He put the kettle on and dragged the bathtub into her chamber, next to the brazier for warmth.
“Will they talk about me?” she asked, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Victor and Thomas and Brad. Will they tell people I’m a woman?”
“I made them promise not to.”
She nodded slowly. “Will it work?”
He sighed. “I trust them. But...” He raked a hand through his hair.
“But?”
He sat next to her and took her hand; it felt as lifeless as she looked. “I wish I could say with certainty that no one will ever find out. But in my experience, secrets are the most fragile of commodities. The truth is far stronger, far more stubborn. Sooner or later, it will assert itself.”
“So people will find out who I am.”
“Not necessarily that you’re Constance of Cuxham. But I’m fairly certain your true sex will become public knowledge eventually.”
She was silent for a long moment. “Then I should leave here.”
“Nay!” He turned to face her.
“But what of the chancellorship? The bishop will never appoint you if he knows you’re living with a woman. And if he finds out after you accept it, he’ll probably remove you from office. You’ll be disciplined, and your reputation—”
He closed his hands over her shoulders. “Let me worry about my reputation. You need my protection—now, more than ever.”
“But if the price for my protection is the chancellorship—”
“This is not the time for you to leave here, Corliss,” he said fiercely, “not after what’s happened. Not when you’re hurt, and with this Pigot still looking for you.” He gripped her shoulders hard and gave them a little shake. “Promise me you’ll do nothing rash. Promise me you’ll stay.”
She lowered her head, biting her lip. “I can’t stay if my presence jeopardizes everything you’ve been working for.”
“Right now it jeopardizes nothing. No one knows.”
“But they will. You said so yourself.”
“God, Corliss, you’re exasperating. And you’re scaring me. I can see you taking it into your head to leave, just for the sake of the damned chancellorship.”
“I won’t leave...”
“Thank God.”
“Until I have to.”
“Corliss...”
“Right now, a handful of people know I’m a woman. If anyone else figures it out, I’m going to go away—before the bishop finds out.”
“Why can’t you just let me decide what’s best for me?”
“Because you’re too kindhearted. If you heard people talking about me, you’d probably just ignore it, for my sake.”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“You’d ask me to leave if I become a liability to you?”
“Aye.” Would he? Could he find it in his heart to order her from his home? Perhaps; he wouldn’t be ordering her out of his life, after all. It wasn’t as if he’d never see her again—as long as she stayed in Oxford. She’d probably want to, having established such a dazzling reputation on Catte Street. Everyone in the book business admired her work. The Becket Bible was almost finished, and then she’d have her choice of lucrative commissions. He could find her an apartment, some suitable place where she could work and live. He might be able to do it.
“Really?” she asked, perhaps sensing his uncertainty.
He adopted a resolute expression. “Absolutely. When the time comes, I’ll ask you to leave.”
She said nothing for a moment. Her face was pale and drawn; her eyes glistened. “Good,” she said, looking away.
“Corliss...”
“I think the water’s probably hot by now,” she said. He tried to turn her to face him, but she wrested out of his grasp and started for the main hall. “I’ll get it.”
“Nay, I will. You rest.”
Rainulf filled the wooden tub and left her, pulling the curtain closed behind him. Then he poured himself a brandy in the main hall. He heard the water being displaced as she got in the tub, and turned automatically toward the sound. Through a narrow gap in the curtain, he saw a flicker of pale flesh as she sat in the tub. The sight reminded him of that time he’d seen her bathing at Blackburn Castle, and it made him ache in the same way; it made him long to touch and hold and possess that which he had only ever seen in brief, tantalizing glimpses.
He exchanged his bloodstained shirt for a fresh one; then nursed the brandy for some time, letting his thoughts float where they would. He mused on the chancellorship, wondering how it would feel to give up teaching for the sterile, dispassionate arena of administration. He thought about Corliss, and how she had forced him to feel what he hadn’t felt in years, as well as some things—like his love for her—that he’d never felt. She’d made him human again. She’d awakened him, as if he’d been a hibernating creature and she’d reached into his hole and dragged him, growling and clawing, out into the sunlight.
A soft sound from the bedchamber drew his attention, and he stilled, straining to hear. An indrawn breath... and another... and another, this time with a slight hitch.
He stood, set down his cup, and crossed to the leather curtain. “Corliss?”
She didn’t answer, but he could hear muffled gasps; not gasps, but sobs being choked back.
“Corliss. Are you all right?” Foolish question, not deserving of an answer; none was forthcoming.
“I’m coming in, Corliss.” He paused, then drew aside the curtain.
She sat facing away from him in the big wooden tub, her arms wrapped tightly around her updrawn knees, her bare back shaking, although little sound came from her. He had the sense that she was trying to contain her sobs, but having a hard time of it.
He circled the tub and knelt in front of her. She lowered her head to her knees, her fine-boned shoulders convulsing with the strain it took to keep from crying out loud. He wove his fingers through her damp hair, stroking her scalp. Her nudity—although he could see little of her in the dim lamplight, tightly enfolded as she was—enhanced her aura of vulnerability. The effort it cost her to fight her tears broke his heart.
“Let it out, Corliss,” he softly urged. “Go ahead. Cry.”
She shook her head.
“Yes.” He gently rubbed her wet shoulders and back. “Come on.” Leaning over, her kissed her on the top of her head. That simple gesture of affection seemed to push her over the edge, robbing her of her hard-fought control. She cried in earnest, shaking with her sobs, tears streaming down her reddened face.
“That’s right,” he soothed, holding her as best he could. “That’s right. ‘Twill make you feel better. Everything’s all right.”
She shook her head.
“Yes, it is.”
“N-nay,” she choked out. “I’m a f-fool.”
“No you’re not. I told you—you didn’t bring this on yourself. None of this is your fault. You know that in your heart. Don’t torment yourself this way.” He murmured reassurances to her for some time, until her tears diminished and her breathing steadied.
They’d switched positions, he realized. Always in the past, she’d been the one trying to cheer him up, to encourage him to accept what he knew in his heart and stop analyzing things. Now it was the other way around. He didn’t seem to be doing a very good job of it, though. She may have stopped crying, but she looked miserable, devastated. Still curled into a tight ball, she rubbed her face, her breath catching as she struggled to regain her composure.
“Here.” He rose and fetched the towel she’d laid out to dry herself off with. Standing behind her, he unfolded the large square of linen and held it open. “Stand up.”
She hesitated; then, apparently realizing the towel would shield her from his view, she stood. He wrapped the big cloth around her and supported her as she stepped out of the tub. Taking her in his arms, he rubbed her through the linen. “How do you feel?”
She shrugged.
He sighed and held her close, feeling her trembling heat thro
ugh the thin, damp cloth. Something inside him unfurled, warming him from within. It was something he’d never felt before: part protectiveness and part desire. He wanted to shelter her. He also wanted to join his body with hers. As he held her, the two urges merged into something unique and strangely powerful.
So this is what it feels like to love a woman.
He left the chamber to give her some privacy, returning once she’d changed into her nightgown—one of the silk shifts Martine had given her. While he emptied and removed the bathtub, she sat on the edge of her bed, hands curled limply in her lap, eyes vacant.
Kneeling at her feet, Rainulf enclosed her hands in his, rubbing her palms with his thumbs. She still gazed at nothing, lost in her melancholy. He felt so helpless, so useless, so terrified to see her this way.
“I don’t know what to do, what to say to ease your sadness,” he whispered hoarsely. “You’re so much better at this than I am.”
She bit her lip; tears welled in her eyes. He lowered his head to her lap and wrapped his arms around her waist. “God, no, don’t cry. I didn’t mean to make you cry again.” He felt her fingers in his hair and felt a flutter of optimism. She wasn’t completely closed off from him; he was doing some good.
He raised his head and found her looking at him. Forcing a smile, he reached up and stroked her cheek. She closed her eyes.
His gaze followed the curve of her throat to the nick at its base. The long scratch down her chest was hidden by her silk shift, which laced down the front. “Did you put on the salve Will left?”
She shook her head. “I forgot,” she said, her voice rusty from crying.
Rainulf got up and fetched the little jar. “Lie down.”
She scooted back on the bed and lay with her head on the pillow. Sitting beside her, he opened the jar and dipped a finger into the amber-colored balm. She closed her eyes, tilting her chin up to give him access to her throat, and he dabbed the salve gingerly on the little cut.
He hesitated for just a moment before untying the cord that laced her shift closed. She opened her eyes and looked at him, but he avoided her gaze. Drawing the cord through the eyelets carefully, to avoid irritating her wound, he slowly unlaced the gown almost to the waist. He pushed aside the silk, then dipped up some more salve. Starting at the top of the shallow cut, he applied the soothing medication with as gentle a touch as he could manage.
Her breathing quickened as he slowly worked his way down the shallow cut; so did his. When he was done, he cleared his throat. “Does it still hurt?”
“Nay.” She hadn’t looked away from him this whole time. “The one on my neck does a little.”
Bending down, he softly pressed his lips to one side of the little wound. He felt her pulse speed up just beneath the hot satin skin, felt her throat move as she swallowed. The sensation was unexpectedly erotic; he felt a heaviness in his lower body, felt his chausses stretch as he grew hard.
He kissed her throat again and again, all over—whisper-soft kisses, his lips barely grazing the creamy flesh. Taking her head gently between his hands and tilting it, he touched his lips to the underside of her jaw, which was indescribably, unbearably soft; and then to the edge of the jaw itself, bestowing a path of soft kisses along the graceful curve of bone beneath smooth-stretched skin. When his mouth passed lightly over her ear, she took in a startled little breath. Closing his lips over her delicate earlobe, he touched his tongue to it, and heard her sigh.
He tangled his hands in her hair, half-dried by the warm night air into unruly curls. Hers skimmed upward from his elbows, braced on either side of her, to his shoulders, which she gripped ever more tightly in response to his gentle attentions.
Kissing her cheek, he tasted salt. Without thinking, he licked her dried tears. Instinct had taken over; his analytical mind had shut down. He’d never felt so unencumbered, so free of restraint, so driven. The heat that consumed him wasn’t limited to his stiff and aching member; his entire body—his very soul—felt as if it were on the verge of crisis of—what? Not pleasure, more than pleasure. Rapture. He vibrated with a power and energy that went beyond lust, that promised limitless possibilities.
Corliss’s eyelids were puffy; he pressed his lips to them, and then to the tip of her nose, pink and shiny. His mouth hovered over hers now, and for the first time, he looked her directly in the eyes. Her pupils were enormous black pools encircled with flecks of bronze and copper and gold. She met his gaze unwaveringly, but with a sharp little glimmer of wonder, a spark that shot between them like heat lightning. He felt the same wonder, the same ecstatic incredulity. They smiled into each other’s eyes, two beings with the same thought, the same desire, the same driving need to merge their bodies into one; Rainulf had never experienced such intimacy with anyone.
He looked at her lips, blood flushed and swollen from crying; his own lips tingled with the need to touch them. The prospect of kissing her, after all these months of wanting to, imagining it, craving it, filled him with a drunken excitement that made his senses whirl. She watched him intently, her breath coming faster, as he lowered his mouth on hers. The moment before contact, she closed her eyes, and so did he.
Her lips were warm satin beneath his, and they tasted of her tears. He kissed her lightly at first, barely brushing her lips with his, reveling in her soft sighs of capitulation and pleasure—wordless promises of things to come. Her hands roamed over his shoulders through his linen shirt, meeting behind his neck to bring him closer. He deepened the kiss, devouring her mouth, greedy for that which he’d imagined so vividly and waited for so long. Flicking his tongue across her lips, he darted it between them until it found her own.
She gasped. He opened his eyes and saw her bewildered expression.
Had she never felt a man’s tongue in her mouth before? Clearly not. Just as she’d never been properly bedded; just as she’d never been well and thoroughly kissed. Despite her sexual experience, there was an untapped innocence about Corliss. The same could be said of him, of course, after eleven years of abstinence. If Corliss had much to learn, so did he; they must teach each other.
He kissed her again, at first chastely, murmuring reassurances, then lightly stroking the seam of her lips with the tip of his tongue. She quivered. “Let me in,” he breathed. Another light caress of the tongue, and another... Her lips parted tremulously, and his tongue slipped between them... to meet hers.
Yes... She held him by the back of the head as she explored this new pleasure. A hum of satisfaction coursed through him. He settled against her, one leg resting between hers, his erection hard against her soft stomach. She pressed her hands to the small of his back to urge him closer.
He thrust against her just once, then held himself still, sucking in a breath. It’s too soon...You’re too close.
Breaking the kiss, he shifted his weight and moved down, lowering his mouth to her collarbone. He touched it with his lips, and she shivered. Easing aside the silk, he trailed kisses along the delicate ridge, and back again. He lay next to her and kissed a slow path adjacent to the thin red line etched down the center of her chest, breathing in the sweetness of her skin mingled with the herbal salve.
He felt her silk-clad breast against the side of his face, felt her nipple stiffen as his cheek grazed it. Arousal flared within him, and he tightened his arms around her. When he felt her hands in his hair, he heard a low, shuddering groan, and realized it had come from him.
Chapter 16
Overwhelmed with sensation, Corliss closed her eyes. She felt the soft flax of his hair between her fingers, felt the heat of his breath through the thin silk covering her breast. Her melancholy, so bleak and suffocating, had evaporated almost completely, like nighttime fog burned off by the hot morning sun.
Again she felt, through the sleek fabric, the pressure of his cheek—scratchy with the slight growth of beard that always darkened it in the evening. This time, she knew, the contact was deliberate. He nuzzled her, gently rubbing his prickly jaw on her tender flesh. The
friction against her nipple sparked little thrills of pleasure that coursed throughout her, coming together between her legs like streaks of lightning converting at a single white-hot target point.
She felt a shivery heat and realized he was kissing her breast through the shift. Her heart pumped so hard, it hurt. She arched her back. His lips brushed her nipple, and she gasped. Impatiently sweeping aside the silk, he closed his mouth over the tight little bud.
So hot. So hot and wet. She moaned softly as Rainulf gently tugged on her supersensitive nipple, caressing it with his tongue. He threw a long leg over hers and let the hard length of his erection rest against her thigh. For a timeless, dreamy interlude, they lay together like that, Rainulf suckling while she spiraled slowly upward, into a state of breathless arousal.
She felt the dampness between her legs, the little pulses of pleasure, and was astounded. The last time she’d felt like this was when he’d come to her that night at Blackburn and slipped his hand beneath her quilt. That she could experience the same kind of physical passion without that kind of touch was a revelation.
When he finally moved, it was to slide his hot, rough hand beneath the silk and close it over her other breast. He squeezed her gently, fondling her nipple until she thought she’d scream.
She writhed as his mouth and hand worked their dark sorcery; he tensed his hips, pressing himself against her thigh. Her own hips moved without her willing it. He answered her unspoken need by smoothing his hand downward from her breast until it found the white-hot need between her legs.
Oh, God, she thought as he caressed her through the damp silk, I’m going to go mad from pleasure.
He pulled her shift up and glided his hand between her legs. The first light probing of his fingers galvanized her. She moaned unself-consciously, clutching at his hair as he explored her wet recesses. It was torment—sweet, unbearable torment.
“Rainulf... Rainulf...”
He raised his head and met her gaze. His eyes glittered with the same wolflike hunger she’d seen one time before, when he’d gotten up and walked away from her after giving her such incredible pleasure. This time, she knew, he would not walk away. This time he would find what he wanted—what they both wanted.
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