Eliza Knight - The Rules of Chivalry (30 page)

“Dear husband, I hope your savoring is done, I cannot wait a moment longer to feel you inside me.”

“You tempt me beyond reason,” he murmured back, still nuzzling at her breasts. His hot, hard organ probed between her thighs.
H
is fingers teased over her slick folds, before he gripped his shaft and guided it inside her.

Elena
let out a guttural moan at the feel of him sinking inside her. Her entire body felt as though it were on fire, and everywhere he touched had her shivering, flashes of hunger careening through her.

Michael sank deeper and deeper,
then
withdrew only to thrust back inside. Elena’s entire body shook. He placed one of her legs on his shoulder, kissing her ankle as he continued to work in and out of her at a quickened pace.

“Oh God, Elena, I’m so close.”

“Don’t stop!” she keened.

She was right on the edge, her body waiting for that final stroke that would send her flying. Michael slid her leg back down to his side, and gripped both her hips in his. His mouth came down hard on hers, kissing her with feral need. Without warning, release ripped through her. She cried out against Michael’s lips, and he grunted with male satisfaction, encouraging her all the more. He rode her through her climax, shouting out his own release, and shuddering over her.

He collapsed to the side of her, pulling her to him.

“’Twas magical,” Elena whispered, still shocked that love making could be so beautiful.

“Mayhap I had it wrong that you were a princess—I think
’
tis more than you are a fairy.”

*****

The next morning, Elena stretched wide on the bed. She felt gloriously wonderful and alive.
And cold.

She shivered and pulled the thick coverlet up over her naked body. Yes, naked. She grinned with secret glee and pure joy. She and Michael had made love nearly all night. She rolled onto her side and reached for Michael’s warmth, but the bed was cold and empty, only an indentation where he had lain.

“He left already, my lady, some time ago, I’d say.”

Elena opened her eyes to see Beth standing at the end of the bed. Her eyes looked wild, and her lips were curled in
an evil grin. Her clothing was rumpled as was her hair as if she had not slept.

“What is the matter?” Elena asked, sitting up and clutching the blanket to her breasts. What had gotten into her loyal friend?

“What is the matter?” Beth mocked,
then
laughed loudly, clutching her hands to her face. “I’ve waited so long to get you alone,” she said through bared teeth.

Beth turned on her heels and placed the wooden slab in place on the door—impeding anyone from entering.

“What are you doing?” Alarm filled Elena. This was not the Beth she knew. This was someone different, someone wholly evil. Had it taken this long for the knock on her head to mess with
Beth’s
sanity?

Beth whirled around, her eyes wide and blazing with hatred. “Do you know who I am?”

Elena’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Beth.”

“Aye, Beth.
But Beth who?”
She placed her hands on her hips.

“I know not what you mean.” Elena shook her head and moved to get out of bed, but Beth lunged toward her.

“Do not think of it. You sit right there.”
Her lady’s maid
whirled around and picked up a poker from the fireplace, holding it like a sword
toward
Elena.

Oh, Dear God! She’s gone mad!

“You never once asked me who I was.”

Asked who she was? Some of her ladies had come with her from Ireland, and the others had served Kent’s previous wives—Beth being one of the latter.

Elena shook her head. “I do not understand. What have I done that has made you so angry with me?”

“Chauncey was my cousin,” Beth said with a fake pout and narrowed eyes.

“Your cousin.”
Elena chewed her lip and mulled the words. Had Beth spied for her deceased husband?

“You needn’t have feared much from me, because I hated him. He was a cruel bastard and his wife before you a darling saint who he sent up to Heaven far before her time. I thought you to be much like her. I thought you a saint. But you are no sa
int. You are a base, disgusting
whore. When I saw how you scorned him, how you threatened all of our livelihoods with your immoral ways, your whoredom, I had to see that you were stopped.”

“What are you talking about?” Elena looked around her. She needed some sort of weapon, something to fend Beth off. Her eyes alighted on the candlestick sitting on her nightstand. The candle had long since burned out. She could get to it, but she was so off balance with her belly growing larger. Would she get to it in time before Beth skewered her with the poker?

“Michael,” Beth hissed.

“What has my husband to do with this?” She had to keep Beth talking. Perhaps someone would try to come to the door, and she could shout for help.

“You gave yourself to him. You risked all of our lives when you let him
rut
on you like a dog on a bitch.”

Elena physically cringed.
“’
Twasn’t
like that at all.”
How dare Beth turn what beautiful things she and Michael shared into something so grotesque?

“I do not see it that way. You were a married woman. You went against God when you spread your legs for another man.”

“Beth, my marriage was sacrilegious! Michael
saved
me.”

“
Michael saved me
.” Beth contorted her face in an ugly grimace. “Bloody well good he did. He saved you, but he nearly got the rest of us killed.
Myself
included!”

“No, Beth,
’
twas not his fault.
How could he know that Jon was evil? He tried to save us all from Kent. There was nothing you had to fear from him. Is it your head? Does it still
pain you?” She reached out to Beth without thinking, hoping to comfort the woman in her distress. But Beth slapped her hand away. Elena pulled back at the sting.

Beth tilted her head back and laughed cruelly. “You are a naïve little twit. Kent was having you spied on—by more than one or two. I had thought you to know that.”

“I always knew that. We were careful, and then we were safe at the abbey.”

“Oh,
aye
, the abbey, where one of Michael’s own men tried to kill you and nearly succeeded in killing me.
He is a mighty savior. I d
aresay I wish he were my savior.
” Beth
spoke
sarcastically as she pranced around the room. “But no, I had no one to save me. Even your dear brother could do nothing for me, he was too late.”
The maid faced the banked hearth.

While
Beth’s
back was turned, Elena grabbed the candlestick, wobbling only slightly, and thrust it beneath the coverlet.

Beth whirled around, but Elena kept her face blank. Instead she sought to distract her again with words. “Why can you not be happy now? I am sorry your cousin has passed, but there is nothing left to fear.” Elena tried to catch Beth’s gaze, but the woman refused to look her in the eye.

“Right you are again, my lady. I have nothing to fear now ac
cept death. You want to know
why I am in your
room?
I am here for revenge.”

Elena gulped.
“Revenge?
Against what?”

“Aye.
The man who your brother ruthlessly murdered was my brother.”

“Jon?”

“No, you imbecile, Lawrence—Larry as his master called him.”

“Larry.” Her lips trembled, that was why she recalled the man’s voice when he’d whispered to her. Whenever her husband took her, Larry always lurked somewhere nearby.
As if he took pleasure in each wounding thrust.

“My beloved brother.
He did not deserve to die that way.”

“He tried to kill me.”

“And you deserved it!” Beth screeched.

Elena shook her head. “N
o, Beth, I did not. Kent
was cruel to me until the end. I have done nothing but care for, love and honor the people of Kent and my family. I was good to you. I do not deserve any of this.” Elena could feel herself losing her temper. It burned hot inside her and she wanted to throttle Beth for her backward thinking. But to lose her temper would only make the woman angrier.

“It does not matter. I will finish the job besides.” Beth lunged at the bed with the poker, but Elena, who’d been waiting for such a move, rolled away just in time. Gripping the candlestick in hand, she thwacked Beth hard on the back of her head, before losing her own balance on the edge of the bed and falling off.

Her lady’s maid slumped to the floor beside her, a smear of blood showing on her light hair.

“Forgive me,” Elena said to the unconscious woman, feeling guilty for yet another head injury the woman should suffer from. “You will most likely have a headache when you wake, but your conscience will be clear of murder.”

Pushing
herself awkwardly to her feet
, Elena
rubbed the ache on her hip from where she’d landed. She walked over to the door and pulled up the board just as the door was shoved open. She lost her balance yet again and fell backward, landing
with an, “
Oof
,” on the floor.

“Oh, dear God, Elena!”
Michael shouted. He reached down and pulled her to standing. “I am so sorry, my love! I had no idea you were standing there. I heard shouts and I came running. What has happened here?”

He peered over her shoulder, his gaze catching the prone woman on the floor.

“She attacked me.”

Michael pulled her into his arms, pressed his lips to the top of her head. “I have failed you again.”

“No, Michael, we had no knowledge she lurked in a menacing way. How could we?”

“I had cause to think—a look she gave.”

Elena pulled back. “Me too, it was yesterday at our wedding, but it was so quick, I thought it a trick of my imagination.”

“Aye, me too.”
Michael shook his head and called to a guard to come and take Beth to the Tower where she would be held for questioning. “Pray there are no others.”

“I do not think Kent has much to stand on in the grave. I cannot imagine any others coming for me.”

“Beth may not be the only one.”

Elena shook her head.
“’Twas revenge that spurred her on, not Kent’s orders.
Her brother was Larry, the man who tried to kill me in Ireland.”

Michael nodded. “That is where I’d seen the dagger before. I could not for the life of me recall.
’
Twas Kent’s man’s dagger.
Let us hope we can be free at last to love in peace.”

“Speaking of loving…” Elena trailed off, as she tugged her husband toward the bed. She desperately needed the comfort and abandon he could provide her
after this latest scare
.

Michael kicked the door shut with his boot and followed.
“With pleasure.”

Epilogue

Seven Months Later…

E
lena crooked her finger at Michael as she backed into their bedchamber. She felt so alive today, so sensual, and she wanted nothing
more than to tease her husband
who’d been pining to climb into he
r bed for nearly three months.

“My lady, the guests should be arriving soon,” he said with a devilish wink as he advanced on her. “What would they think if they arrived to the sounds of our shouts of ecstasy?”

She laughed out loud. “Close the door.”

“As you wish my fairy princess.”
He kicked the door closed without taking his gaze off of her.

Elena stood tall, and slowly, tantalizingly stripped herself naked. She loved the hungry way Michael’s gaze devoured her every move. She shivered, her body reacting to his obvious desire. “Husband, I have not had the pleasure of making love in many months. I want you inside me.
Now.”

It’d been the required amount of time since their little darling princess was born. Sweet Adelaide had been taken on a nice walk in the warm summer air by her nursemaid, to give Elena and Michael some time to themselves.

Michael’s grin widened, and he too stripped bare, tossing clothes to the ground as he stalked toward her. He placed his warm hands on her rounded hips and lifted her high in the air, pressing his face to the valley between her breasts.

He breathed in her scent. “You smell of flowers and spice. The guests can wait.”

She threaded her fingers through his hair and gazed into his eyes. “Aye, but I cannot.”

Michael marched to the bed and tossed her onto its surface amid her laughs. He crawled over her, kissing her from her ankles to her inner thighs. “I have not taste
d your sweet nectar in…too long.
”
His l
ips grazed over the sensitive flesh of her
mons
.

Elena sucked in a breath and pressed her hips upward, begging him to taste her further. Her hands fisted on the sheets, and then in his hair as he tortured her with his tongue. He swirled lightly over her pearl, then stroked up and down with more pressure. Then light, then harder. He pressed a finger to her sheath and slowly entered her.

“Oh, yes,”
El
e
na
moaned, rolling her hips against his mouth.

“Oh,
yes
.
”
Michael’s
voice
was
like that of a very satisfied male.

His fingers danced in and out of her center while his tongue laved at the folds of her sex and the sweet bud. Pleasure most exquisite concentrated there in that little bundle of nerves, and fired along her flesh, making her legs shake, her belly quiver. She gasped and
moaned,
so close to finding release.

“
Peak
for me, my love,” he murmured against her slick folds.

Elena could hold back no longer. “
Oh
!” she shrieked,
undulating
her hips, arching her back, pulling his hair. Her body shattered and for a moment she floated in ethereal space, only knowing the bliss of her husband’s tongue upon her flesh.

Michael gripped her hips and kissed his way from her
mons
to her belly. “So flat, amazing it was once so round,” he teased.

She pretended to swat at him, but he caught a nipple between his lips and all of her play anger dissipated into desire once more. Her sex quivered with the need to be pleasured again. She stroked her toes up and down his legs,
delighting in the sensation of his crisp hair tickling her feet.

Michael sucked her nipple into his mouth, teasing the turgid flesh with his teeth and tongue. “God, I missed you,” he groaned. He pressed his lips to her neck, then to her mouth, surrounding her senses with the scent of sex and desire.

His hard cock pressed to her sex.
Elena
moved her hand down to grip his heavy length in her palm.

“I missed you more.”

“We shall see about that, my lady wife.”

He took his cock in his own hand and slid it up and down between her folds. She sighed,
then
moaned, lifting her hips and wrapping her legs around him in invitation.
How many times had she imagined this moment over the last few months?

“Are you sure?” he
asked,
worry clouding his desire darkened eyes for a moment.

“More than sure.”

“Thank God, I cannot wait.” Michael sank slowly inside her. His thick cock stretched her center inch by inch. “You are so tight…so wet.
Feels so good.
Oh, my love.”
He thrust home, burying himself all the way to the hilt. His hands stroked over her hips, her thighs.

“
Aye
, so good.”
Elena had expected pain, but there was none, only
tingling
pleasure. She threaded her fingers through his hair and tugged his lips to hers
, sw
irl
ing
her tongue around his, grazing her teeth over his lip.

Michael slowly withdrew, then agonizingly inched his way back inside.
He
trailed tender kisses along her neck, stopped every inch or so to suck at her flesh. Erotic sensation mixed with love and euphoria whi
pped itself through Elena
. She stroked her fingers over his back and shoulders, and urged him with the rise and fall of her hips to increase his pace. His tender strokes within her body turned to frenzied thrusts.
Oh, how she
craved release.
Begged for it.
The
delicious pressure built within her, swirling in her center until at last, she cried out. Michael’s movements only increased. He stroked her body, kissed her neck, her mouth, her breasts, while plunging deep and arcing up to touch that special place within her sheath.

“Oh!” she shrieked as her body broke apart once more.

“Yes!” Michael growled against her throat as he drove inside her again and again, holding her hips as anchor, until he shuddered above her. He captured her lips for a searing, carnal, possessive kiss, his seed spilling inside her. His forehead fell against hers and their sated gazes locked. “Shall I tell Arthur not to open the gates for our guests, and we can stay here for another sennight?”

Elena laughed.
“
Aye
.”

They lay still, limbs entwined, holding one another, and whispering words of affection. But their sweet interlude was interrupted moments later when shouts of greetings sounded
from
the courtyard.

“Damn. Not enough time to warn Arthur. I suppose we should dress,” Michael said noncommittally.

“Do you think they wouldn’t mind waiting a little longer?” Elena stroked a finger over his chest, down his abdomen and gripped his already hardening length.

“Oh,
aye
.
Time for your ride, my lady.”
Michael chuckled then rolled to his back, pulling Elena on top of him. He spread her thighs wide and thrust upward into her warmth.

Elena’s head fell backward, her hands splayed on his abdomen as she rocked back and forth. Their movements were frenzied
quick
, each seeking the ultimate finish, their bodies already on fire from their afternoon of lovemaking.

Within moments they both cried out at the same time as a knock sounded at the door. They ignored the knock, riding out their release as though they had all the time in the world.

The knock came again.

“We will be down shortly,” Michael
shouted,
his voice breathless. “Damn servants. You know they heard us too.”

Elena laughed. “Most likely they wish they were in their own beds receiving as much pleasure as we are.”

Michael grinned and slapped her bottom. “No truer words have
ever
been spoken on the matter.”

They finally stood and dressed, then made their way down to the great hall—already full with their guests.

“’Tis about time,” Thomas said, a knowing grin curving his lips.

Elena’s face flushed, and she ducked her head to hide it, but her eyes landed on
Raelyn’s
rounded belly. She looked up sharply.

“
Raelyn
, are you…”

“Aye,” she said rubbing and hand over the swell. “We expect the babe to arrive in late fall.”

“Oh, I am so happy for you!” Elena pulled her friend in close. “You will make an excellent mother,
Raelyn
.”

“Thank you. We saw little Adelaide with her nursemaid. She is the spitting image of you,”
Raelyn
said.

“And her temperament too,” Michael added with a wink.

“Michael, we thank you for your invitation.” A tall, broad nobleman stepped forward, his beautiful
raven-haired
wife beside him.

“Alexander! I am most pleased you could join us. Allow me to introduce my wife, Lady
Elena,
this is the Earl of Arundel and his wife Lady Chloe. He is
one of the courageous men
I served with in France.”

“A pleasure to meet you.”
Elena curtsied.

“You have a gorgeous home,” Chloe said with a slightly French accent.

“My thanks
.
”
Elena
was pleased. Instead of going back to Kent Castle, the s
cene of so many nightmares, she
and
Michael had moved into Leeds Castle making it the main seat for the earldom, which Michael now ruled. When the king learned Elena had born a daughter, he entailed the whole earldom of Kent to Michael.

Fletch and Colin entered the great hall with Theodore and Bernard on their heels. The men all joked and prodded each other. Elena was glad to see that out of so many hardships everyone had prospered. Fletch was the new Captain of the Guard, Colin the Master of Arms and Theodore and Bernard served as second and third in command. Even Arthur, the wily peasant boy from York had moved up in the word. Indeed, Michael had given him a place of honor as Leeds’ Gate Keeper.

Elena sighed with contentment, her eyes falling on Michael to see he was also gazing at her. He grinned and put his arm around her shoulder.

“See, I told you it would all work out in the end, my fairy princess.”

“I would have expected nothing less from the Black Knight. Which rule was this one?”

“New rule,” he leaned in close to her ear. “Ravish your wife at every fortuitous moment you receive.”

“The End”

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A KNIGHT’S VICTORY
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