By Possession (16 page)

The stars and breeze swam around him. The spirits urged him to finish the rite of possession. His own body echoed the demand. Menulius gazed down, his vague shadows forming a mocking half smile.

He shifted and slid his arm under her legs. “I am taking you to bed now, Moira.” He lifted her and carried her through the croft to the cottage, away from the spirits and elements telling him to use her.

Low lights, cool and warm from moon and hearth, filtered through the shadows. He laid her on the bed beneath the window and she appeared ethereal in that light. He sat beside her and kissed her while his hands went to work on her garments. A small sound of protest emerged while he pulled the gown down her legs. The smallest frown puckered her brow, as if the bed and undressing reminded her of her objections. He shamelessly caressed her back from the intruding denial, playing at the sensitive peaks of her breasts until she slid the straps of her shift from her arms so that she could embrace him.

The sensation of her hands on his shoulders and back immersed him in bliss. He rested his face against her breasts for a moment, reveling in the serenity she brought. Then he pushed the shift down, his kisses following the linen over stomach and hips and thighs. He paused there, inches from the scent of her arousal, and resolve wanted to crumble. Somehow he leashed the animal hunger and rose from the bed.

He gazed at her while he removed his belt and tunic. She looked so beautiful. Moonlight washed her pale form and reflected off the clarity of her eyes. Despite the shadows he saw confusion looking back at him. He pulled off his shirt and lay down beside her.

If she demanded it he would find contentment just sleeping with her in his arms. He would try to hold her to him with that intimacy alone, but he wanted more secure bonds. He had learned a thing or two during those years of competing with a god for Eufemia's passion. He knew something about the power of pleasure and how it worked on a woman's soul.

She embraced him, but he felt hesitancy in those arms. He caressed her length and wariness and embarrassment tinged her shudder and sigh. If he left the choice to her she might well sleep on straw in the croft. She did not know what she wanted and needed, did not comprehend what waited for them if only she accepted it. He made the decision for her with possessive finality. He would not take her, but he would have her.

He used his hands and mouth until she rocked against him, clutching his back, burying her cries in his shoulder. He took his time, enjoying endless kisses, riding the torturous pleasure with her. With searching hands he explored her body, here firm and taut, there soft and yielding. In her aching need her own hands moved, first shyly but then with more confidence. Her fluttering caresses burned into him and the heat of his blood rose to a blinding level.

He pressed her against his length and caressed to the top of her thighs. With his first touch she lost all control. Beautiful sounds of pleasure and need poured out of her until she spread her legs with abandon. She hung around his neck and clawed a hold on his shoulders when the convulsive end neared. A violent tremor quaked and a shocked cry erupted. She grasped him like a fearful child seeking shelter as the release shook her.

He held her huddled body and buried his face in her hair while her slowing breaths soothed his own painful
need. She lay silently, nestled in his embrace, with the night air cooling their ardor.

“Why didn't you …? ” she finally mumbled against his chest.

“I said I would not.”

She burrowed deeper, as if facing him would embarrass her. “At the end … why did you do that?”

“To show you that sharing my bed will not be … tedious. Didn't you like it?”

“Aye. Too much. But even so, I will not be sharing your bed, Addis.”

“You are sharing it now.”

She raised her head and looked around the cottage. “Not your bed. Not the lord's bed. Much more like my bed at Darwendon.”

She looked so captivating with the moonlight making a little glow along her profile. If she wanted to believe that she could contain this within this cottage and this night, he would let her think so for now. “Aye, not the lord's bed. This night it is just Addis finding solace with Moira.”

He sat and removed his leather hose and cast them aside. He stretched out wearing only his braes, letting the breeze cool his skin. Her warmth contrasted deliciously and he pulled her against his chest and legs, alert to every inch of connection. Her palm stroked his face, firmly caressing along the scar as if that thick ridge of damaged flesh did not exist. Shifting slightly, she embraced his shoulder with one arm. Instinctively, naturally, as if he had done so a hundred times before, he rested his head against her breast and an indescribable peace rinsed his soul.

He slept deeply, but she did not. She lay holding his body, looking over his shoulder out the window at the beautiful sky, thinking it was painfully sweet to be close to someone like this, if only for a short while.

Her fingers drifted over the muscles of his shoulders. A strange man and a stranger night. She doubted that this lovemaking had brought him much solace despite his last words, even if he slept like the dead now. She had given her whole life, and she recognized giving when she saw it.

Not selfless though. Nay, not without a charge. He probably already knew what she slowly accepted while she held him. A woman cannot do that with a man and remain aloof. She cannot sleep naked like this afterward, holding him all night, and pretend that nothing binds them in the morning. This strange lovemaking insinuated that he expected something far more dangerous than her services as his lehman. It would take all of her strength to refuse him now, whatever it was that he wanted from her.

The reasons for doing so seemed very distant. Common sense and carefully laid plans counted for little in this intimacy. Confused thoughts scrambled through the fitful sleep that finally claimed her.

Dawn's light woke her. She lay on her stomach under the wool blanket Addis must have thrown over them both. His arm was slung over her back. She opened her eyes to find him awake on his side, head propped on hand, watching her. His raven hair fell around his head in a thick cloud disheveled from sleep. The bronzed shoulders and chest lay a hand span from her nose. The gray light cast his face in severe planes, emphasizing the slash of mouth and the long ridge of scar, making him look stern. She remained motionless and her soul instantly understood his expression.

He rose up on his forearm and slid the blanket off her body revealing her full nakedness to the early light and his eyes. He bent kisses to her back, creating a thrilling trail of heat. He stroked down to her buttocks and his fingers grazed the cleft with startling intimacy. His eyes met hers. “I had six years to learn lessons in continence, but seeing
you this morning destroys my resolve of last night. I am going to take you this time. If you want to deny me, you had better run away now.”

Deny him? That would take a voice and hers had disappeared because her heart was in her throat. She would need a body that could move, and hers had become immobile with screaming anticipation. He did not wait long for her to decide. Turning her over, he moved on top of her, dominating her with warm strength and hard flesh.

No restraint this time. A different Addis with a different intention. Kisses and caresses that bespoke his need and prepared her to accommodate it. He led her up a rapid spiral into a primitive, hungry passion.

Drumming quietly echoed in her head. It took a while to realize that it was not the beating of her heart or the pulse of his power. It did not even emanate from within the cottage, but poured in the window above them. She tried to block it out, but it only grew louder.

“Hell,” Addis muttered, looking over to the front of the cottage and the sounds of a small troop reining up in the lane.

The aura of bliss split as if someone had slashed it with a knife. The door burst open and a blond youth appeared in its light. “Aye, this be it!” he called, backing out with a laugh. “But we came too early. He still be topping a whore.”

The men were in high spirits and ribald shouts of encouragement filled the air. Moira shut her eyes to the reality bouncing its sounds around the walls. This night of beauty was to be followed by a dawn of shame. Her good sense suddenly rose tall, stiff from its long subjugation to her impulses, and filled her with scolds. It really wasn't fair. She hadn't even done the crime but she would still pay the price.

She found some composure and raised her lids to find
Addis looking down at her, reading her embarrassment. He rested his palm on her cheek to soothe and reassure her.

“It seems Sir Richard did not come alone.” He swung up and reached for leather.

She dressed quickly, pulling on shift and gown and hiding her disheveled hair beneath a veil. Away from his embrace and the bed, she experienced a growing awkwardness with him. The morning air began to dilute the scents of their intimacy. The rising sun burned away those sweet connections. She watched Addis don his garments and fasten the knight belt low on his waist, assuming again the lordly presence of yesterday. She glanced around the little cottage, foreign now in the light of day and looking starkly, relentlessly
real.

He turned to the door but she hung back. He came over and held her head to a kiss. “You either walk out at my side as my woman or in my shadow as my slut, Moira. Let it be the first way. They will show you respect in order to honor me.”

He took her hand and led her through the threshold. Sun gleamed off armor and weapons. Men and horses and wagons jammed the lane. A quick silence fell when they emerged. Seven pairs of eyes scanned down to where Addis still clasped her hand.

Sir Richard strode forward, flickering an apologetic glance to her. While he passed the men his hand swung out and without even looking he cracked the blond squire across the face so hard that the youth staggered. Not missing a step he advanced until he stood an arm's span away and beamed a teary smile up at Addis.

“Well, now, 'tis a glorious morning, 'tis it not, my lord.”

Addis released her to accept the embrace of his father's
steward. She eased along the shadow of the house, away from the male drama.

Richard gestured to the others. “Alan and Marcus insisted on coming. And that there's Small John, Big John's son. As true as his father, I promise you. There are others, but we left them back there. Might be more useful inside, and I like the idea of that bastard worrying about whom he can trust.” He walked to the carts. “Come see what we've brought you.”

Moira realized that the rear one was hers. “Found some villagers bringing it here this morning,” Richard explained with a point. “But look you here. Your father's armor and such. And some coin. Not much, since that whoreson found most of it despite my hiding it in ten different places. And we've Patrick's destriers down the lane a bit. Still the devils they ever were and just as hard to control. Ah, and there is this.” He reached into the cart and pulled out a long, heavy weapon. “The family sword. I took it when your father died. Thought maybe Simon would try something, what with you dead and the boy just a babe. Figured he might take the land but I wouldn't let him have the rights.”

Addis took the old Norman sword in his hands. His face was a severe mask of composure, but Richard was not so contained. He grasped the hilt below Addis's fingers. “We here never swore to him, not in our hearts. Only to the lord, and he was never that.”

Addis hesitated. They all stood like a frozen image. He looked across the knights and squires, seeking until his eyes met hers. He glanced at the cottage, through its doorway into its dim depths, and then back at the sword pointing down at the ground. Resolve set his expression. Resolve, and maybe resignation. He lowered the weapon. Sir Richard followed, kneeling to swear his oath of fealty.

She slipped back into the cottage, blinking away stinging tears. Well, that was that. It had begun, and it would end with him dead or triumphant. She was glad that Sir Richard would be at his side. He appeared a man whom Addis could depend upon. He would need such a friend with him.

The sounds of other oaths drifted to her while she busied herself tidying up the cottage, trying to fill her sudden hollowness with practicalities. When she had finished she looked around the little space. A broken pitcher held some wilted flowers on the crude table, and she darted outside to pick some new ones without anyone noticing. She smoothed the coverlet over the bed, noticing the careful stitching of its piecework. Other details, like the carefully scrubbed floor and the neatly stacked crockery, absorbed her attention.

She had no trouble picturing the young couple who lived here. They loved each other. One could just sense it. Happy despite their poverty of goods. Secure in their hold of each other. It had been the ghost of that love that had unsettled her when she first entered last night.

She found her basket and thumbed a shilling out of the leather sack and slid it under the pillow. A body obscured the light from the door and she turned to see the blond squire standing there.

“My lady, my lord said to tell you that we are ready to leave.”

She faced him, holding her basket against her stomach. He had addressed her the safest way, but he eyed her curiously, wondering just who and what she really was.

“I am not a lady,” she corrected, reminding herself of the essential fact of her relationship to Addis. “My name is Moira Falkner, and my mother was serf born.”

CHAPTER 8