The Robin Hood Trilogy

by Marsha Canham

  He had two more apples tucked into the front of his surcoat, which he fed to the pair of short, scruffy-haired rouncies stabled next in line that had watched the entire proceedings with rounded, eager eyes. Both neighed softly when he rubbed their snouts and gave them their treat, and one plucked gratefully at his sleeve when he stopped to frown over a sore on his flanks.

  “If Fulgrin has been using leather on you again,” he murmured, “I will ply it across his own worthless back.”

  Brenna was mildly taken aback by his gentleness, though she supposed a mercenary still had to show some consideration for his animals. A knight, even a poor excuse for a knight, would be helpless without a good horse beneath him. And a knight who came to a tournament with only one mount most definitely did not have high expectations.

  Griffyn returned to the first stall and gave Centaur the same meticulous inspection he had given Centurion. Brenna moved closer and smoothed her hand along the stallion’s flank, watching how carefully, how gently, yet how expertly Renaud probed and stroked and kneaded his way down one foreleg, then the other. She followed the movement of his right hand, the fingers long and tapered and so precise in their search, she felt her own skin responding to each careful, sliding stroke. Beneath the bulky layers of her surcoat she could feel her flesh prickling and tightening as she remembered how that same hand had shaped itself around her naked breast, chasing after every shiver and shudder.

  Her gaze was drawn to the scarred left hand, and something else shuddered deep within her. It was not fear, nor pity, nor sympathy, for she had seen far more heinous wounds on men returning from war. It was something else that she could not quite identify.

  “It is probably none of my affair to know, but… how did you burn your hand?”

  He glanced at her, glanced at the hand, then returned to his inspection. “You are right. It is none of your affair.”

  She said nothing and after a moment, he sighed and straightened. “Forgive me. I am not accustomed to anyone showing any concern for my well-being.”

  “It was not concern,” she said archly, refusing to admit it, even to herself. “Merely curiosity.”

  He splayed the fingers of the scarred left hand and turned it over, studying it as if seeing it for the first time. “It is not a very pretty sight, is it?”

  “It does not hamper you in any way?”

  He flexed the strong fingers and rested them on Centaur’s shoulder. “No. Were you hoping it did?”

  “Of course not. Why would I hope such a thing?”

  “Indeed, why would you? Your brother is not fighting tomorrow, his own injury is keeping him amongst the spectators. I would think you would be looking forward to the pleasure and the possibility of my getting spitted and spilled.”

  “I do not particularly relish seeing anyone get spitted.”

  “Not even a … what was it you called me? A low-bellied worm?”

  She flushed. “I was angry when I said that.”

  “So you were,” he mused. “And very, very beautiful with your face all flushed with indignation and your eyes snapping fire.”

  “It was dark,” she said, swallowing. “How could you know how I looked?”

  With his left hand still on the stallion’s shoulder, he moved his right to the rump, effectively trapping Brenna between. Warmed by the heat of two formidable bodies, she could only stare at the cleft in Griffyn’s chin, not daring to look any higher up or any lower down.

  “I know how you looked in the forest,” he murmured. “I know how you looked in the bath house. And I know how you look right now.”

  His lips came almost close enough to brush her temple, and she held her breath.

  “Beautiful,” he whispered. “Whether you believe it or not.”

  He straightened and she risked a glance up at his chin again. He had shaved recently, bathed too to judge by the clean, earthy scent of him. His hair gleamed like ebony under the torchlight, full and thick and silky. If anyone was beautiful…

  “I … I am plain and awkward,” she stammered softly. “My hair is unruly and my nose has spots, and … and … I will never have soft hands or pale skin. Mother despairs of my ever behaving the way a proper lady should.”

  “Thank God for that,” he said sincerely. “Proper ladies are nice to look at, but I for one prefer the company of someone who can stop a poacher dead in his tracks or rouse the curiosity of a man who is careful not to be curious about too many things—especially women. As for your spots, I find them charming. And your hair …” The words trailed away on a frown as he plucked the cap off her head and cast it into the shadows. His strong fingers started to untangle the glossy braid, spreading the curly profusion around her shoulders, spreading ripples of sensation through her body and down into her limbs. When he was finished working his mischief, he waited for her to open her eyes, to raise them up to his and acknowledge the heat coursing through her veins. He waited, and when he saw it, he cradled one hand on either side of her neck and brought her mouth up to his, the kiss so deep and long and tender, the end of it was marked with a soft, shuddering sigh.

  “I thought you said you would vouchsafe your behavior.”

  “I lied.” He smiled rakishly enough to send a shiver shooting straight down to her toes. When he kissed her again, the tremors spread into her arms, to the very tips of her fingers where they curled into his surcoat.

  She should have known, of course, coming with him to the stable, envying the motion of his hands, envying the way she had seen the other women staring at him earlier in the day, ruing the way she had pushed him away when he had kissed her in the alleyway … she should have known this would happen.

  And she supposed she did, for there was no thought of denying him. There was not even a modest attempt to refuse him as her hands crept up to his shoulders and her lips parted wider beneath his, inviting him into the warmth and wetness. Her eyes closed tight and she sighed again, the sound as soft and grateful as that from the rouncies. She kissed him back, not even caring that the front of the tent was open to whoever happened to walk past, or that the torchlight was bright, or that she was playing the fool for someone who must thrive on fools. Fools like Tansy who fainted three times in his arms. Fools like the women who followed his stark beauty with hungry eyes.

  His tongue traced delicate patterns in and around her mouth, and she shivered helplessly beneath its seductive power. His body crowded her against Centaur and his hands raked deeper into her hair, angling her head this way and that so that her cheeks, her temples, her eyes, the tenderest stretches of her throat were exposed to his roving lips.

  She leaned shamelessly into each caress and her hands crawled upward to his shoulders, to his neck, to the lush thickness of his hair. She sought the generous curves of his mouth and kissed him, knowing full well where it would lead this time. She knew and pressed eagerly against him, wanting to feel his heat on her body, between her thighs.

  “There is an excellent patch of grass by the river,” he whispered. “Soft and lush … I would gladly take you there if you would let me.”

  Her body was pure liquid, flowing and silky and smooth, and she felt weightless, light-headed, not caring that it was madness, sheer madness to agree. She tightened her hands, dragging his mouth back down to hers, and he took this as assent, picking her up in his arms and carrying her out into the darkness of the night.

  He walked until the torchlight faded and the camp sounds dimmed, until they were knee deep, waist deep in the grasses by the river, and only then did he set her down. Only then did he release her and stand back, showing the smallest bit of uncertainty for the first time, as if he were afraid to acknowledge the strength of his own desire. This sudden glimpse of vulnerability brought Brenna forward, her whole body trembling with the brilliant madness.

  “A thousand things you promised me,” she whispered. “A thousand things that would have me begging for a thousand more. I intend to hold you to it, sirrah, unless it was all simple boasting.”


  She caught her breath as his arms went around her and his lips were hers again. His hands were everywhere at once, stripping away her tunic and padded surcoat, her belts and weapons and inhibitions. He lifted the hem of her shirt and drew it up over her head, leaving her standing in a shimmer of sheer silk, an abbreviated chemise laced in front with tiny ribbons and embroidered with clusters of ivy leaves and delicate blue flowers. The ribbons were torn without a thought and she stood like a pagan in front of him, bare from the waist up, with the night air puckering her breasts, chilling them so that when his mouth claimed the roseate nipples, she groaned and held him close, her fingers buried in his hair, her head bowed over his.

  She watched him, on his knees now, peeling down her leggings, pushing them only as far as the tops of her boots before the hunger and impatience bade him press his mouth to her belly, to her thighs, to the soft thatch of tawny curls between. She held his shoulders and her knees buckled, and then she was lying in the grass and her arms were stretched out flat on either side, and his lips were there. His mouth was there and she could not breathe or think or reason. The heat and pleasure washed through her in long sweeping waves, deep and intense, and she clutched at fistfuls of grass, tearing it out by the root. There was more, and more, and more, and she opened her body wider, wider still, and she arched her back, arched her hips into the exquisite ravishment as the sweet, stinging rush of her first orgasm lifted her off the grass, pressed her into his mouth, and begged him to hold her there, his tongue and lips taking her to places she had never been before.

  A stunned, breathless shudder brought her melting back to earth again, and he took his mouth away only long enough to cast his own clothing aside. With the disbelief shining in her eyes she watched as he lowered himself over her again, this time with flesh pressing flesh, with his hands bracing her thighs and his heat thrusting into the lush wetness he had so ably prepared. She felt the tender, inward stretching and she gasped as he pushed forward, throbbing and hard and uncompromisingly virile. He thrust past the flimsy barrier that was no barrier at all but a floodgate … a floodgate that opened and welcomed him with warm spasms of moist heat.

  Lacking the wit or sense of what to do next, Brenna could only trust his strength, his power, and cling to him as he began to move within her, to withdraw and thrust, withdraw and thrust with long, silky strokes. He was inside her! He was inside her and she could feel him moving, flesh into flesh, heat into heat, sliding and probing, making her gasp and writhe in utter disbelief. His dark head was bowed over her breast. His lips were working their magic on her tormented flesh and she begged again, without shame or modesty, urging him to plunge deeper, thrust harder. The waves of pleasure seemed to ripple back into themselves, now hot, now cool, and it was like nothing she could have imagined, nothing she could have prepared for, and when the ecstasy came, she rose to meet it, her eyes shocked wide and glazed with astonishment. It was there, just within her grasp, and she clawed her hands into the plunging motion of his hips, thrilling in the primitive savagery of the act even as she dug her heels into the soft earth and sought to match him thrust for thrust.

  Bright, raging torrents of pleasure swept through her and her senses dissolved in a rushing, white-hot orgasm. Her body tightened around one mighty spasm after another and she was vaguely aware of Griffyn arching his head back and crying out in the grips of some similar cataclysm. It held him there for an eternity and more, the pleasure pure and undiluted and unrelenting in its intensity. It held them locked together, their bodies straining for more … more …

  A final massive shudder gave way to the finer ecstasies of whispered words and urgent, pressing closeness. He tried to hold her but his arms were without strength. He tried to reassure her but his own body was quaking with shock, with breathlessness, with awe. He tried to fake bravado, as if such a monumental explosion of the senses was commonplace and routine, but his own body betrayed him, thrusting again and again in decreasing increments, not wanting to admit she had shattered him as much as he had shattered her.

  But she had. The proof was in the deep, thudding pulsations as he melted into her arms, melted into her body, confirming he still had a soul, that he was a man who could feel and want and need.

  Griffyn did not move for several minutes. He needed that long to catch his breath and collect his wits about him. When he was finally able to lift his head out of the crook of her neck, it was only to kiss her mouth, her throat, the valley between her breasts.

  Brenna kept her arms wrapped tightly around him. Her heart was drumming so loudly in her chest she was sure he could hear it, certain that was why he laid his head upon her breast. He was still a formidable presence inside her, a huge and heated presence above her, and she tried not to picture the sight they made, his black hair scattered over her naked breasts, her legs gleaming white and hooked over his like pincers, surely looking utterly heathen on their bed of grass.

  She blushed so hot it hurt. Hot enough he must have felt it for he stirred and roused himself enough to lever some of his weight onto his elbows. He brushed the back of his fingers across her cheek and traced the flow of warmth down her chin, her throat, and onto the satiny curve of her shoulder. Tight, damp tendrils of hair were curled forward on her temples, and as he toyed with them, he studied her face, seeing it as if he had the benefit of a hundred blazing candles to light the way.

  Suddenly self-conscious, she let her limbs ease down onto the grass. She half expected him to move as well, or to at least detach himself and allow her to redeem a semblance of her dignity, but he did not. He seemed quite content to keep himself wedged comfortably between her thighs, to keep himself cocooned inside her and his fingers stroking absently down the side of her neck. Each stroke sent a corresponding shiver down her spine and across her breasts, gathering and tightening the flesh so that he could hardly help but notice the reaction … notice it and take advantage of her defencelessness by kissing a warm path from one puckered crown to the other.

  “Wh-what are you doing?”

  “Obeying your command, demoiselle. You ordered a thousand pleasures; we have nine hundred and ninety-nine to go.”

  “I was … only jesting,” she stammered.

  “I was not.”

  She sucked a breath through her teeth as his hand slid under her hips and raised her so that she could feel he was not nearly as depleted as she had supposed him to be. His naked legs slid against her inner thighs as he positioned himself more deeply and she made a soft, helpless sound in her throat.

  “Let yourself go,” he whispered. “Trust me.”

  Let go? she thought wildly. What was there left to hold on to? She was lying naked in the grass with a man she barely knew. She had sacrificed her virginity and her common sense for a few moments of reckless passion with someone too dangerous and too unscrupulous to trust with the smallest part of her heart.

  He held her tight, pushing into her with ever-strengthening thrusts, and she had no choice but to trust him. She let his hands guide her knees up to his waist and she shook with the deep, explicit friction, championing it with such stunning proficiency, she felt his body stretch and stiffen and flood her with a welter of shimmering heat. He held her tight and showed her how to move, how to create her own friction where she needed it most, and this time, when she cried out, she cried out his name, and they swept over the brink together, their release long and splendid and scalding in its intensity.

  It was noisy as well, and the watcher high up on the river-bank smiled and closed his eyes, fitting pictures to the groans and shivered sobs, the damp sound of flesh sliding into flesh. He felt himself growing too hard to remain crouched in the bushes much longer and, besides, he had found out what he wanted to know. The sister of Robert Wardieu d’Amboise rutting with the vaunted Prince of Darkness! It was enough to make him want to laugh out loud.

  Gerome de Saintonge had scarcely believed his eyes when he had seen them together in the stable. He had been keeping a close watch on Griffyn Renau
d at his father’s request and had seen him meet with what he thought was a young boy on the edge of the encampment. That would have been interesting in itself, though not altogether unheard of in men who fought like demons to prove their manliness in other ways. The Lionheart himself, according to some old Crusaders, had spent more time choosing his pages than he had his bride.

  But the torchlight had revealed curves and shapes beneath the leather surcoat and leggings and when the hat had come off, the recognizable cloud of tarnished gold hair made the long crawl through the dew-slicked grass all the more rewarding.

  The haughty little bitch!

  Who was she to laugh in his face and refuse his offer of marriage! Who was she to stab him with an eating knife when he tried to steal a kiss, and how many more offers was she likely to have at the lofty age of eighteen? Most women were married and breeding at fourteen; few had anywhere to go after nineteen but a convent!

  Or a grassy riverbank like a common slut.

  The noises stopped and Gerome raised his head above the tall bank of grass. They were still lying there, a tangle of naked arms and legs, collapsed in blissful exhaustion. On a smiling thought, he ignored his own discomfort and crept a few feet closer. The breeze was ruffling the grass, camouflaging any sounds he made, and he was able to inch right up to where the bank leveled and the grass became thick as a carpet underfoot. They had obviously been in a hurry, for there were clothes strewn in a wide circle around them, and he was able to use the tip of his sword to pluck a particularly feminine article off a nearby rock and fish it back to where he crouched in the darkness.

  For a moment, he debated simply standing up and shouting out his discovery, but he remembered Renaud’s quickness and cold, deadly instincts, and he decided to keep his skin intact. He tucked the scrap of silk beneath his surcoat and retreated the way he had come, careful not to step on any twig or root that might disturb the dozing lovers.