An image of the baroness floated into his mind with the silent, eerie grace of a ghost gliding in through shreds of fog. She stood only a few paces from him, glorious as a fleur-de-lis, just as svelte, wearing a sad grin and naught else. Just as he remembered her as she pulled him into the water—but minus the undertunic.
Stop it. Gautier angrily shifted his feet to let one out into the chilly predawn, hoping to cool his fire.
Her face reappeared closer to him. He knew he had his eyes closed. It should be impossible to see her—anyone. It’s only a dream. His mental self turned away so he would not have to stare at her. She followed him. Hands long and strong reached up to his chest to gently caress the skin that had suffered so much. Since his year at the hands of his tormentors, no one, not even himself—especially not himself—had ever touched his chest again, and certainly not the way she had. He shivered.
Gautier tried to avoid her dark stare but failed. Control slipped fast. In his mind’s eye, everything began to blur. He could deny it no longer.
He was falling.
With a mouth that had seared its likeness onto his lips, she lifted her pointed chin and kissed him. Like whispers, her sighs tickled the fine hair around his mouth. He felt his hands reach out to encircle her lean frame. Their bodies fit so perfectly, as though God had built her to be pressed against him. Beyond his control, his fingers fluttered down on either side of her, following the gentle curves of her hips then her backside. He breathed her name in her ear. She seemed to enjoy it and smiled. A keen pang of shame stung Gautier’s heart.
God. Please, help me. Release me.
He thrashed against the vision, the dream that held him fast. Powerlessness revisited his flinching body, his quivering mind. Only this time no one was torturing him. The loveliest woman he had ever seen was pleasuring him. Any man would want a dream such as this. Not him. Not now. He meant to reach for the cross on his chest but the small comfort it would have granted him was denied. It was a dream. He could not move. She murmured something he could not hear. A hiss of shock whistled past his lips. What was she doing? Oh God.
Somehow, she had gone down on her knees without his realizing it. With a mouth hotter than coals, she surrounded his member. A mad heartbeat thundered in his loins and Gautier opened his mouth in a silent O. Her hands wrapped the base of his shaft and pulled the skin back taut. Ripples of guilt-ridden pleasure expanded in widening circles out through the rest of him. Should she stop, he would die from grief alone.
It’s wrong. Sinful.
He meant to stop her, tried to plant his palms against her brow and push her back. His shock and despair were complete when he found his fingers lovingly twirling her lustrous locks. He lowered his gaze to watch what she did to him. As if she sensed his gaze on her, she retreated to the very end of his shaft and looked up at him. When their gazes met, Gautier felt a single stitch of pain in his heart. Just one. He recognized there the loneliness and the self-imposed isolation, for he too shared both, denied his flesh the companionship of the opposite sex so he could devote his entire being to his chosen path. He knew the sacrifices she made daily. A kindred soul. And that revelation sufficed to melt what little resistance he had left.
The baroness—Charlotte—pulled back and straightened. How lovely she was. He reached out and caressed one of her dainty breasts, which was the perfect size for his palm. She seemed to enjoy this and he brought her closer so he could pleasure her further. Wrapping his head with her arms, she pulled him down to her chest. Gautier had to remind himself not to bite too hard the delectable buds. As if she wanted more from him than his lips, she pulled back and pivoted.
Someone else must be controlling his shaking hands! Gautier bit his bottom lip and grabbed urgently at her hips. Charlotte nodded as she pressed her entire length along his front, triggering utter bedlam in his loins. Slowly, leisurely, she bent down at the waist until her derrière looked like a perfect, upside-down heart. The rest of her disappeared below the pearl necklace that was her spine.
STOP! PLEASE!
His ragged, unspoken cry did not stir the dream. He tried to look away when he reached down to stroke her slick sex. She was so wet and receptive his member seemed to develop a mind of its own and strove to lose itself in her flesh.
This was so unreservedly wrong Gautier let out a groan of despair and lust and impotent rage. Hell awaited him for this. An eternity on coals and broken glass! God. God. God.
He entered her. The sheath of her was so tight, their flesh fused. Fire swallowed him up, shaft and everything else.
While his hands anchored her to him, he pushed deeper, curled his spine inward to give her his all, knowing she wanted him this way, yearned for him to take her with abandon and force. Or perhaps his wicked mind was transferring all these thoughts onto her. While she moaned in contentment, he shoved in, retreated then plunged again. Like a burning tide, he came and went. He dug his fingers in her hips when her slicked channel began to fist him. Then Gautier started pounding.
All these years alone in an empty bed… He sank deep.
The months on the road, hungry, tired, chasing vermin that His Eminence had pointed as enemy… Another thrust, this one so potent it rattled his teeth.
The friendless days and nights merging into one long, uninterrupted blur that’s harder to control… Gautier groaned as he crushed her sex with his, gripped her hips with almost brutal fingers.
If I’m going to fry in hell, I’m going to make it worth my while, damn it!
Gautier bit his lip and knocked their hips together ever harder until she collapsed on all fours, which forced him down onto his knees as well so he wouldn’t lose her. Her spine in a pronounced curve, Charlotte threw her head back and cried out under the forceful thrusts. Lust burning him whole, he spread her knees wider with his, used his hands, which he knew were larger than the norm, to create a belt of unyielding bones and tendons around her waist. After pulling out almost completely, Gautier rubbed her entrance, knowing how to stoke her feminine fire to a raging inferno, and when she responded to his attentions with renewed vigor, he stabbed back in.
Encouraged by her rising cries of rapture, he hammered and crushed her welcoming flesh, his fingers digging increasingly deeper, his eyes now squeezed shut, bottom lip firmly tucked in. With near brutality now, he pushed himself into Charlotte over and over. He was so close. Close to heaven and hell, caught in a place where he could fall either way in the span of a heartbeat.
Lord have mercy, he’d choose a hell with her over a heaven without Charlotte.
A heartbeat later, Gautier shuddered as his long-captive seed finally burst from its prison. Charlotte gasped with pleasure. He felt her tremble in unison with him. With surprising force, her channel clutched his shaft hard like a fist. Bliss seemed to overcome them both simultaneously. Had she long denied such pleasures, just as he had?
Her passage, now warm and slick, milked out the last of his seed. She pulled away, rolled onto her back so she could smile at him. Gautier smiled in return and reached out to stroke her cheek. As his fingers connected with her, the image dispersed.
Gautier snapped up in his bed with the speed of a breaking bowline. Wetness stuck to his thighs and bedclothes. No need to look down at himself to know what had happened. He’d spilled himself for real.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
Blistering shame rose to his cheeks. Leaning forward, he rested his brow against his knees and punched the mattress several times.
* * * * *
She had never struck a horse. Until that evening.
With a snarl of rage she forced herself to calm down, telling her restless brain the poor animal was galloping as fast as it could. And it did. Froth splattered its face while sweat slicked its flanks. In the heat of late summer afternoon, both rider and mount leaned into the dying breeze. Between the last rows of trees before the town proper, buildings flickered teasingly. Just a short while longer, she urged her animal on. Though the ride was short, the time it had
taken them would surely become a record. A few paces then you can rest, brave friend.
When the horse veered on a bend in the road, she leaned into its flank, clutching the reins in a death grip. Workers returning home stared as she thundered past. Waves and hails followed in her wake. She had no time to spare. He might be leaving town soon, if not already. Lussier’s home was not very far out of Montmorency land but still, she did not want to ride half a day before getting her hand on Guilabert. He never left town on Sunday, preferring instead to drink it away and wait until the following morning…or afternoon, more aptly. Unless he intended to return to his own home, two days’ ride away, in what used to be the Lanteigne family’s summer retreat. He owned now, thanks to her family’s connections, this part of the Lanteignes’ land and its adjoining mill. To say her father had given this lying bastard credit and coin! Charlotte nearly choked on it. And to thank her family, he wanted to steal their land.
As if the sight of their levelheaded baroness thundering through town proved the sight of a lifetime, townsfolk began to gather in the main street. Some stood there uncertainly while others gathered in small clumps. She knew that they knew. Somehow word had gotten out she wanted a word with Guilabert. Who could have told them when she had not told anyone herself? They had come to watch the spectacle of two nobles fighting it out in the street. Well, they would be well served. She had no qualms about giving Guilabert a piece of her mind, no matter how many ears she turned. She had worked on it since meeting Brother Gautier the day before at church but had preferred to wait until she could vent her anger without bursting into tears. Her beloved Jean-Louis dead. The tavern came into sight as she rounded the last corner. Dirt flew up behind her as she pulled on the reins and maneuvered her horse right up to the door. Coming very close to it, she kicked out and caught the panel on the corner. The door rattled in its frame.
“Come out, Guilabert!” she roared as she tightened her grip on the reins. Her horse made a complete rotation on itself as it tried to follow its rider’s insistent heels.
The door opened almost at once and the innkeeper’s head poked out. He blanched and nodded empathically. The door was left open while he retreated. No doubt to fetch a drunken Guilabert—but it was Lussier who came out next. The smirk he wore would have turned her stomach on any other day. But today…
“Where’s your master?” she demanded, forcing her fretting horse to spin in place once again. Dust rose around her legs.
Lussier bent forward like a broken puppet in what he must have thought was a bow. The slight waver told Charlotte if Guilabert was not drunk, his friend surely was.
“He’s not here, m-my lady. He left late last night…had some urgent business to take care of.”
Charlotte raged at herself for having lost a day crying in her pillow when she should have been there chopping off Guilabert’s toes one by one. “Where has he gone? Your home or his?”
Lussier smiled a waspish little smile. “His. There, there, my lady, please don’t enervate yourself over such matter. I’ll tell h-him you were looking—”
Enervate?
She tried to keep her legendary cool but failed miserably. Enervate? She would show him “enervate”.
Yanking on the reins of her horse, she brought the panting animal right up to Lussier. With a half kick, half push of her foot, she sent him tumbling back. He sprawled on the dusty ground with a squeaky gasp. Flushed a furious shade of scarlet, he floundered back to his feet. Patting himself, he cast her a venomous look.
“You’ll never address me in such a way again,” she snarled in her deepest voice. “Or as God is my witness, I’ll rend you limb from limb. Now, you tell your master that I demand to see him as soon as he sets foot back into Bourbon-Condé territory. And you tell him that he can keep his champion from Rome off my back or I’ll send him packing as well.”
“Will you?” a man asked behind her.
She whirled the horse about to stare down at the brother. He stood a few paces away, hands in his sleeves. A look of resentment flashed in his pale eyes. As though he blamed her for something. What was wrong with him?
She rounded on him, not caring if she shocked the townsfolk. “Yes, Brother. This is my land. You’re walking on my dirt, breathing my air and eating the food my good folks provide. Don’t overstep your authority.”
With aplomb that shook her, he walked right up to the fretting horse and seized the bridle before she could pull away. Giving a pat to the horse’s head, he wrapped a block-like hand over the leather strap and made a fist. Charlotte refused to try to tug the reins free, knowing there was no hope she could pry them out of his steel grip. Still, she used her stature and all the steel she could put in her eyes to stare him down.
“Release me.” Her teeth were about to fuse together.
Not relinquishing the reins, he drew nearer. “You would do well to curb your tone of voice. I represent the Lord, whom even nobles must acknowledge and obey.”
She felt herself pale, actually felt the blood drain from her face. Anger such as this, she had never known. Bending down, she hissed a “release me at once”, which carved a deep crease between his eyebrows. He let go.
“Don’t forget, Lussier, because I won’t,” she threw over her shoulder.
Charlotte whirled her horse around, almost knocking the brother aside. She graced Lussier with the coldest look she could muster and avoided looking at Brother Gautier. She urged her horse to a fast trot. She did not look back, though she wanted to.
As soon as she reached the town limit, a ragged gasp escaped her. She slumped in her saddle and bit her cheek to keep the tears at bay. Jean-Louis’ inanimate form flashed in her eyes. Had he suffered much? Had someone at least buried him? Had he died alone?
Charlotte looked down at the ruby and could not help but liken its crimson color to blood. Jean-Louis’ blood.
* * * * *
“See how it barely reaches up to the notch?” Armand asked.
Her nod dislodged strands of hair and Charlotte hooked them back behind her ear with a profound sigh. The river reached up only to the second notch, which meant it was lower than even following a dry summer, which was not the case this year. Roots from trees were exposed while the wheels of the distillery spun slowly. Water usually poured out its sides from the strong current. Today it barely sloshed on the paddles, creating a forlorn squeak that drove Charlotte to the brink. If the paddled wheel would turn just a little bit faster, the awful noise would stop.
“What could be causing it? It’s rained regularly all summer, not to mention that storm last week.”
“Don’t know, mistress. My guess is that something’s keeping the water from flowing normally, something up north. A beaver dam maybe? Or some debris.”
She nodded. “It may be nothing but I’d like to go check.” Before Armand could voice his protest, she raised her hand and silenced him. “I don’t need another lecture on what a woman can’t and shouldn’t do.”
Armand’s grin wrinkled his leathered face. “Wasn’t going to, mistress. I just wanted to remind you that Brenne and La Chapelle are both waiting for their batch. We have to work the books before we leave.”
She could have hugged him right there and then. Never mind Constance. Charlotte managed a tired smile. “What would I do without you?”
He shrugged. “Find another old man to harass the workers. We’re easy enough to find.”
They spent the rest of the day “working the books” as Armand called, making sure coins flowed where they should. When evening rolled in and with it scents of pines and musty evening, Charlotte’s neck and back were on fire. And after she returned home that night to a restless and fitful sleep, the next day brought with it the first of the real September rains. These could last for days. She hoped it would be enough to raise the water level but somehow suspected it would not. She was becoming too pessimistic.
She met Armand outside. His long riding cloak covered his body and the rump of his horse. The wide cowl was
pulled straight up and buttoned almost to his eyes. The wide-brimmed hat he always wore when hunting was crammed low on his head. Rain made him and his horse look greasy.
“Good morning, Constance,” Charlotte said to the spectacularly sour-looking woman.
A grunted “mistress” was her only reply. Armand gave his tart wife a warning look. She did not even pretend to brighten or be affected. A shiver ran down Charlotte’s spine. Animosity shone bright in the old head-servant’s eyes this morning. Constance must not have approved of the baroness dragging her old husband up north in such weather, but to openly scowl at her employer… Charlotte resolved to mention something when she would return.
“Ready?” Armand asked, eyeing her riding outfit as if to make sure all was in place.
Readjusting her dagger, she nodded. The long cloak she wore also covered her horse’s backside right down to the shaggy fetlocks. She buttoned it up high and lowered the hood over her head. Though the air was rather warm, the rain would feel less so when they stopped for the night. No use getting a lung disease on top of things. If she were coughing up blood and looked feverish, perhaps Guilabert would think twice and leave her alone. The thought entertained her for a while as she and her companion rode out of the mansion’s grounds and reached the road leading north.
They followed the road in silence, each one lost in his or her thoughts. Charlotte’s brought her to Jean-Louis without fail. Word had now reached everyone in the province and offers of condolences had begun arriving. Closer family friends, of whom she had precious few, offered the relative peace and tranquility of some domain or other so she could take her mind off things and take a break. As though doing nothing would help her forget her brother was dead—had been so for two years. She knew they meant well. Still, all she wanted to do right then was eat, sleep and work. And she would do it all at the distillery if she could. There was always something to do there, always some problem she could fix. Unlike her real life.
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