Glancing down at the bobbing head in his lap, he sighed, frustrated. He’d forgotten the woman was there. She could have sucked all night and he wouldn’t be close to spending. Annoyed, he grabbed a handful of her long hair and eased her away. “You’re not milking a cow, woman.”
The serving wench gazed at his manhood, her eyes half-lidded with desire. Her large nipples poked through her gown and he knew that if he slid a hand under her skirt she’d be wet for him. He’d fucked this one before and remembered her as an easy, placid mount, the sort one could ride without thinking about. The swing of her broad, sensual hips had caught his attention that evening when he rode into the yard with the sweat, blood and dirt of the hunt on his skin. He’d called her to his private chamber, intent on releasing a pent up load. But now, looking down into her blank, ignorant, unquestioning face he found there was nothing here he wanted. Nothing at all.
“Let me try again, my lord. You are tense this eve.”
He waved a hand impatiently. “Get out. Leave me alone.”
She left quickly, at least having enough common sense to see his foul mood building. He was still refastening his breeches when Thierry, his right hand man and closest friend, entered the chamber.
“Devaux, are you ready to…?”
“Don’t you ever knock?” He grunted, reaching for a goblet of wine. “I just had a woman in here.”
“But I …”
“Just because we’ve shared women before, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t knock.” He slumped back into his chair. “When my bride arrives this chamber will finally become private. I hope.”
It was almost four years since they arrived here to oversee construction of a castle fortress, but Guy Devaux and his men were still not quite adjusted to life in one place. They were more familiar with battle than with peace; accustomed to rowdy campgrounds, close quarters and long months on the road. The concept of privacy was still an odd, unnecessary thing to these soldiers. Guy tried hard to adjust to it, because apparently privacy—time alone with one’s thoughts—was much prized amongst men with great minds. And he yearned, one day, to be considered as such. He was even learning to read and write. In the meantime he worked on transforming himself from battle-hardened mercenary, flying by the seat of his breeches, to a man of property and responsibility. It was no easy change to make, especially when his best friend continued to forget they were no longer young men unfettered and free to enjoy life. Well, one of them was not.
“Yes, of course.” Thierry bowed his head, but lifted it quickly again. “In fact, I came to let you know your bride has arrived. Shall I send her up?”
“Hmm.” He stared into his wine. It seemed the Senclere wench was eager to become his brood mare and chatelaine, since she was half a day early. His turbulent mood was not soothed by the thought. This ‘pedigree bitch’, as the king had jovially called her, would provide him with a fine litter of males and the beginning of his own dynasty, but thinking of the next generation only reminded him that his own would soon be gone. It was almost as if the king had put him out to grass like a warhorse past its prime. In a few short years he would be thirty, an old man.
Thierry waited patiently.
“Not in the mood for her tonight,” Guy snapped finally. “Too damned tired.” It was the thought of marriage. A wife. Getting old. Getting fat and grey. This setting down of roots and turning respectable was the hardest mission he’d ever undertaken. He’d sooner face an unruly mob of cut-throat Saxon rebels than a wife. Wedlock—even the word had a grim finality to it.
“You’re still worrying over the soothsayer’s predictions?” Thierry exclaimed, his tone bemused.
Guy glowered into his cup. “Hmm.” In truth, he’d considered little else over the last few hours. The old woman who came to his gates earlier looking for alms, had offered to tell fortunes for a small fee and Thierry had brought her to Guy for a reading.
“Your life is about to change, young man,” she’d told him. “You come to the end of one path and turn down another.” This was no surprise. The locals knew about his forthcoming marriage and no doubt the old woman had heard the gossip. But then she said, “What is lost will be found again.”
And that stuck in his mind, pierced it like an arrowhead.
He opened his palm and looked at the stone he carried. The crude but recognizable figure of a horse had been scratched into the surface by a determined hand. It fascinated him, ever since he found the pebble when he came here to clear the rubble of an old Saxon village and lay the stone for his castle’s foundation. He kept it with him at all times, wondering about the person who made the etching. They must have spent a great deal of time on it and then they lost it there, probably when the villagers were routed by the Norman army and their homes burned to the ground. Wexford, as it was called then by the Saxons, had been a nest of rebels. Now it was his, granted to him by the king, along with two other small parcels of adjoining land. The soul who lost the little stone was gone. But he had found it. The soothsayer’s words gave it new significance.