Thrill Of The Knight

by Julia Latham

  It wasn’t just lack of sleep overwhelming Elizabeth. She did not know what to think about John, his gentleness, his understanding. She felt unworthy of his attentions, when she herself did not know yet what to offer him in return.

  It seemed like it would have been a simple thing to offer her own hesitant confession. Hadn’t she already wondered if she loved him? Shouldn’t lovemaking have convinced her of that?

  Instead it made her pull back, and John didn’t deserve that, not after everything he had sacrificed for her.

  She was a coward, and she was startled and disappointed by that fact.

  Yet was it cowardly to want to spare him, should her feelings prove less than his? Plenty of people had good marriages without true love.

  But not her parents, she thought with sadness. They’d shared everything together, even death.

  How foolish she was to think that she had loved William. There had been none of this whirlwind of emotion—this fear, this ecstasy, this despair.

  This terror. How would she bear it if something happened to John?

  “Anne?”

  Elizabeth shook herself back to awareness to find Adalia watching her with concern.

  “I’ve called yer name twice now,” the cook said softly, “but I couldn’t hand a full tray to a woman who wasn’t payin’ attention.”

  Elizabeth tried to smile. “Forgive me. My thoughts have been scattered. I’m here now.”

  “’Tis a good thing.” She looked about and whispered, “He will make it all right.”

  Elizabeth smiled brightly. “Who?”

  Adalia only shook her head and handed her the tray.

  Elizabeth walked through the great hall, ignoring the looks of sympathy she was still receiving. What was surprising was how many soldiers watched her, too, and that made her uneasy.

  At the base of the tower, she found Bannaster waiting for her, and now she understood the soldiers’ curiosity.

  Still holding the tray, she curtsied. “A good morning, my lord.”

  “Good morning, Anne.”

  He looked at her so innocently, as if he hadn’t chased her through the corridors of Castle Alderley, trying to bed her.

  But why was he waiting for her?

  “I will accompany you up to visit Lady Elizabeth,” he said.

  “My lord, permit me to go up first, and prepare her for you. She likes her hair styled just so—”

  “Such vanity is unnecessary with me,” he said. “Lady Elizabeth’s beauty is readily apparent. I will follow you up.”

  Neither soldier looked at her as they stepped aside. Bowing her head, Elizabeth stepped past the viscount and preceded him into the tower and up the stairs. She kept expecting him to touch her, and that made her climb so quickly that she was breathless near the top.

  What did he want? Did he mean to hurt Anne by telling her that John had been driven from the castle? Did he wonder if “Lady Elizabeth” had somehow been aiding her betrothed?

  Elizabeth knocked on the door, calling out, as she had before, that Lord Bannaster was accompanying her this day.

  She heard him chuckle, but he said nothing as they waited.

  Anne took a long time coming to the door. Had she received another basket that she needed to hide? Finally, she opened it and stepped back.

  “Good morning, Lord Bannaster,” she said in a soft voice.

  “Aye, it is,” he said agreeably.

  He was too insufferably pleased with himself. Thank goodness Elizabeth had already explained the revelation of John’s true identity to Anne. Yet her maid did not know that John had returned, and was even now hiding in the castle. Perhaps her ignorance was for the best.

  “Might I break my fast with you?” he asked.

  Anne gestured to the table, and they both sat down. Elizabeth silently split the meal onto plates between them.

  When they were eating, Elizabeth retreated to a corner chair and picked up an embroidery hoop to pretend to busy herself.

  Bannaster handed Anne a chunk of bread. “I am sure your maid told you that John Russell had been spying on us all.”

  Spying was an interesting way to put it, but Anne only inclined her head to wait.

  “He is determined to have you, even though the king knows by now that he is unsuitable to become an earl.”

  “And how does the king know that?” Anne asked.

  “My cousin was sending a man to investigate Russell’s castle and finances. It cannot look good for him. Since it is only a matter of time before the contract is invalidated, I have decided that to protect you, it is best if I decline guardianship of you and offer marriage instead.”

  Elizabeth poked herself with a needle and tried not to wince.

  Anne stopped pretending to eat. “You may offer marriage, my lord, but that does not mean—”

  He interrupted her, and his smile seemed forced. “Offer is the wrong word. I intend to marry you, Lady Elizabeth. Russell is a scoundrel unworthy to serve my royal cousin. I will present the king with our marriage. He will void the betrothal contract negotiated by a dead king. What bishop would stand against him?”

  “You cannot force me to wed you,” Anne said.

  Her voice was shaking now. What would happen if she were pushed too hard? Would she betray herself by looking to her lady’s maid for guidance?

  Bannaster smiled. “I won’t have to force you to marry me.”

  Anne rose to her feet. “And I will not let you…touch my person, as if that would convince me to marry you!”

  “I won’t do that either,” Bannaster said calmly. “Russell is in disgrace, and his unworthiness will already be apparent to the king. I have told the parish priest that we wish to be wed on the morrow, and that I have already purchased a special license to be married without the banns being read.”

  He had planned for this a long time, Elizabeth realized in growing fear.

  Bannaster stood up, and Anne just stared at him, her fear apparent.

  “I suggest, my lady, that you prepare yourself for a beautiful ceremony. And stop looking as if I mean to harm you!” he added with distaste.

  After he’d left the room, Elizabeth closed the door behind him and crossed to Anne, who sat still, looking ashen.

  “I won’t let it come to this,” Elizabeth said fiercely.

  “I know you won’t. But I fear for what you will do.”

  “He put it out of my hands,” she answered softly. “I think I might have only one option.”

  “Elizabeth, you’re frightening me.”

  “You don’t need to be frightened anymore.”

  By that night, John had already overheard the news—Bannaster planned to marry Lady Elizabeth on the morrow. A feast had been ordered, and servants moved about too quietly. John had to wait to go to Elizabeth until the sounds of supper overhead faded away.

  He “borrowed” a cloak, and used the hood to hide his face. By now he knew the corridors well, and understood where to hide when he heard someone coming. At last he was able to knock softly on her door, and when she opened it, he slipped inside. Immediately, he drew her into his arms.

  To his surprise, she melted against him, pulling his head down to kiss him. He froze, not sure if he understood what was happening. Even as his cock hardened and his brain grew fuzzy, he broke the kiss.

  “Elizabeth, I heard what Bannaster plans to do. We have to go forward with my plan—”

  She dropped the dressing gown that she was wearing to reveal her nudity. He lost his voice in confusion. He stared at her breasts that fit so perfectly in his hand and mouth, as he already well knew. He swallowed.

  “No words, John,” she whispered. “I’ve been thinking of this all day. I need you.”

  He pulled off his garments and picked her up off the floor as they kissed. She writhed in his arms and moaned, wrapping her legs about his waist. When he carried her to the bed, he turned and sat down with her in his lap, running his hands up her smooth back, gripping her shoulders to arch her aw
ay from him so that he could taste her breasts.

  As their hips pressed even harder together, he groaned as his erection was trapped between them.

  She suddenly straightened up, her arms about his shoulders. “We can make love like this?”

  He nodded. “Think of me as your mount, my little captain.”

  He lay back and watched her expressions of wonder and expanding possibilities as she sat atop him. She slid her body along the length of his erection, and he closed his eyes on a groan. She played that game until he was mindless and trembling. When she licked his nipples, he finally had to stop her.

  “I need you to take me,” he whispered. “Just guide me inside you.”

  When she took him in her hand, he shuddered. As she impaled herself on him in a wet, hot slide into bliss, it took everything he had to control his need to pump inside her.

  While everything else in her life was falling apart, he would give her this one thing to control.

  “This feels wondrous,” she whispered.

  She leaned forward over him, her hands braced on either side. He lifted her hips and pressed her back down again, showing her the movement. As she experimented on her own, he caressed her breasts, molding and tugging, rubbing her nipples between his fingers. He watched the passion that lit her face, the intensity as she struggled for her own climax. He came up on his elbow to kiss her, and then gathered her breast like a ripe fruit to bring into his mouth.

  With every stroke she grew bolder, and he arched his hips to thrust inside her ever deeper. When she found her release, he fell back on the bed, catching her hips to grind her against him as he came.

  When she collapsed across his chest, he held her, fingering her wet hair aside so that he could press kisses to her forehead, her cheek, her ear. His cock still pulsed inside her, urging him to roll her onto her back and take her again.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  Though he wanted to hold her, she moved off of him and seated herself beside him on the bed, using the sheet once again to hide herself from him. That didn’t bode well.

  “So you heard the news,” she said softly.

  He sat up beside her, his anger renewing. “Aye. I will not allow that bastard to usurp my place as your betrothed.”

  “John.”

  “How can he not wait for the king’s decision?”

  “John, please listen to me.”

  When she touched his arm, he finally looked down into her determined face. He didn’t like what he saw there.

  “I’m through fighting this, John.”

  Her quiet voice filled him with confusion.

  “Elizabeth, what are you talking about? Of course we are going to fight this.”

  “Nay, I have been the source of too much pain. My steward died—”

  “Through no fault of yours.”

  She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “Anne has been cruelly imprisoned for over a sennight now.”

  “She wanted to help you!”

  “And you—John, you have risked your life for me over and over. You’re a hunted man now. I cannot live with that.”

  She let out her breath with a shudder, and he realized that the fall of her hair had hidden her tears.

  “It is my choice, Elizabeth. I am meant to marry you.”

  She glared at him wildly. “I cannot risk them killing you!”

  “Elizabeth—”

  “Don’t you see, I thought I could be different from other women, that I could make my own destiny. It’s been a hard lesson, but I’ve learned that I am no better than anyone else. Too many people depend on me, and I couldn’t bear it if anyone were killed defending me. I am going to marry Bannaster.”

  He inhaled quickly, struggling to control his anger. She would not respond to intimidation, but she was intelligent and logical. If only that tactic would work. “Elizabeth, it always comes back to control with you. You’re doing all this to hold onto your power to choose, even if it is to choose a life sentence of misery.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “It is. Even tonight, you took control with sex, in desperation.”

  She shook her head, and though she was crying harder, he hardened himself against it.

  “I am surrendering, don’t you see?” she cried softly.

  “But it’s your choice, your power,” he said. “You’re not allowing me to choose. I have an army at my disposal.”

  “This is the only way to avoid bloodshed, John, can’t you see that? How many more people have to have their lives disrupted so that I can have whatever I want? It’s wrong! Every woman of wealth has to accept that her husband will be chosen for her—even you were chosen for me! Maybe I am exercising my last right to choose, but it is my right and responsibility.”

  “You had already decided on this foolish path before I arrived,” he said in a low, angry voice.

  She bit her lip and nodded.

  “So you used this as a last farewell?”

  She closed her eyes as more tears spilled down her cheeks.

  He dressed quickly, while she kept her back to him and cried softly. He was too angry to sympathize and make this easier on her. She didn’t trust him to work everything out.

  A long time ago, he would have doubted his own abilities, but no more. He knew now that his father had believed in him. God’s Blood, he’d even worded the contract so that John could inherit the chance to marry Elizabeth. His anger faded away as he felt a surge of grief for his dead family, whom he’d never properly mourned.

  He didn’t bother trying to persuade Elizabeth. He knew her too well—she would not change her mind. She thought she was doing the right thing, and who was he to tell her that she did not have the right to choose?

  He was the man who loved her.

  He would not give up on their betrothal, but if he told her that, she would only worry more. There was an army waiting to liberate her, and he would do his best to make sure that few people were hurt.

  He stood over the bed, watching as she curled into a ball of misery. Her crying had stopped, but she quivered with each breath, as if it hurt to live. He gently touched her arm, and she flinched away from him. Distancing herself again, as if she were trying to make things easier on him. She sat up, wiping the last tears from her face, her expression at last stony and impassive.

  She wanted him to hate her, so that he would go on with his life.

  But she loved him; he knew it, although she would not admit it to him, and maybe not to herself. But in trying to save him, she was only proving her devotion.

  “Good-bye, Elizabeth.”

  She finally met his gaze, and with a stubborn lift of her chin, she said, “Good-bye.”

  As Elizabeth watched John walk across the room, she found herself shaking. It began as little tremors, but turned into shudders of pain as he closed the door behind him.

  Though her throat was tight from suppressing her tears, she would not cry again. It was time to grow up, to understand that responsibility and duty were what mattered. She could think of no other way to protect her people—to protect John—except by marrying Bannaster. Putting it off would serve no purpose.

  But she felt as fragile as glass, ready to shatter if anyone touched her. John’s last caress had almost sent her over the edge. She wanted to beg him to take her with him, but in the end, her resolve had held, and she could have some pride in that.

  She knew she loved him; this was a real, adult love, not the girlhood fantasy she’d always imagined she’d wanted. It had to be real, because giving it up hurt like someone had plunged a sword into her heart. Not telling him of her love hurt the worst of all.

  She washed herself with cold water, then dressed with deliberate care, wishing she could wear one of her own gowns. She had to look her best.

  Because she knew what had to be done.

  Chapter 24

  Getting out of the castle proved far easier than getting in. The sun was setting; servants were returning home to their villages
. People streamed out, and soldiers didn’t bother to search them.

  John wore his cloak and hunched his shoulders, walking slower rather than quickly. Soon enough he was out in the open countryside, where it was easy to fade into a copse of trees and away from the villagers.

  He found his horse waiting for him in Rachel’s paddock, and he quietly saddled it and left. As true night was descending, he reached the military encampment. Many fires dotted the meadow. On the outskirts he gave the call of a skylark, and Ogden and Parker appeared on either side of him.

  They led him to where Philip was gnawing the last meat from a bone. He waved it jauntily.

  John put his hands on his hips. “Elizabeth has decided to marry Bannaster.”

  Philip tossed the bone into the fire and rose to his feet. “That might mean taking your babe into the enemy’s household.”

  John frowned.

  Philip put up both hands. “As if I didn’t notice the time you were spending alone with her? I could hardly think you would keep your hands to yourself.”

  John turned to Parker and Ogden. “Summon Sir Jasper and his soldiers immediately. The wedding is supposed to take place in the morning.”

  “You mean to attack?” Philip asked in disbelief. “Lady Elizabeth doesn’t want—”

  Grimly, John said, “For once, she’s not the one in command.”

  Elizabeth knocked on Bannaster’s door—the door to what had been her parents’ suite. It was opened by the man’s squire, who gaped at her, then stepped back so that Bannaster, lounging in a chair near the fire, could see her.

  Bannaster gave her a slow grin. “You can tell your mistress that sending you here to plead for her will not work. The wedding will take place in the morning.”

  “I am here on my own behalf,” she said simply, trusting in the mystery of her words.

  Bannaster cocked his head. Then he nodded at his squire, who stepped out into the corridor, closing the door once Elizabeth had gone inside. She remained still, not even frightened, feeling calm—and in control. That was all she needed to get through each day.

  Bannaster slowly rose to his feet and came toward her. He was not as tall as John, but he was formidable, a man used to power. Instead of stopping before her, he walked about her as if on an inspection.