The Rose of Blacksword (50 page)

Once again they met in a kiss, bodies close, limbs entwined, lips clinging. Rosalynde’s loosened gown found its way off, as did his own girdle and tunic, the garments forgotten and abandoned as they met in passionate recognition. They fell together onto their grand bed, cushioned by leaves and well-worn wool, yet oblivious to all but each other.

“Are you my wife then truly, Rosalynde? Before God and man?”

Rosalynde stared up into the strong face above her, and it was easy to answer. “Forever, as you are my husband.”

“Ah.” He lowered his head until their foreheads touched. “My wife. My love.” Then he rolled over until
she lay above him, stretched full length upon his hard and ready frame.

His love.

A rare and complete joy filled Rosalynde at his words, and she wanted to hear more of that sentiment. But Aric’s sudden movement prevented her from pursuing it, for he lifted her upright above him, sliding his hands up beneath her kirtle as he forced her to straddle him. Pressed intimately against her, she felt the thrusting strength of his arousal. Although his braies separated them, a damp quiver began in her down there, and she arched in unthinking desire. Aric’s breathing came faster, as did her own. His hands slid higher until her kirtle exposed her legs completely, and his palms rested on the naked flesh of her hips.

“Come, wife,” he whispered huskily. “Be obedient to your lord husband’s command.”

A smile curved Rosalynde’s lips as she stared down into the face she loved so well. She ran one hand down his wide chest, then lifted the hem of his linen chainse so that she could touch his skin. The smile widened further when he sighed in clear pleasure. When she pressed both of her palms against his stomach, then slid them in small circular patterns up along his ribs, then higher to discover his small flat nipples, his groan told her she was most definitely doing something right, as did his tightened clutch on her hips. But when her fingers strayed down to the ties at the waist of his braies, he exhaled noisily.

“It will not work this way,” he said as he sat upright with her still on his lap. “These clothes …”

In one swift motion he whipped his chainse over his head and flung it aside. Her kirtle was next, leaving her covered only in the loosened tangles of her long, dark hair. But Rosalynde had no time for modesty. He lay her down
and in an almost violent movement shed the troublesome braies. Then they were both naked, lying together in the roofless adulterine, ready to meet at last as husband and wife.

Rosalynde tried to resume the role of aggressor, but Aric would have none of it. When she ran one hand down his side, he caught it. When she kissed his mouth and let her fingers play at his sensitive ears, he stopped her there as well, catching both her hands in one of his and holding them captive above her head.

“If you touch me that way,” he breathed hoarsely, then pressed a deep, sultry kiss to her parted lips. “If you continue this way, I shall surely explode—”

Before she could argue back, he moved his kiss down, along her chin and neck and throat. His free hand strayed even lower, brushing the side slopes of her breasts as his mouth slanted in the same direction. Then his palm cupped one of her breasts and she arched in shameless longing. His breath warmed the stiffened peak, tightening it in almost unbearable excitement.

“Aric, please—” she cried in aimless plea. But his answering kiss, taking her aroused nipple between his lips, tugging in a hot wet torture, drawing it in deep, raking it with his teeth—this relief was even more unbearable than was his teasing. Her strong young body arched beneath his superior weight, begging in a voice as clear and strong as the ages.

But Aric’s answer was to offer her other breast the same attention, lavishing upon it the same exquisite torment. Though she fought to free her hands, he held her immobile until tears streamed down her face. Only then did he move down her body, planting hot kisses against her stomach, in her navel, in the soft curving flesh of her belly.

Rosalynde’s hands were in his hair, running along his cheeks and his shoulders as he edged her legs apart. When his lips found the pulsing source of her erotic desires, she arched once more in near-perfect agony. His tongue stroked a delicious wet rhythm as his fingers added their own secret caress. One of his hands pressed down on her belly. Another cupped her derriere. She was held in a sinful bondage, pressed beneath his hands as his lips and tongue fired her to unnameable heights. Then his thumb found the slick entrance to her, and she cried out in a glorious upheaval. Her hands tightened in his hair as he pushed her to the precipice of completion. Her whole body stiffened as white-hot waves of passion lifted her. Her entire being—heart, body, soul—opened in that most personal acceptance as a rush of sensations washed over her. Then before she leapt over the edge into that dark, insensible pleasure, he moved over her and, without missing even one thrust, filled her completely.

The heated pressure of his manhood within her was sweet beyond imagining. He filled her and drew away, at once pleasing her and tormenting her in the same enthralling movement. Slick and hot, they moved together, the friction raising them both to monumental heights. Rosalynde’s arms circled Aric; her face pressed against his thick, muscled neck as he moved faster and faster over her. He drove into her relentlessly, and with every wild plunge, she cried out her pleasure until they were moving as one, frantic for the ease they found only together.

“I love you.” She heard his hoarse words as he drove on like a man possessed. “God, but I love you.”

If perfection could be reached on earth, Rosalynde found it in that moment. Her heart swelled with love, even as her body erupted in violent fulfillment. It was an absolute
harmony of her physical and emotional love for him. Swift hard shudders welled up from deep inside her and radiated out to encompass her entire body. Yet she was still aware of Aric’s answering response as he tensed over her. With a muffled cry against her hair, his body quaked in uncontrolled passion as he poured his life and love into her.

His breath came in great gasps as he spent himself within her. And yet this too they seemed intimately to share. As they both fought for breath, they lay there together, Aric half upon her still, their arms and legs twined together in the perfect lovers’ embrace.

“I love you,” Rosalynde murmured through her hazy contentment. “Love you …”

Aric stirred at her words and lifted his head to look at her. His face was little more than a shadow in the thin light of early morn, yet Rosalynde could see him clearly. His dark-golden hair fell about his face; his eyes were dark and solemn, although she knew he was well pleased with her.

“Is it truly love you feel?”

Rosalynde nodded, her eyes direct upon him. “I love you,” she repeated without hesitation.

“Why?”

A small frown creased her brow as she pondered his question. Did he doubt the depth of her feelings? She reached her left hand to cup his hard prickly cheek. “I love you because I must. I must breathe to live. And eat. And I must love you.”

She felt the faint relaxation of his jaw beneath her fingers, and then her eyes closed and a sleepy smile spread over her face. “I love you,” she said once more as a yawn overtook her.

When he curled her against him, cradling her head on his arm, she surrendered completely to sleep, lulled by her exhaustion and the soothing sound of his whispered “I love you” in her ear.

28

Cleve sat in a nook near the great hearth, waiting for Sir Gilbert to depart.

“By damn I will hunt him down!” Gilbert ranted, glaring at Lord Edward as if he had plotted this entire episode. For his part, Edward appeared amazingly calm, considering the disastrous conclusion of the melee and the hours he and his men had since spent searching for Aric.

“We will all continue the search in the morning,” Edward put in mildly.

“I caught him once; I’ll not need any help in doing so again,” Gilbert retorted. “And this time I will hang him on the spot!” Then, not waiting for a response, he strode furiously from the hall.

It was only then that Edward’s expression grew dark. When he spied Cleve inching into the thickening light, he signaled him to approach.

“Go bid my daughter to attend me, Cleve. I fear greatly that she may be the one with the answers to this coil,” he added, more to himself than to the boy.

“Milord, the Lady Rosalynde—” Cleve halted, then grimaced to himself. There was nothing for it but to tell the man. “Lady Rosalynde is not to be found. I’ve searched the castle for her, but she is nowhere within. And a mare and saddle are gone from the—”

“Gone!” Sir Edward started out of his seat, his mild aggravation replaced by angry disbelief. “She is gone without my permission? With whom? And to where?”

“I-I fear she travels alone … to seek Aric.”

Cleve watched as first fury, then fear, and finally confusion washed over Lord Edward’s face. When the man slumped back into his seat, still staring in dismay at Cleve, the boy moved nearer.

“Milord,” he began quietly, after casting an eye about to ensure they were alone. “I have reason to believe that Lady Rosalynde has a soft spot in her heart for Aric. ’Twould not surprise me if she has gone to help him.”

“Help him? The fellow is no doubt many leagues away by now. He leaves Stanwood with a horse, weapons, and a decent tunic—far more than he came here with. He’d be a fool to linger after today’s foul doings.”

Cleve bit his lip, not sure how correct was his own conjecture. “Methinks he will not leave here—not without Lady Rosalynde. Nor without meeting Sir Gilbert again.”

At this Lord Edward straightened up. His eyes narrowed as he stared hard at Cleve. “Tell me what you know, boy.”

By dawn searchers were out again, and though Lord Edward tried to downplay his daughter’s obvious absence, too many tongues already spoke of it. From maid to manservant, the tale was passed until he could not deny the truth of it to the knights who yet lingered at Stanwood. Those who might have departed, unconcerned by one rogue’s escape, stayed now, outraged that a noblewoman could be stolen away from her home. For despite Lord Edward’s reluctant belief that Rosalynde had fled of her own will, he refused to allow any others to suspect it. As the riders thundered down the dusty road that led from
the castle, there was a universal conviction that the runagate from the melee had somehow absconded with the innocent Lady Rosalynde. And each man vowed to have the villain’s head for it.

Cleve’s face creased in concern as he watched the activity in the bailey below. He too planned to search for Rosalynde and Aric, for he was certain they were not long away. But with so many searchers about, he feared greatly for Aric’s discovery. A wry grin lifted his lips at that sentiment, for there had been a time—not very long past—when he would have relished just such an end for the scoundrel Blacksword. Hanging would have been too good for him. But there was more involved now. Rosalynde clearly loved the man—and it appeared he wasn’t quite the rogue he had at first seemed.

Cleve’s eyes narrowed as he saw Sir Gilbert mount his own destrier. With an angry jerk at the reins, the man turned the animal, then drove him forward, scattering chickens and the pack of castle hounds as he charged across the bailey with his men, resuming the search they’d had to abandon the night before.

Now
there
was a man to beware of, the boy decided. And one who must not find the missing lovers before he himself did.

When Cleve rode out from Stanwood Castle, he was on a sturdy pony and without any escort or fanfare. The only eyes that noted his departure were Lord Edward’s, and that one frowned thoughtfully at his passing. While the forest was scoured from east to west, from glen to highest hill, the boy urged his steed on, following a hunch that had plagued him all night. Although he spied other riders, he avoided them, for he wished no one to mind him overlong. As the sun moved higher into the sky and he drew several leagues away from Stanwood, he began to relax a bit, and
even to doze in the saddle, for he’d had little enough sleep the previous night.

He did not notice the four riders who trailed him at a distance, careful to remain hidden. Even had he seen them, he would not have recognized the men in their nondescript hoods and tunics. But Sir Gilbert of Duxton recognized young Cleve very well.

“What is that trifling boy about?” he had murmured to himself when he’d first seen Cleve. He’d almost dismissed the boy as just another of the searchers who hoped to gain both glory and a reward by saving Lord Edward’s daughter. But then Gilbert had reconsidered. The young squire traveled alone and did not appear to be looking for anyone. He seemed instead to have a definite destination in mind as he hurried his horse along. On a hunch, Gilbert sent his other men off with the strict orders to kill the rogue knight Aric as soon as they set eyes on him. Then he and three of his men followed Cleve.

The sun was curving toward the western horizon when Cleve approached the Stour River. Golden shafts of sunlight glanced off the tumbled granite boulders of the adulterine as he urged his weary mount across the river ford. There was no sign of life in the abandoned castle, and a shiver swept up his spine as he thought of the ghosts said to haunt the place. Yet they’d been safe there once before, he reminded himself sternly. No unhappy spirits had beset them then. None would now. It was the living they must fear more than the dead.