Seduced by Grace (18 page)

Watching him strip away his shirt in a single smooth movement, and then peel off his hose, made her mouth go dry. She snapped her eyes shut, swallowing convulsively. By the time she opened them again, he was stepping into the tub.

Heavenly Mother, but he was a beautiful man, far more sublime than the naked saints that writhed in torment in countless church niches. If she had thought to
look fully upon his manly parts, however, she must contain her disappointment. His back was to her as he eased down to sit in the tub.

He soaped himself all over, including his hair, and splashed quietly to rinse away the lather. Then he leaned against the tub’s wooded side with its linen cover that protected against splinters, stretching his arms along the top rim. Sighing, he settled deeper until only the back of his head and uppermost width of his shoulders could be seen.

The guttering lamp flared up, its light catching the scar that marred the back of his right shoulder. It colored the interlocking circles of it with yellow-gold gleams.

Marguerite drew a sudden, sharp breath. Her eyes widened as she stared at that flame-gilded scar.

She sat up straight in the bed and flung back the coverlet while her heart pumped like a bellows. Sliding from the feather mattress so quickly that her feet thudded on the floor, she started toward David.

“I thought you were asleep,” he said, twisting his neck to stare at her. His eyes widened as he saw she had gone naked to her bed again, without even a shift against the coolness. His face darkened and he looked away at once, speaking to the water pooled in his lap. “Is aught amiss?”

“Yes…no. I don’t know,” she said in something less than coherence. Reaching the tub, she knelt beside it and touched his shoulder with gentle fingertips. “Have you ever seen this mark of yours that lies here? I mean, have you ever taken a round of polished steel or hand mirror and looked at it?”

“Once or twice when I was a lad,” he said with a shrug. “I couldn’t see much.”

“I daresay not.” She smoothed around the small circles of the design. “So you’ve never thought on what it looks like, what it might be?”

His shoulder twitched under her hand, the muscles leaping under his skin in reaction. His voice was gruff when he answered. “It seemed some fiend’s idea of marking strays left to the convent, or mayhap a remnant of an odd rite I was too young to remember.”

She leaned to look into his face. “Did it never occur to you that it might be a flower?”

“A flower.” His voice grated with instinctive manly rejection of such a thought.

“Designed for the purpose of branding.”

“Branding? As thieves are marked for their crimes?”

“Not exactly. This would be a gorse flower as rendered in metal, and used, most likely, for identification.”

He frowned, though speculation flared in the rich blue of his eyes. “A gorse flower?”

“Exactly. Common broom, the country folk name it as it grows everywhere, or in Latin,
planta genista.
Geoffrey of Anjou, ancestor of Edward III, Henry VI, Edward IV, Richard III and so many others, made a habit of wearing a sprig of it in his hat so he was called by the name. It is now become—”

“The symbol and namesake of the Plantagenets,” he finished for her with the rasp of anger in his throat. “No, Marguerite.”

“Is it really so impossible? You have their look, David. Even Henry said it, who should know better than any.”

“No matter what I claimed back there before them all, I am not Edward V. I have never been that poor lad, despite what you or any other might wish to make of me.”

“Are you sure?”

“I was never born in a castle, never shut up in the Tower,” he answered with a hard shake of his head. “I remember the convent from my earliest days, recall too well the nuns, the short rations, the birch as punishment and the constant clanging of the bells for prayer.”

“But what of this scar? Who would do such a thing to a child? Surely it must have been something more than a whim, must be a sign of—”

“Of what, Marguerite? And for whom? And why?”

“I don’t know, but…”

“’Tis only an old mark mayhap from injury or falling into a fire or against hot metal as a toddler. That it has the look of anything else is happenstance.”

She didn’t believe it. He could not see the scar as she could, had never seen it in close detail.

Such a mark had not been acquired by chance. No, not at all. It had been deliberately pressed into his skin so it was clear in every line. So shiny and pale was it against the sun-burnished musculature of his shoulder that he must have been a mere babe when it was done.

The horror of it brought tears that burned the back of her nose and clustered along the edges of her lashes. How he must have cried with the pain, poor deserted child without mother or father to protect him. Dipping her head, she pressed her lips to that small flower design.

Her mouth tingled against the incredible heat of his
skin, setting off a palsied quake of need that struck deep inside her. David jerked, and a prickling of goose bumps ran across his shoulders that she felt under her lips. Blindly she skimmed her palms over them, as if to soothe them away.

“Marguerite…”

“Yes?”

“You…you shouldn’t.”

“Should I not?” Her voice was low and a little breathless. “Come to bed, and take your rest. Come to bed, and show me what else I should not do.”

“I
f I go anywhere near that bed with you,” David said in a threat-laced growl, “the last thing I will take is rest.”

“Oh.” It was all she could say, for the promise of giddy, unbridled pleasure beneath the words took her breath.

“I can’t lie next to you while you are clothed in nothing but your hair with its shades of honey and cured hay, ale and new chestnuts, and not touch you. But if I touch you…”

“Yes?” she said when he ground to a halt.

“I will be even less able to sleep.”

“You intend that I sleep alone here?” she murmured while sliding her hand over the turn of his unblemished shoulder again, mindlessly tracing the muscles that lay in hard ridges across it.

“I’ll stretch out on the floor. That should be penance enough to distract me.”

“It’s cold. And gritty.”

“Good.”

He surged to his feet in a cascade of water and sliding suds. Marguerite’s fingertips trailed down his body.
They burned as she deliberately let them rake over the muscles of his back to the tight curve of his backside.

His breath left him in a sibilant whisper. Abruptly, he whipped around and caught her arm, drawing her up so fast that she fell against him. Her face pressed against the flat, wet surface of his abdomen for an instant, while the iron-hard length of him nestled between her breasts. She gasped, choking at the feel of that wet, slick slide of hard flesh. He swore again and pulled her higher, thrusting an arm behind her hips before swinging her up against his chest. A few dripping strides, and he tossed her onto the mattress of the bed. He followed her down, half crawling, half falling over her.

Glad triumph surged up inside her. This time they would not be interrupted nor would he stop. She would know the caresses he was capable of giving a woman, the bliss he had squandered on the ladies of France. She lay quite still with her hair spread around her, her breathing fast and shallow, her heartbeats jarring her breasts.

He shifted to one elbow, though a long leg anchored her at the knees. Slowly, he let his gaze drift from her hair to the rounded hillocks of her breasts, and lower to where her abdomen quivered. Without haste, he took her wrist and raised it above her head to clasp it in his other hand. He caught the other, and imprisoned it with the first.

She had no protection from him. She was at his mercy and uncertain if he meant to be kind. Though she had invited this, wanted it, knew it to be necessary, fear stirred inside her. She watched him, her eyelids twitching a little as he leaned closer.

His irises were azure-blue, yet almost obliterated by the widening black circles of his pupils. She could see herself reflected in their surfaces, edged in the red-gold of lamplight. She looked wanton and unafraid, with little sign of the turmoil inside her.

He touched her hair, removing a silky strand that half covered her mouth, sliding his fingers down it until it became part of a skein that lay like gold mesh over one breast. His gaze lowered to that screen and the tight nipple beneath it. He bent his head farther, until his warm breath whispered over the sensitive flesh. Until she arched her back, offering it to him.

He took the gift, closing his mouth over the berried tightness of the tip, using her hair as friction as he rubbed his tongue over it, around it in endless incitement. He wanted her response, it seemed, waited for it with patience and guile. He spanned the indentation of her waist with his long and hard swordsman’s fingers, lifting her, turning her closer against him.

Every sense in her body rushed to where he laved and suckled her. She felt as if she was being drawn like a bow, tighter and tighter, yet controlled by his strength, his incredible virility. Still, his grasp was careful, his full power in abeyance. He would do nothing she did not wish. That was a false impression, however, for he had the skill and patience to persuade her to anything.

The force of that male power surrounded her, pressed upon her inexorably. She was infinitely aware of it in the glide of his muscles against her, the taut surface of his belly, the turgid length of him that lay along her thigh. His control was absolute, but he could release it at will,
could use it to take from her whatever he wanted, any way he wanted it.

It was enthralling, yet frightening, too. She made a soft sound in the back of her throat while her stomach muscles rippled in a tremor that shook her to her toes. He hesitated, lifted his head to meet her gaze again.

“What would you, my lady?” he asked in strained demand. “Is there nothing you would ask of me?”

She had no idea what he meant, could not think for the sensual haze that held her. “All,” she said, the most she could find to reply.

“All?” He lowered his head as if he would take her lips, but drew back again.

She watched him through quivering lashes. “I want you…would have as much of you as you would ask of me.”

“I can ask nothing,” he said on a harsh laugh, “while you…”

Was he thinking of kingdoms or titles or other monetary things? “I will ask nothing, not ever.”

The answer did not seem to please him. He grasp tightened as he unleashed his strength.

He brought his mouth down upon hers, sweeping in to plunder its depths, taking her every breath. He stole her thoughts, her responses so she was caught in the maelstrom of his desire. She took him, drank him with soft murmurs while her very being rose in flood, flowing warm and heavy with the riptide of her longing, breaking against the rock of his will and pounding higher, ever higher.

His hands clenched upon her, kneading her thighs and spreading them while he shifted his leg to push
it between her knees. He sought the moist heat of her, cupped and held and rotated the heel of his hand upon her. He separated the tender, exquisitely sensitive folds, slid a finger into her, and another, while he deepened the incursion and withdrew, went deeper.

It burned with a sharp sting as he touched her maiden head, and she moaned in protest. He soothed her but did not take his hand away. Instead, he stroked less deep, centering his attention upon the single, exquisitely sensitive point at the apex of her thighs. Waves of sensation raced in upon her, growing ever wilder.

She wanted to touch him, to close her hands upon him and draw him close, but he prevented it. She wanted to protest, but lacked the words, could not catch her breath for the sensual tension that gripped her. She yearned for more of his heat, more of his strength, all of his power, yet felt curiously alone and bereft in her need.

The storm inside broke in a sudden torrent. Her cry was one of loss that he swallowed, inhaling the sound. She convulsed against him, needing to feel his skin against hers in any way she could, aching for his weight, for his hard flesh inside her. Yet even as her being contracted in rhythmic pulses that flooded her with heat and beatitude, she felt the tears gather.

His will was unbroken.

She had failed.

She could not save him, could not even save herself.

Her breathing slowed. Chill crept over her. She tugged on her arms, and he let her go. He was a weight upon her, burning still. She eased away from him and
turned to her side, pulling up the coverlet as she huddled in upon herself.

He reached out to pull strands of her hair from under her shoulder and smooth them down her back to her hips. She didn’t move, gave no sign that she felt it. She heard him sigh as he turned to his back. Not long afterward, the lamp burned away the last of the oil and flickered out. Later, perhaps an hour, maybe two, David’s breathing slowed and he slept.

Marguerite lay staring into the darkness. Finally, as dawn began to finger the window shutter’s edges, she closed her eyes.

“You will have to marry me,” David said.

He made the announcement as soon as Astrid left the chamber again after putting the tray she carried across her mistress’s lap. He’d followed the small serving woman for no other purpose. He’d broken his fast already, showing himself in the great hall for the benefit of the men who were now his cadre, the core of his campaign. Now he had this task to complete before he rode out for the day.

Marguerite had drawn a short cape around her shoulders against the early-morning coolness. He would have preferred that she wore only her hair as a covering, but had no right, as yet, to insist. He soon would, however, even if he exercised no other.

His mind flowed to the night before, giving him a vivid picture of how she looked as he touched her, the way she had come apart in his arms, burying her face in his neck. Her lips had been rose-red and swollen from
his kisses, and her breasts the same. Though he had not taken her, she had still been his for those brief moments.

It was almost enough. Almost.

“What are you saying?” she asked with wariness in her brandy-gold eyes. “I thought marriage between us was impossible.”

“A true union is. This would be a legal tie, for your protection. I am not Henry, able to ward off any encroachment with a royal command and the claim of wardship. Any man might offer you insult, or worse, while I am absent on this business for the king. I would prevent that.”

“Being married to you will be of little use if I am still left alone.” She picked up the beaker before her and sipped the wine, ignoring the bread.

“It will give me the right to pursue and kill anyone who harms you.”

Her lips tightened at the corners. “A strong deterrent, I suppose.”

“And the crucial point.”

“But it would not be a real marriage.” Her voice was tight with something that sounded oddly like despair.

“It will be an exchange of vows before the church doors. You need not fear any falseness.”

She put the beaker back on the tray. “What, then, makes it less than true?”

That was the rub, the thing he had little wish to bring out into the open. Once it was put into words, he would be unable to change his mind. “You know well. Nothing about the past has changed.”

Desolation rose in her eyes as she watched him. The ends of her fingers turned white as she clasped them in
her lap. She moistened her lips, pressed them together before she spoke. “And I am to understand that nothing
will
change. You offer marriage so I will be less a burden to your conscience as you go on as agreed with Henry.”

“So you may be safe while I am about it, rather,” he answered, concern for her distress adding sharpness to his voice.

“It isn’t to remove the condition you imposed upon the king? His pledge to allow me to remain unwed?”

That meant something to her, he thought, but could not work out what it might be for the angry ache inside him at her rejection. “You have been named a wanton through no fault of your own, and a witch, as well,” he said with a scowl. “The notoriety puts you at risk from any man who may come upon you. Would you chance insult, and worse, rather than accept the security of becoming my wife?”

“I prefer a live husband to a dead one!” she returned with fire in her eyes. She sat forward, so the sheet that covered her loosened, revealing the creamy curves of her breast. “If you marry me, then Henry will have your service for nothing. You wipe out your reason for undertaking the role of pretender. There will be no point in continuing with it.”

“Except that I gave my word,” he said in quiet contradiction. “Except that I will have you as my wife.”

“For what use it may be to you as I am to be untouched, still.”

The look he gave her was edged with hot and stringent remembrance. “Not quite untouched.”

Wild rose color flared across her cheekbones. It also
mantled her neck and shoulders like a pennon announcing the approach of desire. Fiery remembrance lay in the soft depths of her eyes, along with embarrassment that it hurt him to see. Above this, however, was accusation.

“But something less than a wife in true consummation,” she said evenly.

He’d not known she knew the meaning of the word. Heat burned the tops of his ears as he wondered how much else she knew. God, but she was so soft and warm and malleable, so easily aroused. He loved how she responded to his kisses and the marauding search of his hands. Her breasts were pale and lovely, softly rounded, delectably rose-tipped. They were sweet as honey in his mouth, and so tender it was all he could do not to strip away the coverlet that hid them and feast upon them again, this moment.

There would be time enough for that, and more, later. Once they were wed, he would teach her to feel only joy at her response to him, or at anything they might do together. He would let her know exactly what he wanted of her and how much he wanted it. When she had spoken the words he needed to hear, he would be free to show her a thousand treasures, and to take from her all she had to give. Meanwhile, he required her acquiescence without argument or further delay.

“I am deadly serious, Marguerite. This is too urgent to be left undone.”

“Is it, indeed?”

“You wanted it once, you offered it to me. Why dillydally now?”

“You refuse to give me children.” She pulled the
sheet higher as she spoke, tucking it more securely under her arms.

Frustration moved over him as he watched that protective gesture. Yet he could hardly tell her he expected her to become so used to his gaze, his touch, his possession that she would abandon all modesty. Nor could he say she could have all the children she pleased if she would but release him from his vow. It smacked of bribery at best and extortion at worst, and had no vestige of principle in it.

Jaws clamped tight, he looked away for an instant before he spoke. “It was ever to be that way between us.”

“At your decision. I don’t remember being asked.”

He gave a hard shake of his head. “You would have been denied motherhood as a nun.”

“I abandoned all idea of the nunnery ages ago. My ambition now is quite otherwise.”

“And that would be?” he demanded in tried patience. His men awaited him in the bailey below. He had miles to ride and appointments to keep.

“Nothing of great moment, only love and a family, a home and hearth to call my own.”

He had never had those things beyond the few shining months at Braesford, had long given up hope of them. “We don’t always get what we want.”