by Jill Barnett
A cider press sat in one corner of the room, and all over, even lined up outside, were basket after basket of both ripe and overripe apples stacked and waiting to be pressed together and blended into the best of cider for the winter. Across the room, vats of Lady Clio’s newest batch of ale were fermenting, while she checked each one, stirring it with a long stick as she added something to one and something else to another. Then she called out recipe ingredients to the old Druid, who wrote them down in a huge book, when she wasn’t telling the little girls and Sofia all the Druid wives’ tales and superstitions.
“I have never heard such nonsense,” Sofia was saying. “You peel the apple, trying to make one long apple peeling. Then you toss it into the air and before it lands you will see the shape of the first letter of your true love’s name. Humph!”
Sofia had tried the trick three times.
“Did it work?” Clio looked up from an ale vat. “What letter did you see?”
“Nothing. I saw nothing.” Sofia said, not willing to admit that every time she threw the peeling into the air she saw a “t.”
Clio gave her a long look that told Sofia she was not fooling her one bit, and the old Druid laughed and helped Maude with the apple the young girl was so diligently peeling.
“Come, Sofia. Here,” Clio said, handing her a jar of some potent herbs. “You can help me with the flavoring of this vat.”
Sofia handed Clio the herbs she asked for, but her mind was not on the task. Sofia’s mind seemed to be on nothing but her husband of late.
She did not want to admit to them that she was so smitten, that her heart was Tobin’s and had been for longer than she could believe. She kept that knowledge so very close to her heart, because she was so very afraid that if anyone knew, it would all just disappear.
Since they had come to Camrose, since the day they had wed, she found herself falling more deeply, more madly, and more desperately in love with him than she had been before. It made what she felt so long ago seem like youthful fancy. The powerful feeling she had for him scared her badly, because she had no control over it. It was just there, the way the sun was there and the moon was there and the wind came down from the Welsh hills, those things you could not control.
She tried to back away from what she felt, had even tried to deny its existence to herself, but she could not. She loved him desperately. He was there inside of her, the man who had stolen her heart as easily as Eve took that apple from the tree. And there were times when Sofia felt that the repercussions of loving someone were just as dire.
“This vat has two handfuls of blue heather,” Clio called out to Old Gladdys, who was busily writing down the recipe. “Five ripened apples, cored and seeded, three handfuls of apple peeling, a pinch of cinnamon, one of rosemary and one of thyme, two whole nutmegs and a dash of pepper.”
“What? No eye of bat and pinch of dragon’s blood?” Earl Merrick was leaning casually against the door, a wide grin on his dark-featured face and his eyes only on his wife.
Old Gladdys cackled wickedly and closed the book with a snap. “Nay, milord.” She rose and sauntered across the room, her voluminous black clothes moving with her. “I save those precious ingredients for your friend, my granddaughter’s husband.”
“Poor Roger.” Merrick laughed.
The old Druid walked past him and added, “Dragon’s blood is a perfect ingredient . . . if you want to shrivel a man’s privy member.”
Old Gladdys walked away and Merrick frowned, then turned back to his wife and said in a tone that was half-certain and half-question, “She is jesting.”
Clio looked up from her alemaking and frowned at him. “You are supposed to be training your men in the fields.”
“We are done.” Merrick straightened and looked to Sofia. “Your husband bested eight of my most powerful men with the lance today. He is feeling quite invincible. I told him we shall have to widen the doorways so his head will fit through them.”
“Tobin?” Sofia looked up.
“Did someone call me?” Her husband stepped up beside Merrick.
The twins ran over to the men, who picked them up and told them all about the day’s events. This scene had become ritual, for the little girls adored riding on the knights’ shoulders or somersaulting from their big, warriors’ arms.
As Sofia stood there watching them, she was struck by the similar looks of these two men. Their height was equal, although Earl Merrick was broader in shoulder than Tobin. But both had black hair, muscular builds and strong looks, jaws that were masculine and both were handsome as the very Devil himself.
She looked at Clio, who grinned at her and said quietly, “’Tis not an easy thing on a woman’s heart to see so much hard-headedness and magnificent male handsomeness standing together in one small room.”
Sofia laughed.
Maude said something to Earl Merrick and he looked up. “I did not know you could juggle, Sofia.”
“Sofia can juggle . . . ” Tobin paused. “When she is conscious.”
Sofia gave him a sharp look. “Do not start, husband.”
But the fool went on. “Did you know, Merrick, there is an inn on the western road where they tell the tales of her juggling to the sounds of giggles and grunts and jests. And in London, the wild pigs are—”
“I shall show you juggling,” Sofia interrupted, her head high.
“She can juggle,” Tildie said seriously. “Watch her.”
Sofia grabbed three firm apples from a basket and began to toss them lightly in the air.
“See!” Maude said in an excited tone and the girls began to clap their hands the way they did when Sofia was learning.
Sofia was having a great time, tossing them perfectly. From the corner of her eye she could see Clio and Merrick watching her in a bit of awe and the silly grin on Tobin’s face.
“Hand me a fourth apple!” she called out.
Maude took an apple from a basket and slipped it into Sofia’s sleeve.
A snap of Sofia’s wrist and an instant later she was juggling four apples and laughing in triumph.
She would show Tobin who could juggle, she thought, and she moved toward him, dancing lightly. Tossing those apples higher and higher, grinning at him and as if to say See. I win.
Just when she was before him, she called out, “I will juggle five!”
“I shall fetch it!” Tildie called out and she scampered away from Tobin’s side and ran to the nearest apple basket. She slipped it into Sofia’s sleeve.
A second later Sofia had five apples whipping circles in the air. She was just about to grab the fifth apple in the circle—the triumphant moment of success.
Tobin reached out and snatched the apple from the air.
She dropped all four.
He grinned at her, tossed her apple once, and took a bite of it, then chewed obnoxiously.
Sofia planted her hands on her hips and said, “Damn you, Tobin!”
He and Merrick began to laugh, obnoxious male laughter.
“That was mean,” Clio scolded, but now Merrick was chomping on his own apple and the two men grinned, then turned to walk cockily out the door.
Sofia picked up an apple from the overripe basket, she looked at Clio, winked, and she threw that mushy apple at Tobin’s back.
It hit him on the shoulder with a splatter of juice and pulp.
He froze, then slowly turned, his eyes narrowed on Sofia.
Clio hit him on the chest with another one.
The women began to laugh.
No one knew who threw the next one, but within moments both men and women were running outside the brewery, dodging soft apples and scooping up more ammunition.
Clio hit Merrick with five of the mushiest apples she could find, then she ducked behind a hay cart, where Sofia had dragged a basket and was pummeling her husband.
Tobin and Merrick were moving in swiftly, one from the left and another from the right.
“Watch out, Clio! They are closing in!” Sofia sh
outed.
But Merrick tumbled over the hay and onto his feet, grabbing his laughing wife in his huge arms.
Sofia took off running, as fast as she could, her arms pumping and her feet flying over the bailey. “Damned gown,” she muttered, then lifted the thing above her knees, above her hose and garter ties. She cast a quick glance over her shoulder and then with her legs free, she really picked up speed, racing for the gates.
“Go, Sofia! Go!” She heard Clio shout to her.
She could hear her husband’s thundering footsteps. Closer and closer. He was close enough so she could hear his breath.
She pushed harder and harder.
They ran the distance of the inner bailey.
She cast a quick eye to her left, where the door to the north tower stood open. Their bedchamber was at the top of the second set of stairs.
I can make it! I can make it!
She aimed for the gates ahead of her to throw him off her true destination. Then she cut sharply to the left and sped through the open doors.
He was not fooled.
She made it up the first flight of stairs and he passed her, his longer legs taking the stairs three at a time. He faced her and stopped so suddenly on the step above her that she ran right into his apple-stained chest.
His arms clamped about her.
She looked up at him.
His breathing was harder than hers and hers was burning through her chest.
He twisted suddenly and pinned her to the tower wall with his body, his hands on either side of her head and his face in hers, his breath panting warm across her eyes and cheeks.
His looked turned intense, sexual. His mouth came down on hers, but there was no force to this embrace. No dominance in the meeting of their lips.
They were equals. Neither ever said a word, but she knew he wanted this as much as she did. Just a kiss, mouth to mouth, but it was one that made her senses soar and her legs and knees go numb.
One of his arms slipped behind her and across her back, his hand cupping her buttocks, his fingertips nestled just inside her thighs. Their bodies touched from mouth to legs, pressed together.
She felt so soft against his hard body. It made her feel womanly and needed and wanted.
His other hand had moved and was flat against the bare skin of her neck. His thumb stroked her jaw, then downward.
His tongue slid through her softened lips and she tasted him against her own tongue, wet and wicked. His hand moved lower and into the bodice of her gown. She could feel the calluses rub against her bare skin. The tip of her breast tightened as if she were suddenly naked and cold.
He held her by breast and bottom, softly kneading them both as his tongue played thoroughly in her mouth, licking and stroking, running along her teeth and then retreating so he could suck her tongue into his own mouth.
He kissed her, long and slow, shifting and spreading his palms down over her bottom and taking his time, as if the kiss needed to be as thorough and long as a kiss could be. When he finally pulled away, he rested his head against her brow, looking down at her. “You taste like apples, wife.”
“So do you.” She licked her lips. “I like apples.”
“So do I.” He kissed her cheeks and her nose, then her lips and her brow.
She cupped his face in her hands, stilled it for a moment. She looked into those blue, blue eyes. “What are we doing?”
“Kissing.”
“I know that, you dolt. What I want to know is why are you kissing me?”
“I thought you looked as if you needed kissing.”
She laughed and pulled her head back, her look challenging. “You’re saying that you thought I needed kissing?”
“Aye.”
She shook her head. “If you think I would buy that flummery, then you do not know me.”
“Then you tell me the reason.”
She shook her head, making this into another game, because she knew that spark in his eyes, loved the challenge that passed between them. The power. This was a woman’s power, hers alone, and she needed to feel it, so she could try to tell herself that she had some control over this love of hers. “I believe, husband, that the true reason is that you needed kissing.”
He looked at her for a long moment, then admitted, “Aye.” But he said it with a glint in his eye that was pure devilry. He pressed her against him and moved slowly, the same way he moved when he was making love with her, rocking her against him with his hands clasping her backside.
She did not want him to think he could master her so easily, with just a kiss, that she was so weak that all he had to do was kiss her to bend her to his will. So she stared up at him and watched his eyes grow dark with desire.
She slid her hands from his temples through his sleek dark hair, then gripped it in her fists tightly and kissed him with all the passion and want that his kiss created in her.
She drove her tongue into his mouth, swept it through and then pulled her lips away, licked them slightly so that her tongue just barely touched his damp lips, then she traced his mouth, the outside, with the tip of her tongue. Stood on tiptoe so she could wield her lips as her woman’s weapon, a weapon to spur his desire, his passion. She wanted to make him as hot and needy as she was.
She slowed suddenly; she needed to tantalize. She had learned fast that foreplay was best if it was soft and slow. The more you wanted it, the more you got from it.
She kissed him all over his face, his eyes, his neck and ears until he picked her up a good foot off the floor so her feet were dangling, then he lifted her even higher and buried his mouth and face in the crease of her breast, grabbed the edge of her bodice with his teeth, jerked it apart, and ripped it in two with his mouth, so he could get to her breasts, where he sucked and played with them, flicked his tongue over her nipples and made them hard.
Long moments passed, sweat began to bead on his forehead, and his hair and scalp grew damp with need. She could tell he was feeling the fire like she was. Her body burned for him. Burned like Purgatory.
He turned swiftly, in one motion, and pinned her against the wall, pulling his mouth away from hers. She moaned and her lips sought his but they weren’t there. She opened her eyes. He was looking at her and she knew she was nothing but a wanton, her arms linked about his shoulders, her hands in his hair, her breasts exposed and tight. “Do it now,” she breathed. “Do it, husband.”
He shifted and slid his thick thigh up so she was straddling it, then he took both his hands away and grabbed her gown in his powerful fists. In one swift and hotly sensual motion he tore it in two.
Cold air hit her damp skin and she gasped, looked up at him in surprise, then she laughed and the sound of it echoed up the stairwell into the tower, sounding as loud as church bells. She did not care. She wanted him hard and fast and now.
His look was so intense, so filled with want for her that she almost melted there, but before she could say anything, before she could even think, he ripped her shift, still watching her face.
He looked down and she followed his gaze, saw that he had untied his chausses. Then he looked her straight in the eyes, his gaze showing her nothing but the blue fire of a passion so strong it threatened to send them both up in flames.
He pressed his body against hers, pinning her against the wall again with his sheer strength and muscle, with all the hardness that made him a man. He jerked her legs up and out, wide, then lowered his leg and thrust deeply and hard inside her.
She stared up at him, pinioned against the wall by him. She shook her head, letting him know she was as much a part of this as he was, then she clamped her legs around his hips, locked her feet, grabbed his head and jerked it down, kissing him with everything she had.
A moment later they took each other against the tower wall.
Tobin awoke and reached out to his wife, but the bed was empty. He pushed himself up on one arm and scanned the room. It was dark on the west side of the room; the fire had dwindled, and they’d put out the candl
es so much earlier. The chairs and chests around the room were little more than huge dark shadows and nowhere was the silhouette of his wife. So he looked eastward.
She was standing by a window, tall and sleek, her face in profile, one hand braced on the stone ledge, and the other on the casement. She rested her head against it and was gazing outside. It looked as if she had donned her robe in a hurry, for it was loosely tied and gaped open slightly.
He turned on his side and just watched her standing there. There were more and more moments like this as the days and weeks went on, moments when he would look at her, when she did not know she was being watched, so she was at ease.
Each and every time he was overcome with something that almost felt like wonder, but stronger than that, so strong he had no word for it. She was his wife, and whenever he looked at her, like he was now, he remembered that they had a whole lifetime together.
Odd how he had so quickly noticed things like the cadence of her breath, the small mole near her right ear, the way she always rubbed her feet together over and over, slowly, until she finally fell asleep.
Every day with her was like a new day, where you were in a strange land full of things to discover. And with that thought something truly odd happened to him. He was struck with the need to know her in ways he never had needed to know another human being.
He wanted to breathe her. He wanted to hold her, to never let her go. He wanted to fill her with his children and watch them grow up with her by his side, every night, every day, forever and after.
And every night, God . . . every night was something so far beyond just being inside of a woman. It wasn’t just the act of loving, the way he joined with her. It wasn’t just something to relieve the stress of the day or to make him feel good and sleep more soundly. It was more. So much more that if he thought about it too long it scared the hell out of him.
He stayed that way for a moment, taking slow deep breaths, time moving in whispers of moments where all he did was look at nothing but the sheet under him, because he could not look at her any longer without feeling he was lost.
