Lords of the White Castle (46 page)

He touched her braid, entranced by its sheen, then laid his fingers tentatively on the delicate skin of her throat. He felt the sudden leap of her pulse, heard the rush of indrawn breath. Outside someone laughed loudly at the fire, and was silenced by a terse warning from William.

He tried to ignore the sound and covered her mouth with his. Her lips parted willingly and her arms encircled his neck. They rolled together among the fern-cushioned sheepskins. Heat surged into Fulke's groin so hard and tight that it was as much a physical pain as pleasure. He cupped her breast, seeking the sensitive centre with his thumb, circling and rubbing, feeling her nipple bud against his touch. Maude made a sound in her throat and pressed against him, arching and rubbing like a cat. Even through various layers of clothing, the sensation was so intense that Fulke tore his lips from hers and muffled a groan in the silk of her hair.

Knowing he would be finished before he began at this pace, he tried distracting himself by thinking of other matters: the morrow's journey; the likelihood of reaching safety and of keeping his prize. Such thoughts, however, only made the urgency keener. There was naught to do but endure for as long as he could.

He set his hand beneath her skirt on her hose and slowly smoothed his palm over the fine silk. She shuddered as he reached the soft skin of her thigh between hose and loincloth and so did he. Christ Jesu, this was torture. Unfastening her loincloth, he caressed higher, feathering his touch upon the springy hair of her pubic bush, seeking, parting. At the questing touch of his finger, she arched against him with a muffled oath. She was as slippery and hot as molten honey and as he stroked her, he heard her breathing become a disjointed sob and felt the muscles of her belly tensing.

He kissed her, and she returned his kisses fiercely until they were breathless. Her hands sought beneath his tunic and shirt to find his skin. She rubbed her palms over his ribs, then smoothed them down over the small of his back, and under the drawstring of his braies to the curve of his buttocks. Then she pulled him over on top of her and tilted her pelvis in a wordless, primordial demand.

Fulke unfastened his braies, pushed her skirts out of the way and, closing his eyes, thrust into her. It could not last for long; it was too intense. Fulke strove to hold back, both desperate and reluctant for release, but Maude's whimpering, her stifled gasps of pleasure and the way she writhed down on him, forcing him deeper, were goads he could not resist. When she stiffened and clasped him with her legs, her nails digging into his spine, he was lost. Claiming her mouth, so that neither of them would cry out for the entertainment of his men, he pushed forward a final time and shuddered in a spark-shower of release.

The rush was blinding: pure pleasure followed by a moment of oblivion. He lay on her, his eyes closed, lassitude stealing through his limbs. She lowered her legs and her fingers smoothed through his hair in a caress. After a moment, she gave him a gentle push.

'You weigh as much as an ox,' she murmured.

He rolled over, pulling her with him. 'I feel like a poled one,' he said. 'Chastity and desire make for a potent brew, not to mention the spice of danger and some hard travelling.' He laughed softly. 'I doubt I could fight my way out of a flour sack just now.'

She sat up, straddling him. There was an expression on her face he had never seen before. Her eyes were heavy-lidded, her lips swollen and red from their kisses. Strands of silver-blonde hair had wisped loose from her braids and clung to her brow and throat. She looked so wanton and sultry that, despite his weariness, he felt a stray spark of desire flicker in his loins. There was something else in her expression too. Surprise, and curiosity, he thought, as if she were assimilating a new experience.

'I hope I did not fail to live up to your expectations,' he said.

She tucked a stray tendril of hair behind her ear and her lips curved. 'No, you didn't fail,' she said consideringly and her nose wrinkled. 'Theobald used to fall asleep too.'

Fulke shifted uncomfortably beneath her. He did not want to think of Theobald, but it was his own fault for seeking reassurance. He had not mistaken her pleasure; he should have left it at that.

Leaning forward, she kissed him softly on the mouth. 'You did not fail,' she repeated. 'You exceeded them, and I am not going to say anything more lest your head swells and becomes too great to put through your hauberk.'

The kiss, the words, ignited the spark; and although five minutes since Fulke had not believed himself capable of anything but flat-out sleep, he felt the urgency surge through him again. 'I don't think my head is the problem,' he declared as he stiffened inside her and cupped her haunches. 'But I know the remedy.'

Maude woke before dawn and for a moment wondered where she was. Prompted by the weight of Fulke's arm across her waist, she remembered and smiled. The darkness held the scent of leaves and compressed bracken, of man and woman. He was breathing slowly and deeply, still sound asleep.

She lay still to avoid disturbing him and thought about their wedding night. About the difference between what she had expected and what had happened. She knew that she should not make comparisons between Fulke and Theo, but it was impossible to avoid. In their last year together, Theo had slept with her, but they had not coupled. Even in the time before mat, Theo had viewed lying with her as a routine duty, never particularly high on his list of priorities. He had always been gentle with her and a little apologetic. She had not realised that the act of procreation could be filled with irreverence and laughter and such sheer, raw lust that it left her breathless. She had not guessed at a pleasure so intense that it made her want to scream. Even the thought of it now brought a tingling warmth to the place between her legs, accompanied by a slight soreness. She smiled. Riding a horse for mile upon mile and then riding a husband for the time it took to bring about a second pleasuring were not to be recommended in the same day and night.

The languorous drift of her thoughts was rudely interrupted as their screen of blankets was flung back and William's head appeared, illuminated like a demon's by the flicker of a hand-held lantern. Maude stifled a shriek and shot to a sitting position. So did Fulke, already groping for his sword despite the fact that his eyes were still closed.

'Fulke, there're horsemen in the wood. We have to leave,' William hissed urgently. 'One of the outpost men saw their torches, and they've got dogs with them.'

Fulke swore. 'All right. You know what to do.'

William nodded. 'I've brought your hauberk,' he said, indicating a bundle on the ground, and, leaving the lantern, he went.

Fulke rapidly tied one of the lacings on his chausses that had come adrift from his braies. 'Good morrow, wife,' he said, baring his teeth with savage humour. 'I'm afraid our wedding breakfast must wait.'

'At least we had our wedding night,' she said. 'They cannot part us on the grounds of non-consummation now.' Wrapping her arms around his neck, she kissed him. He pulled her close for a moment and she savoured the rasp of his beard stubble and the strength of his arms.

'No regrets then?' he asked.

'Only that we haven't the leisure to lie abed this morn.'

They kissed again, hard, but fleetingly. Fulke broke from her embrace to go outside and don his padded gambeson and mail hauberk. Maude hastily bundled her hair into the confines of a silk net and covered it with her wimple. The crown of roses, slightly crushed and wilted, flickered at her in the dim lantern light. Lifting it carefully, she placed it on her head and secured it with a couple of hairpins. She was not going to leave her bridal chaplet for their pursuers to find and desecrate.

By the time Fulke was ready for his hauberk, Maude was there to help him. The weight of the mail shirt almost made her stagger as she helped position the neck and sleeve holes. Once the garment was over his head, it was only a matter of tugging it down over the snug-fitting gambeson. There was no time to indulge in the palaver of donning mail chausses. Maude brought him his sword belt and watched him gird it on with nimble efficiency, no sign that only moments ago he had been deeply asleep, his arm across her breasts. Was it the result of living on a knife-edge, or was it habitual? There was so much she had to discover—if they lived.

She took her bow and quiver from the bottom of their makeshift bed where it had lain with his sword. 'I am as good a shot as any man,' she said with a defensive jut of her chin when she saw his expression.

'I know you are, but I am hoping you won't have to prove it by driving an arrow through someone's throat.' Grasping her hand, he ran across the clearing to the tethered horses and boosted her across the grey's back before mounting Blaze. As he adjusted his stirrup, he spoke rapidly with his brothers and the man on outpost duty who had sped back to tell the camp of the enemy's approach. Satisfied, he nodded, and turned to a knight who was waiting on the periphery, mounted on a light, slender-legged horse. He held a length of rope to which was attached the butchered head and forequarters of a decomposing roe deer.

'You know what to do, Ralf. Take them westwards.'

The knight nodded and a smile flashed amid the darkness of his beard. Reining about, he set off, the decaying carcass bumping and bouncing behind.

Fulke led the rest of the troop at right angles to the north. The dawn was just beginning to break and the foliage of the trees turning from black to a heavy green. 'I can see you are using Ralf as a decoy,' Maude said, 'but will that be enough to put them "off the scent"?'

'For a time at least.' He grinned at her over his shoulder. 'The dogs will latch on to the stench of the meat and Ralf's riding one of the swiftest horses so they're unlikely to catch up with him.'

'But surely they will notice only one set of tracks going Ralf's way and more than two score going this?'

'I'm hoping they'll follow the dogs at first and not think about the number of horses. Even if they do, it's still too dark to see tracks properly. By the time they retrace their path, we will be that much further away and I took the precaution last night of having our horses' shoes re-nailed back to front. They won't find any tracks going in this direction.' He waved his hand. 'You can see too how the men have spread out a little. There is not going to be a worn trail. I know there are signs such as snapped twigs, but even a skilled tracker has to stop and examine, and that again gives us more time.'

His speech drove home to Maude that this was not so much an escapade for Fulke as a way of life. Her life now also. 'You have done this before,' she said.

He guided Blaze around a bramble thicket. 'I haven't, but a commander should always have something up his sleeve in case of necessity. If I had done it before, they would know which trail to follow straight away.'

'How do you know it will work?'

'I don't.' He shrugged and stared straight ahead. 'It's not too late. You can turn around and go back to Canterbury—claim you were abducted.'

She eyed the defensive set of his shoulders. He had complete confidence in himself as a commander, but not in his ability to hold on to her. Perhaps he thought that he had not so much rescued as 'stolen' her, and the notion was jabbing at his conscience.

'I would rather walk in rags from one end of England to the other than go back now,' she said fiercely. 'Before the Archbishop of Canterbury himself I pledged myself to you until death should us part. Does your own pledge mean so little that on our wedding morn you suggest I go back?'

'You are twisting my words!' he said indignantly.

'Am I?'

He did not answer immediately and his shoulders remained tense. Finally, he looked at her. 'If you turned back, it would break me,' he said huskily, 'but I need to know that you are here of your own free will. I never could bear to see a creature in a cage.'

'Do you think I would have any free will of my own if I went back?' she demanded, her voice rising. 'If
I
was going to refuse, I would have spared you this difficulty and done so in Canterbury. Have my lips said no? Has my body? Could you not read the language of the night?' She glared at him in exasperation. 'For a man of supposedly quick wits, you are being remarkably dull.'

His eyes narrowed. 'I made a reasonable suggestion. I did not expect your tongue to become a sword because of it.'

'You call sending me back to Canterbury a reasonable suggestion?' Maude drew herself up. A tiny part of her was actually enjoying the exchange. Sparks had never flown between her and Theobald. The sexual tension generated between herself and Fulke was promising a conflagration that would burn white hot in their bed.

'More reasonable than your attitude.'

'My attitude!' Maude gave her mount a kick in the flanks, making it skitter and snort in surprise. 'This is not the time, nor the place, but when we are free and clear of our pursuers, I will show you what reason is, Fulke FitzWarin, and then I will take it from you.' She gave him a narrow look, the strengthening dawn and the light from the trees enhancing the green of her eyes.

'I think you already have,' he said wryly.

CHAPTER 24