The Rose at Twilight (29 page)

“Such women are well enough,” he murmured outrageously, his lips brushing her curls lightly before he set down his goblet and brought his hand to her chin, tilting her face up so that he might kiss her properly.

She had kissed many men, for kissing was not an uncommon greeting in the area where she had grown up, but she had never been kissed as he kissed her. His lips were warm and possessive, taking hers, tasting them, caressing and exploring them; and she found herself responding as though she had been doing such things all her life. She still held her goblet in her hand, and when he took it from her, she scarcely noticed. He put it behind him, meaning to set it on the table beside his own but misjudging the distance. When it fell to the floor neither of them noticed. His other hand had begun to explore her body, and now both hands began to move slowly, tantalizingly, over the smooth silk robe. Before long, he found the sash and loosed it, slipping his hands beneath the silk to her bare skin. She trembled.

“Your skin is as smooth as the silk, and my hands are rough,” he murmured. “Tell me if I hurt you.”

“You don’t,” she said quickly, afraid he would stop. She had never imagined feelings like those filling her body now. Her senses soared, and when his palms moved across the tips of her breasts, first one then the other, her eyes closed and she stopped breathing altogether, tensing, her mind focused totally on the sensations his touch created within her.

He caressed her gently for a long moment, while her breasts strained toward his touch, before his hands moved to her shoulders, to slip the silk from her skin. With a light, swishing sound, the robe slithered to the floor, a green puddle at her feet, but Alys paid it no heed, waiting blind and breathless until the magic hands returned to work their wonder.

Suddenly, Nicholas pulled her close, one hand again stroking her breasts, while the other moved behind, over her slim back to her narrow waist. He kissed her mouth again and then her cheeks, her eyes; and Alys stood, a supple statue now, letting him work his will with her, delighting in her body’s response.

“Kiss me, little wife. Do to me as I do to you.”

Her eyes opened in shock at the thought of fondling him as he fondled her, but then curiosity crept in, touching her mind, stirring her body to movement. He straightened, easing the strain of his position, so he did not seem quite so close, so intimidating. Her hands moved to his face, feeling the light stubble of his beard, for he had not been shaved since morning. Next she touched his lips, his nose, his eyes, and when he smiled, she stood on tiptoe to kiss him lightly on the lips.

“Don’t stop,” he said when she leaned back to see how he was reacting, “unless you’ve a wish to uncase me from the rest of my clothing. ’Tis most difficult for me to undo my shirt laces and hose points all by myself.”

Her lips twitched, but she discovered that the thought of uncasing him was not a disturbing one. At least, not disturbing in the usual sense of the word. His nearness did disturb her, but her curiosity by now was overwhelming. Her fingers moved to the lacing on his shirt. A moment later, the shirt had joined her robe on the floor and her hands were exploring his chest, fingers moving through a forest of dark hair, while her eyes fixed with interest upon the movements of his breathing. To her amazement, she could tell from the change in the way he inhaled that she was arousing him more, and the knowledge delighted her. She looked up, smiling, seeing in his eyes the pleasure he felt.

Instinctively, she wanted to tease him. She began to touch his chest lightly all over, exploring its contours, spreading her palms across the forest of hair so lightly that the hairs tickled her hands, then pressing harder as though she would push him away. He resisted automatically, watching her, and she pushed harder to see what would happen.

He shook his head. “You’d never win a match of strength, lass. Continue with your task.”

“I warrant you’d like to have a bath, sir,” she said daringly. “The tub yonder has been used but once this night, so the water is nearly fresh.”

“Wouldst bathe me, madam wife?” he murmured. “Wouldst rub me all over with thy perfumed sponge? Everywhere?”

She blushed. “’Tis, as you once pointed out to me, sir, but common practice in most households.” Suddenly, she realized she would like nothing better than to have the opportunity to see his body, to be able to run a sponge over every inch of it. The thought was nerve-tingling. Her senses threatened to overcome her, and the warmth in her cheeks now was like fire. She wondered if the task of bathing a man always filled the bather with such feelings. She looked at the wooden tub, which was behind him, to the left of the hearth, then back at him.

Nicholas laughed. “The water in that tub must be like ice, so you must wait for another opportunity, wife. I have no intention either of subjecting myself to torture or of waiting until hot water can be produced.”

She sighed, making him laugh again, and he said, “You delay matters, madam. I would have my lower half uncased as well. You may begin with my shoes.”

Conscious as she had not been before of her own state of nakedness, Alys bent quickly to retrieve her robe. Nicholas’s eyes glinted with laughter, and for a moment, holding the robe before her while she removed his shoes, she feared he would forbid her to put it back on when she stood up, but he did not. He assisted her, smoothing the silk into place over her breasts in such a way as to make her gasp at the sensations he caused.

“I like a responsive wench,” he said, grinning.

Flames of jealousy leapt within her. Just as she had never before experienced the physical feelings he stirred, she had not known she could feel such fiery hostility. “I warrant,” she said grimly, “that you have known a vast number of such women.”

“Oh, not so many,” he said, catching her hands when she would have tied her sash, drawing them instead to the ties of his codpiece. When she would have pulled them away again, he held them tightly, looking down into her eyes. “Unlace me, lass. I want you, and I am not a patient man.”

She had noticed before that the codpiece, that flap of cloth forming a pocket at the fork of his knitted silk hose, bulged to contain his private parts; but now, as he spoke, the cloth strained all the more. He grew larger before her very eyes. He released her, and reluctantly, tentatively, she reached to apply her fingers to the lacing.

“Ah, yes, madam, you will learn,” he murmured, slipping his hands again beneath the silk of her robe to tease her breasts.

Startled, she stepped away from him, protesting, “But I thought—You let me put it back on!”

“Only so that I might have the pleasure of removing it again,” he said. “Come here to me.” When she did so, licking her lips and then, when he merely stood waiting, raising her hands to his laces again, he said, “Perchance you will become an obedient wench in time if you are but properly guided.”

Alys gritted her teeth, looking up from her task to say, “I will do as I must, sir, but I pray you, do not taunt me.”

“But,
mi geneth
,” he said softly, reaching out now to caress her again where the robe fell open, “you must heed whatever I say to you, must you not, now that we are wed? ’Tis the law of God, and of man, as well. You must obey my commands and serve me as a proper wife serves her husband, or suffer the penalties. Just as, for similar good reason,” he added with another, less easily decipherable note in his voice, “you will learn in time to alter your political opinions in order to accord them with mine.”

Alys went still, her hands loosing their hold on his laces, so that the flap slipped and her fingers suddenly encountered bare skin. Snatching her hand away, she said fiercely, “I doubt that I shall ever do any such thing, sir.”

“Oh, I think you will do just as you are told, my little Yorkist,” he said, capturing her hand again and putting it back where it had been, pressing it against his flesh, watching her, his expression challenging her to defy him. “You are my wife now and thus will soon become a good Lancastrian.” He released her hand, watching to see if she would dare take it away.

She drew a long breath, measuring his mood, considering her options. They were near the fire, and the tub was just behind him to his left. She moved slightly, feeling that sense of power again when he turned with her, his ardent gaze fixed now upon the rise and fall of her breasts. “Women,” she said quietly, “have from time to time been known to exert strong influence over their husbands, sir. I might change you into a good Yorkist instead.”

“Never,” he said firmly. “I am not such a fool.”

“Fool, sir?” She turned a little more. “That makes twice tonight that you have named me fool. Do you truly think me one?”

“Nay,
mi geneth
, for you will change,” he said, grinning at her and confidently putting his fists on his hips as he pressed himself more firmly against her hand.

“I think you must be taught that we Yorkists are not so easily commanded, Welshman!” As she snapped the words, she smacked both her hands flat against his chest and, her strength increased by her anger, gave him a powerful shove.

Had the tub not been so close behind him, he might have saved himself, but when he stepped backward to regain his balance, his leg hit the side of the tub, and down he went. Even so, his coordination and strength after years of training to be a soldier were such that he only sat down hard, catching the sides of the tub as he did, and sending a flood of the chilly water over the stone floor. His legs bent absurdly over the rim.

When he fell, he reached out reflexively for Alys. Only the fact that she leapt backward, appalled by her temerity and stunned by its result, kept him from taking her down with him. When she saw him about to heave himself out again, she spun toward the door, her robe billowing behind her, her primary impulse being to seek safety as far from him as she could run.

“Don’t touch that door!”

She had nearly reached it, but his tone, if not the words, stopped her in her tracks. She turned back slowly, drawing her robe protectively around her, to see that he had hauled himself out and was standing, dripping, by the tub.

“Come here.”

She swallowed hard. By rights, with wet silk clinging to his powerful legs and his codpiece hanging open, its contents exposed and considerably diminished in size, Nicholas ought to have looked ridiculous, but Alys felt no inclination to laugh. His fury was tangible. She felt its waves from across the chamber. She saw it in his eyes, in his countenance, in the very way he stood. What little courage she had left evaporated at the sight. She remained where she was.

“I said, come here.”

“What will you do?”

His eyes narrowed. He said, “I have been told of an English tradition called the rule of thumb. Do you know of it?”

She nodded, biting her lower lip. A man was not supposed to beat his wife with a stick thicker than his thumb.

“In Wales,” Nicholas went on, “one law fixes the proper penalty for a wife’s insolence at three blows of a broomstick on any part of her except her head, or a more thorough thrashing with a switch the length of her husband’s arm and the thickness of his middle finger.” He held out his right hand as though to examine it. “Which shall it be,
mi geneth,
England or Wales?”

She had never before thought his hand could look so large. And although he had no stick, and she doubted that he would send for one, she was well aware that in England—and no doubt in Wales, as well—a man might legally, and at any time, use his hand alone to correct an erring wife.

“Well?” His hands were on his hips again, his feet slightly apart. Indeed, he stood precisely as he would have stood fully clothed, as though he had no awareness of his seminaked state or of the fact that he still dripped rivers of water on the floor.

Challenged, Alys drew a steadying breath, straightened her shoulders, and looked him in the eye. “You ought not to have provoked me, sir. You taunted me. I asked you not to do so.”

His jaw tightened visibly in response to her words, and a thrill of fear shot through her, but there was an arrested look in his eyes. He said thoughtfully, “You have courage, little wife, but I am not convinced that you have wisdom. Come here.”

His tone was gentler now than it had been before, less threatening. Bracing herself, she took several steps toward him, and when his demeanor did not alter, she went on until she stood before him, her gaze locked with his. The stone floor was wet beneath her feet, but she did not look down.

“Take off your robe,” he said.

Still watching him, she raised her hands and slid the silk back over her shoulders, then lowered her arms and let the robe slip down them and fall to the floor. His breath caught audibly in his throat, and in that moment she thought he might begin to caress her again, and hoped that perhaps the danger was past.

“Continue with your task,” he murmured huskily.

Her gaze flitted briefly, involuntarily, downward, and to her amazement, she saw that he had grown again. The sight was an unnerving one, and she glanced back at his face uncertainly.

“Do you wish to defy me further?” he asked in a tone that made it clear the danger had not passed after all. But when she shook her head, a twinkle crept into his eyes, and he said, “I did not think to spend my wedding night conversing in sodden hose, madam. Make haste, lest despite the fire on that hearth and the one that burns within me, I fall victim to an ague.”

Reaching out to touch the wet silk with one hand, then with both, she tugged, tentatively at first and then when the material did not submit, more forcefully; but the task was not an easy one, and Nicholas did not help her. He stood as he had been standing, feet still apart, doing nothing to assist her, and before she finally succeeded, Alys felt as if she had indulged in a tug of war. The wet silk clung as though it had been glued to him, making it necessary for her to peel first one side a bit and then the other until at last she had them all the way down.

She looked up at him then. “You must lift your feet, sir. I cannot do that for you.”

He complied and, free of his wet things, bent down without warning, scooped her up in his arms, and carried her to the bed.