Hellion (14 page)

Alette was very silent, very still. It had been many years since she had shared a bed with a man. It had been even longer since she had shared her body with a man. She shivered. She was so cold. She knew she should get up and leave him, yet somewhere, deep within her, a tiny flame of curiosity stirred. She might be frightened, but she was not stupid. Rolf de Briard was nothing at all like Robert de Manneville, and, she suspected, he never had been. Isabelle’s obvious contentment with Hugh Fauconier had made Alette wonder. So had Rolf de Briard’s warmhearted blandishments.

“I am no light-skirted serf,” she said halfheartedly.

“You are going to be my wife,” he replied firmly.

“I will never marry again,” Alette declared.

“You would prefer to be my leman to being my wife?” he teased.

“That is not at all what I mean!” Alette cried, confused.

“I want to make love to you,” Rolf de Briard told her, running a single finger down her nose.

“Ohhh, I do not know! I am so afraid, Rolf, and yet …”

He gathered her into his arms and kissed her tenderly. Softly his lips pressed upon hers, subtly beginning his arousal of her.
With expert fingers he unlaced her chemise, pushed it from her shoulders, and caressed her full breasts.

“Ahhh,” Alette cried out, half fearful. She remembered how Robert used to crush and bruise her tender breasts with his cruel, greedy hands; how he had bitten down on her nipples until she screamed with pain. Rolf, however, did none of these things. His hands were gentle, almost teasing as they fondled her. When he bent to kiss the warm flesh, when he took a nipple in his mouth, she tensed in terror, but he merely suckled upon her, sending chilly little ripples down her spine.

“Ah, my darling,” he told her, his voice fervent with passion, “you have the most perfect, the most beautiful breasts I have ever known!” He rained a firestorm of kisses over her palpitating bosom.

She was growing quite light-headed with his attentions. This was so lovely. Why had her husband never touched her like this? Was this what Isabelle was experiencing at the hands of Hugh Fauconier? No wonder she was happy.

“Does my touch give you pleasure, Alette?” Rolf murmured into her ear, kissing it with a tender little kiss.

“
Yes!
” she said.
Pleasure
. It was pleasure she was feeling. She had never before felt pleasure at a man’s touch.

Rolf grew bolder. Slowly, carefully, he pulled the chemise down and off her beautiful little form. She neither resisted nor begged him to cease, but he could feel her tensing as if for a blow. Patiently stroking her, Rolf sensed Alette finally begin to relax within his gentle embrace. He drew her lengthwise across the bed, then bending his blond head, he began to kiss her body with tiny, warm kisses. She vibrated beneath him.

“Ahhh, dear God!” Alette sighed fervently.

Rolf smiled in the dim light of the room, which was lit by just one candle and a faint waning moon outdoors. Nuzzling up her torso, he slid his hot, wet tongue between the valley separating her full breasts. Then he drew his tongue back down her belly, burrowing into her navel with it.

Ohhhhh! Ahhhhh!
Ahhhhhh!
” moaned Alette, whose head
was spinning with a variety of sensations, all of them utterly and absolutely wonderful. She was afire with a longing she had never before felt, had never even known existed.

He gathered her back against him. Her head fell back, blond hair cascading over his arms. Once again his kisses burned into the flesh of her straining throat, found her wildly beating heart, brushed across her breasts, which were now swollen hard and aching. His mouth closed over first one nipple; sucking, teasing it with his tongue; and then the other. Laying her back, he began a more intimate exploration, first touching the insides of her thighs, then touching her Venus mont. His fingers sought out her cleft, pushing through, finding her little pearl, beginning her awakening, kindling a heat such as she had never experienced.

Why am I letting him do this to me? Alette wondered hazily. She knew she must stop him before it was too late, before he finally threw off the mask of the lamb and became the fierce lion he really must be. She had to stop him. Her legs fell open as he stirred her to her first peak.
She had to stop him!
He was atop her. Her hands reached out to push him away, but instead they slipped about his neck to draw him closer.
What was the matter with her
? Oh, God, she could feel his weapon at the mouth of her channel.
He was pushing into her! He was filling her full! He was moving with tender passion upon her, and she wanted him! She wanted him!
She sobbed hungrily, her nails digging into the thick muscles of his broad shoulders. He was moving faster and faster upon her. Her body was responding wildly, pushing up to match his fierce downward thrusts.
And it was wonderful!

His mouth came down upon hers, cutting off her cries of joy. Never, Rolf thought hazily, never before have I felt such sensation. Her fingers kneading at his back, her nails raking him. The tension was building within him until finally he could bear no more, and his passion exploded within her sweet body, his love juices overflowing her womb. They lay gasping in the
fiery afterglow of their spent energies. Then together, clasped in each other’s arms, they wept softly.

“Marry me,” he begged her. “Can you doubt that I love you, will cherish you, will never abuse you?
Marry me!
”

“No,” Alette said low.

Rolf swore, frustrated. “
Why not
?”

“I have told you,” Alette said quietly, “that I shall never again allow any man to have control over me. But I will be your leman, for you have shown me how sweet passion can be between men and women.”

“I will end by killing you,” Rolf groaned.

Alette laughed. “Nay,” she told him, rising from his bed. “You can only kill me with pure delight, my dear Rolf de Briard.”

“Where are you going?” he demanded of her as she put on her chemise and walked toward the door.

“To my own chamber,” she answered him. “If one of the servants should awaken and see I am not in my bed, they will raise a great hue and cry. It would hardly do for them to find me in your bed, would it? No one would ever expect such a thing of me.”

“You are enjoying this,” he accused her, and she laughed again.

“Good night, my lord,” Alette said, feeling happier than she had ever felt in her entire life, except when Belle was born.

“Stay,” he begged her. “Your Ida will not waken, my love. Her snores can be heard throughout the hall. She sleeps heavily.”

“But Agneatha does not,” Alette told him. Opening the door, she slipped through it and was gone.

“Damn, Agneatha,” Rolf muttered softly. Why the hell was Isabelle’s maid still in Alette’s chamber? If her own mistress was not ready to have her sleep in the solar, then let her sleep in the attic with the other servants. Then Rolf had a wicked thought. Agneatha was a fine, strapping girl, and he had noticed she had an eye for his squire, Giles. Giles slept in the
attic. If Giles encouraged the girl, she would be willing to take her place with the other servants above the hall, thinking to seduce Giles, or be seduced by him. Then he could take his own pleasure with Alette, whose servant, Ida, slept so hard once her head touched the pillow that not even the archangel Gabriel’s trumpet would awaken her.

He needed to be alone more with his ladylove that he might rid her of this foolish notion she had about marriage. Rolf tossed restlessly, trying to find a comfortable position. “Damn Robert de Manneville and all his kind to hell!” he said grimly. Had the man been even half decent to his wife, Alette would have been eager to remarry. What kind of man needed to hurt a woman before he could gain his pleasure? Certainly the man had been a coward! Rolf finally slept.

“Do you notice a change in my mother?” Isabelle asked her husband a few days later as they rode out to assess the damage from the latest storm. She was relieved to find there was none. Actually, the snow was helping to heal the land. Sixteen months ago at Martinmas there had been a sea flood of the land such as no man could remember happening before. The tides had swept inland almost two miles, and the Blyth had risen to flood some of Langston’s fields with unusually salty water. Luckily, the salinity there, several miles up from the sea, had been far less than downriver, where it would take years for the fields to be fertile again. They had gotten a crop from the flooded Langston land last year. Now, with all the rains and snows of winter it would return to normal.

“What kind of change?” Hugh responded.

“She is smiling a great deal more than I have ever known her to smile, and she sings constantly while she weaves. It is most annoying, my lord,” Isabelle told him tartly.

He debated whether he should tell her the truth, deciding he really should. “Your mother has taken Rolf de Briard as her lover, ma Belle,” he said. “Rolf loves her, and she is happy. It is quite simple.”

“How dare you spew such a filthy lie about my mother?” Isabelle cried angrily, and, kicking her horse into a gallop, she rode off.

Hugh followed, chasing her across the fields and along the riverbank, where the geese, grazing, flew up in a panic, and finally into a stand of woods. They burst forth from the trees, galloping across a meadow. She was an amazing rider. He wondered when she would tire of their chase. Why was she so distressed that her mother had found happiness again? Perhaps she did not understand that Rolf wanted to wed Alette. Certainly when he explained it all to her she would calm herself. Then Isabelle’s horse stumbled and she was pitched over the mare’s head into a snowbank. To his amazement, and relief, she immediately leapt up, swearing colorfully, brushing the snow from her cloak.

Hugh jumped from his mount. “Are you all right, ma Belle?” he demanded anxiously, rushing up to her.

Isabelle looked up, and then she hit him as hard as she could with her fists. “
Liar!
” she shrieked at him, pummeling him with both of her fists. A big girl, the impact was not soft.

Hugh grabbed for his wife’s hands, but she successfully eluded him, raining blows upon his body wherever she could. “Stop it, you hellion!” he shouted at her. “
Stop it!
I have not lied to you. Ask your mother if she has not taken Rolf for her lover.”

“How dare you even suggest I ask my mother such a thing?” Isabelle yelled at him. “I should never offend her delicacy in such a manner, nor my father’s memory, which I know she honors!”

“Your father was brutal to your mother,” Hugh shouted back. “Rolf de Briard is gentle and kind to Alette. She never knew a man to be so with her. Are you aware that she believed I was abusing you because we spend so much time alone together? She would crouch outside our chamber door at night listening to see if I beat you. Twice she was found there, once by Ida and once by Rolf. Now she knows a man can be amiable
and mild of disposition. She no longer fears for you. Ask her yourself, you damned hellion! I am not in the habit of lying.”

Isabelle’s hands fell to her sides. She seemed drained. “I will ask her,” was all she said. Then remounting her mare, which was standing nearby, she rode back toward the keep.

Hugh Fauconier sighed deeply. What in the name of heaven had made him believe he had tamed her so easily? Then he laughed at himself for his naiveté. Isabelle was a wonderful bed partner. She was passionate, and quick to learn.
That
, at least, they had in common, he thought wryly; but there was far more to his wife, he was discovering, than just her amorous talents. She was intelligent, clever, and loyal. She also had a fearsome temper that had obviously not waned a whit simply because she enjoyed making love with him. Oh yes. He was a fool.
A fool who was falling in love with his wife
. Mounting his horse, he turned the beast’s head toward home, wondering just what he would find there when he arrived.

When he reached the keep, Isabelle was nowhere in sight, but he saw a stable lad leading her mare into its shelter. Calling the boy to take his stallion, too, he dismounted and hurried up the steps of the porch into the hall. Alette was seated at her loom, weaving at her tapestry. Rolf was on a stool by her side, strumming his lute. Belle stood in the shadows watching them. When Rolf took Alette’s hand in his, kissing it, their eyes met tenderly.

Isabelle then strode into the hall, unaware that her husband was just behind her. “So, madame,” she said in haughty tones to her mother, “this is how you honor my father’s memory! I am told you have become this man’s whore.
Shame! Shame!
”

Alette paled, but she jumped to her feet, facing her daughter bravely. “How dare you presume to criticize me, Isabelle,” she said angrily. “The father you loved was a bad husband to me, though I never complained of it. He was a bad father to you as well, though you know it not. Had he been a better father, he would have allowed me to punish you when you were unruly. That he did not is to both our detriments.”

“You were too much of a mouse to dare complain to Robert de Manneville of your alleged mistreatment,” Isabelle snapped.

“No one, but a man and his wife,” Alette quickly responded, “knows what goes on behind the closed doors of their solar.”

“How brave you have suddenly become, madame,” was the sneering reply.

“Love, my daughter, has made me both brave and strong,” Alette said quietly, standing proudly by Rolf’s side.

“And does he love you, madame?” Isabelle said. “And if he does, why does he not make you his wife? This man wants only what is between your legs. He shows you no honor. At least my father did.”

“I have asked your mother to marry me, my lady Isabelle,” Rolf spoke up, “but she will not. I will, however, pursue her until she does, for I love her with all my heart. I do, indeed, honor her.”

“Is this so, madame?” Isabelle demanded of her mother.

“I will never marry again,” Alette said quietly. “I will not allow myself to be in any man’s keeping. I will be my own mistress.”