LordoftheKeep (12 page)

Gilles watched Roland hug his wife in a warm embrace. He
felt quite warm himself. Heeding some silent call and a tangible need, he
headed for the tower steps. With his hand on the latch to his chamber, he
hesitated. Something made him pause and look up the winding staircase in the direction
of her chamber, then back down to his hand. How he wished he’d not heard her
words to her child.

He lifted the latch slowly and silently. She knelt in the
center of his bed clad only in her shift. Her hair was unbound and the small
residual light of the guttering candles turned the honey to gold, cast her face
in deep shadow. The dusky hint of her taut nipples dried his throat. The deep
contrast of shadow and golden skin brought a sweat out. As he stood and
silently watched her, she raised her arms over her head in a stretch, lifting
her breasts. Her eyes were closed. He watched her luxuriate in his bed, her
arms descending, her hands stroking the linens and furs. She shifted her hips
to settle more deeply into her nest.

He craved the caress of her strong fingertips on his skin,
craved her innocent explorations of his body. Watching her, aroused by her, he
could forget why she came to him.

With a sense of being in a dream, he approached the bed to
stand at the foot, so close he had only to bend slightly at the waist, stretch
out his hand, and touch her. Her every movement was a silent invitation for him
to take what was offered.

Emma opened her eyes. Obsidian ones met gentian, like night
possessing a spring flower.

Their hands met midway between their bodies. She clasped his
long fingers in hers and directed them to the crest of her breast which
strained against the soft linen of her shift. A tiny sound escaped her throat,
and her eyes squeezed closed as he fondled her.

Gilles had spent seven days unsure if their first night had
been a dream—one from which he might awake and find himself alone. Her soft
sigh reassured him.

Was he too rough? He’d not cared about a woman’s needs for
years. Doubts of his prowess as a lover rushed in. He’d bedded many women, rarely
bothering with any one of them for long. His mind had never been engaged, let
alone his heart.

Would this woman again find pleasure with him? How long
before a man such as William noticed her, sensed her awakening to bodily joy?
How well he remembered Margaret’s wandering eye, her pets at court, once she’d
learned the ways of men and women.

His eyes traveled over Emma’s innocent face. With a ruthless
will, he thrust his doubts aside. As he let his gentle stroking become
stronger, her nipple grew even harder between his fingertips. He clasped it and
tugged. Her eyelids fluttered; she moaned her pleasure. Satisfaction warmed
him.

He climbed onto the foot of the bed and knelt tall and
straight before her. Their eyes locked. He was unable and unwilling to break
the contact as she reached up and put her hands on the back of his thighs. Her
strong weaver’s fingers dug deeply into his muscles. As she kneaded his flesh,
he moved his hands to rest lightly on her shoulders. He drew the thin straps of
her shift down to expose the upper swell of her breasts. Her skin was smooth as
satin and he stroked his fingers back and forth on the gentle swell.

Her hands grew urgent on him. His entire concentration lay
on how to control his breathing, how to prevent himself from crying aloud with
the sheer ecstasy of her hands running over him. When she slid them under his
tunic and up his hips, he lost both his voice and breath.

She made short work of his ties, and he stood long enough to
pull off his clothing and fling it aside. Her hands returned to her task, now
on bare flesh. She wove a web of desire about them. He didn’t want her to see
his desperate need, so he closed his eyes. They tumbled on the furs, hurried,
wanting.

Cool breezes from a loose tapestry near the window dried the
sweat of his brow as she put her tongue, hot like a brand from the forge, to
his throat. A string of prayers and oaths hissed from his lips as she first
licked then kissed his pulse.

He growled and held her beneath him. When she clasped her
legs about his flanks, an expression of passion crossed her face and then
transmitted itself to her hands. She clutched and kneaded his flesh. He wanted
this night to be for her as their first night had been his.

His mouth worshipped hers. His hands caressed and swept over
her full breasts. His manhood sought its place.

“Guide me,” he gasped out against her lips.

For a brief instant she did not understand; then she took
him and held him, did as he bid.

He thrust in.

The heat of her burned him. He groaned aloud as he drew back
and repeated the fierce plunge to ultimate pleasure. With agonizing slowness he
moved. A nearly complete retreat, a pause of a heartbeat, a body possessing
plunge. He owned her mouth as he owned her body—at least for this moment, in
this place.

She touched him so deeply he wanted to shout, yet only
hoarse moans escaped their locked mouths. A throbbing and beating built to a
crescendo. He craved it. Sought it. Held it in check and waited for her.
Sensations streamed through him as he kept his deep rhythm, kept the thrust the
same. Her hips knew his pace without tutoring. She deepened his thrust with her
own lifting hips.

When Gilles saw Emma’s eyes widen and glaze, when he felt
the involuntary twist and churn of her hips, he changed to quick, stabbing
thrusts, claiming her in the same unconscious rhythm of their two heartbeats.
In hot, near painful bursts, he gave her his seed.

In total silence she rose up against his body one last time,
flung her arms about his waist, her mouth hard against his chest, her cries
lost against the thump of his heart.

He captured her wrists, shackled them with his hands and
spread her arms wide, chaining her to the mattress. Where they touched, flesh
burned.

Held immobile, she bucked her hips and arched her back off the
mattress. Her nipples burned him like flames as they grazed his chest. The
lingering pulses of her sheath held him captive, hardened him anew, enticed him
to another body shaking climax, quick on the first, something he’d not
experienced since his long-ago youth.

Gilles released her and knelt between her thighs. Her eyes
met his as she remained outstretched, unable to move, though no longer fettered
by his passions.

Then she was on him, her hands locked around his neck, her
mouth on his. “I felt your power. You gave it to me,” Emma whispered between
the caress of his lips and the sweep of her tongue.

“‘Twas just your woman’s pleasure,” he said into her mouth,
kissing her back.

“Nay,” she cried. “I felt it. I felt it to my soul. ‘Twas
your power and it burned through me. I never dreamed such ecstasy could exist.”

Silently he hugged her to him and urged her to sleep.
Emotion choked in his throat. He was not an object for adoration. He was but a
simple man.

* * * * *

In their first dawn together, Gilles rolled carefully from
the bed. He went to the window and opened the shutters to let in a dull gray
light. The rains had ended. He could not decide on a course of action. He had
never given himself so completely, nor had a woman given so much of herself to
him.

Turning back to the bed, Gilles swept aside the blankets and
stretched himself atop Emma. No urgency drove his caresses. He woke her to
gentle touches and warm kisses. Their lovemaking was protracted. They lingered
over each touch. Each kiss was a slow and easy slip and slide of tongues that
explored and learned instead of conquering and possessing.

Gilles rolled to his back and drew Emma over his hips. She
rocked gently and felt the quiver of his muscles tensed between her thighs.

“I have never met such a man as you,” she whispered into the
bright dawn morning as her fingers touched his forehead, lips, throat, traced
the lines radiating from his eyes. His body gathered itself for completion, his
chest tight, his heart pounding. Then she rested on him, still as a statue.

He trembled, his body shuddered, so near…on the edge of a
precipice. She held him there, ready, aching.

When his breathing slowed and his hips relaxed beneath her,
she began anew. The featherlight brush of her fingertips about his eyes was as
arousing as the skimming touch of her breasts, the heated place that sheathed
him. Finally, beyond what he could bear, he entangled his hands in her hair. He
pleasured his hands and arms with the silk tresses. He cupped her head as she
found her completion, tightened his fingers to hold her to him while his own
heart roared and his passions were mightily spent.

She fell into a heavy slumber; he stroked her shoulder. His
hand, sun-darkened and scarred, contrasted sharply with the alabaster satin of
her skin. An old man’s hand, a young woman’s body.

His throat tightened. What had he done? She deserved the
vigor of youth. He clenched his hand into a fist. The knuckles ached.

A score of years ago, he would have wed her. Nay. He’d still
have married for wealth and power; he’d not have known what he was missing, nor
valued it if he’d known.

Carefully, he settled her within the crook of his arm. He
could not forget one fact today, here in the stark light of day. She was at the
beginning of her life, he, at the close of his. He stared overhead at the
scarlet canopy of his bed. She stirred, opened her eyes for a moment, then
closed them and burrowed into his side, a smile on her lips.

I love you
. He said it silently.

Chapter Ten

Emma stroked her hand on the fine wool that grew apace on
her loom. It was perfect—
he
would wear it. The silence around her made
her start. “Angelique!” She bolted from her stool and noted the sun was high.
In a whirl of skirts, she fled across the bailey.

At the hall, she calmed herself before lifting the latch and
entering the forebuilding. The sentries parted for her, their faces impassive.
Still, hers flamed as she imagined that they did not challenge her because she
was Lord Gilles’ favorite.

“Beatrice,” a voice said against her ear, hands encircled
her waist. She struggled and turned in the man’s arms.

“Mistress Emma!” Mark Trevalin set her aside. “Forgive me. I
thought, you looked j-just l-like…” he stuttered, face red.

She patted his shoulder and moved past him, scanning the
people who crowded the hall for May.

“Do you seek your babe?” Trevalin asked, following her,
still offering apologies.

“Aye.” She nodded. “Wherever can she be?” Emma stewed in a
turmoil. It was hours since she’d last noticed Angelique. The babe’s presence
among the weavers was now so commonplace that Emma had relaxed, stopped fearing
some offense might be taken by another weaver. In truth, Emma had grown so
relaxed, her weaving grew swiftly upon the loom. It was knowing Gilles would
wear her cloth that made her work so diligently, that had allowed her to forget
the child in her work. Now, she was racked with guilt.

“She is where she has been each morning these past three
days, whilst May helps in the kitchen.” Trevalin gestured to the end of the
hall.

Panic surged as Emma pictured Angelique wandering into the
huge fireplace. Her feet flew as she ran the length of the hall. Her eyes
searched among the men gathered at the dais.

Gilles watched her come. He reclined in his oak chair,
pretending she did naught unusual. At his side, William Belfour and Thomas
argued the accounting of the villeins. Bored stonemasons awaited their turn to
hear what task Gilles would set in the restoration of the north wall. It had
further collapsed, luckily not injuring any villagers this time.

Emma skidded to a halt, aware she had made a spectacle of
herself before the company.

Silence fell. Heat surged into her cheeks as she spied
Angelique. The child was curled in the crook of Gilles’ arm, her thumb firmly
planted in her mouth. Her feet batted the air. An unnamed emotion assailed Emma
as she watched the scarred warrior hand caress her daughter’s silky head.

“My-my lord,” she stammered. “Forgive my interruption. I’ll
take Angelique. Surely she’s a bother.”

“A bother?” Gilles’ mouth stretched to a wide grin. “Mayhap
it is this rough company that may be a bother to her.”

“Oh, never,” Emma disclaimed, stepping up on the dais.

“Then let her rest. She is quite spent from chasing poor
Garth’s tail.” The men drew back from Emma as she sidled past them to Gilles’
chair. Her eyes rested on the old hound at Gilles’ feet and then rose to meet
his. “Let her rest,” he repeated.

Emma’s hands dropped from their outstretched position. She
curtseyed. “As you wish, my lord.” She was acutely aware that many observed
their by-play, William among them. She whirled and fled.

William watched Emma cross the hall. He smiled for a
fleeting moment. Gilles watched his bastard son watch his woman. Angelique
shifted on his lap, reached out, and with an impish grin, snatched at the rolls
of parchment on the table. Gilles laughed at his men’s dismay and pulled the
documents from her busy hands. Angelique giggled and turned her smile on him.

Like a bolt from a crossbow, pain struck him in the heart.
He gasped at the searing pain. The room was suddenly cold—nay, icy like the
grave. Sweat broke out on his body, yet he was chilled. He looked from
Angelique to William Belfour and back again.

William
.

Gilles immediately knew that William must be Angelique’s
father.

How could he have not known?

It took all his self-control not to howl with the pain of
it. Gently, he urged Angelique to sit down in his lap. His hand trembled as he
stroked her silky hair, hair as flaxen as William’s, not golden like Emma’s. He
stared at the curved bow of Angelique’s lips, seeing the child William in the
babe in his arms. His vision blurred a moment in his grief.

Of course William would have pursued Emma. He remembered her
words, spoken so sincerely at the manorial court. She had given herself for
love.

Love of his bastard son.

William was the man who denied his vows. Oh, not vows said
on the church steps, or recorded in the manor records, but vows just the same.
Vows of love. Some priests recognized such a troth as being as binding as a
marriage sanctified by the church.

For Emma, denying them meant making a bastard of her
daughter.

What a fool he was. He had worried William would notice Emma
now she’d been awakened to passion! Awakened! She’d been taught by the
master—long before ever he, Gilles, had touched her. Unschooled? Innocent?
Never!

* * * * *

That evening, Gilles snarled at all about him. Emma followed
her usual schedule, which did not include being in the hall when he was about.
His eyes searched for her anyway.

“‘Tis shoddy work,” he snapped at Mark Trevalin. “We’ve many
mouths in need of food, and you’ve no idea how much grain lies within?” He
snatched the tally sticks from the man’s hand. “I will see to the count
myself.”

He strode away to the staircase leading deep into the bowels
of the castle and his storerooms. The harvest had been fat. He knew the sticks
should indicate a far greater surplus of grain. Was there naught but
incompetence surrounding him? Sourly, he moved along the rooms, counting the
sacks of grain. A sound teased at the periphery of his attention.

He stood still, listened. It came again. A muffled cry.
Someone in trouble. Gilles hurried to the end of the storerooms. There he
froze. William stood, his braies and hose about his knees, grunting over a
wench. In times past, Gilles would have snapped something rude and departed.
This time he had stood in the shadows and watched his bastard son.

The girl was bent over some of the very sacks of grain
Gilles wished to count, her skirts up, her buttocks plump and white in the
torchlight. May, Angelique’s nurse, he realized. William stood behind her, and
Gilles again felt that surge of heated jealousy as, with each thrust, the girl
writhed and squealed and clawed the sacks of grain. Gilles watched it to the
bitter end. He tortured himself with what he saw. It wasn’t the huge size of
his son’s manhood, the frantic shrieks of the maid’s completion, or the
triumphant shout of William’s that twisted the knife and honed the pain. Nay,
it was his imaginings that substituted Emma’s sweet form for that of the wench.
That was what rent his soul. It became Emma bent over the sacks of grain. It
became Emma who panted and cried for more.

Reeling, Gilles hurried from the storage rooms. He needed to
use one hand to guide himself in the near dark corridor. When he emerged, as if
from a tunnel, he stumbled on the worn stone steps that would take him to the
bright light and crowded hall.

Finally, he came to his senses. Choking back his bile, he
stood like a statue on the top step, got a grip on his envy, got a grip on the
murderous need he felt to draw his dagger and relieve William of his most
prized possession.

In his anger, he snapped the tally sticks like so much light
kindling. Emma had shown no favor to his bastard son. None. Before him. In
fact, she seemed to actively avoid William. It took all his mighty fortitude to
shake off his envy and control himself.

As he tended to his duties, he realized he could not lay
with Emma in his present mood. He could not bear it should he sense she yearned
in some way for a man more youthful than he—more handsome, more virile.

It did not help to know that William intended a marriage
alliance with a powerful family, one wealthy enough to allow him to live at
court. Everyone knew William’s ambition. For what other possible reason had
William not wed Emma and claimed his child? A weaver brought nothing of power
or monetary value to a man of William’s overweening ambition.

Gilles did not sleep in his chamber that night. Instead, he
gathered some men and made the ride to Lynn. There, along with his men, he
drank himself into a stupor at a dockside alehouse.

* * * * *

Emma wondered at Gilles’ mood. She’d waited for a few hours
in his bed—alone. As the moon gleamed along the floor of his bedchamber, she
realized he was not coming to her. After the sentry made his rounds, she
climbed to her own chamber, plucked Angelique from May’s arms, and slept
restlessly until dawn.

He was not at prayers.

‘Twas midday when she heard the sound of numerous horses
enter the middle bailey. She rose from her loom and stood in the doorway to
watch the men dismount. Gilles strode with Roland and Mark Trevalin across the
bailey, not looking in her direction. Something in his stride, the set of his
shoulders, told her he was in a great hurry. He joined a group of his men, and
their conversation was low, agitated, with much hand gesturing and show of
exasperation.

Silently, she returned to her loom. When her work was done,
she took Angelique and went to the hall, trailed by May. Heat swept her cheeks
as she noted eyes following her progress to the tower stairs. At Lord Gilles’
doorway, she handed Angelique off to May with a kiss. When they disappeared,
she raised her hand and knocked.

“Enter,” he called. Emma slipped into the room. Hubert
nodded to her, gathered up a hauberk and helm, and left them alone.

“You look tired, my lord,” she said. In truth, he looked
more than tired; he looked angry.

“I am not tired,” he snapped. “I am busy.” He wrapped a
leather belt around his fist before shoving it into a saddle bag open on his
bed.

Emma recoiled from the tone of his voice. “Forgive my
intrusion, my lord,” she said and fled from his chamber. She stumbled on the
worn edge of a tower step, but his hand was there to save her from a nasty
fall. She twisted in his grip.

“Nay, Emma. Do not run away. I am not angry with you. Come.”

She followed him reluctantly. When he released her, she
stood close by the door.

He sighed and resumed his packing. “I am off to York. I
heard in Lynn that whilst traveling home from Crusade, Richard had the
ill-begotten luck to be taken prisoner by that damnable Duke of Austria and he,
in turn, has delivered him up to Emperor Henry. No one seems to know Richard’s
whereabouts!”

“Oh, Gilles, will he kill King Richard?”

“Henry is likely to do anything. We barons will meet to
discuss offering a ransom. ‘Tis all that is needed—Richard in prison—to bring
Philip of France and John sniffing after his dominions.”

“Would Prince John do that? To his own brother?”

Gilles stopped his packing and smiled cynically at her. “My
sweet. If John and Richard could conspire against their father—why not one
another? ‘Tis why we barons will meet. To prevent chaos from following these
ill events.

“It was Richard’s charge to me to see to the loyalties of
certain of his lesser barons whilst he is gone. This coil will surely bring
every grasping fool from the woodwork to snatch what they may of Richard’s.”

Emma rushed forward and touched his arm. “Will you be
fighting?”

He looked down at her hand and she snatched it back. He caught
her fingers and drew her close. “Aye. Mayhap. Political turmoil breeds unrest
at all levels. Remember the massacres of the Jews of York? England does not
need a repeat of such a disaster.”

Massacre
. A chill entered the warm room. What if he
fell in battle?

“Will you send me with your blessing?” he asked.

He kissed her and all thought of his anger or her position
fled her mind in the fear that he might be injured or killed. “Aye, my lord. Go
with God.” She held him tightly to her. She tried and failed to say she loved
him. A man who talked of emperors and kings did not love his weaver. The most
she could offer him was her prayers.

* * * * *

“‘Tis a chore,” Gilles sighed as he oversaw the disposition
of his men.

“Aye. ‘Tis a chore to ride and fight and wield a sword
again.” Mark Trevalin grinned. “You and Roland have missed such a chance, I beg
to say. Your swords grow limp with inactivity.”

Gilles joined Roland in a guilty smile as Trevalin continued
to taunt them with references to old swords. Both Roland and Gilles itched to
be gone. Despite the gravity of King Richard’s position, both hoped for a
skirmish to test their skills. Roland clapped Gilles on the shoulder and went
off to make his farewells to Sarah.

Gilles went to the hall for a final adieu to Emma. He
watched William move about the hall, laughing, teasing the serving wenches,
buffeting the young knights and squires. Gilles’ chest tightened. William’s
every move was followed by the females of the hall. Each woman watched him for
a different reason, though all seemed to admire him for his comeliness. Gilles
must admit that William was a fine warrior.

Emma came from the chapel, and although she appeared to be
oblivious to William, Gilles saw that William’s body had tensed at her
presence. With great subtlety, William worked his way to the side of the hall
by Emma and her table. Gilles could see that whatever William was saying to
Emma, she was persistently shaking her head in negation. Gilles could not stop
himself, he strode to the young people.

“Damnation, Emma—my lord. Are you ready to depart?” William
straightened at Gilles’ approach, yet ‘twas obvious to Gilles he’d cut off some
personal conversation between the two.

“See to our mounts, William. I’d like to leave as soon as
the horses are ready.”