Heather Graham

by The Kings Pleasure

  And he had promised her time …

  “Adrien, please, what are you doing here?” she cried out, and he was perversely pleased to have her as unnerved as he was.

  He walked to her bed with its rich canopy and tapestried spread. He drew open the leather satchel, displaying the beautiful, sheer garment beneath. Her eyes lit upon it, her breath caught.

  “A gift from the Princess of Wales, Edward’s wife Joan, Fair Maid of Kent,” he told her curtly. Then he tossed a small glass vial of dark fluid upon the bed. “A gift from me as well.”

  “Which is … ?” she questioned warily.

  “Chicken blood.”

  She stared at him blankly.

  “To be dotted upon the bed,” he told her, “before morning comes.”

  Crimson flooded every visible inch of her, enhancing the emerald of her eyes and shimmering blue-black beauty of her hair. “Thank you,” she managed to say coolly. “Now, my laird, if you please? My water grows cold.”

  He meant to walk out of the door; he didn’t quite manage to do so. He strode to the tub, and down upon one knee by her side. The ache to reach out and stroke the ivory clarity of her flesh was almost unbearable.

  The ache in his groin was worse. In God’s name, if he didn’t get the hell out quickly …

  “Adrien, get out!” The tension in his features must have been a warning to her, for she amended the command quickly. “Please, get out!”

  But he didn’t. He reached out, stroking a drop of water from her upper arm, becoming aware that she was trembling where she sat like a cornered rabbit. “I promised to give you time. I never promised to stay out of the master’s chambers, or to pretend that I didn’t gain a wife along with Aville.”

  Despite her discomfort and unease, her eyes narrowed sharply. “Aville remains, mine.”

  “You gain more than I do as it is, Countess. I become count here, but you, milady, are now marrying an earl.”

  She stared at him boldly. “You are only an earl because Edward gave you the title when I agreed to become betrothed to you.”

  “Countess, anything I have gained from you, I have earned! I fear that I have had a much easier time of it dealing with armed enemies!”

  She swallowed suddenly, eyes closing briefly, and he was stricken with the misery that seemed to fill her. “Adrien, I am not stone, not a wall, not a fortress or a keep! You have spun my world around in a matter of hours, and now you taunt me here. You find fault with me, while considering me to be nothing more than the woman who came along with the fortress. Well, sir, quite bluntly, it was my understanding that while you were mourning Joanna, you bedded half the women in England, Scotland, and the Continent. Forgive me if I—who have done nothing but listen to poets and musicians—bear a certain reticence regarding you!”

  He hadn’t wanted to smile, and certainly did not give in, for at that moment, he would have traded every title and all the land he owned just to possess her. But though she quivered beneath his eyes, she hadn’t lost a bit of her own fire, and though he was determined not to retreat quickly and at her command, he had decided that he would leave. He arched a brow to her. “Half of the women in all Scotland, England, and the Continent? Surely not!” He rose then and walked to the door. He frowned as he turned back to her. “Surely, it was not more than … a third?” He exited, closing the door behind him quickly. Just as he had suspected, something slammed against it. The soap, he imagined. He opened the door again quickly, just peeking his head in. “Be ready with those vows, Countess. Dusk falls within the hour. I will await you in the hall, and we’ll go to the chapel together.”

  She swore, and threw a shoe next. It had lain a little distance from the tub and she’d had to reach to get it, displaying the full, firm, roundness of her breasts. Her nipples were tantalizingly large, rouge, and pebble-tipped. From the water growing cold, he wondered?

  He closed the door again before the shoe could hit him and he leaned against it, listening to her swear at him.

  Ah, well, she could curse him no more than he could curse himself. She still had her time.

  And he had a raw, hungry agony twisting through him, haunting him, tormenting him.

  He left the doorway and hurried downstairs, staring into the fire there. Rem came upon him, offering him another goblet of their finest wine. He thanked Rem, and drank deeply.

  A while later, he was aware that she had come down the stairs. She had dressed in elegant blue for the night. The soft sleeves of her undergown fell in long folds down her arms; the royal blue of her tunic, richly embroidered with blue thread at the bodice, hugged her breasts, then fell in a soft flow as well. A veil of blue mist swept down over her hair from a gold filigree headpiece, beautiful in its simplicity.

  She didn’t look his way, but strode toward the table—where the wine waited. She poured herself a goblet, drank down the contents quickly, and poured another. He watched as she swallowed that one down and began to pour a third. He strode across the room to her, taking the carafe and the goblet from her and setting them down firmly.

  “Just how drunk, milady, do you feel you need to be to take these vows?”

  “Very,” she assured him solemnly, reaching for her goblet again. He held it away from her.

  “Alas! I’m afraid I cannot allow you to fall flat on your face in the middle of the proceedings.”

  “One more!” she whispered, and added with both dignity and disdain, “I have been drinking this wine all my life. I fear that I could not possibly drink enough to fall flat on my face.”

  “Let’s take no chances, eh?” he suggested. Holding her arm, he spun her around, walking with her from the hall.

  “Most brides demand some ceremony with such an affair. A gown, a jewel, flowers.”

  “Most brides intend to sleep with their husbands,” he reminded her politely.

  “Who will act as my guardian here?” she asked quickly, swiftly veering from the dangerous path she had taken.

  “Doctor Coutin, in the name of Edward III.”

  They had come out of the hall. Out of the courtyard, Danielle’s people waited—carpenters, masons, farmers, maids, men-at-arms and their ladies. A cheer went up, and flowers were thrown.

  All the flowers Danielle might have wanted.

  She had been bred and raised to her station, Adrien was glad to see, for she instinctively responded to those who had given her their fealty, taking flowers from little barefoot girls, thanking her well-wishers sincerely. They reached the chapel where Doctor Coutin took her hand to walk her to the altar where Father Josef waited. The wine, he thought, had helped her; her eyes were glazed. When they fell upon her cousin Simon, who stood as tense as steel in a side pew with Lady Jeanette, Monteine, and others of the household, her lashes fell.

  But not before Adrien had seen her gaze of abject misery. A scalding streak of jealousy ripped through him. Simon would quickly come to his reckoning. As to Danielle, if she had betrayed him …

  Father Josef was droning on. Doctor Coutin said all the proper words on the king’s behalf. Adrien gave his vows quickly.

  Danielle seemed to choke over each word she said.

  But it didn’t matter; she spoke her vows, and without coercion, and in front of a goodly number of witnesses. The ceremony ended; Father Josef instructed him to take his bride in a kiss.

  It was all that he was going to get. And Simon was watching. Adrien wanted the Frenchman to see that he was well aware of his wife’s attributes.

  He drew her into his arms, cupped her nape with his hand, and forced her mouth to surrender to his. His mouth crushed down upon her lips and parted them. His tongue thrust within and he tasted the sweet mint she had chewed. Her fingers clasped the loose sleeves of the shirt he wore beneath his tunic, hard, protesting. He didn’t ease his hold, or his kiss, raking her mouth again and again with his tongue, exploring, delving deeper and deeper into the sweet, seductive warmth of the kiss she had not chosen to give. She was fire in his arms, angry, and wild, ag
onizingly sweet to touch and taste, to hold and crush against him. To feel. Her hair cascaded like black silk over his fingers, entangling them, like the softest ebony webs …

  When he released her, she staggered and nearly fell. Her eyes were brilliantly green as they clashed with his, offering a furious reproach as he steadied her. She gasped for breath; her lips were damp, swollen.

  He wanted her all the more …

  But the two of them were suddenly parted as well-wishers sprang forward. Monteine and Lady Jeanette kissed him, his men rushed forward to pummel his back or shake his hand. From the corner of his eye, he could see that Danielle fared much the same—his knights, her men-at-arms. Others rushed forward, all offering brief kisses on the cheeks, a few on the lips.

  Then there was Simon. The crush in the church had taken Adrien far from Danielle, but he was close enough to see Simon take her into his arms. And he saw the way Simon kissed her …

  It wasn’t as long as his first kiss for his bride, perhaps not as dramatic or passionate, but it was too damned intimate. Adrien felt as if all the fires of hell arose within him. He wanted to kill the Frenchman.

  Before he could reach Danielle again, the two had parted. But he had seen them talking, whispering words they had not wanted others to hear.

  Just what were they planning?

  Simon disappeared into the crowded courtyard when Adrien came to claim his bride, pale now as she accepted the hand he offered her to return to the hall. She didn’t glance his way as they walked together.

  The great table had been set to accommodate the crowd, with an ell added to each side. He took his place with Danielle at the head of it while his men and her ladies were seated according to their rank and position. A musician already played a lute in the center created by the ells of the two added tables. Food, elegantly displayed, was set out in abundance—peacocks with their feathers spread, pheasant and other fowl, a huge boar with his lips formed into a snarl, a multitude of fish, fresh water eels, deer.

  At his side, Danielle sat, pale and still. She didn’t touch a bite; she barely sipped her wine. She seemed glad not to have to speak to him since they were continually approached by those who wished them God’s blessing and a fertile union.

  The hour grew late. Danielle leapt up at last, spinning around to tell him softly, “My lord, this contest, like all others, has been yours. I am in agony. My head is splitting. I must go to bed. To—to sleep.”

  He rose with her. “I have not taken this contest, my lady. It is scarcely a draw. Since you are intending to go to bed—to sleep.” She ignored him and turned to leave. Apparently, she hadn’t attended many weddings because she seemed truly stunned when she discovered that her ladies had been waiting for her to rise. They captured her arms to lead her, laughing and shouting, up the stairs. A few moments later he found himself so taken by his men, and brought upstairs to his guest chamber where they stripped him and decked him in a fur-lined robe before rushing him on to the master’s chamber to meet his bride.

  Her flesh seemed as white as the sheer fabric that barely covered her. The nightdress was elegant in itself but upon her, it all but had life of its own. Sweeping, soft, hugging her breasts, clinging to her hips, leaving just a hint of the rouge of her nipples, the raven’s silk of the black triangle at the apex of her thighs. Her hair was free, brushed to an exotic gloss, spilling over the snow white gown and her own ashen countenance.

  She had surely brought an ache to the groin of every able-bodied man in the room.

  Including Simon. Indeed, the wretch was there, in the crowd, a forced smile upon his lips, anger in his eyes.

  A wild cheer went up as Adrien and Danielle were thrown together. He swept his cumbersome robe around them both, fighting the intoxication of the feel of her soft flesh and the fullness of her breasts as he shouted out, “Enough, friends! Leave us be now!”

  “To bed, to bed!” called a drunken knight.

  “Out!” he commanded again, and good-naturedly, the knight gave way, turning with a groan to exit the bedchamber. The others began to follow him, until one by one, the merrymakers were gone.

  The door shut behind them.

  Danielle slipped from his hold instantly, hurrying across the room to hug her arms against her chest as she stared back at him with wild eyes. “I fulfilled my part of this!” she whispered huskily. “Please, Adrien, now you keep your promise. Go!”

  For a moment, he could not. The fire added to the see-through quality of the gown.

  Tears touched her eyes. “Adrien, you promised!”

  For a moment, she sounded like the child he had once protected. He believed in her innocence.

  He bowed deeply to her, pretending that she wasn’t awakening every bit of desire in his system. “Good night then, my lady wife.”

  He strode to the door, saw to it that the hall had emptied, and left her room, slipping quickly into his own. There, he ground his temple between his fists and swore loudly, damning himself.

  If she hadn’t been so naive, so frightened, so innocent! If he hadn’t seen the dampness in her eyes …

  He swore again, grabbed a carafe of wine, and sat before the fire, not bothering with a goblet at all.

  He longed for sleep and he knew it would not come. Next best, he longed for a drunken stupor.

  But neither would that come.

  And still, he should have been sleeping long before he heard the creak in the hallway, and then the hushed whispering by her door. He bolted up, listening. The whispering had gone silent. Her door had opened, and closed …

  “Danielle! Danni, quick!”

  She had nearly dozed when she heard the whisper. She knew it was Simon, and she leapt up, her heart thundering in fear.

  He had been so wretched at the wedding, in anguish when he had kissed her and wished her well, vowing his undying love for her once again. She hadn’t been able to stand his pain, and found herself telling him that although she had agreed to marry, she was not going to be a wife in truth.

  She should never, never have whispered such a thing, she realized, because Simon was here now. At her door.

  She leapt up and opened it as quickly as possible, anxious to shush him even as she desperately prayed that Adrien had not been aroused. Simon stood in the hall, his sword belted to his waist, his eyes warily on the door to the guest chamber down the hall. He strode into Danielle’s room before she could stop him.

  “Simon—!”

  He brought a finger to his lips as he looked about, striding to the bed and drawing the draperies from it. He sighed with relief when he realized they were really alone.

  “Simon, you’ve got to get out of here!” she said desperately.

  “Danielle, we cannot let this happen,” he told her urgently. “If your marriage has not been consummated, we can still do something to annul it. We’ll go now. I’ll take you to King Jean—he’ll manage something. We will have Aville back, we’ll—”

  “Simon, hush! For the love of God, hush! I have always honored my mother’s family, but Aville is a part of Edward’s holdings! Don’t you understand? Most of the people here are very loyal to him—they know what happened the last time they fought him. They need the English here, they need the trade, the income from the alliance. Simon—”

  “Oh, God, Danielle, but I love you!” He suddenly sounded as if he was choking. And just as suddenly, she found herself caught up in his arms, crushed in his embrace. His lips were warm and pressing upon hers and his hands … his hands were on her arms, her shoulders, her breasts, gliding over the sheer fabric of the white bridal nightdress. She tried to twist from his kiss, both stunned and afraid.

  “Simon …” she protested against his lips.

  Just as the door flew open.

  Simon had not heeded her warning, but now he spun away from her, drawing his sword with lightning speed.

  Adrien had come. He was still clad in nothing but the fur-trimmed robe—and naked steel, for he, too, carried his sword. His eyes were fi
re, his features as hard and cold as ice.

  “If you touch my wife again, Comte, I will cut your foolish head from your body,” he advised calmly.

  “The lady has been meant for me!” Simon cried out and lunged for Adrien.

  “No!” Danielle shrieked, jumping forward, foolishly hoping to come between them. Adrien caught her by the arm and sent her flying back out of the line of their battle. She fell against the wall near the hearth, slipping down to the floor. Dazed, she struggled to her feet, desperate to stop the men somehow.

  But the battle was frighteningly brief. There was but one clash of steel, and then Simon’s sword clattered from his hand and skidded across the floor to the open doors.

  Heavy footsteps were heard in the hall as two of Adrien’s men came hurrying to find out what was causing the noise. Adrien clutched Simon by his sleeve, dragging him out to the hall.

  Danielle found her feet and came racing after him, terrified for Simon and desperate to explain to Adrien that nothing had happened. But as she reached Adrien, she saw the extent of his anger. Tension blazed from every muscle, as well as from the glittering gold of his eyes. Still she dared to touch his shoulder, but he didn’t seem to feel it. She gripped his arm hard, tugging until he turned to face her at last.

  “Adrien, please, you have to listen—”

  “I’ll deal with you, madam, when I’ve done with your lover,” he snapped.

  “Wait, Adrien—” she began, but could say nothing more. He caught her mercilessly by both shoulders and thrust her back into the room.

  She felt his eyes, hard with fury. She moistened her lips, knowing that she had to plead now and plead eloquently if she was to save Simon. But before she could move or speak, he slammed the door in her face.

  Chapter 13

  SHE’D BEEN INSANE, SHE thought, trying to reach him. She spun from the door, staring into the fire as she felt the chill of fear sweep around her. What was she going to do? She needed time to think, to get a hold upon her fear.

  No! No! What she needed to do was to pray that the door would remain closed upon her forever, that the miracle of an escape would suddenly show itself …