“Don’t I know it,” Corliss said. “A person could make a fortune, if they went about it the right way.”
“Are you saying people like Enid Clark go about it the wrong way? She seems to have done well enough.”
“She could do better. That shop of hers is enormous, and she only uses a small part of it. She’s got two empty rooms downstairs, and I don’t think she uses her cellar at all. If I had a shop that size, I wouldn’t limit myself to just copying manuscripts and hiring out the rest. I’d do everything all in the one shop, from start to finish. I’d hire writers, parchmenters, scribes, illuminators, and bookbinders, and have them work together. ‘Twould be much more efficient. One could make dozens of books in the time it takes to make three or four by this piecemeal method. Oh! And I wouldn’t just take commissions. I’d turn part of it into a used-book shop, the best in Oxford. I’d live above the shop.”
“An ambitious plan. There’s no shop of its kind in Oxford—nor in Paris, that I know of.”
She grinned, fully warmed to her topic. “I’d have a sign over the shop: Corliss of Oxford, Venditrix Librorum.”
“What would you do, exactly?”
“Well, I’d run things. And I’d illuminate books, of course. I’d save the fanciest illustrations for myself.”
“Of course.”
She glanced at him, suddenly self-conscious. “You’re smiling at me. You think I’m a daydreaming idiot.”
“I think you’re delightful. So full of enthusiasm. I also think you’re very perversely skilled at changing the subject, when all I really want is to seduce you. Does it amuse you to torment me?”
She shrugged. “It passes the time.”
His smile became a grin—a decidedly wolfish grin. Pausing, he closed a hand around the back of her head and whispered in her ear, “I’ve got a better way to pass the time. When we get home, I’m going to strip those chausses off you and give you this.” He stood close enough that she could feel, against her hip, the solid ridge beneath his layers of clothes. Her body reacted instantly, flooding with liquid heat.
She grinned. “I’ve got just the place to put it.”
“I’ll bet you do.”
“It may be a little too tight.”
“I’ll manage.”
“And wet.”
He groaned. “Come on. Let’s go home.”
“Wouldn’t you rather stop for a pint...?” she asked ingenuously.
“Nay!” Looking around quickly—St. John Street had grown dark and empty—he grabbed her hand and pulled. “Let’s go home.”
She giggled. “What’s your hurry?”
Another furtive glance, and then he drew her hand through the front opening of his cappa, pressing it between his legs. He was enormous; even through his woolen tunic, she felt him throb. “Does this answer your question?”
“Oh, my.” She stroked him firmly, and he caught his breath. “That’s quite impressive, but I really do need to work on this book for Mistress Clark. A pity.”
She turned and continued walking up the street. “I imagine you’ll be terribly frustrated.”
He fell into step next to her. “I imagine I’ll throw you on the floor as soon as we get home, and—”
“Not if I get there first and lock you out!” Laughing, she sprinted ahead, running as fast as she could toward the big stone house. He called her name, but she didn’t slow her pace. As she neared the front door, she heard him behind her, racing to catch up, and felt an exhilarating little thrill of panic. She wrested the door open, darted inside, and slammed it, panting and giggling in the vestibule at the bottom of the stairwell, dark except for a faint wash of light from above.
She wondered about that light for a moment, trying to remember having lit any lamps before they left. But then the door shook; the handle jiggled. “Corliss!”
Breathless, she dropped her satchel and leaned with all her weight against the quaking door as she groped for the bolt, grinning to think of the look on his face if she did lock him out. Just as she thought she’d be able to slide the bolt home, the door jerked open.
Muscling his way inside, he seized her shoulders and shoved her back against the door, kicking it shut. She made as if to push him away, but he grabbed her wrists, pinning them over her head as he crushed her against the slab of oak. His kissed her hard and rubbed against her, groaning into her mouth.
She trembled with anticipation. When he released her wrists, her legs gave out. Rainulf caught her around the waist as she slid to the wooden floor. With strong, determined hands, he turned her around, guiding her onto her hands and knees. He knelt behind her, his cappa enclosing both of them, and gripped her hips, thrusting against her.
She’d never been so wet, so ready. “Now,” she moaned, pulling at the drawstring around her waist. “Oh, God, now!”
He chuckled deep in his throat. “Are you sure? What about your work?”
Corliss grabbed his hand and brought it beneath her loosened chausses, to the slippery heat between her legs. They both gasped. He tugged the woolen hose down over her hips. She felt his fingers graze her bare flesh as he hurriedly untied his own chausses. She felt the hot, satin length of him brush her lightly as he positioned himself...
A floorboard groaned overhead. Startled, they both looked up the stairs, their breath coming in harsh gasps.
Rainulf lowered his mouth to her ear. “Did you light those—”
“Nay.”
There came another footstep from above, and another, and then the intruder began descending the stairs. Fear gripped Corliss with a paralyzing fist. Her heart thudded in her chest.
“Rainulf?” called a familiar voice. “Corliss?”
“Peter?” she whispered. Relief came and went in the space of a heartbeat. “Oh, my God!” She yanked her chausses up, fumbling with the waist-cord.
“Jesus!” Rainulf hissed as he pulled up his own chausses.
“I thought I heard you come in,” Peter said as he came within view, “but you didn’t come upstairs, so I wasn’t...” His voice trailed off as his gaze took in the two of them, on the floor of the semidark vestibule, frantically righting their clothes. His smile faded. He looked at Corliss; she looked away. He looked at Rainulf. “You son of a bitch,” he said quietly.
Rainulf rose to his feet. “Peter...”
“What kind of a man are you?” Peter’s hands curled into fists at his side.
Corliss stood. “Peter, listen to me. I know how this looks. I know you must hate both of us right now, but—”
“Not you,” he said in a low, strained voice. “I could never hate you. You’re not to blame.” He regarded Rainulf with a venomous glare, his fists quivering. “He is.”
Rainulf held his palms up appealingly. “Peter, let’s talk about this.”
Peter laughed harshly. “You’re very good at talking, Rainulf. Very... skillful, very persuasive.” He glanced wretchedly at Corliss, smoothing down her tunic and finger combing her hair. “You used that skill to take advantage of Corliss. You violated the woman I’m going to marry.”
“Peter, please,” Corliss said, “I can’t marry you.”
“I still want you,” he said. “This was his fault, not yours. I still love you.”
“Peter, for God’s sake,” Rainulf said, “listen to her. She doesn’t want to marry you.”
Peter took a step toward him, brandishing the fists whose destructive power had become famous throughout England. “Shut up.”
Rainulf stood his ground. “She tried to tell you, but you wouldn’t—”
“Shut up!” The young knight leaped across the vestibule, grabbed Rainulf by the tunic, and hurled him against the wall. Hauling back, he drove his fist into Rainulf’s stomach with the force of a battering ram.
“Peter, stop it!” Corliss begged.
“I don’t want to fight you, Peter,” Rainulf rasped as he struggled upright.
“I’m sure you don’t.”
Rainulf shook his head. “Not bec
ause you’ll win. Because you’re my friend.”
“Our friendship is over.” Peter aimed a punch at Rainulf’s head. Rainulf dodged it. Howling as his fist hit the stone wall, Peter balled up his other hand and whipped it across Rainulf’s face.
“Stop it!” Corliss screamed.
Rainulf’s head wobbled; blood trickled from his nose and stained his lips. “Damn it, Peter.” He shook his head wearily, but didn’t move from where he stood, there being no room for maneuvering in the tiny vestibule. “Don’t do this.” He took another powerful blow to the stomach, but blocked one intended for his ribs.
Corliss grabbed Peter’s right arm as he swung it again. “It’s not his fault, Peter! Stop this!”
Rainulf shook his head, saying hoarsely, “Go upstairs, Corliss.”
“Nay!”
Peter wrested his arm free and swung again, connecting with the side of Rainulf’s face. Grimacing, Rainulf swore under his breath as he massaged his jaw.
“Damn you!” Peter screamed. “What’s the matter with you? Fight back!”
Rainulf shook his head slowly. “Nay. I won’t fight you.”
“Fight me!” Peter’s face was a mask of anguish; his voice quavered. “Goddamn you, Rainulf, I know you can fight! What are you going to do? Just stand there and let me beat you to death?”
“You wouldn’t do that,” Rainulf said quietly.
“Don’t be so sure.” Peter’s voice broke; his eyes shone in the dim half-light. “You’ve compromised my betrothed. I love her, and you—”
“You loved Magdalen.”
Peter shoved Rainulf roughly. “Don’t speak of Magdalen!”
“You loved Magdalen,” Rainulf repeated calmly as he wiped his bloody mouth and chin with the back of his hand, “and she died.”
“Shut up!”
“I’m sorry, Peter. Truly I am. But—”
“Shut up,” Peter choked out.
“If you want me to shut up,” Rainulf said, “you will have to beat me to death. There are things you need to face, things you need to accept. Corliss isn’t Magdalen. You don’t know what to do with your love for Magdalen, so you’re trying to give it to Corliss, but it’s not fair to either of you.” He examined the blood on his hand and added wryly, “Or me.”
“You’re wrong,” Peter insisted. “It’s Corliss I love.”
“Why? What do you love about her?”
The young knight looked slightly taken aback. “Her... her beauty, her learning. Her—”
“Do you love the way she bites her lower lip when she’s nervous about something?” Before Peter could formulate an answer, he went on: “Do you love the way you can see right through her skin, like it was the thinnest, softest parchment? Do you love the way she can’t stop asking questions? The way she finds the damnedest things funny? The way she turns everything inside out and shows you the way things really are, not the way you think you want them to be, not the way you always thought they were, but the way they really are?”
Now it was Rainulf who appeared to struggle for composure. Corliss could barely hear him when he said, in an unsteady whisper, “She turned me inside out, Peter. She showed me” —he cupped his hands, as if cradling an invisible, fluttering bird— “my own heart, my own soul. I’d never seen it before.” He looked up, his expression one of helpless awe. “I love her, Peter. I love her with my entire being.” Through a wavering film of tears, Corliss saw him meet her gaze. “I’ll always love her. She’s a part of me.”
Peter turned and looked at her. Her chin trembled and her throat felt as if it were swollen closed, but she managed to say, “I’m sorry, Peter.”
He closed his eyes, as if in great pain. “Nay, I’m sorry. I...” He looked toward Rainulf and shook his head. “Look what I did to you.”
Rainulf shrugged magnanimously. “There was a demon inside you. It needed to come out, and I happened to be in its way.” He smiled and clapped his friend on the back, as if he’d just met him on the street and not been soundly beaten by him. “And now you need a brandy. You, too, Corliss.” Guiding them up the stairs, he muttered, “I think I need two.”
* * *
“Did you have many mistresses before taking your vows?”
Rainulf rose up on an elbow to look at Corliss lying on her stomach in the middle of the big, tousled bed, plucking grapes and popping them into her mouth. The grapes shared a platter with a wheel of cheese, a half-eaten squire’s loaf, some sweet wafers, and a pot of honey—a late supper of sorts, shared by two naked and sated lovers. Her inquiry about mistresses represented a shift in the conversation, for they’d been talking about Peter’s visit earlier that evening.
“There were many women who gave themselves to me,” he said. “I never thought of them as mistresses. In truth, I rarely slept with a woman more than two or three times.”
“Why not?” She dipped a grape in the honey pot and touched the tip of her tongue to it experimentally; the sight stirred his loins.
“Because they weren’t you.”
She rolled her eyes as she took the grape into her mouth. Chuckling, he moved closer, breathing in the exotic perfume that Martine had given her, and which she’d applied that evening just for him.
Earlier, when it had come time for Peter to return to where he was staying, the prior’s lodge at St. Frideswide’s, Rainulf had walked him downstairs and chatted in the street for a while. When he returned to Corliss’s chamber, he’d found her sitting in her night shift on the edge of the bed, brushing her hair... and smelling of hot, musky Oriental perfume. Dropping to his knees, he’d taken her hard and fast, right there, tearing her shift in the process.
He reached over to lightly skim his fingertips from her upper back to her small, shapely bottom.
“I’m your first mistress?” she asked disbelievingly.
He frowned slightly as he caressed her. “You’re my first lover... my first true lover. For some reason I don’t think of you as a mistress, exactly.”
She seemed to ponder this. He watched her insert a finger in the honey and close her lips over it. Heat swelled in his lower body; he stiffened, rose. She saw this and smiled, sucking lazily on her glistening finger, licking it like a cat as she watched him out of the corner of her eye.
He cleared his throat. “What made you ask that, about how many mistresses I’d had?”
Her cheeks pinkened beguilingly, and she avoided his gaze. “I was just wondering where you learned... all those things.”
He smiled and drew looping patterns on her taut buttocks with his fingertips. “What things?”
“Those things that... we do. The things you do to me. You know. The positions, and... well, like before, with the honey, when you dripped it on my, um... and licked it off. Who taught you that?”
He let his hand glide over her sweet curves and down between her thighs to where she was moist from recent lovemaking... and residual honey. “I’m self-taught,” he murmured as he investigated her sticky-sweet folds. “You’re very inspiring.”
She emitted a soft, feminine growl as his curious fingertips stroked and explored. Her legs parted. Presently that delectable bottom began to move, just slightly, in rhythm with his caress. He waited until she went still, her expression almost surprised as she clutched the sheet reflexively.
Now. He was on top of her—and inside her, as she lay facedown—in less time than it took her to draw an astonished breath. As she cried out, he plunged deep, savoring the sweet violence of her release. He slid his hands beneath her, one cradling a breast, the other her honeyed sex, until her passion renewed itself. He went slower then, grinding sinuously against her until she moaned his name and clawed at the sheets. With a strangled cry that echoed her own, he erupted inside her, his arms locked around her as she thrashed beneath him.
As their passion ebbed and their breathing steadied, he kissed her hair, the back of her neck, her shoulders. He felt his erection shrinking, and sighed in resignation, hating that feeling of loss whenever they u
ncoupled.
What would it be like, he wondered, when he left her completely—or rather, when she left him? How would it feel to watch her walking away from his house for the last time?
“Christ,” he whispered.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Everything. She couldn’t leave him. He couldn’t lose her. He really couldn’t.
It wouldn’t just hurt. It would empty him out.
It wouldn’t just drive him mad. It would plunge him into nothingness. His own bleak, personal hell.
He’d thought that, when the time came, he’d find a way to deal with it, to cope with the loss of her. But now he realized, with sudden, startling clarity, that he would never be able to deal with it. She had joined herself to him in such a real and critical way that he couldn’t do without her. He needed her as he needed his heart, his lungs. The loss of her would destroy him; worse, it would destroy them, the incredible, singular them that lived and breathed and loved as one.
This revelation of her indispensability filled him with awe, this awe producing a kind of astonished chuckle that shuddered through him.
She giggled. “I feel you throbbing inside me when you laugh. What’s so funny?”
He raised himself up on his elbows and plucked strands of hair off her sweat-slicked cheek. “Not funny, just... sort of overwhelming. I’ve had an epiphany and I don’t know what to do with it.”
“I beg your pardon?”
He chuckled again, the movement causing him to slide out of her. With a pointless groan of complaint, he rolled to the side and gathered her up, entwining his arms and legs with hers. He loved the way she felt after sex, all warm and damp and limp. She lightly kissed his bruised cheekbone. He trailed a fingertip over the half-healed scar on her chest.
“So,” she murmured, “these women in Paris, these women who weren’t mistresses but gave themselves to you anyway...”
He laughed. “Are you still thinking about them?”
“You’re laughing an awful lot tonight,” she noted.
“It’s a bad habit I’ve acquired from you,” he mumbled into her hair. “So, what more do you want to know about the ladies who weren’t mistresses?”
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