by Jacobs Delle
“But you have served him faithfully. He forgave even Robert de Mowbray and gave him all of Northumbria as well.”
He shook his head. “Rufus has never trusted de Mowbray. Rufus needs him in Northumbria because no man can do what he can do. But I betrayed the Conqueror to save Joceline. And I fear I would betray Rufus to save you. I refused to say I would not.”
Taking a shaky breath, she reached through the water to him, but he backed away, his face still contorted with his anguish. She hoped he didn’t see the trembling in her hand, but knew her hope was in vain.
The one thing she had always wanted was his love. And it would cost either her life or his.
There must be another way. There must be.
“You are not a traitor,” she said. “You are a man caught in the jaws of Hell. Rufus will see that.”
“I don’t think so.”
Though he pulled away from her, though her hands were shaking, revealing the cowardice in her heart, Leonie forced herself to move in front of him, cutting off his retreat through the water. She had run from danger before, too many times, driven by the fears that had haunted her all her life. She begged God to give her strength. “I am frightened, aye, for you and for me. But there must be another way, and we will find it.”
“Leonie—”
She laid her hands on his chest, then slipped them round him to hold him close as she rested her head on his warm, bare skin. “I will run no more,” she said. “I am here, and alive, only because you have saved me so many times. And I have saved you as well. Alone, against powers we can’t understand, we are nothing. But together we can fight them. We have already won more than once, and for now, we are safe. This is the Summer Land.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
HER GREEN EYES were so achingly beautiful, filled with anguish so like what he felt for her. She knew what a threat he was to her life, yet all her pain was for him. How could anyone be so forgiving? Never had he wanted a woman so much.
“We can’t fight together, my love. It will only make things worse,” he said. “I would have you safe.”
She leaned her head on his chest. “What do you want, really? Do you mean to punish yourself for loving me? Will it make a difference, Philippe? If you loved me less, would it undo the curse?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“If you love me more, will it be more likely to come true? If you hate me tomorrow, will the curse then be undone? For as long as I have known you, I have desired your love, so perhaps it is I who have made this terrible curse, not you.”
“It is not your doing.”
“Aye. For the same reason it is not yours. Always you have been honorable, but an evil being has taken your very honor and turned it against you. We’ll fight him together, for we have never been able to fight him alone. But for now, I beg you, give me what I have so long desired. There is no greater gift than love. We all must die, but I want only to live first. If it is to be, then we cannot stop it, so let us not let our hearts die before it is our time to go.”
Slowly his heart and mind settled on the truth he had so long denied. Now he understood the hag was right: his deception was the very root of all their pain. He would never have encountered Leonie without it, nor been a risk to her, for the Conqueror would have beheaded him on the spot. And deservedly so. But now—
“Give me your love, Philippe. It is the one thing my life must have.”
Her words were as clear as if he had heard them spoken, just as she could know his words if he meant to send them to her. Yet she must not know his other thoughts, for if she did, one way or another she would stop him from what he knew he must do. So tonight he would, instead, share all his love with her, and take hers for himself. He had nothing else of value to give her.
Tomorrow they must find their way back. And a new deception must begin. She didn’t need to know what Rufus would be planning for him this very moment.
“Aye, love, share with me. Give me all your heart.”
As he pulled her into an embrace, the wish for a bed, the perfect bed to make love, flashed into his mind. They were in the water, and then they were not. They had not moved, yet everything around them was changing. The steamy water swirled and lifted around them like walls, and then became walls of mellow golden stone glowing in the soft light of candles. The bed he longed for stretched out, low to the floor, deep with pillows, smooth sheets and warm, russet colored blankets. Too much light, fewer candles, he thought, and then the candles winked out and vanished. Together they fell onto the bed, onto inviting, soft sheets that felt like the finest silk, and all thoughts beyond themselves vanished as their minds and bodies moved with one purpose.
He gasped as her hand slid to encompass his rampantly engorged shaft. She would be his love in truth, if only for one final night.
His beloved’s face was a mask of passion, eyes closed, lips open for a kiss. Here, in this strange Summer Land, he could deny her nothing of himself, no matter what waited for him in that other world that suddenly seemed to be the one that was unreal. There he was her unwilling enemy, but here, her husband and lover, as they had been in truth only once before.
He would offer her all, share this one moment of need. Mayhap it would make all the rest worthwhile. He gave in to his lust and closed off his thoughts, letting the power of his love conquer him.
Her hand slid over his shaft once again, stroking the flared head in such a way as to bring forth a drop of his seed. He groaned without meaning to, bringing an answering response from her lips. Sensuality twanged between them like a bowstring, passing arrows of lust back and forth.
Her rosy mouth parted in desire and he imagined her taking his shaft between those lips. Sucking him, coating him with her hot warmth. Imagination became reality once again as she bent over him, her curly lion’s mane drifting over his nude legs. His flesh trembled as her soft hair danced over it, then as her lips closed around his erection, his blood boiled.
He felt her tongue flick against his heated, turgid flesh and nearly died a little death right then.
“Leonie,” he whispered. He shoved his hands through her hair, finding her scalp and massaging it in time with her licks.
She took him farther down now, swallowing him deep into her heat. He meant to give her the best of him, but she clearly wanted to return the favor.
“Leonie,” he said again. “Let me give you this pleasure, beloved wife.”
She lifted her face. Her skin glowed with exertion. “This is my pleasure, my husband. How I love to feel your hips move, your lusty moans.”
“I can deny you nothing.” He leaned back and watched her delight in the surrender of his body to her Fae-born prowess. No woman had ever pleased him so much as this slim, wayward goddess.
She seemed to anticipate his every desire. When he wanted her to touch him more, she stroked his flanks with those long, wonderful fingers. When he wanted speed, her mouth moved up and down on his shaft, guided and enhanced by her slick fingers. When he wanted to watch her work upon his manly parts, she let him pull her hair back so he could see the way he moved in and out of her soft lips.
“My Leonie,” he said, his words coming out like strung-out moans. “You are all mine. You are everything to me, for eternity.” His shaft tingled, engorged even further, as he spoke the blessed truth. If only eternity would soon come for him, to save her from the curse’s power.
He felt her lips curve into a smile, then her fingers slipped between his legs to grasp his sac.
“Saints in Heaven,” he gasped.
She rotated his tender balls in her palm. All reason fled before heat and lust. He bent his head back and began to thrust his hips in earnest.
His shaft dipped into her mouth. He felt her suck up and down. One hand joined her mouth. Her hot tongue massaged him.
“Harder,” he begged.
She complied, offering him such presumptuous ecstasy that he wondered how he could be outside Heaven at the moment. All his focus
tightened into one shiny coin at the base of his cock.
His vision exploded into gold. His senses gone, he mindlessly pumped his cock between her eager lips. His seed flowed into his wife’s willing mouth.
Her greedy swallows brought him back to himself, and he knew he’d never heard a sweeter sound than her taking his seed with such alacrity.
“Sweet bride, we’ve only just begun.” Gently, he pulled her away. “You are the most beautiful woman who ever lived,” he whispered, reaching for her small, perfect breasts. “We are built so perfectly for one another.”
Her eyes widened when she felt his fingers plucking at her nipples. “I feel that in my womb, sir knight.”
“And lower?”
She smiled naughtily. “I am wet below. Is that to your pleasure?”
Her lusty nature drew him like a bee to a spring flower. “Greatly,” he said. “Do you think I can put a child in you today?”
“Anything is possible, my beloved.”
He grinned at her sexy wink. “Would you want that?”
She let her head fall back. Her hair curled and danced down her slender spine. “Pleasure me, husband. Let the rest come as it may. I can think of nothing but tupping and tupping and tupping again.” She laughed aloud.
He let his fingers drift down, between her breasts, past her navel, down her belly, into her wiry golden curls. “Shall I take you fast, then? I thought to sup from you first.”
When she said nothing to differ, he tugged her forward, pulling her legs until they rested on his shoulders, the nub of her pleasure at his mouth. “Ah, yes, you are a feast.”
She cried out, wriggled away, then her soft flesh was full against him. “Again,” she begged.
This time, just as he suckled her, he found her opening with his finger and pressed in.
“Sweet Lord!”
His wife convulsed around him, sending a thrill of joy through him. He had made her work much harder for his pleasure. But this only meant she was ready for his shaft all the sooner.
She laughed hoarsely, her body still quivering. “You are a beautiful man,” she whispered.
When she had stopped shuddering, he set her gently on the bed, then moved over her.
“Now?” he asked, feeling cool linen underneath his knees.
Her eyes were unfocused. “Now,” she agreed. “Give me all of you.”
He found her channel, then pushed in gently. His lips found hers and then he entered her mouth with his tongue. He meant to thrust it in time with his shaft, but her tongue swirled around his, joining them intimately. She stroked his back with her fingers and her slim legs wrapped around his buttocks, then slid higher until he felt enveloped in warm, scented femininity.
She liked speed, showing him by the undulations of her hips, so he gave it to her. In and out, slick heat surrounding his hard shaft, his buttocks working under her hands, her fingernails digging into his flesh, her little cries of delight urging him on. Indeed, she was a gloriously wanton creature. His previous ejaculation meant he could last longer this time, so after a while he flipped onto his back, just in time to prevent her from a second climax.
“Oh, Philippe,” she protested. “Don’t stop!”
“Ride me, beloved wife,” he said, “as if I were your warhorse.”
“With pleasure, sir,” she said as her hips moved on his broad body with all the grace of a dancer.
Only moments passed before he grasped her hips with his fingers, holding her tightly. “I cannot keep this pace in your tight sleeve without losing myself to you.”
“We are in the Summer Land. Anything can happen here.” She clenched him in her velvet mail, grinning with naughty purpose, and squeezed rhythmically until he lost himself inside her.
He felt her shudders and knew he’d taken her with him. The juices of her pleasure mingled with his seed on his loins. How perfect they were together, and how he wished he could live and have every night be like this.
He slept only as long as it took her to find the will to circle his shaft with her mouth again. If he could break a curse with the power of lovemaking, he was certain they could overcome any obstacle. But it would not come to pass. Aye, Rufus was right—he would give anything to save his dearly beloved. And that would brand him a traitor to any king.
“I have always loved you,” Leonie said, drowsing so close to dreaming she was nearly gone.
“I cannot remember not loving you now,” he replied. “It was a different world, a different time. I will keep you safe. I swear with my life.”
“I know.” Her lazy fingers gave one last attempt to run through the crinkly hair on his chest, then stilled.
He tugged his lady wife close, silently sending up a prayer to God that he hoped she did not hear. Please let me get a child on her in this strange place. Give her hope for a future, since I have none. Make it a good birth, to show another, better man that she can bear strong sons, and help her find a place in this troubled world.
It had been a day of horrors, of salvation, of revelation. He knew now what she had struggled so long to keep secret, and in some strange way it made sense. It was what she was that the demon sorcerer wanted from her, and he wanted her alive, else he would already have killed her. She was right, that demon and Fulk had to be the same. But she was strong, and she was smart, and she would have Rufus and Robert de Mowbray on her side.
So now he knew her secret, that she was Faerie. But one dread puzzle remained:
How had he done the things he had done?
What was he?
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
PATIENCE HAD NEVER been Rufus’s best virtue. He did not, in fact, have any virtues that he could recall, unless it might be that he always did what he believed was best for his realm, regardless of what any others thought. Nor, he mused, did he care what anyone else thought about anything. He was, after all, the king.
But back to the patience, of which he had none. He stood on the ramparts of the unfinished stone curtain wall at Bosewood and frowned out at the horizon, back to the village below the castle, and once again the forests beyond, waiting. He was losing patience even with losing patience.
Something had to be done. But what? The Peregrine had been gone seven days, and no word from him. Rufus had sent out searchers, but no word came back. He had even called on de Mowbray, his most reluctant ally, for the man had a stake in Lady Leonie’s life, and in this he knew this most selfish Black Earl would die to save her if he must. A queer situation, but there it was, and Rufus was not one to fail to use such an opportunity.
But God preserve the saints, a full week! He could not hold Durham and his treasured knight, that bedamned Warrior of God, at bay any longer. He had run out of excuses. And if he let them into Bosewood, they would all too quickly discover Leonie had fled her husband, and the husband had followed her into the wilderness. Rufus had a sense for danger, and that sense told him Durham was not to be trusted, even if the evidence had not confirmed his suspicions.
Seven days! If Fulk had captured Leonie, he would have the weapon he needed. And Philippe would be slaughtered for it. But who knew whether Philippe had not simply turned his horse toward Scotland, abandoning them all? If only he knew more.
Yet he could not make himself believe Philippe would betray him. A man should never hold his family more dear than his king, aye. But how many reasons had his own father had to tell him a king must never have friends?
If he, Rufus, had been merely a knight and not a king, if a lady such as the enticing Lady Leonie had ever loved Rufus, would he not have sacrificed anything, even his fealty to his liege for her?
He laughed cruelly. He knew the answer. He knew no such lady would ever love him, but if she did...aye, he understood Philippe le Peregrine all too well.
If only he knew something.
In the castle bailey he spotted that little blacksmith’s son dashing around like a scurrying little rat. Rufus admired energetic people. Too bad about the boy’s great ambition. His grandfathe
r’s taint had been too great, too awful. The boy was fortunate his father had been allowed to live and become a blacksmith.
But, Rufus thought, as he rubbed his newly bristling chin, the boy was a bit like the crone. He knew things. Rufus had allowed the boy to come with his brother to Bosewood just for that purpose. He was a born snoop.
He nodded, as if somehow he must confirm his own thought. “Boy!” he shouted down to the bailey.
The boy skidded to a halt and turned to stare up at the rampart, then remembered to bow. “Aye, Sire?”
Rufus beckoned with a hand that circled in the air. The boy ran to the steps and climbed to the rampart, then stopped short and fell to his knees. Ah, his manners had improved.
“Up,” Rufus said, knowing the growl of impatience would probably be mistaken for royal displeasure. He motioned for the boy to join him in his quest for the invisible out there somewhere.
“You know something,” Rufus said, now breaking eye contact.
“Nay, Beau Sire,” the boy replied. “I’m just the blacksmith’s brother.”
“Brother to one, son to another. I know your story, boy. And I know the Lady Leonie has a special interest in you. If anyone knows what happened to her, you would.”
He watched the boy’s gaze shift to either side so quickly a less astute observer would have missed it. “Aye, I see I am right. Well, then, let me tell you what I know. Do you even know who the lady’s mother was? Not her name, but what she was?”
The boy’s expression changed to an odd frown with one eyebrow rising rather high.
“I see you don’t,” Rufus said. “Tell me then, does the lady have a strange way of disappearing, haps as if she has walked through a wall?”
This time the eyes widened. Fear was what Rufus saw now. But fear for what?
