She took a deep breath and moved close enough for the wool of her cloak to brush against his surcoat. She stood a long moment with the top of her head a silky curl away from touching his chin, then tilted her face up and elevated herself onto the tips of her toes, using one cool hand to circle his neck and coax his mouth down to within a breath of hers.
“You know, of course,” she murmured through a frown, “that Tansy faints if a mouse crosses her path.”
“Is that a fact? I gather you have been listening to castle gossips?”
“Not willingly, I assure you.”
“You did not believe them?”
She lowered her lashes and tried not to think of how her breasts were tingling, crushed against his chest. “I do not believe a person could be made to faint three times, no.”
“Actually … it was only twice.” He grinned. “But I was somewhat tupped on your father’s excellent ale and not in my best form.”
She exhaled around a disparaging sigh and pressed her mouth over his. It was a tentative, nerveless effort at first, hampered by his grin and her own reluctance. But then she was more insistent, and he obliged by parting his lips and suddenly the clumsiness gave way to stubbornness and instinct. Her tongue sought the silky heat of his mouth, exploring it with the same kind of rolling, swirling intimacy that had caught her by surprise last night. It seemed to win a similar reaction from him for he stiffened and resisted the encroachment as if, all things said, it was an unwanted intrusion.
She forced his lips even wider and thrust deeper, determined to prove she could be as irreverent as he, but somewhere between the rush of smug satisfaction and the surge of unwarranted physical pleasure, she felt his arms circle her waist and lift her against him. He gathered her close enough to cause the tingling tension in her breasts to explode in a million fiery sparks, and suddenly it was his tongue doing the searching and thrusting, his lips suckling and molding and coaxing hers wider, wider, until she could scarce catch a breath through the heat and wildness.
She curled both hands around his neck as his tongue probed deep, deep, prowling and penetrating, urging … no, demanding she do the same. Her cloak slipped off her shoulders and crumpled on the ground at her feet and his hands were there, raking into the softness of her hair, crushing her to him with a hunger she could not have escaped if she had wanted to. Pleasure inundated her in waves and still he kissed her. Kissed her like a dying man asking his last favor from God. She was powerless to break away, helpless to do anything but cling to him and weather the intense, spreading heat.
The heat was all focused inward, and she acknowledged it with a violent shudder. She shuddered again when his hands cradled her hips and pulled her savagely against him, and she moaned as the insistent throbbing between her thighs began to liquefy and pulsate, inflaming her from without and within.
A jarring, familiar sound echoed across the green and Brenna pulled back, gasping, her mouth wet and open, her body shimmering and as molten as quicksilver. It was the watch bell on the outer gates. The guard was changing and fresh, wary eyes would be taking to the walls, alert to any unexpected movement in the bailey.
“I have to leave,” she gasped. “I have to go back. If they see us—”
“They will not see us. And you cannot leave yet, the wager is only half paid.”
“But you said—”
“A kiss. A long sweet kiss. And that”—his dark head bent to her again—“was not long enough, my lady. Not nearly long enough.”
CHAPTER TEN
Griffyn swept her into his arms as if she weighed no more than a feather. He dipped once to retrieve her cloak then carried her to the side of the bothy where the grass was thick and lush and the shadows were darkest. He spread the cloak with a flick of his wrist and set her down upon it without once lifting his mouth from hers, and although she squirmed and gasped the expected protests, they were only half-hearted, and his hands, his lips, his tongue were able to reduce them to mere whimpers.
He devoured her mouth, leaving her dazed and so near to fainting she felt a giddy rush and almost laughed. His lips plundered the length of her throat from her ear to her shoulder, finding every sensitive nerve, every shy fluttering pulse beat. His fingers found the laced fastenings of her tunic and chainse, loosening them enough to open a gap over her breasts. A husky groan sent his fingertips slipping beneath the cloth, rasping over the satiny warmth of her bare flesh.
She arched upward as his hand molded around her breast, shaping it, cupping it, lifting it into the wet, insistent heat of his mouth, and she cried out softly, shamelessly, as her hands clawed into the thick mane of his hair, holding him there. He obliged each gasp, each shivered cry, each ragged moan, tugging gently on the sensitive peak of her nipple, teasing it, caressing it with his tongue and lips, demonstrating a thoroughness that left her shaking like a leaf.
Brenna kept her eyes squeezed tightly shut. It was shattering enough just to feel where his breath heated her skin and his tongue lapped and rolled; where the rough stubble on his jaw abraded the silky surface and the blunt, callused tips of his fingers probed and kneaded. His hand skimmed the length of her leg and came back again dragging the hem of her skirts with it, then he sent his fingers in the same smooth movement to explore the soft thatch of golden down he found there.
Brenna’s eyes flew open in shock and she tried to clench her thighs tight to bar his way, but the very act of challenging his right to be there only brought his fingers stroking deeper. Her limbs and belly quivered with involuntary spasms, and the first rush of unexpected pleasure caught her totally by surprise. The second brought her half up off the grass, her back arched, her hair thrashing the ground beneath, her hands tearing at his shoulders, his neck, the bunched muscles of his upper arms.
“I think,” he murmured with genuine intrigue, “I may have been too hasty in offering to accept such a meager compromise. I think I would prefer the contest of making you faint.”
She shook her head, her eyes wide and dark and frightened by her own inability to control the sweet, shuddering spasms that rippled through her body. Her thighs clenched again, this time to hold him firm as yet another deluge of wet heat shivered through her from head to toe, the fierceness and potency all but taking her breath away.
With a knowing laugh, he pushed the crush of her skirts higher and bared her limbs completely. Slick with the evidence of her desire, his fingers curled into the dewy petals of flesh, parting them with his thumbs to expose the glistening mother-of-pearl bud in their midst.
Brenna made a harsh, broken sound in her throat for she did not know what to expect, did not know what he was going to do next, only knowing she was helpless to stop him, did not want to stop him so long as his thumbs stroked and his fingers teased and her body fluttered with the promise of even greater pleasure to come. She flung her arms out on either side and grasped at fistfuls of grass. Her heart was drumming in her chest and her every nerve ending was so acutely sensitive she could feel each blade of grass where it tickled her skin. Through hot flares of shame, she could imagine the sight she made, her skirts bunched up around her waist, her breasts bared, the nipples dark and swollen hard as berries, her limbs glowing white and milky as he parted them wider and pressed a kiss into the soft flesh of her inner thigh.
For all of two mindless, disbelieving seconds she stared at his dark head as the heat of his breath and the rasp of stub-bled jaw moved between her thighs. His tongue was there too, silky and devilish, lapping its way toward the juncture where his lips closed over the trembling petals, bold and devouring as if he had found another mouth to torment. His hands grasped her hips and she could not have pulled away if she wanted to, but it did not excuse the fact that she allowed it, even encouraged it with aggressive little thrusts that invited his tongue to even more sinful depths.
She cried out. Then cried out again as more sounds came from the direction of the gates again, this time accompanied by the harsh, jolting clatter of a dozen horses galloping ov
er the wooden draw.
“Stop,” she gasped. “Stop!”
The panic in her voice caused Griffyn to freeze, then to abandon her so swiftly she barely registered the movement as he sprang into a crouch and pressed himself against the wall of the bothy. She fumbled to cover herself and joined him just as more torchlights blazed into life in front of the barbican towers.
“What is it? Can you see what is happening?”
“It looks like you have a late-night visitor,” he murmured.
“Impossible. Littlejohn allows no one inside after dark.”
“He let us in.”
“Only because it was me and Robin was waiting. Had you been on your own, with blood pouring off your head, he would have sent out a bandage and told you to bide until daylight.”
“A comforting thought.”
“These are hardly comforting times with spies and assassins lurking behind every handsome, smiling face.”
He permitted himself the distraction of a glance before he looked back at the gates. The area around the main barbicans was flooded bright as the belly of a forge now, swarming with sentries armed with swords and crossbows. Littlejohn was plainly identifiable by his seven feet of glowering muscle where he stood beneath the center of the flying bridge.
Over Griffyn’s shoulder, Brenna was fumbling with the laces of her tunic, her fingers tangling around one another as she hastened to cover herself and restore the modesty of her clothing. She could scarcely believe a minute ago she was sprawled in the grass with his mouth between her thighs. She could scarcely believe she had permitted such a depraved liberty, much less that her flesh was still churning and her hands shook so badly she could not fasten a simple knot.
She conquered the last one in time to see half a dozen riders dismounting inside the gates. The men looked exhausted, the horses were all flecked with white lather and stood trembling where the torchlight burned off the mist, waiting while groomsmen hastened forward to catch the reins.
“Why, it looks like …” Her eyes widened and she forgot all about her own indignities. “It looks like Lord Alaric!”
“FitzAthelstan’s father?”
She nodded and the hand—which she had not been aware of placing on Griffyn’s arm—dug so deep into the muscle, he turned again to look at her. Both their faces were dusted lightly by the glow from the distant torches, and he could see the sudden fear and concern pleating her brow.
“What is it? What is wrong?”
“Lord Alaric has been staying at Blois this past month to help my brother Eduard through his recovery. He would not have ridden all this way at night unless … unless something was terribly wrong.”
She sprang to her feet and snatched up her cloak. “I have to go. I… should not have come in the first place, but I… I have to leave now.”
His hand reached out and closed around her upper arm, delaying her before she could rush past. “I will be leaving as well. I will not be here when the sun comes up.”
She looked confused. “Not be here? Where will you be?”
“On the road to Rouen, hopefully, unless I manage to lose my way again.”
She glanced at the gate, then up at his face. “But… we are all going to the same place. Would it not make sense to travel together?”
“On the one hand, yes, I suppose it would. On the other”—he plucked a stray curl off her shoulder and let the backs of his fingers rest briefly on her cheek—“it would make none at all. I have already given thanks to your father for his hospitality and my regards to your brother should we meet again in Gaillard.”
The group by the gate was breaking up, the sentries were returning to the walls, the horses were being led to the stables and the torches doused one by one when they were deemed no longer necessary. Lord Alaric and his men, with Littlejohn in the lead, were moving quickly across the common toward the inner gates. Watching this, knowing she would only have a few seconds to catch up, Brenna wrenched her arm out of his grasp and turned on him.
“When were you planning to tell me this? After you had thanked me for my hospitality?”
There was enough light to give substance to his eyes, making them glow out of the shadows with their peculiar luminescence. They were as cold and implacable as the chiselled beauty of his face and her cheeks flushed with resentment. Because she could think of nothing else to do to ease her frustration, she slammed both fists against his chest and backed away.
“You are absolutely right, sirrah,” she cried, the anger almost swelling her throat closed. “You had best not be here when the sun comes up. Further, you should pray sincerely that we do not meet again, here or at Gaillard, for if I had more time, or perhaps even a weapon in my hand, you would pay dearly for your mockery.”
She turned and ran across the archery yard, across the practice fields, her cloak whipped hastily around her shoulders and belling out behind like a large gray sail.
Griffyn watched until she had disappeared through the inner gates. Her fists had barely dented the thickness of his surcoat, but he felt the blows as clearly as if she had used hammers. Reaching beneath the hunting green doeskin, he withdrew a small square of carefully folded silk—the veil she had left in the bath house the previous evening—and crushed his fingers around it as he looked over his shoulder at the looming silhouette of the castle keep. He started to let the silk go, to let it slide out of his palm, but at the last moment something stopped him and, cursing under his breath, he tucked the scrap of silk back inside his surcoat and started walking toward the stables. It seemed fitting, somehow, that the heavens chose that particular moment to crack open and begin spitting cold, fat raindrops on his head.
Brenna ran through the inner gate and across the wooden draw. Her footsteps earned the attention of the group ahead and several FitzAthelstan men reacted out of instinct, whirling around and drawing their swords. Seeing who it was and hearing her hail, they relaxed again, though not without a few choice words misting the air in front of their mouths. “Lord Alaric!”
“Brenna? What the devil are you doing out this time of night?”
“I was … down at the stables. One of the mares is about to foal and I wanted to make sure she was all right. I saw you and your men come through the gates and I thought …” She stopped, caught a breath, and blurted, “Has something happened at Blois? Is it Eduard? Or Lady Ariel? Or the baby?”
“No! No, calm yourself, child. Nothing is wrong with Eduard, or Lady Ariel. The baby kicks a great deal, so I am told, but is steadfastly refusing to appear until its time.”
“Oh … thank the sweet Mother Mary.” She clasped her hand to her bosom. “You gave me such a fright!”
Tall and lean, an older version of Will, Lord Alaric was still an attractive man, not given to balding or graying, nor to cultivating a round paunch from easy living. Brenna had not seen him in over a month, and she was plainly shocked. Granted, to see a face by flickering torchlight was not always a true depiction of shadows and hollows, but his cheeks were gaunt and his soft brown eyes were heavily underscored by dark circles. Will had said he hardly ate and never slept, and she could see the truth of it before her despite the smile he forced for her benefit and the wide-shouldered mantle he wore to conceal the looseness of his clothes.
“Friar,” she whispered, falling back on the name all of Amboise used out of fondness. “You look dreadful.”
He stared a moment, then actually managed a laugh. “Only you and Gil would have the nerve to tell me so to my face. But I am well, truthfully. I am … through the worst of it, I hope.”
He said his wife’s name with such tenderness, Brenna’s throat constricted around a reply. Her own emotions had already taken a buffeting this night and they were too raw, too near the surface to easily dismiss someone she had loved and admired so much. On an impulse, she threw her arms around Lord Alaric and clung tightly through a rush of hot tears.
“I miss her too. Not a day goes by when I do not wish she was here with us.”
&nbs
p; Alaric’s arms hung helplessly by his sides, then slowly lifted and returned the squeeze. “Hush, child. Hush. I know you do. I also know Gil would not have wanted to see the two of us weeping like jaybirds every time someone mentions her name. She regretted nothing. Neither should we. Now come, let us get out of the rain before it truly comes down.”
Brenna leaned back and swiped a hand across her eyes to dry them. “If there is nothing wrong at Blois, why are you here? You must have left after dark and ridden half blind through the forest.”
“My men have already thanked me profusely for the experience. Several of them will want clean braies before we make the return flight.”
“Not tonight, surely?”
“I left without your brother knowing it and should return before he is aware of my absence.”
“Why?”
He sighed as if he had said too much already and resumed walking toward the keep. “I need to talk to your father.”
“Shall I run ahead and tell him you are here?”
He shook his head. “Littlejohn has already done so. You could, however, see if there is any food or ale available for my men. I also used the excuse of a mare in foal to leave the supper table early and some of their bellies have been protesting since we crossed the river.”
He said it offhandedly enough Brenna did not look up at once. When she did, he reached over just as casually to remove the long, silky tuft of grass she had inadvertently caught in the laces of her cotte. He said nothing more and they walked the rest of the way in silence, with their heads bent to protect them from the downpour and Brenna’s cheeks burning furiously, wondering how it was that so few things escaped Lord Alaric’s attention, however distracted he might be.
They parted company on the landing outside the great hall, but not for long. Varlets were wakened and dispatched to fetch food and drink, and with the thought that her father would likely be calling for similar refreshments for Lord Alaric, she filled a board with bread and cheese, and filched a flagon of wine from one of the servers.
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