Elise scurried towards the woman’s hut near the creek where Ulred had lived since she’d been fourteen and Alphonse had banished her for predicting his second wife’s death. No one in the castle’s walls wanted Ulred’s eyes upon them, claiming Ulred alone had put evil spells on all Atherton’s countesses. But Elise felt no harm from the woman who, if she had a more pleasant demeanour and regular meals, might even have been lovely. Elise had often consulted her in the past twelve years, asking for potions to help make her fertile or aids to make her desire her husband. While none of those had ever worked, Elise knew Ulred had other medicinals that had cured coughs and headaches and other maladies of her, her husband and their serfs.
“Why won’t your herbs help me bear a child, Ulred?” Elise had asked often, but Ulred had given her a weary look and dismissed her with some babble. “I cannot make a child blossom where no seed lives. The same I cannot grant your wish that your husband were a lustier man.”
Thus, Elise learned and accepted that there were limits to everything, even Ulred’s fame and talents. Still, I come today, hoping for more.
Scurrying to Ulred’s door, Elise called through the hanging of animal skins sewn together by Ulred’s artful fingers. “Ulred, ‘tis Lady Dumond! Are you there?”
“Aye, where else would I be in this storm?” she called to Elise as she flung the heavy blanket hide aside and grinned at her with yellow teeth. “I expected you, I have. Get in here.”
Elise ducked to let herself inside the place where Ulred had lined the walls with more hides from the wild beasts of the woods. The room was surprisingly warm as she went towards Ulred’s fire in the centre of the earth-packed floor. There, the woman had hung a pot, boiling with a stew. “What do you cook, Ulred? It smells wonderful.”
“My dinner and your potion.”
Elise attempted to demur, one hand up. “Mine? Nay. I have no idea what you brew there, woman.”
Ulred approached and leaned close, her breath sweet with mint despite all her dark teeth. She inhaled Elise’s essence and closed her eyes. “You’ve been mating.”
Elise’s eyes flew wide. She had bathed, washing her nether lips until she had pleasured herself with the rub of the cloth against her still swollen and tender cunny. “How can you tell?” If Ulred could, might not others? Men. Cleve. Her servants.
“I can smell it on your breath. Your flux was more than a fortnight ago, and your skin breathes with a fecund musk. Your eyes glow with it. Your man has appeared at last, has he not?”
There was no reason to deny it. ‘Your man’ had long been Ulred’s term for a tall, dark warrior whom she had predicted more than five years ago would be Elise’s saviour—and her tormentor.
Elise inhaled. “Aye. May I sit?”
Ulred squeezed her dark eyes in glee and clapped her hands. “I knew he was about. I could feel him.” She leaned close and sucked in a huge draught of air. “He smells like sandalwood and anise. Am I right?”
Elise nodded. “That you are.”
The woman dipped in close once more and shut her eyes, a look of bliss on her craggy face. “He mates with hearty appetite, too. How is your pretty cunny now that his giant member has stretched you?”
Elise could not restrain herself from putting a hand over her mound as it quaked for Simon. “I want him inside all the time.”
“As you should. As I told you, you would. He is a strong goat, no?”
“Aye, a satyr.”
“Whom you love.”
Elise shot up. “Nay. I do not. Cannot.”
The woman waved a gnarled hand. “Matters not. He is the man for you, my lady. He makes you a ripe woman, as he should have done long ago when you were both young and eager for a marriage.”
“That was not possible then.”
“Aye,” Ulred muttered. “The foolishness of men to order how we marry, when how we love should be honoured.”
Elise sighed. “I have come because I want you to read my palm again. Now that he is here and we are…”
“One.”
“One,” Elise agreed, pronouncing the word aloud with a glee previously foreign to her. “Now that we are one, I need to know how soon I will conceive, how long I must lie abed with him—”
“Why?” Ulred peered at her with narrowed, nasty eyes. “Why spoil your happiness with knowledge of its end?”
“I must know, Ulred!”
“Why? Are you so privileged that you must know all, when most women and men live only by instinct and hope?”
“I have neither good instincts nor hope, Ulred.”
“Balls.”
“If I had good instinct, would I not have found a way to avoid this situation in the first place? God knows, it brings me more trouble than I have ever known!”
“And more joy.”
Elise stared at her.
“Admit it, my girl,” Ulred harrumphed. “You love the man, the art, the joys he teaches you. You can no more withdraw from him or bar him from your bed than I can live here without my herbs growing round me.” Ulred’s gaze grew black and dangerous as she approached Elise again. “Your fate is sealed, my lovely countess. In your man’s arms, he will teach you delights you have never imagined—and give you your heart’s desire.”
Elise caught her breath, seized Ulred’s hand to put it on her stomach. “Tell me, can you feel a child there now? Already?”
Ulred threw her head back to laugh. “What I feel here is a cunt well tended, fully ploughed, soft and begging. What I feel here is a womb well plundered. What I feel here is that you came not to learn how you can cut yourself from your man who pleasures you with the feast of his hands and his eyes and his shaft. Nay. You came here to learn how to keep him.”
Elise drew back, but there was no running from the hag’s truth. “Aye. I crave him. As much of him as I put inside me. As often as I can take him. I want him. I need him. Tell me how to keep him happy.”
“Do as any instinct tells you. He is a bold man in bed—and he wants to give you every drop of seed he has. Let him and take more.”
“But…how?”
“Take him in your arms. Into your wet channel. Put his shaft in your mouth, as well. His tool is an iron rod, but you will delight in how his heart softens when you lick and taste him on your tongue.”
Elise quivered with the pulsing of her cunny at the very idea. “This kind of joy is…good?”
Ulred chuckled. “Good? My lady, favour him with your desire. Do these things as they inspire you. You will delight him, and he will teach you the pleasures of the kingdoms of the earth. Are you not worthy of his glory?”
“Oh, Ulred, I am!” The truth rippled up out of her like a geyser. “I deserve him. The pleasure he gives. The joy of his manly form. I deserve to have him for what little time I might. I have been good and kind and wise to all. Why may I not have some joy from life?”
Ulred smiled broadly and moved to pat Elise on the shoulder. “Come, my countess, have this stew. I made it only for you because you need wild meat to build your strength. Your man needs to have you as a willing and wicked partner.” She lifted a rough-hewn pottery cup and ladled some of her concoction into it. “Drink all of this, my pretty one.”
With a new-found appetite, Elise sat and began to sip the steaming broth. “What have you in here, Ulred?”
“Roots. Dried rosemary and thyme. And the head of another boar.”
“You shot another?” Elise asked between swallows, eyeing Ulred’s bow propped against the far wall.
“Fiends. They breed almost as well you will with your man.”
Elise paused and whispered, “Will I?”
Ulred nodded solemnly. “I have seen it for lo, these many years.”
“Once?” Elise asked, using the word Simon had dismissed that first night when he had first taken her and shown her heaven.
Ulred tipped her head to one side in consideration. “How much can you bear to know?”
Elise licked her lip. “You mean how brave am I?
“Aye, this is what I ask.”
“You will have many children, my pretty countess. But my vision is clouded by who will sire them on you.”
Elise pressed her thighs together. Her greedy cunny pounded at the idea of Simon fathering many babes inside her. But she balked at the idea that another might plough her field, too. Would he be friend or foe? “I need an herb to help me get a babe by Simon.”
Ulred examined Elise as if she wore no clothes, and she snorted. “Simon needs no help from me.”
“What if I cannot carry the child to birth? What if I bleed and lose the babe?”
“You will not.”
“You are certain?”
“There is a tragedy to come in your castle’s walls, my countess. That tragedy is not the death of any babe.”
Elise grabbed Ulred’s hand. “What then? Tell me.”
“The night creeps forth when you will learn of a stranger in your bedroom. Make haste to discover who he is and where he gains his power.”
Elise shook her head. “I have no way to understand you, Ulred. Your puzzle confuses me.”
“It will not confuse you when you see it, my countess. But be bold when you do. Root it out. Cast out the man who did it, lest you lose your life, your baby’s and your man’s.”
* * * *
Elise left minutes later, her cloak pulled low against the storm that now raged more briskly. Hurrying over the ice-packed land, she headed for the castle gate where her maid waited to open it and fool the guard to readmit her. That could not come soon enough for Elise who slipped and slid with every step over the rocks and stones of the barren earth.
A loud crackle in the ice had her twisting and turning to find the source. She froze. Something black and swift scurried between boulders, hiding from her. Her heart picked up a beat, and she began to run.
Snorts rent the air. She spun, a hasty move that sent her to the ground where she fell, caught herself on her hand and wrenched it.
“Oh, no, no!” she cried out in pain and scrambled up. A huge narrow-faced boar with beady eyes and long straggly hair headed straight for her.
To her left, another dark figure came around a large tree trunk, a bow and arrow in his hands, fully poised to take down the creature. “Run in patterns, Elise! Run in circles, for Christ sake!” He focused on the hairy brute careening towards her petrified body.
She did as he bid.
“Elise!” He shot the arrow, pierced the animal in the front leg and made him squeal in protest.
She picked up her skirts to better escape the pig and the slashing of her ankles by his keen-edged tusks. But the trees were dense, and she found herself running this way and that, no circle possible. Crazed, she could not watch what Simon did, but she could hear the animal squeal louder once more.
“Climb that tree!” Simon yelled at her.
She glanced up at a pine with a low-lying branch, large enough to support her. Or so she hoped.
“Oh, please.” She grabbed the branch and hauled herself up. Her feet dangled down and she yelped as the boar rammed tusks-first into the tree, jarring her and making her cry out in fright.
“Pick up your feet,” Simon yelled at her as he ran towards her. “Up, up!”
“Simon! What are you—”
He ran forward, a short sword, long as his forearm, in one hand. With a giant leap towards her, he jumped up onto the limb with her. “Hang on, my pet,” he commanded and bent double to the boar. With one sweep of his arm over his head, he came down with his sword and sank it to the hilt at the nape of the animal’s head.
The pig dropped like a stone.
Elise clutched her throat, gaping as she stared at the animal and his slayer, who only for a moment sat still beside her.
Then he jumped down to survey his kill.
She swallowed hard. “Where did you come from? How did you know I…?”
“Came here?” Simon peered at her through angry silver eyes. “I followed you.”
“You do not trust me.”
He feigned amusement. “‘Tis my job to keep you safe, my lady.” He held out his hand for her to come down. “Let us return to the castle where you should have stayed.”
She jumped down and stood before him, her chin up defiantly. “I do as I wish.”
“You wish to kill yourself?” he scoffed as he yanked his sword from his prey’s bloody head and wiped the weapon in the snow. “Nay. Not a plan that your lord and master nor your king would sanction, Madame.”
“I have come here many times for more years than I can count and never have I had a problem.” She knew she sounded petulant, but she couldn’t resist her say.
“Until now.”
“Aye. Until you come. Now I have more problems.” She pushed him in the chest once, but her injured wrist smarted at the contact. She winced but still tormented him. “And you are the biggest.”
He stood erect, smiled slowly at her but watched her massage her wrist. “Aye, lady mine. I am. But what did you do to your arm?” He grasped her fingers and pushed up her sleeves.
At his words, she would have turned away, but his hold of her meant she could not. Her wrist pained her too much. “Let me go, Simon. It hurts. When I fell as the boar came at me, I sprained it.”
“Come,” he said more sweetly now and drew her cloak about her hair. “I will escort you home.”
“You cannot come with me.”
“To the wall gate, I will, aye. Then I will wait while you enter alone. No one will know, save I, that you were almost killed for your folly.”
She considered him, hurt by his curtness. “You like to taunt me.”
“You like to pretend our circumstances are not as they are.”
She bit her lip but nodded. “How right you are, my knight.”
“Things would be better between us if you accepted that we must do as we are bound.”
The advice of Ulred played in her head. “True. And so shall it be from this time onward.”
Simon’s silver gaze sliced through her, searching for honesty. “You are resigned then to our coupling?”
For long moments, she fought for the right words to reply. The snow fell on her face as she gazed up into his dear one, and she told him the truth he deserved. “For long years, my noble knight, I have yearned for your company. I prayed for your health and safety in foreign lands and wars. I longed to see you again. I even dreamt we were together, as one, on a bed much as we were the other night, though I must say, I never could have dreamt as well as what I experienced there in your arms.”
He stepped closer, his gaze warm and mellow, his lips soft and oh so appealing.
“Nay, Simon.” A newer emotion, a softer one, burnt in her brain. “I am not resigned.”
His face fell to dark despair. “‘Twas not my idea to take silver for this.”
To hear that dulled one pain. To know he might be cheated of his compensation brought another. Yet she knew, too, that neither of them might live long enough to care about either. With one hand to cup his cheek, she flowed closer to him, and in the pristine beauty of a chilled land, she pressed against him and up on her toes. Against his lips, she whispered, “Today, tonight is all we have. We shall be about our duty to each other and this kingdom quickly. And this time, I vow to do it with a bit more joy to comfort us when days and nights are colder than these.”
He crushed her close and lifted her up against him in such a sweep of delight that he spun her about. And when he set her down, she traced his mouth with one fingertip and stretched up to kiss him sweetly.
“Run home, Elise. Time is short, but my need for you is long and very hard.”
For the first time in years, she threw back her head and laughed heartily. “I need to see the proof!”
He spun her around and gave her a whack on the ass with the flat of his hand. “Get you to my bed, woman. I’ll show you proof such as you have never seen.”
Chapter Five
Snuggling under his covers in
his room, Elise revelled in the softness of the linens and martens she had ordered the servants to throw on his bed. An honoured guest deserved the best the Earl of Atherton had. He had plenty of it to share. Even Alphonse’s serfs boasted of their comfortable pallets beneath the stairs and in the kitchen.
She rolled over to face the door. What you do here, Elise, ensures they will live that way much longer. Phillip Crosby gives no regard to his servants. ‘Tis said he beats them for the smallest discourtesy. Worse, they were renowned in these climes for their greediness—and their interest in absorbing Alphonse’s estate into theirs was one ripe evidence. But I will not think of them now.
The door opened, and Simon closed it behind him. At sight of her, surprise widened his features. He froze, his eyes on her face. “You frown, Elise. I thought you accepted—“
“I think not of us, Simon. But of the Crosbys.” She tossed him a brilliant smile and beckoned him with an outstretched hand. “I will forget them now for the next hour. Come kiss me.”
Simon’s lush lips opened in a joyful expression. He lifted one long brow. “You order me about?”
“Very well, stay there then.” She flung back the covers to show him her naked body. “Stir the fire, Simon. There,” she whispered then tipped her head towards the one blazing in the wall, “and consider the one here.” She ran two hands from her hair to her cheeks, her throat, her breasts, her waist and hips. Kneading the flesh of her thighs, she caressed her belly and thrust her fingers into her nest of hair.
Her cheeks flushed with her boldness, and as she shivered with enjoyment of her own touch, she watched him walk towards the fireplace. He stood in profile to her, but she could tell he narrowed his gaze, concentrating with too much purpose on the spark and flames of the logs. “Have you ever made love to yourself, Elise?”
Her fingers fanned out over her frothy curls. “Nay.”
He faced her. “You have thought of it, though?”
She combed her curls, and the friction tickled and titillated her. “Aye.”
At Her Service (Swords of Passion) Page 5
