Silken Threads (36 page)

This was his chance to tell her everything,
to reveal the terms of his reward, to be as candid as she deserved.
Graeham’s heart thumped in his chest as he pondered how best to say
it...
Phillipa isn’t married, not yet. I’m to be her husband.
We’ll be wed as soon as I bring Ada back to France.

“Serjant?” Joanna’s shoulder brushed
Graeham’s as she turned toward him; silk against linen; soft
woman-flesh against muscle; warmth against warmth. God, she smelled
so good; he wanted to drown himself in her hair, bury himself in
her body. “Is something wrong?”

Graeham plucked a leaf off one of the
bundles of herbs and ground it into dust between his fingers.
“Phillipa isn’t married yet,” he said, his voice strangely distant
and hollow, as if he were listening to someone else speak. “I’m...”
He looked up and met Joanna’s glimmery, molten gold gaze, and it
was all he could do to force air into his lungs, much less
speak.

“Well, I hope Lord Gui is more forthcoming
with his next son-in-law than he was with the last one,” she said
with an arid smile.

“I’m...” Graeham shook his head, disgusted
with himself, with the situation. He tore off another leaf. “I’m
sure he will be.”

She regarded him in that insightful way that
he found both disarming and unnerving. “Lord Gui must trust you
very much, to have told you this.”

Graeham crumbled that leaf, and another,
without looking at her. “He was...almost like a father to me during
my adoles¬cence.”

“Almost?”

Graeham thought about it. “I respected him.
I still do, despite...his lapses in judgment and the infidelity. I
harbor a great deal of affection for him, and I like to think the
sentiment is mutual. He’s been good to me, given me opportunities,
but...”

“But?”

He did look up, then. “I still sleep in the
barracks. I still exist to do his bidding, same as his other
soldiers. I’m not his son, just...a favored retainer. I try not to
forget that.”

She nodded thoughtfully.

“Your storeroom really is the first private
place I’ve ever had to call my own,” he said. I’ve never had a home
in the true sense, nor any kind of family.”

“I’m sure you’ve felt the lack of those
things very keenly,” she said. “But growing up the way you
did
—
having only yourself to rely one
—
did have
some benefits. You became independent, self-reliant. Those are
admirable qualities.”

“I know. I’ve greatly admired them in
you.”

She lowered her gaze, letting that statement
hang heavy in the air between them.

“We’re much alike, you and I,” he said
quietly, acutely aware now of her shoulder pressed to his, the soft
caress of her silken robe along the side of his leg. “You must have
noticed.”

She nodded, her gaze fixed on her hands,
resting on the table in front of her.

“I know we’ve had our differences,” he said,
feeling as if he were falling, slowly but dizzyingly, into some
dark abyss filled with mystery and promise, and taking her with
him. “But when I talk to you, I feel as if I’m talking to...a
friend, someone whose soul is attuned to mine. I know you’ve felt
the same loneliness I’ve felt, the same sense of isolation.”

With a kind of drunken recklessness, he
reached for her hand and took it. She still wouldn’t look at him.
Through the serpentine tendrils of hair cloaking her chest, he saw
the rapid rise and fall of her silk-clad breasts.

He squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry for the
lies,” he said, meaning it
—
especially the one last,
tenacious lie of omission about Phillipa. “I’m sorry for everything
I’ve done to push you away.”

“I haven’t been truthful with you, either.”
She curled her fingers around his. “I need to tell you something,
something I should have told you in the beginning.”

“Mistress...”

“Nay, let me tell you
—
please. I
feel a little silly now, for having kept this from you, and...and a
little ashamed.”

“You don’t
—
”

“I’ve been letting you think I’m a married
woman, but I’m not. I’m a widow. My husband...he died last year in
Genoa.”

“I know.”

She stared at him. “You don’t know.”

“I do,” he admitted. “I’ve known for...some
time now.”

“How long?” she asked in a thin voice.

“Since the day of the fair.”

“The Friday fair?”

He nodded.

“
You’ve known since the Friday fair?”
A shrill note of anger joined the incredulity in her voice. “That
was a month ago!”

“Mistress,” Graeham soothed, feeling as if
he’d played a particularly idiotic move in chess, one from which
there was no turning back, “I understood why you
—
”

“Have could you have gone on letting me
pretend, after you knew?” she asked in a quavering voice.

“Mistress, please...”

“You
knew
.” Her eyes shone too
brightly; patches of red stained her cheeks. “You knew all along.
All this time...”

He tightened his grip on her hand. “Please
listen to me.”

“I feel like such a fool. I can’t stay here
and...I can’t.” She jerked her hand out of his and stood. “Good
night, serjant.”

“Nay!” Graeham gripped her around the waist
with both hands. “Stay. Please just
—
”

“Let me go!” she said fiercely, prying at
his hands. “I’m humiliated enough. Don’t make me stay here
and
—
”

“Joanna
—
”

“Let go of me.” She slammed her fists into
his arms.

He released her. Bracing his hands on the
table, he rose awkwardly to his feet. “Joanna, stay. I just want
to
—
”

“Leave me alone.” As she turned, he grabbed
her arm. She wrenched away from him, her robe sliding off one
shoulder, and wheeled around.

“Joanna!” His splint and the lack of space
between the bench and the table put him off balance, but as she
turned her back to him, he seized her shoulders. One was uncovered;
he felt a moment’s disorientation to be touching her bare flesh,
warm and firm and damp with sweat.

Twisting around, she struck out at him. One
fist caught him on a forearm, the other on the side of the
shoulder. They weren’t hard punches, but they were enough to upset
his footing.

He toppled sideways, overturning the bench
and landing painfully on its underside. Cursing at the sudden jolt
to his leg, he rolled off the bench, both hands wrapped around his
splint.

“Graeham!” She knelt over him, her hair
brushing him in slick, heavy waves as she softly touched his
splinted leg. Despite the situation, it gratified him on an
elemental level to hear her call him by his Christian name. “Oh,
God, I’m sorry. Are you all right?”

Gritting his teeth, he nodded, stretched his
leg out, managed to sit up.

“Thank God,” she said. “I...I didn’t mean to
hurt you. I’ve never hit anyone...I’m just...I can’t...I have to
go.” She started to rise.

“Nay.” He caught her around the waist and
threw her down in the rushes.

With a gasp of outrage, she tried to sit up.
He pushed her back down by her shoulders.

She tried to roll out from under him, but he
shoved her flat on her back, lowering himself onto her to hold her
still.

“Let me go!” She thrashed and squirmed,
pushing against his chest. “Get off me!”

“Nay.” He banded his hands around her wrists
and pinned them amid the great corona of golden hair blanketing the
rushes, but still she writhed against him, trying desperately to
pitch him off.

Her wrapper had loosened further in their
tussle, exposing her upper chest and arm on one side. He could see
the creamy rise of a breast, its nipple barely concealed by the
disarrayed garment. With every heave of her chest, every arch of
her back, the swath of silk threatened to slip away from the taut
nub and reveal what he’d only looked upon in his inflamed
imaginings.

Desire, hot and heavy, unfurled in his
loins, pushed against her. In her struggles, she didn’t seem to
notice.

“Joanna, stop this,” he said, his hair
falling in his face as he tried to capture her fierce gaze with
his. “Stop
—
”

“Why?” she cried. “Why didn’t you tell me
you knew I was widowed?”

Softly, searching her eyes, he said, “I was
waiting for you to tell me.”

* * *

I was waiting for you to tell me.
Oh,
God.

Joanna gazed into Graeham’s luminous blue
eyes, her heart drumming in her chest. His hands were like bands of
iron around her wrists, his body heavy and solid as he pressed her
into the prickly rushes.

He had one leg, the splinted one, nestled
between hers. In the juncture of her thigh and hip she felt,
through her silken wrapper and his linen undergarments, a rock-hard
column of heat.

She closed her eyes to escape his
penetrating gaze and this heart-pounding tempest of sensation, but
that only heightened her awareness of him...his damp male scent,
the rhythmic whisk of his shirt against her chest with every breath
he drew
—
breath that tickled her face, her lips, growing
hotter, closer.

She opened her eyes, lost herself in an
intensity of blue. He was close, so close. There was no turning
back.

He touched his lips to hers and she fell,
tumbling slowly, into heat and inevitability.

It was an ungentle kiss, dark and rough and
full of need, and oh God oh God she gave herself to it, surrendered
her mouth to him, his lips hot and demanding, his tongue and teeth
devouring her.

He released her wrists and closed his hands
around hers, tightly, possessively. She squeezed them back.
Possess me.

He parted her thighs with his good leg.
Still kissing her, he pressed against her, hard. And again.

Yes.
Joanna moved against him,
against the slide of his rigid flesh on her yielding softness. She
throbbed where he thrust against her; her body wept for him, damp
through the silk, straining, pushing, trembling.

Please. Oh, God.

He broke the kiss, gasping, released one of
her hands and untied his drawers with frenzied haste, his fingers
fumbling, grazing her through the wet silk, a fluttery caress.

She breathed his name like a plea, helpless
in her need, felt his hands warm and rough as he yanked her wrapper
open, just enough, felt the satin length of him hot and taut
against her inner thigh, the head slick and ready.

And then he took her mouth again, gripping
both of her hands hard, harder, every muscle in his body straining
as he readied himself and drove in.

Her flesh burned as he stretched her open.
So tight. It had been so long. She tensed, a startled little
whimper rising in her throat.

Half-buried within her, he rose on his
elbows, his eyes full of concern. “Joanna? Are you
—
”

“I’m fine.” She squeezed his hands, moved
against him, her need for him, for the fullness of him inside her,
so overwhelming that she didn’t care about the discomfort. She
relished it, because it meant he was claiming her, taking her body
as he had taken her soul.

He drew back and thrust again slowly, and
again, a sinuous tightening of his hips that quivered through his
torso, his shoulders, his hands. Each determined stroke pushed
deeper, easing her open, invading her inch by inch.

The initial pain of penetration dissolved
into a different kind of ache, a hot tingle, a breathless gathering
up that made her moan and clutch his hands.

He reared up, his thrusts growing swifter,
more erratic. His damp hair swung above her, sweat dripping from
it; his breathing grew harsh, frantic. The rushes crackled beneath
them.

Needing him deep, deep, as deep as he could
go, she wrapped her legs around him, arched against him.

“Oh, God, don’t,” he said, his gaze
unfocused, his body shuddering. “Joanna, don’t.”

“Why? What
—
”

“It feels too...I can’t...oh, God...” He
tucked his wet face in the crook of her neck, groaning raggedly.
Joanna felt the tremors course through him, felt the fury of his
release deep within her, and savored a sense of completeness that
made her want to weep.

“I’m sorry, Joanna,” he whispered against
her neck as he lay heavy on top of her, still holding her
hands.

“Why?”

“Because I meant to...” He sighed. Levering
himself up, he slid his hands out of hers and framed her damp face
with them. “I didn’t want to finish inside you.” He studied her
eyes, waiting for her to understand.

I promised myself long ago that I’d never
sire a bastard.

“Ah.” She frowned as it fully dawned on her.
“Oh. ‘Twas my fault, wasn’t it?” She uncurled her legs from around
his waist. “Because I
—
”

“I loved it,” he said, smoothing a hand down
her hip and leg with a reassuring smile. “Too much. And that’s the
other thing I’m sorry about. I finished too soon.”

Joanna blinked in confusion. “Too soon?” How
could a man finish too soon? He finished when he finished, and then
it was over.

Graeham peeled a wet strand of hair off her
cheek, kissed the spot where it had been. “I didn’t wait for
you.”

“Me? You mean, to...” Nonplussed, Joanna
contemplated the novel idea of having a lover who gave a thought to
her pleasure. Prewitt had had her every way a man could have a
woman, but never once had he touched her for her pleasure, only for
his. Afterward, when he was asleep, she would sometimes slide her
hand between her legs and give her body the relief it craved, but
she always felt vaguely ashamed afterward, and lonelier than
ever.

Still buried inside her, Graeham raised
himself on one arm and slid aside the loosened edge of her wrapper,
exposing her left breast in its entirety. His eyes glittered as he
closed his hand over the sweat-slicked flesh, caressing it in a way
that made her purr like a cat having its throat stroked. He tugged
on her nipple, sparking a little spasm of pleasure where they were
joined.