She shouldn’t care, she knew. After all, it was common enough knowledge that English lords bedded whom they willed, when they willed, married or not. Virility was more highly prized than faithfulness. Besides, their marriage—hers and Holden’s—was purely political, wasn’t it?
By the end of supper, she was as tense as an oversprung catapult, torn between self-pity and disgust, waiting anxiously for word that some wench had been called to the lord’s tent. But at last Holden retired to his pavilion, alone. For tonight, at least, she could rest easy.
She’d just begun to drift off on a threadbare wool blanket amidst the lull of snoring when an old serving woman came to her. The beldame bore the message that she’d been summoned to Lord Holden’s pavilion. Cambria was certain there had been a mistake—she’d tried to remain all but invisible to the nobles—but the old woman insisted it was she the lord had called, the wench in the cloak.
Her teeth chattered all the way there. Perhaps it was only the cool night air, or perhaps the idea of facing Holden sent a chill up her spine. Had he discovered her identity? Or had he, in some ironic jest of destiny, chosen her as a sweetmeat to end his meal?
She drew the cloak about her face. The servant pulled aside the tent flap and bid her enter.
The pavilion was dark inside. She hesitated, wondering in which corner of his lair the Wolf lurked. Before the old woman left, she lit a tall candle on a stand beside the pallet with her firebrand, throwing a pool of gold light across the enclosure. It appeared to be empty.
Cambria stood still for several heartbeats, letting her eyes adjust to the candlelight. The tent was modestly furnished. A worn Turkish carpet stretched out across the hard-packed earth. There was a single carved chair and a large locked trunk for clothes and valuables. The thick, fur-covered pallet filled nearly half the space.
Anxiety threatened to destroy her composure, and she fought to keep her expression bland. Her brain buzzed with a hundred different answers she could give if Holden questioned her presence. But none of them were even remotely convincing.
Outside the pavilion, beneath the watchful moon, Holden paused. He took a deep breath, like a jouster preparing to charge. What would he say to her? What would he do? And most important, why was she here?
If only he’d discovered her earlier… But once he was sure Cambria was safe behind castle walls, he’d focused his mind on nothing but the battle ahead, shunning the maids vying for his affections. He wished now he hadn’t ignored that particular maid in the cloak.
He’d finally spotted her across the evening fire. A quick glimpse of the squared curve of her jaw lit by flickering flame had nearly caused him to choke on his wine. And then, watching her, he wondered how he could have been so blind.
There were things about Cambria no cloak could mask. She had a most distinctive walk, for one thing, not a feminine gait, but a warrior’s long stride. Then there were the strong, sensuous, familiar curves and planes of her body, revealed when she pushed up her sleeves or hiked her skirts to step over a tree root, when she bent over to serve pottage or leaned far into a cart after a cup.
But now that he’d discovered her, he had to ask himself why she’d come.
He wanted to believe she’d followed him, as she’d threatened, in order to protect him from Owen. He wanted to believe her concern for him motivated her decision to counter his commands.
But the sad truth was, he couldn’t be entirely sure of her affections. Other than her grudging admiration of his knightly prowess and the suppressed spark of desire he tended to inspire in women, he had no real proof of Cambria’s feelings for him.
This alliance with the Border clans was too new, the king’s battle too critical, to overlook the possibility, as painful and improbable as it seemed, that Cambria might betray him. He knew she had contacts among the rebels—she had freed the three who’d attacked him, an attack too well arranged for his taste. She was likely sympathetic to the rebels’ plight—it seemed all Scots were romantics when it came to futile causes. And she was trying to distract him by casting suspicion upon one of his own men, Sir Owen, coincidentally the one who may have slain her father.
Damn it all, he had to find out where Cambria stood, for the safety of his men. He couldn’t afford to allow her time to stir up revolt in the ranks or alert the rebel Scots of their coming.
He sighed heavily and rubbed his hands together. He knew what had to be done. He had to question her. Although he despised the task, he was very good at eliciting information from less than willing individuals. He knew how much force to exert, and where, to get almost any prisoner to sing like a nightingale.
But even as he considered it, he shook his head. He couldn’t raise his hand against Cambria. Such a thing was unspeakable. Besides, as proud as the little Scots warrior was, he knew threatening her with violence was absolutely useless. She was more than willing to die for her clan.
Nay, he’d have to use a different attack to find the soft spot in her armor. He looked up at the dark heavens as if the answer lay there. A soft breeze blew at the nape of his neck, making the hairs there stand on end. And he knew.
He’d use her own vulnerability—her very womanhood, that unexplored passion that lay below the surface of her cool exterior, denied for so long that she wasn’t even aware it existed. He’d use it to wring the truth from her.
He rubbed his knuckles across his mouth as he contemplated the task before him. Summoning a passing squire with a motion of his hand, he quietly bid the lad bring a vessel of wine and two cups. His wife, he decided, was about to experience the touch of a master of seduction.
Cambria heard the rustle of the tent flap, and she held her breath, shielding her face from view. When Holden entered, a dark, large, looming shadow, he breezed past her without acknowledgment. Indeed, Cambria thought he might not have even seen her. Slowly, silently she let the air leak out between her lips.
Without looking up, he poured a measure of wine into two cups.
“Don’t you roast, wearing that hood all the time?” he asked.
She didn’t dare answer. He might know her voice. But as the silence lengthened, she began to believe his gaze could pierce the dim light and her shadowed hood into her very soul. She took the cup he held out for her in trembling fingers, turning aside and sipping at the wine.
After a moment, he tipped back his own cup, finishing it off all at once.
“You’re shy,” he remarked. “Have you never lain with a man before?”
She gulped down the strong wine too quickly and was caught up in a spell of coughing. Holden reached out and clapped her a few times on the back, which didn’t help in the least.
“Nay,” she croaked.
Holden grimaced. How easy it was for her to lie, he thought ruefully. According to Guy and Myles, Sir Roger had bedded with her at the inn. He hoped to God she wasn’t lying about her loyalties as well.
“Then it will be my pleasure to initiate you in the rites of passion,” he said.
“But I don’t wish—“
“Shh,” he soothed, “I’m your lord. You’re my vassal. I didn’t ask what you wished. I would bed a woman tonight, and I’ve chosen you.”
Cambria swallowed hard. He certainly was matter-of-fact about the whole ordeal, and he wasn’t wasting much time. She felt as if she were poised at the edge of a waterfall, about to be pushed over. A torrent of emotions coursed through her—fear, anticipation, indignation, resentment—so rapidly she hardly had time to think.
Holden set his cup down on the chest. Then he leaned aside and blew out the candle, leaving the pavilion in deep shadow disturbed by only the vague glow of the moon.
Cambria resisted the urge to slip out the pavilion flap at once into the anonymity of the night. Then she scolded herself for her cowardice. She was on the battlefield now. Running away with no explanation would only postpone the confrontation.
She stood tall. Her eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the meager light when she heard him circling close
about her. She couldn’t see him, but she could sense his eyes burning into her, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was about to be devoured.
He came up behind her, his breath in her ear so sudden she gasped in surprise and dropped her cup. The red wine spilled onto the carpet and was absorbed like a smothered scream. He pulled the hood slowly from her head, twining the fingers of one hand in her hair. The other arm he draped possessively across her collarbone and shoulders. His voice was deceptively gentle.
“Do you know what is to come?”
She remained silent, in spite of the alarm ringing in her head. Without warning, he subtly tightened his hold and clenched his fist in her hair. He wasn’t hurting her, merely keeping her prisoner in his grasp. Nonetheless she struggled against the confinement, her fingers pulling at the taut muscles of his forearm.
“I’m going to kiss you,” he whispered. “You’ve been kissed before, haven’t you?”
She gave no answer. Her heart thrummed in her throat.
“And I’m going to touch you—your lips, your neck, your breasts—in ways no one has ever touched you before.”
With that promise, he forced her to endure that touch as he slowly ran the tip of his tongue up the side of her neck. A hot streak of lightning coursed through her body, as if a blade had done the deed. She shuddered, and a wounded moan issued from her lips unbidden.
He placed delicate kisses against her throat, and she fought against the dizzying sensation. He breathed against her temple and massaged the back of her head.
“You’re so warm…and soft…” He punctuated each of her attributes with a brush of his tongue against the various hollows of her ear. “Supple…and sweet…and beautiful.”
She writhed in sensual torment against him. Then he ceased, and she shivered involuntarily.
“Don’t…do that,” she gasped, fighting for a coherent thought.
She should be outraged. After all, her husband was being unfaithful to her with another. Yet that other was none other than herself. It was all too confusing, particularly when he was driving her half-mad with that nuzzling beneath her ear.
“Give me your lips,” he murmured against her cheek. “I would have a kiss.”
Her heart plunged fearfully—he might recognize her kiss. But before she could duck away, he turned her head to his and ran his broad tongue boldly across her lips. When she opened her mouth in surprise, he closed his lips over hers.
Never had she been kissed like this. The timid bussing she’d given him was nothing compared to this. He sucked gently on each lip, nipped at them as if tasting her. Then he deepened the kiss, drank her very soul from her and poured it back into her again. Even the passion of their wedding kiss paled against the purely erotic mating of their mouths now as his tongue tickled across, then moved languorously between her lips, parting them easily.
She felt as if she were under an enchantment. Her limbs remained rigid in their posture of resistance, but her mouth acted with a will of its own. His kiss demanded an answer, and she gave it as her lips sought his with an age-old hunger.
“Easy, my little nymph,” he coaxed, though there was strain in his voice. “We have all night. There will be more pleasure for you if we take our time.”
With great dexterity, no doubt from practice, he parted her cloak and quickly loosened the laced front of her kirtle. The cool night air filtering over her bared skin startled her for a moment. Then, before she could guess his intent, he slid a hand beneath her gown and traced the outline of the top of her breast with schooled fingers. She gulped.
Holden groaned. Her skin felt like silk beneath the pads of his fingers. What a fool he’d been to agree to that damned marriage document. He brushed a thumb across the fabric still covering her taut nipple, and she drew in a sharp breath. He tried, but couldn’t ignore the yearnings of his own flesh.
“Stop. You mustn’t…” Cambria began in a curiously thick voice, attempting to sound authoritative and failing miserably.
“Shh.” He stroked her again, absorbing her shiver with his own body. He could feel her resolve beginning to melt. Soon she’d be like molten iron on the forge, compliant to his will. That was if his own resistance held out, he thought wryly as a wave of desire flooded his loins.
When he moved his hand to seek her other breast, she moaned softly against his cheek. He placed tiny kisses along the line of her jaw, continuing to caress and tease her with his fingers. Then, sensing her imminent surrender, he gently dragged her back against his body, gritting his teeth as her buttocks pressed against the throbbing column of his manhood. Taking a step backwards, he pulled her down with him onto his chair, settling her across his knees.
“Now,” he told her in a voice he fought to keep steady as he twisted the wedding ring on her finger aright, “you will tell me, wife, why you’re here.”
CHAPTER 11
It took Cambria a moment, reeling in a lusty fog, to realize what he’d said. Even then, she couldn’t for the life of her frame an appropriate reply.
“What?” she whispered at last. “You know? How did you know?”
He answered with more raw desire than he’d intended. “Did you think I hadn’t memorized every inch of you, watching you sleep beside me?”
The mist began to clear from Cambria’s mind. She drew a ragged breath. Part of her wanted to collapse in relief—Holden hadn’t been unfaithful after all—but that emotion was soon squelched beneath a landslide of other, far more powerful ones.
“You let me make a fool of myself,” she said as the truth dawned. Then anger ignited in her faster than a spark on a thatched roof. “You made me suffer in this damnably hot cloak…forced me to wait on your knights, hand and foot, when… You commanded me to your pavilion like a common—“
“Enough!” He halted her with a shake, realizing too late that he should never have stopped seducing her. He’d had her in the palm of his hand. Now, she was slipping from his grasp. “The fact remains that you’re here, garbed as a peasant, and I want to know why.”
Cambria fumed, struggling against his renewed grip. She felt utterly humiliated. She wished to God she’d never come. She should have just let him march off to his death.
“I don’t have to account for my comings and goings!” she snapped. “I’m the laird of Gavin!”
“Laird you may be,” he countered firmly, “but you’ve wed me, and now I am your overlord.”
She jerked against him. “Am I a prisoner?”
“Until you comply with my command and tell me why you’re here, aye.”
She clamped her jaw shut and gave him her most withering glare, even though it was wasted in the darkness. She’d be damned if she’d tell him why she’d come. He’d only laugh at her misplaced concern.
Holden whispered against her cheek. “Perhaps you came because you missed my kisses.”
Before she could retort with some cutting remark, Holden took her jaw firmly in one hand and pressed his lips hard against hers. Predictably, she squealed in outrage, kicking and swatting at him like a wildcat. But when he released her abruptly, she was forced to grab onto him to keep from toppling from his lap.
“Let me go!” she hissed even as she clutched at him for balance.
“Not until you answer me.”
She refused.
“Why have you followed me, Cambria?” Threat tainted his murmur as he trailed one finger down her throat, dangerously close to her breast.
“We had a bargain, husband,” she protested, batting at his roving hand, “or is your word worthless?”
“I’ve never broken my word,” he answered calmly, capturing her wrist. “Rest assured I’ve no intention of bedding you.”
Holden wished his body would believe that. It was taking every ounce of discipline he possessed to hide his increasing ardor. Wincing as Cambria squirmed against his loins, he trapped her other wrist and held both arms down with one of his hands.
Then, as swiftly as a falcon swooping down on its prey, he c
aptured her by the hair, drawing her head back to press his voracious mouth against her neck.
For one crazed moment, as his teeth raked her fragile skin, Cambria thought he meant to bite her. Then his mouth slipped upwards, and she whimpered in dread as he neared her sensitive ear.
“This is a battle you can’t win, Cambria,” he breathed gently. “I have far more experience on this battleground. Sooner or later, you’ll surrender.”
Cambria shivered. God help her, he was right. His voice was honey-sweet seduction, and already her blood warmed to his touch.
She should never have come to his pavilion. She had to get away. Yet she was like a fly in his web, unable to do more than wiggle in his lap, and she blushed to think what she’d feel against her bottom if she did that.
He kept her head still as his tongue began to lave her ear tenderly, and instantly, all thought of escape spun away like maple seeds in the wind. She could neither stop her moan of sweet agony nor resist when he released her to slide his fingers under the neck of her kirtle and along the valley of her bosom.
He cupped one of her breasts beneath the linen, squeezing gently, slowing circling the nipple with his thumb. She protested faintly, a protest he silenced with soft words—words of encouragement, words of praise, words that left her breathless.
“I want to suckle there,” he whispered.
Her face grew hot as the blood surged in her veins. No one had ever said such a thing to her. It was unthinkable. Yet she quivered, imagining the subtle strain of his lips and tongue upon her breast. A shaft of desire as sharp as an arrow shot through her. She offered small resistance as he tipped her back against one arm, sliding his other hand across her ribs and drawing back the kirtle to bare her.
Knights of de Ware 02 - My Warrior Page 17
