When Love Awaits(16)

“I see,” she said coldly. “Then I assume it was not my person you were interested in.”

“Few marriages begin differently.”

“True. But few progress as ours did. You did not want a wife.”

“What I found distasteful, Leonie,” he said in a burst of honesty, “were my reasons for marrying you. Anger led me to offer for you, and soon there was no way out. But it was time I took a wife.”

She did not reply, and Rolfe was mystified. He’d told her the whole truth. What was there left to say?

He moved her chin upward gently, coaxing her to look at him. “Is it not enough that, whatever the reason we married, I am now well pleased?”

“You sent me away,” she said after all, in a small voice, surprising herself.

“A mistake,” he said huskily, and began to bring his head toward hers.

“But—” She was so confused! “Do you tell me—is this why you brought me back here? To begin anew?”

“Yes. Oh, yes, dearling.”

He breathed the declaration against her mouth, and then he kissed her. He had never been so completely attuned to a woman before, nor experienced such relief when she yielded. The moment he felt her relax against him, he began his assault in earnest. But he did not forget her inexperience, knowing he must go slowly.

Leonie was kissed a dozen different ways in the long minutes that followed, from soft nibbles to deep probing that played havoc with her insides, spinning her up and down. In a second she would be giddy, then there was only sweet lassitude, and then she was soaring dizzily again.

She did not know when her robe melted away, but she was acutely aware of the first touch of Rolfe’s hand on her bared breasts. It seemed right for his hand to be there, resting on her with only the slightest pressure. When his hand began to move softly over her, the hand seemed to grow hotter. Her nipples hardened against gentle kneading.

She turned, one hand slipping behind Rolfe’s back, the other stroking his shoulder. Her fingers splayed out, wanting to touch, thrilling to the play of muscle beneath skin, the hardness of him. She returned his kisses, exerting her own pressure now, daring him.

Gently he laid her on the bed beside him, and before her head even touched the pillow, his mouth had fastened on one rosy-peaked breast, his tongue doing what his fingers had done before.

He began a thorough exploration of the soft planes of her belly and thighs, coming closer and closer to the core of her womanhood until such a terrible yearning was built in her that she arched upward to meet his exploring hand. When he slipped his long fingers into her warmth, she moaned, her head thrust back. Her fingers closed in his hair, pressing him closer to her.

Few men had ever treated a woman with such reverence. The hands that touched her were worshipful, soothing, and exciting all at once.

Rolfe’s tongue slid down the valley of her breasts and over her belly to mount her pubic mound and pay it equal homage. His hands gently nudged her legs apart and then his arms slipped beneath her lower back to pull her up.

Her head fell farther back and a gasp caught in her throat as his lips pressed deeply into her belly. Then he rested his cheek on her thighs for several wrenching moments. She was nearly mindless, ready to beg him to take her.

Rolfe, fully aware of her peaking desire, began a slow ascent, his body gliding over hers, the hair on his chest playing erotically over her sensitive breasts, making her tremble. His tongue slipped again into her mouth and at the same moment, with nerve-shattering slowness, his velvety hardness slid into her warmth, all the way, until he was completely sheathed.

For an eternity, only his mouth moved, tasting deeply of her sweetness. But nothing could distract her from that other warmth filling her, and when it began to slip out of her, she could not help the whimper that escaped her. But that changed to a gasp of pleasure as the warmth returned. That was his gift to her, making each deliberate stroke so exquisitely prolonged.

After her ecstasy had mounted feverishly, Rolfe withdrew until she held only the throbbing tip of him in her. She cried out, suspended on a precipice, and then he plunged deep within her a final time and she exploded with trembling ecstasy that pulsed through her, each shock more extraordinary than the last, until she fainted. She barely felt the last gentle kiss placed on her lips.





Chapter 15




“MY lady?”

Leonie opened her eyes to find herself lying on her belly, clutching her pillow, an unusual position, as she never slept like that. Then she remembered last night and warmth rushed through her.

“My lady?”

Wilda was standing at the side of the bed, holding out her bedrobe. Leonie sighed. She would rather have lain there and savored her memories, or found her husband there instead of Wilda. But a quick glance around told her that he was gone.

“Have I overslept?” Leonie asked.

“No. Now that he is below, I thought it safe to come and wake you for mass,” she said sharply.

Leonie grinned. She knew why Wilda was angry. “If I share the room, I must share his habits.” She changed the subject. “Did you sleep well?”

“I fear I did not. The fleas!” Wilda’s voice rose. “I was nearly eaten alive!”

Leonie sympathized, for she had a few bites herself. “This place is—” She recalled the shock she had felt yesterday when she’d had her first good look at the hall.

“Dreadful,” Wilda finished for her. “The kitchens and servants’ quarters are even worse than the hall, and I fear to go near the garderobe. Only this room is fairly clean.”

Leonie frowned as Wilda began combing her hair. “Why, do you suppose? True, Crewel has not had a lady to supervise since Alain’s mother died, but there was the Montigny steward in charge. And Lady Amelia is here now.” She shuddered recalling the vermin she had seen in the rushes in the hall, vermin mixed with bones, rotten food, even dog excrement!

“That one obviously does not bother herself,” Wilda said. “And the servants, from what I have already seen, do nothing they are not told to do. They have no will even to improve their own quarters.”

“How can my husband…I would not have thought him a man to live this way.”

“But he is rarely here, my lady.”

“What?”

“That is what I learned from Mildred,” Wilda confided. “A man of war, living in army camps and the like—the conditions here cannot be much different.”

“But, Wilda, what do you mean about his rarely being here?”

“Since he took possession of Crewel, Mildred says, he has been away a great deal.”

“What else did Mildred tell you?” Leonie asked, knowing that Wilda kept very little to herself.

“It seems, my lady,” Wilda began eagerly, “that for all his being given the whole of Kempston by the king, only the gates of Crewel opened to him without a battle, and that was only because Lord Alain had fled and all was confusion here anyway. Do you recall the tourney we heard about?”

“Vaguely,” Leonie replied uneasily.

“Well, that was an excuse to gather the Kempston vassals and castellans in one place so they could swear allegiance to their new lord.”

“I see,” Leonie mused aloud. “Instead of being summoned one by one. A lone man might refuse and simply lock himself in his keep.”

“Indeed, that is what Mildred said,” Wilda said, proud of her lady. “And they did all come, but not to swear! All seven attacked Sir Rolfe, then fled.”

Now Leonie understood what she had witnessed that day. She was disgusted that Sir Edmond’s vassals would behave so despicably, even if motivated by fear. They hadn’t even given Rolfe a chance to prove himself.

“What did my husband do after the attack?”

“He besieged all seven keeps.”

“How…seven? Does he have enough men for that?”

Wilda shrugged. “How many men does it take to besiege a keep? Pershwick has never—”

“I know, I know,” Leonie interrupted impatiently, her mind elsewhere. She was amazed. It was an impossible task, for one must close up all seven keeps at once, in order to keep one from helping another. That would surely take thousands of men. But such a large force so near Pershwick would have been reported to her. Yet she had heard of nothing like that.

“Are you sure you heard correctly, Wilda? Could it not be that my husband is just making war on one of the Kempston keeps?”

“No, my lady. Four of the keeps are already won. Wroth is now under siege, and the others are closed, awaiting his orders.”

Leonie was realizing what all this fighting would mean. “I will not see much of my husband for many months, then, will I?”

“That should ease your mind.”

Leonie smiled to herself as Wilda went to fetch her a bliaut. The maid believed she still detested this marriage.

“Wilda,” she called, “I want to wear my best today, the blue silk we got from the French merchant.”

“But you only wear that for very special occasions. You even refused—”

“I know. I did not think my wedding was special enough, but now I want to wear it.”

Wilda did not argue, and Leonie was strangely silent as the maid laced her into the long-sleeved dark blue chemise. Over this was placed the wine-colored bliaut of Spanish wool. It was slit up the sides to reveal the dark blue chemise beneath, and its bell-like sleeves were heavily embroidered. The bliaut was lovely, molded to her body in the current fashion, with silver embroidery around the high neckline. The girdle, worn loose around the waist, was made from strands of silver cord, and it trailed to her knees.