If Ariel objected to this new attentiveness on her brother’s part, she did not put voice to any complaints. She had been given more than just a knock on the head to think about and she was not altogether certain she trusted herself around FitzRandwulf.
Not that she would have known, by anything he said or did, that whatever intimacy they may or may not have shared had left a lasting impression. He was his usual cool, brusque self, preoccupied with finding horses and supplies to replace what they had lost, and then with speeding them on their way to St. Malo with no further delays or mishaps. Only at night, during the still, dark hours when the only sound was the beating of her own heart, was she aware of the slate gray eyes watching her across the fire. Then, if she still had reason to doubt the validity of what Henry had told her, she needed only to feel the warm wash of sensations sliding through her belly to know his concerns were real.
St. Malo was a crowded and busy port city. The smell of fish and salt water, canvas and wood rot, permeated everything.
It was also a secretive city, filled to the eaves with men who made their livings carrying other men back and forth to England who preferred to keep their travel arrangements to themselves. Fully a third of John’s meagre army had returned to England without the permission or knowledge of their captains. Another third waited in dirty taverns, rolling dice and hoping to win the price of a berth on board the next ship heading home. Voices in the shadows railed King John as a usurper, a liar, a foul murderer. There were brawls in the taverns and throats slit every night. Fevers ran high in favour of the rebel forces seeking to oust the Norman king from Brittany, and even humble pilgrims were not immune from the effects of widespread dissent, twice fielding sprays of rotten vegetables thrown by invisible hands.
FitzRandwulf’s party sought lodging at another inn that opened its doors wider to the words à outrance, and though the owners were neither as portly nor as amiable as the Gabinets, the rooms were clean, the food hearty, the ale strong and plentiful. Henry and Eduard wasted no time making arrangements for their crossing. Passage for the men and their horses was won at an exorbitant price, paid in silver to guarantee the captain would not sell their berths to others as eager to remove themselves from Brittany.
When the men returned to the inn for the evening meal, they behaved as if at least a portion of the weight on their shoulders had been lifted. It showed in the amount of ale they consumed with their food and in the light-hearted banter that flew across the platters of mutton, quail, fish, and legumes. Henry was so relaxed, his eye kept wandering to the shapely figure of the innkeeper’s daughter, who all but ignored him as she filled their tankards and carried the meal to and from the large dining table. His wandering eye became a general restlessness and, after Ariel declared her intentions to retire for the night, he confided he might partake of a walk to another tavern where the patrons were less solemn and the wenches less prone to keeping their thighs clamped together. It was their last night in Normandy, after all, and there was naught left to do but find their way to the docks before midnight the following eve.
Sedrick, heaving a sigh of vast indulgence, said he might as well accompany the randy young lord to save him from having his brains rattled again. Sparrow, declaring the pair of them needed watching, sharpened his eyes for mischief and followed after them. Neither Robin nor Dafydd ap Iorwerth expressed any further craving for adventure. The Welshman’s arm was healing, but painful, and he bid a weary good night to all and did not protest when Robin tucked himself under his arm and supported his weight up the stairs. They left Eduard brooding in front of the fire … where he was still to be found an hour or so later when Ariel descended from her room in search of a cup of honeyed milk.
At first, she did not see him, for his dark clothing blended perfectly with the shadows. Nor did he make any overt move to draw attention to himself, letting only his eyes follow her progress across the room.
She had indulged in a bath earlier that afternoon, scrubbing a week’s worth of sweat and pine sap out of her hair. Weary of braids and pins and pillowed felt hats, she had left it loose to dry and had caught the bulk of it at the nape of her neck with a scrap of linen. There were unruly sprays drifting around her temples and throat, a soft nimbus of bright red curls that glowed like a halo in the firelight. The bruise on her scalp was still visible although the angriest blue had started to fade. She wore a loose-fitting tunic made of fine camlet cloth—a deliberately feminine concession to the leggings and coarse linsey-woolsey she had worn all week. A modest enough fabric in daylight, it was rendered pale and luminous by the firelight, playing teasing tricks with shapes and shadows so that Eduard could feel his mouth going dry even without looking at anything lower than her collarbone.
An earthenware jug of mead stood on the table, left over from dinner. Ariel pondered it a moment before deciding it would be just as likely to help her sleep as warmed milk. It was while she was helping herself to a measure that she became aware of the silent figure seated in the shadows. She was quite proud of her ability to finish pouring the mead without spilling a drop. She was even able to set the jug aside and stare directly into the watching eyes as if she had known he was there all along.
FitzRandwulf did not call her bluff, nor did he question her presence or apologize for his own. He merely rose and selected another log to add to the fire.
He was out of armour, dressed comfortably in a long belted tunic and hose. His hair curled thick and glossy across the back of his neck, drawing attention to the breadth of his shoulders and to the way his gladiator’s muscles bulged and rippled with the motion of his arms.
Ariel took a sip of mead and waited.
He set the fresh log and took an iron rod to the embers, stirring and rearranging them so that sparks fountained in all directions and a cloud of smoke heaved out the wide opening. The log was dry and caught at once, with hungry red snakes of flame exploring the ridges and hollows, curling under the bark and hissing triumphantly over the discovery of some small burrowing creatures.
FitzRandwulf poked and stirred. When he realized she was probably not going to go away until he acknowledged her, the teal gray of his eyes turned and took a deliberately slow perusal of the fire-bleached tunic.
He had managed, since leaving Rennes, to keep his thoughts pure and his mind clear of any lingering images. There were moments, however, like this one. Moments that came out of nowhere and struck without warning. Moments when it would have been far safer for both of them if her hair had remained braided and her body armoured in filthy squire’s rags. Moments when she should have known when to look away and when it was safe to fill those sea-green eyes with challenges.
“Your brother would not be pleased to come in and find you here alone with me,” he said quietly. “My brother is not my keeper.”
“He is concerned for your welfare.”
“Are you so dangerous a man, my lord?”
“Some might think so.”
A warm, swimming sensation that had nothing to do with the fire or the mead coursed through her, catching at her breath, making the timbre of his voice seem to resonate to the tips of her toes. Power, and the ability to draw upon it at a moment’s notice, was apparent in every line of his body— more so as he straightened to his full height and stood towering over her in all his savage splendor, the amber glow of the fire beside him, a black void of shadow behind him.
“Should I think of you as a dangerous man?”
“That would depend, my lady.”
“On what?”
“On your definition of danger. For instance, I have had several cups of ale and am in no mood for exchanging gauntlets, yet you stand before me with the devil in your eye and, if I am not mistaken, a question scorching your tongue that will not give you any peace until it is asked and answered. If you ask it and you do not like my answer, then yes, it could be very dangerous … for both of us.”
“How do you know I have a specific question in mind?”
“Oh … a
wild guess, I suppose. That and the fact you have been acting most decidedly saddle galled since we left Rennes.”
Ariel could not stop the flush from rising in her cheeks. She supposed she should have known Robin would share confidences with him, this despite the solemn promise he had exacted from her not to betray his revelation about FitzRandwulf’s dam.
Ariel set her goblet on the table, hard enough to splash some of the contents over the rim. She turned on her heels, fully intending to make it another two days before she deigned to speak to him again, but instead, she stood in a glowing cloud of camlet and curled her hands into tense little fists.
“Why did you kiss me at the inn in Rennes?”
It was the question he had been expecting and he answered it so politely and with such smugness she wished she had the means to scar the other half of his face. “I was merely complying with a request, my lady.”
“A request? From who?”
“There were only the two of us in the room at the time,” he said evenly.
Ariel whirled around and gaped. “Are you suggesting … implying … I wanted you to kiss me?”
Eduard furled a brow. “I may behave like a rogue and a black-hearted bastard at times, but I am not in the habit of forcing myself on helpless women. On the other hand, if the request is thrust upon me, chivalry dictates I can hardly refuse.”
“Even if the woman making the request is not in her proper senses?”
Eduard shrugged and seemed to move closer though she could swear his feet had not. “I am hardly a qualified physic to know when a woman is in her proper senses or not—especially a woman who has made such a request before.”
Ariel suffered through another ruddy wave of heat. He was standing too close. His formidable upper torso was like a wall of muscle before her, making her feel small and insignificant, and distinctly at a disadvantage.
“Do you know Henry saw us?” she asked.
“He and I have already exchanged a word on the subject.”
“He exchanged more than that with me. He seems to be under the impression I may be developing certain … ill-advised urges … toward you.”
“I trust you corrected his impression.”
“I assured him—as I assure you now—he was mistaken. I have no urges. Not toward you … or any other man, for that matter.”
Eduard’s gaze took another long, slow slide downward, making her uncomfortably aware that he was aware of the sudden new shape her nipples had taken beneath the camlet.
“Are you absolutely certain of that?” he mused.
“Absolutely. Why, I could kiss you now and feel nothing whatsoever.”
His eyes rose to the challenge, and Ariel realized her mistake, too late to withdraw it. She did not want to look at him for fear he could see the confusion beginning to crowd her senses. She did not want to look away either, for his fine gray eyes were subtly telling her how beautiful she was, how he did not believe for the merest instant she was not feeling something.
“Such confidence could easily be put to the test,” he murmured. “At the same time, it would help me prove to myself that I was only offering my comfort and sympathy.”
“You … require such proof?” she asked on a half-breath.
“I require something to keep my thoughts pure and mine eyes elsewhere.”
This time she saw him move a step closer and she matched it with a step back. He lifted a hand and Ariel felt a gentle tugging at the nape of her neck, but reacted too slowly to stop him from tossing aside the scrap of linen that bound her hair. Her hands were cold, her feet hot. Spans of flesh everywhere on her body felt tight, stretched to the limit, as if the slightest touch would send her bursting out of her skin.
He had been drinking a fair amount of ale, she could smell it on each heated exhalation of air. It was not the ale speaking, however. It may have emboldened him to speak, but it was not the ale speaking.
“I … do not think it would be wise to try to prove anything right now,” she stammered, conscious of his fingers combing through her hair, spreading it across her shoulders. “It might be best if I just return to my room … and … and we forget the whole thing.”
Eduard smiled faintly. He coiled a shiny red ribbon of her hair around his fingers. The silky heat of it slithered over his skin and sent a surge of hot blood pulsating into flesh that was already growing thick and heavy in response to the dark green sparkle in her eyes. His body was responding to a woman’s challenge, but it was the plea of a child—a spoiled child accustomed to getting her way in all things—who suggested they could just walk away and forget.
“Go then,” he said quietly, dropping the strand of hair. “And do not fling any more of your righteous airs of presumption in my face, for I could make of you, here and now, a woman of very strong urges indeed.”
He started turning away and something made Ariel reach out to stop him. His face was unreadable in the guttering firelight, his thoughts untouchable, and Ariel imagined she saw a shiver of a warning in the small muscle that flexed his jaw.
Very deliberately, she laid both hands flat on his chest. Keeping her eyes locked on his, she spread her fingers wide and skimmed them steadfastly up to his shoulders. Using the heat of his own muscles to bolster her nerve, she pulled herself up on tiptoes and pressed her lips over his, holding them there for a count of several pounding heartbeats. She broke away just as slowly, just as deliberately, and wilted lightly back onto her heels again.
“Pleasant,” was her analysis, given with only the barest tremor undermining her voice. “But rather too soured by ale for my liking. Perhaps another time, when there is nothing clouding your senses …?”
He raised a hand, startling her smugness into a faltering silence as he brushed the backs of his fingers along her cheek. The pad of his thumb stroked across the fullness of her lower lip, resting there while his fingers curved under her chin and started to tilt her face upward. His mouth began its descent and Ariel tried to pull back, but the heat of his hand shifted lower onto her neck, skimming around until it was pushing into the curling mass of her hair. She could not move in any direction but that of his choosing, and he chose to hold her steady a scant inch from his mouth.
The blush in her cheeks grew hotter and to her utter mortification she began to tremble. Her eyes began to shimmer with a film of silvery tears and her lips quivered apart as the tremors of shock shivered through her limbs, her breasts, her belly. She stood transfixed, doubting she could have moved even if he had set her free, and she realized the best she could hope for was to emerge with some shred of pride intact.
If he allowed it.
Ariel gasped as his mouth closed the gap between them, his lips slanting hard and full over hers. It was not so much a kiss as it was a claim, a warning not unlike the one her brother had given her about playing with fire. FitzRandwulf was fire. He was heat and flame and slow, hot breaths that scorched her cheeks and flooded her body with liquid incandescence.
She groaned as his lips forced hers wider apart and his tongue thrust past the barrier of her teeth. The bitter tang of ale gave way to the sinfully bold taste and feel of a man whose power she had already acknowledged to be formidable and uncompromising. Her body betrayed her, weakening with each deep, wet thrust so that her hands closed around fistfuls of his shirt and her breasts pressed shamelessly into a heated wall of muscle.
He was fire and she was flaming gloriously under his searing assault.
Streaks of sensations brought on by his hands, his lips, his tongue started to sweep through her, hot and icy, sharp and sweet, fierce and tender all at the same time. Her entire body seemed to be shivering, shuddering under a deluge of bright, burning sparks and she began to kiss him back, welcoming each bold stroke of his tongue, feeling the raw, primitive rhythm repeat itself in the staggeringly explicit ache that throbbed to life in her loins. His hands slid down from the tangle of her hair and pressed into the small of her back, coaxing her even closer, inviting her to share even
more shocking intimacies.
Eduard kissed her until her mouth was chafed and swollen, then sent his lips chasing down the strained arch of her throat. Her skin was smooth and warm, the flesh so white against the tanned darkness of his own, it looked like cream. Like a big, hungry cat he lapped at the fluttering pulsebeat in the crook of her neck, then sent his tongue swirling into the pink shell of her ear. He could feel the deep, wracking shudders of pleasure that shook her with each nuzzling caress, and he was aware of the dangers of continuing … but she was all heat and soft, gasping wonderment, and he was as hungry to feel her lushness crushing against him as she was to feel the lushness spread and shimmer throughout her whole body. Her arousal was like an intoxicant in his blood, far more potent than any amount of ale he could have consumed and he wanted to drink his fill of her before the sobering effects of reality intruded.
Reality tried to intrude when his lips encountered the laces joining the edges of her bodice. The camlet was thin and airy and molded easily to her breasts as he stroked his hands around their fullness. The pebble-hard buds of her nipples strained against the cloth, shadows beneath the whiteness, and it would have taken a far stronger man than he to ignore their pleas to be set free. It took only a few swift tugs of his fingers to unfasten the laces and push the offending wings of camlet aside. He caught at his breath and ran his hand over the smooth surface of her skin, circling his palm around the cool heaviness of her breast before he lifted the puckered crown to his mouth.
His tongue traced silky, wet patterns over her skin and Ariel nearly crumpled to her knees under the stunning torrent of heat that poured into her belly and loins. His lips closed around her nipple and her body spasmed with the shock, with the pleasure. His tongue and lips suckled more of her, all of her that he could hold into the well of his mouth and she cried out, arching her head back in a violent, shiny whiplash of colour. He sank down onto his knees and she did not think to stop him. She thought only to press her body closer as he lavished her breasts with warm, ravaging caresses, and she became like quicksilver in his hands, hot and eager, eager and willing, willing and wanting …
The Robin Hood Trilogy Page 69
