The Warrior's Wife (23 page)

Rafe shifted atop her with a quiet growl. His shaft came to rest between her thighs. Kate held her breath but there was no need. Just as it had happened the first time, he easily found its home within her.

For a long moment Rafe held himself still within her. The delay only gave the alien fullness within Kate time to become something far more enjoyable. The need to move as she had the previous night grew with every breath, but even as heat again throbbed in her she waited for Rafe.

His eyes closed. His brow pinched in a frown. Still, he delayed.

At last Kate could bear it no longer. She lifted her hips and was rewarded by a shimmering taste of the joy to come. Rafe gasped. He dropped to lie full upon her.

“God help me, but I cannot stop myself. I want you so,” he growled. Then, once more claiming her mouth as his, he thrust into her.

The heat at Kate’s core exploded with his motion. It drove her to meet his next thrust. Rafe moaned against her mouth. Panting now, he began to move in earnest.

With each shift of his body on hers Kate’s pleasure swirled higher. Her fingers dug into his back. Her arms tightened around him. Her hips clung to his. Every inch of her body clamored that she again find the joy she knew Rafe could make in her.

Rafe’s breathing grew ragged and hoarse then he cried out and arched above her. Kate swore she could feel his seed enter her even as she once more lost herself in that sea of joy.

“My God, my God,” Rafe breathed, relaxing atop her. He caught her face in his hands then pressed sweet kisses to her nose, her cheeks, her eyelids, her lips. “Kate,” he demanded softly between kisses, “tell me that you love me.”

That he needed to hear her words of love turned Kate’s joy into something far deeper. She clasped her arms around him, her heart aching as she held her husband against her. “I love you, and only you,” she told him, yet breathless from their wondrous play, their lovemaking.

As if nothing in the world could have pleased him more Rafe groaned and caught her mouth with his. His kiss was warm and sweet. The pressure in Kate’s heart grew until she had to smile. Her husband. Oh, to have Rafe and this happiness he made in her for all the rest of her days!

Rafe raised himself on an elbow above her. Kate cried out at this, needing his closeness almost more than she needed to breathe. He but smiled at her, his grin languid, the slow curl of his mouth sending another shiver through her.

“My kiss amuses you?” he asked, his brows raised as if this was a serious question.

“Never,” Kate replied. “Your kisses do nothing but stir my passion and remind me that it is you who owns my heart. Never leave me,” she commanded him, her arms tightening around him.

He laughed quietly. “Ah, now that I’ve convinced you that procreation is but a wee part of lovemaking, you intend to keep me, is that it?” It was a gentle taunt, delivered with a kiss to soothe any sting his words might offer.

“In a nutshell,” Kate replied. The idle thought that Lady Adele had known there could be this sort of joy between a man and a woman stirred in her. Adele’s tales and rules now seemed a way to keep Kate from ever seeking out the joy Adele knew she would never have with Richard.

A sudden wee smile touched Kate’s lips. She knew even more than that. Because she’d tested what she’d learned with Rafe on Warin, she knew that only Rafe’s touch made her heart sing and her pulse race. There was no other man for her. Rafe surely was her one true love.

Once again her arms tightened around the man who was both her lover and her husband. “Vow to me that you’ll never cease to love me with your body and your words.”

Rafe laughed. “I so vow, but only if you promise the same.”

Kate smiled. “I do,” she told him then her stomach growled. She glanced at the tray on the chest beside the bed. “We should eat before the bread dries.”

“I suppose you’re right,” he said then stifled a yawn, reminding Kate that he’d had even less sleep than she since they had left Haydon. “And after we’ve eaten we should probably sleep a little.”

Despite his words, he didn’t roll off her but lowered his head to touch his lips to the curve of her neck. The very heat of his breath against her skin sent a whole new wave of sensation shooting through Kate. Hunger and exhaustion died as that wondrous craving for his lovemaking reawakened.

A moment later when he did shift to the side, Kate followed, until they lay face to face. He raised a hand to trace a finger along the curve of her cheek.

“Shall we eat in bed and sleep among the crumbs or leave the bed and feed the rats with our leftovers?” he asked.

She reached out to stroke her hand down the strong planes of his chest, wondering if she might use what Lady Adele had taught her to wring what she wanted from him. “I think we should wait a bit before we eat. Are you certain that we’ve done all well enough to make this marriage truly legal?”

He shuddered a little at her caress, the softness of desire returning to his face. A breath of a laugh left Kate. Oh, but there was pleasure indeed to be found in this lovemaking.

Her hand descended past his waist. Again he shuddered, this time catching his breath. There wasn’t much life left in his shaft but Kate knew how to rectify that. Again she curled her hand about his shaft and, just as Lady Adele had instructed, began restoring strength to that part of him most male.

Rafe gasped. His eyes flew wide. Rather than grab her hand to stop her as Kate expected, he caught the sheets in his fists. Kate smiled. So he didn’t wish that she should stop this, eh?

“Who taught you that?” he demanded, his voice hoarse as newly restored desire flickered in his gaze.

“Adele de Fraisney,” Kate replied around her laugh, “so I might make a man out of her childish son. Until now I never realized how useful this particular lesson might be. Do you mind?”

Rafe shivered. The same need that once more burned in her took fire in his eyes. “God no. Come wife, surprise me. Show me what else you know.”

 

“Aye, it’s armed men coming, right enough.”

Will Godsol’s call echoed down from Glevering’s walls into the morning-brightened yard then flew like a bolt past Rafe through the hall’s open door to pierce Kate. Although she’d expected this moment--indeed, had believed it might arrive yesterday, the day of her marriage--the bread in her hand crumbled like her heart. Terror closed its burly arms around her as it had in the middle of last night when the enormity of what she’d done came home to roost.

Legitimate or not, her marriage to Rafe wouldn’t stand before her father’s hatred of the Godsols. If her sire wanted to regain control of his daughter and her dowry, all he need do was make her a widow for a second time. And he wouldn’t hesitate at that. He’d already tried twice to kill Rafe.

“How many?” her new husband called back to his brother.

“There’s a hundred of them if there’s ten,” came Will’s reply. “I can but read the shields of the foremost. It’s the bishop who leads, with Bagot, Haydon, and the countess’s marshal behind them.”

The certainty that she was going to lose the happiness she’d just found brought Kate up from the breakfast table. With the laundress still working to remove stains from the fragile silk of her blue overgown she’d borrowed a red gown from Dame Joan to wear over her freshly laundered yellow undergown. Although the outer garment was belted tightly about her waist, it was still far too large.

When she joined her new husband in the doorway Rafe extended an arm, inviting his wife into his embrace. Wrapping her arms around his waist, Kate leaned her cheek against his shoulder. The weave of his gray linen tunic felt nubby against her skin. The heat of his body embraced her. Tears rose. She couldn’t lose him; they’d had but one day together.

How was it possible she had come to care so deeply for a man she’d met less than a week ago? Then again, how could she help but love him? Last night, between wondrous bouts of lovemaking, they’d talked, trading secrets and stories of their pasts. Rafe confided his dreams for Glevering, dreams that included her at his side during every day of many long and happy years. That he should imagine such a life with her did more to secure Kate’s heart than any touch he laid upon her. And there it was, her love for him, well and truly lodged in her heart. This was how marriage should be between a man and woman, a husband and wife, not what Lady Adele had taught her. Kate couldn’t, wouldn’t let her father cheat her of what she’d won simply because he hated Rafe’s name. Her arms tightened about his waist as if her touch could somehow keep him safe.

“You’re worrying again,” Rafe said, a touch of amusement in his voice.

“Of course I’m not,” she lied, blinking back her fears. Her grip was tight enough for her to feel his laughter against her own heart.

“And, you’re lying again.”

“I can’t help it,” she cried softly, looking up into his face. “My father will kill you when he learns we’re wed.”

“He will try,” Rafe agreed, a smile lingering at the corners of his mouth. “But shame on you, wife, for thinking me so weak that an old man like your sire might easily dispatch me. I should be insulted that you have so little faith.”

“How can I have faith when I know my father’s no honorable man?” she protested. The tears she’d managed to quell so far now started boldly into her eyes.

Crooking his finger beneath her chin, Rafe studied her face. Confidence glowed in his gaze. “Trust me. We’re married and so we’ll stay. You own my heart, and because of that I will never let you go.”

Even as his words fed the love she now harbored for him, hopelessness hissed from Kate like steam from a covered pot. “It’s not you I don’t trust. I simply know that my father will never accept our union. How can he when you’re a Godsol?”

“So are you now,” Rafe replied as if that settled the matter, then released her chin to look back at Glevering’s repaired and closed gates.

Kate frowned a little as his words lodged in her brain. If she was Godsol now, would her father hate her as well? Not that his hatred would be so different from his previous disinterest. Still pondering this, she turned her attention to the gate in time to see Will Godsol appear at the gatehouse door.

Rafe’s brother started toward the porch and his younger sibling. Unlike her husband, who wore his better clothing, Will was dressed in the same hauberk and short tunic that he’d worn while capturing Kate. His sword was buckled at his side. Climbing the stairs to join them, he offered Kate a nod, then cocked his head to eye his brother.

“So, my clever, crafty sibling, what do we do now?” There was more of amusement than concern in his voice.

Rafe shrugged. “What else but open the gates and let them in.”

Shock tore through Kate. “You cannot,” she cried, shoving herself away from her husband.

“Are you mad?” his brother echoed, just as startled as she.

Rafe glanced from one to the other. “What choice have we? Even if I wanted to I couldn’t hold the walls against so many, not with Glevering’s cellars yet laid bare by the winter past. Moreover, we have nothing to hide and I invited them here.”

“You did what?” Kate cried, stunned. He might as well have invited Death to come calling.

Her husband looked at her. “I sent a messenger to Haydon yesterday, announcing our marriage and my ownership of Glevering. In all truth the sooner our marriage is acknowledged by all the shire’s gentry, the safer we’ll be from your sire.”

As he spoke he smoothed a hand down her back, as if his touch could soothe her into thinking what he’d done was the act of a sane man. It didn’t work. If her father knew all, then he most surely would enter yon gates planning murder.

“Can either of you think of a better way to gather so many witnesses all at once?” Rafe asked, glancing at her and his brother as he spoke. “Think on it. It’s not only Bagot who comes, it’s the bishop and Haydon along with some of the shire’s most powerful landholders. They’ll be here when I remind them and your sire that by royal decree you were free to make your own marriage.

“So you have,” he looked at Kate, the memory of his smile yet clinging to his lips. “When they accept our marriage as legitimate--and they will, for there’s many a man who wishes the feud between our families was no more--then your sire will have no choice but to do the same.”

Kate frowned as his words stirred the memory of the old countess’s comment at the picnic. Would the rest of the shire see this union as a chance for a lasting peace between Godsol and Daubney? The barest hint of hope flickered to life, burning on even as her certainty that her sire would end Rafe’s life tried to extinguish it.

Rafe once more pulled Kate close to him. “Both of you take heed. If you’re asked to speak before these men, speak nothing but the truth. A single lie will make all else we say seem a falsehood.”

Her new brother-by-marriage shrugged his agreement. Kate nodded with less conviction. What if these barons asked about Warin’s kidnapping of her? The thought of having to reveal to so many men just how foolish she’d been over Warin didn’t sit easily on her heart. Cynicism owned her. The conversation would never get as far as that.

“All this is well and good, but it doesn’t change the fact that my sire wants you dead,” she told her husband. “You’re wrong if you think any number of witnesses might prevent him from attacking you.”

As Rafe started to reject her warning with a shake of his head, Kate leaned back in his embrace to look up at him. “Why do you think witnesses will stop him? My sire first attempted to kill you at the picnic before all the wedding guests, then tried again at the joust before even more onlookers. Little good so many watchers did you then! Why, at the joust no one even noticed that it was he who removed the cap from the lance.”

Rafe’s mouth lifted into a crooked smile. “No one noticed? Hardly so. Of the men who watched that run every one knows your sire attempted to end my life.”

Kate shook her head in disbelief. “How so, when no man cried out that my sire’s claim of happenstance was untrue?”

Will Godsol offered his new sister a quick wink. “What, and call a nobleman a liar to his face? Not likely, unless the accuser wishes to be attacked for the supposed slur. Nay, every man there held his tongue to save the fragile peace of Haydon’s wedding, which was already strained nigh unto breaking over the possibility of rebellion against our good and gracious king.” The harshness of Will’s voice suggested that he thought his monarch neither good nor gracious. “As long as my brother made no complaint, no other man needed to raise his voice. As for Rafe, he took the day without injury. What reason had he to complain?”

Will gave his taller brother’s shoulder a companionable slap. “In that, our Rafe was trapped. He didn’t dare speak when he’d caused so much trouble at the picnic.”

She frowned, still confused. “But, if all men knew my father was at fault, why then did Lord Haydon banish Sir Warin from the wedding?”

“That was the best retribution that Lord Haydon had at hand,” Rafe replied. “I daresay he believed denying your father his powerful steward for the melee guaranteed Lord Bagot would be taken. It would have cost your sire a healthy sum to ransom his horse and armor. These days, opening a nobleman’s already beleaguered purse is sometimes the best vengeance of all.” His grin was wide and easy.

“Of course Sir Warin made it simple for Haydon to turn on him by his obvious collusion,” Will Godsol added. “An innocent man would have called the foul and pulled out of the run. That he didn’t showed Sir Warin knew and agreed to his lord’s plan.”

Which was just what Warin had told her. Kate frowned as she worked to digest this. Rafe pulled her close once more.

“Do you see now from whence my confidence springs?” he asked. “My message begged these men to come under a banner of truce. Thus a good number of them accompanying your sire come to see that Bagot doesn’t try once more to harm me. They will be my shield.”

Catching her face in his hands, Rafe touched her lips with his. The kiss was sweet, lacking any of the heat they’d made between them in their bedchamber. Kate’s lips clung to his then she gave a tiny cry when he ended the caress. He watched her for another moment, his thumbs stroking across her cheeks, and smiled.

“Go within now, wife. Leave the hall door ajar if you like, but no matter what you hear, do not come out unless the bishop or Lord Haydon calls for you. Whatever you do, do not respond to your sire.”

“Nay!” Kate cried in new panic, once more catching her arms around him. “I won’t be left blind and dumb. Let me stay.”

Her husband only smiled. “Here we come once more to the words
trust me
. Trust me, my love. Now go inside and wait as a decent woman would.”

That stung her. Kate frowned at him. “I am a decent woman.”

It was the memory of their lovemaking that set hot lights to flickering in Rafe’s dark eyes. He leaned forward to put his mouth near her ear. “Nay, by God, you’re not, and that fact pleases me well indeed,” he whispered, then straightened. “Now go, so I can do what I must without worrying over you as well.”

* * *

Rafe watched bright color flood his new wife’s cheeks for all the wrong reasons. She gave a squeak of embarrassment then whirled to retreat into the house. Oh, but there was pleasure to be had even in watching the swing of her skirts. He’d gotten far better than he’d expected in his impromptu wife. She didn’t yet understand how much he valued her fiery nature. The memory of her sitting astride him last night as she drove him into pleasure’s arms stirred desire’s embers back into flames.

Lord, whether she was escaping a captor, betraying him or touching him with the boldness of a whore, there was no other woman in the world for him. But it wasn’t just for lust’s sake that he wanted Kate ever in his arms. Last night had been beyond wonderful. Not for an instant had he needed to listen for another man’s tread upon the floorboards or worry over discovery. Nor had he needed to guard his heart against affection because the woman in his bed belonged to some other man. For the first time in all his life he’d slept within his own walls, in his own bed, with his own wife at his side. Heart and soul, Kate belonged to him and him alone just as Glevering now did. He’d die before he gave up either of them.

Beside him, Will choked on a chuckle then once more assaulted his taller brother’s shoulder with a friendly buffet. A wee teasing glint took fire in his brown eyes. “Not even Glevering’s walls are thick enough. Imagine my surprise at learning that a Daubney had it in her to make a Godsol cry out. More than once, I might add.”

Rafe grinned. “You’re just jealous,” he retorted, then pointed toward Will’s weapon. “Now remove your sword.”

“What?” Shock brought Will’s brows high upon his forehead. His gaze dropped to the belt at Rafe’s waist. When he saw his younger brother was unarmed, his surprise evolved into concern. “Where’s your sword?”

“In my bedchamber where every host leaves his weapons when greeting all but besiegers,” Rafe replied, keeping his tone confident when that wasn’t exactly what he felt.

Kate was right. Her sire would try to kill him. Rafe could only pray he hadn’t angered the other notables of the shire so deeply that they’d let Bagot do as he pleased before Rafe had the chance to say his piece.