The Warrior (38 page)

For two full days, Ranulf remained sequestered in his chamber with Ariane. He spent the entire time pleasuring her, and teaching her how to pleasure him.

Serfs delivered their meals directly to the solar, along with fresh bathwater and wood for the hearth fire. No one else dared defy the lord’s orders for privacy or risk the Black Dragon’s uncertain temper by disturbing him. Payn alone was permitted an audience with Ranulf for half an hour each morning and evening, and then was expected to deal with the vassals and household officials who demanded the lord’s attention. All others were turned away.

Ranulf could not get enough of Ariane, of the incredible delight she stirred in him. He could not recall a more satisfying time with a woman. Ariane was a swift learner, and each time he took her in his embrace, she melted after the first few heated kisses.

He relished having her melt in his arms. He savored watching every nuance of her expression when she reached pleasure beneath him, relished seeing her eyes soft and hazy with lovemaking afterward. As now.

Just now—the second afternoon of their enforced intimacy, while a blustery spring rain beat against the window panes—she looked well ravished as she lay replete and panting for breath in his arms in the big bed. Her hair was a wild tangle spread across the breadth of his chest, her slender, silken limbs entwined with his.

Ranulf’s large hands stroked her naked back as he strove to collect his own breath. The storm of passion they had just weathered within the bed had been as fierce as the tempest raging outside the tower. The powerful shudders that had convulsed him moments ago still resonated throughout his body, leaving behind a sweet languor and a bewildering contentment. It startled him, how much he enjoyed the warm cocoon of closeness that enveloped them. He was unaccustomed to lingering in his lover’s embrace, yet he found himself entirely unwilling to release Ariane. This urge to touch her and hold her when he was well sated was beyond his experience. Not that he would allow her to know how profoundly she affected him.

“As you see, lover,” he said hoarsely when he could speak, resuming his role as carnal tutor, “your powers of endurance are greater than you imagined.”

Lacking even the energy to open her eyes, Ariane murmured something in reluctant agreement.

“What said you, sweeting?”

“I said . . . your tactics are unfair.”

He chuckled softly. “You are piqued because you have no control over your traitorous body.”

Ariane could not dispute him. Ranulf’s exquisite caresses drove her beyond all reason, making her respond with a wanton urgency that shocked her. “Perhaps. But ’tis wicked, what you do to me. And heathen.”

“Heathen, aye. I learned the skill from a Saracen courtesan, who learned it in an infidel brothel in the Holy Land. The sexual arts of the East have much to recommend them, would you not agree?”

“They are depraved and unseemly,” she insisted.

“But effective, admit it.”

Sweet Mary, they were indeed effective, Ariane thought sleepily, remembering the shattering impact his scandalous ministrations had on her senses. Yet Ranulf had no need to add such arts to his personal arsenal. His prowess with women was overwhelming enough without them. “I admit naught, except that your conceit knows no bounds.”

“You wound me mortally, wench,” Ranulf replied, amused, holding his heart in mock pain.

Ariane roused herself from her lethargy long enough to lift her head from his shoulder and peer up at him. The light dancing in his eyes took her aback. This was not the first time the feared dragon had teased her, yet she had never seen him in so strange a mood—blithe, almost playful. “You do not look wounded, my lord. You look . . . smug.”

“Have I not reason to be? I predicted you would submit to me willingly, and here you are.”

In irritation, she twisted her fingers in his chest hair, making him wince.

Catching her hand, Ranulf grinned and brought her fingers to his lips. “You like your play rough, wench?”

“No . . . you know I prefer gentleness.”

His eyes darkened. “As do I. I learned long ago that gentleness can win over a wench where force cannot.”

Bristling at his impossible arrogance, she pulled her hand from his grasp. “You think women weak, simply because our bodies are more fragile than yours.”

Ranulf grunted, his good humor fading. “I have good cause to know a woman’s strength—and viciousness. Your sex has weapons no man would think of wielding.”

Ariane hesitated at hearing the harsh scorn in his voice, remembering Payn’s tales of the scandals that had haunted Ranulf’s life. She wondered if he would divulge any more about his past, or if it pained him too much to dwell on it. “Did some woman use her weapons against you?” she asked quietly.

Bleak pain flared in his eyes and died so swiftly she wondered if she had imagined it. Frowning, Ranulf absently twined his fingers in a lock of her hair. “I have no wish to speak of it.”

A few days ago, Ariane might have retorted with a stinging reply, but that was before she had learned of his torment. Now, helplessly, she pressed her mouth against an old battle scar on his chest, feeling his heart beating sure and strong beneath her lips. His beautiful body was like a blade of the finest Damascene steel, forged by the sufferings of his past. And yet, even a sword could be broken.

Unaccountably, Ariane felt a fierce wave of tenderness assault her, an almost desperate urge to draw this strong, vital man into her arms, to hold and protect him and keep him safe from harm.

She raised herself fully upon one elbow, searching his harsh, handsome face, trying to read his features. Even as she looked down, his gaze slid to her mouth and darkened.

She recognized that heated look—an expression of his insatiable lusty appetites, and yet there was more to it this time. A question, a wariness, lay in the amber depths, as if Ranulf had suddenly recalled who she was, a noblewoman who could never be trusted not to deal him more hurt. She wanted desperately to erase that doubt from his eyes.

Even as she had the thought, though, his hand rose behind her head to capture her nape, his fingers twining in her hair to draw her mouth down for his kiss.

Weakness and warmth flooded Ariane at the tender pressure of his lips, at the sensual thrust of his tongue. Trembling, she struggled against the fierce wanting, denying herself as much as him. Her hands came up to resist him, her fingers spreading against warm flesh, softly furred. “My lord . . . have you not had enough?”

“Enough? Nay. I will never have enough of you.” When still she hesitated, he raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Do you deny that you want me, lover?” Ranulf demanded softly, knowing the answer already.

She could deny him nothing. Her need for him during the past two days had grown into an urgent clamoring that could only be quelled by his lovemaking. Even now, after a wanton excess of passion, her body throbbed, while the moist haven between her thighs ached for him, for the ecstasy only he could give her.

He had branded her his own in these past few heart-shattering days, marked her forever. For all her tender girlhood fantasies of Ranulf, she had never guessed how devastating the reality would be. The Black Dragon had seduced her very soul from her body.

And yet she could not allow Ranulf to know how deeply he affected her. She would be his slave in truth, then. No, she could only try to hold her own with this magnificent, self-assured warrior and pray it would be enough to keep her safe.

Boldly, Ariane reached down to cup his groin. She smiled at his sharp inhalation as she took his swelling manhood in her hand, her slender fingers curving around the pulsing crest as he had taught her. “Do you deny
you want me, my arrogant dragon?”

His eyes blazed with fire. To her startlement, though, he rolled over her, pinning her with his weight. Kneeling between her legs then, he slipped his arms beneath her thighs, drawing them nearly up to his shoulders, opening her to his view. His golden eyes gleamed as he scrutinized her succulent pink flesh, still slick with the seed of his last possession.

“Ranulf . . . you needn’t prove your mastery.” She shook her head as if to deny her need, but her own voice betrayed her, and her words caught in a gasp as he lowered his head and tongued her.

She dared not look down to where the dark crown of his head was moving between her thighs.
Wicked,
Ariane thought as the sensual stroking of his mouth made her shudder.
Sinful.

And then she gave no more thought to sin or pride, but surrendered to the tender, pagan assault of her dragon lord and the blazing heat he kindled in her anew.

When Ranulf finally, reluctantly, emerged from the solar the following morn, leaving Ariane to sleep off her exhaustion, he resumed his duties as lord with a vengeance. To atone for the sloth of the past days, he put his men through a strenuous practice in the training field that had even his most seasoned knights drenched in sweat and gasping for breath, as well as covered with mud from the recent spring rains.

“I had hoped you would burn your fever for the lady from your blood,” Payn rasped as he bent over his sword, chest heaving, “but I can see your lusts are as hot as ever. Your loins yet drive your head.”

Ranulf grinned, refusing to be provoked, and wiped his sword with his leather gauntlet before sheathing it in its scabbard. “My lusts are no excuse for these lazy whoresons to grow fat and unfit. King Henry may summon us at any moment, and I would be ready.”

“We will be, unless you kill us all first,” Bertran grumbled.

“Mayhap we should beg the lady to take him back so he will show us mercy,” someone else chimed in, a comment that was met with ribald male laughter.

“Aye, a far more pleasurable pastime awaits you in your solar, milord.”

“—where you can use your sword to better effect.”

Ranulf accepted his vassals’ good-natured ribbing with equanimity—until hours later, when he and Payn were quenching their thirst over flagons of ale at the high table.

“So . . .” Payn asked casually, “will you let the betrothal stand?”

“Stand?”

“Will you wed the Lady Ariane now?”

Ranulf frowned. “No.”

“No?” Payn’s mouth curved in a lecherous grin. “There can be no doubt that your union has been consummated. The entire castle bore witness to your incarceration with her these past two days. And it is unlikely Rome will grant an annulment after you have so thoroughly sampled the lady’s charms.”

“Rome does not have to know.”

The grin faded from the handsome knight’s features. “Have I permission to speak freely, lord?”

Ranulf eyed him warily. “You know you do.”

“Well then . . . Are you not being overly harsh with the lady?”

“Harsh?”
Ranulf stiffened defensively. “Time and again I have gone to heroic lengths to stay my hand and show her and her rebellious supporters a leniency they ill deserved—and now you say I am harsh?”

“I speak of the betrothal contract.”

“A contract that has been dissolved.” Payn fell silent, while Ranulf grumbled into his ale. “As long as I have a breath left to draw, she will not profit from her greed.”

“Are you certain it was greed, Ranulf?” the knight asked quietly.

No, he was no longer certain. There were times when he wondered if he could possibly have misjudged Ariane, if her motives were as innocent as she claimed.

The look he shot his vassal, though, was obdurate. “You saw for yourself her treachery. She falsified evidence of our coupling, claiming I had ravished her when I had done my damnedest to keep my hands off the wench.”

“Mayhap she thought it her right to require you to honor the contract. And she told me . . .”

“
What
did she tell you?” Ranulf demanded when Payn hesitated.

“That she would have given you her heart. I think . . . she wanted a true marriage.”

Ranulf stared a moment, then shook his head. He could not believe Ariane’s trick with the bedsheets had aught to do with a desire for a true marriage. She could not have so easily forgotten the contempt she held for him, nor could he.
A baseborn pretender . . . without principle or honor . . .

“She was serving her own mercenary interest,” he replied, keeping his tone curt so Payn would never suspect the doubts he harbored, or guess the sway Ariane had begun to hold over him. “As my wife, under my protection, she could escape the consequences of her father’s treason. I would be responsible for her actions then.”

“She claims her father is innocent.”

Ranulf’s eyebrow shot up. “She would, to save his skin—and her own.”

“Perhaps . . . but she could as easily disavow him. More easily, in truth. She
would
disavow him if she were the jade you claim. Such loyalty is admirable, you must admit.”

He shook his head stubbornly. “Her show of loyalty to her father could be as false and opportunistic as her lies about our union—her support of Walter and his rebellion merely a desire to maintain control of Claredon and avoid being held as a political hostage. If she is at all like the other highborn wenches of my experience, she would sell her soul to the highest bidder. And she would not hesitate to betray her sire if she found it to her benefit.”

“Aye, but what if she is different?”

Ranulf’s eyes narrowed in reproof. He would not allow himself to consider that possibility, or to believe Ariane’s claims to innocence. Yet he was not overly surprised to hear Payn championing her cause. She had bewitched everyone around her; why not his chief vassal? But it vexed him sorely to have to defend himself to his most trusted friend.

“She is no different. After three weeks in her company, I think I have her measure. Certainly I have had a taste of her nature.
If I wanted a bride, which I do not, I would not choose a tart-tongued, defiant vixen who thinks to thwart me at every turn.”

“You agreed to wed her once.”

“Aye, when I thought her an heiress—a meek, submissive maid who would do my bidding without a battle royal.”

Payn laughed. “Come now, Ranulf. I know you too well. You would be bored to tears with a meek maid. You enjoy the challenge of taming her, admit it.”