Honor Bound

by C. J. Archer

  She reached down with her other hand to cup him but he pulled it away. "Patience, my angel," he murmured. "It’s been a long time and I don’t want this to end yet."

  But she didn’t want to be patient. She wanted him inside her now before she changed her mind and ended the delicious, foolish liaison. She let go of him and lifted her skirts. He helped her bunch them up around her hips then he reached down and rubbed her until she melted like butter. She groaned, clinging to him, wanting him inside her yet not wanting him to stop.

  "More," she managed to whisper into his doublet. The smell of the fine woolen cloth and their mingled desire filled her nostrils, heightened her need for him. And she needed him right now because six years without his nimble fingers, his sensual touch, his hardness, was too long.

  He thrust a finger inside her.

  Oh! She sank her teeth into his doublet as her blood surged, pulsing through her like a flood.

  He inserted a second finger. She gasped and ground down onto his hand, wanting him deeper. Her body tightened like a coil, pressure building with the heat inside her. Every nerve was sprung, ready to unwind, to bring sweet release. And then waves engulfed her, shattering her like glass. Her shout, muffled by his doublet, surprised her but didn’t stop her from seeking his erection.

  Still trembling, she guided him into her. He felt good—big and thick and familiar. He groaned loudly then picked her up, his hands beneath her rump, and pressed her back against the closed door. She wrapped her legs around his hips and tried to draw him in deeper but he held her in place.

  "Wait," he said, his voice so hoarse she didn’t recognize it. "I want to savor—"

  "No. Can’t...wait." She wriggled to get into a better position, finally pushing him further in.

  He groaned again. "Isabel," he muttered against her lips. "My Isabel." He thrust into her, slowly, impaling her against the door. Then, as if he suddenly ran out of patience, he picked up speed and adjusted his angle and—

  Oh! She kissed him harder, relishing the taste of him, the feel of him, wanting the moment to go on forever. "Yessss," she hissed, arching into him.

  His kisses hardened, became hungrier and she returned them eagerly. Their entwined bodies moved to a wild, basic rhythm. The thud of her heart against her ribs matched it. She'd forgotten how magnificent he could be, and how her body reacted to him, to this. It was more powerful than any magic she possessed.

  "Oh Nick," she cried into his chest.

  As if in answer, his muscles tensed. He swelled inside her and with a roar that seemed to come from somewhere deep, he climaxed.

  She clung to him until his shuddering ceased. Then she lowered her legs and stood on the floor which felt anything but stable. He looked at her with eyes the color of twilight storm clouds, his lips swollen from her kisses, his breathing labored. Although he didn’t speak, she could tell from the way he searched her face that he wanted to know what their love-making had meant to her.

  With her heart in her throat, she turned away.

  CHAPTER 3

  "I don’t suppose this means you’ll return home to Kent with me," Nicholas said, refastening his breeches. He had wanted to lie with Isabel on the bed for a while and relish the hum of satisfaction vibrating across his skin, but she didn’t go anywhere near the bed, staying instead by the door.

  "This," she said, adjusting her skirts, "changes nothing." She spoke primly, without meeting his gaze. No doubt she was attempting to appear composed but she failed miserably. Her face remained flushed and her fingers shook as they smoothed the woolen garments. Did that mean her words were a lie? God he hoped so.

  Despite what she’d said, he couldn’t help smiling at her. She was so fresh and beautiful and yet more vulnerable than she had been downstairs in the shop. Whether that meant she still cared for him, he couldn’t be sure, but she certainly still cared for his love-making. That, at least, was something.

  "Then I’ll send for your things," he said. "You should have your own possessions—"

  "No!" She looked up sharply. "I don’t want them."

  "You should at least have your clothes, Isabel. You are the wife of a knight, you need to dress appropriately."

  Her eyebrows rose. "You’ve been knighted? What in Heaven’s name for?"

  Not exactly the response he’d imagined these long years. "Services to the realm." He was treading very close to the truth, but fortunately she didn’t question him further or he might have to lie outright. Perhaps she thought he had been befriended by the queen because of his extensive lands, like his father before him.

  "Congratulations." She sounded flat. "You’re progressing in the world."

  "I suppose."

  "I don’t want my clothes or anything else from your house."

  "It’s your house too. Your home."

  The flush in her cheeks faded and her lips formed a tight line. "My life is here now and I have all that I need."

  This wasn’t going well at all. "You are my wife—"

  "So you keep reminding me, Nick. But your sudden reappearance doesn’t change a thing."

  "You still haven’t told me what that thing is, Isabel." He couldn’t keep the frustration out of his voice. It was like trying to shimmy up a greased pole, almost reaching the top only to slide back to the bottom. "At least tell me why you left," he said.

  "I have told you. Your long absences—"

  "Have nothing to do with it," he finished for her. Why did she persist with that lie? "You see less of me now than you ever did then," he said, borrowing a line from Ash. "So there must be another reason."

  She turned away and opened the door, her back straight as a rod. It seemed she wasn’t prepared to give him an answer yet. But he would find out, whatever it took.

  He left her bedchamber and returned downstairs to the shop, very aware of her following. He knew she was close enough to touch but he didn’t know how he knew. He just did. "I suppose you chose to become an apothecary’s assistant because of your father," he said. "He was a very capable apothecary, I believe." If only Samuel hadn’t used his knowledge to aid his treacherous friends he might still be alive and famous for his remedies, instead of dead and infamous.

  Isabel nodded numbly when Nick turned to look at her once they re-entered the shop. She still felt annoyed with herself—and alarmed—after succumbing to his formidable charms, but she couldn’t deny that her body felt refreshed, alive. But what else had they awoken by giving into their urges?

  "Being his only child, Papa taught me well," she said, trying to keep the tremor of nervousness out of her voice. "Master Shawe remembered me and offered me employment when I arrived here."

  "You knew Shawe before you came to London?"

  The fire had died down to a few glowing embers but the room remained warm. Isabel moved towards her workbench and began to clear up the Angelica root she’d been cutting. When she saw the bloodied knife, she remembered her cut finger. Looking down, she noticed it was almost healed, something she didn’t think possible without concentrating on the task. It seemed she could still learn a thing or two about her powers. Considering she didn’t use them often, that wasn’t surprising.

  "He and Papa were both apothecaries in Winchester." She kept her back to Nick because looking at him, still flushed from their love making, made her want to pull him close again. And that was definitely a bad idea. "Rivals and yet friends at the same time. After I left to marry you, Papa saw fewer patients and lectured more. Old Man Shawe took on most of his patients." Her father preferred books and experiments to people so it suited him. Shawe was the opposite. He loved the art of herbs and healing and would help anyone, from whores to the gentry. To him, it was all about making people feel better, but for her father, the notoriety of being the first to discover a new remedy was what kept him in his study until late.

  That and his avoidance of her mother.

  After Isabel married and moved away, her mother had written to tell her his moods had become darker and he barely even
acknowledged his wife anymore. The letters had pleaded with Isabel to visit them in Winchester and talk to him but Isabel had remained at Lyle Hall, Nick’s ancestral home in Kent. She had already tried speaking to her father before her marriage but with no result, and once her own powers came in, she hadn’t wanted to see him at all. If he had snubbed his wife, what would he do to his daughter? It was best he didn’t know she was a witch too.

  But Nick knew about the letters, about her father’s work and her mother’s anguish. Isabel had told him everything during their first two years of marriage. Almost everything. He had not just been her husband but also her only friend, so far from home. Which only made his constant desertions, and his subsequent lies, so much more painful.

  "And Shawe took you on, no questions asked?" Nick persisted.

  She shrugged. "He knew I had married and I’m sure he wanted to know what had happened to my husband but he never asked. He needed an assistant after his wife became too ill to help and I needed a roof over my head. It was a mutually satisfying arrangement."

  He said nothing, but she could feel his presence close behind her. Something unseen seemed to zap between them when he was near. "You could have taken some money," he finally said, voice low. "Or some of your jewels. There would have been no need to find work."

  She spun round and fixed him with a glare. "I didn’t want your money, your jewels, nothing from there." She didn’t say "from home" because she no longer thought of it as that. She never really had. And if she had taken money or jewelry, imagine the uproar from his mother! The old crow would’ve reported her to the local Justice of the Peace quicker than she could cry thief. Anything to sully her daughter-in-law’s reputation and obtain an annulment so her son could marry someone more appropriate, preferably with a title and fortune.

  Speaking of which...

  "So you never decided to seek an annulment?" she asked, forcing the question out despite her reluctance. Did she really want to know the answer?

  He had been watching her outburst with a quizzical frown which deepened at her question. "Annulment? It’s a bit late for that don’t you think?"

  "I’m sure a valid reason could be found with the right amount of money." Anything could be bought, even annulments after two years of marriage. It might prove to be surprisingly easy since they’d had no children.

  "I didn’t want an annulment!" He swore then apologized for losing his temper. Ever the gentleman.

  And just like that, everything changed. She wanted to know more. Needed to know more. "So no one ever suggested you get one?"

  His gaze lost some of its intensity then finally dropped to the floor. "Of course people did. But I refused."

  The front door to the shop opened and Fox entered. The apprentice glanced from Isabel to Nick then back again. "Everything all right, Mistress?" he asked, nose twitching like a rat smelling danger.

  "Perfectly, Fox. Sir Nick...olas was just leaving." She almost laughed at the strangeness of his new title but checked herself. It wouldn’t do to allow anyone to know of her familiarity with Nick, especially when she had a feeling he would be around a great deal more in an attempt to reacquaint himself with his conjugal rights. Something she must avoid. "He couldn’t wait until tomorrow for his remedy." She handed Nick a phial of chickweed ointment which a customer had failed to collect the day before. "Rub this on the affected skin twice a day and the rash will disappear within the week."

  "Most kind," he said wryly. He pocketed the phial then left with a meaningful glare that told her he hadn’t finished his interrogation.

  When Fox disappeared upstairs, Isabel leaned heavily against the workbench and rubbed her temple. Lord, subterfuge was tiring. Or perhaps her exhaustion stemmed from the frenetic love-making. Their beautiful, vigorous, stupid love-making.

  She pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes shut. Why had she given in to him after barely a few minutes alone in his presence? It seemed her body had a will of its own when it came to Nick. Silly, silly girl. Any more of that and he might discover what she was trying to hide. If her body could heal without her knowledge, what else might she do without thinking? Throw him against a wall the way she had his mother on that fateful day?

  No, next time she would be more alert. She had to be or she risked losing more than her secret—she risked losing her heart to him all over again.

  ***

  Nicholas turned west out of Bucklersbury and walked past several shops until he realized he should have turned east onto Poultry to go home. It seemed he hadn’t fully regained his senses after losing them the moment he entered Isabel’s shop. Thankfully he’d had enough presence of mind while she was distracted by the apprentice to scan the labeled jars. None contained any of the poisons used in the latest plot against the queen but that didn’t mean they weren’t kept in the storeroom. The closed door he’d noticed near the stairs was the most likely location since it was easily accessible from the shop. He would have to think of a way to see inside it next time without raising Isabel’s suspicions.

  He groaned. As if he didn’t feel guilty enough about her father, now he had to spy on his own wife. He pulled his long coat closed against the sharp sting of the wind and shook his head at the preposterous situation he had gotten himself into.

  If Isabel found out about either investigation, she would never forgive him. Or worse, she would hate him. He was quite sure she didn’t already since she had taken him to her bed so quickly. No, not her bed, her door. He laughed out loud at the memory of her eagerness to have him, equaled by his own willingness to be had.

  Two women walking in the opposite direction eyed him suspiciously and he tipped his hat. "Beautiful day."

  Neither answered but he didn’t care. The sky hung low and gray, the wind railed like a bitter old shrew and the mud and dung from the street clung to his hose but he felt happier than he had in years. Thank God Isabel hadn’t turned virtuous.

  He laughed again then suddenly sobered because the encounter hadn’t been funny. Amazing, exhilarating, better than he imagined, but not funny. The aftermath had been even less so. Instead of begging him to take her back as he’d hoped, she’d been distant, cool. Maybe she was confused as to what their love-making meant for their relationship. He certainly was.

  Or maybe there was another explanation. Maybe she regretted it.

  ***

  Pullman’s apothecary shop was vastly different to Isabel’s. It contained not a single book and the smell was not as pleasant. The dead animals hanging from the ceiling probably had something to do with that. Nicholas recognized a tortoise, two different kinds of fish, an eel and the leathery skin of an alligator. There were also several creatures he didn’t recognize and wasn’t sure he wanted to find out what they were.

  He scanned the labeled jars on the shelves behind the counter and tried not to breathe too deeply as he waited for the apprentice to fetch his master. Unlike Isabel’s, the jars weren’t organized alphabetically and seemed to be in no particular order. That, and the poor handwriting, made his job slower and he just managed to read all of them when the door at the rear of the shop opened.

  A small man with a bushy ginger beard and eyebrows strode in, an enquiring smile almost disappearing beneath all the hair. "Sir Nicholas is it? I am most honored to have your esteemed presence grace my humble shop." He ended the sentence with a short bow. "How may I help you, Sir?"

  Esteemed? He was a knight, not a duke! Nicholas had decided to use his real name for his enquiries. In previous investigations, he had pretended to be a petty thief, an earl and everything in between, but sometimes just being himself worked best. This was one of those occasions. If Isabel noticed him visiting several other apothecaries in and around Bucklersbury Street, it was wiser to use his own name in case she grew suspicious and made her own enquiries.

  He hadn’t seen her yet. But he would soon. The anticipation made him want to rush the interview, but he had to force himself to concentrate on the task and the little man study
ing him with intense yellow eyes.

  "Is there somewhere we can talk privately?" Nicholas said to the apothecary. "It’s just that my needs are somewhat..." he glanced at the apprentice, an exact copy of Pullman but with only a patchy sprinkle of facial hair.

  "There is no need to be embarrassed Sir, my son is perfectly discreet. Now," he spoke softly and stepped closer, "is it something of a, ah, sexual nature? Perhaps your staff is not performing as it should? Is it sleeping like a kitten when it should be roaring like a lion?"