Swords and Shields (Reign of the House of de Winter) (28 page)

De Wolfe nodded eagerly. “I would, my lord,” he said. “I would be grateful for anything you can tell me.”

Davyss motioned the knights to follow. “Then let us retreat into the hall and share refreshments,” he said. “I will tell you what I know of your grandfather.”

Drake, Devon, and de Wolfe followed. “I am honored, my lord,” de Wolfe said. Then, he paused slightly before continuing. “And I would also beg you to tell me of Simon de Montfort. I understand your family was very close to him.”

Davyss thought back on those distant, misty memories of Simon de Montfort, the man so close to his family that Davyss had called him Uncle Simon. Simon had been his godfather and, according to Davyss’ mother, Simon was far more than that. Lady Katharine de Winter had informed her son, by a note he’d read after her death, that he was also Simon’s son. But no one knew that save him and Devereux. They would take that secret to their grave with them. Yet there were times when Davyss looked at his sons, and especially Denys, and he could imagine seeing Simon in their features. Drake definitely thought like Simon did and young Dallan had his eyes, but it was Denys who physically resembled the man. Odd how Davyss hadn’t thought about that in a very long time until now, the reflections of a bygone time. He replied belatedly to de Wolfe.

“I will tell you something of that time,” he said, being somewhat vague about it. “Every man in England should know about that time between de Montfort and Henry and remember it. It was a time in England’s history that there was a great deal of change and growth.”

Drake and Devon had heard the story before but it never got old. Forgetting Edward, the de Mandevilles, and their imminent departure for the moment, they followed their father into the hall, listening to him tell de Wolfe tales of glory about de Montfort and The Wolfe, and his experiences with both. The women were in the hall and Drake found a seat next to his wife, holding her hand as his father imparted upon the younger generation the stories of the greatness he had once known. It was a mesmerizing time, and one of pride and richness, as Davyss de Winter told his tales. Through it all, Drake sat next to Elizaveta and gently fondled her fingers, so incredibly glad to spend this final time with her. It was joy beyond joy, and warmth beyond warmth.

It was perfect.

Evening was upon them before they realized it.

Drake had bedded many women before, but not like this. Never like this.

Elizaveta’s small, succulent body seemed to know exactly what he needed. Before dawn, in their warm and cozy bed, the very same bed they had consummated their marriage on, her legs were spread wide for him as he thrust into her, her hands on his buttocks as if trying to keep him inside of her. It wasn’t a practiced positioning of hands but an instinctive one, as if helping him to drive his heated manhood into the deep recesses of her body and then keeping him there. Her hips rolled with him, grinding her pelvis against his in another innate response. Everything she did and every move she made drove him closer to the brink of release.

“My body yearns for yours,” he murmured in her ear as he thrust into her. “Can you not feel it, Vee-Vee?”

Elizaveta nodded, but barely. Her eyes were closed, swept up in the new and overwhelming passion of their lovemaking. Drake propped himself up on one side of her, pinching and pulling at her nipples with his free hand. When she nodded, he kissed her neck, tugging at her nipple.

“I would give you my son this day,” he whispered against her flesh before sinking his teeth into it, causing her to groan. “Beg me to give you my son. Let me hear the words.”

Elizaveta gasped, overcome with his teeth on her skin and the tugging at her nipple. “Give me your son,” she pleaded.

His thrusting grew more powerful and he shifted so he could suckle her breasts as he drove into her quivering body. “Beg me for my seed,” he said as he lapped a tender nipple. “Let me hear you beg.”

Elizaveta groaned as the beginning of a climax began to spark in her belly. “Give me your seed,” she grunted as he thrust particularly hard into her. “Give me every last drop.”

Drake grinned, wildly excited by intimate talk in the midst of lovemaking. “I will, I swear it,” he said, biting a nipple gently and causing her to buck. “But when I do, I will remain inside of you like a cork in a bottle, keeping my seed inside of your womb until it finds its mark. My son will be conceived this day, Vee-Vee. Swear it.”

His biting and thrusting nearly had her over the edge. “I s-swear it.”

Drake suckled hard on her nipple, so hard that it catapulted her into a burst of stars as a climax swept over her. Feeling her body draw at him, the clutching tremors, caused Drake to release himself deep inside of her.

“Your body milks mine,” he said, his mouth by her ear again. “I can feel it throbbing around me, milking me for my seed. Can you feel my seed inside of you now? Do you feel the liquid warmth that will be my son?”

Elizaveta could only nod her head incoherently. She was incapable of speaking as her body stiffened with a series of releases. Drake could feel her body tighten, and continue to tighten, and he put his big fingers between their bodies and rubbed against her nub of pleasure to prolong her ecstasy as Elizaveta bucked and squirmed beneath him. He rubbed her gently, not too hard because he knew that could be painful for a woman, but he rubbed her enough to draw out her release. He was skilled that way. Trapped beneath his big body, Elizaveta gasped for air.

“Nay,” she begged, breathless, as she grasped at his hand and tried to pull it away from her body. “No more… please no more. I cannot breathe.”

He grinned but dutifully stopped, gathering her up in his arms as she continued to twitch and tremble. It satisfied him tremendously to know how he made her feel, that he was capable of eliciting such lust from her. More than that, he had never known such personal emotional satisfaction. Of all the women he had ever bedded, they had been physical and not emotional needs.

But with Elizaveta, it had very quickly become an emotional attachment. When they were finished making love, all he wanted to do was lay there and hold her in great contrast to his usual habit of grabbing his clothes and fleeing the moment he was finished. As the eastern horizon began to turn shades of pink, Drake held Elizaveta tightly, thinking all manner of wild thoughts, ideas he would have normally never had.
I love the feel of her against me. Is it possible I will miss her more than I can bear? Should I even tell her such things or will she think me foolish?

“How long will it take you to reach Scotland?” Elizaveta asked softly, breaking in to his thoughts. “It will be a very long journey.”

Drake shifted in the bed so he wasn’t laying so much on top of her, his weight heavy upon her small body. Her head ended up tucked beneath his chin as he gazed at the lancet window to see the sky beyond as the colors began to change.

“It is a long journey, indeed,” he said quietly. “Longer when I am traveling with an army because men on foot do not travel very fast. It should take a month or longer providing the weather holds, but we are heading into winter and the weather can be quite unpredictable.”

Pressed up against his naked body, Elizaveta thought on the travel of the army in terrible weather. She thought of Drake, bundled up against the cold, carrying out his duty for king and country. She thought of Scotland and the missive she’d sent to her grandmother, and all of the problems that might make for the safety of her husband and his men. Hearing his heart beating strongly in her ear, the thought of him not returning to her because of her own misplaced sense of duty brought tears to her eyes.

The guilt she’d felt since sending the missive, as much as she tried to forget it, was something that was not to be pushed aside. Every time she would forget just a little, it would come back again, stronger than before. It had changed into something else, something dark and horrible, like a great, clawed hand that carved into her chest and shredded her heart into something unrecognizable. The more she lay there and listened to him breathe, the more that claw shredded and the more anguish she felt.

“You… you will try to stay away from the worst of the fighting, won’t you?” she asked, tears forming in her eyes. “You will try to stay safe, will you not?”

Drake could hear the tears in her voice, thinking it was from the fact that he was leaving and going to war. It was natural that she should feel such sorrow, as his wife who was now growing fond of him. The tone in her voice gave him hope that their pleasant marriage would grow into something else. He realized he very much wanted it to. But he could have never imagined that the true depths of her sorrow stemmed from something more than growing adoration.

It stemmed from shame and fear.

“I am a knight, Vee,” he said, shortening her already-shortened name simply because it sounded so much more affectionate. He wanted very much to be affectionate. “If there is a battle, I must be in it. I do not stand aside while others fight. I am very good at what I do; you should not fear.”

Elizaveta couldn’t help it; the tears trickled down her cheek and onto the flesh of his chest. “The first battle I ever saw was back at Spexhall when de Witt tried to kill you,” she said hoarsely. “I had never seen fighting up until that moment. It was so very frightening and gruesome. I cannot imagine how you have faced battles like that for most of your life. How do you come away from something like that and not look at the world differently?”

It was a very good question, one that Drake thought on. His answer was from the heart. “I
do
see the world differently than you do, I suppose,” he said. “Life is so easily lost; therefore, it is precious to me. It means that I hug my father whenever I see him and I kiss my mother. It means that I enjoy life because I know how easily it can be taken away. Mayhap… mayhap that is why I did not wish to be married at what I considered a young age. I felt that there was so very much more I wanted to see and do, and I felt a wife would inhibit that.”

Elizaveta fell quiet for a moment. “You mean that you wanted to meet other women and enjoy them.”

Drake smiled faintly. “I am not in the habit of lying so I will not deny that,” he said. Then, he let her go and pushed himself up on an elbow so that he was gazing down upon her. Noticing her quiet tears, he reached down a big finger and flicked them away. “While that may have been true up until the day we were married, it has not been true since. I promised you that I would be true only to you and I meant it. But there is something more that I have learned… now I see that life, with someone you care for, can be very exciting as well. When I look at you and think of sharing all that life has to offer with you, I cannot think of anything more satisfying.”

Tears were still streaming down her temples as she looked up at him, even as he tried to wipe them away. “And I would like to share such things with you,” she whispered. “I do not even know what things you are speaking of, but wherever you go, I shall follow.”

He leaned over and kissed the tip of her nose. “And I will take you,” he said. “No more tears or fears, now. There is no need. You are breaking my heart with your weeping.”

Instead of obeying him, Elizaveta burst into sobs and threw her arms around his neck, holding him tightly. She was terrified for his safety, horribly guilty for what she had done.
Tell him, you fool!
A voice inside her screamed.
Tell him now before it is too late
! But no; she could not tell him. The more time passed, the more she was convinced that everything they were establishing between them would be lost. She would be a traitor in his eyes and all would be lost. She was terrified to tell him.

God, what have I done?

Drake held Elizaveta snuggly in his big arms, truly saddened at her fears for his safety, but he was also deeply touched. Only a woman who adored him would react like this. But if she wasn’t going to tell him how she felt, then he wasn’t going to ask. Nor would he tell her what was in his heart, either. He was certain he would feel the same way upon his return from Scotland, at which point he would tell her. Perhaps during their separation, she would grow brave enough to tell him what was in her heart as well.

Unfortunately, their time together was growing limited and Drake finally let her go because he had to dress. Elizaveta forced herself to swallow her tears, climbing out of bed and hastening to dress so that she could help him if he needed it. Very quickly, she was in a blue, broadcloth dress, heavy against the cold temperatures, and she helped Drake by bringing him his boots and fastening the belt around his tunic.

Because their chamber was so small, there hadn’t been room for him to store his armor, so he had put it in an outbuilding next to the great hall that was used for an armory. He suspected Devon was already in the armory by now and he was anxious to don his armor. Kissing his wife fondly, he told her to meet him down in the bailey. Elizaveta did, standing with Daniella and Devereux and Davyss as Drake, Devon, and Dallan de Winter, along with William de Wolfe, took their eighteen-hundred-man army from the gates of Thetford, out into the misty morning, heading north to Hexham to rendezvous with Edward.

As Elizaveta stood there and watched Drake disappear into the mist, she had a massive sense of foreboding. He had been there one moment and then he had disappeared, swallowed up by the fog that had decided to roll in as the sun rose. Now, the land was covered in fog, blotting out the pink-sky morning, turning everything cold and wet and colorless. Elizaveta found herself praying that her final glimpse of Drake would not be the last time she ever saw him in this life.

She stood in the bailey long after the army was gone, until Lady de Winter gently but firmly coaxed her into the hall to break her fast and even then, her heart was so heavy she could barely move.

Heavy with the burden of betrayal and a love she had lost before it ever truly began.

The Black Goose Inn

Romford (outside of London)

Winter would be early this year.

At least, that was what Mabelle thought. The winds had been particularly cold since leaving Thetford almost a week prior, a ride through Suffolk south to London that had been uncomfortable and fairly silent. Agnes hadn’t much to say to her mother, as usual, and Mabelle didn’t much care for conversation whilst traveling. Therefore, the trip had been quiet and cold all the way into the outskirts of London.

But the reward was waiting. On the sixth day since departing Thetford, Mabelle was determined to find accommodations at The Black Goose, the same inn that she and Agnes and Elizaveta had stayed at after their arrival in London and before their journey to Thetford. The inn had been recommended to them by the boat captain and after a day’s journey through town to the outskirts of Romford, they came upon a rather large and rambling building with a painted sign out front that had a black bird on it. The property looked a bit run-down, with plaster falling off the walls and the big, brown-painted beams that held the walls together rotting away, but inside the establishment, it was an entirely different story.