Kathleen E. Woodiwiss(111)
Sated, they lay entwined, Shanna warm and secure in his arms, knowing the strange peace she had found nowhere else. There was no shame, no sense of having strayed, not the smallest tinge of regret that she had yielded once again. In the record of her mind, the words of the clergyman long ago in a small country church came drifting back. A long and enduring marriage, he had said. For some reason those words no longer frightened her.
Shanna sighed contentedly and kissed the side of Ruark’s neck where she nestled close. The slow drum of his heartbeat lulled even the peaceful thoughts, and she drifted to sleep, cradled in his arms.
In the still, ebony darkness that precedes early dawn, Shanna came aburptly awake, realizing Ruark was easing from her side.
“Wait, I’ll light a candle,” she murmured drowsily. Her hand searched the dark for him, touching his hard, muscular thigh, and she rose, slipping an arm about his neck as he leaned to her.
“I thought you were asleep,” he whispered, his lips playing upon hers.
“I was, until you moved,” she replied softly. Wistfully she released a sigh. “Dawn comes so quickly.”
“Aye, love. Much too quickly.” She was like a fragile bird resting against him, and Ruark almost feared to move lest she fly away. The soft, delicate peaks of her bosom touched their warmth to him, and, aware that he must soon leave her, he was like a man on the rack.
Shanna drew away to light a candle on the bedside commode. Then she knelt back upon her heels to smile at him, her hair cascading in a wild torrent over her naked body.
Ruark half groaned, half sighed in longing at the sight of her. “Lord, you’re a witch. A beautiful, sweet witch.”
His hand brushed aside the thick curls from her rosy breasts so his gaze could roam unhindered. Shanna laughed as she raised on her knees, her eyes sparkling with bright, happy, glittering lights. Throwing her arms about his neck, she fell against him in playful abandon.
“A witch, am I? Fie upon thee, sir, for taking the best I have to offer and then calling insults. Is this how you’ve kept your coins, plying your manhood through wicked brothels then claiming you’ve been cheated?”
Small, white teeth nipped at his ear before she rolled him on his back and raised her fist as if she would lay him lower still. Chuckling, Ruark cringed in mock terror.
“Please, mistress, have pity. I’ve been sore misused this night.”
“Sore misused!” Shanna gasped. “Indeed, knave, you will soon know what misuse is. I’ll tear your fickle heart from your bold chest,” she tweaked a few hairs of his chest, drawing a quick grimace from him, “and feed it to the crabs. How dare you call me a witch when little Milly is so simpering, sweet, and willing. I vow ‘twill be more than your heart go missing.”
A strange note of sincerity in Shanna’s teasing made Ruark give her a questioning look, but Shanna chuckled wickedly, raking him with a mischievous stare that nearly drew his breath from him and rekindled the fires in his loins. Satisfied with the rapidity of his response, Shanna sat back upon her heels again.
“A mere glance? Can Milly boast of such? That skinny, flat-bosomed twit tempting the dragon Ruark? Ha! I’ve seen better matches in my day.”
Ruark relaxed upon the bed, folding his arm beneath his head. He looked much like the sleek panther her mind had often compared him with. He gave her that slow, careful scrutiny that made her feel devoured.
“You’re a bold wench, Shanna Beauchamp. Bold enough to tame a dragon.”
Ruark stretched out a finger and leisurely traced an imaginary line over the full, swelling curve of her breast, studying her eyes as he traveled the peak, seeing them grow dark and limpid like two bottomless pools staring at him from behind lowered lids. Her soft mouth parted with yearning, and Shanna leaned down to him and kissed his waiting lips, touching her tongue to his. His arms came around her, pulling her lithe body over his, and, once again, time ceased to be, though on the eastern horizon the sky lightened to a dark blue.
Humming a light and airy tune, Shanna almost skipped with glee as she descended the stairs for breakfast. She shocked Berta by greeting the housekeeper with an exuberant hug, and the old woman almost gaped as she stared after her young mistress. It was a rare thing, indeed, when Shanna appeared before the elder Trahern came from his chambers, and never so cheerfully. Laughter mingled with her words as Shanna dismissed Jason to admit the bondsman, John Ruark, into the manor. Her face glowed as radiantly as the very sun that shone in the eastern sky. Much bemused, Berta took herself to the back of the house, shaking her head in wonderment as she went. Shanna hardly noticed the woman’s confused retreat as she gave Ruark a sprightly curtsy and accepted his warm appraisal as a silent compliment.