Suzanne Robinson (22 page)

He resisted for a moment, then came down to her. She gave a little start as heated flesh touched her where his hand had been, but she was so aroused that the strangeness soon vanished. His hips thrust against her, and a sudden thought flitted through her mind. Her knowledge of sick men hadn’t prepared her for the condition of a man in superb health.

Then the thought was gone, for he was caressing her with himself and with his hand. Her fingers tangled in his hair again, working into its softness as her pleasure built. She felt a turgid, almost painful swelling that climbed, climbed, climbed. She cried out even as he shifted his hips and slipped inside her. He thrust without warning, and she felt pain that vanished beneath the ungovernable urge to push. He moved back and forth inside her, causing the knot of sensation to enlarge so that she thought she would go mad if he stopped.

He moved faster. Pleasure mounted, surged with his penetrations. So intense was the feeling that she finally lifted her hips in an effort to force him deeper. As her body thrust upward, she felt a great, fulminating release. Even as she cried out, his body came down on hers, thrusting her back to the ground. He strained against her, pumping rapidly, and then cried out.

Juliana felt a surge inside her, and a sudden flood. Seed. Life. This man’s life and seed. All at once, she felt
a rush of amazement and a sense of mastery. Gray de Valence, mighty lord, unruly Viking.
She
could drive him to this desperate passion. His head dropped to her breast. They lay there, linked, breathless, spent, and silent.

Eventually sense began to return to her. With it came fear, for Gray de Valence wasn’t the only one driven by lust. She had no honor where this man’s body was concerned. Yet hitherto she’d been invulnerable to men’s wooing. She should have remembered how small was her experience. It was limited to Edmund Strange’s perfunctory gestures rendered because of duty.

Edmund Strange! Remembrance turned her cold; in the concealing darkness, she had forgotten her imperfection. God’s mercy, she was still wearing her clothes, her boots.
He’d said nothing
. But he would, and soon. She’d given him what he wanted, and now there was no reason for him to continue this mockery of a betrothal. And she couldn’t complain, because he’d asked her, and she’d said yes.

Only now she was more confused than ever. In her new weakness for him, she almost wished his offer were honorable, but her saner self knew just how arrogant and barbaric he could be, more so than any rooster knight she’d ever encountered. And now it wasn’t only he who had betrayed Yolande. She had acted out of selfishness.

Juliana sighed, and the movement disturbed that part of him still inside her. He turned his face toward her and kissed her cheek. She touched his hair, and forgot her fears in marveling at its softness. It was heavy, thick, silken, and just feeling it against her skin made her desire quicken. She touched the fragile strands at his temples. He turned to kiss her palm. His lips performed a supple dance on her flesh. Juliana tried to gird herself to tell him she hadn’t changed her mind about marriage, but he spoke first.

Propping himself up on his forearms, he found her mouth with his in the darkness and whispered against her lips. “My joyance, once I swore never to allow anyone to enslave me again.” He sighed, causing his sweet breath to feather her cheeks. “I think I am forsworn.”

DID SHE FEEL HIS TREMBLING? GRAY GENTLY withdrew from Juliana, gritting his teeth with the effort, and settled beside her. She would have risen, but he pulled her into his arms and whispered words of comfort. Resting with his back propped against the cave wall, he listened to her breathing as it calmed, slowed, and signaled that she’d drifted into sleep. After nearly falling to her death and then making love for the first time, she should be spent.

He’d never been with a virgin, but his experience as a slave had served him well. He better than most knew what it was to be naked, frightened, and unable to control what was happening to one’s body. Was that why he was so disturbed?

No, the reason was darker, uglier. When Saladin had given him his freedom and he’d returned to Christendom, he’d been filled with revulsion. Revulsion for unwanted intimacy, for what had been done to him, for his helplessness to prevent the violations done to him.

Saladin hadn’t been physically cruel, although the threat had always been there. No, Saladin had done far worse. He’d allowed Gray a certain amount of freedom, allowed him to serve as a warrior. And then he’d exacted a price for the freedom.

The memory of nights spent performing for his master still haunted him. He’d been so unsuspecting the first time, but then, he’d been young. His experience had
been restricted, and thus he’d been unprepared when Saladin required him to couple with slaves while his master watched. Oh, he’d tumbled with maids in barns with friends, but those friends had always been too concerned with their own pleasure to do what Saladin had done. Never had they come close, given orders, placed their hands between bodies.

And so when he’d saved Saladin’s life that second time, been freed, and come home, he’d been celibate for over a year. As time passed, he’d gradually recovered, or so he’d thought, until now. Yet he still trembled.

Gray rested his head against cold stone and tried to make sense of jumbled emotions. He felt so unsteady and yet certain of his course. There was no logic in feeling both, but he’d been this way since meeting Juliana. Lowering his head, he nuzzled her hair. She turned on her side and rested her cheek on his chest. Staring out at the cave’s blackness, he realized that he’d never had such a moment in his life. Never had he made love in such complete privacy, sharing instead of …

That was it. As a slave he hadn’t made love, he had performed. For so long it had been no more than a humiliating exhibition, an act of submission in which he had no choice. To escape the memories and the feelings, he’d turned lovemaking into a game of seduction in which he held the power and allowed the favors. And there had been plenty of women at the French and English courts willing to play the game with him. Until Juliana. She didn’t play games of courtly love or seduction. She had barged into his life and disrupted his pretense, his façade erected to protect himself against further hurt and shame.

She was stirring. He felt her move against him and heard a tiny snuffle, then a caught breath. She raised her head. He couldn’t see her, but he could feel her body
tense. Was she in pain? Had he hurt her? She’d been untouched, unlike him. Unlike him. Dear God, she was so sheltered and free of corruption. As she sat up, Gray realized that he couldn’t let her know what he’d been. She was so unsullied; if she found out, she would be disgusted.

“You’re ignoring me!”

“What?” He jolted out of the past and helped her stand.

“I said—” She stopped and lowered her voice so that it didn’t bounce off the cave walls. “I said that now there’s no reason to continue this pretense of a betrothal.”

“What?” He couldn’t seem to leave confusion behind.

“No more lies, Sir Knave. I’ve succumbed to your licentious trickery—”

“Trickery!” Now he was alert. He searched in the dark until he found her arm and grasped it. “There was no trickery, mistress. I but initiated you into pleasures we’ll soon share in marriage.”

“I told you there’s no need to continue that lie. I’ll not play the debauched maid and shriek for remedy in marriage vows.”

He would have interrupted, but her fingers found his lips and pressed them into stillness. She went on in a tone that was a little too light, a bit too confident for a young woman so recently seduced.

“I admit I now know why you men feel so, so driven. And I thank you for the—the … for what you’ve done. No doubt you didn’t expect this seduction to be so easy, or escape to be so quick. I’ll not marry you.”

She thought him a vile debaucher of virgins! He shook off her fingers, clenched his fists, and tried to control his fury.

“What ails you?” she asked. “I said I won’t marry you.”

“Oh. Yes. You. Will.” He could hear his own rough breathing.

“No I won’t.”

He struggled to hold his temper. God, but she was willful. “I’ve been trying to tell you this since I found you. I understand that a young demoiselle like yourself can be frightened of taking a husband and leaving her family. I’ll give you time to accustom yourself to the idea. I still have to catch that whoreson bandit, which may take a while. There are arrangements to be made. You may have a month.”

Shrill mockery flew at him. “A month. A month. Thunder of God, he allows me a month!” An abrupt silence fell. Then she whispered, “You mean you insist upon marriage?”

“Have I not said it?”

“Even after—why?”

Now he was in danger. He’d been unguarded before and admitted the truth. He was enslaved by her wildness, her spirit and strength, by her damascened eyes. But he couldn’t tell her that. She wouldn’t believe him. She already thought him a liar and he’d confirmed to her that he was a seducer of innocents. It wasn’t fair, because she’d seduced him before they’d ever entered this cave.

“I asked you why?” she said again.

“Er, I need a wife. I need heirs, and it’s a good match.”

“No it isn’t. Not for you.”

“It is. I’ve thought over my reasons for marriage and come to new conclusions. A great heiress would bring with her a powerful family who would interfere with my life, and I’ll not tolerate that. Now come along. I should take you home before your father begins to search for you, and we should repair our clothes. And I have to look for the bandit.”

He gripped her arm and began to lead her out of the cave. She dug in her heels.

“I don’t believe you. You’re not telling me the truth.”

“We’ll talk again later.” What else could he do but delay when he didn’t understand himself? “Right now I have men searching the countryside for those bandits, and when I catch them I’ll hang the lot of them.”

“Hang?”

For some reason her voice was faint. He wouldn’t have thought so willful a maid squeamish.

“Aye, hang. They stole from me.”

He didn’t mention the most powerful reason for his fury. The repetition of what Saladin had done to him—the exposure and humiliation before others—these still gnawed at him as if vultures picked at an open wound. He craved vengeance for that. The bastard had given him renewed nightmares of nakedness and shame, and for that alone he would kill him.

They went to the mouth of the cave and did what they could to repair their clothing. In silence, Juliana cast fulminating looks at him when she thought he wasn’t looking and appeared to be engaged in agitated thought. Once she turned her back to him and fumbled with her boots. Upon facing him, she folded her arms over her chest and looked at him through dark lashes, her pliant mouth now stiff.

“I’ve an idea,” she said. “Leave off this hunt for bandits and I’ll marry you at once.”

His hands froze while buckling his sword belt. He studied her narrowed eyes and rigid body. “Now who is lying? Not a moment past you refused me.”

“I’ve reconsidered, as you have.”

“You’re a hot and heady maid, Juliana, right obdurate and froward. And you’ve given me much tribulation of late, so why the sudden change—”

“My lord!”

They turned to look out at the clearing where several of Gray’s men rode toward them. One dismounted and gave a salute.

“We met the friar in the village, and he told us where you were. By my troth, what a time we’ve had finding you.”

He muttered under his breath, “God be thanked for it.”

He heard Juliana suppress a snicker. Casting a stern glance at her, he nodded at the man.

“We’ve caught one of the bandits, my lord. We gave up searching the wood and went among the villagers. Right insolent some of them were, but we had Lord Welles’s permission. When we came to the blacksmith’s cottage, we found a black mask under a pallet belonging to one of his sons, the one with the watery eyes called Eadmer. Keeps howling about Charles the Mange. Must be what the bandits call their leader.”

“Hardly a name to inspire fear. I’ll come as soon as I’ve escorted Mistress Juliana home.”

“I’ll come with you.”

He was surprised to find her standing so near. “This is no business for a woman.”

“Oh? You mean for a woman who can watch a sick man vomit and risk infecting herself? For a woman who, if she marries you, will command your men when you’re away? For a woman who will suffer the agony and spill the blood of childbirth? It’s no business for that woman?”

“I’ll not have you twisting my words—” He glanced at his men, who were pretending not to listen. Grabbing her arm, he pulled her over to where his squire stood holding their horses and dismissed the boy. “You’re not going,”
he said as he gathered the reins of both mounts. “For once you’ll do as I command and return to the castle.”