Perhaps he was even now on his way up to the tower to surprise her.
She turned away from the window, smiling. She could surprise him, too. The baby was a visible bump between her hips now, and she had this table thing. Which she had to test before he got here, for if it worked…
She found some combed flax, as fluffy as fresh-combed wool, and twisted a length of it into thread between her fingers, threading it on the spindle. When she'd secured it, she set the fluffy flax on the distaff, and gave the wheel a push with her elbow. The spindle spun and she soon had her hands full, keeping the wheel turning while she twisted the thread. If the wheel could be spun by water or even her foot, it would be much better, but she was slowly getting accustomed to this. The spindle was full almost before she realised it, and she fitted a second. This time, she spun the wheel a little faster, for she had the timing of it, and the second spindle was full in no time. Why, she'd barely been working for a few minutes, and she'd done a whole morning's work.
This would change everything.
She wanted to shout and dance and sing, but she didn't dare do any of these things in the king's castle until Lubos returned, for he should be the first one to know. So she fitted her third and final spindle, and began to spin again.
As if in answer to her wish, the door behind her swung open and the footsteps that entered were too heavy to belong to anyone but a man. Lubos was home.
"Come and see," she said. "It's even better than I imagined it could be." She didn't dare stop, for the thread would be uneven.
A hand descended on her spindle, stopping it. "Lady, you need to stop playing with that toy. For what I have to say to you is a matter of life or death if you do not." He let go of her spindle, but it no longer moved, for he'd done something to the thread that turned it yellow.
Molina stared up in horror…at a man who certainly wasn't Lubos.
Twenty-Two
The terrified girl seemed to banish her fear in a moment as she rose. "Who are you?" she demanded.
She was a princess, the seer had said, which explained her regal bearing, as well as her fine gown. Maja had nothing half so fine. Abraham promised himself that when the curse was broken, he would find a fabric merchant to sell him some rich cloth to take home as a gift for Maja.
But first he had to persuade the girl to help him, and not betray him to the king. For the king would not look kindly upon an intruder in his castle, however loyal the House of Rumpelstiltskin might be.
"Who I am matters not," Abraham said finally. "All that matters is you help me."
She edged away from him, toward the door. "You should not be here. If you wish for someone's help, you should petition the king." Her hand closed on the door handle.
"No!" Abraham shouted, lunging for her.
She scrambled away, crossing the room so that the wheeled table she had been playing with stood between them. "If my husband returns and finds you here, he will cut you down. Leave while you still have legs to run with. For if you harm me, there is nowhere you can run to where he will not find you."
Harm her? He had to save her!
Abraham stared at her for a long moment before he could find the words he needed. "I have not come here to hurt you, Princess," he said slowly. "I need your help, and I will pay handsomely for it. So handsomely, you will never need to spin your own thread again." He reached for the spindles of spun thread he recognised, for Maja had used similar ones, and closed his fingers around them. In a moment, the common white thread turned to pure gold. He held out the transformed spindles. "You see?"
"What have you done?" she demanded.
"I will make you richer than you have ever dreamed, if only you help me," Abraham said. He thought he heard footsteps on the stairs. He would have to be quick. "Come with me. I will tell you everything you need to know, and once you have helped me, I will fill your chamber with enough gold to last you a lifetime."
"I don't want gold or riches. I want my husband, and no one else. Get out!" she said fiercely.
The footsteps were getting closer. "Please, Princess!" Abraham pulled on his gloves and offered her his hand. "All the wealth you could ever want, and all I ask is a night of your time."
"No!"
The door handle moved. Abraham was out of time.
"I shall return on the morrow, and ask you again," he promised, before stamping his foot three times to conjure a hole large enough for him to escape through before the door opened.
Twenty-Three
Lubos wanted to skip all the way up to her chamber, as she'd named the empty room above his own that Molina had claimed for her workroom. He settled for racing up the steps, something he hadn't done since he was a boy.
He threw open the door, and there she was. For a moment, she seemed transfixed with shock, before her thunderous expression cleared and her beaming smile blinded him.
"Lubos!" She dashed across the room and threw her arms around him, kissing him with such fervour he wished he'd thought to commission a bed for this chamber.
He did not want to break the embrace, but he knew he would have to. His father expected him in the throne room, and he would have to explain his delay.
Gently, he pushed her away from him so that she stood at arm's length. "I must report to the king, and I cannot take you with me. Not yet." One day, he promised himself.
"No, not yet." She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered, though the room was not cold. The king had that effect on many people, it seemed.
Lubos cast around the room, and his gaze lit upon the wheeled table he'd seen in her drawings. "Did Zimmerman manage to make one for you? Does it work?"
She smiled. "It took several tries, but yes, he finished this for me today. I sat down to spin, and it seemed but a moment, yet I did a whole day's work in that time. I've never spun so much in my life. Spinning with a wheel is easily twice or thrice as fast as spinning by hand. Look how many spindles I filled." She waved a hand at the table, and the pile of what Lubos had to assume were spindles.
Lubos gathered them up, then kissed her quickly. "I'll take these to my father, and tell him you have a machine that can make miracles. I'm sure it will please him. I told you we will help him see reason."
Before he could surrender to his desire for her again, he forced his feet to carry him out of her chamber. "Once I have reported to the king, I am yours, my lady. I have a great number of kisses I mean to share with you, in our bedchamber below," he called over his shoulder as he headed down the stairs.
"I will be waiting," he heard her say.
Grinning, Lubos marched to the throne room, only to find his father had dismissed the court for the day. Sighing, he headed back up a different set of stairs to his father's solar.
He heard his father's muttering before he entered the room, and strained his ears to hear the words. Something about demanding his son for marriage, when he'd offered his daughter. His father didn't sound likely to accept the proposal, whoever it was for, and Lubos breathed a sigh of relief.
"Good evening, Father," he said loudly, as he entered the solar. No courtly bows were required here, for there was no audience to impress.
"Is it?" Father eyed the window suspiciously. "Have you caught my thieving barons yet, boy?"
Lubos shook his head. "No, not yet. They all seem to be a loyal lot. But I do bring good news. Lady Molina has perfected the miraculous spinning wheel she promised, and look what she has made!" He set the three spindles on the table before his father.
They didn't look particularly impressive. For a moment, Lubos wished he'd brought Molina and her spinning wheel along, too, but then he remembered his father's tastes ran to women like Bachmeier's daughters, not his lithe lady.
Father picked one up and examined it, then took it to the window, where the sunlight might better illuminate Molina's work.
"Who did this?" Father demanded.
"Lady Molina, the lady I wish to marry," Lubos began.
"How?" Father interrupted.
> "With a miraculous spinning wheel of her own design. She takes some combed flax, spins the wheel, twists the flax through her fingers, and turns it into that. Faster than you can believe," Lubos said proudly.
"She shall show me on the morrow. If it is truly as you say, you must marry the girl. Marry her, before someone else does."
Lubos hardly dared believe his luck. "Marry her on the morrow? Father, thank you!"
Father glared at him. "I did not say that. Tomorrow she will prove her claims, while you finish the quest I have twice sent you on, but you have failed at. When you have found the barons cheating me of my share, and restored their tithe to me, then you may marry her. Meantime, I shall keep her close. She cannot be allowed to escape. Make sure you lock her in her chambers tonight."
There would be no need to lock her in anywhere, Lubos thought but didn't say. He could happily keep Molina confined to the bed until the morrow, and she would be his willing prisoner. Especially when he told her he had his father's permission to marry on his return.
He bade his father a good evening for the second time, and sped to the chamber where Molina waited for him.
Twenty-Four
The moment the bedchamber door closed behind him, Molina opened her mouth to share all her worries with Lubos, not least of all the strange man who'd stopped her spinning wheel, but Lubos pressed a finger to her lips.
"I must leave in the morning, to finish my quest for the king. The sooner I go, the sooner I may return and we can be married. I know you have much to tell me – I could tell you much about my travels, too – but neither is important right now. We have one night together, and I wish to spend it sharing as much love as possible, so that the memory will warm us both when we are far apart." He looked longingly into her eyes. "I will make love to you any way you wish, from now until dawn, and I swear the next night we spend together shall be our wedding night. My father has agreed, and so it shall be."
The very thought of him inside her once more kindled a fire within her brighter than she'd imagined possible. Why, it seemed her insides burned to feel him again. Lubos was right. She didn't want to waste these precious hours with words.
She hitched up her skirt, layers of silk and linen, until she was bare to the waist, but for her stockings. She hooked one leg around his hip, sliding her hand up under his tunic for his hard length. Her fingers tangled with his, intent on one purpose – uniting them. He thrust inside her, cupping her bottom as he lifted her, pushing deeper to her moaning satisfaction.
"Oh God, Molina," he said as he backed her up against the wall. "So long I've been dreaming of you like this."
She fastened her legs around his hips, holding his gaze as he filled her. "And I you. Make the first time hard and fast. If we have all night, we can take our time."
He chuckled. "Hard and fast you shall have, but I think you have forgotten something. My lady must come first." He pinned her to the wall, as full of him as she was with child. Without taking his eyes off hers, his thumb found precisely the right spot at the apex of her thighs, rubbing hard and fast until her vision dissolved into stars. Only then did he move again, maintaining the same rhythm until they cried out for joy together.
She was too busy gasping for breath to protest when he withdrew from her. But then he carried her to bed, and began to unlace her gown. He peeled away layers of fabric until he'd bared her breasts, which he covered with kisses. With her nipples already far too sensitive, thanks to her pregnancy, the moment he decided to suck on one was almost enough to send her over the edge, and she cried out.
"Did I hurt you?" he asked immediately, pulling away.
"No, of course not. Please, don't stop," she said.
He grinned and lowered his lips to her breast again. His hands dipped lower, bunching her skirts up until he'd bared her legs. Legs she parted willingly at a touch, for she knew the magic that dwelled in his fingers. Magic that soon made her cry out his name, over and over, until she was too hoarse to speak.
Only then did he finish undressing her, dragging her skirts down and throwing them to the floor, heedless of what happened to them. When she wore nothing but her silken stockings, he paused.
"Would you like me to take them off?" she asked, feeling incredibly self-conscious as his eyes devoured her otherwise naked body.
"No. They stay," he said, sitting on the bed beside her. "Now, come sit in my lap and help me take my clothes off."
He didn't wait for a response, lifting her easily so that she sat astride him, just like on their very first time together. And he was rock hard between her thighs, ready for her. She reached down, ready to guide him inside her, but Lubos caught her hands and lifted them to the buttons at the front of his tunic. "I'll take care of that. You see to my clothes."
Her hands shaking with anticipation, she worked at the fastenings on his tunic. Never had it taken her so long to free three buttons from their loops, and she almost cried when the third one finally came free. As if that was his cue, Lubos thrust into her partway, holding tight to her hips when she tried to squirm down the length of him to drive him deeper inside her. "My clothes," he reminded her.
Reluctantly, she pulled his tunic up over his head.
He slid in an inch deeper.
She took a deep breath, tugging his under tunic off, too.
He filled her completely and she let out a sigh of pleasure.
"Don't forget my hose," he said, grinning.
Molina glanced over her shoulder. Sure enough, he wore thick woollen hose, the cloth scratchy beneath her bottom. Yes, they had to go. She managed to get them down past his knees by rising up onto her own knees, but in order to pull them off entirely she'd need to lean right back. One glance at his grin told her he had no intention of helping.
Wrapping her legs securely around his waist, she bent backward, arching her back up as she stretched her arms behind her to push his hose down his calves and off his feet.
"My God, you're beautiful, Molina." His finger stroked the nipple of one upthrust breast. A delicious sensation that made her cry out again. "Here, I'll help you up." One strong hand splayed across her back, while his other fastened around her hip, crushing her against him. But instead of lifting her up, he fell back on the mattress, pulling her with him until she sat astride him while he lay supine on the bed. "If I had a choice, I would spend every moment of the rest of my life like this with you. Hard and deep inside you, while you ride me to the peak of your own pleasure, with your breasts bouncing just like that." With his hands on her hips, he lifted and lowered her, thrusting up to meet her until she caught his rhythm, leaving his hands free to caress her breasts until she screamed.
But they didn't stop.
Not until dawn stole him from her, and she collapsed, empty and aching, in his lonely bed. For nothing was quite as heartbreaking as holding her husband to be and losing him, all in one night.
Twenty-Five
"Get her up and dressed. Now!"
The male voice giving orders wasn't one Molina recognised. But when unfamiliar hands seized her arms and dragged her from her bed, it no longer mattered.
"Unhand me!" she demanded. "Do you know what Prince Lubos will say if he discovers you have laid hands on his bethrothed?"
"Nothing good, I'm sure, but it doesn't matter, miss, for my orders come from the king."
Someone threw open the window shutters and Molina blinked in the bright light. The man who'd spoken, giving orders that came from the king, was the king's guard captain, who'd stood at the king's side in court. A man of honour, or so she'd thought.
He caught sight of her, too, and turned his back. "Avert your eyes, men, and let the lady dress!"
His men obeyed, and Molina hurried to don the clothes Lubos had stripped from her last night. Dropped from the very heights of passion to this rude awakening.
When she was decently covered, she asked, "Where are you taking me?" She did her best to hide her dread at what the captain might answer.
"To another r
oom in the castle, where the king wants you to demonstrate your spinning skills. When your work is done, I have orders to return you to the prince's chambers."
That didn't sound so bad. Spinning for a day was no harder than what she did at home. Molina managed to summon her best smile as she pulled on her boots. "Then shall we go, Captain?"
He nodded, looking relieved, and gestured for his men to follow behind them. He led her to an older part of the castle, with narrower passageways and uneven stairs leading ever upward, until he opened the door to another tower room, nowhere near as handsomely furnished as the prince's. No tapestries adorned these walls, and his bed would not have fitted here. The windows were little more than arrow slits, where they were visible at all, for the walls were stacked high with baskets of flax, waiting to be spun.
In the middle of all this sat her spinning wheel, fitted with a new spindle. A box containing dozens more sat on a stool that was evidently where she was expected to sit while she laboured.
It would be a challenge, but she suspected that with the aid of her wheel, she could have it all spun before the day was done. If not…well, it wasn't as though Lubos waited for her. The bed would be cold without him, so what was an evening's work if she had little else to do?
She thanked the captain and set to work, barely noticing when the door closed, so focussed was she on her work.
Hours passed and Molina spun, turning the wheel faster now she knew how to work the machine. Basket after basket emptied between her nimble fingers, but she did not stop. She was determined to show the king what her contraption could do in well-trained hands. A week's work in a day, that's what, she told herself, as she lifted the last basket. Her hands ached, but there was so little left, it would be but the work of a moment. And it was – in no time at all, she reached for the door, ready to return to the prince's chamber, only to find the door was locked.
She rapped smartly on the wood. "Captain, I have finished spinning all of the flax!" she called.
Spin- Rumpelstiltskin Retold Page 7
