So Great A Love (32 page)

Arden gazed in near reverence at her slender
shape. He watched with aching longing the way the linen of the
shift pulled tight across her high, firm breasts with their pink
nipples. He also noticed what he had not been able to see while she
was still dressed. Dark bruises marred her uncovered arms from
elbows to shoulders.

The sight of the bluish finger marks
inflicted by the very men who should have held Margaret dear and
protected her from violence brought Arden's seething emotions to
the boiling point. He was powerless to prevent his next action. His
hands moved almost of their own accord, skimming along her
shoulders and upper arms as if to brush away the cruel bruises. For
several precious, silent moments his fingertips lightly caressed
his wife, and Margaret stood still, her eyes fixed on his, allowing
his gentle touch. Only with the greatest difficulty did he finally
pull his hands from her and hold them at his sides, clenched into
fists.

“Those foul brutes,” he muttered. “How could
they use you so, when anyone with half a mind must see that you
deserve the kindest, gentlest treatment?”

“You have promised they will never hurt me
again,” Margaret said. She moved at last, wrapping her fingers
around his tight fists, trying to unfasten them. “I trust you to
fulfill your promise.”

“You should not!” He pulled away from her,
unable to tell her that he kept his hands fisted because if he
unclenched them, if he loosened his tight grip on himself and his
emotions, he would touch her again. He would wrap his arms around
her, slide his fingers through her shining hair, put his mouth on
her sweet lips. He would destroy her. “Listen to me, Margaret. For
your sake as well as mine, I must ask you to connive in a lie.”

“What lie?” she asked.

“Only until your father and Eustace have
gone,” he said, “and until I have spoken with my father.”

“Arden?” Her face was white, far whiter than
marble, as if there never had been blood surging beneath her
luminous, petal-soft skin. “Do you mean to repudiate me after my
relatives have left?”

“It's you who will repudiate me,” he said.
She began to shake her head, she opened her rosy lips to object,
and Arden spoke the words he hated to say, but knew he must say,
for her sake. “I cannot consummate our marriage.”

“I find that difficult to believe,” she said,
misconstruing his meaning. “The night when we lay together in this
room, you experienced no difficulty. Indeed, your problem was not
in your ability to perform the act, but in restraining yourself.
Why should there be a difference tonight? Surely, you are not
nervous or afraid of me?”

“You don’t understand.” Deliberately, Arden
turned his back on her. He could not continue to gaze at her, at
her soft, pliant form and still say what must be said. How could he
tell her that the Arden she remembered had died in the searing
desert heat of the Holy Land?

“You are right. I do not understand what you
mean,” Margaret said. “Have you forgotten that I was first wed to a
very old man, who during the last few years of his life was in
declining health? Let me speak bluntly, Arden. I know the signs of
impotence and you do not display them.

“If your difficulty is not an inability,” she
went on, “is it an unwillingness? Do you find me uninviting? Have I
been no more to you than a minor entertainment, to be briefly
enjoyed during a long and boring winter evening and then cast
aside?”

“No!” He spun around to face her. “Never
think so. God forbid that you should think yourself unlovable.”

“'God forbid,'“ she repeated slowly. “That is
what you said when Eustace accused you of getting me with child. Is
that what's wrong, Arden? Are you afraid of making a child who will
carry their blood in its veins? I assure you, I am nothing like
them. Though I am undoubtedly Phelan's child, he has naught but
scorn for me because I am so similar to my mother in character and
looks. That being the case, isn't it reasonable to believe my
children will be like me and like my mother, rather than like
Phelan or Eustace?”

“You do not understand,” he said again.

“How can I,” Margaret cried, “when all you
will say is that I don't understand, and you will not explain
yourself so I can understand?”

Margaret closed her trembling lips, warning
herself not to give way to the weakness of tears. If she was going
to attain what she most desired – a husband freed of the mysterious
burden he carried with him like a great, crushing weight upon his
soul – then it was necessary for her to be strong. She had known
and cherished the open-hearted, cheerful Arden of old. She wanted
some part of the same youthful Arden back, combined with the more
serious, mature man who was her husband.

She decided to risk trying the one way she
had discovered to make intimate contact with him. Perhaps, if she
persisted without seeming to demand anything more of him than he
had already given her on a previous occasion, she might be able to
lead him on to a deeper intimacy.

“If you cannot, or you will not, consummate
our marriage,” she said, keeping her voice calm and steady, “then,
let us do what we did on the night when we last lay together in
your bed. If that is all you can give me, Arden, I will ask for no
more.”

“You are treading on dangerous ground,” he
warned, frowning at her.

She hoped it was so, hoped what she was
suggesting would prove to be so dangerous that Arden would not be
able to resist the power of his own manly passion.

“Kiss me,” she whispered, moving nearer to
him. “Hold me in your arms. I deserve that much.”

“You deserve far more than I can ever give
you,” he said. “Margaret, what you want is most unwise. You will
regret it later.”

“I disagree. I do not regret the last time we
were alone together in this room. Why, then, should I regret this
time, when no one can possibly object to what we do?” She placed a
hand on each of Arden's shoulders and then she kissed him. He held
back, not returning the kiss. Undaunted, Margaret wound her arms
around his neck, pressing closer. Opening her mouth against his,
she touched his tightly closed lips with the tip of her tongue.

Arden groaned and seized her by the arms to
break her tenacious hold on him. His fingers bit into the bruises
on her upper arms and Margaret winced. Immediately, he loosened his
grip on her.

“I have hurt you,” he said, “after I swore I
never would. Do you begin to understand what being close to me will
mean for you?”

Telling himself he only wanted to ease the
pain he had just caused to her bruised flesh, he gently moved his
hands along her arms to her shoulders a few times, and then around
to her back, stroking over linen and soft skin. Margaret trembled a
little under his touch. The involuntary movement pierced Arden's
heart like a sharp knife. Unable to stop himself, he enfolded her
in his arms, holding her tenderly, swearing to himself that he
wanted only to reassure her. But when she lifted her face and
lightly pressed her lips to his, he kissed her long and hard.

Her fingers wove through his hair, her mouth
opened under his in sweet invitation, her breasts pressed softly
against his chest, and this time it was Arden who began to tremble.
Half maddened by longing, he tore his mouth from hers.

“I should not do this,” he whispered, even as
he picked her up and carried her to the bed. “Binding you to me by
affection will cause you more harm than my clumsy hands just did,
or the bruises your cruel menfolk have inflicted.”

Margaret did not argue with his claim. She
was too busy unfastening his belt and pulling off his woolen tunic.
For a fleeting moment she thought of Isabel and Catherine, and of
what they would say about her wedding night if they knew how
reluctant the bridegroom was, and how overly eager the bride.

“Margaret, I warn you.” Arden sat on the edge
of the bed, staring at her, with her shift twisted up over her
knees and her hair spread across the pillows.

“I will not heed your warnings, be they ever
so dire.” Lifting herself a little, Margaret placed a hand on
Arden's broad shoulder, then slowly drew her hand downward over his
muscled chest and up again to his throat. Arden bent over her, and
Margaret gently pushed him away.

“You cannot come to bed still wearing your
boots,” she said.

Deliberately enticing him, she caught the hem
of her shift and pulled it upward over her head, then cast the
flimsy linen aside. Arden's eyes locked on hers and she saw in his
gaze an odd mixture of longing and hope and terror. Margaret
lowered her own eyes, fearing he would see in them her intention to
rid him of more than his boots. She wanted all of his garments off,
wanted him naked beside her.

She needn't have worried, for when Arden bent
forward to pull off his boots at her order, his loosened hose slid
downward, providing Margaret with an enticing glimpse of bared skin
over taut muscle. With a growl of impatience, Arden ripped off his
hose and linen under-breeches as well as his boots, before flinging
himself onto the sheets.

The top sheet he hastily pulled up was
inadequate covering for the burgeoning manhood that plainly
indicated to his wife that, though he vowed he would not possess
her, he wanted her badly. After wrapping the sheet across his
waist, Arden began to caress Margaret's breasts. He was skillful in
his ministrations, as she had known from earlier experiences he
would be, but the tender ardor of their previous encounter was
absent and it soon became apparent to her that Arden was determined
to withhold himself from her as much as possible.

His mouth fastened on her breast, his tongue
circling her nipple. Though Margaret felt a flickering of warmth
far inside herself, her heart was heavy with longing for what they
ought to be giving to each other, and were not. When Arden lifted
his head from her one breast, preparing to attend to the other,
Margaret caught his face between her hands, forcing him to look
into her eyes, to see there all the tender emotions she felt for
him.

“Don't,” he said. “Let me go from you now,
before it’s too late.” Yet even as he spoke the words his hands
caressed her, drawing her closer, as if he yearned to obey a
deeper, more primitive command than his repeated insistence on
keeping his emotional distance from her.

“I said I would not listen to your warnings.”
Margaret pulled his head lower so she could kiss him on the mouth.
This time she sensed a response in him and sensed, too, how hard he
was struggling against his own need.

Still with her mouth on his, she kicked at
the sheet, pulling it free. Then Arden's whole, long frame was
pressing against her, with its contrasts of textures; smooth and
hairy, calloused and soft and, in one particular place, hot and
hard and prodding at her. She shifted position, entangling her legs
with his.

“This should not be happening. Stop me,” he
groaned. “In the name of heaven, Margaret, be strong enough to stop
me, for I cannot stop myself. Not now, not when you are so close,
so blessedly sweet in my arms, so honest and clean and good. If I
continue, I will only harm you.”

“I will never stop you,” she whispered. “I
love you.”

“No!” he exclaimed, sounding utterly
miserable. “Don't love me. Don't even think of it. If you love me,
I will surely break your heart.”

“Like you, I cannot help myself,” she
murmured, exalting in the way he continued to press against the
most heated, most sensitive area of her body, even as he protested
against what they both wanted. She pressed eagerly forward, hoping
to tempt him to venture farther. “I love you, Arden. I will love
you forever, no matter what you say, no matter what you have
done.”

At the last possible instant Arden raised
himself to look down at her, and Margaret saw in his eyes a flame
that was something more than the moment's passion. She saw in Arden
a desperate hope aching to be released into full life. Responding
to his painful desire in the only way she could, she lifted her
hips and drew him closer still, opening herself to him, trusting
him. Immediately, she felt his great size stretching her almost
painfully, as if it was her first time with a man. Arden filled her
until she was made dizzy by his rigid, probing heat. The slight
discomfort receded and Margaret closed her eyes to better savor the
erotic sensation.

She heard his groan and she wasn't sure
whether it was a sound of triumph, or of despair that he had failed
to keep himself from her. When he was completely embedded in her,
Margaret realized that in spite of his large size they fit together
perfectly, his body touching hers in ways she had not known were
possible, ways that quickly made her intensely aware of the
sensitivity of her own body. She thought if either she or Arden
moved the tiniest bit she would shatter into a thousand little
pieces, and so she held herself as still as she could while she
waited for him to make the first move.

They lay quietly for a time, until Margaret
could no longer resist the impulse to move. She opened her eyes to
find Arden staring at her. The hope she had seen in him moments
before blazed high in his gaze and he spoke in a husky whisper.

“Say you love me,” he commanded. “Tell me
again.”

“I love you,” she responded without
hesitation. “I will always love you.”

“If only I could believe that were true,” he
said. “I know too well your love cannot last. But, for this brief,
sweet hour, let me treasure the gift you offer.”

“I am yours,” Margaret told him. Unable to
remain still a moment longer, she ran her hands along his spine, up
from his waist to his shoulders and then down, lower and lower,
until she cupped his firm buttocks and pulled hard on them, forcing
him deeper into her body.