A Bit of Heaven on Earth (19 page)

Unless he was the problem.

Did she regret the kisses they shared, his caresses along her sweet curves? Did the idea of making love with him displease her? Had he read more into the feelings he’d supposed she held for him?

True, neither had spoken with words, but he thought her body responded to his touch as if she truly cared for him. Why was she now distancing herself from him? Had she settled into the idea that he was not to be her fate? Mayhap fear of becoming with child before going to another husband troubled her. If that was the case, he could understand her reluctance.

Time drew to a close, and they visited the last cottage on Kentwood land. He walked his horse beside hers, as close as he dared without actually touching her as they made their way back to the castle proper.

It was torture, pure and simple.

“I wish to speak to you, my lord.”

Elizabeth’s voice startled him, as she’d not addressed him at all this day. It was stiff, formal, with none of the emotion he longed to hear. Gavin steeled himself for her words, even as he craved to cut them short with a sweet kiss.

“Would you care to discuss it now, my lady?”

She halted her mount in the road, her eyes anxious. “I would prefer that, yes.” She hesitated. “We are not far from the cottage we stopped at yesterday. I would like to rest there.”

She bit down on her lip and spurred her horse into a trot. Her behavior puzzled him. To go to the cottage, they would truly be isolated, not in the open. Dare he hope she wanted to speak with her lips and not with words?

They arrived and entered much as the last time. Homer chose to scamper outside near their tethered horses. The spring day had turned warm, so he did not offer to build a fire. Elizabeth went and sat upon the same chair as before. He took the one next to her.

Immediately, she sprang up and started pacing the small room. Gavin let her take her time. He knew she would speak when ready.

Finally, she marched straight over to stand in front of him. As he looked up at her, he saw tears welling in her eyes. Elizabeth did not seem a woman who shed them lightly. He reached for her hand, linking his fingers with hers. She clutched him tightly, holding on as if her very life depended upon it.

“My lady?”

A sob escaped, and he immediately pulled her into his lap. He stroked her hair, whispering softly to her, trying to reassure her, not knowing what ailed her so.

Finally, the tears subsided. She lifted her head from his chest and studied his face intently, as if she wished to memorize it.

“Tell me we can be together, Gavin. Tell me we could run away, just the two of us. Leave Kentwood and its inhabitants behind. No thought as to the consequences.”

His arms tightened about her. “I wish I could grant such a request, sweetheart, but I fear the king would have my head upon a platter when he caught up to us. Marrying without his permission would only be the start of our woes.”

He had not shared with her why he’d arrived at Kentwood and thought he owed her an explanation now. “I was brought up a nobleman’s son in the north country, an only child to an overbearing father and a mother who smothered me with kisses and then disappeared for days at a time, lost in her prayers. My happiest times were fostering at Kentwood with Lord Aldred and fighting with him in France. When I fell captive in battle, my father refused to pay the ransom that would win me my freedom. I cannot tell you how I questioned his decision to abandon me to my captors’ contempt.”

Her hand stroked the side of his face. Her touch and knowing he could never truly be one with her left a bitter taste in his mouth.

Her voice soft, she asked, “What happened, Gavin?”

“When I escaped, I returned to my home, only to find my mother dead and my father remarried. He informed me that I was not his son. My mother got herself with child by another man. Berwyn said he would kill me if I returned to Ashgrove ever again. So I turned to Aldred, the one man I trusted with my life.”

Gavin took her hand from his face and kissed her open palm tenderly. “I have nothing to offer you, sweetest Elizabeth. No estate. Not even my good name, for I have not a clue who my sire was. We can never be, my love. I was selfish to express my longings to you yesterday. You must go to whomever the king sends you, for it could never be me.”

Pain was written across her brow. “Even if that man is Robert? Would you see me with your dearest friend, Gavin? Imagine me lying in his arms? Bearing his children? Knowing ‘tis you I want above all others, and that I die inside more each day I am separated from you?”

The image she created forced the breath from him, sure as he’d been punched in his gut. He could have envisioned her going to a faceless man in a nameless place, but not to the very next estate, where her body would be worshipped by his most treasured companion.

“No,” he whispered. “It cannot be.”

Elizabeth bit her lip, her eyes squeezing closed. “Yes,” she replied. “Robert informed me he and Aldred planned it without my knowledge. That Aldred wrote to the king and asked him to consider the request once he died.”

She opened her eyes, and Gavin saw sheer desperation in them. “Edward thought the world of Aldred. He is sure to grant a dying man’s wish.” She leaned forward and rested her forehead against his. “And I cannot imagine a life with Robert, at Kentwood, only to pass you, day after day, at the head of the guard.”

Her tears began to flow again. “I hunger so for you, Gavin. I cannot live if I am not with you.”

Her hiccups began again, bringing a smile to his tormented soul. He should remove himself from her presence now, leave Kentwood immediately, yet her body pressed closer to his, like a siren’s song he was helpless to command.

He touched his fingers to her cheeks, brushing away the tears that fell against porcelain skin. Slowly, he brought his mouth to hers, brushing it ever so gently. He felt her tremble at his touch. He stood, with her in his arms, and once more placed her upon the bed of straw in the corner of the tiny room. She looked up at him with such trusting eyes, he felt his own moisten as he bent over her.

“I love you,” he said, his thumbs tracing her eyebrows, smoothing them. He ran his hands along her face and cradled it gently between them. “I would make you a part of me, Elizabeth. A part that can never belong to Robert. ‘Twill only be mine.”

“Yes,” she whispered, pulling him down to her.

Gavin kissed her slowly, wanting to savor this moment in time, mayhap the only one they would ever again spend alone.

The world ceased to exist as he deepened the kiss. Elizabeth sighed at his touch. The hands that stroked her ignited a fire within her. She didn’t care if it blazed out of control. Normally, she would think ahead, worry about the consequences of such foolish actions. For once, though, consequences be damned. She was with the most beautiful man in the world, a man who’d just proclaimed his love for her.

She chose to speak from her heart. “I love you, Gavin. I do love you so.”

She pushed her hands into his raven locks, stroked his chest, longed to make him purr as his little cat Homer did. His hands were everywhere, calling out to her, searing her with his touch.

“I wish I had sweet words of poetry to tell you how your beauty affects me,” he told her, nuzzling her neck. “I always thought poets silly creatures, raving about a woman’s looks, but I find I have no words to do you justice now.”

“Oh, Gavin,” she replied, “you are a painter, love, and I your canvas. Let your hands be the brush that tells our tale.”

He lifted her garments from her, one by one, till she lay naked against the straw. His eyes told her he approved of what he saw. Quickly, he doffed his own clothes and held her against him, spreading his cote-hardie between her and the rough straw.

Then he kissed her again, more gently than ever before. Slowly, his lips slid from her mouth, trailing down her throat and to her breast. He flicked a tongue across the nipple, teasing it into a peak, before he did the same with the other. Elizabeth cried out in pure joy, the feelings so new and pleasurable.

As he suckled her breast, his hand slid down her thigh. Strong fingers stroked up and down as his knee nudged her legs apart. She fought a sense of panic that struck her. Remembered images from her childhood danced before her eyes.

“Relax, sweetheart. ‘Tis only me,” he said.

She forced herself to breathe deeply, to trust this man she’d known for only two months but wished she could devote a lifetime to. His kisses distracted her, causing her to lose her fear.

Then he touched her in the most intimate of spots. A rush of air escaped her lips. Was the kind of pleasure he brought not forbidden? Did a woman allow such a thing to occur?

All rational thought was cast aside as he eased a finger into her and began to slowly move it back and forth. Her hands grasped the straw by her side, kneading it like a kitten at his mother’s teat.

“Yes, love, you’re ready for me,” he crooned, his strokes growing bolder and more rapid. “Come to me, sweetest Elizabeth. Enjoy.”

She rose now to meet each stroke, her hips lifting off the ground. The throbbing caused her blood to sing, boiling into a sweet ecstasy. Her head thrashed from side to side as a pressure within her built. Suddenly an explosion of stars blinded her, and her body quivered violently against his hand.

“Oh, God, what have you done?” Her breathing was rapid and shallow. She clung to Gavin, who kissed her again and again.

Then his body covered hers, and she reveled in his hard muscles against her soft curves. The hairs on his chest tickled her breasts. His scent, a mixture of soap and horse and male, became her scent. She wrapped her arms about his neck, wanting him closer to her.

But something replaced his hand. It began filling her, stretching her. It was too much. It hurt. The panic began again. She tried to cry out, but her words were swallowed in his kisses. She began to struggle as he thrust hard, and a sharp pain became her only focus.

He tore his lips from hers. “God’s wounds, Elizabeth! You are virgin!”

The pain already subsided, but a new one replaced it as he pulled away from her. She clutched at him.

“Please, Gavin, no, don’t leave me. I need you. Stay with me.”

He leaned back toward her, his nearness comforting her again. “Oh, dearest,” he said, stroking her hair, “if only I’d known. I could have been gentler.”

“No,” she answered, “you would not have touched me. At all.” The look in his eyes told her that her assumption was correct. “I love you, Gavin. I want you. I need you. Come back to me. Please.” Her voice broke.

She saw him fight something within him. She brushed a finger along his lower lip. His mouth parted and nibbled on it playfully. Elizabeth knew with that gesture she had won.

Gavin entered her again slowly. This time she understood what was happening. The pain was no more. In its place was a fullness, a richness. As he began to move against her, she instinctively understood what to do. She began to move with him, in time to the rhythm of the throb’s return. Their dance grew more frantic, Gavin’s kisses more potent.

Then she cried out, a pleasure so great rippling through her that she neither understood nor questioned it but simply rode out the waves of passion. He shuddered against her and collapsed, his breathing ragged in her ear. He rolled to his side and brought her even closer.

“Never was love so sweet as this,” he told her. “In my wildest imaginings, never have I been so moved by the touch of a woman.” He brushed back a stray lock from her face. “Oh, my dearest, sweetest love.” He cradled her tenderly in his arms, his cheek next to hers.

For Elizabeth, no words came. She only knew now, this moment, and the heat and love that radiated between them.

Tomorrow, and Robert, could wait.

CHAPTER 21

Gavin looked over the yard, pleased with the swordplay that took place. If Aldred had sent his best men to fight for the king in France last year, he was certain this new crop of trained soldiers destined to join them would do Kentwood proud.

He wondered for the hundredth time if he should go with them when they left in a fortnight for France. A week had passed since Elizabeth shared with him Aldred’s plans for her and Robert to wed. She had received no word from King Edward yet, but that brief lull would change soon enough.

They’d spent no time alone since making love, yet he still could feel the touch of her hands upon his chest, her nails raking sensually along his back. Thoughts of Elizabeth filled every day and even his dreams at night. He constantly tried to force them aside in order to pay attention to the tasks at hand.

Robert hadn’t called at Kentwood. Gavin didn’t trust himself to see his friend again. In a matter of time Robert would more than likely have Edward’s permission to take Elizabeth to wife and become master of both her and Kentwood.

He’d once been certain he’d die for Robert in combat. Gavin still knew he would if Robert’s life was endangered. But now a woman stood between them. Gavin could offer an intimate friendship to his comrade no longer. It already tormented him enough to know Elizabeth would soon be Robert’s to possess.

In that moment, he realized he must go back to France. No other choice remained. He would rather die a brave death on the battlefield and honor his country and king than see piece by piece of him wither away and die every day by staying at Kentwood. That was his fate if he chose to remain and watch another man with his Elizabeth. Staying would become a worse hell than the prison he’d existed in while being held captive in France. If his life were to be hell on earth, he would prefer one of his own choice.

He would tell her of his decision tonight. She would try and talk him out of it, but he’d made up his mind. The answer had been before him all along. He just hadn’t wanted to admit it, for it meant leaving Elizabeth behind. Still, it was the honorable thing to do. She would miss him, but she loved her life at Kentwood. She would stay busy and as time passed, memories of him would slowly dim.

She would have children, he supposed. He remembered his surprise in finding her to still be a virgin. They didn’t speak of it afterward. He thought of all those lonely years that Aldred must not have been able to perform his marital duty for his wife. Elizabeth was yet young enough to provide Robert with an heir. She would be a good mother, the best.