A Kiss in the Night (39 page)

His eyes widened in response to the beauty unveiled and bathed in moonbeams. He cupped the softness and took her mouth, kissing her until her knees went weak and they were sinking to the hay-covered floor. His arm reached behind her to cushion her fall as he laid her to the soft ground.

In minutes he had slid her gown off altogether. His callused hand curled gently around her thin ankle, his lips lightly bathing her skin there. He discovered the remnants of the harvesting on her legs. "My God, you are shrouded in sweetness, Linness." He tasted more and more and more, and chuckled because the last thing he needed with her was a rousing taste on her skin. "Everywhere sweet and luscious…" Skilled ringers began to massage her calf, while the other hand stroked higher.

A shuddering gasp escaped her as his palms and fingers spanned the back of her thighs. His fingers grazed the swell of her buttock while his mouth danced over her skin, drinking in her fragrance, the taste of grapes blended with the dew of her awakening.

In desperation she pulled him back over her. The joy of having all his flesh against hers swept through her, and with trembling emotion, she sought his lips. All restraint vanished with the kiss as he pulled her lithe form against his hard warmth. Like an avalanche, it was, the swift rush of lust. "Easy, love, easy," he said more to himself than to her. "You are not ready yet, Linness, Linness, here, let me show you."

She felt his hand sweep away her hair from her neck, before brushing the highest spot on her spine with his open mouth. Stinging pricks of pleasure raced to the base of her spine. A small cry escaped her. She felt his breath halt and come more quickly on her skin.

"Aye, love, aye…" he whispered as a sweep of movement brought his hand down her spine, soothing the shivers there to come just below her breasts. He cupped their swelling weight, his thumb teasing the nipples.

"How many times I imagined making love to you," he said huskily. He massaged her taut flesh to pliancy before slipping lower to feel the dew-rush of wetness. His lips found her neck, drawing sparks of fire to the surface. "And how my imagination pales to this reality, Linness, I love you."

His mouth captured her nipple, massaging it with a tongue as hot as the flesh it was licking. She was softly crying, falling over the cliff again as his sensitive fingers coaxed her to a fever, his palm lightly cupping the silky curls, molding her to a fiery ecstasy that made her cry out sharply. And still moist kisses covered her breasts before finding her swollen lips, taking them hungrily.

Small moans issued from her throat. With heart wrenching slowness, he filled her with his erotic heat. Under the shower of a harvest moon, they moved with the ancient wisdom of their bodies, joining their souls in a triumphant rapture, and like a giant star exploding, the ecstasy blinded them to the dark future fast closing around them...

Chapter Eleven

“
She's not feeling well," Clair whispered, with a cautious glance down the stairs.

"Oh?" Paxton inquired, alarmed. "What's wrong?"

Clair looked away. It was impossible to meet his intense gaze: it probed into her very thoughts. He looked ruggedly handsome in his riding clothes: a forest green doublet and black riding pants, tall black boots and spurs. She rested her eyes on the fine gold spurs as she replied, "A touch of a head cold, is all. A slight fever and weariness, you know. "

With alarm, he started towards Linness's door.

"Nay." Clair reached an arm out to stop him. "She begs you to give her a day or two alone. She's not feeling well and she looks a sight really..."

Paxton's sensitivities were acute, and as he stared at Clair, he realized she was lying. He had only just returned from a week's absence, having overseen the grapes being pressed into wine in the northern section of the vineyards. He would have to leave Gaillard in two weeks' time. The parting weighed heavily on his heart and mind. He did not want to waste a minute of their time together.

Meantime, tensions within Gaillard escalated.

An armed guard of forty men from the Vatican wan said to be less than a day's ride away; they would reach the gates by tomorrow. The bishop was collecting stories from peasants and townsfolk of Linness's "sight."

Paxton had received a letter from Duprat promising to expeditiously see the bishop reassigned. Expeditiously meant two or three months, if ever and he cursed Duprat for stalling.

"She'll be on the mend tomorrow, no doubt.' Clair added.

"Very well," he said smoothly "If you will assure me that there is no reason for alarm?"

Clair's head bobbed up and down with feigned assent. "Oh, aye. She'll be up and about in no time."

"I eagerly await that good news," he said formally with a slight nod of his head.

With a faltering smile, Clair turned her back, slipping inside Linness's room when she heard Lord Paxton's door shut.

Paxton stepped to his window, where the last light of the sun slanted across the panes and fell in a gold stream to the stone floor. The shutters opened to the courtyard below. Agilely he climbed out onto the ledge, his back pressed against the warm stones, and made his way to her window.

Everyone was still in the fields for the harvesting of the wheat, barley, and corn, which had begun last week. From the battlements he could see the barley fields, sharply divided by the river; the workers appeared as distant specks against the ripe gold plains. He saw none of it, though, not really. He was focused instead on the question of why Linness would lie to him.

To protect him from something, he knew, but what?

He reached her window. She had latched it to keep him out. Peering inside, he saw that Linness stood with her back to the window, talking to Clair. He removed his dagger and slipped it between the shutters, underneath the latch, until it lifted. The shutter opened a few inches; their voices drifted through.

Linness's hands held Glair's arms. "He believed you, then?"

Clair nodded.

"I just need time," Linness said, a hand weaving distressfully through her hair. "I need to think." She wore the long gold robe; her unbound hair cascaded around her shoulders and back. "If only he would leave now. I cannot believe I am saying it, after spending every hour of every day terrified of the time when he would actually go—"

"Ye should tell him," Clair said decidedly, in her way of reducing every complex feeling to its bare point. "He deserves to know."

She shook her head. This was out of the question. "Not now, Clair."

After a disapproving shake of her head, Clair slipped out the door. Linness clasped her hands over her mouth and turned. She stopped with a gasp.

Paxton stood in the alcove, his towering frame outlined in the setting sun. He stepped to her, quietly, so quietly. She was shaking her head as her hands clasped the folds of her robe tight at her neck. She backed up, unaware that she did so until she felt the stone wall on her back.

He had heard. He would have to be told something.

With frantic silver eyes she searched his race as her thoughts clamored to produce a believable explanation.

"Tell me, Linness."

His voice was a gentle whisper, filled with confusion, curiosity, and a hint of pain. His nearness, like a great enveloping warmth, threatened her resolve. He abruptly understood. "
Mon Dieu
, you are afraid of me. Why, Linness?"

"Paxton, please, I, I just need time, I—"

"What aren't you telling me?"

"I'm not feeling well, truly—" Her hand went to her mouth, as if she herself were unable to bear the falsity on her lips.

His gaze turned fierce as he warned, "Do not lie to me, Linness. By the heavens, anything but that.” His gaze swept over her; an intimate caress. She looked pale and, aye, terribly frightened. The gold chain and the precious ring hung just above the thick cloth of the robe, which she clasped ever so tightly. As if shielding herself. Shielding herself from him.

Understanding penetrated his senses. His hand came over her cold one. He gently brought it away, parted the robe to reveal the startling naked beauty beneath. The fullness was a subtle change, but he knew every ounce of her slim figure and he perceived it immediately.

He remembered vividly the slim shape of the woman-child he had first known her bewitching eyes and sweet taste, the sharp lines and the feminine softness of her first blush, tempting beyond reason and yet not as beautiful as the woman he found six years later. And when he made love to Linness now, he savored every tiny mark and diminutive imperfection of her form that made her the flesh-and-blood woman he would die loving.

And how motherhood had rewarded her beauty!

A tremble came to her hands, tears hung in her eyes like a morning mist over the river. She felt the wealth of his love cascading over her, and indeed, never had he loved her more. Their emotions surged together and she reached her arms around his neck, and he held her tightly against his strength.

She knew the child was a girl. The girl she would never have to give up. Mary sent her this blessing, to ease the ache in her soul when the time came for Paxton and Jean Luc to leave. And she had never wanted anything more in her life.

She closed her eyes as she felt his lips upon her forehead. "I am so scared, Paxton…"

"Linness, Linness, it will be all right," he said. "What can he do now? He is not the first man who faced this situation and he won't be the last. Life will go on. He has no choice but to accept it." He thought of Morgan's pigheadedness, his unwillingness to dwell long on troubling situations. Aye, Morgan would come to accept it. "I dare say he won't even think long on it. I'll return when your time has come, to be here. Linness, I love you, I love you."

The shocking words drew her back slightly. She searched his face, scarcely able to believe this, the masculine simplicity of his reasoning. He imagined Morgan would just accept it.

He would not. Never. At the very least it would bring him the unendurable pain and grief of betrayal, and strike away the harmony in their lives. And then, if he did not renounce her and the child, he would almost certainly turn his animosity against the innocent babe.

At the worst, it may compel him to act with violence.

For a brief moment she was dumbfounded, alarmed, confused, but enlightenment dawned quickly. Paxton could not bear the reality of what she would have to do; it did not even enter his mind. All this time she imagined he would want her to rid her womb of his seed—there were potions for this—and she had been trying to guess how to explain that she could not, could never do that, but no. That had not occurred to him at all.

Paxton's ignorance was a blessing, she saw at once. There was only one way to make Morgan think it was his child, and the only thing harder than that was the idea of the unbearable pain her actions would cause Paxton if he were to ever find out.

He was smiling at her as he lowered his head to kiss her. So tenderly did he kiss her at first, she felt a bewildered kind of agony. She would have to carry out her plans soon. Tonight. Paxton would never know. He would never have to know what she did. No one would have to know.

She felt a sudden surge of gladness and relief, expressed in the pliant melding of her mouth beneath his. Paxton saw it as her passion meeting his and he was suddenly kissing her as if it were the last time he ever would.

* * * *

Logistics. She figured she would not actually have to lie with Morgan, thank the heavens. She would wait until late at night, until he was inebriated. He would pass out on his bed. She would sneak into his chambers, disrobe, and climb into his bed. He'd wake to find her. She would kiss him tenderly on the forehead, make an inane reference to something that had happened. He would have to assume he had made love to her.

Then she'd slip back to her chambers when no one was looking. 'Twould be done and over. And when the child was born, Morgan would think that she, too, was his.

Paxton would soon have Jean Luc at Beaumont. Morgan would allow her to visit a month each year, perhaps longer. Paxton assumed he could spend two to three months of the year at Gaillard. She tried to tell herself that this was enough, that it had to be enough, and when she thought of having a daughter, sometimes she actually believed it.

The room was dark. She pretended sleep as she waited for Eleanor to doze.

The soft sound of the good woman's slumber soon filled the chambers. Another hour passed and there was still no sign of Morgan going to bed. He sometimes passed out at the table. After yet another hour, she imagined that was what had happened. It could be a long wait.

She heard Paxton's footsteps. She tensed instinctively as she heard his door open and close, his every movement unusually graceful and quiet for a man of his stature.

Paxton, forgive me, forgive me…

How he had loved her this afternoon! As if he had needed to engulf every part of her body with his soul, undressing her in the still-lingering light of the sun, whispering his love as he flushed her body with warmth, carrying her to the sky-bound heights until, losing control, his adoring hands caressed the tremors of her surrender.