Dream of Me/Believe in Me

by Josie Litton

  Unmoving, eyes shut, he listened to Krysta's soft footsteps as she crossed the room. She came hesitantly, pausing several times, and once she seemed to turn back, only to reverse herself. At the side of the bed, he heard the sudden agitation of her breath and had to fight against a smile. The night was warm, he slept nude and without covers. The knowledge that she was looking at him swiftly began to have the predictable effect and he wondered how long he would be able to maintain the pretense of sleep. A soft sigh escaped her and it tugged at his heart. He knew that the seduction he contemplated was reprehensible, but he told himself it was all for an honorable end—that she should marry him—and besides, he had never hesitated to take advantage of any weakness in battle. That this was combat of a sort he did not doubt. He merely salved his conscience with the thought that he intended neither of them to lose.

  Even so, he found himself hard-pressed to remain unmoving as he felt the whisper touch of her fingers gently easing aside a lock of hair that had fallen across his brow. She sighed again and this time there was a little catch to her voice that sounded suspiciously like a sob. He clenched his hands into the mattress to keep from reaching out for her and hoped she would not notice.

  Krysta did not, engulfed as she was in a riptide of emotion. Not even she could swim against so strong a current as seized her the moment she saw him lying on the bed, his splendid body fully revealed to her. That current had drawn her into the room, to his very side, and even to touch him against all her better sense. She had to leave. Had to. Yet there she stood as though frozen, fighting the urge to touch him yet again. To let drop her shift and ease onto the bed beside him. To trace the chiseled line of his mouth with her fingers and twist within them the silken curls of his hair. To run her hands over his powerful shoulders and along the contours of his heavily muscled chest, over all that taut, burnished skin. To twine her legs around his and tease her toes down his sinewy calves. To move between his thighs and gently cup him in her palms, to taste him as he had tasted her …

  Krysta lifted the heavy mane of her hair with both hands, baring her neck as she stretched languorously. It was very hot in the room. She could scarcely bear even the light brush of her shift against her taut nipples. If only she could flee into deep, cool water, there would be some hope of taming the unruly impulses of her body. As it was, to stay longer was sheer folly. Not daring to look at him again, knowing that if she did she would have no prayer of caution, Krysta took one step from the bed. Her shift jerked taut and she could move no farther. Her eyes widened as she saw the hand twined around the delicate fabric, tethering her. Startled, her gaze flew to Hawk's face. A slumberous smile curved the mouth she knew too well.

  “Don't go,” he said, just that, no more. Yet he kept close hold of her as desire warred with prudence.

  “I should not have come …”

  He sat up slightly and her helpless gaze strayed down the length of his body. He was fully aroused, hard and thick.

  “You slept curled against me these past three nights. Why sleep alone now?”

  “You weren't supposed to know about that! I thought you asleep each morning when I woke—”

  “I sleep very lightly, the legacy of too many battles.” He let go of her shift and seized her hand instead. His conscience stirred one last time and was firmly pushed aside. Little experience that he had wooing women, somehow with her it did not seem so difficult. “Sweet Krysta, don't leave me now. Who knows how much time we may have together. The world is so uncertain, life itself but a moment.” He brushed a kiss over her fingers even as he wrapped an arm around her hips and drew her to him. She pressed her hands to his broad shoulders in a halfhearted effort to break away but he was already pulling up her shift, baring her long, lithe legs, and she felt his mouth against her belly, his breath blowing softly, melting away all resistance.

  Time was fleeting; he was right about that. The past was gone, the future she yearned for could not be, nothing existed save the present. Was it so terribly wrong of her to seize just a small measure of happiness? She had a sudden flashing image of Lady Esa and her cool, disdainful beauty. Would she be the one Hawk married finally, the lady of true nobility and worth chosen to sit at his side? Perhaps, for she was very lovely and, even to Krysta's inexperienced eyes, very determined.

  If it came to that, one thing only she wanted so fiercely that it tore like barbs at her heart: Let him not forget her. When he was a very old man, as she prayed he would live to be, let him still remember the touch and taste, the sound and feel of her. Let the memory of what they shared make bright his dreams forever … and her own.

  He felt the moment when she yielded and the triumph of it was bittersweet. He had won unscrupulously to be sure but he could not, would not, let that matter. Swiftly, he stripped her shift over her head and tossed it to the floor. Her skin glowed like cool alabaster but her heat matched his own. He drew her down, draping her over him, stroking her slender back and firmly rounded bottom. His long fingers delved between her thighs as his mouth took hers in a searing kiss. Ravenously, he tasted her, his tongue stroking deep and hard, mating with her own. His need for her was insatiable, made all the more so by three days and nights of incessant, unsatisfied desire. He could think of nothing but to ease her beneath him and make her his when Krysta twisted suddenly in his arms. With the provocative smile of an innocent imp, she sat up, straddling him, and tossed the glorious riot of her hair over her shoulders, baring her breasts to his bedazzled gaze. Her eyes filled with tender yearning, she stroked her hands lightly down his chest. Her voice no more than a soft, embarrassed whisper, she murmured, “Please … I would so like to …”

  With a groan, Hawk fell back onto the bed. Already he was painfully aroused and if the look in her eyes was any indication, his torment had only just begun. Her innocent passion tantalized him even as he doubted how much more he could endure.

  Yet he tried as his heart hammered savagely in his chest and his blood ran thick and hot. She was an artless temptress, delighted by her own boldness, glorying in his response. She explored him with light, flickering touches of her hands and mouth, with leisurely caresses and hungry kisses, with every part of her body and every inch of her warm, silken skin. Nor was she silent. Soft little sounds of pleasure escaped her, surprised exclamations of delight that filled him with bemused pride and mocked the control he maintained by no more than the most slender of threads.

  Beads of sweat shone on his forehead when she rose above him, a sweetly seductive smile curving her lush mouth and a shy question in her eyes. He saw it, clasped her hips, and gently guided her onto him. Her stunned surprise gave way to a moan of delight. Slowly, tantaliz-ingly, she drew him within her. When he was fully seated, his fingers entwined with hers as with innate grace she began to move. He watched, enthralled, as her skin flushed with the intensity of her arousal, her nipples firm buds beckoning to his mouth.

  To her pleasure-drenched senses, this was almost too much. Krysta cried out as he suckled her, waves of ecstasy coiling within her, tighter and tighter still until they exploded suddenly in an incandescent burst that seemed to last forever. She fell against him, limp and gasping. The world revolved suddenly and she found herself beneath him. His chiseled features were tautly drawn, his eyes shining as he loomed above her. He drove himself within her harder and faster, over and over. Without reprieve, she was hurled again into dark, swirling release. A moment later, he joined her, clasping her tightly to him as though he meant never to let her go.

  It was not enough. They woke again before dawn already entwined, hands and lips seeking, and made love more slowly this time, drawing out their pleasure. Afterward, they fell into sleep so deep that not even the usual morning noises of the royal residence bestirred them. Only when the full din of the busy town, all the clatter and creaking, calling and haggling, the sharp-barked orders of guardsmen and the merry song of minstrels floated through their windows did they finally return groggily and reluctantly to the world.

 
Even then only the sternest discipline enabled them to rise without yielding to the temptation of scattered touches and long looks. Even as Krysta stumbled into her own room, wrapped in a sheet, the maid who had served her the night before knocked once perfunctorily, then entered. Her eyes widened and her cheeks were suddenly rosier than they had been a moment before, but she said nothing. Setting down the tray she had brought, she bobbed a curtsy and swiftly drew out garments appropriate for the day. When a shirtless Hawk, his jaw festooned with soap and a shaving blade in his hand, stuck his head in a few minutes later to remind Krysta they were going with the king, the maid turned a fiery red and so over-poured the milk that it flowed right out of the bowl, across the table, and down onto the floor. Krysta sighed and knelt to help her clean it up despite her protests, knowing all too well how easy it was to be utterly unsettled by the Hawk of Essex.

  For certain, she had been, and worse yet, she could not find it in herself to mind. Indeed, it was proving most difficult not to smile at every moment. She was giddily happy, beyond care, and quite besotted with the world and the man.

  She was dressed and had even managed to eat a little before it occurred to her to wonder what Alfred had planned. That the great king was no more than an afterthought made her all the more mindful of her precarious state, and caused her to resolve that come what may, she must find some way to conceal it. She was still mulling over how that might be accomplished when Hawk came to get her. He swept a quick, all-encompassing glance over her, the look of a man well pleased with what he sees, and combined it with the heart-stopping grin of a boy.

  “We're shamefully late,” he said, with a quick nod to the flustered maid. “Fortunately, there's always something for Alfred to do so I doubt he'll mind.”

  He swept her out of the room and down the stairs before she could even begin to gather her thoughts. The great hall was empty save for a few servants, reminding her again that much of the morning was already gone. Outside, the day was brilliant, a fresh breeze swaying the branches of the young trees within the royal compound. Hawk led her briskly to a stone building set a little apart, surrounded by a pleasant garden that bestowed an air of serenity unusual in bustling Winchester. A quick glance through the open double doors confirmed Krysta's guess that this was a church. They followed a path around a corner of the building and the scene changed suddenly. Where there had been serenity suddenly there was activity. Several dozen monks sat outside at tables positioned beside linen screens cleverly set to block the wind and any dust or dirt that might blow with it. Thus sheltered, they had the blessing of bright sunlight to do their work. And what work it was. Krysta gasped softly when she realized that the monks were inscribing books. As young acolytes scrambled about to fill orders for more ink, more nubs, more parchment, or sat in a circle beneath a tree being instructed in the finer points of calligraphy by a master of the art, precious books were being created.

  “Alfred believes he will be most remembered for restoring learning to this land,” Hawk said quietly. “He says this is so because the peace he has brought will not survive without learning, so it is that which is most important in the end.” He gestured toward a complex of buildings some little distance from the scriptorium. “Our nobles vie to foster their sons with the king even though he requires that they spend a portion of each day in study. There are many still who do not see the sense of that or who think it somehow unmanly, yet they will not gainsay Alfred. The most cloddish of them leaves here with at least a smattering of Latin and more knowledge of the world than he would otherwise ever hope to have.”

  Krysta felt a moment's envy at the thought of what it must be like to dwell within such a place, to have at her fingertips all manner of books and people to explain them. Surely that was a touch of paradise. She looked up into Hawk's blue eyes and fought again to hold on to reason. “Dare I ask if women are also permitted to learn?”

  “How did I know you would ask that?” he teased. “Some feel learned women are inclined to be discontented, unwilling to accept the authority of their fathers and husbands. Mayhap there is some justice to that, for I have not noticed you to be overly compliant.”

  “Mayhap you value compliance overmuch,” Krysta answered. A moment later she regretted the words for they sounded like a challenge. He was a warrior and a leader. Of course, he would expect to be obeyed.

  Quietly, he said, “I have accepted more disobedience from you than from anyone I can remember. Do you wonder why that is, Krysta?”

  She had no time to answer for just then Alfred emerged from the scriptorium accompanied by the priest he and Hawk had been conversing with the preceding evening. Catching sight of the newly arrived couple, they came over to them.

  “There you are,” Alfred said. He appeared in good humor and more, all but bubbling over with enthusiasm that belied the gravity of his position. “My dear,” he said to Krysta, “I don't believe you have met my good friend, Father Asser, the long-suffering soul who undertook to instruct me in Latin.”

  The priest smiled and inclined his head to Krysta. “My lady, well met. I assure you, however, that the task was not so onerous as our king would have you believe.”

  “He flatters me,” Alfred said. “It's because I built this scriptorium and others like it around the land. He plans to flood Wessex with books and I am his willing accomplice.”

  “I would flood the world with books if I could find a way to do it,” the priest acknowledged. “Indeed, I have lately turned my own poor hand to writing a history of the present reign.”

  Alfred sighed good-naturedly. “So now I must be especially good to him, as all anyone is likely to know of me in years hence is what he deigns to write.”

  “I rather think people will remember one or two other things, my lord,” Hawk said dryly.

  Father Asser laughed. “Listen to him, my lord. He is young and vigorous, and much more attuned to the ways of the world than an old penitent such as myself.”

  “Don't wrap your years around you too closely quite yet,” Alfred cautioned. “I have much use for you, my friend. You have only begun to do your work.”

  “May it please Lord God that is so,” the priest said matter-of-factly. He turned to Krysta and surveyed her with frank interest. “Lord Hawk tells me you can read.”

  Alfred, too, appeared to find this curious but not displeasing. “How did you learn?” he asked pleasantly.

  In the presence of the priest, Krysta hesitated to answer, but she realized she could hardly decline to do so. “When I was very small, a monk came to my father's holding in Vestfold. He asked permission to speak of Christ to the people there. My father was disquieted by this, he thought it might bring trouble, but on the other hand he did not want to offend the monk in case it came to be that his god truly was powerful. So he sent the monk to me. Brother Malcolm stayed with us some ten years. He preached the gospel to great effect and he also taught me to read.” She hesitated again, seeing how this was taken. When it appeared that neither king nor priest was disturbed by the tale, she added, “As he believed I had some aptitude, he decided I should also learn to write and to cipher.” When this, too, did not seem to shock more than a little, she finished. “He also taught me Latin.”

  “Latin?” Alfred exclaimed. Now he truly did look at her as though she were some species of being he had never before encountered. “You read Latin?”

  “I am fortunate to be able to do so. Brother Malcolm was a very kind and patient teacher. When he died, we all mourned him deeply.”

  “Did your people heed the word of the Christ?” Father Asser asked.

  Krysta nodded. “We all did, and so have many others in the years since. Even my father, toward the end of his life, saw it was not something to be afraid of but rather the hope of a better world.”

  “Then Brother Malcolm's years were well spent,” Alfred said. “He must have been an unusual man to see the possibilities of instructing a young girl. I have always believed that a man of sound judgment builds on a mo
dest foundation and gradually proceeds to greater things. Perhaps it would be possible to offer some simple instruction to the daughters of some of our lords and see if they are inclined to go further.”

  “An excellent idea, my lord,” Hawk said at once and won a surprised but thoroughly approving look from Krysta. He saw it and grinned as he added, “Provided, of course, they do not shirk their womanly duties.”

  “We could have none of that,” the king agreed. “Still, it might be possible—” He broke off, considered the matter for a few moments, then smiled apologetically. “You must forgive me. My mind always runs to how I might better accomplish the earthly tasks to which I have been set. At any rate, my dear, the first copy of a new book has just been finished, a treatise on the organization of government. I have come to view it and when I invited Hawk to accompany me, he said he thought you might like to do the same.”

  This was the excursion the king had in mind? How extraordinary and how telling of the man. And how kind of Hawk that he would think to include her. Just one more of his many virtues to haunt her in that arid wilderness beyond the present day, but she would not dwell on that. Greatly excited at the prospect of seeing any new book, let alone being one of the very first to see it, Krysta smiled warmly. “I would love to do that, my lord. Until I came to Hawkforte, I had seen only a very few books. Now it seems that I cannot get enough of them.”

  “An admirable affliction, my dear,” the king said and kindly offered his arm. Hawk and Father Asser were left to follow as Alfred escorted her into the scriptorium.

  It was, Krysta quickly decided, every bit as wonderful a place as she could ever have imagined. First, there were the smells. The crisp aroma of fresh parchment, the acrid scent of glue, the rich and heady fragrance of fine leather mingled with the sea-sour whiff of ink, the metallic tang of gold, and the pungent odors of ground rocks and plants mixed to make paints. She closed her eyes for a moment and breathed deeply, knowing that forever after she could be put down anywhere, smell that unique blend of essences, and know precisely where she stood.