Hidden Honor

by Anne Stuart

  His eyes grew accustomed to the inky darkness. She was sitting up in the bed, her face in her hands, the hood low around her face. And she was crying.

  He didn't stop to think. He put the knife down and went to her, kneeling on the mattress and reaching for her hands. "What happened?" he asked gently.

  At his touch she jumped back, but he didn't release her. "A bad dream," she managed to say, her voice still thick with tears. "I dreamed of the ghosts."

  "There are no such things as ghosts, Elizabeth."

  "I know that," she said with her usual asperity. "My dreams are not as convinced." She raised her head, but he couldn't see her face in the darkness. "You were supposed to wake me up. I should take my turn keeping watch."

  "There's no need. No one can find us here."

  "Then why did you say otherwise?"

  "To make me stay away from you." He shouldn't have said it, but in the darkness of the room he seemed to have lost any restraint.

  She yanked her hands free from his grasp. "Stop it!" she cried. "Stop lying!"

  He stared at her cowled head in astonishment. "What are you talking about?"

  "Go away. You have no interest in me other than to torment me to a state of surrender, and you've already succeeded in that. What else have you got to gain? Go away and leave me alone."

  He sat back, staring at her. "Explain this to me," he said with great patience.

  "What explanation is needed? The great lecher of England has no interest in the only female available to him, except to tease her into thinking she's desirable and then abandoning her. Go away."

  "You may as well stop telling me to go away, because I have no intention of leaving," he said, still marveling at her.

  "Then I will." She tried to rise but he simply caught her and pulled her back, so that she tumbled onto the mattress, the hood of her habit falling onto her shoulders.

  Her thick, beautiful veil of hair was gone, replaced by a rough-cut mop that was curling around her face. She looked like a beautiful boy, and he'd never had any interest in boys, but he was afraid he'd reached the point of no return.

  "Your hair," he said.

  "I cut it off. It's devil's hair, or so everyone has always told me. I'm ugly, anyway, and I hate it, and I'm glad it's gone and…" Her voice was getting more and more ragged with tears. "And now I look like an ugly boy and I shouldn't care because I'm going to be a nun because even you don't want me and I'd cut it off again and burn it because I hate it!" She was running out of breath. "I hate it, I'm glad it's gone…"

  He caught her face, threading his long fingers through the curly strands. "You didn't hate it. It was beautiful and you know it, even if few people had the wit to appreciate it."

  She stared into his face, momentarily silent. Her eyes were swollen, her cheeks stained with tears, and he suspected she had spent longer than the last few minutes crying.

  "Don't touch me," she whispered. "I'm ugly and you're a monster."

  He was doomed, and he knew it. He could resist the termagant, the saucy tease, the harridan, but he couldn't resist this woebegone creature shorn of her defenses as well as her hair.

  "I'm no monster," he said, brushing the tears away with his thumb. "And even without your long hair you'll never look like a boy. You're beautiful, even if you don't know it, and I've been trying to do the right thing and leave you alone. It isn't from not wanting you, lady. It's from wanting you too much."

  "Liar," she said.

  And truly, he had no choice but to kiss her. No choice but to give in to what had been eating him alive. And the Devil take the consequences.

  * * *

  Chapter 19

  Elizabeth should have been frightened. She should have berated herself for her stupidity and her foolish, weak vanity. But when he kissed her she could think of nothing at all but the taste of him, the touch of his body beneath the rough weave of the monk's robe, muscle and sinew and strength. He was known to hurt women, she couldn't deny it. All she knew was he wouldn't hurt her.

  He lifted his mouth from hers to stare down into her eyes, a silent question in the unreadable depths. She could stop this at any time, she knew it, and she simply closed her eyes as he brushed his lips against her nose, her cheekbones, the corner of her eyes and the warmth of her temple. He turned her mouth up to his again, using his tongue this time, kissing her so deeply that her entire body seemed to rise to his. Dame Joanna had told her this was rough and tedious, other women had bemoaned the degradation and the rest didn't speak of it at all. But the wonder of his mouth, the answering fire that burned between her breasts, in her belly, between her legs, was so powerful she wondered how anyone could hate it. No matter how awful it became, surely this was worth it.

  She was shaking, and she realized that she might be a little bit afraid after all, as one of his hands slid to the shoulder of her robe, unfastening it with blind dexterity that shocked her. It fell away, around her, so that she wore only her chemise.

  She started to speak, but her voice seemed to have deserted her, and she had to clear her throat before the words would come out. "You're very adept at unfastening that robe. Have you much experience in undressing monks?" she asked lightly.

  He was kissing the side of her jaw, and he stopped for a moment, and she was afraid he wouldn't start again.

  "More than my share," he said in a rough voice, sliding his hands under the soft cotton of her chemise. He must have already loosened the ribbon that held it up, for it simply fell away beneath his deft hands to pool around her hips, and she sat there with her breasts exposed in the shadowy darkness.

  "You seem to have experience with women's clothes, as well," she said nervously.

  "More than my share," he said again. "Have you changed your mind?"

  She had. She'd been lying to herself, she was terrified of this, lying naked with this dangerous man, letting him touch her, invade her body. "No," she said.

  "Then stop trying to distract me." He kissed her mouth again, as his hands touched her breasts, and she jumped.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Touching your breasts. I'm going to put my mouth on them in another moment, in case you were wondering."

  She shivered in fear and delight. "I don't think you ought to. Shouldn't you just… I mean, I thought we were going to…"

  "You're going to lie back, close your eyes and stop asking questions," he said, and there was no missing the faint thread of amusement in his rich voice. "I need to concentrate on doing this properly."

  "Don't I have to do anything?"

  "Not until you want to. Not until you're ready to. In the meantime, all you have to do is lie back and enjoy it."

  "En-enjoy it?" she stammered.

  He pushed her back on the bed, gently, and a moment later he'd pulled the chemise the rest of the way off her, so that she lay in front of him, completely naked. It was dark in the room, but she suspected he could see her quite clearly, and she reached her arms up to cover herself, only for him to take her wrists and place them back down beside her body.

  "Pretend you're somewhere else," he whispered. "Lying in a field of grass with the sun beating down upon you. Floating on a cloud. You'll come back when you're ready."

  And then he did as he warned her, put his mouth on her breast, drawing on it like a babe sucking at his mother.

  She did as she was bid, closing her eyes, trying to float away, but the tug of his mouth on her breast was an insistent demand, a fiery line of clenching desire that traveled down between her legs. He cupped her other breast, and the peak was hard and pebbled against his fingers, and she clutched at the rough blanket beneath her as a strange knot began to grow deep inside her.

  He released her breast, only to put his mouth on the other one, and she made a strange, involuntary noise as her hands lifted and threaded through his thick hair, cradling him against her breast as he suckled her.

  When he pulled away, her breast was wet, cool, and she opened her mouth to say something when he s
topped her with his tongue, and his kiss made the knot inside her wind tighter, deeper.

  He said he knew what he was doing. She hoped so, because she needed his touch, but she didn't know where, she only knew she was restless and anxious and burning up, and if he didn't do something soon she'd either burst into tears again or explode.

  When he put his hands between her legs it shouldn't have been a shock. She tried to tighten her legs against his touch but he was much stronger, and he simply used his own body to wedge her legs apart. When he slid his fingers inside her she should have been expecting it, but she froze, anyway.

  "Don't fight me, Elizabeth," he whispered, kissing the soft skin of her belly. "This is for you, not me," and he touched some special place that made her whole body shake in some dark kind of pleasure.

  "That's right," he whispered against her skin. "I want to make you come for me. You'll do that for me, won't you? Give me that much before I have to hurt you."

  She had no idea what he was talking about, and she really didn't care. He was going to hurt her? It didn't matter—she'd go down that road willingly, anything to make this devouring need be filled.

  She was having trouble breathing, her breath coming in strangled little whimpers. She needed something but she didn't know what to ask for, as the gnawing ache between her legs grew stronger and stronger.

  And then he sat back, taking his hands from inside her, cradling her hips, and she let out a helpless cry of protest and longing. Only to follow it with a shriek as he put his mouth where his hands had been, kissing her there, between her legs, using his tongue on her.

  She tried to buck, but his strong hands held her captive. She tried to push at his shoulders but she had no strength. She could only grip the blanket beneath her once more as her legs curled up and her head fell back and her body exploded.

  For a moment she thought she was going to die, and she didn't care. Her body had turned into a white-hot, devouring flame, and all she could do was lie there and shiver, as wave after wave of clenching response seemed to pull her under into a world of eternal darkness.

  He pulled away then, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, and stripped off his robe with even more dispatch than he'd used with hers. His skin was white gold in the moonlight, and she looked at him, at his scarred, muscled chest, his lean, flat stomach, at the part of him that was hard and much too big to ever fit inside even her body.

  She was going to say so, when he took her hand and placed it on him, on the hard, silken length of him. It was like nothing she had ever touched—velvet soft and steel hard, and whether it would fit or not didn't matter. She wanted it.

  He cupped her fingers around him. "Do this," he said, moving her hand up and down the length of him. "Not too hard. It'll be better if I come this way. That way I can take you to—" his voice choked as the flesh beneath her hand jerked "—take you to Saint Anne's still a virgin."

  She knew what he meant now, when he said come. It was what he'd done to her. And he wanted her to make him spill his seed outside her body, a sin, to be sure, but not as great a sin as seducing a virgin destined for a convent.

  She pulled her hand away. "No," she said in a rough voice, lying back on the mattress, reaching her hands to his strong shoulders and pulling him with her. "I want it all."

  He didn't fight it. "God help me," he said, looming over her. "God help us both." And she felt him between her legs, that solid rod of flesh, sinking into the wetness he'd already prepared with his mouth, moving in deep and hard and then stopping when he reached the final barrier.

  "No," he said, starting to pull away.

  "Yes," she said, pulling him down on top of her, pulling him deep inside her so that he broke the final veil and thrust deep inside her.

  The pain was brief, fleeting, and it took her a moment to catch her breath. "There," she said in a choked voice. "Now you don't have any choice. Finish it."

  When he kissed her this time she could taste herself on his mouth. He slid his hands up her thighs to her hips and pulled her up tight against him, wrapping her legs around his narrow hips as he began to move, deep inside her, slow at first, then faster, and he could no longer kiss her. They were both covered in sweat, and he had buried his face against her neck as he thrust, hard and deep, more and more, until he froze, and the sound he made was like a cry from hell as he spilled his seed deep inside her, hot and wet and powerful.

  And then he collapsed on top of her, so heavy that he might have crushed a smaller woman. She was trembling, but she slid her hands down his body, to his narrow hips, and pulled him in deeper still, unwilling to let him go.

  His face felt wet against her shoulder, but it must have been sweat. She wanted to say something—that strange knot seemed to have reawakened, but it came accompanied by a deep, heavy lassitude. And all she could do was run her hands up his strong, scarred back, press her lips against the side of his neck, and sleep.

  Peter slowly, carefully withdrew from her body. She was already asleep, and deep inside she instinctively tightened around him, unwilling to let him go.

  He lay beside her, watching her. Odd, how he should be the one to cry, not her. She had no idea what had just happened between them, apart from the rudimentary knowledge that she'd lost her virginity. She had no idea that with her loss he'd lost all hope for his immortal soul. And that the act had been so powerful, so profound, that his greater sin was that he couldn't regret it.

  His sin, not hers. God would know she was blameless in this night's work, even if those on earth did not. Since they wouldn't understand, they didn't need to know.

  He hadn't even had the sense to climax outside her body, keeping her safe from pregnancy. When he'd lived in the secular world, as a knight, he'd been noted for his capacity for sexual pleasure, and yet with all his countless partners he'd never made the mistake of leaving them with his seed. And now, the time it mattered the most, he had lost his head and let himself come deep inside her moist, sleek body, and if there was such a thing as double damnation he deserved it.

  The moon was shining in the shuttered window, illuminating her perfect body. Perfect to him, at least. Her legs were long and sleek and beautiful, her hips narrow, her stomach flat and her breasts full. She was as beautiful naked as he'd imagined her to be, perhaps even more so. If he'd only been able to keep his imagination in check he might have been able to keep his body under control, as well.

  In the last seven years he'd resisted lust and temptation. Even now, though the thought of moving deep inside her body once more sent a shiver of anticipation down his body, he knew he could resist. Could stop himself, force himself to keep away.

  The only thing he couldn't stop himself from doing was loving her.

  His father had always said he was a stubborn, contrary soul, and so he'd proved him, going off on crusade when he should have been safeguarding the family estate, so that he came back to England with no land, no family, nothing but a guilt so heavy that he might break under it.

  He hadn't listened to his father, and he'd paid the price. He'd been appreciatively impervious to the charms of women everywhere, making love to them without loving them.

  So why should a redheaded, bad-tempered, long-legged scold like Elizabeth have managed to get past conscience and common sense and snared his heart? A heart promised to his holy order?

  It wasn't her fault, it was his. His weakness.

  If he dressed swiftly in the darkness, left her, she'd be safe enough for the time being. He could make it to the shrine, see what he could find out about the prince's whereabouts, and send someone after Elizabeth. If he were very careful, if she still clung to her cloistered future, then she might never have to know the truth. She could just believe she'd spent one night lying beneath the bastard prince of England, and never have to know the truth about the liar who'd taken her virginity.

  Even better, she could marry, stay in the country and bear many children. And the pain of knowing someone else had her, someone else had the pleasure of liste
ning to her scolding tongue, would be only a small penance of the huge debt he had to pay.

  If he left she'd be safe enough. A sin committed once and deeply repented could be absolved. A sin repeated was a sin too stubborn to be eradicated.

  And he leaned over and kissed her, anyway.

  Once Adrian made up his mind it was simple enough to follow through. He had made up his mind about Dame Joanna with her Madonna eyes, and everything fell into place. They stopped early soon after dusk. His strength was greatly improved, but a good night's rest would only make things better, and the town of Beckham, though poor, was welcoming to a pilgrim and his beleaguered wife. The next best thing than going on pilgrimage was to offer comfort and hospitality to those doing so, thereby gaining some sanctity without having to travel, and the miller had a room with a real bed in it, a good meal and strong ale to strengthen the blood. Everyone offered helpful suggestions as to how they might conceive, some so complicated and detailed that Adrian wanted to laugh, but Joanna didn't seem to share his amusement. He could sense the wariness in her, beneath her calm, wifely demeanor. She didn't trust him, and she was wise not to do so. Years of experience with men had taught her when a man wanted something from her, they usually wanted one thing, giving as little as possible in return. A penniless monk with a vow of chastity would be the furthest thing from a hopeful prospect as any man she might meet.

  And yet he knew she was not immune. She looked at him when she thought he wouldn't notice, and there was a strange kind of wonder in her calm blue eyes. As if he were different from the men she had met.

  He wasn't, in the most basic of ways. He wanted, longed, ached to lie with her, lose himself in the warm comfort of her woman's body, and if things were only the slightest bit different he would have already had her. He never would have thought celibacy would hit so hard, and until Dame Joanna had joined their party he'd come through relatively unscathed. He'd barely seen her when he met her at Wakebryght Castle, and while his first glimpse was intensely beguiling, he'd been able to avoid temptation simply by staying out of the way.