“Well, if her forgiveness was willingly granted, who am I to contest?” he said at length. “Still, I think you need to atone in a much more concrete way for what you’ve done here.”
“I’d do anything to undo what I caused, Father,” Gautier replied, sitting up, flinching, straighter on the couch.
“You were a carpenter, if I believe your enthusiastic patrons about town. You could start with rebuilding whatever the fire did to the distillery.” The old man cast an askance look at her. “If the mistress will have you, of course. Since she’s twenty-seven now, she’s the master of all you see here.”
Charlotte sat up straight. Twenty-seven?
She would have slapped herself on the forehead. It was past midnight, so Monday morning. A new day had begun, therefore the anniversary of her birth and her twenty-seventh year. The realization filled her heart and tugged at her mouth. She grinned freely for the first time in a long time.
“I am twenty-seven,” she replied in awe. Then, seeing how Gautier stared at her expectantly, she nodded. “And I will need a carpenter to fix the distillery. Someone accomplished though. Do you know anyone?”
He smiled awkwardly, as though unsure if he should smile with joy or cringe in pain or both. “I know someone who’d be very happy to mend some things that have been broken.”
After he said this, Gautier stood gingerly and pulled his habit over his head. Blood stained his linen undertunic while a large dark spot indicated the same for his black wool hose. Charlotte looked on in shock as he folded the garment and placed it on a nearby table.
“What are you doing, Brother Gautier?” the old priest asked. Shock tightened the wrinkled face. He put his hand over the folded uniform.
“I’m not fit to wear this.”
The old man tut-tutted. “Mistakes don’t bar good men from serving our Lord.”
Gautier shook his head then stared at Charlotte for a long time. She would have squirmed under the passion of his gaze but found it titillated her in more ways than she cared to show.
“Love isn’t a mistake,” Gautier replied, still looking at her.
“Ah yes, love. No, you’re right, young man, it’s no mistake, for our Lord meant it the way it is, even if I doubt He had all of this in mind.”
“What now then?” Charlotte asked.
Simon chuckled. “I’m sure you two have some things to settle, things to discuss, I’ll go write a letter to an old friend in the Vatican. He’s not a cardinal but he should do. It’s high time someone put Lanteigne back in his place.”
Charlotte would have kissed him right then and there. “What about the marriage? I am a married woman now, strictly speaking.” The thought alone sent chills down her back. And already a widow.
“Who married you, my dear?” Simon countered, theatrically looking about the library. “There’s only one priest here…and I haven’t married you, unless I’m losing my mind. Or,” he added as an afterthought, “you’d like me to change that some time soon?”
A quick look of expectation flashed across Gautier’s pale face. He subdued it and lowered his gaze to his hands.
She had seen it though, the delight, the hope. She knew how it felt too for she shared these feelings as well. She would love naught more than to spend the rest of her life with this man, no matter what humble status he happened to hold. He was still half noble, for those who cared for such matters and wouldn’t be prevented from marrying her. Not that it would have stopped her, even if she would have had to set an entire team of notaries to dredge a drop of noble blood from a fifth removed cousin who lived in the Far East.
Father Simon tapped his index finger against his temple. “Marrying a couple on such short notice will ruin my whole month though. I had plans, you see. So I think a small gift is in order.”
“Name it,” she replied without missing a beat.
He went to the shelf where the little herbs book was nestled. Taking it with reverent fingers, he held it for her to see. Years he had spent gazing at it, refusing her gift of it under the pretext its home was with her.
“I’m glad the little book found a good home,” she said, smiling broadly.
He chuckled as he slid it under the front of his habit. “As for you, young man, I’ll see to it that your release from the Church stays discreet. You’re not ordained nor have you made any formal vows, so it shouldn’t prove a problem. No need to alarm half the Vatican, no? A simple note from our local abbot should suffice. I’m sure your former master and his friends would not enjoy having their underthings shown to everyone. Then we’ll need to take care of that lock in the river. I’m told the Lanteignes should expect a fuming note from our highness any day now. What wouldn’t I give to be there when they read it.”
“What do you mean?”
Simon’s face wrinkled even more. “When I was temporarily relocated,” he stopped, threw a quick glance at Gautier then folded his hands behind him. “I wrote a letter to the court’s notaries, to inform them about the impending dip in the royal coffers. From talking to people in my interim parish—news of that infamous lock has already gone around the province at least once—I knew you had already sent one to the Duke of Valois but I preferred to appeal to their greed instead of their honor. I felt it was a safer course. Montmorency, without its bourbon, isn’t very rich, I reminded them. That ought to have made its way upward.”
“Had we thought about this all a bit sooner…” Charlotte began, shook her head. What was the use? Things might have happened differently. She might not have met Gautier. Unthinkable. “But then again, I would not change a thing in the world right now.”
Simon nodded before he left and closed the door behind him.
Now that she was alone with Gautier, Charlotte found she could hardly look at the man. Embarrassment flushed her cheeks. She lowered her gaze when he stood from the couch and limped to hers. With a groan of pain, he lowered himself beside her. His hand was tender when he reached out and cupped her chin.
“It’s all very sudden. I’d understand if…”
Charlotte felt herself flush even more. “It’s not sudden. I’ve known for a while.”
“Known what?”
“That I wanted to have you with me. I knew it back at the river, when we met.”
Now it was his turn to blush. A shrug lifted his thick shoulders. “Um…yes, the river. I’m not of full noble birth, Charlotte. Your family will oppose.”
“My family is all but gone. And my distant cousin only cares for his precious bourbon.” She twisted on the seat to study his expression. “Does it trouble you?”
“Guilabert said the truth, I am a bastard. The son of a nobleman and a girl working at an inn in Brenne. I have nothing but these hands to offer you.”
“Which is all I desire,” Charlotte replied through a lascivious grin that made him blush deeper.
Before he could add to this, Charlotte leaned forward and brushed her lips against his. Tentatively at first then with more assertion, she kissed him.
He passed his other hand against her cheek. When he pulled away, she opened her eyes. The way he looked at her, with his affection plain on his face, melted her heart. Tears of joy threatened to make her a blubbering fool.
“I knew it too, that I wanted to be with you, only I was too stubborn to admit it, even to myself.”
She put her index finger to his lips. He kissed it tenderly, moved on to her palm, her wrist, then her arm and shoulder before brushing his lips against her throat. Heat seeped through the fabric of her tunic. When he reached her mouth, she was practically bursting with desire. The kiss they shared was passionate, though both were weary enough to sleep standing.
After he wrapped a protective arm about her, she leaned in the crook of his shoulder and closed her eyes. Before long, his chest rose and fell rhythmically. She too felt herself succumb to sweet oblivion. Within moments, Charlotte yielded her exhausted body over to sleep.
* * * * *
Charlotte felt light as a feather
when Gautier lifted her in his arms and spun in place. Smiling faces flashed past. Tears of joy came to her eyes. She grinned.
As much as she wanted to stay in the small church and savor her union to the man she loved, she had deeper needs that required fulfilling. Now.
Wrapping an arm over his strong shoulder, she pulled him closer. “I want you,” she murmured in his ear.
The shock on Gautier’s face was comical. He set her down, smiled at the gathered people about them then nearly elbowed his way to the door. Charlotte, beaming, followed in his wake.
Outside, blinding October sun hailed them. Leaves in the trees shone crimson, copper and gold. A breeze stirred her hair. Could a day be more glorious than this?
A covered coach waited for them, all gilded in purple fleur-de-lis blossoms and cream-colored ribbons. Gautier lifted her right up to the cabin, to the delight of the congregation, who had followed the newlyweds outside. Turning, she offered her hand. With a grin, he took it and let her hoist him to her level. Amid laughs, the coach lurched onward.
Charlotte sat by the window so she could wave at Father Simon and Armand. Renaud’s head stuck out over the rest by a good foot and she blew him a kiss. He pretended to catch it and put it in his pocket.
“It’s all yours now,” she said, waving at the outside in general, before plopping down on the bench across him.
“Ours,” Gautier corrected.
The deep blue of his tunic and hose flattered his pale hair and eyes. Discreet silver thread gave the fine wool a look of midnight sky. Never had she seen a man so dashing.
She patted down the cream-colored gown that kept puffing up like an angry bird. How could women wear these things day in, day out? Pearl earrings dangled against her neck. She brushed a finger against one.
As if the subtle gesture triggered something in Gautier, he leaned across the space between them and kissed her. “My sweet fleur-de-lis,” he breathed in her ear.
She pulled him to her. He came willingly, a grin on his face.
When he cupped her face with warm hands, fingers reaching to her nape, Charlotte looked into his eyes and words floated out of her numb brain. With lips so gentle they barely touched hers, he brushed a kiss on her mouth, her chin, each cheek then finished on her forehead. But she had other ideas.
Charlotte readily went for his thigh and squeezed it, which flared Gautier’s eyes and nostrils. Pushing up against his face, she crushed her mouth to his, retreated to watch his reaction, found that he was still staring at her before diving for it again. This time, she elicited a response.
Moaning in contentment, Charlotte let him push her against the backrest with his chest while his hand was busy bunching her gown over her knee. After she angled her leg outward, his fingers finally found her skin and caressed it before coming up, up along the inside of her thigh, slithering past her underthings and finding her sex. A soft mewl escaped her when his finger rubbed her sensitive pearl.
“I don’t think I can wait,” she whispered against his mouth before nipping his bottom lip.
Already fire raged in her, licked at her flesh. She wanted him, her man.
“But you will have to wait. I want to take my ti—”
She drowned the rest with her mouth and a moment later, whimpered in frustration when Gautier slid a gentle finger in her instead of the all-out charge she wanted.
But then he must have grasped the magnitude of her need for Gautier pushed his finger in deep, pulled out then sank back in. While he did this, she fumbled with the many clasps on his tunic, managing only the first two. She growled as she meant to rip the rest but he stopped her with a firm hand.
“Charlotte.”
Why was he holding back?
She could not ponder this further as the coach took a bend she recognized well. They would be home within moments.
Charlotte did not even wait for the driver to get down from his bench and jumped out as soon as the coach began to slow down. Gautier landed by her side. Holding hands, they rushed up the stone steps, through the doorway, not even slowing down to return waves from the few servants not at church. Four by four, they climbed the twisting stairway. Their breathless charge led them to their new chambers.
Charlotte heaved a sigh of relief. Finally!
She had spent the last few weeks arguing, threatening, begging, that Gautier and she share the master’s chambers but he would have none of it, arguing they had to wait until they were married. As though they hadn’t already consummated their union! She had nearly gone mad with yearning. To see him every day for close to a month yet be denied his sweet touch. But they were married now.
With a pointed look behind at a solemn Gautier, she unbarred the massive oak door and pushed it in.
Inside, flowers occupied most of the space. A thick cluster of fleurs-de-lis throned in a large vase. On it, a small note.
“Go ahead,” Gautier said, pressing against her lower back so she would go on. He barred the door behind him. She heard the key land on the floor.
Slowly, Charlotte went to the large bouquet and retrieved the note. Only one line of the neat handwriting she had come to recognize as Gautier’s occupied the small piece of parchment.
“Armand will beg you to do the books instead of me,” she remarked with a wink. Her penmanship was notoriously bad.
“It’s beautiful.” The smile slid off her face when she read, To Charlotte, a blossom without peer.
Charlotte felt him approach from behind. Gentle fingers brushed against her arms and neck. Shivers prickled her skin. Her breath caught in her throat as fine wool caressed her shoulder when Gautier leaned in closer. The softest kiss brushed her neck. She sighed.
“Before you there was no other.” His voice was so low she could barely hear.
Charlotte meant to turn but he held her firmly by the shoulders. “You never…?” Had he been a virgin?
He sighed deeply. Years of solitude seemed to have weighed on him more heavily than she had thought. “A few times long ago, but it meant naught compared to when I met you. As though I had come out of a hole in the ground to a warm, sunny day.”
She nodded. “And I… Well…”
“Were no longer virgin either. I know. Why would you think it matters to me?”
“It should, shouldn’t it? It matters to me. I wish I had waited.”
Gautier shook his head. “Nothing grows out of regrets. Being the first to know a woman or not shouldn’t shape a man’s love for her. All I want is to be the only one and hopefully the last.”
“You are,” Charlotte replied firmly. “And you will be.”
His hands softened and he resumed his caress of her neck. Breaths coming short and quick, Charlotte let her head rest back against his shoulder. She let him kiss her below the ear, run gentle fingers through her hair to undo the coiffure. Curly locks spilled over her ears and neck. He slicked them back, his fingers the softest comb.
She would have been content just staying this way had it not been for the searing lust knifing her insides. He must have felt the passion stirring her for he gently pulled on the cord holding her bodice in place. She took a deep breath when the gown loosened around her ribs.
Gautier’s hands were nimble and fast as he undid the top of her gown and let it slide off her shoulders. She wanted to do the same to him. God, she wanted to chew his clothes off! But she discovered he already had taken his tunic off. Only the thin linen undertunic separated their skin. Warmth seeped through the flimsy fabric.
A gasp escaped Charlotte when Gautier reached around and wrapped a strong hand over her partly exposed breast. Though his touch was gentle as a breeze, she sensed raw power straining to be free. How could such a strong, intense man exercise such pitiless self-control?
With shaking fingers, Gautier traced the mound of one breast, the soft cleft in between, then her other breast, never sliding below the fabric. She had to bite her lips to refrain from turning about and pouncing on the man. What sweet torment!
She c
losed her eyes. Smells from the multitude of flowers wafted to her. Through narrowed eyes, she scanned what had become their bedchambers. A poster bed with red velvet drapes took almost half the floor space. What pleasures they would share in this bed. Light came in between the rustling drapes. Old but decent rugs tickled her toes when she wriggled them. There would be no need to ever come out of this room.
Charlotte reached up behind and caressed her husband’s hair. The movement freed her breasts, revealed nipples hardened to aching pebbles. He pulled the bodice lower with both hands and pressed his palms right under her breasts, creating two perfect, round mounds. A low groan rumbled in his chest.
Again, she felt as though he reined in his passion, for some reason not letting go completely. Had he suffered so much he could not even take full pleasure from his wife’s embrace? Charlotte’s heart ached for him. She would help him find release, would deliver him from those demons plaguing him still.
“You’re holding back,” she murmured.
His whole body quivered like a just fired arrow. Even his legs trembled. “I’ve denied myself for so long. I fear hurting you.”
Charlotte spun on her heels and trapped his gaze with hers. “You won’t.”
Then she kissed him on the mouth, hard. Leaving his ambrosial lips, she parted the opening of his undertunic. The sound of stitches ripping accompanied her as she revealed his chest and lavished kisses over his scarred skin. When she happened on one nipple, she flicked the tip of her tongue at it. He tried to stifle a shuddering breath but failed. As if to let him know unbridled passion was exactly what she had in mind, she pressed her entire length against his. With their bodies so intimately pressed, the might of his passion became apparent.
Still, Gautier stood there looking at her, a look of misery on his face. If she could only convince him she trusted him completely, he could let go of the isolation, the unbending regime of deprivation. What could she say to convince him? Sadly, words could never erase years of hardship. She would have to show him.
Sinful Page 18
