by Speer, Flora
“This way.” Roarke led her along the corridor and up a steep flight of steps. “The castle is full to overflowing.”
“Then, where am I to sleep?”
“In my room. I can find a place in the great hall, among the pages and the squires. Elwin will probably save a place for me.”
“You could stay with Garit,” she suggested. “I’m sure he has space for a guest.”
“Garit needs to be alone for a time. Don’t worry; Anders will see to him. He knows his master well. Here we are.”
They had reached one of the upper levels of the castle. Roarke opened a door and motioned to Jenia to enter. Light from a torch set into a bracket in the corridor spilled into the room.
It was even smaller than the second chamber of Lord Oliver’s apartment. Roarke’s bed was narrow and it was shoved against one wall to make enough space for the occupant of the room to move around. His saddlebags lay at the foot of the bed next to the basket containing the extra clothing Garit had sent to Auremont for Jenia to use. A stool and a wooden clothing chest near the head of the bed were the only other pieces of furniture. A clay pitcher and basin, a bowl of soap, and a candle stub in a battered pewter holder sat atop the chest. Flint, a bit of straw, and some wool lint were waiting in a metal tray. A small window was shuttered against the night air. Sparse though it was, the room was swept and clean, and Roarke’s distinctive, woody-leafy scent permeated it.
He followed Jenia inside, leaving the door open while he busied himself with striking the flint into the woolen lint. Once a spark caught and the lint began to glow he held a piece of the straw to the tiny fire.
“When I leave you,” he said, having lit the straw and then the candle, “I will find Elwin and have him bring some hot water.” He reached for the pitcher.
“Don’t go,” she whispered, amazed at her own boldness. “Roarke, please stay.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“We have much to say to each other. No, that’s not right. I have much to say, much to explain to you.”
“Have you?” He watched her from shuttered eyes. “I thought you had said everything in the king’s audience chamber.”
“You know that’s not true, or you wouldn’t have kissed me earlier this evening.”
Very slowly and deliberately, never removing his gaze from her face, Roarke closed and latched his chamber door. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the door.
“I am listening,” he said.
“You look rather like a judge,” she objected. “I haven’t done anything wrong. I want to tell you what I said to Garit just now, and what he and I have decided.”
“You and Garit made a decision, together.” His mouth thinned to a hard line.
“I can see what you are assuming, and it’s not so,” she said.
“You have no idea what I’m thinking.”
His rough voice took her breath away. Jenia knew she had to explain at once.
“I wanted to speak to Garit in private so I could relay Chantal’s last words to him,” she said. “I will not tell you exactly what those words were, except to say that her final thoughts were of their love. Garit was quite overcome. I fear he will never recover fully from his loss.”
“I could see how upset he was.” Roarke pushed away from the door and moved a little farther into the room. The hard look on his face made her nervous.
“We agreed to find my Uncle Walderon and have the truth out of him,” she said, speaking more rapidly. “Then, we will find Chantal’s body and see to a proper burial for her. But I have already told you much of this.”
“Yes, you have.” Roarke edged closer. “What else?”
“I am glad to say that, like you, Garit offered no objection to my decision to join you tomorrow.”
“And? What else do you want to tell me?”
Roarke moved again until he was so close that Jenia could sense the masculine heat of him. She wanted to touch him, to place her hands on his broad chest and feel his strength. She longed for him to kiss her. A sweet, warm ache began to curl deep inside her.
“Garit and Chantal.” She paused, licking her dry lips.
“What about them?” Roarke demanded, his voice a rough, rumbling sound.
“They always behaved with the greatest propriety,” she whispered. “Chantal knew that when she married she must go to her spouse as an untouched maiden. Garit understood and he loved her all the more for her determination to preserve her honor.”
“So Garit has told me. I confess I was a bit surprised to hear it, considering the strength of his ardor.”
“I assure you, Chantal’s ardor was every bit as strong as Garit’s. How they restrained themselves, I do not know.”
“What are you trying to say, Jenia?”
“While we were imprisoned Chantal told me several times how deeply she regretted not having seized every opportunity to make love with Garit. She wished her first experience with a man could be a tender one.”
“I see.” Roarke’s dark gaze rested on Jenia’s face.
“That was the deciding reason for her flight from her wedding to Lord Malin,” Jenia said. “From Malin’s reputation she concluded that he would not treat her kindly in their bedchamber. Loving Garit, she was willing to risk everything to be with him. After years of doing what others expected of her, she no longer cared about the plans Uncle Walderon had made, or what would happen to her vast estates. In the end, all that mattered to her was Garit.”
“Many would fault her for disobeying her guardian,” Roarke said. “The same people would call her foolish for running away.”
“You never heard her speak of Garit to me, never saw the look on her face when she said his name. I don’t think Chantal was foolish at all. In Garit, she had found the one man who could provide the only thing worth having, or worth dying for.”
“What about you, Jenia? What lesson did you learn from Chantal’s sad story?”
She could see how he was holding himself still, not even breathing for the moment, as if his very life depended on her answer.
“I am not the great heiress that Chantal was,” she said. “Gildeley is a small estate compared to Thury, and no secondary lands will pass through me to my future husband and children. Even so, if Garit’s suspicions are correct and Uncle Walderon proves to be the villain in all of this, then King Henryk will become my guardian. I am not willing to take the risk that he will make a decision about my future that will please me.”
“You ought to trust King Henryk to do what is best for you,” Roarke said very softly.
“After the last half year, I trust few people.”
“I cannot blame you for that,” he murmured.
“Roarke—” She paused, hesitating.
To Roarke’s mind she looked eager, just a bit apprehensive, and altogether desirable. His entire body tightened in response to the expression in her eyes.
“Jenia, are you asking me to make love to you?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Please. Whatever happens, let us have one night together.”
Roarke knew any decent man ought to refuse the offer to ruin her. He harbored a nagging belief that she feared he’d be killed in the next few days. Or, perhaps, she feared Chantal’s fate would befall her, too. He really should say a polite no and leave the room.
But he wanted her so much, had wanted her since the first moment he’d seen her. After weeks of believing she could very possibly be his best friend’s love, he knew at last that she was not. If he, and she, survived their mission to bring Chantal’s murderer to justice, he could ask King Henryk for Jenia’s hand in marriage as his reward. He decided not to mention that somewhat remote hope to her just yet. Rather than make a promise he wasn’t sure he’d be able – or alive – to keep, he’d wait until they were both safe.
He wished he could leave her safe at Calean when he and Garit rode out the next day, but he knew she’d never agree to stay behind. If he insisted, she’d only find a way to f
ollow him. She had escaped imprisonment, would-be rapists, and a raging storm at sea; he did not doubt she’d succeed in reaching Thury Castle by any means possible. He told himself she’d be well protected with him and Garit, and Lord Giles and their combined men-at-arms to watch over her.
And then he cursed himself for standing before her like a lackwitted, inexperienced boy, debating all the pertinent issues while Jenia waited for his reply to her offer of her maidenhood.
“Roarke?” She was looking at him with such trust and such affection in her eyes that his heart melted within him. Still, he delayed for her sake, though his desire for her was so strong and insistent he feared he’d burst his hose.
“You must be absolutely certain,” he said. “From what you’ve told me about Chantal, I think you do realize what the act you are contemplating means.”
“Yes. I want you, Roarke. You, and no one else. Ever.”
She smiled at him, a little tremulously to be sure, but it was a smile all the same. He tried to find words to tell her what she meant to him.
“You offer me a great gift,” he began.
“Do, please, stop talking, and thinking, and equivocating,” she said. “That is what Chantal and Garit did. They considered her position and his, their reputations, her inheritance and his duties as emissary for King Audemer. When at last they made their decision, they were too late.”
“You cannot give yourself to me because you believe Chantal and Garit made a mistake,” Roarke said.
In the next instant he decided he was a complete fool. He had come into his chamber still half aroused by the kisses they had shared earlier that evening. Like the honest knight he tried to be, he’d intended to see that Jenia had whatever she required for her comfort, then he’d leave her and take his longings to the great hall for yet another sleepless night spent thinking of her. Now the beautiful, daring enchantress who had captured his heart declared that the one thing she needed for her comfort was his intimate embrace.
He asked himself why he was hesitating, but he knew the answer to his own question. It was because he was an honest knight, who cared deeply about his lady. The sensible part of his mind, the part that made him so valuable to King Henryk, sifted rapidly through all the reasons why he ought to depart from Jenia at once, before this went any further. He knew he was perilously close to succumbing to temptation.
Then Jenia laid a hand on his cheek and all reason, all concerns about hurting her, or leaving her to bear his child alone if he were to die, vanished along with any thought of the morrow. He had lived too long with his heart mired in cold darkness. Jenia was warmth and golden sunshine, sweet tenderness and stalwart strength, everything he had ever wanted in a mate and feared he’d never find. At her touch the happiness he had experienced with her earlier welled up again in his heart, leaving him unable to think like a sensible man. The only thoughts to cross his fevered mind were questions about how best to please her.
He caught her close and kissed her sweet mouth until she sighed and opened her lips to him. Her fingers wound through his hair and her breasts were crushed against his chest.
With a groan Roarke broke off the kiss and swept her up into his arms to carry her to his bed.
“It’s too narrow,” he muttered, setting her down on the rough blanket.
“No matter. We are both slender.” She looked at him with sudden shyness. “You will have to show me what to do.”
“It will be my pleasure.” His hands worked quickly at the laces on either side of the waistline of her gown, loosening them until he could lift the heavy green material up and over her head. Her hair floated about her like a molten cloud. Roarke gathered a fistful, half expecting it to singe his hands. The thick waves flowed through his fingers and he lifted those silken tresses to his lips.
When he slid the top of her shift over her shoulder to free one perfectly formed breast, Jenia gasped and then pushed herself into his palm. Roarke saw her eyelids close and her face grow intent as she savored the unfamiliar sensation of a man’s hand on her bare flesh. Her cry of surprise when he took her nipple into his mouth sent heat boiling through him to center in his loins. Were she not a virgin, he’d have taken her then, so strong was his need of her. But this was Jenia, not some loose and thoroughly experienced noblewoman of the court, and not a whore paid to satisfy his lust.
He finished undressing her slowly, and as he did his wonder increased. He had seen Jenia in full court dress looking more beautiful than any woman should be. He’d seen her half covered in sand, with her glorious hair in damp tangles, wearing only a torn shift as she lied and schemed for her dead cousin’s sake.
Now, at last, at long last, she lay naked on his bed, the true Jenia revealed for his adoration, just as he had imagined her and he discovered that the reality far outshone his overheated daydreams.
The woman he gathered into his arms was his love. Roarke acknowledged that searing truth and set himself to provide her with the greatest pleasure possible, so when the inevitable moment of pain came she would be so eager for him that the discomfort would scarcely matter to her.
For her part, Jenia had never dreamed that a woman could experience such intense heat without her body bursting into flames. Roarke’s caresses were unrelenting, his kisses overpowering, and she gloried in them. Her lips felt bruised, her mouth invaded, and her breasts were tingling, yet she welcomed everything he did to her.
Gradually, almost without her noticing because she was so wrapped in delight, his interest and the caresses and kisses that accompanied it, moved lower. He stroked her feet and ankles, then her calves. Immediately, her pleasure began to shift and intensify in response. She smiled when he kissed each knee and uttered a startled little scream when his lips and tongue moved upward to her inner thighs. Soon he delved farther still, until his fingers touched the most secret part of her, stroking and pressing exactly where she wanted to be touched.
“Roarke!” She was embarrassed for a moment, sensing that she was moist down there. How could she not be damp, with such liquid warmth pouring through that part of her body?
Roarke spread her thighs and knelt between them. Jenia frowned, puzzled to see that he had removed all of his clothing and she hadn’t noticed. He was naked now, and very manly, very large and stiff. Though untried in such matters, she wasn’t completely ignorant. She did understand what he was about to do. She wanted to ask him how he planned to fit their bodies together when he was such a giant, but suddenly she couldn’t speak. She simply watched as he reached down and settled himself against her. That part of him felt wonderful resting just there, where she needed him to be. He seemed to know exactly where and how to exert the pressure that relieved the emptiness that was making her writhe with a longing such as she had never known before.
The touch of his skin on hers sent fresh tremors of delight coursing through her. But suddenly she found that neither the firm yet gentle pressure between her thighs, nor the warmth of his skin was enough. She needed more.
Before she could ask Roarke to help her ease the new burning that flared wherever their bodies met, he caught her lips in a passionate kiss that threatened to undo her completely. Even as his tongue plunged into her mouth, she became aware that the hard shaft of his manhood had begun to push slowly and relentlessly into her. When he met a barrier that she could feel and knew he must be aware of, too, he did not stop, but kept on pushing.
His mouth was still on hers, hushing her cry as he broke through the barrier, and then Roarke reached the very core of her being. He was embedded so deeply, and his presence was so painful that for a moment she could not breathe. He was stretching her until she feared he would rend her in two, yet it was so right, so oddly wonderful.
“Jenia?” He lifted his head to look at her, but otherwise he was holding himself perfectly, carefully, still. He spoke through gritted teeth. “I am sorry to hurt you. It couldn’t be helped.”
“I understand. Really, I do. It’s just that you are so huge.” Though she had
known what would happen, she hadn’t fully realized until that moment just how terribly intimate a man’s embrace would be. She was glad it was Roarke who possessed her body and not some person she loathed. The thought of anyone else doing this to her was unbearable. She shivered against him, and a new need assailed her. “Would you mind if I move a little? You aren’t hurting me any longer, but you feel so very tight.”
She couldn’t wait for his answer. She had to move. Wriggling a bit did seem to help, though she couldn’t say she felt comfortable, not with Roarke on top of her, impaling her with his heat and his iron hard strength.
“Do whatever you like,” he said, still in that same taut, carefully controlled voice, still with his face hard and set. He hadn’t moved at all.
“Is this uncomfortable for you, too?” she asked.
“I can bear it,” he said, his mouth curving in the faintest of smiles. “I know the discomfort won’t last much longer.”
Jenia wriggled once more, shifting her position, and then, because she yearned to be even closer to him, she tried lifting her hips. With her movement Roarke plunged a little deeper into her and she heard him catch his breath.
“Is that better?” she asked, trying the motion again.
“You have no idea how much better.”
Despite his claim she sensed his growing need for more than she was providing. Before she could ask what he wanted of her, he spoke again.
“Jenia, forgive me for what I am going to do, but I simply cannot wait. I have wanted you for too long.”
“Forgive you?” She wondered for a moment if he was about to hurt her again. He withdrew almost completely, then plunged back into her. Though at his determined stroke she experienced a slight stinging, she quickly discovered that this new part of lovemaking was infinitely more pleasant than his initial entry had been.
Roarke’s efforts became even more vigorous until Jenia found that she was moving, too, in response to his repeated deep thrusts. She was growing steadily warmer and a peculiar sensation was coiling deep within her, tightening and tightening. Roarke’s hand slid down between them to stroke an intensely sensitive spot. The coil tightened one last time to an excruciating tension before it suddenly flew apart.
