The Temptation (The Medieval Knights Series)

by Claudia Dain

  "I did not lie, but you knew I did not want this. You heard me speak against it before I even knew of you."

  "Yet you made your choice. I heard that as well. When did I become Lucifer in your eyes, Elsbeth? How have I deceived you?"

  "You deceive me with every soft word. With every flirtation. With every look."

  "How that you see my wooing as deceiving? How that you cannot see I want only to win you?"

  "Win me? By your very words, I am already won. Am I not yours? Am I not bound to you until death? Will it take my death to free me?" she said, wrenching her arms free and dropping hard upon her heels.

  He took a heavy breath and ran a hand through his hair. She did not look at his hair. She looked at his manhood, pulsing in her direction, seeming to seek her out. She backed up a step.

  "Elsbeth," he said softy, letting his anger run out of him like wine from a pitcher. "Elsbeth, I understand your fears. I can do—"

  "What do you think you know of me? I fear nothing, nothing you can name," she said harshly.

  "Aye, wife, I know what you fear."

  "You hardly know me," she said stiffly.

  "Yet I do know you," he softly argued. "I cannot fight God for you. If He will have you, then you must go to Him. Yet is it not mercy to fly to the Father of us all? Eternity awaits. Paradise. 'Tis no thing to fear."

  Elsbeth looked at him, her mouth agape, and then she began to laugh. A small and quiet laugh it was, barely heard, mostly a sharp exhalation of breath. He spoke the truth, in part, and it would serve her well. She did not want him in her and she had no yearning for motherhood; too often it was the path to death, and she had no wish to die. If he thought fear lay behind her determination not to be a wife, then it would serve. He might release her, if his heart could be softened to it.

  He stared at her, his member shrinking at her laughter. She laughed the harder, watching him go soft and small. She could not remember such joy as watching the look of bewilderment grow on his face. 'Twas easily the sweetest moment of her marriage.

  "You are full of wise counsel, are you not, my lord?" she said when she could speak again.

  "Your laughter is unseemly. I only sought to comfort you," he said stiffly.

  "My laughter is unseemly? Odd to hear you say that when you have been trying to win a smile from me since the moment of our meeting. I would think you would be much pleased that you have been the cause for such merriment in me."

  "Elsbeth," he said with barely concealed anger.

  "Oh, be not angry, my lord," she said. "I understand you well enough. You wanted me to laugh with you, not at you."

  He pulled himself up to his full height, towering over the entire chamber. Even the fire seemed smaller and more subdued when faced with the specter of Hugh of Jerusalem in the full force of his anger.

  "If you think that by pricking my anger, you will escape being pricked my me, you have no knowledge of me."

  She laughed on a sharp note. "Oh, I know enough to know that when a man's prick rises, he can do naught else but follow."

  Hugh raised his brows in surprise at her choice of words. She had some small measure of joy in shocking him.

  "If you want our coupling to be tainted by anger and hard words, keep on, little wife. No matter what you say, I will pierce you, be it in smiles or frowns."

  "Or beating fists?"

  "I would not beat you."

  "But I may beat you," she said. "Could you fault me? I am only trying to save my life, according to your wisdom."

  Hugh took a calming breath and turned to walk back to the fire. He had a fine form even from the rear, his muscles marching in precision from his legs to his buttocks and up to his very shoulders. He had led a harder life in Outremer than she had supposed, to be so well hewn.

  His face to the fire, he said, "I want only to help you, yet I find I cannot do what needs to be done to ease your fears. It is all in God's hands and none of mine." He turned to face her, his green eyes intense. "But, Elsbeth, if I had it in my power, I would take this fear from you onto myself."

  "Would you?" she said, unwillingly moved by his obvious sincerity.

  "Yea, little wife, I would," he said.

  "Well, that is something," she said. "It is not enough, but it is something."

  "Not enough?" he said, rubbed raw by her refusal to be comforted.

  "Nay," she said, sitting on the stool near the fire and shaking her head softly, suddenly exhausted. "It is not enough. You have not the words to soothe me. I am beyond such comforting, my lord. It is no mark against you. I am simply beyond your reach."

  "Elsbeth," he said, crouching down before her, taking her hands in his, "you must trust God with your life. What else can a man do?"

  "What else can a man do?" she repeated softly. "A man can fight and die fighting. But what is left for a woman to do? A woman can die on her back and bleed out her life without a weapon to aid her, death coming for her by inches."

  "To die is to die, little wife. What matters the weapon in your hand when death comes for you?"

  "What matters? It matters much to me. Tell me, my lord, is your mother alive?"

  "Nay," he said reluctantly.

  "And how did she die?"

  "What matters—"

  "How?"

  "In childbed," he said. "But she had borne six children before her time."

  "So, six children and her life is spent, and it was worth the spending because she left six behind her? Do you tell me that you have five brethren?"

  "Nay, only two," he said. "Two sisters are still living."

  "Hmmm," she said, nodding. "Would you give them up in childbed as willingly as you have given your mother?"

  "I did not give her willingly! 'Twas God's will. I sin if I do fight against it! Would you encourage me in sin, prayer warrior?"

  "Nay," she said, "I would not. Yet I would not so easily give my life for the brief pleasures of the marriage bed. Can you understand that, my lord? I do not want to die on my back, my body wet with my sweat and my blood and my urine." It was a truth. She did not want to die in such a way.

  "It is how all men die, Elsbeth. There is no escape from it."

  "But to fight, to have the chance to fight, that is something." And it was. He could act, taking a hand in his own fortune and future. What could she do but pray and hide? He would take even that sanctuary from her with a careless smile if she let him. She would not. Her life was worth more than a smile and a kiss from Hugh.

  "You put too much weight on a mere possibility," he said, rising to his feet. She ducked her head to keep from staring at his manhood, which was predictably on the rise. His compassion was easily measurable by the hardness of his cock.

  "Do I? I think it is very easy for you, my lord, who will face his death with his sword in his hand."

  "I do not know the manner of my death. That knowledge is beyond us all."

  "So it is," she conceded. "Yet many upon many women die giving birth or in the fevers that come after. I would not be of their number." All she saw in that moment was the bleeding out of her mother's life. Ardeth had not wanted to die. Ardeth had not wanted to leave her children defenseless in a cold, dark world.

  And Elsbeth would not bear a child that would be left alone when she died. Better to have no child at all. Had not Ardeth felt the same?

  "It is not for you to decide," he said. "It will not be decided tonight."

  "Why may it not?" she said. "Can we not lay this thing out between us now, giving peace to our tomorrows?"

  "Only one thing will happen to you tonight, Elsbeth," he said, his voice as rough as sand. "Only one thing should occupy you."

  "I know," she said, raising her head to look into his eyes. "I know the one thing that you would name. 'Tis the one thing that any man would name when faced with a woman, his prick rising hard and hot."

  "By Saint Lawrence, you are grown coarse in your speech, Elsbeth," he said, lifting her to her feet, the stool tumbling noisily behind her. "Is this th
e speech of the cloister?"

  "Am I in the cloister?" she retorted, pulling her arms from his hands. "What would you have of me, my lord? The maiden bound for the cloister, her heart in God's keeping? Or the wife, her legs spread to meet the lusty thrusts of her earthly lord? I cannot be both."

  "Nay, you cannot be both. We both know what you are and what you will remain. You are my wife. That is who you are, and I will find my way into you—"

  "Past my blood," she interrupted.

  "Aye, past all barriers you set before me. I will not be stopped. I will have you, even if I do penance for a year."

  "Even if I die," she said softly, looking into his eyes for a soul-shattering instant before lowering her gaze to the floor. He did not care what happened to her, not truly. Had she been tempted to believe that he might? She was a fool, and nothing she could say would keep him from seeing his will done upon her. But how that her blood, her gift from God, had not kept her safe? How that she had failed in her vow?

  There were droplets of blood near the bucket, a smattering of tiny drops, fallen from her without her knowledge. Tiny bits of her, lost in the dark of well-worn wood and dust; tiny bits of her, cast free to become a part of Warkham, though none in Warkham would know whose blood had been shed in this chamber. None would know what had befallen or to whom. None would care even if they knew.

  Only God would know. God knew even now in what place and circumstance she found herself. God had given her the miracle of blood to save her. But Hugh was determined that she not be saved, and what could God do when man decided to rebel against God's law and will?

  Nothing. God did nothing. He only watched from the safety of heaven. It was left to man to dwell in the dust and the blood of earth.

  She looked up and faced Hugh. He looked sad somehow. Perhaps it was true that he did not seek to harm her. Perhaps it was true that he only sought to obey divine injunction. Perhaps. What was certainly true was that his blood was up, his member hard, and his mind on carnal thoughts. There was certainly no escape from that, not for a woman. Never for a wife.

  Yet perhaps there was an escape. He might think he knew her, but she knew something of him now, too.

  Elsbeth smiled slightly and began unlacing her bliaut. "Very well, my lord. If it is my death you seek, take me and have it. I give myself to you, my life in your keeping. My blood on your hands."

  Hugh lunged at her, grabbing her hands in his, and said, "Enough, Elsbeth! No more talk of death. It will not come by my hand."

  "By your cock, then," she said, tossing back her hair with a flick of her head. "Choose your own names, my lord, but women die at men's hands and from a man's touch every day, every hour."

  "You will not die!" he said huskily, lifting her face with his hands.

  "Will I not? Did you not just instruct me that the hour and manner of my death is in God's hands? Do you know the mind and plan of God my lord? Have you learned so much of God by living in Outremer?"

  "Elsbeth, I would never hurt you," he said, running a hand over her tumbled hair, pulling her against his chest.

  He was warm, as warm as fire and equally bright. He called to her with gentle wooing, with soft looks, with golden beauty. He called to her, asking her to run to her own destruction, a bright and shining Lucifer to tempt her to fall into damnation and death. She knew what he was, and still she listened. She was tempted by him. He had achieved much simply by tempting her.

  Did her mother even now watch from heaven and weep at her child's walk into destruction? Nay, for there were no tears in heaven. Ardeth would be spared that, at least. Yet who would spare her?

  "You are hurting me now," she said against the golden heat of his chest. His heart pounded beneath her cheek, and she fought the impulse to nuzzle against him. He would kill her if it pleased him. Let her remember only that. "Can you not see? This is not of my will."

  "Give your will to me," he said, running his hand down her back to the slope of her derriere. "I will not betray."

  "I am betrayed," she said, her breath heating his chest. "Can you not see? Betrayal is all around us, like a fire, licking at our skin, burning away all thought, all resolve."

  "That is not betrayal," he whispered, unlacing her bliaut even further.

  "What, then?" she asked, laying her face against his chest, soaking his heat into the cold fist of her heart.

  "Only wanting," he said, lifting her face for a kiss. "Only passion and need and hunger. Do not fear, little one. I will not harm you. I only... want you."

  Ghosts of old fears, old promises, blurred with the smoke from the fire, clouding her thoughts and her vision, sharpening her memory, like a knife slicing across old wounds, the blood of sharp memory rose up to cover his words and his presence with other words, words she heard only in the blackest of nights when God was very far away.

  She pulled away from him, freeing herself from his touch.

  "I do not want you to want me!" she said, holding her hands out against him. "I do not want you to touch me! I would rather give myself to God than give myself to you!"

  "You are given to me, Elsbeth," he said, his eyes as hot as flame. "You are not God's any more or any less than I am. He has given you to me, and I will take every gift He bestows upon me."

  "He has not given me to you! He cannot have done," she said, her eyes welling with tears she could not even think to stop. Betrayal. All was betrayal. Had it not always been so?

  Of course there were no tears in heaven. All tears had been spent on earth. She would have no tears left in her when earth was cast aside.

  "He has done," Hugh said sharply. "No more of this. I am yours throughout this life. Take the gift of me, as I gladly take the gift of you."

  "I will be no man's gift! I have more worth than that. There is more to me than that," she said, holding out her hands to keep him off. But she could no more hold the turning of the tide.

  Hugh stopped and studied her and then ground his teeth and grabbed her by the wrists, shackling her. "You are of great worth, Elsbeth. None dispute it. But you are mine, and if you do not want me yet, I will teach you to want me."

  "Nay, this is a thing that cannot be taught."

  "All things may be taught," he said, pulling her to his chest.

  He kissed her through her tears, his mouth hard and hot and heavy upon hers. He was not brutal, but he was thorough, and that was a brutality in itself. She could not breathe. Her breath was stoppered in her throat, her tears the only thing that flowed freely. His hands went to her breasts, urging some response from her, and then he took her hands and put them on his shaft, hot and long and throbbing despite her tears and her terror, throbbing with passion though she cried to be free of him.

  It was then that she began to gag.

  Hugh released her with a jolt and stood away from her while she bent over and tried to find a breath to ease the nausea that hovered in the center of her throat.

  "I sicken you?" he asked from somewhere above her.

  Elsbeth straightened and flung her hair behind her. Looking at her husband, she said the one truth that would serve.

  "All men sicken me."

  Chapter 17

  "If you are seeking deliverance from me, you shall not have it," Hugh said, his anger and his hurt of a size to fill the chamber.

  "Why? Because your pride is pricked?" Elsbeth asked.

  "Rather say, mauled," Hugh said, running a hasty hand through his hair and swallowing hard.

  "I do not seek your mauling, my lord, I only speak the truth. If it is a truth you cannot bear, then share the burden with me. I have no liking for it. Yet it is the truth. I can bear no other burden than this."

  "Oh, aye, you can bear a burden, Elsbeth—the burden of my weight pressing you down, my prick puncturing your sheath, my body demanding your maiden's blood. All this you can and will bear, for I will have you. I will have you," he said, his voice strained and harsh as it tumbled against the rough stone. "And you will have me. I will make you want me. I have it
in me to make you want me."

  "So says every man."

  "What do you know of 'every man'? You are a virgin, are you not? You are untouched by all but me. I know this to be true."

  "You know this to be true?" she said on a harsh laugh. "How do you know? Wait, I know. My father told you. He told you all you wanted to hear, all you needed to know to make this match."

  "Aye, he told me of his daughter, chaste and pious, devout and pure, and he told me true, did he not? You have not known a man. I would feel it if you had."

  "You would feel it?" she said, her eyes hot in her anger at his pride. "How wise you are, my lord, to know so much of me. Truly, the men of Outremer are prophets most holy. Do not come near me, my lord, else you be defiled by my blood and lose your gift of prophecy. For is this not all of you and none of me? All that you would have, you will take, but what Elsbeth wants—there is no room in you for that."

  Hugh acted against her very words and came at her, his nakedness a weapon he wielded very well. "There is naught in you that can defile me, wife. I will have all of you, your blood and bones and very thoughts for my own. I will turn you to my will, making you mine, taking even your fear into myself, defeating it. I will take you, and you will have me."

  Elsbeth curled down into herself, her very posture defensive and wary, like a cat being poked by a stick. Like a wolf about to strike, like a woman pushed beyond all endurance and all forbearance.

  "Nay," she said, every measure of defiance in the single heavy weight of the word. "I will not."

  "Aye," he said, taking her in his arms, his scent coming at her like a salty fog, sharp and clean. "Aye, I shall have you and you shall have me. We will become one flesh. There is no more escape for you, Elsbeth. No more words; we have spoken enough on this. There are no words for what I shall do to you," he whispered in erotic threat.

  She heard only the threat.

  "There are always words to describe defilement," she said, turning her face from his, avoiding his eyes and his mouth. "It is only that men do not want to speak them."