LordoftheHunt (22 page)

He looped his horse’s reins over the branch of a low bush
near the castle road. He took her hand, held it briefly, then let it go,
wanting to take her into his arms and express the gratitude that filled him.
“Come, teach me the hand signals,” he said instead.

She clapped her hands over her mouth and laughed. “Oh, you
must have the hounds to do the teaching. They’ll need to know you, learn your
smell. See that I trust you.”

“You do trust me, do you not?”

There was only a heartbeat of hesitation. But it was there.
“How could I not?” she said. She turned away from him and rubbed his horse’s
nose. “You showed me the Diana chamber. Were you not offering me your trust
then?”

They agreed to meet in the fields outside the castle in the
first hour after Matins. She would leave at dawn with three of her father’s
huntsmen for protection and ride for Winchester if he was able to control the
hounds.

“Will Nat object?” Adam asked.

She shook her head. “Nay. I’ll tell him the truth, that I’m
carrying a package for you, and you are rewarding me handsomely.”

Adam nodded. “Aye, remind him I paid his gaming debts to
Lord Roger and that carrying my package will more than repay the favor. Tell
him I’m paying you ten pounds and traveling expenses for the work.”

“Oh, too much! Make it less, or he’ll be suspicious.”

“The amount of his gambling debts? And traveling expenses?”

“Perfect. Now, you must get some sleep. You may be out all
night if the dogs prove leery of you.”

She slid her hand down the horse’s neck and across his
fingers. He shivered. The gentle caress felt as if someone had drawn a silken
cloth over his skin. His voice sounded thick when he spoke. “I’ll want more
than lessons when we meet.”

Adam stood on the river bank, near his swimming spot, where
no guards on the ramparts could see him, and watched Joan come across the
fields toward him with the stride of a woman who had no pretensions, who knew
where she belonged, and with whom. Adam wished for such surety in his own life.

Behind her trotted a troop of hounds: greyhounds, a lymer,
several alaunts, and running hounds.

They met on the river bank, by a flat rock. She smiled, but
did not touch him. Instead, she held her hands very stiff at her side, fingers
together. The dogs sat like sentinels at a mystical gate, stiff and straight.

Joan turned from the dogs to where Adam stood. Dark clouds
roiled across the sky, snuffing the meager light, casting him in shadow. Wind
whipped her skirt and snapped her mantle against her legs. Something, turbulent
as the storm that tossed the river water to a frothy mix, swept through her as
well.

He put out his hand in a signal as ancient as any man had
devised. She slid her fingertips across his warm palm. He pulled her close,
then crushed her against him.

His mouth was as hungry as it had been the first time. She
burrowed into his mantle for his warmth.
I love you
, she wanted to say,
but held silent. He must say it first.

He ended it, setting her off with two firm hands on her
shoulders, and turning toward the waiting dogs.

“I’ve brought the most important dogs,” she said, trying to
sound as efficient as possible lest he doubt her abilities. “These dogs lead
the others. Most of my commands are hold and release orders. Sometimes Nat is
telling a story or studying the flight of a hawk and forgets to release them. I
do so with a signal.”

“The huntsmen or fewterers don’t know when to let them
loose?”

“Oh, aye, but the huntsmen always look to Nat for their
orders. But if the dogs go, the men go.” She smiled and shrugged. “It is just
so. Nat can fail to give the order, but the huntsmen will move if the dogs
move.”

And so Adam’s lesson began. Within an hour, he had Joan’s
signals by heart. The hounds knew them already, so it was just a matter of
teaching him. The hounds gave him their instant allegiance, perhaps because
Joan’s scent and his were so entwined.

A short while later, Joan pointed at the milling dogs who
now ran and frolicked by the water’s edge. “Give them the signal to gather.”

Adam did so. When one hound caught the signal, he woofed and
the others drew around.

“Now release them,” Joan said.

Instead, when she turned her head, he gave the signal for
them to sit like statues. The dogs lined up and stared at her.

“Oh, dear. What’s wrong?” Joan held his sleeve. “It was
going so well.”

“I guess we’ll need to continue. We have a few hours more.”
But he couldn’t help smiling.

“You’re teasing me.” She tucked a few strands of hair back
into her plait. “That will not do.”

“I wanted more time—for us.” He tugged on the leather thong
that held her hair. The wind whipped it loose in glorious disarray about her
shoulders. Blood sang in his veins to see her so.

“You have as much time as you wish.” She looked down, the
leashes wrapped about her fist. “I could take the hounds home…then come back.”

* * * * *

Adam sat on a rock at the river’s edge and waited
impatiently. He felt as if half the night was gone, precious hours he could
never reclaim. Then he saw her.

A low mist lay on the fields and it parted before her in an
eerie swirl. She looked like an ancient goddess in the silvery light. Coming to
him for one purpose only—to lie in his arms.

He stood up slowly and waited for her. She walked straight
into his embrace. Her cheeks were cold and he threw his mantle about her,
drawing her to the spot where they could climb to the caves.

“See that stack of rock?” he asked.

“Oh, aye.”

“If you climb it, you will come to the entrance of the Roman
Way just about where the water has stained the rocks.”

Joan followed where he pointed. “I see the mark.”

“It is not so easy to get lost once you have found the
opening, and I’ve left the trap door in the crypt unlocked, should you ever
need it. Come, we’ll see if you can navigate your way up there.”

“I cannot imagine why I would need to,” she said.

The climb was easy once you knew the route. When they
reached the top, Joan felt her stomach begin to dance about. She had returned
to make love with him. She’d tried to deny it as she’d put the hounds to bed,
but once she crossed the field and saw him waiting, there seemed little point
in denial.

“I want you to promise to seek Hugh de Coleville should you
ever find yourself in danger.”

“You are so solemn. What ails you?”

“A tournament melee is dangerous. Men as able as I have
fallen there.”

“I’ll not see the tournament—”

“Have you ever made love in the open air?” he asked
abruptly.

“Foolish question,” she whispered as he drew her close.

“Aye. I should know, shouldn’t I?” He kissed her forehead.
“If you are with child, I will see to it, I promise.”

Her belly churned a bit.

“You say nothing.” He lifted her chin. “You surely know that
we cannot lie together as we have and not make a babe.”

“It will be as God wills.”

“And will you take a mercenary to husband, if need be?” His
words were whispered across her lips, yet she felt their import deep within her
body.

Could she wed a mercenary? One who’d risen through the very
Flemish company that had orphaned her?

He lifted her chin. “Joan. Three men are responsible for
your family’s deaths. Only three. Not a company. Not every man who followed
after them.”

Her throat hurt. “I know you’re right.”

“‘Tis said you have one passion—the hatred of mercenaries.”

Joan heard the urgent need in his voice to know her heart.
“That was true—once. Nat helped me make peace with what happened. Nat and
helping with the hounds. But I remember sometimes. I cannot help it.”

“Could you wed a mercenary?”

“Are you saying you’ll want to wed me if I’m with child?”

“I will want you even if you are not.”

How warm was his body, how strong his arms. She relaxed
against him and knew he felt as aroused as she.

When he spoke, his breath was warm on her temple. “You may
return from Winchester to find Roger or possibly Francis has been chosen by
Mathilda. If so, if ‘tis Roger, you might want to reconsider Oswald’s proposal.
It would protect Nat in a way I cannot. Yet, I ask you if you’ll wed me.”

She leaned back, looked up into Adam’s face, and gave him
only half an answer. “I cannot lie with Oswald.”

It was an equivocation. Could she take Nat away from
Ravenswood to one of Adam’s manors? Should she wed Oswald to see Nat happy? Had
she been lying to the bishop and herself when she’d said she would never wed
the man?

Adam pulled her tightly against his body. “I know it is
cold, but lie with me. Now. Here.”

She stepped only as far away as necessary to reach for the
laces at his throat. She stripped them open, slowly and then rose on tiptoe to
plant a kiss on the beat of his pulse. A soft sound penetrated the haze of his
allure.

“It sounds like one of the dogs.” She broke from Adam’s
embrace and clambered cautiously over a tumble of rocks. “Adam. Oh, my God.
Adam, come.”

She reached the dog where he was trapped, his paw wedged in
a crevice. He lay in a puddle of water. “Oh, Basil,” she whispered, releasing
his foot. He crept into her lap.

Adam went down on his haunches at her side. “Is his paw
broken?”

With a practiced hand, she ran her fingers along the dog’s
legs and paws. “Nay. No bones are broken. Look—” She showed Adam a ragged piece
of rope tied to his collar. “He’s chewed through this.”

“That answers the question of what happened to the dog. He
must have run away.”

“Nay, Adam. We do not use rope to tie our dogs, and they are
not collared in the kennel. This was done to him by another.”

Adam undid the rope and wrapped it about his fingers. “Why
not just kill him? Why tie him up somewhere?”

Joan rubbed Basil’s ears. “To discredit Nat.”

“Then why not kill him?”

She shrugged. “To return him later and reap the praise…Oh
God, this must be Oswald’s work. He alone would benefit from finding Basil. He
reported our trouble to the bishop, you know. It makes Nat look incompetent and
him… Oh, I hate Oswald. And to think he wants to wed me.”

Adam took her hand. “I’m assuming you’ll resist the man’s
allure.”

She smiled and ducked her head. “Just thank God whoever did
this has some mercy in him, and thank God for the rain as well, or Basil would
be dead, caught here with no food. At least he had water to drink.”

Joan looked at Adam over the lymer’s ears. “Whether Oswald
or another, they did this to blame Nat.”

Uncomfortable, Adam said, “I’ve already mentioned the dog’s
loss to Mathilda. When we spoke of Christopher.”

“If I take Basil home, there will be a dozen questions to
answer. I’ll be endlessly delayed. But Nat must have this dog back.”

She stroked Basil’s nose. He licked at her fingers and gave
a soft woof.

“I’ll take him back.” Adam combed her hair from her brow.
“Let’s get him up to the caves and dry him off.”

Involving himself with the dog meant risking Nat’s
recognition again, but it could not be helped. “When you’re gone,” he said to
Joan. “I’ll simply go swimming and find him.”

Adam carried Basil up the stony way to the caves. Once
inside, he lay his mantle out and this time, instead of inviting Joan to lie
there with him, he coaxed Basil to the center and scratched his ears until he
settled, nose on his front paws.

Joan saw the moon had set behind the trees. “We have no
time,” she said.

“No point in wasting it with sleep.” Adam drew her close and
kissed her.

His tunic served as a place for her to kneel when she had
set aside her gown. Garbed only in her shift, she could feel the rising winds
as they crept like fingers across the rocks.

She moaned in her throat when he pulled off his shirt and
knelt before her.

“What man without wits would think you plain?” he asked,
smoothing his fingers across her cheeks.

“I’ve freckles. I’ve a scar.” She touched her temple.

“‘Tis a tiny mark. I have my own.” He took her fingertips
and kissed them, then drew them to his eyebrow.

“How did it happen?” she asked, tracing the fine shape of
his bones from eyebrow to jaw.

“I challenged a mercenary for command of his men. He was a
mean brute and used them ill. I knew if I treated them with respect, they would
follow me to the death.” He smiled. “And I confess, it helped that I paid them better.”

She covered his hand and drew it to her breast. “Did you
carve your mark in a woman’s breast?”

“Answer that question yourself.” He traced his V on her
breast over and over.

“‘Tis strange, but when you touch me so, I feel it here.”
She cupped her hands over her mound.

“Sweet Joan. It is passion you feel.”

He took her hands and placed them over the hard line of his
manhood. “When you look at me thusly, I feel it here.”

He shuddered when, without his urging, she caressed him from
the warm fullness of his sack to the tip of his cock. When he could bear it no
more, he undressed her. Soon, there was naught between them. He felt a throb of
blood in his groin and when he put his hand to her breast, her heart beat with
equal speed, rapid and hard.

He thrust his fingers into her hair and kissed her forehead,
brows, eyes again and again.

“I am afraid of what the morrow will bring. It’s hard to
leave my father in your care,” she said, turning her face into his palm.

“I’ll honor my promise to look after Nat. You’ve heard tales
of me that are not true.”

She traced a V on his chest.

“Once, I lay with a whore. She was not so very young and not
so very pretty, but she made me laugh at a time when there was little laughter
in my life. When we were finished with each other, and I took my leave, she
begged me for a token. I had naught to leave behind, so I took up a stick and
with the ashes of the fire, I wrote my V upon a scrap of my shirt.

“She held it to her breast and said she would treasure it.
Some of the ash transferred to her skin. To my great amusement, she flung open
the shutters as I rode away and displayed her breasts, calling her adieus. My
men saw the mark and have teased me ever since. Thus, through time and gossip,
the legend has grown.” He drew a V on her breast with the edge of his finger.
“And if I could mark you so all would know you were mine, I would.”

She wrapped her arms about his neck. She gently bit his
lower lip.

“Kiss me everywhere,” he said.

She hesitated for one heartbeat, unsure until she touched
her lips to his chest. His answering moan emboldened her. In that moment, she
felt like the goddess in the Roman chamber, in command of his body, able to
bring him to his knees.

She pleasured him with her tongue, hunting through the crisp
hair on his chest for his nipples, and stroking them hard. She kissed his
shoulder, throat, and finally his mouth with a hunger she had not known was
possible. At the same time, she drew her nails down his hard belly to his
manhood.

He lifted her, parting her legs that they might encircle his
waist. She cried aloud at the feel of him sliding into her. Then she could only
hold him, his breath panting hot and moist on her shoulder as he moved. Each
powerful stroke of his body deep into her sent jolts of sensation through her.

Then he ended it, pushing into her, holding still, groaning
her name. She sagged in his arms. He eased her to the ground.