The Craftsman (2 page)

Here, in this castle fortress, she’d be safe at least. There was food, heat and shelter. There was no angry, cruel mother-in-law to chide her ceaselessly; nothing to remind her of the misery she’d been through nursing a dying, beloved husband for two and a half years. This was a fresh beginning. There were no unpleasant reminders here. Emma was determined to make the best of it.

“Welcome to Wexford,” said the woman before her—young, fair and heavily pregnant. “Of course, ‘tis no longer called Wexford, but it was once and my husband has yet to give it a new name.”

So this was the girl Guy Devaux had married. It was said they were in love. Emma didn’t know if she believed that, for Devaux had a certain notoriety when it came to sex and women. But in his young wife’s bright eyes, Emma read contentment, joy, and the sort of confidence that can only come from giving and receiving passionate love with another. She knew that sensation, for she’d had it once, in the early years of her own marriage, before her husband’s illness struck him down and turned him from a vital young man to a weakened invalid, unable even to feed himself.

Emma glanced again at the other woman’s large belly. Surely she was close to term and must be feeling all the excitement and trepidation of imminent birth—something Emma was never given the chance to experience. She suffered a little sting in her heart, but kept her face stoic.

“I am glad to be here,” she said quietly, stealing another sideways look at the tall fellow in the stained tunic.

The other woman followed her gaze and exclaimed, “Oh, this is Raedwulf, my brother.”

Then it
was
him—the man she was to marry. At least he was well made and by no means heinous to look upon, even if he was a deaf mute. She could bed with him, as duty dictated, and not feel distaste. She was fortunate.

But when she inclined her head in greeting, the great, surly fellow simply exhaled a heavy breath of annoyance and scratched his arse as if his breeches had ridden up into the crack.

Emma raised an eyebrow. A deaf mute with uncouth manners.

“I’m afraid my husband is away with the hunt and will not be back for a few hours yet, but we have a good supper prepared,” his sister chattered away, smiling, stepping forward to take her arm. “Come, let us go in, Amias. You must be hungry and tired after your long journey.”

“It is Emma,” she muttered, accustomed to having her name forgotten or mispronounced. She was usually the least important person present.

“Forgive me,” the young woman exclaimed in seemingly genuine remorse. “
Emma
, of course.”

Raedwulf said nothing.

Well, at least his sister was welcoming. She’d never known much feminine friendship—except for her maid, Joan—and grew up with loud, arrogant brothers, so this would be a pleasant change.

* * * *

Wulf took a hearty gulp of ale, watching her above the rim of his tankard. For a woman she didn’t talk much. He reluctantly supposed that was something in her favor. Since she wore a wimple he couldn’t see her hair, only her heart-shaped face. On the whole her expression was calm and somber, but there was an inquisitive spark in her grass-green eyes and perhaps, too, a little wry amusement as she listened to Deorwynn rattle on with seldom a pause.

Her hands were long, tapered and slender. Whenever she reached for food or dabbled her fingers in the water bowl, his attention was snared by their elegance. He’d never seen hands quite like it. His artist’s mind was caught, inspired. Would they feel as smooth as they looked? They were clean, of course, well-tended hands. Probably never did a lick of work.

She looked across the table suddenly, catching him in a steady, challenging gaze that was no longer green, but copper, swirled with molten gold.

Shouldn’t she stay silent until
he
spoke to her?

And why did she speak in that slow, careful voice with pauses between each word? Why move her lips in that exaggerated fashion?

Before he could answer, she added, “It must be strange for you to be home again after so long away.” She inclined her head, her eyes earnestly sympathetic, but still she spoke in that strange way.

Aha! That was why the king gave her to him. Mystery solved. The woman was simple. Addled. That glimmer he’d mistaken for wry amusement must be confusion as she tried to understand his sister’s conversation, which could be counted on to thwart the wisest man.

“I grow accustomed to it,” he answered her in the same slow tone.

She managed a brave little smile. Her skin looked so smooth and fine—like some magically wrought cloth woven by supernatural beings, cloistered from humanity. He wondered if it might be hot to the touch.

The color of her eyes constantly changed, knocking him further off guard.

Be kind
, his sister had said.

He struggled to smile back, his facial muscles creaking under the strain. Under the table his sister kicked him sharply in the shin. Apparently his smile failed. This woman he was to marry however didn’t appear to notice. She continued her meal, picking food with her delicate fingers, sipping her wine and never spilling a drop. Her movements were all very precise and polite compared to his sister’s and her clumsy eagerness to eat everything in sight.

Deorwynn now asked her something about York. She looked confused for a moment and then answered in a stilted fashion, as if she did not really know anything about the place, although she’d just come from there.

Pity this woman—Emma—was brain-addled, he thought. She might have made a good marriage if not for that. Her face was pretty, her figure well-carved under that fitted gown, her waist high, suggesting long legs. Clearly she could have done better than marry Wulf, if she’d had all her faculties. He studied her slyly above his tankard, his gaze following the graceful lines. As she reached for the fruit platter, he studied the long sweep of her slender arm, the arch of her shoulder and then the pull of her gown across a full, round breast.

Very well made
, he thought again with a little stab of surprise deep in his gut. Surely she wore a shift beneath her thin gown, but he could have sworn he saw a nipple pricking against the material. Was it possible that she forwent any undergarments because of the sticky summer weather?

She moved again and the little peak became more pronounced. He tried to look away, but found it impossible. There was the other one. Definitely nipples and hard ones too, perky. He knew what a woman’s roused naked breasts looked like, not that he’d ever touched one. When he was fourteen he’d watched his three brothers with a whore. She was actually purchased as a gift for him, on his birthday, but he’d been too embarrassed by his teasing brothers. So they’d got their money’s worth by mounting her themselves. Wulf had watched them rut the bosomy wench like curs on a bitch in heat. He still remembered, vividly, the sight of her pale thighs spread wide, welcoming each man in, one after the other, her pussy lips slick with their creamy seed and her own juice. He recalled his brothers’ grunts and her groans, the way her dimpled buttocks trembled with every hard thrust as she struggled to accommodate a brother in every orifice; all three at the same time. The writhing, sweating, grunting mass of bodies. He was aroused by the vision, when he did not want to be. He felt he should be appalled by it.

At fourteen he hadn’t known what to do or think. In the end he’d run away in shame. That was his last birthday before the Normans came, his elder brothers were all killed in battle and he taken prisoner. As a consequence, Wulf was now twenty nine and still a virgin, very confused about this swiving business. If he must endure these lusty needs, he would rather no one know he ever had them. They surely were not good needs and the refined, ladylike woman across the table would not take kindly to being treated like a whore.

She must be hot under that wimple, he thought. The evening was very warm, the heat of the day still clinging, unrelenting as they slid into night. If anything the air seemed to grow thicker despite the sun’s retreat.

She’d selected a handful of cherries and now enjoyed them slowly, biting them carefully from their stalks, her head tipped back, her small white teeth clasping each ruby red bud and tugging. She chewed, swallowed, and then readied for the next cherry. This one, it seemed, was already leaking juice. She sucked upon it for a moment, before it disappeared between her teeth and she bit down. A little trickle of cherry juice stained her plump lips and her tongue swept out hastily to clean it.

Wulf’s hair stuck to his brow with sweat. He poured more ale for his suddenly unquenchable thirst. A familiar stirring had begun in his groin. Usually when this happened, he would handle himself quickly and get it over with, but tonight he had no opportunity. He couldn’t leave the supper table until the lady was done eating. If he did, his sister would accuse him again of being deliberately rude and difficult.

His wife-to-be dangled another cherry above her lips. She was still swallowing the previous one and Wulf watched the sensuous movement in her fine, smooth throat. Then his eyes returned to her mouth as she opened it to take the next scarlet fruit. The tip of her tongue appeared and touched the shiny, round surface in greeting.

Wulf shifted on his bench, his breeches pulling uncomfortably on his rigid cock. His breathing quickened. He coughed.

Her eyes met his and held. She licked the cherry, gathered it in the curve of her tongue and sucked it in, but her fingertips held the stalk and tugged so that it slid partially back out, the cherry still attached.

Here came the pink tongue again, swirling around the cherry, pulling and teasing. Wulf stared across the table, the sensation of an imaginary tongue tormenting his cock head. He felt his balls fill, ripened so that only the slightest touch would split them open. She closed her lips and her cheeks hollowed as she sucked. He thrust slightly with his hips, under the table where no one would see. His hand closed over the mound in his breeches and he grunted softly.

The cherry popped free of the stalk.

And Wulf‘s knee hit the underside of the table.

The woman opened her eyes fully and stared at him through the flickering, weaving candle flames. She raised an elegant, cupped hand to her mouth and deposited two cherry pips into her palm.

Wulf finished his ale in one swig, his other hand still beneath the table, trying to placate the ravenous beast between his thighs.

Chapter Two

“I’ve never seen such an unmannerly wretch,” her maid, Joan, exclaimed under her breath, as she unpacked one of the coffers they brought with them. “Could barely open his lips to speak a word and constantly scratching himself. I shouldn’t be surprised if he has fleas. What a scandal it is that you—a fine lady of high birth—should have to put up with the like of that.”

Barefoot, in her nightshift, Emma stood at the tall, narrow window of her small bedchamber and brushed her hair, gazing down into the inner courtyard. “He does seem a little strange, but then he is a Saxon and they can be discourteous creatures.” Face still turned away from her maid, she smiled wryly. “As for me putting up with it—a woman’s lot in life is to suffer, Joan. We both know that.”

She also knew now that her new husband was not mute, just sparing with his words. As for the deafness, she couldn’t be sure and didn’t like to ask. He still hadn’t reacted to anything his sister said, but he’d answered Emma at supper, even if it was in a slow, steady, unnecessarily loud manner, followed by a strange, wooden attempt at a smile. Perhaps he’d read her lips. She’d made certain to pronounce her words clearly and move her lips more than usual, just to help him understand her question.

But that smile was the angriest smile she’d ever seen. And his dark eyes bore through her wimple and her gown, assessing her churlishly. Big, gruff Raedwulf was not happy with her, it seemed.

She’d tried her best to be pleasant, just so he would not think she came there to cause him any problems. But it was no easy thing to marry a man she’d never met and she supposed this arrangement must be equally difficult for him. At least, with her first husband, they knew one another for a few years before they married. In a marriage like this, it was all very different. A few days ago she’d been arranging her retreat to a convent. Now she was here on the sudden, surprising orders of the king, about to embark on a new path, just when she thought she’d reached the end of all her roads.

She ran the brush slowly through her hair from crown to the softly curling ends and pondered the lantern light that still glowed softly through the window of that wood shed. He’d been out there ever since supper ended. According to his sister, he spent a great deal of his time with his carpentry, shut away in that little thatched building. The other men had returned from the hunt, making a great ruckus in the yard, but even that had not tempted him out of his hiding place.

What could he possibly be doing in there so late? She sincerely hoped the nights of their marriage would not pass in the same fashion. In truth she hadn’t given much thought to her wifely duties in the new husband’s bed. She expected little from it. Her first husband, Henry, had been a wonderful lover, patient and always gentle. It would not be wise to expect another man to make her feel the way he did.