by Claudia Dain
There was no comfort to be taken in the way William was behaving now.
He moved from the door, and she backed up a step and another and another until she finally stood at the foot of the bed. Logic told her that she should not stand so near the bed, that she should move to some far-off corner. Logic also said that any defensive move she might make was hopeless. Logic was a cold ally.
"Your movements are as fluid as the most delicate of waterfalls, Cathryn," William softly complimented. "I discover that I could watch you in motion for hours and not tire of the sight."
She stood rooted to the floor planks at the foot of the bed, all desire to move away stolen by his words.
William smiled. "And now you do not move, but await me at the place where we will lie together. You are a most accommodating wife."
"What need we to lie when composing song? 'Tis a most unusual habit," Cathryn challenged.
"Certain compositions cannot attain their full measure in any other fashion, I assure you." And when she looked at him with brown eyes brimming with suspicion and hostility, he amended, "Nay, I will teach you."
With liquid grace rare in one so muscular, William skimmed through the darkness toward her. She could see him, but it was more that she felt his coming nearness and jerked away instinctively. He had changed toward her; she could feel it. She could not account for it.
His touch featherlight, William caught one be-ribboned plait, catching her as if by a leash. He began to loose the binding, murmuring as he did so.
"Your hair is a rich bounty, Cathryn, with both moon and sun caught and held within its strands. I watch it move as I watch you move, and it seems a thing alive and separate, willingly giving its heavy beauty to generously enhance the fragile loveliness of your slender perfection."
He had released her hair, and now it fell in a heavy and shimmering mass to the back of her knees.
"'Tis hair," she said curtly. "All of God's creations have it in one manner or another."
William smiled and lifted the weight of it in his hands, forcing her to face him.
"He was most generous in His manner with you, lady, and I am grateful and appreciative of His generosity."
His eyes were the color of wood smoke and burned as hot. She would swear an oath before Father Godfrey that his eyes were burning her flesh and causing a licking unease to flit about within her. How else to explain the sudden heat of her skin and the tremors rippling from her throat to her stomach? Something was not right within her; she knew that with certainty. She must escape this room and this man, if only for a time, to gather her composure more firmly about her. She said the first thing that came to mind, thankful that it was the truth.
"Father Godfrey is prepared to say the evening mass in remembrance of the dead. All has been arranged after much planning. I would not miss it."
William slowly released his gentle hold upon her hair, studying the petite features of his wife. What she said was true, and he knew now for whom the mass was to be read; it was no light matter to be cast aside. Her burden for her brother's death was heavy—that he understood full well—but he also understood something he had not even an hour before. His wife at her coldest was Cathryn at her most vulnerable; her rigid composure and lack of emotion were her final defensive barriers.
Cathryn was now as cold as he had ever seen her. Her back was straight, her chin high, her hands folded, and her eyes blank. But within the blank brown she turned to him, he was certain he detected the spark of passion. It was that passion he was intent on fueling.
"Tomorrow will serve just as well," he said gently, and when she made to argue, added, "for the dead have all eternity where one thousand years is as a day."
She could say no more, that much was clear. He was a man set upon sating his own desires, and none knew better than she that a man in such a state was beyond reason or courtesy or compassion. And so she prepared herself for the assault that she knew was fast coming.
He reached again for her and she did not pull away, to her credit. Though his touch was gentleness itself, she could not subdue the shiver that passed down her spine.
"Come, Cathryn, you are chilled. I will build the fire and warm you."
Because of his words, she did not expect his next action. He pulled her full against him and released the strings that held her faded gown together at the back. With a single tug, she stood in but her well-worn linen shift, the length of her golden hair more of a covering than the cloth.
Large hands caressed the skin of her back, skin both hot and cold together, until they wandered to the full mounds where back and leg were joined. These they cupped and stroked, the fingers dipping between them more than once. And all the while, with her downturned face buried in his chest, William breathed his words of seduction.
"Your skin is as the rarest silk from the East; it is so soft beneath my hand, and the color is of a finer and more luminous gold than any man could fashion. You are as late summer grass, golden and moving with effortless grace beneath the waning sun, illuminated as you are touched by its fire."
His hands traced the curve of buttock and hip and waist and shoulder until they rested momentarily beneath the slight weight of her bosom. His mouth brushed her hairline, leaving light kisses at ear, temple, and brow. Cathryn stood unmoving and unmoved.
"When first I saw you as you stood in the great yard of Greneforde," William whispered, dropping kisses upon her face as quickly as spring rain fell upon the earth, "I thought you looked as splendid as a golden candlestick that graces the finest church in any land. I thought you the most beautiful of women, Cathryn."
His mouth teased the corner of hers, and she trembled deep within herself. William felt her trembling.
"You are beautiful, Cathryn." And his mouth possessed hers.
So slowly and so gently he had moved with her, and so still she had been. So wrong he had been about the passion he had seen struggling to life within her, for it was not passion awakening but panic suppressed. His kiss, with his hands upon her breasts, urging her nipples to plump life, caused panic to surge within her.
Wriggling free of his grasp, Cathryn gave him her back and stood facing the fire.
"Men want a wife pleasing to the eye," she said with bile. "That you are so easily pleased gives me cause for thanksgiving, for a man not pleased with his wife's face is a man hard to please in all things."
It was not the reaction that he had been hoping for, and he was no fool to follow a strategy that was a proven failure. His acceptance of her, his desire, his approval, were not enough, it seemed, to warm her heart. He was not persuaded that she had no heart beating within her breast, though he knew that was what she wished him and all others to think. There was hope in that.
Pulling a stool closer to the fire, he made no attempt to answer her. They held their positions for a score of heartbeats, Cathryn staring into the flames, her dark eyes black voids framed by silvery hair, and William sitting with the light caressing his black curls and catching the molten glow of his gray eyes. With one hand, he reached out to clasp her wrist and encourage her onto his lap. She came reluctantly. But she came. William rubbed her back with slow strokes, much as one would stroke a dog. They both calmed with each measured stoke, their eyes upon the fire.
His hand grew warm with the friction and he welcomed it, for he was remembering his time with her last night, and the friction that memory caused within his soul was not welcome. He had done little better than rape her, married or not. It would have done little to endear him to her, especially as she had a history of nightly rape to strangle the natural desire that God gave all women. The thought gave him fresh hope to feed the struggling hope within him; God had designed Cathryn to receive pleasure at her husband's touch, and with God, all things were possible. This night was not over yet.
"It has been a full day that we are one in the sight of God," William observed quietly.
Cathryn had cautiously lowered herself so that she leaned slightly against William's chest
; she found his touch on her skin strangely comforting. His words caused her to jerk upright.
William ignored her physical reaction and continued to rub her back.
"We became one the moment that we pledged our union before God and Father Godfrey, Cathryn," he clarified. "It is our words that bind us; our bodily union only bears the testimony of what our words have accomplished."
She sat silent, unsure of what he expected of her, unsure of where he was leading, as she ever was with le Brouillard.
"You may rest in my guidance on this, wife," he joked, "for Father Godfrey is of the opinion that God's inspired word is for all conversation, not just for the mass, and I have traveled the breadth of a continent with him. He is a talkative man," he finished with a melodramatic sigh.
Cathryn again held her tongue, but she could not stop the smile that tickled the corners of her mouth. Luckily her back was to William, so he would not note her loss of composure.
"We pledged before God and man that we would live out our lives as one, and God takes our pledges very seriously, lady. I am sworn to love you as I love my own body, and this I do," he vowed. "We are one flesh, Cathryn."
And suddenly she knew the purpose of le Brouillard.
"You know," said she with suppressed horror.
He debated lying to her, but he could not, especially with his words of being one so warm upon his lips.
"I have learned more of the history of Greneforde," he said delicately.
Waves of humiliation, worse than the night when he had taken his unvirgin bride, washed over her, and she struggled to be free of him. Before, she had almost taken comfort in his ignorance. He would know she was not virginal, but he would not be privy to the wrenching details that preyed upon her thoughts whenever she relaxed her mental vigilance. Her degradation, in its privacy, was manageable; this knowledge of his was brutal. In some strange manner, it raped her spirit as Lambert had raped her body. William would not release her. He held her firmly upon his lap, his arms closed around her, until she gave up her struggle and sat, resolved to bolt at the first opportunity. Sensing this, William did not relax his hold. No words were spoken as they sat staring at the ever-constant, ever-shifting fire.
William had ceased his stroking with her struggle, and now he fingered a lock of her shining hair. She did not fight him. She was still beneath his hand. It was a small victory, but it cheered him.
"God and king have given you to me, Cathryn," William said with quiet force. "I accept the gift, and gladly."
She did not believe him.
He knew well that she did not.
"You are beautiful," William said feelingly.
"Nay," she finally said. "I am..." The word dirty almost passed her lips.
"Guiltless," William finished.
And in spite of all the heavy weight of the moment, or perhaps because of it, he caused her to see humor when she had so recently believed she never would again.
"Can anyone be both beautiful and guiltless?" Cathryn said with a hesitant smile.
"There is only one, and you are she," he answered with tender solemnity, and kissed the tip of her nose.
He was an odd man, this le Brouillard, and she could not help smiling even as she shook her head. William took no offense but merely tucked her head beneath his chin while he played with the length of her hair. And stealing over her with all the natural silence of clouds in a summer sky was a feeling of comfort and safety. And something she had never thought to experience again: the sense of being loved.
What William felt was mounting arousal.
She was light upon his lap, and the soft weight of her pressed delightfully against him. The firm mounds of her derriere were deliciously full, and he could feel his manhood rising to nestle between them. His hand slid from her hip in a smooth glide to her breast, his fingers seeking her dormant nipple.
Cathryn stiffened immediately.
"You are my wife," he said into her hair. "I desire a proper wedding night."
The warmth she had felt blossoming within, the sense of peace, retreated from the chill that was fast covering her.
"Can we not just stay as we are?" she tried, speaking from her heart. "It is... nice."
His other hand swept up to capture her breast, and her nipples rose in mutiny to her will, eagerly giving themselves into his care.
"I desire more than 'nice.' I desire you, Cathryn."
Her back curled away from his touch, even as her nipples reached for him.
"William, please," she pleaded.
"Do not beg me not to take you; 'twould hurt my pride," he teased, answering the silent call of her distended nipples and rolling them between his thumb and forefinger. "Have you not heard of the Frankish man's expertise in matters of love? We are renowned for it."
"Nay—" she smiled in spite of herself—"I have heard only of their penchant for warfare."
"Night must fall in due course every day," he explained with a straight face, "and a man must needs keep busy."
He had his first taste of victory; Cathryn was accepting his touch and was in the first stages of arousal, though he doubted that she knew it. He stroked her hair as she leaned gently into his hand. And sometimes his hand went just a bit astray and he touched her abdomen or her inner thigh or the roundness of her breast. Her nipples, beneath their linen covering, grew tighter and darker in hue. He urged himself not to hurry.
She followed his hand now with her body, anticipating the location of his next touch and arching to meet it. Her dark eyes still stared into the fire, but they were no longer eyes of suspicion and hostility.
He touched her knee in a light caress that dragged upward, taking the linen with it. She did not protest. The cool air felt good against her heated skin, but there was a prickling uneasiness that was nudging aside the pleasant languor she was feeling. She ought not to feel this way. She should not enjoy his touch, husband though he was. Her control, so familiar a friend, was slipping away from her and she must call it back. But... but... she did not want this to end.
When his fingers brushed against the apex of her thighs, she sighed and opened to him, her eyes closed against the light of the blaze. With one hand he rolled a nipple with gentle roughness, and with the other he traced the portal that would soon admit him. And she did not turn from him, did not fight him; she submitted to each and every touch, murmuring softly in her throat for yet more.
William's fingers were slick with the milk of her readiness. The shift was bunched up under her arms, revealing all of her to his eyes and his touch. His hand upon her breast became as light as mist, and she moaned with a whisper on an expelled breath and arched her back to find him. He came down upon the other breast and she sighed her satisfaction, a shiver of pleasure shaking her. He widened the angle of his thighs, and her thighs, resting atop, followed his unresistingly. She was as open to him as an unmanned tower gate. He circled her tiny erection with his fingertip and she gasped. When he flicked it with all the swiftness of a falcon taking flight, her hands clasped his thighs in a grip to do a warrior proud.
And his own warrior throbbed and burned, eager to bury itself in wetter warmth than the globes of her derriere offered.
Lifting her, William carried her to the bed and laid her upon it. Her dark eyes opened at the movement, looking with dull confusion at her change of position, but not closing her legs against his weight.
"You are near to purring, Cat," William said in a seductive growl as he entered her wetness.
Cathryn went stone cold.
His orgasm came quickly, but it was several moments before he realized that he was alone in his pleasure. After a few more strokes, he stopped, resting between her splayed thighs.
"We but need practice," he offered.
"I have 'practiced' aplenty."
For the second time in this bed, William felt icy rage and profound hurt descend upon him. This time he controlled it. He pulled out of her and she immediately turned away from him.
"But not wit
h me," he said softly.
"Are you truly so different?" she asked, curled into a ball on her side.
"Am I truly not?"
That gave her pause, for had she not noted repeatedly that he was an oddity in her experience?
"You are different," she finally relented.
"Different how?"
This required more thought and greater effort. How to put into words what it was that was so different about William le Brouillard? She did not think his passion for the bath was what he wanted to hear at the moment. His humor? That was a goodly part of it. He caused her to smile at the most unexpected moments and was not so proud that he would not be the source of the joke. But what lay beneath all was his gentleness, displayed so clearly on their bridal bed, and even now, when she had hurt his pride with spitefully spoken words, William treated her with kindness.
"You are gentle," she finally said, "and have a care for me."
"I am your husband, Cathryn, and God has said that I must love you as I love myself. This I do."
Cathryn turned to face him, only his eyes visible in the darkness.
"Is it that simple?"
"I have vowed it at our wedding ceremony," he answered. "I do not give my word lightly."
"Nor do I," she said, bristling.
"I am relieved to hear it," William answered, his teeth shining white as he smiled.
And again, she could not help but smile with him.
"I have sworn to be your wife, William le Brouillard, and I shall be," she affirmed, the resolve unmistakable in her voice.
William considered her for a moment and then asked, "In all ways?"
To her credit, she hesitated for less than a moment before answering his challenge.
"In all ways."
"Without hesitation?"
"Yea."
"With an eager will?" he added, a humorous lilt to his voice.
"You do ask much, le Brouillard," Cathryn retorted.
