t hurt,” she said with wonder.
“Saints above, it doesn’t hurt.”

She threw her head back and impaled herself
on his full length. A cry escaped her lips.

“Brenna?” He reached for her.

When she looked down, a single tear slid down
her cheek. “I only hurt for a moment. Now ‘tis wonderful. You’re
wonderful.”

She leaned down to kiss him
again and they began
the ancient dance,
old as Eden itself, starting slowly
and
building to a new fevered pitch.

His breath came in ragged
gasps as he strained un
der her, meeting
her with strong thrusts. He gripped her hips as he suddenly held
her still. Deep inside her, his seed erupted in satisfying jolts
and, as if in answer, her secret place contracted around him in
welcoming joy.

When it was over, she sank
down to rest her head on his chest, com
forted when the wild thumping of his heart returned to a
steady rhythm.

“Will that do, then?” she asked.

“
Ja,
princess, that’ll do,” Jorand said, running
a
hand over her damp hair. “But only if we
do it often.”

“The rabbit is nearly done,” Brenna announced
as she turned the roasting carcass on an improvised spit.

“Good.” Jorand came up
behind her, pushed her
hair aside, and
planted a kiss on the nape of her neck.
His lips sent little shivers of delight down her
spine.
Brenna wondered if he tasted the
saltiness of
the
light sheen of perspiration on her skin from the
exer
tion of their most recent
tussle.

“You’ve worn me out again,
woman. I can see that
as your husband I’ll
need to keep up my strength.”

Brenna smiled. She’d always
been a quick student,
but who’d have
guessed she’d be such a willing
pupil of
the carnal arts. In the last few weeks of their
travels, he’d taught her all he knew of the game of love.
Once she understood the basics, she dreamed up some exquisite
variations for their lovemaking.
Brenna
surprised herself by being more than willing to add her own
creations to her husband’s repertoire
of
pleasures. Where she had once been fearful, she
was now bold. Once terrified of being taken, she now
gave—and took—willingly.

They sailed on each day,
carefully avoiding inhab
ited coves.
Brenna feared it would be difficult to ex
plain that the Northman she traveled with was her husband
before some Irishman tried to put an arrow
into him. The little boat Brian Ui Niall had
christened
the
Una
proved sturdy and seaworthy,
rounding the rocky points of Erin and finally slipping into the
wide estuary that narrowed into the river Shannon.

Before they left Donegal,
Brian Ui Niall had lent
Brenna the only
map of the island he possessed and
she
copied it faithfully. So far, the landmarks proved
accurate. Brenna wasn’t sure, but judging from
the symbols on the leather chart, she thought Clonmacnoise was
nearby.

“Don’t you think it’s time
you told me?” Jorand
tore a piece of stale
flat bread in half and handed her
a
portion.

“Told ye what?”

“What’s so important at
Clonmacnoise?” He took
a bite of the
bread, chewing it without much enthusiasm. The map of Erin was
spread out before him and
he traced a
finger around the outline of the land mass.
“If we’d kept going round the island, by my
reckon
ing we’d have been in Dublin by
now.”

“Ye promised me we’d divert to the
abbey.”

“It’s not that I mind the diversion.” He slid
a hand up her arm and back down to link fingers with her. “In fact,
I’ve greatly enjoyed the diversion, but,” his face grew serious, “I
think the time for secrets between us has passed, don’t you? What
compels you to Clonmacnoise?”

Brenna sighed and slipped
her hand away from his. This was one secret she’d carefully guarded
because it could end all others they might someday share. But
Jorand was right. He was her husband.
He,
of all people, should know the whole truth.

“I’ve told ye what happened to me sister at
the abbey.”

He nodded soberly.

“I haven’t told ye what happened after. Not
even Da knows of it.”

His eyes blazed on her
behalf. “Did the Christians
there blame
you?”

She had no doubt that if
she asked him, he’d per
sonally sack the
abbey in retribution for her.

“Aye, they did, and rightly too. If not for
me, Sinead would have stayed safe behind the abbey walls. But
that’s not the worst of it. The blackguard left me sister with
child.”

Jorand remained silent, his
face unreadable. What if her shameful revelation turned him from
her? She
swallowed hard and decided to
keep going. If she was going to be damned, better to be damned for
the truth.

“When I first realized
Sinead was bearing, I tried to
convince
her to rid herself of it.” She cast her gaze into her lap and
folded her hands together to keep them from shaking. It still hurt
her heart to remember urging Sinead to make that solitary trip
through the glen.

“There’s an old wise woman
who lives not far
from the abbey,” Brenna
explained. “She makes po
tions and such.
Much as we hated the bairn’s sire and
the
manner of its getting, I thought Sinead would be
tempted.”

“But she wasn’t?”

“No, she wasn’t. Sinead saw
the coming child as a
gift, a way for God
to bring some good from all that
was vile
and ugly.” Brenna hung her head. “Me sister
was made of much finer stuff than I.”

Sinead had given birth in the abbey, she told
him, attended by women for whom men were a mystery and childbirth
an unthinkable event. The nuns were kind and full of pious advice,
but uniformly unhelpful.

After Sinead languished in
childbed for the better part of two days, the abbot relented and
called in a midwife, the very wise woman Brenna had
coun
seled Sinead to see about doing away
with the child. The crone reputedly knew as much about bringing
a
bairn into the world as sending one off
to the next,
and her sister delivered a
healthy babe. One that was
whisked away
from her before she’d even held it once.

Brenna stared at the fire
without really seeing it, the remembered scent of blood and birth
water fresh in her nostrils. “She was pale as dawn, Sinead
was.” A shudder wracked her frame. “She told me
to
see to the bairn and then between one
breath and the
next, she was
gone.”

“And your father doesn’t know your sister is
dead?”

“Once a novice takes the
veil, she’s dead to her earthly family. Da thinks Sinead is a true
Bride of Christ, safely beyond the shame of the Northman’s rape. I
couldn’t bring meself to tell him different.”
Brenna thought she’d cried every tear she had for her
sister, but a new spring of guilt welled up.
Jorand reached for her, but she straight-armed him. She
didn’t deserve the comfort he might
offer.

“The abbot tried to bring
the babe to me, but I re
fused. The little
demon killed me sister, I said, and I’d
have nothing to do with it.” She hid her face with her
palms. “I was mad with grief and, God help me,
if
they’d forced it on me, I might have
done murder. So
they took it
away.”

Jorand moved closer to her,
near enough for her to
feel his heat, but
not close enough to touch her.

“At first, I was glad not
to have seen it, glad not to have the babe there a constant
reminder of the calamity me sin had wrought,” she said, wrapping
her arms around her middle. “Then, it started to fret
me that I didn’t even know if the bairn was a boy
or a
girl. The abbot would tell me not a
word.”

Silence stretched between
them. Why didn’t he say
something,
anything to let her know what he was
thinking? She was afraid of what she might see in his
face, so she kept her eyes downcast.

“I never knew what became
of the babe. I’ve always assumed the abbot fostered it out
somewhere.
He kept saying ‘twould be best
if I knew nothing and
put the whole sorry
mess out of me mind.”

Brenna passed a hand over
her eyes, seeing for a moment the tiny wailing bundle the midwife
swept away from her sister’s bedside. A stone settled into her
chest. Why had she not honored her sister’s re
quest and asked for the child right then?

“But I found I couldn’t
bear not knowing,” she said, picking at a loose thread in her
woolen
brat.
Anything to keep her from looking up and seeing
disapproval in Jorand’s face. “Sinead laid the
bairn’s care on me and I failed her. Again. Then when I
be
gan to bedevil the Holy Father about it
day and
night, he sent me home. Said I’d
never make a nun if I
couldn’t obey his
orders any better than that.”

All Brenna heard was the
steady clatter of the river
as it rustled
past them.

“Will ye not say something?” she finally
asked.

Jorand touched her then, resting his hand
lightly on her knee. She looked up at him.

“I have to agree with your abbot,” he said
wryly, one corner of his mouth lifted in a grimace. “You’d never
make a nun.”