Must Love Chainmail

by Angela Quarles

  The pulse visible in the pale column of her neck vibrated faster, her intoxicating scent washed over him, and he was dizzy with lust.

  Even through his mail and gambeson, he could feel her womanly curves crushed against his hard chest. He uncurled his fingers from her throat and ran the tough leather of his palm’s mitten along her neck and to the enticing curve of her shoulder. He nudged her mantle an inch, exposing skin.

  He cursed that his hand was covered in mail. How long had he wanted to taste, to touch her precious skin? Unable to resist, he bent and, with his tongue, touched, tasted the heat of the skin on her collarbone.

  Oh, Christ, she was lovely. She shivered, and satisfaction roared through him. He dragged his lips up the soft skin of her neck and gently nipped her ear lobe, sipping on the soft flesh. Her hands splayed against his chest.

  Expecting a shove, his senses careened when her fingers fisted his surcoat. Their ragged breath overloud in the forest, he eased his face away, nose rubbing against her jaw on his retreat, and sought her eyes. Hers darkened and—Lord help him—held no censure, only interest.

  He stepped back.

  Curse his newly recovered scruples. Why did she have to excite him physically and dredge up his long-dead chivalry? He dropped his hand, and her fingers loosened from his surcoat. He turned to glower at the approach to Harlech and slowly flexed his fingers.

  Behind him, cloth rustled, and she cleared her throat. “So you’re, ah, you’re certain they’re not there.”

  He smiled—her back was no doubt straight, her chin raised. So strong. The certainty must be of grave importance to her, if she risked his ire to ask again. He studied the encampment. His eyes had always been sharp. The temporary shelters dotting the area could be the work of one night, but not the trampled paths. They bespoke of a longer stay, as did the placement of troops. Absent also was the frenetic pace of a new encampment. No. They’d been here for at least a sennight and were entrenched.

  He took a deep breath and faced her. “Yes. I am certain.” His gaze lingered on the graceful curve of her neck and shoulders, and so he witnessed when her tension eased. The knowledge that she believed him, trusted him on something obviously important to her, warmed his insides. Only a slight pinkening of her cheeks belied their near…whatever that had been. Temporary madness?

  “Where would they go instead?”

  He cleared his throat. “To Wrexham, mayhap. Closer to the English border, for certes. We head there, and we can ascertain their whereabouts. I daresay the king’s castles along the interior have all been compromised. If Wrexham has no answers, we can head north to Chester or Flint. One of those has to be their destination.”

  She stood straighter. “Wrexham it is.”

  By evening, Katy’s muscles ached. And all the tinier muscles attached to them. And her sinews. They were different from muscles, right? Anyway, they were exhausted too, all having called it quits to leave her an aching puddle in Robert’s mailed arms. Arms that had caged her so thoroughly and erotically against that tree earlier. Heat speared through her every time she allowed herself to think about it. And every time, she squashed the heat just as quickly.

  They had still not come across another hut and so had pushed on, after having retraced their path through the Cwm Nantcol valley and passing the abbey. When she started nodding off in the saddle, a couple of hours after sunset, he directed Perceval behind a clump of trees near a large river.

  “What are we doing?”

  “We cannot go farther, and our luck has run out, apparently, on coming across hafods. We will make camp here.”

  He jumped down and held out his hands.

  Grateful for the help, she leaned forward and put her weight on him. He eased her down, and she stumbled on numbed legs into his chest.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled, the green surcoat stretched across his mail filling her vision.

  “You are tired.” His voice rumbled near her ear, making all her tired, aching muscles grow even mushier.

  “Yes,” she whispered. Get a grip on yourself.

  “I regret we had to push on, but I am eager to reach our destination. We have two long days of riding ahead of us.”

  “I understand.” She turned away from that chest and his temptation and began gathering kindling.

  “We cannot risk fire. Too dangerous. Presumably we are well past the rebellious region, but I’d rather not risk it in this open terrain.”

  Crap. She briskly rubbed her upper arms. Of course.

  Robert collected long, stout branches and constructed a lean-to, using a low-hanging tree branch as the roof beam. He spread their hides and a blanket over this structure so the opening faced the river. Oh, did it look cozy. Amazing how quickly she’d become accustomed to smelly hides. If only Traci could see her now.

  Her breath hitched. Traci.

  Her life, her friends.

  She’d immersed herself so fully with day-to-day survival it had pushed aside thoughts of her old life. A laugh almost escaped her.

  Yeah, if Traci could see her now, her jaw would be permanently affixed to the floor. Days passed without her day planner…without her phone…without planning out the details of her day.

  She’d hardly be recognizable.

  Together they set up their camp. Working side by side—his efficient movements and their silent, synchronized setup, their easy partnership—struck her as different. Different from her usual method of organizing and focusing on the small details. They silently spread more blankets over a bed of leaves and moss. When they’d first set out after her sickness, she’d fretted at not being able to make lists, nearly tore her hair out trying to stay calm and not lose control. But now, she’d begun to relax into the feeling of partnership.

  She probed at her sense of ease, the respect she felt. Attraction, that was easy to explain—hello, hot medieval warrior being all muscley and stuff mere inches away. But the respect?

  Realization flooded her. The respect they shared was precisely because Robert didn't need her direction. And, wow, she’d never respected Preston. Because he hadn’t been involved enough to stand at her side as her equal partner. He’d left all the decisions and details to her. And it had become exhausting.

  Shit. What a thing to realize about your possible future husband. Was this what Traci meant about their relationship appearing “uneven”? But she was culpable in that too—her need to make sure everything was perfect had left little room for him to step up and take equal ownership in the relationship. Hence that stupid call from the groomswear place.

  Robert stashed their belongings inside their makeshift dwelling and returned with the wine skin and several hunks of leftover cooked rabbit. At least they had food.

  He handed her a strip of the meat. She dusted it off and sniffed it. She could feel his curious stare, so she took a bite and chewed. Mouth dry, she signaled for the wine. He passed it over, and she washed down the meat with a gulp.

  She managed another bite and pictured a nice blazing fire before her, shifting and popping. This could simply be a camping trip in her own time, where they were roughing it a little more than usual. Yes. A night just like that. With the barely visible river gurgling before them.

  Robert ate his last bite, licked his fingers, and drew his sword.

  Well, except for the sword. And the fact that he wore a surcoat and chainmail. Yeah, other than that. And the fact that enemy Welsh could be out there in the dark.

  She swallowed more wine, marveling at her low panic level. Low, despite the circumstances. She was grubby. She didn’t know what the heck to do. She was alone with a gorgeous, muscular knight in the middle of friggin’ medieval Wales, and she’d been shot with an arrow.

  Yeah, pffftt. All quite normal for a time-traveling gal. A choked laugh bubbled up, and she covered it with a cough.

  Grubby she could take care of. “Could we get some more water?”

  “Certainly.”

  She also felt some kinship—a smidgeon—with Isabelle
. Had this been close to what she’d experienced? Constantly amazed at how different, and in some ways how similar, everything was?

  Their day’s journey had brought them into a valley dominated by a large river, Afon Lliw, Robert said. So they soon had the bucket from the last shelter filled and back at the camp. Too bad she couldn’t heat it.

  He untied his sword belt, placed it on the ground, and sat, cleaning and sharpening the blade’s edge with sand and a stone he had in his trunk.

  “That’s an unusual…” She didn’t know the word in modern French, so she gestured.

  He glanced at her and then to where she indicated. “Scabbard? My lady mother crafted it for me.”

  “May I see it?”

  He nodded and placed it in her hands. It was heavier than she imagined, but when had she ever given serious thought about the weight of a scabbard? She angled it to catch the weak glow from the half moon and traced a finger along the stamped leather markings, an intricate pattern of swirls, knots, circles. A green stone graced the top.

  “This looks Celtic.”

  “Celtic?”

  “The, er, people who lived here before the Romans.”

  “Ah, yes, Celticus in Latin. She is Welsh. No doubt it has some meaning to her people.”

  “Her people. But that means you’re half-Welsh too, right?”

  At Kaytee’s words, Robert stiffened, waiting for the usual recriminations. Yes, he was half Welsh. But he was also half Norman. But only a genuine curiosity suffused her face, no malice in her expression or intent.

  “I don’t consider them my people,” he confessed.

  “Why not?”

  “For one, I haven’t beheld my lady mother since my tenth year. Have only vague memories of her kin.”

  “I’m sorry. Losing your mother so young must have been hard.”

  He ran his sharpening stone carefully down his blade once, twice. “She’s not dead.”

  “So, if she’s still alive, why haven’t you seen her since then?”

  He frowned, but he supposed it was normal for a fosterling to see their parents from time to time. He’d had no such desire. “Too busy, I suppose.”

  “Since you were ten?”

  “Indeed, that is the time I was fostered to Sir Hugh.”

  “She gave you up for adoption?” A trace of horror threaded her melodic voice, which puzzled him.

  He set down his tools. “Adoption? No. But ten is the normal age to begin training for knighthood. Some begin at seven. Do your countrymen not send their youth to those who can teach them, whether as warrior, clerk, or priest? Or if of lower birth, to learn their craft or trade?”

  “At ten?”

  No, then. “I served as page to Sir Hugh learning my letters and duties, as well as training in the skills of warfare.”

  “That young?”

  “Of a certainty. One cannot become a knight and fight in a battle with honor if one hasn’t become accustomed to the feel of his own bones crunching from a blow, seen his own blood flow.”

  “Good Lord.” She stared at him, then shook her head, her puzzlement clear. She gazed into the gloaming, seemingly lost in thought. He let the silence settle around him, content to rest.

  Abruptly, she stood. “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t be able to get used to living in a place like this. I’m going to bathe.”

  Her last sentence was spoken with defiance, as if he might object, but he could see no reason to stop her. Except it shot an erotic image straight into his head, and blood rushed to his groin. He nodded, ignoring his body’s reaction.

  Hmmm. A bath. Not since the last night at the castle had he availed himself. He lifted his arm and sniffed. Too long in a ripe state would make the metal links of his mail stink worse than Lucifer’s sulfurous big toe. He could not wait to reach Wrexham and be able to dunk his mail in a barrel of vinegar and sand, give it a good roll to get it clean.

  Seeking a distraction, he collected more vines and concentrated on making rope. He was not hearing her soft splashes and imagining what her hands were doing on her body. The curves and soft flesh…her fingers curling under a luscious breast. He twisted a piece of vine too tightly, and it snapped.

  God’s blood. Over, around, under, and tighten—he concentrated on his task, whipping each vine around, the methodical movement gradually calming.

  Some time later, she emerged, face and skin glowing in the half moon, and he found he’d not succeeded in taming his cock. She brought the bucket to the clearing and sat. He scrambled to his feet, snatched the soap and bucket, and retreated to the far side of the lean-to, close enough to ensure her safety, but far enough to satisfy his needs. He could not crawl into their shelter hard as Saint Peter’s rock.

  He deftly removed his surcoat, hauberk, and chausses and leaned his arm against the tree trunk, his breath ragged, his cock pushing painfully against the rough linen of his braies. He whipped them off, and his hard length jutted into the cool night air. Groaning at the touch of his hand to the sensitive flesh, he fisted it and, with quick, efficient jerks, soon jetted his seed into the darkness.

  He stood a moment longer, gulping in air, and then removed the rest of his clothing. Christ. That had barely taken the edge off. He grabbed the soap and scrubbed the grime of several days on the road from his body, glad of the water’s bracing cold. Ridding himself of the accumulated dirt felt like a needed purging, as necessary as the purging of his seed.

  He donned his braies and linen shirt and stepped back into the clearing. Her blushing face and averted gaze served as further proof she was a sheltered, high-born lass. What other kind was so secluded as to be unused to hearing a man taking care of his needs, either by himself or with another?

  Or perhaps she followed the strictures of the church regarding taking pleasure into your own hands. An odd wash of guilt swept over him for his crudeness, but he dismissed it. The responsibility for her situation was hers, not his, and he’d feel no shame for tending to his needs.

  As her gaze sought a subject, they eventually alighted on his bare legs. She audibly swallowed and, quick as a sprung arrow, his cock stirred, scraping against the linen of his braies. He willed his body not to react.

  She stumbled to her feet and cinched her mantle tight around her neck. “I’m going to bed.”

  Bed. God’s blood, an unfortunate word to use within hearing of his cock, but he wrestled for control and nodded. “I’ll…” He cleared the sudden gruffness from his throat. “I’ll see to the horses.”

  He combed down his horses and brought them to a better spot for the evening. “I’m a warrior, a knight, Perceval, and yet I fear to enter that lean-to,” he whispered as he scratched his warhorse behind the ears.

  He retrieved his grooming pouch—a gift from Sir Hugh when he was made a squire--and settled again in the clearing, wooden and metal grooming tools in hand. Quick strokes with his tweezers cleaned his nails. Then, by feeling along the shape of his jaw, he plucked stray hairs and used his scissors to trim. With a toothpick and clean cloth, he cleaned his teeth and finished by chewing a few fennel seeds.

  Judging she’d had sufficient time to become situated and was, if not actually asleep, at least pretending, he ducked around his shield, which he’d propped against the opening to act as a partial screen.

  He let his eyes adjust. Soon, the faint moon illumined her form against the wall. A pallet of furs and his wool blankets lay waiting empty beside her, the makeshift shelter too small for any decent amount of space between them.

  “Christ on the cross,” he whispered. He laid his weapons and armor down in the remaining space and, against his usual preference for sleeping nude, removed his braies but kept on the shirt. He slipped in between the covers.

  Chapter Sixteen

  And truly he never saw a maiden more full of comeliness, and grace, and beauty, than she.

  The Mabinogion, an ancient Welsh romance

  Katy lay under the wool blanket, afraid to move. He had entered the lean-to.

&
nbsp; Calm down, heart. Jeez.

  A soft rustle, a muted exhalation, and his body, radiating heat, settled beside her.

  And the libido she’d finally leashed moments before? Unleashed.

  Sweet Jesus on a cracker, she’d heard him jacking off. Shock still coursed alongside desire. Never before would she have thought the sound--and the accompanying images that flashed into her head--would’ve been at all erotic. But it had. Oh God, it had.

  And then he’d returned to the clearing, and—this was the craziest thing—the moonlight highlighted his bare legs, and she was inexplicably transfixed. She saw guys’ bare legs all the time. So why did his push all sorts of buttons inside that she didn’t even know were pushable?

  Now his presence, their presence, swelled to fill their teeny-tiny, no-bigger-than-a-gnat’s-butt lean-to.

  His heat, his erotic pull—she could feel it. A weird, pulsing, virtual pull tugging at her skin, her nerve endings. Made her want to…touch. Made her want.

  The more she resisted the urge, the stronger it became. It would be a relief, really. To just…touch. One little touch. Just one.

  She adjusted her limbs—just getting comfortable—and let her hand plop…there, butting up next to his warm skin, and her heart sped up. Which body part she touched, she had no clue. Didn’t matter. All perfectly natural. Yep.

  Oh God. That only made it worse. The heated contact surged through her, fueling the pull, fueling the urgency. She lay still, her heart doing the pound-pound-pound thing so loud that surely he heard. If he even noticed the tiny contact, she was still in the it-could-be-an-accidental-touch zone. Did she dare more? No.

  Her pinkie took matters into its own, er, pinkie, and moved oh-so-slightly, grazing his skin. His pinkie, judging by the shape and texture.

  Blood rushed and pounded through her veins, flushing her skin. This could not, in any way, be explained as an accidental touch. But he could feign sleep if he wasn’t interested. Did she want him to do that?

  What was she doing?

  She commanded her pinkie to drop, and thankfully, it obeyed.