Book Read Free

LordoftheHunt

Page 12

by Anonymous Author


  He wrapped her tightly against his body, sealed his mouth on hers, and drank in the small cry she made. Her lips were soft and full, her tongue warm and slick across his.

  Her breast filled his hand and he slid his fingertips on the smooth material, learning her shape as his tongue learned the rich, sweet taste of her mouth.

  Her breath became his, her taste his—a mix of the wine he’d drunk and an apple she’d eaten. It was heady, the mingling of the tastes on his tongue and lips, a potion more intoxicating than any brew of man.

  When he plucked her nipple between his fingertips, her gasp sucked his breath from his mouth and sent a rush of blood to his groin. He plucked her again as if taking a small berry from a bush. She moaned.

  He abruptly released her, setting her aside.

  As if a wind blew through the tent she swayed in place.

  “Remember, Joan. For every penny, a kiss.”

  He hooked her arm and led her to the tent entrance, handed her out. “Please escort Mistress Joan to her cottage. Be sure she gets there without harm.”

  Joan followed the guard, blind and deaf to her surroundings. The air was heavy and at the same time misty; all sounds muffled.

  When the guard had bowed and turned away, she raced to the kennels and, heedless of the boys who slept on the straw or the fineness of her gown, she clambered over the wooden barricade that kept the dogs in separate stalls. She threw herself into the center of the running hounds and buried her face against Paul’s warm coat.

  He nuzzled her hair and whimpered, but she just held him tightly and closed her eyes.

  But as she knelt there, she still felt Quintin’s palm on her breast, could taste him, feel his heartbeat. “Oh Paul, this will never do. He’s destined for Mathilda. And what man courts one woman whilst kissing another?.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Garlands of vines looped the stone archway of the bridge over the river, marking the way to the village. Their leaves were glossy green in the autumn sunlight. Torches were set at intervals along the road, though they would not be lighted until night. Music and laughter drew one to the colorful stalls even if one was feeling as morose and heavy-headed as Hugh was.

  The air was balmy, the sky bright blue as carts carried ladies and men from the keep to the fair—but not Mathilda.

  She rode at his side, her yellow gown slapping his legs. Every time he edged away, she maneuvered her horse closer.

  A groom ran to take their reins when they reached the fair grounds, on the outskirts of the village. Mathilda immediately looped her arm in his and smiled up at him.

  He glared at her. “Do not ask my opinion on anything.”

  “What of my gown?” She smoothed a wrinkle only she could see.

  “Yellow makes you look…yellowish.”

  She frowned. “Then I shall look for material fit to make a better one. Have you a color you prefer?”

  Hugh pursed his lips. “I like brown. Mud brown.”

  Two hours later, they had two servants trailing them with armloads of fabric and trim. None of it was brown.

  “What do you think of—” she asked for the twelfth time.

  “I have no opinion on thread, my lady.” Hugh yawned, scratched his chin, and studied the stalls of the Ravenswood fair. There were far too many, all stuffed with goods to appeal to ladies or wealthy suitors.

  Mathilda held a small wooden stick with thread wrapped around it against her breast. “I think this one will look well on this gown—perhaps some trim will make me look less jaundiced. Send all of it to the keep.” She made a sign to the woman who managed the stall, and tugged Hugh along. “You need to be more conversant of a woman’s needs.”

  “Adam Quintin would know about such matters.”

  “Would he? I shall have to remember to invite him next time.” She looked up at him. “Tell me, Hugh, why aren’t you a candidate for my hand?”

  “Good lord, a man can only have so many castles. The de Colevilles have an even dozen. One more would be excessive, wouldn’t it? Like taking more deer than one needs to stave off hunger. Anything beyond that is gluttony.”

  “I see. Is that your opinion or the king’s?”

  “The king’s. I believe William Marshal said to steer clear of you the last time I saw him.” It was always nice to have someone on whom to blame your actions, Hugh thought.

  “And you agreed without a fight?”

  “Fight? Why would I fight over something with which I am in complete agreement. A man, if he is canny, knows how far he can extend himself. The de Colevilles are on the verge of overextending themselves.”

  “I see.”

  She smiled and for a moment, he could only stare. Then he frowned. She was naught but a combination of pleasing features. A gift from her ancestors.

  Their progress through the fair was interrupted often by men who vied for her attention. They gave her gifts. They offered her sweetmeats, spices, drinks.

  More servants trailed them with useless fripperies.

  Hugh steered her toward their horses. “May I suggest a short rest? You must be exhausted as am I.”

  To his utter surprise, she made no demur. He helped her up into the saddle and would have turned away, but she extended her foot and prodded him on the shoulder. “I’m not done with you, Hugh de Coleville, man with too many castles.”

  “Not done with me?” He rubbed the spot she’d tapped.

  “Follow, please.” She kicked her palfrey and in a swirl of flowing yellow skirts, cantered up the path.

  Hugh mounted up and followed at a more leisurely pace, his stomach unsettled. “I must have eaten something that disagreed with me,” he said to his horse, patting his neck. “I’ll be in the privy as much as Adam if I don’t watch it.”

  Near the stable, Hugh dismounted and tossed the reins to a groom. He jerked his gloves off; his hands were suddenly sweaty.

  Mathilda stood on the bottom step of the keep, a smile on her face. “Come, Hugh.” She clapped her hands and then turned away.

  He followed. She dashed up the steps, across the hall, and through an arch. No suitors turned to watch her progress, for most were still in the village, unaware the quarry had escaped.

  The arch led to the lower levels. They were dark, chilly, and silent. They smelled of harvest, sacks of grain, racks of apples, and bunches of hanging herbs.

  Where had she gone? His mouth was dry. He licked his lips. “My lady?” he said softly.

  “Hugh.” He heard her whisper from his right.

  He entered a storage room filled with sacks of grain. She was a swirl of sunlight in the dim chamber. He feigned a yawn.

  “You are bored, my lord?” She pulled off her headcovering and slowly shook out her hair. The gauzy veil drifted to the ground. She put her hands to her laces.

  “What are you doing?” He took a step back, suddenly feeling as if he were a stag being forced down a path to his doom.

  Her laces made a hissing sound as she whipped them open. “I’m seducing you.”

  “Why?” He licked his lips again as she peeled her overgown off her shoulders, then down her hips to pool at her feet. She stepped daintily out of the golden pile as if stepping from her bath. The vision caused his whole body to clench. His palms were sweaty again. “Why?” he repeated.

  She sighed and bent down. She lifted her hem and drew her loose linen gown up her body, revealing her legs, hips, belly, and breasts in a slow journey that boiled his blood.

  “You are very stupid, Hugh, if you cannot figure it out. Think of me as one of your clever riddles.”

  He clenched and unclenched his fists. She dropped the gown to the floor.

  “Do you like what you see?” she asked, hands at her side.

  He shrugged. “You’re a bit plump in the middle.”

  She skimmed her fingers across her smooth belly and laughed. It was a sound that ran like a whip across his senses. “Yellowish and fat?”

  “This is madness,” he said. But in three s
trides he was on her. He scooped her into his arms and thrust her back onto the feed sacks. “No one seduces me.”

  He covered her face with kisses, finally claimed her mouth, while he held her captive against the rough grain sacks. She held his head and moaned, arching against him.

  He kissed down the center of her body, learned the valley of her breasts, the mound of her belly, the silky hair and skin between her thighs. She gripped his hair and cried out as he kissed her most intimate places. Then she planted her feet on his shoulders and arched again and again to his ministrations, finally crying out in ecstasy.

  Just as suddenly, she fell still. Her arms dropped away, her eyes closed. Hugh backed up, gently placing her legs down over the edge of the sacks. He ran a hand over his face and took several deep breaths. She was a golden angel.

  “What have I done?” he said.

  Her eyes opened. She smiled at him. “You have granted my second deepest desire.”

  A blade of hot lust twisted his insides. “Second?”

  Then she sat up and put out her arms. “Come to me, Hugh.”

  His legs seemed to belong to someone else as he granted her wish. She embraced him, stroking her hands up and down his back. Then she tugged up his tunic and reached beneath the cloth for the lacings at his waist. Her fingertips skimmed his hard cock. “This is the first,” she whispered.

  He gripped her wrists and shook his head. “We cannot do this. I’m Adam Quintin’s friend. I’ll have trouble enough facing him with what little—”

  “Little?” She flexed her wrists and tried to jerk from his hold.

  “Aye. We cannot compound what has surely been naught but a momentary madness.”

  She stared at him, her eyes great, luminous pools in the half-light. “It is madness to think we can forget this moment. I have wanted this since last we met at court. It is madness to think we can go back to what was.”

  He pulled away from her and adjusted his clothing. “I can go back. When I walk away. It is forgotten. You are forgotten.”

  She slipped off the grain sacks. She walked past him to her clothing. “Then walk away, Hugh de Coleville, walk away.”

  The air seemed heavy and close as he strode back through the storerooms toward the steps up to the hall. With some luck, no one had seen them descend here. With any luck he could put these moments from his mind.

  He hadn’t really cheated his friend of anything. After all, they’d not had intercourse. What they’d done didn’t really count.

  * * * * *

  Adam did as the other suitors did, watched Mathilda wander the fair with Hugh. When she rode off with him, Adam heaved a sigh of relief that he need not worry another would woo her away.

  He circled the fair grounds. At one wooden board, several of his men drank with Roger’s. They looked reasonably companionable. He passed a string of horses.

  Francis de Coucy was leaving the temporary stable, but did not ride for the castle. He wheeled his horse and in moments, had entered the forest by a deer path.

  “Now where the devil is he going?” Adam grabbed his reins and tossed a coin to the man who watched the beasts.

  He followed Francis along the cool, leafy path. He knew it from boyhood. Francis proved easy to follow.

  Eventually, to Adam’s consternation, Francis circled back to an old verderer’s cottage, now rebuilt into a more substantial building. The lodge was within the trees, not a stone’s throw from the village. Francis could have walked here in but a few minutes. Why the evasion?

  Adam pulled up his horse and looped the reins over a low branch. He continued to the cottage on foot. He circled the building, keeping to the trees. Francis’ mount stood tethered behind the lodge. Adam dropped to a crouch and used a deadfall to move to a shuttered window in the front.

  A murmur of voices told him Francis had met someone. Adam searched around for cover so he could get close enough to hear the conversation.

  There was nothing.

  * * * * *

  Joan folded the rich bronze gown into a small bundle and took it to Edwina at the wash house. She saw her friend laboring under a great armload of wood. “Edwina! You’ll hurt yourself. Let me.” She cast her bundle to the floor and took the wood. “Where’s Del?”

  Edwina puffed out a long breath and dusted off her hands. “I cannot find the man. He must be at the fair and the devil take him for leaving me with this.” She shot out a hand to the mounds of linens to be washed. Many women stirred boiling pots and the shed was thick with steam, but there was only one other man to keep the fires burning. “I’ll not ask the women to carry wood if I’m not willin’ to do so myself.”

  Without a word, Joan fed the fires beneath several pots nodding to each of the laundresses. When the fuel pile was exhausted, she went with Edwina to the mountain of wood behind the shed. As she picked up a piece of wood it slipped from her fingers, scraping the skin and leaving a sliver protruding from her palm.

  Edwina pulled her to the wood pile and propped her ample buttocks on a stump, while Joan sat on another beside her. They had often sat thusly on a fine evening, enjoying the ambient warmth of the laundry shed, and talking of the day. As Edwina worked at the sliver, Joan’s eyes welled with tears.

  One dropped on her skirt.

  “Joan! Ye’re crying! What ails ye?” Edwina hugged her hard to her soft bosom.

  “I’m not crying.” Joan dashed away a tear. “My hand hurts.”

  “Ye’ve been bitten by dogs, fallen out of trees, skinned yer knees on yonder bailey cobbles, and ne’er shed a tear. Now, what is it?”

  Joan watched her friend probe the remaining specks from her palm. Had she come to this place to ask Edwina’s advice? Or had she come for the comfort of Edwina’s simple presence whilst the more complicated personages roamed the fair?

  “It seems I’ve made a confusion of my life,” Joan finally said. “And if I weep, it is in wont of a friend.”

  Edwina picked out the last speck of the sliver and patted Joan’s hand. “Ye’ll always have a friend here. There’s those who love ye right under yer nose. They’re not in the keep, I fear, only here.”

  Joan looked up at the great towers of Ravenswood. “She was my friend at one time, was she not?”

  “She was only eight when ye arrived. She followed ye ever’where like a pup. ‘Twas she who worshipped ye then. She’s just grown enamored of her own importance. And it may be she is a touch jealous of ye.”

  “Jealous?”

  “Aye.” Edwina stood up and plucked her sweat-dampened gown from her breasts, fanning herself in the mild autumn air. “Ye took the young lord’s attentions. Ye drew that other one…the one that wrestled Quintin.”

  “De Harcourt,” Joan said softly.

  “Aye. And spineless she was to let her father banish ye from the hall. We all expected she would make Lord Guy see reason, but she dint.”

  The hurt of Mathilda’s rejection felt like a sliver in her heart. “I cannot sit here wallowing in self-pity. Let me fetch some more wood for you.”

  “I’ll see to it,” said the man who worked with Del.

  “Aye, be off and buy yerself a few ribbons at the fair.”

  “I’ve no desire for ribbons. I have one.”

  “One! Our lady must ‘ave a dozen, a score, even.” Edwina dug in her bosom and pulled out a small purse suspended about her neck. She shook out a penny. “Buy yerself a scarlet ribbon.”

  Joan smiled. “I’ll buy us each a scarlet ribbon.” She kissed the laundress on her round cheeks. “And I’ll see if Ivo has aught he needs whilst I’m about it.”

  * * * * *

  Adam waited less than a quarter hour before the lodge door banged open. He flattened himself in the grass. The red-haired Oswald strode out of the cottage, trailed by Francis. For one brief moment, Adam thought Oswald’s gaze drifted over him, and he sucked in his breath and willed himself as still as a hare gone to ground.

  But Oswald parted with de Coucy without a word. Each took a d
ifferent direction, neither heading for the castle.

  “Devil take it,” Adam swore. “I cannot follow two of them. Where is a wandering minstrel when I need him?”

  He headed after Oswald, but could not say why he chose him over Francis. The man headed along toward the defile the stag had followed on the hunt; then to Adam’s consternation, he disappeared.

  Adam used what he knew of tracking game to search for a sign of the man, but he seemed to have vanished—or become aware someone was on his trail.

  The day was waning. Adam realized he was miles from the keep and needed to make an appearance or he would be missed. It would not do to have his absence noted again—especially by Mathilda, who might decide he’d spent the day gaming or whoring rather than in a privy.

  He found the narrow stream that coursed the defile and followed it. Robert and he had once become lost in these woods. Adam whistled just as he had in those days to cheer his brother.

  “Adrian!”

  Adam started and wheeled around. Nat Swan stood at a ford, a lymer at his side.

  “Nat?”

  “Adrian? Is it not you?” Nat pursed his lips and finished the ditty Adam had whistled.

  Adam stepped into deeper shadow. “I am Adam Quintin. You mistake me.”

  A confused look crossed Nat’s face, and he tugged on the dog’s leash. The lymer whined. “A boy once whistled just so. Adrian. Adrian de Marle.”

  “You’ve made a mistake.” Adam turned, and with rapid strides, headed up the narrow gully.

  The sun was low in the sky when Adam stabled his mount. He cursed his ill luck and Nat’s memory. Resigned to meeting any suggestion he was any man but Adam Quintin square in the face, he walked boldly from the bailey and down the hill toward the colorful stalls and throngs of people.

  A man walked from torch to torch, lighting them for those who would remain at the fair after night fell.

  Adam practiced possible responses if Nat called him Adrian again. He recognized a figure hurrying up the hill at a run. Her hair was down, her skirts about her knees. Joan.

 

‹ Prev