Fire Song (20 page)

This worked to Aubery’s advantage. Before pleasure changed to frustration, the thudding progress of the heavy tub down from the upper floor became apparent, and from the other end of the hall came a parade of servants carrying pails of hot and cold water to refill the bath. Fenice stopped playing mid-phrase, and Aubery got to his feet simultaneously. It was a moot point whether he had risen or she stopped playing first. Neither action displayed any great consideration for the proprieties, nor did the fact that as their eyes met, they burst out laughing together.

As they entered their chamber, Aubery said, “That was not polite. I should have waited for you to finish your song.”

“It is just as well you did not,” Fenice replied, chuckling, “since words and music together went out of my head.”

But a few minutes later she cried out with concern as she removed Aubery’s shirt and the extent of his injury became plain. “This cannot have been from a fall,” she exclaimed.

“Do not make much of nothing,” Aubery said sharply. “However I came by it, it is no more than a bruise. The bones are sound.”

“But I could have eased it much had you told me,” Fenice protested, her voice shaking.

“It was more ease to me not to have you weeping over me,” he snapped.

Fenice swallowed hard. “Then I will say no more.”

She left the room, and Aubery stared after her blankly, thinking that Fenice had shown her claws at last. He was not certain what to do. Normally, he would have gone after her and given her a clout or two to make plain that he did not intend to endure a wife who would neglect him whenever he said what did not please her. But in her father’s house, it was not so simple. Having got that far in his ruminations, they were made ridiculous when Fenice returned and spilled into the bathwater the handful of herbs she had gone to fetch and, after testing the temperature solicitously, invited him to get into the tub.

Now, of course, Aubery felt very silly, but also uncertain. Although nothing could have been more tender than Fenice’s touch as she washed his injury, her face did not betray her feelings. Nor did she neglect any other measure for his comfort, rubbing a pest-killing ointment into his hair before she began bathing him, and washing it out in a separate bowl. However, there were more subtle ways to display displeasure than overt rebellion, and if his wife chose to use a sly device, his difficulty in correcting her would be increased.

Fenice would have been astounded had she been able to guess her husband’s thoughts. Anger and spite were no part of her nature. Behind her expressionless face, she was contemplating no more drastic measure than how to explain that it was dangerous to hide injuries from her, that if weeping or sympathy were displeasing to him, she would conceal them. But she found no opening for any explanation and was distracted by the pleasure of handling her husband’s body and by the task of fine-combing the lice from his hair.

Between his abstraction and hers, they had not said a word to each other after the exchange that had set their minds on separate tracks. The servants had emptied and removed the tub before Fenice was satisfied that Aubery’s hair was clean. Then she said softly, still without perceivable expression, that he could get into bed.

“And what will you do?” he asked quietly, more convinced than ever that Fenice’s reserve concealed resentment but less sure how she would express it.

Fenice blinked. The answer to Aubery’s question was so obvious that she could not conceive why he asked it, but it was not her place to point that out, so she said, “I will take your clothing to the maids for washing and return the salve and comb.”

That was not what Aubery meant, of course, but he was not able to think of a way to make himself clear and, to his mind, at least, not to look a fool before Fenice went out again. He waited impatiently for her to return so that the few minutes she was away seemed much longer, and he was contemplating going after her, except that he knew he would appear ridiculous. It did not improve his opinion of himself, and thus exacerbated his temper still further, when she reentered the room, snuffed all the candles except the night light, and immediately began to undress.

There was only one way now Aubery could conceive of resentment being expressed, and he waited with a kind of cynical amusement for one of the excuses with which he was so familiar. But Fenice did not speak, nor did she get into bed on her side. Instead, she came around, leaned over, and kissed him, running her hand down the good side of his body and between his legs. Instantly all Aubery’s doubts and suppositions were wiped out in an explosion of desire. It was as if his passion had been hidden under a mask, growing greater and greater in that concealment until the delicate scratch of Fenice’s elegant nails tore the false skin, and the violence beneath it gushed out.

He seized her and tried to pull her onto the bed so he could mount her, but she resisted, whispering, “Wait, you will hurt yourself. Let me come over you.”

The words meant nothing to Aubery. He was so aroused that he had forgotten his bad arm. However, he had not forgotten anything connected with his intense physical need, and he well knew that Fenice’s suggestions always produced thrilling results. He relaxed his grip on her a trifle, allowing her to pull back the blanket he had forgotten—which would have frustrated his attempt to take her, and slide herself atop him. He started to lean left, expecting her to roll off, and gasped with pain as his weight came onto his bruised shoulder.

The shock made him fall back and hesitate just long enough for Fenice to come upright, straddle him, rise up on her knees, and impale herself. Aubery gasped. Fenice lifted and slid down again. He stared up at her, at the closed eyes, the slightly parted lips, all colorless in the dim light of the night candle. The rapt expression, a mask of ecstasy, intensified the pleasure her movement gave him. His eyes slid down to the full breasts, swinging very slightly with her motion, where the upright nipples were dark in contrast to the creamy skin, and down again over her belly until he saw his own shaft appear and disappear.

Seeing the source of his sensations brought a pleasure so exquisite, an excitement so intense, as to be nearly unbearable. Aubery shook with the need for fulfillment which struggled with the frantic desire to prolong this joy. Violence roiled in him, a desire to strike, to bite, but he was paralyzed by the intensity of his reaction. He could not move nor cry out. If he drew breath, he was unaware of it. The torment of pleasure seemed eternal, wave after wave reflecting from his groin to his eyes and back again, until Fenice fell forward, squirming and heaving and crying, “Come, my love, come.”

Whether it was her words or the change in movement or the shutting off of the vision, Aubery was released. He closed his eyes at last as a pulse of ecstatic agony racked him, only to be followed by a still greater one. Aubery groaned as if he were being torn apart, his body convulsed with his giving. So fierce was his response that his very life seemed drained out in the spilling of his seed.

Fenice was quite unaware of the violent reaction she had induced. Her eyes had closed as soon as she satisfied her need to be filled, so she had never seen her husband’s face. She was a trifle surprised when he did not take advantage of her position to handle her body more freely than was possible for him when he mounted her and needed his arms to support him, but she connected that with his absolute stillness beneath her. When Delmar wished to delay his climax, he would lie still, looking off into the distance and thinking of other things.

Although Aubery had never done so before, an explanation was not hard to find. Fenice knew she was more eager than she had been since their wedding night. This had not been so long a starvation, but it was harder for a man than for a woman, she knew. It was not surprising that Aubery might need to employ various devices to delay his own satisfaction so that she might reach hers. Fenice was grateful and hurried to her own conclusion as fast as she could to reduce the strain on her husband.

It was not until she was satisfied and lay resting, savoring the warm, powerful body beneath hers, that it occurred to Fenice that Aubery’s need to distract himself so as not to be too quick for her had a most delightful implication. If he were as eager as she, or more so, as was normal for a man, did that not mean that he had been as celibate as she? Men varied widely in their practices, she knew. Her grandfather had many women—fewer now that he was older, of course—but gave all his respect and his tenderness to his wife. The women were nothing, an outlet for a physical need her grandmother did not share. On the other hand, her father took no other woman—at least, not in any place where his wife might hear of it. Perhaps on a long campaign he was not perfectly faultless, Lady Alys had admitted to Fenice with a shrug, but he was a man, not a saint.

Fenice had not previously thought about how Aubery might behave. She had been very hurt when she discovered that Delmar had taken one of the maids in Trets, but he had told her it was none of her business as long as he withheld nothing from her, and it was true that he had been as active and loving that day and night as any other. Still… Fenice lifted her head and looked down at Aubery’s face with her heart in her eyes, then touched his lips with her own as gently as a whisper, but he did not respond in any way.

It was somewhat disturbing that he did not open his eyes or seem to notice when she finally lifted herself away from his body. Although not talkative during the act of love, Aubery often would talk afterward, oddly enough, of common things, almost as if he wished to forget or cover over their pleasure in each other. But that thought was silly, and Fenice put it away as she had done several times before, realizing that it had come to mind this time because she was concerned by Aubery’s stillness. She feared he was in pain but was afraid to ask.

“My lord,” she whispered, but he only turned his head slightly away.

Fenice had to accept that, but she was worried as she pulled the bedcurtains closed and settled down to sleep. This bruise was nothing, it would heal by itself although she could have eased his discomfort with warm and cold applications. But there had to be some way for her to explain that he
must
tell her if he were ill or hurt so that she could help him or seek more experienced help for him. A tremor of panic ran through her at the thought that Aubery might conceal a dangerous sickness or injury and die of it. No! This explanation could not be left to chance. She would have to ask Lady Alys to help her.

Although Fenice drifted off to sleep as soon as she decided to transfer her problem to a wiser head, Aubery had no such easy pacifier. Everything that had happened had shocked and appalled him. The disclosure of the violence of his own craving and the way he had hidden it from himself was bad enough, but the exposure of Fenice’s true nature was unbearable. Aubery was so horrified that he could not weep. Her lust was so powerful that it made naught of the anger she had felt when he spoke sharply to her. She had not refused him, instead she had used him like…like some kind of inanimate instrument to satisfy herself.

Contradictory memories stirred dimly. That featherlight kiss had nothing of lust in it, and further back the music of her voice saying, “You will hurt yourself.” But those memories made little headway against the image that filled the forefront of Aubery’s mind of Fenice’s beautiful body rising and falling above him. It would not have been so bad could he have felt disgust or indifference, but his body was already responding to that image, eager to renew sensations it craved. He fought the desire, a task made no easier by the acute awareness of Fenice’s presence generated by her even breathing and the dip in the mattress that seemed to tilt him toward her.

Aubery was very strong. Despite the long, tiring ride from La Réole and the fatigue of his sexual outpouring, it was hours before exhaustion overcame his desire and he was able to sleep. Naturally, once it came, his sleep was very deep. He was not wakened when Fenice left their bed, nor did he stir later when Alys came in, alarmed by Fenice’s fear, to listen to his breathing and touch his forehead gently with her hand.

“No, there is nothing wrong with him,” she said to Fenice outside the room. “He is only sleeping soundly. His breathing is fine, and he has no fever. You may be right, though, that he was in pain last night. Perhaps he could not sleep at once.”

“Should I have asked?” Fenice’s eyes were full of anxiety. “He told me not to trouble him, so I did not. I knew there could be no real harm in this bruise. But if…”

Alys shook her head. “If he was out of temper, which the pain might cause, he would only have beaten you.”

“I do not care for that,” Fenice said, “if he would then have let me ease him.”

Alys made a small sound of irritation. She accepted the right of a husband to chastise a wife for a fault, but she did not approve at all of Fenice’s willingness to allow Aubery to beat her to soothe an irritation she had not caused. In addition, she did not think it would work with Aubery, who had always been gentle with women because of his fondness for his mother. However, men did need to work off their tempers.

“Then you are a fool,” Alys remarked tartly, “for Aubery is a kind man at heart. If he had struck you, he would have felt worse rather than better, ashamed for responding with a blow to an offer of help. Not that I think it wrong to provoke your husband into a quarrel so that he can spit out any bitter bile he has swallowed through the ill acts of fate or other men. That is good, and you would be at fault to withhold from him that relief. I have told you some thousands of times that too much meekness is as great a failing in a wife as shrewishness.”