The Champion (Knights of the Black Rose Series : Harlequin Historicals, No 491)

by Suzanne Barclay

  “I wanted to be with you.”

  It was not an answer, but it told him what he needed to know. It hurt him immeasurably to hear that he, who had never been unkind to a woman in his life, had failed her. Reining in his own passions, he set himself to rectify his error. “I would make it up to you if you would let me.”

  “Oh, aye.” She offered him her mouth again.

  Simon brushed it lightly. “Not here.” He stood, helped her to her feet, then swept her off them and carned her the few steps to the bed. Gently he laid her down on the tumbled sheets, evading her hands when she reached for him. “A moment. There is something I must do first.”

  He collected all the candles he could find, a dozen in all, lit them on the coals in the hearth, then set them about the bed, bathing it in golden light.

  “What are you doing?” she asked nervously.

  Simon smiled and sat down beside her. “The first time, we loved in darkness. This time we will have light. Nothing will be hidden. We will see, and remember, everything.”

  “Oh, Simon.” Her lashes were wet, her eyes shining.

  “Linnet.” He undid her braids, then spread her hair on the pillow, sifting the thick strands through his fingers. “I have wanted to do this since I met you in the garden my first night back. Like golden silk, it is.”

  He was touching her hair, nothing more, yet imagining how it would feel to have those long, clever fingers on her skin sent a ripple of awareness through Linnet. Her body seemed to hum and vibrate.

  Simon watched her eyes darken, her lips part on a sensual sigh, and a jolt of pure desire arrowed through his already heated body. The urge to tear aside her flimsy robe and bury himself in her liquid heat ripped at his control. But he had done that once already, and the deed shamed him. She deserved better, and if holding back until she got it made him ache and burn, it was no more than he deserved.

  “You are so beautiful,” he whispered, toeing off his boots and stretching out beside her. The way she braced, as though expecting him to jump on her, confirmed his worst fears. “Did I attack you like a starving wolf that first time?”

  She smiled. “I was flattered that you wanted me so.”

  “Tonight, I will savor you.”

  “Savor? What do you mean?”

  “Only good things, I promise.” He grazed her cheek with the backs of his fingers, then stroked them down her neck, leaving tingling flesh in their wake. “Tell me what happened that night. How did we come to be together?”

  “We were at the feast, the one Thurstan hosted in the market square for all of Durleigh.”

  “That much I recall. There was food and music and drink. Too much drink. The thought of leaving home for a far-off, dangerous land, perhaps never to return, makes a man reckless.”

  Linnet doubted he did many reckless things. “Most everyone had drunk too much, myself included. It made me weepy, thinking of you going off, so I left my parents and neighbors to walk along the river.”

  “A dangerous thing on such a night.”

  “Aye, it was. Unbeknownst to me, Hamel followed. He caught up with me near where the almshouse is now. I screamed and fought, but he was so strong.” She shivered. “And then, just when my strength was giving out, you came.” She smiled, remembering the way her heart had soared when he’d charged out of the darkness, sword aloft. “Like an avenging angel.”

  “Drunk as I was, it’s a wonder I could walk.”

  “You knocked Hamel down, grabbed my hand and we ran.”

  “That was in my dream,” Simon murmured. “Only it was a dragon I was fleeing.”

  “Hamel did roar like one,” she said, and they both laughed.

  “And then where did we go?”

  “We hid in the stables.” Linnet felt her cheeks burn.

  “Tell me.” His fingers toyed with the laces on her shift.

  “You touched me.”

  “Where?” He was loosening them, one by one.

  Her breathing quickened. “My…my breasts.”

  “Ah.” He worked the laces with maddening slowness.

  Anticipation coiled tighter. Four years she had lain in bed, reliving those few moments in the hayloft. Months of being tormented by memories of his touch. She sighed as the last lace was pulled free. Now: Now, she thought, trembling with need.

  He stroked a finger down the valley between her breasts, his gaze reverent. “How could I have forgotten such softness?”

  “We…we did not take off our clothes.”

  He raised troubled eyes to her. “Did I do nothing right? Did I give you only pain and sorrow?”

  Linnet froze, thinking of the child. Pain and sorrow aplenty. Nay, do not think of that now. “The past is gone,” she murmured. “Let us look to the future.” And if he gave her another babe this night, that child would be part of their future, for she knew he would not desert her.

  “Was there ever a woman more forgiving?” Simon brushed featherlight kisses over her cheeks, her eyes, her nose, watching the way she nibbled on her lip with tiny, nervous teeth. So precious, so wary. And who could blame her after the way he had apparently attacked her the first time? Though he did not recall that might in detail, he was certain he wanted her no less than he had then. More fiercely perhaps, for he knew her worth, her kindness, her unswerving loyalty. Did he have the patience to seduce her as carefully as she deserved?

  He must. “I will make it up to you.”

  “You have. You are. To be with you like this is wonderful.”

  “Not yet, but it will be.” Simon kissed her with infinite tenderness, soothing his tongue over her lower lip, then dipping it into the corner of her mouth. She opened to him like a flower, so fresh and sweet, tempting him to plunder.

  Gentleness. She had not known he was capable of such gentleness, nor that it would set her blood to boiling. His tongue dueled with hers, parrying, then darting away, coaxing her to follow. It was a lure she could not resist. The heat building in her belly, she tunneled her hands into his thick hair, slanted her mouth across his and took and took.

  Simon shuddered beneath the onslaught. He had known he could make her want him, but not that with a simple kiss she could send his passions spiraling out of control. Groaning, he tore his mouth free and stared down into her flushed face.

  “Simon,” she whispered, voice full of wonder. Her lashes lifted slowly, her eyes smoky with desire. “I never knew a kiss could make me feel so…so dizzy.”

  Had he not even kissed her properly? Simon ground his teeth over an oath. There was no going back. She had taught him that. “Everything about this time will be different.” He trailed a finger down her neck, delighting in the way she shivered. “Did I touch you like this?” He slipped one finger into the vee of her bed robe and brushed the upper swell of her breast.

  She shook her head, breath quickening in anticipation.

  Simon bent his head and kissed the vulnerable hollow of her throat, smiling as her pulse leaped. “Did I kiss you here?” He nibbled his way across her collarbone. “Or here?” Down the valley between her breasts, he went, where her heart pounded to the same erratic rhythm as his own. The scent of roses and woman teased him. He wanted to rip aside the robe and gorge himself on the taste of her, but held himself in check. “I want to feel your skin against mine,” he whispered.

  “Aye.” Linnet shivered as he eased her robe open, feeling vulnerable and exposed. Yet she wanted this. She craved his touch, her body tense, her breathing suspended as her tingling flesh awaited his next gentle caress This tenderness was the last thing she had expected in one so aloof and remote.

  “Beautiful,” he murmured. His callused palm glided up her ribs to rest below her breast. “Did I touch you here?”

  “Nay, I…oh…” She sighed as his hand closed over her breast, warm and possessive. Pleasure spiraled through her as he flexed his hand, kneading gently. Groaning his name, she arched into his caress, pleading for more. He obliged her by catching the sensitive peak in his clever fing
ers and tugging with such delicacy she was lost in a rush of glittering sensations.

  Simon lowered his head and drank the whimpers of ecstasy that fell from her lips. When he could stand it no longer, he slid his mouth down to the small, proud swells. “Did I kiss you here?” he whispered, blowing on the berry-hard nipple.

  Linnet could only groan, waiting m a fever of impatience for what she knew must be coming, but knowing and feeling were two different things. She shuddered when the velvet edge of his tongue laved one sensitized peak.

  “Do you like that?” he asked in a heated whisper.

  “Aye. More,” she demanded, drawing his head down.

  “Wanton,” he teased and then proceeded to turn her inside out. He did not just kiss her, he feasted on her, nipping at her taut nipples, then drawing one into his mouth, savoring it with aching thoroughness.

  Linnet cned out in delight, sinking her hands into his hair and clinging to him, her anchor in a spinning world. “Do not leave me,” she said when he raised his head.

  “Never, never again.” He transferred his attentions to her other breast, sucking with a satisfying greed that sent little licks of fire cascading through her. “So beautiful. So responsive,” he murmured against her heated flesh. His hands moved down, stroking over the curve of her hip to her belly, leaving a trail of fire in their wake.

  Deep inside her, the coil tightened, arrowing down to the hidden cleft between her thighs. She shifted her legs, seeking to ease the ache, but it grew and grew until she feared she would fly apart.

  The feel of Linnet twisting in his arms fueled Simon’s desire as dry wood did a firestorm. He wanted her with a fierceness that made a mockery of his much valued coolness and control. But he wanted this moment to last, wanted to bring her to such heights it would wipe out that first disastrous time. “Shh, love. Easy, let me pleasure you.”

  “Hurry, hurry,” she demanded, pleaded.

  Simon smiled, beguiled by his imperious, impetuous darling. “Nay, I will not hurry. Not this time.” He stroked a hand down the center of her body, relishing the way she quivered with anticipation. “I want you to take all I have to give.”

  Linnet moaned softly as his fingers tangled in the nest of curls that guarded her innermost secrets. Instinctively she parted her thighs and was rewarded by his touch, there, where she needed it most. She arched up, body straining to the rhythm set by those long fingers. The core tightened, then splintered in a rush of pleasure so sweet and sharp it sent her flying.

  Listening to her sob his name, watching her eyes darken with haze, Simon felt a satisfaction unlike any he’d experienced. Oh, his body was aroused to the point of pain, but his soul was sated on her joy. For her sake, and his own, he kissed her hungrily and took her up again, relishing the way her nails bit into his shoulders as her body convulsed a second time.

  “Simon,” Linnet whispered, stunned by the depth of her response to him.

  “Aye.” His eyes were dark, glittering with sensual triumph. And there, behind the banked flames was the love he concealed, even from himself.

  It warmed her nonetheless and gave her courage. One day, he would admit what he felt. Until then…she opened her arms to him. “Come to me, love,” she whispered. “I have tasted pleasure such as I never knew existed, but inside I am empty.”

  “Not yet, you need—”

  “You, to fill me…complete me.”

  Groaning, Simon ripped aside the hose he still wore, giving her a heart-stopping glimpse of the rampant passion he had held carefully in check. For her sake. Then he was stretched out beside her again, pulling her close, matching the cradle of her hips to the power of his. “I will try to be gentle, but I want you more than I thought it was possible to want anyone.”

  “Then come to me.” Emboldened by the needs shimmering in his eyes, she reached down to touch him, glorying in the way he shuddered when she traced the length of him, steel sheathed in velvet. “I need you. Now.”

  “And I, you.” The words came out a groan as he levered himself over her, parting her thighs with hands that shook. He filled her in one smooth, erotic plunge.

  Linnet gasped, shocked by the size and power of him. But there was no pain, no feeling of being invaded, only a deep and abiding sense of rightness.

  “Are you all right?” He hovered over her, his hair a wild tangle, his features fierce in the candlelight. He would not be an easy man to love, this complex, soul-weary knight who had captured her heart so long ago. But love him she did.

  “More than all right. Welcome home, Simon.” She twined her arms around his neck and canted her hips, opening herself to him, drawing him in until they were as close as two people can be.

  “Home.” Aye, joining with her was like coming home. Her body enveloped his like a silken glove, hot and tight, as though she would never let him go. Deep inside him, the cold, hard kernel of pain he had carried with him forever seemed to ease. “Let me show you how much you mean to me.” Cradling her hips in his hands, he took her on a journey as old as time, but with her it became a voyage of renewal.

  Linnet clung to him, drowning in the sensations they evoked in each other, the give and take. His increasingly urgent strokes made the fire inside her burn hotter and hotter, until suddenly the molten core shattered. Crying his name, she took him with her, out of the darkness and into the light.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Sometime later, a moment, an hour, he was not certain, Simon’s mind cleared enough for him to think of something besides the passion that had burned him to a cinder. Linnet was tucked close to his side, her head pillowed on his chest, her breath stirring the hair over his heart. He could lay here forever, contentment spiraling through him like warm honey.

  Making love with Linnet had surpassed his dream on every level, he mused. Her warmth, her openness, her capacity for giving both humbled and moved him. Being with her was like awakening after a long, deep sleep.

  He needed her. In ways that went far, far beyond the desire that sparked between them. He would not, could not, call it love. Passion, caring, respect, all those he felt for her and more. But love…? Instinctively he shied away from the word. Love was for fools who believed the nonsense spouted by troubadours. The feelings that welled inside him were concern, nothing more.

  Simon’s arm tightened fractionally around her. How small and vulnerable she was, he thought, his fear growing. What if Crispin somehow found a way to frame her for murder?

  He lay there, battling the urge to crush her to him, to somehow absorb her into himself and keep her safe.

  In the distance, the cathedral bells tolled for matins. Just past three in the morning. The heart of the night, really Yet he guessed that the archdeacon would be up and on his way to say the first mass of the day. Then prepare to officiate at Thurstan’s funeral.

  Which meant his room would be vacant, his secrets vulnerable to any who came searching.

  Simon eased free of Linnet’s embrace and out of the bed, reluctant to leave her, yet prodded by duty. He stood a moment beside it, drinking in her beauty, her serene face framed by the honey-colored hair that tumbled across the pillow they’d shared. When she woke and found him gone, she’d doubtless worry again, but this was something he must see to alone.

  She whimpered and burrowed into the hollow he had vacated, as though searching for him even in sleep. As he tucked the blankets under her chin, his hand lingered on her hair, his heart so full it beat painfully against his ribs. What would it be like to have the right to share this bed with her each night? Such permanence was not something he’d ever thought he wanted. Now he yearned for it.

  Dieu, he was a sorry case, mooning when there was work to be done. Quickly, silently, he slipped back into the hose, tunic and boots he had ripped off in an ardent fury hours ago. With the skill of long practice, Simon stole from the room and down the stairs. Everyone was yet asleep, the house dark except for the night candle burning on the kitchen table. By its faint light he made out Miles on a pallet be
fore the door.

  “Miles?”

  It was heartening to see the soldier pop up, instantly alert, sword in hand. “Oh, ‘tis ye, my lord.”

  “Aye. Thought I’d take a turn in the garden.” No need to say it was the cathedral gardens he intended to visit. “Keep an eye on things here till I return.”

  Simon waited outside the back door until he heard the bar drop into place, then he moved along the rear of the building, keeping to the shadows. The streets were deserted, the buildings shut up and dark. He reached the cathedral walls without incident and moved around to the backside where they met the town walls. From beneath his cloak he took the slim scaling rope. At the first try, the hook at one end of it caught on the top of the wall. In moments, he was up and over.

  Across the grassy courtyard, he saw a line of dark-clad figures converge on the massive doors of the cathedral. The priests and students arriving for their devotions.

  Simon hung back until the last of them had filed inside and the great doors had clanged shut behind them. Then he moved, keeping to a half crouch as he trotted across the open field to the palace. He had planned to go in through the kitchen door, but the scent of fresh bread in the crisp air warned him the cook staff was up and working. Instead, he went to one of the rear windows. Taking a knife from his belt, he slipped it between the two halves of the wooden shutters and flipped open the metal clasp that held them. In a twinkle, he was over the sill and inside the great hall.

  Tension sizzled down his spine as he scanned the room and found it empty, lit only by a dim glow from the banked embers in the hearth. It was enough to guide him safely around the furniture to the door. The hall beyond was black as pitch. Which suited his purpose exactly. Down the corridor and across the entryway he went in a soundless rush, making for the square of light that marked the stairwell. He ducked into it, cursing the torches that flickered at every bend in the stairs.

  He paused only long enough to make certain there was no one about, then moved down toward the cellars. This foray was no different from dozens of others he had made when the Crusaders had been invading the city of Damietta. But then he’d had comrades to guard his back. What he would not have given for Hugh’s strong arm or Guy’s sharp ears. Or even the help of feckless Nicholas. Damn the man for choosing this particular time to go wandering off with a woman!