“At least he had you to comfort him,” he said, voicing what he was certain was a truth.
“I did my best, but sometimes it was so hard.”
For the first time since he had watched his friend die, he spoke aloud of his days of despair, when it seemed death would be a blessed relief. “Sometimes I wanted to kill Osric myself to end his misery, and he was my best friend, one of the finest, truest men I have ever known. His death, though—his death was something no man should suffer.”
“You were with him at the end?”
He did not mind her questions, for he heard her gentle concern. She was not like others, who merely sought to gratify their morbid curiosity. “Yes. He died in my arms.”
“I’m sure he was eased by your presence, as I have been.”
No one had ever said such a thing to him, and he was deeply gratified. “I am pleased beyond measure to hear that, my lady. But I dared not come near you, although I wanted to very much.”
“I did not need you by my side. I could feel your sympathy every time you looked at me, and even when you were not there.”
“I wish I could have done more.”
“It was enough,” she murmured.
His heart took wing as a pride such as he had never felt filled him. He could think of no words to express his feelings, nor did he wish to end this moment of blissful contentment.
They passed through a short band of forest, dark with shadows. The only sound was the jingle of their harness, the wind in the trees and Auberan, quietly chattering to Isabelle behind them.
When they came to a brighter part of the forest, he noted Allis’s expression and sought to bring her out of her mournful reverie. “Sir Auberan seems very taken with your sister.”
Allis slid him a wry, sidelong glance. “So he does. Poor fellow. He’s bound to be disappointed.”
“She doesn’t seem to dislike him.”
“It isn’t so much that she doesn’t like Auberan as that there is someone else.” Her expression told him that she meant him.
“I was hoping we wouldn’t have to speak of this, that her interest would wane.”
“I know you haven’t encouraged her at all, but she is young and impressionable and very firm in her opinions. They are slow to change.”
“Does she know?” He gave Allis a significant look, as if to add about us?
“No, not yet. I would rather wait until things are more settled.”
He nodded. How Isabelle might feel then, he could guess, and he couldn’t blame Allis for wanting to delay that confrontation for a little while.
The forest ended, and the road continued through a large meadow. Hills rose gently on either side, and on the other side of the meadow, bushes and willows indicated the meandering river. With the sun shining, it was like being in a warm bowl of light, the soft scents of grass and greenery surrounding him. Nearby, some grazing sheep ran a short distance off as they approached, just as the girls around the village well would scurry away when he and a group of his young friends would saunter past in the days of his youth. Unlike the sheep, though, the girls would giggle and watch them pass, and the boys would swagger a little more, feeling very well pleased with themselves.
He smiled at the memory and glanced at the woman beside him. Doubtless she would not have giggled and run away. He could easily imagine a younger version of Allis standing her ground by the well and regarding them with one brow cocked in challenge, as if to say, “You boys will have to do more than that to impress me.”
By God, he would have tried, in the days of his youth, when all the world seemed as young and eager as he.
No, he shouldn’t have met Allis then, when he was as arrogant as Auberan, and vain of his battle skills. Better to meet her now, when he had lost his youthful arrogance, and could appreciate all that she was, and all that she had to bestow upon the man lucky enough to win her love.
Demetrius lifted his head and snorted, pulling him from his reflections. “He wants to run,” he translated.
“Let’s all race to the river!” Edmond cried. “I’ll win!”
Before he could respond, Edmond kicked his heels and Firebrand leaped forward, sending the bleating sheep nearest them dashing away in alarm.
“I’m not letting Edmond win!” Isabelle cried, and she spurred her horse to a gallop.
Auberan rushed by on his stallion. The young nobleman looked sick, but determined.
Connor turned to Allis, whose expression he couldn’t read. “Riding hard won’t further injure my shoulder, will it?”
“No, if you can really ride mostly with your knees.”
Anxious to feel the wind in his face himself, he said, “My lady, I have ridden into a horde of infidels loaded down with lance and shield and armor, so have no worries about that.”
“Nevertheless,” she mused aloud, a pensive expression on her face, “you may want to reconsider. It might be better to rest. In the forest. With me.”
Suddenly, any desire Connor had for the wind rushing past his face completely disappeared, vanquished by a different kind of desire. But despite his heart hammering in his chest and the hunger to be with her surging through him, his conscience urged caution. “Will we not be missed?”
“When they reach the river and realize we are not there, they will come back. We will only be alone a little while.”
“Long enough to start some tongues wagging, particularly Auberan’s. He looks the sort to gossip.”
“I’ll take that risk.” She cocked her head to regard him, her eyes shining with merriment and something more that made the blood throb through his body. “Will you, my bold, brave knight?”
His conscience instantly muffled, he carefully slid from Demetrius’s back. “I’ll have to find a stump or fallen log to mount again,” he noted, leading Demetrius toward her. “And no gallop for my destrier, poor fellow.”
“If you would rather ride…”
He took her hand in his and gloried in that simple action as he led her into the forest. “Not I, my lady, not I. I’ll give him his head tomorrow morning, for as long as he likes. He can wait that long. As I told Edmond, he is a patient beast.”
She laughed softly, and the sound added to his pleasure, just as holding her hand made him happy. They followed a narrow path, probably used by hunters. The light dimmed, and the odor of damp foliage and dead leaves beneath their feet scented the air around them. It was as if they were leaving the cares of the world behind them and entering a forest of enchantment, where everything and anything was possible.
At last, when they had gone far enough to be invisible from the meadow, he draped Demetrius’s reins over a bush, then tugged the mare’s reins from Allis’s hand and likewise looped them over the bush. His body warmed with anticipation as he faced her and pulled her into his arms. “I must confess, my lady, I am not nearly so patient.”
She thrilled to hear his words, and even more to be alone with him in the quiet stillness of the wood. As he embraced her with his strong and powerful arms, a rush of heady excitement shot through her. She had thought merely to enjoy a morning’s ride in his company, until Edmond galloped off, followed by the others. Then the temptation to be alone with him had proved too great to resist, especially after the conversation they had shared about the sad death of his friend. He tried so hard to hide his pain, despite what he had already revealed of his troubled past, but now she knew him well enough to see beyond his words to the lasting sorrow deep in his eyes and to hear the hidden anguish in his voice.
He kissed her deeply, tenderly, passionately. Heat tripped along every fiber of her body as she eagerly responded, wrapping her arms about him as if she never wanted to let go. She had dreamed of being in his embrace so often these past few days, when the loneliness and heartache of her father’s loss and the strain of offering continual comfort to her brother and sister had threatened to overwhelm her. Then, she would remember every look and touch, every tender moment and word, and be comforted herself.
As his firm, soft lips captured hers and teased forth her burgeoning desire, she knew she wanted to be loved and cherished by this man who had suffered and grown strong, who could offer her the solace and strength she so desperately craved. With whom she did not have to hide her fears, and who gave her freedom from them.
She parted her lips for him, then boldly thrust her tongue inside the warmth of his mouth, offering him an intimacy she had not known existed until he came into her life. Moaning softly, she relaxed against his hard, lean body, needing his strength as passion made her limbs soft. The place between her thighs swelled, like a rose about to blossom, hinting at the natural end of this growing, desperate hunger, an end she would share with him if not now, in some glorious future. Or perhaps now, for the titillating tension was too exquisite to ignore, or fight.
With fevered hands she reached inside his tunic, touching the hot flesh of his muscled chest. His right arm about her, his left slowly slid up her bodice to cup her breast. Through her plain woolen gown his thumb lightly stroked her nipple, sending wave after delicious wave of sensation through her. Her nipples tightened, and a low murmur of longing rose in her throat. She wanted to be naked, or clad only in her silk shift which grazed her body like his touch.
“Oh, sweet Allis,” he murmured as his lips traveled from her mouth along her jaw.
When she had first seen him, he had seemed a savage, a primitive outsider who had no place in her ordered world. As he grabbed her scarf and tore both it and her barbette off, he seemed again savage, primitive in his passion. But now she gladly fled her closed and constrained world where she was imprisoned, and as she embraced him, so she embraced her own primal urges, free to express all the savage need he roused in her. He was man, she was woman, and here in the forest, they were in their own paradise, alone and apart from the world, at liberty to love.
Her hair, loose and free, tumbled about her shoulders. “Oh, God, your hair,” he whispered into her ear. “I love your hair. I love your eyes. I love everything about you, my love. My love.”
She arched back, giving herself more fully to him, letting him know she was his to love. His knee slipped between her legs and instinctively she pushed against it, driving her pelvis forward. She reveled in the incredible sensation of pleasure and desire that created. His arousal pressed against her and that inflamed her even more. Determined to share this, to ensure that he felt all that she did, she brought her hand around to stroke him.
His breath caught in his throat as he took hold of her hand and held it still. “Allis?”
Panting, restless, not wanting to stop, she looked up into his desire-darkened eyes.
“I want you, Allis, but not now. Not here,” he murmured, letting go. He was as aroused as she, yet there was something else lurking in his dark eyes, a caution that she did not share.
Her body grew warm not with passion, but with the sudden realization that he possessed more self-control than she, that he could have done with her whatever he wished, and she would not—could not—have refused.
But then he said, “I want more time to love you the first time as you deserve to be loved, and in the finest, plumpest featherbed in all England.”
Her dread disappeared. He was not stopping to force her to see that he was more in command than she, but only to voice a sincere wish.
His brow furrowed. “I should not presume—”
“That I want you?” Feeling suddenly and wonderfully free, she boldly caressed him again. “Bed or no bed, I am already yours forever, Connor.” Emboldened, she grabbed his tunic and tugged him to her. “Your kisses are very potent, sir knight, and I would have more of them.”
His smile began in his deep brown eyes, then encompassed the rest of his face. “Would you, my lady?”
“Indeed.” She leaned against him, wanton and demanding. “Shall I beg?”
“Never.” He kissed her tenderly, but she felt the underlying passion waiting for liberation. “I will gladly give you all the kisses you desire.”
He brought his lips to hers for another long, leisurely kiss, as if they had no cares in the world save pleasing each other, and she once again caressed the evidence of his desire.
“Stop that, you brazen wench. We have not the time,” he growled as he slowly lifted her hand away. Still holding her hand, he grinned with wry delight. “O’r annwyl, I sound just like Caradoc. Perhaps he is frustrated, too, and that’s why he sounds so annoyed all the time.”
“Are you frustrated?”
“My lady, you have no idea.”
She ran her fingertips along his length. “I believe I do.”
“If you do not stop this touching, it may be most humiliating when the others return.” He held her hand in place, as if daring her to continue. A heady mixture of excitement and daring possessed her that proved irresistible. “How so, sir?”
His eyes dark with unassuaged longing, he raised her hand to his lips. “I am not about to explain.”
He didn’t immediately kiss the back of her hand. Instead, his tongue flicked out and tickled the tender flesh between her fingers, jolting her to the soles of her feet. “By the saints!”
“Not the place I would most like to do that,” he remarked with another devilish grin that seemed to say two could play her arousing little game.
So they could. She grabbed his right hand. Slowly and deliberately, not taking her gaze from his startled and flushed face so she could watch his reaction, she sucked his forefinger into her mouth.
His eyes widened and his color deepened. “Where did you learn to do that?”
Triumphant and delighted, she let go. “Brother Jonathan.”
“Brother Jonathan?”
She wrapped her arms about his neck. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Thanks be to heaven!” His arm circled her waist and held her wonderfully close. “I was beginning to think I was totally mistaken in the man.”
“He’s a priest!”
Connor’s expression grew serious. “Allis, I met some supposedly holy men in my travels whose behavior would shock you to the core of your being. I was fairly certain Brother Jonathan wasn’t of that ilk until you said that.”
She took his hand again and kissed his fingertips one by one. “Brother Jonathan says a person’s fingers are very sensitive.”
His chest rose and fell rapidly. “He’s right about that.”
“He taught me to use my sense of touch when it came to healing. Remember how I felt your wound in the tent?”
“Yes,” he replied in what was more a sigh than a word.
Seeing how her actions affected him, a new and awesome sense of power came over her. She suddenly felt that with just the touch of her lips on his body, she could be as powerful as any man. And as he became tenser and tenser, as her power seemed to increase, she realized that this incredible power made them equals.
The tree branches rustled above them as they kissed again, their mouths joining in a slow, languid union. Parting their lips by silent mutual consent, their tongues entwined sinuously in a lithe, lazy dance.
“Alllliiissss! Sir Cooooonnor!”
Edmond’s voice seemed to come from very far away, outside the walls of their momentary paradise. Nevertheless, their time alone was obviously at an end, and she reluctantly withdrew from Connor’s arms. “Edmond must have decided to race back, too.” She raised her voice. “We’re coming!”
She leaned her head against his chest. “Alas, I fear we must go back.”
His expression told her he was as sorry about this as she. “Alas, you’re right.”
She began to put her hair back under her scarf, but as she did, Connor caught a stray lock and pressed it to his lips. “I wish you would wear your hair loose.”
“I couldn’t start to do that. What explanation would I give? That Sir Connor of Llanstephan prefers it that way?”
He leaned forward and kissed the side of her neck. “No, I suppose you couldn’t do that.”
Sighing wit
h both pleasure and frustration, she twisted away. “At least, not yet,” she said as she attached the barbette.
That finished, she tilted her head to study him. “Would you cut your hair if I asked you to?”
“Only if you asked me to.” He frowned. “Are you going to ask me to?”
She studied him another moment. “I think not. I think I prefer you to look like a savage.”
He crossed his arms. “A savage? Is that how I appear to you?”
Unable to resist the tantalizing temptation, she ran her hands along his upper arms, her fingers gently gliding over the rise of his muscles. “To me, and to a lot of other people, and I would not be at all surprised to learn you know that and count upon it.”
“Whatever for?” he demanded with an indignation that was completely undercut by the blush creeping over his cheeks.
She tried not to show how much that blush, and the masculine vulnerability it revealed, delighted her. “To frighten them, of course.”
All pretense of annoyance fled as he smiled with sly devilment and tugged her close again. “Does it work?”
“I must say, it certainly makes you seem quite…virile,” she admitted as she wound her arms about his neck and looked up into his dark eyes, which twinkled with merriment.
“Then I will not be cutting it off?”
She ran her hand through his wavy locks. “Not for my sake, anyway.”
He began to nuzzle her neck, moving with delicious little nibbles toward her ear as her whole body shivered with anticipation and excitement. “You know, I fear I may soon have no secrets from you, my lady.” He held her even tighter. “Are you cold?”
“Are you lost?” Edmond called out.
With even more reluctance, she backed out of Connor’s wonderful embrace.
“No!” she shouted. She gave him a mischievous look. “No, I’m not lost, and when you hold me, I am anything but cold.” She went to the shrub and picked up her horse’s rein. “Alas, sir knight, we must return to the others.”
The Maiden and Her Knight Page 19
