For Love And Honor (9 page)

Now it
was Joanna’s turn to explode. The chamber was full of men
– her father, Father Ambrose,
the squire, who had brought two friends with him, and Baird, whom
she heartily disliked, Piers, and, most of all, Alain. Alain who
looked at her out of eyes filled with such love and grief that his
pain threatened to join with her own unrelenting anguish to destroy
her. She was trying so hard to be a good wife to Crispin, but every
time she looked away from him she saw Alain watching her. It was
too much. She could bear no more.

“
I am not
a girl!” she
shouted at her father. “I
am no longer under your command. Thanks to you, I
am a married woman, and this is my bedchamber, that I share with my
husband. Get out and leave us alone, all of you. Leave me alone
with my husband. I will care for him. /, his wife, the woman he
beds at night. Get out! Get out!”

“Daughter.” Signaling to Baird to assist him,
Radulf moved toward Joanna in a threatening manner. Father Ambrose
stopped him.

“Lady Joanna is right,” the priest said.
“There are too many of us here, and Crispin’s injuries are far from
serious.”

“I’m glad to hear that at least one of you
has some sense,” Joanna snarled, only slightly appeased by this
support. “Now go away, every man of you.”

She
stalked them toward the door, glaring at Alain when
he
paused to set down the pitcher of hot water on the clothing chest
next to the basin
Joanna had
brought. Piers was the last man to go, and she shoved at his
shoulders to force him through the door, then closed and bolted
it.

“How fierce you are.” Crispin was watching
her with a bemused expression. She flew across the room to him,
putting her hands on his bruises, bending to kiss the sore spot
over his ribs. “Joanna, my dear, this passion is not
necessary.”

“
You
could have been killed.” Consumed with guilt over her recalcitrant
feelings for Alain, worried by Alain’s words of a premonition
having to do with Crispin, she pressed her lips to her husband’s
face, kissing him over and over while she talked. “You must promise
to be more careful. Now, let me
help you. I put herbs in the
pitcher,
and I’ll use a cloth
dipped in the water to bathe your ribs and take away the pain. I
can make you feel better. Oh, Crispin, Crispin.”

In that instant when she ran her hands over
her husband’s sturdy body all of her confused and tormented
emotions came together; her desperate yearning for Alain’s embrace,
anger with her father for what he had unwittingly done to them by
marrying her to Crispin, and rage at the way he had tried to send
her out of the room when Crispin was hurt and needed her. All of
these feelings combined with her real tenderness and growing
affection for Crispin himself to create a violent hunger that
forced her in a surprising direction.

“Come to bed, Crispin,” she said, the
inflection of her voice making it clear that she was not speaking
of nursing care.

“What, now? In daylight?” Crispin looked
startled but not angry.

“Yes, now.” She caught his hand, pulling him
toward their bed.

“Joanna, this is most unseemly.”

“
I don’t
care. I am angry. I am frightened. I am terrified at the thought of
what might have happened to you, and I not there to comfort you. I
am your wife and I want
– I want-” Still holding his hand so he could not leave
her, she climbed onto the bed and lay down. With her free hand she
pulled her skirts up to her waist, revealing her lower body to him.
She opened her legs, exposing herself. She heard him catch his
breath and saw his immediate physical response to what she was
offering. Not certain that he would accommodate her even now,
fearing that his natural reticence and sense of what was proper
might keep him from her, she did not release his hand. When she
reached for the cord that held his hose she had to use her left
hand. She was awkward, and he did not help her. In fact, he made a
strong effort to reestablish himself as master in their
marriage.

“
Joanna,
take away your hand. I will tell you when and how we will
– oh, Joanna!” Crispin broke
off, closing his eyes and gritting his teeth, for she had freed him
and put her hand upon him, rubbing hard.

“
You
are
a stallion,” she
murmured, watching him grow larger beneath her fingers. “A huge,
beautiful stallion.”

“You should not do this.” It was his last
protest.

“I want you inside me.” Rage and loss and
grief had brought her to this. There was no other balm for the
bitter wound that had torn open her heart. In Crispin’s arms she
would find forgetfulness and at least a few moments of peace. Still
holding him, she guided him forward. “I want your child, Crispin.
Give me your child.”

He entered her in a hot, slippery rush, and
she wrapped her legs around him, pulling him deeper, and deeper
still. Being Crispin, he could not give her what she craved, could
not be wild and fierce with her until she was completely satisfied.
Being Crispin, he could only be gentle, so that the explosion
inside her, when it came, was gentle, too, and much too brief to
relieve the clamoring need that drove her. When he withdrew from
her she dissolved in tears of frustration.

Crispin sat on the edge of the bed, shaking
his head at her. She made no move to adjust her clothing, but lay
in the disorder of her crumpled gown with the golden net on her
hair askew.

“
I never
imagined a gently bred girl would behave in such a way,” he said
stern
ly.

“Don’t be angry with me,” she begged. “When I
heard you had been hurt I was so afraid for you that I was overcome
with joy to see you whole and only bruised a little.”

“I did not realize you cared for me so much,”
he said. Reaching out in his slow, deliberate way, he placed one
hand on her thigh. “Does this offend you?”

“No, my lord.” She shifted her legs a little,
allowing him to move his hand higher.

“If I were to remove my hose completely and
lie on the bed, then you could bathe my knee with your marvelous
herbal water, as well as my ribs and elbow,” he noted.

“Yes, my lord.” His fingers were edging
higher along the sensitive skin of her inner thigh.

“But your gown would soon be dampened.”

“I can remove it, my lord. And my coif.”

“
That
would be
…
more convenient.”

“Yes, my lord.” Smiling at his solemnity, she
slid off the bed to remove all of her garments.

“Such dedication to my welfare does you
credit,” he murmured when she returned to him with a wrung-out
cloth in one hand. “I believe you ought to start with my knee and
work your way upward.”

He said nothing more but lay quietly, letting
her sit beside him and apply the cloth to his knee. When she bent
forward her loosened hair spread across his legs. With both hands
he brushed it back, tucking it behind her ears.

“I did not know having a wife could be such a
pleasant thing,” he said.

“I thank you, my lord.” She rose to dip the
cloth into the basin again, pouring more hot water over it from the
pitcher, knowing all the time that he was watching her every
movement, and she wearing no clothing at all. It made her blush to
think of it, the two of them naked in the daylight, yet it was
exciting too. She placed the hot cloth on his knee again. He sighed
deeply.

“Is it too hot?” she asked. “It did not burn
my hands.”

“It’s not the heat of the cloth, Joanna.”

“I can see now you have serious need of my
tender ministrations,” she told him, looking up from his knee to a
spot that plainly throbbed with eagerness for her touch.

“You called me a stallion,” he said. “Ride
me.”

With no further touching or caressing,
without even kissing her first, he lifted her, setting her down
hard on top of him. Her eyes went wide. She had not known a man and
woman could come together in this way. His hands were on her hips,
holding her firmly in place.

“You will have to move,” he said. “I am in
too much pain to help you.”

“You lie, my lord.” But move she did, though
awkwardly at first, not knowing how to do what he wanted. Still,
her enthusiasm grew until she cried out in astonished delight, “Oh,
Crispin, Crispin,” before she fell across his chest, resting there
in panting exhaustion while he groaned and thrust beneath her.

“I did not know you would be like this,” he
said when they lay peacefully once more, “funny and passionate and
most endearing.”

“Nor did I know you had a sense of humor,”
she told him.

“I never show that part of myself to
strangers,” he said. “My dearest friends know it. Alain and Piers
and I have had some amusing times together.”

Alain,
who looked at her with haunted eyes. /
will not
think of him,
she vowed yet
again.
We will part soon. He will go home. It will be
easier then.

Aloud she said, “Crispin, I like you so
much.”

“Dare I hope that, in time, it might be more
than liking?” he asked. “I want you to care deeply for me,
Joanna.”

“I do care already,” she said, “and I’m sure
I will care more as time goes on.”

“
I would
not have you think me a nuisance,” he murmured a while later, “but
do you think we could
–
just once more before we rise?”

“Of course,” she responded. She opened her
arms to him, telling herself that her marriage would prove to be a
good one. Love would come later, when she knew him better. For now,
the warm tenderness he evoked in her was enough. Though they were
to make love once in the far reaches of the night when the
banqueting was over, and again in haste when morning came and he
was late for an appointment with Radulf, forever after Joanna
firmly believed it was during that June evening, when she first
began to reach beyond Crispin’s reserve and to truly know his kind
and gentle soul, that their child was conceived.

“So, you’re leaving, are you?” Radulf could
not bring himself to play the genial host, as if he meant what he
said. Not with these two guests. His words rang false. “My dear
young friends, why not stay for the entire week of feasts?”

Listening to Piers explain why not, Radulf
looked from him to Alain and back again, his eyes hard.

“
Well,”
Radulf said, the mask of pleasantry slipping a bit more, “if you
care so little for your precious Crispin, then of course you must
go before his wedding celebrations are done. But not until
tomorrow. You will spend one more night beneath
my roof, I
hope?”

“That was our plan,” Piers said.

With an abrupt nod, Radulf moved away,
calling to the waiting Baird to follow him.

“I expected he’d be eager for us to leave,”
Alain remarked, puzzled by Radulf’s insistence that they should
remain for another night. “I don’t think he likes either of
us.”

“His feelings for us won’t matter after
tonight,” Piers said. Seeing Alain cast an apprehensive look about
the great hall, he asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Does the hall seem unnaturally dark to
you?”

“All of the candles and torches are not yet
lit,” Piers noted, “and the outer door is wide open, so there is
bright light coming in through the entry hall. That makes the
shadows seem deeper.”

“Perhaps.” Alain sounded unconvinced. “For a
moment everything went dark. It must have been my imagination.”

“You are tired after the long hunt this
morning. Late nights and early mornings, long hunts and longer
banquets; it’s enough to drive a man to his knees. Give me the
honest life of a hard-fighting knight, I say, and forget these
interminable celebrations.”

“Especially this one,” Alain agreed.

They were
not the only guests who would be leaving the following morning and,
publicly at least, Radulf professed to regret each departure. Two
barons were due at court to begin their forty days of yearly
service to the king, while a third would return home for his son’s
marriage. In acknowledgment of this diminution in the number of his
guests, Radulf ordered Rohaise to set forth an especially fine
feast on that
last day when all of
them would gather together in his hall.

Once more Alain and Piers were at the high
table. Piers was given the seat beside Rohaise, but Alain was
farther along, between a stately older noblewoman and a plump,
middle-aged lady who kept putting her hand on his thigh when she
talked to him. At another time he would have been amused by her
open interest in him; a month ago he might even have responded to
her blatant invitation, but on this night he could think of no
woman but Joanna. From where he sat he could not see her for
Crispin’s body blocked his view. He knew he should not try to speak
to her alone, but he wanted desperately to tell her once again that
he would come to her aid if ever she needed him. Good sense told
him it was not necessary to repeat what he had already said, but
his heart and his growing unease told him otherwise.

“Here is special wine.” A serving-woman
poured out the ruby liquid for each of the ladies, emptying the
pitcher in her hand. “Here is more,” she said, reaching for a fresh
pitcher from the tray Baird was holding.

“I’ll do it,” Baird said to her. “Take the
tray and the empty pitcher to the kitchen. I’ll be along in a
moment and give you more.”

“Baird, why are you doing this service?”
Alain asked.

“It’s Baron Radulf’s best wine.” Having
finished filling Alain’s cup, Baird straightened, smoothing down
his green wool tunic with his free hand. “Radulf ordered me to make
certain the servants don’t steal it to drink for themselves, while
giving his guests the vinegary, lesser stuff.”