Secret Song (35 page)

“Not really,” he said, and drew back, now looking at her face. “Gwyn's breasts are much fuller, her nipples a darker plum color and soft as velvet. Her breasts quivered, as if apart from her, when I caressed them, and they filled my open hands to overflowing.”

She was unable to keep the pain his words brought her from showing on her face, but she had asked him. What had she expected? That he would tell her she was the most exquisite creature imaginable and that Gwyn was nothing? She tried to cover herself then but he grabbed her wrists and pulled them down.

“Enough of this damned nonsense. Listen to me, Daria. You're my wife. I choose to look at you. Don't throw the other in my face again. It happened; it's over with. Now, I don't want you ever to cover yourself in front of me unless I tell you it is all right.”

“Will this other happen again, Roland? And again?”

He shook his head again, saying nothing.

Her breasts were heaving and she saw that he was staring at them again, still holding her wrists in front of her. Her gown was bunched at her waist. Suddenly he pushed her onto her back and came down beside her. He lowered his head and brushed his cheek against the underside of her breast, back and forth, slowly moving upward until his tongue touched her nipple and she felt a shock of such intense excitement plunged through her that she gasped aloud with the strength of it. And she felt humiliated because she'd gasped. His tongue played over her flesh and the feelings built, becoming more insistent, more urgent.

“Please, Roland.”

His splayed fingers slipped beneath her bunched gown and rested on her belly. He raised his head and looked into her face. “On your back, your belly is still flat. I can believe there isn't a babe in your womb.”

She thought she saw a shaft of pain in his dark eyes, but he lowered his head again quickly to her breast and suckled her until she was shaking.

His fingers found her, and once again he raised his head to look down into her dazed eyes.

“Do you like that, Daria? My fingers on you? Do you know how you feel to me?”

His voice followed the cadence of his fingers: deep, caressing, rhythmic. She opened her mouth and moaned. He leaned down and kissed her, and his tongue eased into her mouth and she burst into her climax at that instant. She cried out and he took her cries deep within himself. So much passion in her, he thought, dazed and triumphant with the evidence of it. He was hurting now, his body trembling with the force of his lust. He left her, unable to wait longer. She lay there, her legs sprawled, her gown in a tangle about her hips, and her eyes were bewildered and lost. Lost until he came over her, lifted her legs, and drove into her.

He thrust his tongue into her open mouth as his sex plunged more deeply inside her.

He felt the rippling pleasure as her fingers now dug into his back, and his pleasure built and built as she lurched and bucked frantically beneath him. He cried out into her mouth, his breath warm, so deep he touched her womb, and he found release so profound, so overwhelming, that it touched the deepest part of him.

He kept kissing her even though he felt drugged with exhaustion. He needed to kiss her, craved to kiss her; he craved the taste and texture of her mouth. And she drew him to her, and he wasn't in any mood to fight it now. And he continued to kiss her, nibbling at her lower lip, touching his tongue to hers, feeling her delight when she initiated the touching.

Finally, sated, his body still sealed to hers, he knew he must regain control, control of himself, control of her. He raised his head and said, “There will be no more talk about Gwyn. There will be no more talk about any women before Gwyn. Why should I seek out another woman when I have you? And you, Daria, are so passionate that I wonder how you remained a virgin for as long as you did. Of course, I really do not know about your virginity, do I?”

Shock made her reel, but she recovered herself quickly. “You were there when the Earl of Clare made me lie on my back, when he made me hold still and he thrust his finger into me. You were there and you know I was a virgin, yet you wish to wound me. I hate you, Roland.”

“I'm inside you, and you're wet and hot around me. Don't be a fool, Daria. There is no part of you, save your woman's vanity, that could possibly hate me.”

“Then I hate this need you seem to have to hurt me. I hate your cruelty, Roland. I don't understand why you do it.”

He pulled out of her and rose, straightening his clothes with abrupt clumsy movements, for his body was sluggish and slow from the intensity of his release. He was, truth be told, angry at himself. The words had come unbidden from his mouth; her damned virginity—of course he'd stood there whilst the Earl of Clare had—He shook his head. He couldn't bear to think of that.
When she thinks about it, what does she feel?
More fretting, and now he'd shoved her away from him yet again. He didn't particularly understand why he'd baited her either. But it didn't matter. It put him back in control, firmly away from her. He smiled, but it wasn't a pleasant smile. At least he'd gained pleasure from her before he'd pushed her away, and pushed himself away as well. As to what it felt like to kiss her, he refused to be touched by it. “I thank you for the diversion. I feel very much at my ease now. Now, I think it wise for you to go to the hall and oversee the servants. I wouldn't want them to forget you are their mistress.”

She lay there, her body still pulsing slightly with lazy shocks of pleasure. She watched him stride quickly to the door. He turned and said over his shoulder, “You are mistress here. See to your duties.”

“Are you one of my duties?”

“Aye, and you've done well by me last night and today. Very well indeed. I shan't complain at your lack of skill. It will come. A wench with your enthusiasm will learn rapidly. And I am a good teacher. Aye, Daria, I am your first responsibility and you will see to me whenever I wish it.” And he left her, and she thought she heard him whistling before the door closed behind him.

She was such a fool, she thought wearily as she rose from the bed, to think that he could possibly have changed with her arrival. She should have remained at Wolffeton. But to do what? To sit about doing nothing at all while Kassia went humming about her duties? Whilst Kassia laughed and teased her husband and nibbled his ear when she didn't believe anyone saw? No, staying there would have destroyed her.

Daria grinned then. By coming here she'd learned what passion was all about, and she quite liked it, even if Roland must needs ruin it after he was through with her. She more than quite liked it. Roland wasn't the only one to feel as though his body was shattering, flying out of control, yet demanding more and more until it was all chaos and sensation and nothing else mattered. He used her and she would use him. It was even. She wouldn't think of anything else. She would care for her babe when it was born, shower her love on her son or daughter. And she would use her husband and ignore his insults.

It was true about passion, she thought again, her eyes closing as a vague tremor of feeling passed through her. It was beyond any experience that she could have imagined. If Roland thought of her as only a convenient receptacle for his lust, why, then, she would view him as a convenient—What? She wasn't certain how to divide up a man. She touched her fingertips to her lips. She could still feel him, feel his hunger, his urgency, and then his simple enjoyment of kissing her. He'd acted like a starving man. Ah, she loved to kiss him as well. Well, then, she was fortunate that she enjoyed his kisses. She didn't need anything else from him.

She felt his seed on her thighs, rose slowly from the bed and bathed herself, but the scent of him lingered and the scent of her as well, and she wanted to weep because there was no part of her, even her perverse vanity, that hated him.

What was she to do?

It was obvious to her now what she had to do. If any niggling feelings for her husband crept unasked into her mind, she would simply take him to her bed until the feelings disappeared and she was glutted with passion.

She went down into the great hall. Soon she would take things into hand. But not now, not whilst Sir Thomas was here. She quite liked him, she didn't wish to hurt him or make him feel an outsider. The servants seemed to respond to her nicely, she realized with some relief by the time the evening meal had been justly consumed. She suspected that Old Alice, the resident autocrat, had dictated that she was the mistress and thus to be obeyed, bless her. Even Gwyn smiled at her, and did her bidding with satisfying speed.

There was no one to hold her in dislike save her husband.

 

Two weeks later, on the first Monday in August, the king's soldiers, led by Robert Burnell, arrived with Daria's dowry from the Earl of Reymerstone.

They also arrived with something else.

Burnell was weary to his bones, worried that the king was suffering from his absence, and relieved that the Earl of Reymerstone hadn't tried to murder him, though he'd seen the burning hate in the man's pale eyes, and known that it had been close for a time. Burnell didn't know if God had interceded on his behalf, but it made him feel blessed to believe it was so. The Earl of Reymerstone had allowed them to leave with a dozen mules, all laden with more goods that would have been Daria's had she married Ralph of Colchester. If Burnell hadn't insisted upon reading the marriage contract the earl had signed with Colchester, he never would have known about all the other goods. And that had made the earl all the more furious. Thank the good Lord he hadn't tried to murder them on their journey to Cornwall.

Daria looked from Robert Burnell's tired face toward the mules. There were coin, plate, jewels—she knew that there had been more that her uncle would have brought to her wedding. But so much more? Daria was stunned at the number of laden mules that came into the inner bailey, one after another.

So much, and now it belonged to Roland.

It was then that she saw her mother. Daria let out a yell and darted between people and animals and piles of refuse and deep gouges between cobblestones toward the woman who was bent over her palfrey.

“Mother! You're here! Oh, my.”

The two men watched as Salin strode to the woman, and gently as he would handle a babe, lifted her from the mare's back. Roland saw his wife enfold the slighter woman, saw tears streaming down her face, saw her shoulders heaving as she kissed and hugged her mother.

“I have brought Lady Fortescue, Roland, just as you requested,” Burnell said, turning away from mother and daughter. “The earl—I saw him strike her viciously and repeatedly before I could stop him. It was after I'd made the demands, and he realized there was naught he could do—he agreed to let her leave with me. He was yelling at her that he'd show her what he'd do to her bitch of a daughter when he got his hands on her. I knew he would kill her if I hadn't taken her away from him. She is still weak—several ribs are bruised, I think—her wrist is hurt, but bound securely. She's a nice lady, Roland, soft-spoken and gentle. You did well to bring her here.”

Roland remembered the woman when he'd first gone to see the Earl of Reymerstone; he remembered the weariness in her eyes, the acceptance of things when there was no hope to change them.

“I'm glad you saved her.” He nodded to Burnell and strode to Lady Fortescue.

“My lady,” he said, and watched her try to straighten at his greeting, watched her try to offer him a curtsy.

“Nay, don't. Daria, your mother isn't feeling well. Take her to your solar. She must rest.”

Daria saw her mother's bruised body a few minutes later in the solar when she helped her onto a narrow bed. She closed her eyes a moment, wishing more than anything that her uncle was present and that she had a knife. She would kill him. And she would enjoy it. She sent word to Alice, and a sweet-smelling warm potion of wine and herbs quickly arrived. Daria stayed with her mother until she slept. She smoothed back the vibrant red hair, still untouched by gray, saw the lines smooth from her mother's face. She lowered her head in her hands and wept. She was so very grateful to Roland for bringing her mother to her, and to safety. After a long time Daria rose, straightened her gown, and called to Gwyn, who was cleaning in Sir Thomas's bedchamber. She asked her to remain with her mother.

“She's a beautiful lady,” Gwyn whispered. “I'll see that she's all right.”

Why should she have ever hated Gwyn? Daria wondered blankly as she walked down the winding stone steps.

 

Daria felt a bystander in the transaction between Burnell and her husband. She stood quietly in the great hall, watching the men bring in trunk after trunk. Sir Thomas, Robert Burnell, and her husband opened each trunk, commented on the goods, smiling sometimes, drinking ale. Then there came the leather coin pouches, and she watched as Roland solemnly passed the counted out coins to Sir Thomas. The men embraced each other. Still she didn't move.

She heard Roland tell the men to take two of the trunks to his bedchamber. It was her bedchamber as well, but in important matters such as this, it was the man's. She'd learned that well enough during the past two weeks. The time had passed quickly, for there was so much newness at Thispen-Ladock, so many places to visit, so many new people to meet. Nor, Daria thought, as she saw to it that Burnell and the king's men were served quantities of ale and sweet buns from Alice's huge ovens, had she taken the reins in hand as yet. Actually, the reins had simply seemed to drift slowly yet surely there, and one day she was the mistress and all asked her for direction and orders. Roland had said nothing, nor had Sir Thomas. She seated herself finally, still saying naught. Her goods, her coin—but it was as if she wasn't even there.