Only at the high table, raised on its dais at the end of the room, was the company subdued. Aimery le Sabrenn, lord of Thoresfield, was in a dangerous mood, and even his friends, the loyal knights who had campaigned with him in the old days in France and Sicily, were wary. One by one they left, to see to their horses, or their armour, or to join the cheerier company in the body of the hall as stories were told and dice were rolled. Aimery watched them go, stirring himself briefly to rap out some brief, curt orders to the sergeant-at-arms who was responsible for the night watch. Then he poured himself more wine and gazed into the smouldering logs of the fire. Even when his favourite deerhound came loping up to him and nuzzled hopefully at his hands, Aimery barely noticed him, and his face remained set and hard.
The girl obsessed him. With what pleasure Isobel had told him how the Saxon girl had enjoyed her tuition! Hamet, Aimery could almost forgive; but to think of her with that coarse serf, Pierre, was too much.
Why had he hoped she’d be different? Was it because of last night, when she’d surrendered so sweetly to him in her room? A fresh stab of bitterness coursed through his blood. Perhaps she wasn’t even a virgin. Last night, he would have sworn, as he sheathed himself so deeply within her tender flesh, that she’d not known a man before. But perhaps she was especially cunning, like Madelin. Perhaps it was one of the tricks she’d learned, while servicing the rebels who stayed at that rat-hole of a convent, to look and sound innocent - as if it was her first time, every time.
Even this afternoon in Isobel’s oppressive chamber, when the girl had taken him in her mouth, she’d seemed exquisitely innocent, yet so tender and loving that he thought he’d never known such pleasure.
At least, he should be grateful that her tears of revulsion had given her away in time. She’d not been able to conceal them. Aimery had no doubt that she’d reached a shattering plateau of pleasure herself - her shuddering climax was no pretence - but then, when she came to her senses and remembered who she was with, she hadn’t been able to hide her true feelings.
He was her enemy, her people’s enemy, and he was also hideously scarred. He thought he’d got used to that, but perhaps he hadn’t.
Madelin. Madelin, the Saxon witch who’d killed his brother, was the one who’d scarred his face and embittered his soul
He drank more wine, remembering. The flames in the fire died down; a log settled, sending sparks flying. The noise and merriment of his soldiers at the lines of trestle tables seemed suddenly very far away.
Madelin, the young widow of a Saxon cloth merchant, lived in a house in York, while the brothers were garrisoned there under the command of William fitz Osbern. Hugh, who was in love with her, had been slightly injured in a skirmish with Saxon rebels and was confined to York castle. That night he asked his older brother to visit Gudrumgate, where Madelin lived, to tell her.
Madelin’s maid, thinking perhaps in the darkness that Aimery was his brother, sent him straight upstairs to Madelin’s chamber. When Aimery opened the door and went in, he realised the mistake; but by then, it was too late.
Madelin, the golden witch, lay on the bed, with a tall candle burning on the table beside her. It was a small, shabby room, but he didn’t notice that. He only noticed her.
She was waiting for his brother. She was sitting up against her pillows, the cool linen sheet just touching her hips. Otherwise, she was naked. The candlelight turned her pale, smooth skin to gold, its incandescent flame shimmering on her wonderfully full, pouting breasts, on the glistening fair hair that hung in swathes round her shoulders. Her shadowed eyes were violet, her mouth was wide and full; and she smiled as she said huskily, ‘Welcome, Aimery le Sabrenn.’
Aimery felt the heat scorching through him and said harshly, ‘My lady, there has been some mistake. I come with an apology from my younger brother, Hugh.’
She sat forward then, so that the sheet fell back and he saw the smooth curve of her raised, silken thigh.
‘No mistake,’ she said softly. ‘I have been waiting for you, Aimery le Sabrenn, since the day I saw you ride into York.’
Aimery still felt sick when he remembered how quickly he had betrayed his brother.
She sat up, the Saxon witch, in her soft bed, and slowly spread her raised knees, so he could see the smooth, completely hairless folds of flesh that framed her femininity. Then, still gazing at him with those drowsy, violet eyes, she’d put one hand on her full breasts, caressing it softly until the scarlet nipple grew heavy and turgid. With her other hand, she reached down to her thighs, and started to stroke herself, playing with delicate fingers at her naked love mound and making little soft noises of longing at the back of her throat while she gazed at the man standing motionless by her bedroom door. With a slow shudder, she dipped her index finger between her lower lips, inserting it carefully into the moist pink flesh, then she drew it out and sucked at it, rapturously, with her mouth.
‘Aimery,’ she murmured. ‘Oh, Aimery.’
Aimery the Breton was no saint. At his first sight of her, his penis had reared up, darkly massive, chafing against the thick belt that girded his tunic.
Freeing his phallus from his leggings with abrupt, jerky movements, he pulled her spread legs to the edge of the bed and took her standing up, planting his hands on either side of her reclining shoulders and sheathing himself up to the hilt in her soft, juicy love passage. Madelin seemed to almost faint with pleasure as he slid his stiff rod between her legs; she dragged her fingers lasciviously across his broad, muscled shoulders, crying out huskily and arching fiercely against him as he lowered his head to suckle at her full breasts. She felt so good. Shuddering, Aimery bent over her, his feet still firmly planted on the ground, taking his weight with his arms. Slowly he slid his massively erect member in and out of those hairless, pouting lips, savouring her moist, delicious wantonness.
‘Oh, Aimery,’ she whispered. ‘I have dreamed of this, since first I saw you. Fill me, fill me to the brim.’
Suddenly she wrapped her supple legs around his hips, clutching him to her; and Aimery, driving his engorged penis deep within her hot, pulsing flesh, reached a fast, shuddering climax deep within her as she writhed and bucked against his spasming body.
They lay entwined on the bed, slick with sweat, dark with shame. Aimery drew away at last, and started to tell her that this must never happen again. She had gazed up at him with those wonderful violet eyes, her face soft and drowsy, and nodded.
‘Oh course’ she murmured. ‘Whatever you say, Aimery le Sabrenn.’ Then she’d knelt above him, and positioned herself carefully, her tongue between her pearly teeth, so that those wonderful, scarlet-tipped breasts stroked heavily against his somnolent penis. With a life of its own, it began to stir thickly again. She knelt lower to take his testicles in her mouth, sucking at the rough, tautening globes one by one, nipping and licking at the coarse flesh until his phallus reared jerkily again, its powerful length all too ready for her soft, enticing flesh.
Take me like this, Aimery,’ she’d whispered, swiftly turning so she was on all fours, her secret flesh wet and glistening between the ripe roundness of her bottom cheeks. Take me, drive yourself into me, with your wonderful shaft. Yes, oh yes …’
Aimery had left the house in Gudrumgate two hours later, degraded and bewitched. He told his brother Hugh that he’d delivered his message; and from that night on, the intimacy, the trust between the two brothers had gone for ever.
He remembered it all now, only too clearly, as he sat in the great raftered hall; surrounded by all his men, and yet alone.
Since Madelin, he’d hated all Saxon women, and hated himself as well, for betraying Hugh.
Seeing that his goblet was empty, and the jug beside it, Aimery beckoned for more wine, and looked up to see that it was Hamet the Saracen who brought it to him. Hamet had been missing at the evening meal and Aimery had assumed that it was because the Saracen was ashamed to see his master, after what he had done with the Saxon girl.
&nb
sp; Hamet started to fill his goblet from the jug, but Aimery gestured curtly for him to stop. ‘Leave me the jug. I’ll pour.’
Hamet hesitated a moment, then sat down carefully on the bench at his master’s side. ‘I think’ said the big Saracen in his soft, musical voice, ‘that you have perhaps had enough, my lord.’
Aimery’s face twisted sardonically. ‘I shall be the judge of that, I think. Where have you been this evening, Hamet? Sleeping off the afternoon’s excesses in your room?’
Hamet’s face shadowed in puzzlement at his master’s bitter tone. ‘My lord? I have been out on patrol, with a dozen men-at-arms - we left before your return. There were reports, this afternoon, of a band of armed rebels, down near the river. That is what I wished to speak to you about. We found no Saxons, but there were hoof prints, a good number of them, down by the ford. If your lordship thinks fit, perhaps we should mount extra guards tonight.’
Aimery frowned, forcing the potent wine fumes from his brain. ‘I appreciate your excess of zeal, my friend. But if it’s because you feel guilty about the Saxon girl this afternoon -’
Hamet looked down at his big hands. Then the lady Isobel has told you,’ he said humbly. ‘I apologise, my lord, for temporarily neglecting my duties. But the girl waylaid me, around noon. She was wanton and eager -I swear, it was all over in a few minutes!’
Aimery felt the bleak anger rise within him. God’s blood - wanton and eager! His fist clenched. If Hamet had not been his friend of many years, he would have struck him down to the rush-strewn floor in that instant.
‘It seems,’ Aimery said, with a voice like splintered ice, ‘that she deceived us all last night. Either she has learned very quickly, or her feigned innocence was all a pretence.’
Hamet’s head jerked up at that, his dark eyes puzzled. ‘My lord - last night? I swear to you, I did not even see the redheaded Saxon woman last night!’
It was the Breton’s turn to look surprised. ‘A redhead? This - coupling you spoke of this afternoon - I gathered it was with the convent girl, Elena …’
Hamet’s heavy brow cleared in relief. ‘Why, no, my lord! The Saxon I spoke of was the redhead, Morwith. You might remember her from the woodcutter’s cottage, on our way here!’ He coughed awkwardly. ‘I came across her in one of the outhouses at noon. She recognised me, and … and …’
Aimery le Sabrenn was watching him strangely. Then the fair-haired girl, Elena. The one who was in my room last night. You are telling me that you have had no contact with her today?’
Again, Hamet cleared his throat in embarrassment. ‘My lord, the lady Isobel arranged for myself and Morwith to be punished for our misdemeanor. The girl you speak of was brought in, to watch. But she took no part in any of it, my lord!’
‘She was there willingly?’
‘I think not, my lord. Though,’ and Hamet added this hastily, on seeing the Breton’s expression, ‘as far as I saw, she was not touched or harmed in any way; but merely made to witness our chastisement.’
With an oath, Aimery was on his feet. The wine jug on the table went crashing to the floor with the violence of his movement.
Hamet, confused, said, ‘My lord. The extra patrol I mentioned?’
‘Speak to the sergeant-at-arms,’ called Aimery over his shoulders as he left the table. ‘Tell him what you think fit.’ Then he was gone, taking the stairs up to the sleeping chambers two at a time. Hamet, totally perplexed, turned back to ruefully survey the spilled wine.
Elena sat on the edge of her small bed in the darkness, thinking still of Aimery. At every encounter with the Breton lord, she needed him more and more. Yet he despised her, openly.
She clenched her hands in her lap, trying to think coolly and calmly. Later tonight, she would try to escape from the castle. She didn’t think she could bear to see the Breton again, to be so flayed by his cold scorn. She knew that she must leave, before he destroyed her completely.
The door to her room started to open, slowly. Her throat dry with fear, Elena leaped to her feet. Aimery …
Chapter Nine
The Breton shut the door very deliberately behind him, and stood there, watching her. Elena, standing by the bed, felt herself trembling. His strange silver eyes blazed with light above his hard, jutting cheekbones; his strong, curved mouth, so cruelly twisted by the long white scar that slashed his cheek, was corn-pressed in a thin hard line. Her heart hammered against her ribs, because he looked so angry.
Aimery said, in a low voice that seemed to her to be filled with menace, ‘So, Elena. Tell me exactly what happened this afternoon.’
Elena moistened her dry lips. Somehow she stammered out her reply, forcing herself to look up into his stern, compelling face.
‘The lady Isobel summoned me. I - I was working in the courtyard, bleaching the linen - ‘
Aimery bit out an oath. ‘You were bleaching linen?’
He looked wildly angry. Elena, frightened and confused, said defiantly, ‘Yes, my lord! I worked in the kitchens all morning, and in the afternoon, I washed linen, as you commanded! Was it not your will?’
Aimery said softly, dangerously, ‘Go on. Tell me more. You were summoned inside, by the lady Isobel. And then?’
Elena bit her lip; the colour blazed in her cheeks. They were punishing him’ she whispered. ‘Your servant - Hamet. Isobel and Morwith were punishing him. Then Morwith, too, was punished …’ Her voice trailed away helplessly as she remembered the ivory phallus that gave Morwith such pleasure, remembered the Saracen in his extremity, his pulsing phallus spurting seed across the room.
Aimery was saying quietly, ‘And you helped with their punishment?’
‘I - I secured Morwith to the bed.’ Her voice was scarcely discernible. She added, again with that note of desperate defiance, The lady Isobel told me that it was your will, my lord!’
‘And the love belt that you wore? Your own bondage? You submitted willingly to all that?’
‘Yes - because it was what you wanted! Wasn’t it?’
Aimery ran his hand wearily through his thick hair. ‘And you were so frightened of me that you would submit to anything Isobel said?’
‘Not - not frightened of you, my lord,’ Elena whispered.
A throbbing silence hung in the darkened room. Aimery suddenly realised how very tired he was. The girl stood before him in the darkness like a flame, pale and golden, shimmering with beauty and a quiet strength that defied him, defied all of them. He said, heavily, The lady Isobel told me that you joined in willingly with the others this afternoon - with their games. That you encouraged them to pleasure you. Was this true?’
The girl’s face went white; he noticed how she clasped her hands rigidly at her side. ‘No, my lord!’
Then why, in the name of Christ, did you not deny it earlier?’
Elena gazed up at him, her dark blue eyes burning with some emotion he could not name. ‘How could I?
When I had been told that the lady Isobel was merely carrying out your commands?’
His commands. The girl was right. More right than she would ever know. His commands, to choose a vulnerable Saxon slave from the latest batch of newcomers, to pleasure her, humiliate her, destroy her. His own revenge, for Madelin. His own soul, dark with a hatred that needed to feed on innocence.
With a bleak gesture of despair, Aimery le Sabrenn turned to the door. ‘I will give orders, Elena, that you are not to work in the kitchens any more. And you may leave the castle tomorrow, if you wish. You are no longer a serf. You are free.’
Her incredible blue eyes widened with emotion at his words; numbly, still gazing at him, she whispered, ‘My lord, as you wish!’ Aimery, somehow expecting more reaction, paused with his hand on the door.
‘One last thing. This afternoon, in Isobel’s room. I would have you know that it was not my intention to grieve you so.’
The girl’s face jerked upwards. ‘Grieve me?’
‘Your tears. I did not mean to cause you such distress.
’
She took a step towards him. ‘My lord. Those tears -they were not caused by distress, but because I felt so completely unable to express how I felt …’
Aimery had gone very still. ‘And how do you feel?’
Elena took a deep, steadying breath. ‘All my life’ she said softly, ‘I have been a captive, of sorts - in the convent. I was not unhappy, or ill-treated. But nevertheless, I was captive; I had no choice, nowhere else to go. Here, in your castle, I find myself a prisoner again. And now you offer me my freedom. But,’ and her clear voice sank to the merest whisper, ‘I do not want to leave, my lord. All I want in life is to be yours. In whatever way you wish.’
In three strides, Aimery le Sabrenn had covered the ground between them and caught her slender figure in his arms. She gazed up at him silently, her delicate face pale, her eyes dazed with helpless love.
‘Elena’ he muttered as his strong hands gripped her shoulders. ‘Oh, Elena. I thought, this afternoon, that you hated me. I thought I repelled you.’
Steadily she reached up her hand to smooth back his hair, and drew one delicate finger down the white ridge of scar tissue. ‘My lord’ she said simply, ‘at the convent, I used to dream. You are all I ever dreamed of -and more.’
Slowly, she began to lift her tunic over her head. Then, as Aimery gazed mesmerised at her slender, graceful figure, she sank to her knees and reached beneath his tunic for the lacings that fastened his hose. As her fingers did their work, she continued to gaze up at him, her face radiant. ‘You will find me your most willing slave, my lord’ she whispered. ‘Command me -1 am yours.’
His penis was already thick, hanging lengthily down his inner thigh. With gentle little caresses, she bent to run her pointed tongue lovingly round its tip, kissing the swelling shaft until it sprang rapidly into a magnificent erection, jerking hungrily towards her soft, moist mouth. Aimery groaned aloud with pleasure, his hands clutching at her shoulders; she heard it, and caught her breath. She longed to feel him within her. But she was his slave; she was obedient to his commands.
Elena's Conquest Page 13
