Joanna (33 page)

“Geoffrey” she whispered, having not the faintest idea of what she would say next.

“Nothing I can do will content me,” he muttered, pulling her close again to nuzzle under her hair and kiss her throat. “I want
you
, Joanna. The desire for you grows and grows. You hang before my eyes when I lie alone at night and evenoh, God”

Joanna neither laughed nor became angry, although she knew quite well what Geoffrey had almost confessed. Even   when he had another woman, he had been about to say, he still desired her. Joanna knew there must be others, but just now she was growing too excited to care. As soon as he stopped speaking, Geoffrey had employed his mouth to a better purpose, forcing his head under her chin, brushing aside her robe with his cheek, and kissing her chest lower and lower until his lips found the curve of a breast rising from the cleavage. He was following that now and shifting his grip on her so that his fingers could catch the robe and draw it aside. Before she realized what he had accomplished, Geoffrey dropped his head still lower and took her nipple in his mouth.

A cry in response to a pleasure nearly as agonizing as pain rose in Joanna’s throat. To silence it, although she had no idea why silence was imperative, Joanna bent her head forward and buried her face in the back of Geoffrey’s neck. The mail hood scratched her cheek and he stank of stale sweat and tired horse. That made no difference; if anything, the pain and odor excited her still more. She pulled free the arm that was clamped between her side and Geoffrey’s. He tightened his grip, fearing she would try to fight free, but that had not even occurrred to her. All Joanna wanted was to find Geoffrey’s flesh. She slid her arm up his back and pulled the hood away, exposing Geoffrey’s nape so that she could fasten her lips to that.

A muffled moan came up from the area of Joanna’s breast. The feel of her lips on the back of his neck was obliterating what little sanity Geoffrey had left. No one had ever kissed that spot within his memory. He moaned again, spread his legs, and tried futilely to shift Joanna so that the pressure of her body would come where he needed it. Hauberks, however, are designed to ward off far greater pressures than the weight of a slender girl, and the chausses, shirt and tunic under it provide little freedom. Geoffrey was on the horns of a dilemma. He could not bear to release the sweet flesh he was tasting; he could not move more than his lower body lest he interrupt the work of those warm lips that were sending chills down his backbone, which somehow   turned to a raging fire across his loins. Nonetheless, he had to move or he could not satisfy the need that was now so strong he ached from the thighs to the belly.

The sounds Geoffrey was making were almost as stimulating to Joanna as what he was doing. Utterly beside herself, she cried, “Ah! Ah!” aloud and clutched at her lover’s head.

Outside the door, Edwina sighed with relief. She had been listening at the door intently for a long time; she was tired and wanted to go back to sleep herself. For a time it had seemed as if the lord and Joanna would talk all night, but at last they had fallen silent. Now Edwina was sure, with the certainty that fatigue and wanting something very much brings, that she had heard her mistress call out her name. Very quickly, before they could begin to talk again, she opened the door.

“All is ready, my lady,” she called cheerfully, her eyes directed toward the spot she had decided was the best to set up the bed.

As she spoke, Edwina turned to look at Joanna. At the sound of her voice, Geoffrey’s head had come up and what he had been doing was all too apparent. Edwina uttered a half gasp, half giggle and backed out more precipitately than she had entered. The door was closing before Geoffrey could draw breath to roar, “Out!”

For one moment both he and Joanna were frozen, Geoffrey’s arms tense with indecision. If she sought to flee him, he did not know whether he would strive to hold her. The paralysis was broken when, with a soft sob, Joanna allowed her head to drop forward onto his shoulder. She would not resist him. Where force might have turned Geoffrey into a lunatic, the yielding restored reason. However, reason could not conquer a need that a year’s waiting and musing upon his prize had honed to a razor sharpness.

“I will not despoil you,” Geoffrey whispered, “I swear it. Let me ease myself, Joanna.”

She raised her eyes and they were like the soft mist of dawn over a clear spring sky. Geoffrey shifted his hold upon   Joanna and stood up with her in his arms. He carried her through the solar and laid her softly on the bed. Dire need lends strength and agility. It was no easy thing for a man to shed a hauberk unaided, but Geoffey had it off in one swift pull, indifferent to the way the steel rings scoured his face and tore an earlobe. The precious garment, ordinarily so carefully examined and folded was tossed aside without a glance. Tunic, shirt, and chausses followed, one cross garter untied, the other torn loose. All the time, Geoffrey stared at Joanna, fearing that the enchantment that held her would break.

The trance of desire was deep, and his frantic haste to remove his clothing cried aloud of the need that was as exciting to Joanna as a caress. When he was naked, Geoffrey’s fearful urgency diminished. He did not fling himself upon her. He came to the bed slowly, slowly leaned forward to touch his mouth to hers. Joanna’s eyelids quivered and slowly, as the kiss grew more insistent, closed. Gently and carefully, kissing her still, Geoffrey unknotted Joanna’s belt and drew her robe aside. Then he released her lips and looked at what he had.

Her flesh was white, whiter than he had ever seen, and fair women were no novelty in this northern land. The raised nipples were like pink roses at the summit of her firm breasts, and brilliant, even in the dim light of the night candle, the red-gold curls drew the eye to the mount of Venus. Breathing as if he had run a mile in full armor, Geoffrey placed a knee beside Joanna’s thigh and mounted her. Under him, her body jerked, her eyes flew open. He let himself down hastily, damming her mouth with his lips and cupping her breasts with thumbs raised to rub the nipples. She whimpered again and, involuntarily, her thighs parted. There was still one thin thread of sanity in Geoffrey and, for all the raging and plunging of lust, it held firm. Sobbing, he thrust himself between Joanna’s thighs and closed her legs with pressure from his own.

When he was done, he lay quiet above her, less with exhaustion than for fear of Joanna’s reaction. If he had   frightened her or angered her enough, she could withdraw from the marriage. He would have lost fulfillment for a simulacrum. Geoffrey bit his lips. For a little while, he had better speak softly and sweetly, more as if he were pleading for a mistress’s favor than ordering a wife. Now she was still, although she had struggled fiercely under him while he moved. Very gently, he turned his head and kissed herand tasted blood. Geoffrey’s eyes snapped open and he lifted himself to see.

“Beloved, beloved,” he whispered, stroking the tumbled, fiery hair, “did I bite you? I am sorry, sorry, beloved. I would not hurt you on purpose for the surety of heaven. Joanna, Joanna, do not weep. I did you no hurt. You are a maid still. I swear it.”

Joanna knew that all too well. The tears that were leaking out of her eyes were drawn there by frustration, not by grief. The bitten lip was no fault of Geoffrey’s either. It was her own teeth that had drawn the blood. He was content, but her body still raged, deprived by Geoffrey’s restraint of what it craved. It was as well he had held her still with his weight for a little time or she would have clawed him and cursed him for his care of her virtue. Now, although she still quivered and ached and throbbed, her mind was master again, and she was grateful.

Since it was obvious that Joanna intended no immediate violence, Geoffrey came off her completely. He drew her robe together tenderly, having nothing with which to wipe her thighs and hesitating to touch her so intimately just now, and retied the belt. She lay still with closed eyes, her face unreadable to him.

“Sweet love, forgive me,” he pleaded. “You are as you were, and none will know of this. I will go out and bid that maid be silent in such a way that torture will not wring a hint from her.”

At that, a faint, quivering smile touched Joanna’s lips. She opened her eyes and shook her head. “You need not fear Edwina’s indiscretion. She is close bound to me and will do or say nothing that could hurt me.”   “Then I am forgiven? When I heard that Wales had flown to arms, instead of thinking of our dead men-at-arms and the destruction of our plans against France, all I could think was that Ian would be bound to Ireland for God knows how long and for that long we could not marry.”

“But you can think more clearly now?” Joanna asked, her voice trembling between indignation and amusement.

“No!” Geoffrey exploded. “That is not the same as” He caught her expression, and shed the false humility he had assumed. “I tell you, it is time we were married. You must be sure by now whether you can make a life with me. You must write to your mother and tell her we wish to be wed.”

Slowly, reluctantly, Joanna shook her head. “You say it was only to protect me that we were betrothed instead of married, but that cannot be. I told my mother and Ian, as soon as they named you to me, that I was content and ready. I never had a doubt. After all, Geoffrey, you were not unknown to me. There must be some other cause.”

“I tell you, there is not. Ian made it plain to me and to my father that”

“Your father,” Joanna murmured. “Do not be angry, but is it not possible that Ian had something in his mind he could not tell your father? I do not mean for lack of trust, but for fear of hurting him?”

“It is possible,” he answered unwillingly, “butDamn you, Joanna, do you not care? Do you feel nothing for me?”

“How ridiculous! You must know my body answers yours. What did you think I was trying to do before?”

“You might have been trying to free yourself,” Geoffrey answered doubtfully, and then, when Joanna laughed, he was flattered and smiled back. “I was too busy with my own concerns,” he admitted, “to think much about anything.”

The confession that Joanna desired him soothed Geoffrey. At the time, he did not think of the careful distinction she had made. He was currently so much absorbed by the body’s need that he did not consider what more would be   necessary after that was fulfilled. He touched Joanna’s cheek and then kissed her gently on the forehead. She sighed a little but did not stir and Geoffrey turned away to gather up his scattered clothing, surprised at how he had flung it about. One shoe was gone completely, and he hunted further and further from the bed until he found it near the seat that was built across the window. The shutters were fastened back because the day had been blazingly hot. Now, however, a wind was rising. The night candle flickered and, when a stronger gust blew in, went out.

Geoffrey leaned out to unhook the thong which held the shutter fast. As he drew one side toward him, his eyes traveled idly first up toward the sky and then out across the river. The sky above was dark. The moon and stars were hidden by a heavy veil of cloud, which was not unexpected. When a wind came after so hot a day, it was almost surely because a storm was brewing. Turning toward the other shutter, Geoffrey froze. South, across the river, the sky had an ugly red glow. Dawn? Geoffrey wondered. Even as the thought crossed his mind he knew it was not possible.

“Joanna,” he called sharply, “come here.”

He heard the bed creak in instant response and spared a thought to thank God for his betrothed’s good sense and good nature. One time a silly bitch he had tumbled had simpered, when he called her to warn of danger, that if he wanted what she had he could come to her.

“What is it?” Joanna asked.

The soft breath on his cheek and the scent of her, woman and spice, nearly distracted him from what he had to say. However, in the few seconds that he had taken to call and she to come, the glare south of the river had deepened.

“Look there.” Geoffrey pointed. “Is it my eyes? Can there be a false dawn that color?’

“It is not near time for dawn,” Joanna replied, her voice thinner than usual, “and the sun does not rise in that place. It is fire, Geoffrey.”

“Holy God,” he breathed, “merciful Mother, have pity!”  
p.

For a few heavy heartbeats Geoffrey and Joanna leaned at the window. Then, softly, Geoffrey asked, “When did it last rain here, Joanna? How long has it been hot?”

“It was hot when I came. At Roselynde we were giving thanks that the harvest was so well advanced. You remember, after it turned so mild in March, it stayed warm. But there has been rain in plenty, Geoffrey, onlyonly not very recently. Two days after I came it rained.”

“All day?”

“No, it was short, but very hard.”

She could not see his face in the dark, but there was no mistaking the anxiety in his voice. “You think of crops, Joanna. For the broken earth of a tilled field, rain is rain. It soaks into the earth and that is good. For the hard-packed ways of a town and the old walls of houses, it is different. If the rain is not slow and easy, falling for many hours, it only runs away to the river. It does not wet the wood. When did it rain as I said?”

Joanna shook her head, then realized he could not see her. “Not since I have come, that is nigh two weeks.” She drew a deep breath as if to steady herself. “But it is on the other side of the river, Geoffrey. It will do us no harm.”

“Likely true,” Geoffrey agreed. He looked up at the sky but could see nothing. “Still, I do not like that wind. I will ride out, I think, and see where the fire is.”

Fear leapt up and fastened teeth in Joanna’s throat. Fire was always a fearful thing, but in London where the houses were all built of wood and all packed close together so that sparks could leap from one to the other, it was a ravening beast to be fled in haste. There was little chance of fighting   it even here, where large gardens separated the houses of noblemen from each other; there was no chance at all further downriver where the poorer tradesmen’s dwellings clustered close.

“Ride out to see where the fire is?” Joanna scolded. “What are you, a child that needs to watch things bum?”