by Louisa Trent
Glassy-eyed, Aeschine stayed plastered against the wall, her skin rosy, her hair disarrayed by his hands, a leather tether around her slender waist, the nipples on her swollen breasts red and pointing. Her pale thighs were open; her lower belly glistened with a plug of cum. She looked like a wild and beautiful animal. And she was his, but only because he had struck a bargain with her. In truth, she would have gone to any man.
“You will stay like so until I return,” he called harshly over his shoulder as he went outside with the guard to receive Yseult's message.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
So foolish to love a conflicted man, Aeschine mused, awaiting Sage's return. Torn between duty and desire, still grieving for a lost beloved wife, what chance did she have with the dark warlord?
And then the portal opened and the warlord strode back inside the hut, and her doubts disappeared.
His message from another woman received, he had returned to her.
Did she please him? She wondered, limp and naked against the wall, legs open, anticipating his pleasure like a well-trained doxie?
To make sure she did please him, she widened her legs for his delectation.
“Please forgive the guard's interruption,” he said, formally.
A glint of undisguised desire sparked his black-jewel eyes as they lowered to the apex of her body.
“I would forgive you anything,” she replied as he began to disrobe.
“You would?"
While he stacked his neatly folded garb with military precision on a nearby chest, she contented herself with admiring the view of his manhood.
His heavy cock lanced from its nest of wiry black curls, cutting a swath in the air like a libidinous sword.
She licked her lips, the taste of him still there. “Aye, I would. Love always forgives."
His brow quirked. “Even when the hurt runs deep?"
“Especially then, for that is when forgiveness is needed the most. When the hurt is so deep that words cannot express it, love provides the language. Love heals all wounds."
“You are romantic, milady.” He stepped closer to the wall where she waited.
“I am in love, my captor. I understand your guard is duty-bound to protect you and your family. Rights to privacy do not extend, and should not extend, past those perimeters. As your whore, I stand outside that circle.” She gave a dispirited laugh, dejectedly gestured to her position. “Actually, I stand here, against a wall, awaiting your pleasure.” She opened her arms to him. “Let us continue where you left off.” Her chin tilted. “Unless, I am being presumptuous?"
“You are never presumptuous, milady. I am only sorry that Yseult d'Aubrienne picked an inopportune time to send the guard to find me."
He leaned into her; one warm palm covered her teat.
Her throat arched as carnal heat traveled from her breast to her loins. “This Yseult d'Aubrienne—she is a guest you brought back with you?"
“Not exactly a guest.” He worked her nipple. “Hugh d'Aubrienne seeks to arrange an alliance between his daughter and myself."
She asked the unthinkable. “You are agreeable?"
“Not nearly as agreeable as are father and daughter. For all that she is eminently suitable, I have no wish to wed again. That said, the sultry brunette makes for rather a nice convenience."
His hand smoothed its inevitable course to her cleft. A long finger split her folds and penetrated.
She shivered. “Do you love her, this Yseult who is a convenience to you?"
“Love a convenience? Who loves a convenience? One uses a convenience to make one's life easier—that is all."
“What of me? Am I not convenient enough for you?"
“This ... uh ... arrangement with Yseult will in no way interfere with us. We have a bargain..."
“Will we all sleep in the same room, three in a bed, for convenience sake? So, perchance, you might roll over after coming into me to go into her?"
“Now, there is an idea!” He laughed.
She did not. “You think this humorous?"
“Only because you put it so crudely. What I propose is a civilized arrangement. For instance, we need not share the same chamber—though, from time to time, sharing the same bed might make for rather an interesting diversion. Seeing you two kittens play would amuse me greatly.” He paused. “My, you are slick. Is it something I said?"
Was he serious? Did he really expect her to perform for his entertainment? Or, was this no more than a continuation of the cave when he had tried to sever her hold on him?
She looked away. “I have never slept in bed with a woman."
“Who mentioned sleep?” He winked. “I wager you have been three to a bed with men."
She said naught.
“I wager you have done so with LaTourne and his men-at-arms. I wager you have had one cock in your mouth, whilst another took you from the rear. I wager you liked it too."
Dipping his fingers in the seed still wet on her belly, he turned her to face the wall. Raising her arms above her head, her wrists gripped in the vice of a hand, he kneed her legs apart. He drew the semen-wet finger down the demarcation separating her buttocks.
“Is this how you like it best?” He kissed her earlobe as he pressed the lubricated digit against her back portal.
She groaned at the trespass. Not in shock. Not in shame. In acceptance. Of love. Uneasy, unpretty, love.
“Mmm.” The pleasured sound escaped her parted lips. “Oh, aye."
“Can you take another?” he asked politely.
At her nod, a second finger entered. The two widened and began to stretch her.
She purred. “Go deeper."
He did.
The stretch discomforted her. Still, her body helplessly, sinfully, responded to the forbidden entry, loving the hurt of his unnatural possession. She ached for him to enter her, would do anything to have him inside her. In her extremity, her mind made no discrimination as to how the penetration was done. Her joy was building, cresting; she knew if he came into her, she would come on the first stroke.
He knew it too. He knew that she was completely his. His whore. His harlot. His mastered captive.
“Please,” she said urgently.
He deepened the penetration.
Again she pleaded, and this time brokenly. “Please?"
“Bend,” he said.
Wantonly, she bent for him. Wantonly raised her hips for him. Wantonly offered him her buttocks.
How wantonly he removed his touch from her!
“Oh, God. Do not leave me.” She sobbed at the loss. “I shall die if I do not have you."
“Shh,” he crooned, calming her.
He rounded over her, his mouth against her ear, the heat of his loins sealed to her, his warm palms petting her, his heavy ballocks swinging against her bottom—his hard cock prodding her, teasing her. Finally, when she thought she could no longer stand the anticipation, the bulbous end invaded the crevice, full on.
Was it unholy trespass? Sin? Retribution? Impure attraction? Lust? Or simply another expression of love?
When the head of his cock pushed against the puckered dimple, she pushed back, keening deep in her throat. “Harder,” she chanted. “Harder. Come into me."
Oh, the agony of loving him!
She would not shy away from that pain. She welcomed the pain, courted it, had to have it, for the pain was a part of him.
“Do it,” she urged. “This is what you have coveted since the very first."
“Nay, this is what you desire! This is what you crave!"
“I desire you. I crave you."
“Ha! You have darker longings than even I may satisfy, for I am not my cousin, LaTourne. I am no pervert. I do not practice sodomy."
“I would not call it sodomy,” she whispered, speaking the language of her heart. “I would call it lovemaking. And you wish it with me."
“Nay..."
Oh, but he did, and for very complicated reasons.
Her motivations
were not so simple here either...
Was love ever easy?
She recalled a memory from childhood. Once, her mother lightly drew a knife down the center of pastry dough, scoring the flat circle down the middle with the sharp tip of the blade. ‘Pie and love are both sweet, Aeschine,’ she said. ‘But neither is always served up in equal portions. At times, love is divided in two equal halves. Like so,’ she said, indicating the scoring. ‘Sometimes, though, the circumstance is not as even. The lord might love the lady more, or the other way ‘round. However, if care is taken, the portions may even out later. Then again, they may not. The true test of love is to rejoice in the loved one's larger portion whilst not grousing about the unfairness of your own more meager piece.” Her mother placed the knife aside and gave her only child a huge hug. ‘You see, love is not about reciprocity, or fairness, or equal measures. Find joy in giving, and you will have found true happiness.’
Aeschine had no understanding then of what her mother meant, but she understood now, for she loved this troubled warlord and he loved her not all. There was nothing more uneven than that! And yet, she still felt joy when their bodies came together.
“No one has ever touched my soul, save you,” she told her captor. “'Tis you, and you alone I love. Cease fighting what I would give you and accept it."
“Love,” he jeered. Letting go of her wrists, he turned her around to face him. “Even now, you speak of love?"
Stroking neglected hair back from a scarred cheek, Aeschine drew her captor tight into her arms. “Especially now,” she whispered into tortured black eyes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The days of Aeschine's banishment passed slowly.
At the end of the fifth day, Sage questioned whom he punished, his captive or himself.
As he sharpened his dirk, he reminded himself that the punishment he set was just, even merciful. He might have chained her in the dungeon for her willful disobedience. He might have assigned her lashes with the whip. Instead, she was installed in the keep's finest chamber—his own solar. Her punishment? Sewing. A task most ladies considered a pleasure. Or, at the very worst, a necessity that helped pass the time.
But Aeschine was not most ladies. There was no comparing her to simpering young maidens who gossiped away the hours between delicate stitches. A needle and thread were devices of torture to Aeschine. She had told him so herself...
Sage hung his head, shamed.
As he sharpened his dull blade to a killing point, he admitted using knowledge she had told him in private against her. Little wonder Aeschine would not speak to him of her past! Why would she, when he used the secrets of her heart to punish her?
He was lower than a toadstool, and just as poisonous to swallow.
And he was paying for his treachery now, for no matter what else occupied his mind, Aeschine claimed the forefront of his thoughts. Since her banishment, he would oft find himself in the middle of some arduous task when the scent of lavender would drift by his nose. He would stop the occupation, sniff the air, turn around, just to see if she had walked past. Of course, the perfume was only another apparition.
No matter how many times he reassured himself that he had acted properly in his punishment of her, he remained unconvinced. Though he knew the lass needed a firm hand, he also knew that discipline is a narrow path; a stumble might result in crushing a wild creature's spirit.
Aeschine hated confinement. Sage well understood; he hated confinement too. But his first charge was to keep her safe. There were too many rapes. Too many deaths. Too much violence. Damnation! He'd had no choice! After telling her she was not to wander the countryside alone, she had disobeyed and now he needed to punish her!
By the afternoon of Aeschine's sixth day of banishment, his certainty had evaporated. Verily, he was crazed. No longer even able to recall what she had done to deserve punishment, he stormed the solar.
He found his captive seated upon a low stool before the meager fire. She looked up at his entry.
“You are early, milord.” She broke a thread with her teeth. “I expected you on the morrow.” She held up a tunic. “Fortuitously, I am almost finished with your mending. This is the last garment."
“Thank you,” he said, but not taking in the fine stitches; he examined only the blue smudges under his captive's eyes.
Aeschine was so thin! Too thin.
“Are you eating?” He groped for the courage to ask.
“I have not had much of an appetite.” She shrugged. “I miss the fresh air."
“Have you slept?"
She looked towards the covered arrow loop—as part of her punishment he had ordered every source of light curtained. “In a darkened chamber, ‘tis difficult to tell night from day.” She coughed. “Sleep refuses to come no matter how hard I try to capture it."
How well he understood! Jesus! What had he done?
“Is it pleasant outside today?” she asked wistfully.
He wiped a shaking hand over his suddenly moist eyes. “Most pleasant."
Aeschine looked pallid, and not only because of a simple loss of sunshine. She had fallen ill. Her eyes shone overly bright. Her skin, stretched tight across high cheekbones, looked almost translucent.
“You must learn to obey me, Aeschine. I punished you for your own good."
“My stepfather always said he punished me for my own good too.” She coughed again. “He whipped me, locked me inside. Neither helped. Much the same approach was tried at the convent. Mother Superior failed too.” She covered her mouth to suppress a deep chest rumble.
“Convent? What convent, darling?"
She opened her mouth to speak, but it seemed to require too much effort. Her backbone slumped and she collapsed.
In two steps, Sage crossed the chamber and bundled Aeschine up into his arms. “Will,” he shouted at the portal, while stroking his captive's face; her skin felt like ice. “Bring firewood immediately!"
He was chafing her limbs to restore warmth when his vassal burst in, a stack of kindling in his arms.
“Throw the wood on the grate. Fan it to flames,” he shouted at Ellen, who had followed Will into the chamber. “And I need fresh water in here too. Aeschine is delirious.” How else to explain her talk of a nunnery?
“Where is that damn water?” Sage shouted again. Aeschine had gone from ice cold to burning hot since he had entered the chamber.
“Here, milord.” Will raced into the chamber carrying a bucket.
“Put the water down next to me."
Flames now leapt in the hearth, and Ellen stopped her fanning. “For the past two days she would not let me near her. She had me leave food outside the portal. She refused to let me in to replenish the fire or see to her other needs. Lady Aeschine said she must do penance. She said she had much for which to atone.” The servant held her gown to her face. She sobbed into it. “I am to blame that the lady has taken ill."
“You are not to blame,” Sage replied, dipping a square of linen in the water. He raised the moistened cloth to Aeschine's feverish brow. “I am the only one to blame here."
“Here! Let me do that, milord. Men have no place in the sickroom,” Ellen said, moving to take the cloth from Sage's hand.
“Nay. You go rest. You look ready to drop yourself. Your lady is in good hands with me.” He gave the servant a dismissive nod. But when Ellen still refused to budge, he said quietly, “'Tis what Aeschine would wish you to do. She would direct you to take care of yourself for the sake of your babe."
“I know she would. Aeschine has a loving nature, milord. I would attest to that! We talk, you know. She is a good lass. It seems hardly possible that she be a whore like me."
Looking into Aeschine's wan features, Sage cared not if she had fornicated with every crusader in the Holy Wars—so long as she regained her health.
“Aeschine loves bairns. She told me she has always longed for a family to love,” Ellen wailed into her gunna. “But her stepfather sent her away. He disapproved of her fre
e-spirited ways, you see, and as a result Aeschine thought she would never have the bairns she longed for. Oh, ‘tis sad, so sad.” The maid wavered on her feet.
Sage signaled for Will. “Take Ellen to rest."
The vassal escorted the weeping maid away.
Alone in the solar with Aeschine once more, Sage picked up her limp hand and held it to his lips. “Get well,” he whispered. “Please? I have much to tell you."
Much to ask, too.
* * * *
Three days later Ellen lumbered into the solar, wooden bowl and spoon in hand.
Sage looked up from his watch beside Aeschine's bed. “Is that the porridge?"
Ellen nodded. “Cooked thin, milord, just as you requested."
“ ‘Tis easier for her to swallow it thin,” Sage said, dropping the patient's hand to reach for the gruel.
“Does she keep any of it down?"
Sage raised the spoon. “Some."
“Why not let me try to get some into her? You have sat by the sickbed, holding the lady's hand, since she fell ill."
“I am the reason she fell ill. I stay until she leaves."
“You must need a rest. You have not let anybody else nurse her. You alone have bathed her, changed her bed linens, fed her..."
“She is mine. I alone will care for her."
“Milord, ‘tis not my place to say this, but you have a keep to run. Many depend on you for their welfare. You must not neglect your responsibilities."
“I never have in the past, nor do I neglect my responsibilities now,” he said, quietly. He had assigned what duties he could to others. The responsibilities he could not delegate would wait until Aeschine improved. She would improve! He was warlord here and he said so.
While Ellen looked on, he coaxed the thin gruel between Aeschine's cracked and feverish lips.
“The bloom has faded from the lady's cheeks,” Ellen said with a sad shake of her head.
“Her rosy glow will soon return,” he insisted, his own optimism stunning him. Aeschine's positive outlook had rubbed off on him, he decided tiredly, and kept spooning the gruel.
The next day, the fever broke and Aeschine opened her eyes and smiled up at him.
