Finally, he unlaced the rest of his breeches at a torturously slow pace. Eleanor’s throat went dry, and her eyes nearly crossed when he slid his britches down his hips and pulled them off. She saw his rock hard shaft as he turned completely toward her. Her heart worked its way to her throat. In a panic that she might reveal her feelings, she rolled to her side and pulled the covers over her head. She thought she heard a chuckle before she felt his weight shift on the other side.
“Good night, little dove,” he whispered.
“Goo—” Feeling like cotton was stuffed in her mouth, she swallowed hard to clear it. “Good night, Dominick.”
Despite her bidding, she knew there would be no rest for her that night.
Chapter Fifteen
Before coming to Godwin, Dominick’s life had been like a boat drifting on the tide of war, but no more. He had difficulty sleeping. Tossing and turning most of the night. He imagined making love to Eleanor, softly, gently, but passionately. His rigid manhood ached, but he refused to walk the battlements. He needed to be near her. The soft whisper of her breathing was a soothing balm to his soul. Most of his life he never knew what the upcoming days would bring, but as he lay in the dark with his wife beside him, he knew exactly what the next day would be like. Now he began to look forward to the future. Planting crops and rebuilding the castle gave him a sense of purpose. Each day as he plowed the fields, he felt more grounded to Godwin, planting his own roots.
He felt Eleanor stir beside him. Looking over he found her eyes were open and staring back at him. .
He smiled. “Good morning, my lady. I trust you slept well?” He knew that, like him, she had tossed and turned all night.
“I slept fine, and you?” she lied
“Very well, thank you,” he lied as she had.
She threw the bed robes aside. Readying for the day, she splashed water on her face and neck. Her corn silk hair draped over one shoulder, and Dominick imagined his fingers running through it. Gracefully she moved over to the wardrobe and pulled out an old worn gown. She prepared for work inside the castle. She froze for an instant, when he jumped out of bed to help her with her lacings but he didn’t linger at the task, and moved away. Her rigid body relaxed.
“Thank you,” she whispered. Turning around, she flushed at the state of his undress and quickly busied herself with restoring the fire in the hearth.
He couldn’t help smiling. “Do you need help with that?”
“No, I have it. You go ahead and get dressed. I’ll tend to the fire.” The blush still stained her cheeks.
In a matter of minutes he was fully clothed and donning his boots. Eleanor’s posture grew more relaxed.
“Shall we go down and break our fast?"
“Most definitely,” she said with enthusiasm.
He was sure she wanted to get out of the close proximity of their chamber. As she was about to reach for the door, his hand closed over hers. Curiosity crossed her face. “May I exercise one husbandly right?”
Her eyes widened slightly with apprehension. “What would that be?”
He tilted her chin as he slowly bent down and kissed her. Deliberately, he kept the kiss soft and not threatening, resisting the urge to devour her. It nourished his spirit, and his heart grew lighter.
He pulled away slightly. When she didn’t resist him, he was encouraged and kissed her more firmly, folding her into his arms, feeding more to his soul. Surprisingly, she responded by wrapping her arms around his waist. His heart soared.
“Thank you,” he said intently.
Her eyes were filled with something he longed for. Hope.
For a moment she didn’t speak, then smiled. “You’re most welcome. We should get down stairs. There is so much work to be done.”
She quickly turned and opened the chamber door.
Was it possible the kiss had affected her as deeply as it had affected him? His heart thumped an extra beat. Winning her trust was slow in coming, but he was willing to take whatever she offered no matter how slowly she offered it.
They broke their fast and headed out to the field.
Much of the land had been cleared of stones after the first tilling. Dominick started moving the soil for a second time. Clumps of black dirt crumpled along the path of the plow. The rich scent of freshly turned earth filled his nostrils. He breathed in deep. Looking around, he took pride in the way he had changed the landscape. With his own hands he had turned scorched fields into fertile soil ready for wheat, beans, and barley. He stopped when he noticed Eleanor walking toward him.
“It looks as though there are enough people here to handle the rest of this field. I’m going to check on the organization of the kitchen gardens.”
Dominick couldn’t keep the smile from his face.
She looked at him, puzzled. “Why are you smiling?”
His knuckles brushed her cheek. “I have never met a lady of any castle who worked as hard as you do.”
“They didn’t have a father who let their land fall into ruin.”
“Even still, they would faint dead away if they had to put their hands in dirt.”
She squinted slightly. “Are you complimenting me, my lord?”
“I most certainly am.”
She gave him a glowing smile that warmed his heart. Crooking her finger in a come close gesture, she waited for him to bend down to her and placed a quick kiss on his cheek. “Thank you.” Turning before he could respond, she headed toward the west gate.
Dominick felt a renewed energy and signaled the oxen to move forward. It was good to be home.
Eleanor couldn’t help the humming of her heart as she walked toward the castle. She wondered at the ease she was feeling toward Dominick. Never would she have imagined herself comfortable around any man, but Randolf and his friend Erik showed the utmost kindness toward her. Forced to challenge her belief that all nobles were self-centered, self-absorbed men who treated women like livestock, she had to rethink her assumptions.
She pushed her confused thoughts aside and decided to put her energy into the kitchen gardens. They were on the south side of the castle. Zenon told her it was going to be tilled that morning. By the afternoon, the ground was ready for planting and Eleanor spent the remainder of the afternoon on her hands and knees planting tender seedlings into the soft earth. Eleanor spent the remainder of the afternoon on her hands and knees placing the tender seedlings into the soft earth. She used a small stick to poke holes in the cool black soil for the fragile plants, then tenderly covered up their bases and patted the ground around them, offering stability to their stems.
Throughout the process, despite her intention to push her troubled thoughts aside, Eleanor kept thinking about her relationship with Dominick. Certainly, it hadn’t been what she expected. There were so many facets to his personality, each pulling on a different emotion from her. The rage she had seen in him frightened her to the bone. But he was also tender and playful. She remembered him playing with the children. He had more fun than they did, tickling them and telling stories. Eleanor chuckled out loud.
Then there was the passionate side, deeper, and darker, and more mysterious than the others. His passion frightened her more than the other facets to his personality. It was the one she responded to. With every touch a spark of desire shot through her and settled as a small ember in the pit of her stomach. By the time he finished undressing and came to bed, the night before the passionate fire that roared threatened to consume her. These strange feelings were difficult for her to understand. Did her mother have the same feelings with her father?
The thought of her mother brought her to an abrupt halt. She had avoided thinking of her since the night Dominick told her he saw her spirit. It weighed heavy on her shoulders that she hadn’t moved on and that Eleanor was the only thing keeping her close. “Mother, please let go of me and go where you’re supposed to be. Dominick will take care of me. Trust him, please.” She hoped her mother had heard her and had gone to a better place at long last. She
didn’t deserve to be stuck in a world that held so many horrible memories.
Her thoughts returned to the man who had held her tight to keep her safe during the fury of her emotions. The gentle caresses that wiped away her tears and stroked her hair until she fell asleep. Cradled in his arms, she never felt safer. He was her protector.
When she planted her last seedling, Eleanor stood to look at her handiwork. Tiny little green leaves stuck out of the ground in neat little rows. She looked at the job she’d done with satisfaction. A low fence made of twigs and grapevine bordered the garden, keeping small animals from devouring the tender young plants. The scent of rosemary, basil, and freshly turned earth touched her senses, filling her with delight.
A breeze rose off the ocean. Drawn to the sudden change in winds, she left the garden via the east gate and went to the cliffs. There, she found Dominick standing near the edge, looking out to the horizon.
He turned toward her as she approached. “It looks like we are in for a storm.”
A line of black clouds moved inland quickly. A bolt of lightning shot out from the dark mass, and the roll of thunder drifted toward them. Eleanor’s heart began to race. It was going to be a fierce one.
Dominick grabbed her hand. “Come, we must get everyone inside the castle before this storm’s wrath falls on our heads.” Together they ran to the gates.
Once inside, Dominick shouted to the masons and carpenters working on the castle walls to secure whatever was loose, and come down into the great hall.
Eleanor continued to run outside the west gate to call the workers out of the fields and inside the castle. Like a moving wall, the rain crossed the field and quickly engulfed her. She saw the oxen balk as a young boy tried to unhitch them from the plow. He was nearly trampled when a large clap of thunder broke through the roar of the growing wind.
“Go to the castle!” she said, to people running in all direction. “Batten down your shutters and doors.”
Blacksmiths covered anvils with oiled skins. Steam rose out of their fiery pits, as coals were reduced to mud.
Icy, needlelike drops pelted Eleanor’s skin. She helped the young boy unhitch the frightened oxen. Each took one animal and led it into the stables. The rain pounding on the roof was nearly deafening. The boy shivered.
“Go inside,” she said. “I’m sure Martha is boiling a cauldron of hot tea. Make sure you get some.”
What about you, my lady?”
“There are more animals that need tending to.”
“I will do that. You must go in. It’s much too dangerous for you,” he pleaded.
Alexander could not have been more than fourteen. His concern touched her. “I will be fine. Martha could use your help taking care of all the people inside.” She opened the stable door, and saw the rain coming down in sheets. She pushed the boy out the door. “Now go. Run as fast as you can.”
Her hair was plastered to her face. Her clothes felt like a wet cold blanket, but there was more to do. She heard the baying of the sheep. Inside the pen they began to trample each other. Running to the fence, she opened the gate and herded them out.
She found Dominick with Randolf and Erik hammering boards for a make shift lean-to over the pigsty. All things seemed under control.
She had started for the castle when something caught her eye. Eleanor turned and saw Ruth run out the west gate. The only reason the woman would leave safety in the middle of the storm was for her children.
Fear put Eleanor’s feet into action, and she started after Ruth.
“Ethan, Matthew, Abigail, where are you!” Ruth shouted.
Eleanor caught up with her. “Where did you see them last?”
“Oh, my lady!” Ruth’s voice cracked. “We were working in the fields. Abigail was getting tired so I told Ethan and Matthew to take her back home so she could take a nap, but when I got to the cottage they were gone. I have no idea where they could be,” she said with a sob.
Eleanor put her hand on the woman’s shoulder. “We’ll find them. More than likely they went down to the stream.”
Eleanor led the way down the steep hill. Her heavy wet skirts wrapped themselves around her ankles with every step, threatening to topple her. She and Ruth walked the banks calling out the children’s names.
“Ethan! Matthew! Abigail,” Eleanor chanted. Her feet were sucked up by the mud. Several times she had to grab a tree limb to pull herself free.
Ruth called out again and again. Finally they heard a faint response over the roaring of the storm.
“Mama! Mama!”
Eleanor could barely see them through the darkness, but a brief moment of lightening made them more visible. They were on the other side of the bank huddled underneath a tree.
“Stay there! We’re coming to get you!” Eleanore shouted.
She and Ruth picked their way across the rising water.
The three children hugged their mother tightly. They were wet, cold and frightened, but they were all right.
“We have got to get them to the castle!” Eleanor shouted over the roar of the storm “And get them warmed up.”
Ruth picked up Abigail and carried her across the stream with Ethan and Matthew hanging onto her skirts. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning hit a tree near Eleanor. The energy knocked her to the ground, and air rushed out of her lungs in a great whoosh.
Hearing the sound of splintering wood, she looked up to see a tree falling on top of her. She didn’t have time to do more than close her eyes and put her hands over her head. Even the soggy ground shook from the impact.
Confused that she hadn’t been crushed and wasn’t even in great pain, she tried to push herself up, but her hands slid in the muck. She was trapped in the bent fork of a large limb. The rain-saturated ground had kept her from being crushed, but she was trapped underneath it, and the stream was becoming a river.
Ethan was the first to reach her. “My lady, we have to get you out.”
The small boy pushed futilely at the trunk. Matthew stood next to him and both boys strained at the unmoving tree. Ruth put Abigail down and tried as hard as she could with her boys to free Eleanor, but it was no use.
“This isn’t going to work,” Eleanor shouted. “Go back and find Dominick.”
The woman nodded. Ethan moved closer to Eleanor. “I will stay here Mama and watch Lady Eleanor.”
“No, Ethan! You will be more help to me if you go and tell Lord Dominick where I am. You’re the oldest. You can tell him how to get here directly. That way he will find me faster.” She took Ethan’s hand. “I need you to do this for me.”
His lips quivered. “I will not let you down, my lady.”
Eleanor felt both grateful and humbled by the boy’s loyalty. “I know you won’t.”
He kissed her hand then took off leading his mother and his siblings toward Godwin Castle.
Eleanor didn’t think it possible, but the rain came down harder. It pelted her like shards of glass. She struggled against the tree trunk, but the more she struggled, the more trapped she became. She shivered from the cold. No longer could she feel her hands and feet. Her hair clung to her face.
She prayed Dominick would find her soon, because the water was rising higher, and the strain of keeping her head out of the mud and rising puddles was exhausting her. If she didn't keep struggling, however, she knew she would drown.
Dominick felt Isolde’s presence before he saw her. He had been putting a final board across a shuttered window when he turned and saw the apparition that had become so familiar. The bottom dropped out of his stomach, for the last two times Isolde had visite, he found Eleanor in trouble.
This time the ghost didn’t disappear right away. Worry lines creased her eyes as she reached out her hand. He resisted the urge to step back as she floated toward him. Her icy touch sent a chill down his spine, and an image came into his mind. Eleanor was near the stream, and trapped by a fallen tree. His eyes opened in alarm. The apparition was gone.
Just then he heard a chi
ld call to him.
“My lord . . . My lord!” Ethan ran to him, out of breath. “My lord, Lady Eleanor, she’s trapped beside the stream.” He pulled on Dominick’s arm. “Come, we have to save her.”
Ruth and her other two children caught up with them. “My lord, we tried to help her but the tree was too heavy, and she’s stuck deeply in the mud.” Panic filled him, but he kept it contained and focused on what he had to do to save his wife. He bent down to Ethan. ”Where exactly is she?”
“Just past where the stream bends away from the castle.”
The winds were getting even stronger, and Dominick had to shout his orders to the boy and his mother. “Find my brother and Lord Erik. Tell them exactly where Eleanor can be found and have them meet me there. Then go inside and wait until I return.”
The boy turned and headed toward the castle to find Randolf and Erik. His mother and the other two children followed.
Dominick ran to the stables. He didn’t bother to saddle Aries. Riding bareback he headed out the castle gates toward the forest. The wind howled around him, and the rain pelted his body, but horse and rider moved forward. All the while, the image of Eleanor trapped under the tree terrified him. His heart hammered with fear that he might be too late.
The mud made a sucking sound as his horse’s hooves sank into the ground. Water dripped down his face. Dominick barely felt the cold wind as it beat at his back. The weather was becoming increasingly violent, yet Aries never wavered, even when lightning lit up the sky and thunder roared. He, like his master, had known many battles. They made their way across the field and into the forest.
Aries slipped on the wet leaf-covered ground from time to time threatening to topple them over. They descended the hill toward the stream. Progress toward Eleanor was excruciatingly slow. Dominick’s knees clenched tight on the horse’s flanks. He shouted Eleanor’s name, but the wind’s fury sucked his shouts into oblivion. It was getting darker, making it difficult to see.
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