by Betina Krahn
Before she could protest, he pressed a quick kiss on the tip of her nose. Her eyes flew wide, and as she drew back, he followed and captured her lips with his. Holding her with only the force of his kiss, he pulled her slowly upright and deepened that possession . . . tantalizing her mouth with slow, lavish strokes of his tongue.
She groaned softly, unable to pull away, mesmerized by the feel of his mouth on hers. It was as if she had been plunged into swirling hot water . . . she could scarcely get her breath. When he finally pulled away, she swayed and blinked.
Her hands were curled tightly over the front of his belt, her fingers trapped against his taut belly, and her body weak with a strange and delicious hunger she had glimpsed more than once in Thera’s face. As the impact of her position washed over her, she snapped straight, her face crimson and her pride on fire.
“Let me up.”
“Are you certain you wish to go? If I know mon ami, they will not rise from the bed before midday. He is a man for . . . morning pleasures.” His eyes danced over her. “In that way, we are much alike.”
“This is an outrage!” she said, shoving him back and struggling to her feet.
“Nay, the outrage is that you were paired and mated with a man old enough to be your grandsire.”
“How did you—”
“I wanted to know.” He shrugged. “I asked. He was well past his manly prime when you were wedded, eh? And I would wager you have not taken a man to your bed since he died. It cannot be from lack of wanting, ma chatte. You have the burning in your loins, I can tell. I feel the flames licking my lips when I kiss you.”
“How dare you?” She tried to move toward the door, but he blocked her path.
“I dare because I, too, have wasted many years . . . wandering and fighting. I would waste no more time, Lillith of Montaigne.” His words bore the weight of truth as his dark eyes softened, allowing her a glimpse of a side of him seldom seen. He leaned closer and drew a knuckle gently down her chest, across the tingling tip of her breast, and down her belly to her woman’s mound, where he fitted his palm over her femininity. It was undoubtedly a crime against her dignity—but she couldn’t make herself pull away from that tender, claiming touch.
“I could fill your blood with fire, your sweet belly with children, and your heart with laughter, ma chatte,” he said earnestly, “if you would let me.”
Pleasure, children, and laughter . . . for a brief moment she glimpsed an unexpected yearning for those things in his gaze. But she honestly could not say whether it was his longing or the reflection of her own. Never in her life had she wanted anything so much as she wanted what he offered her at that moment. And the power of that desire sent her into a full panic. She drew back with a jerk, bit her lip to keep from speaking, and darted around him for the door.
Gasquar watched her retreat and sighed heavily. He’d never met a woman so determined to deny herself pleasure. What would it take to make her come around?
Lillith raced out the door and ran smack into Cedric and a collection of bleary-eyed elders who had come to investigate the rumor that Saxxe Rouen had claimed the first of his three nights with Thera. She huddled back against the door to Saxxe’s quarters and avoided meeting their eyes. They had seen her hurtling from Gasquar’s chambers just now, and as they studied her rumpled form, they drew unfortunate but understandable conclusions about how she had passed the night as well.
“Really, Countess!” Elder Audra declared with an indignant glance at Gasquar, who had heard the voices and was stepping into the passage from his open door. “You have a duty. You must see to the princess’s nights before engaging in your own!”
“Audra!” Cedric’s glare silenced her before he turned to Lillith with a somber mien. “We have come to learn if what we heard is true. What is your count, Lillith Montaigne?”
Lillith bit her lip and searched their faces. Then, with Gasquar’s gaze prodding her to render up her precious “truth,” she held up four fingers.
The elders hurried from the palace carrying with them the news of Thera’s night with Saxxe. And the word spread like wildfire through the city: Mercia had four-sevenths of a king.
* * *
When the sun was fully up, Saxxe uncoiled from Thera’s sleeping form and stood by the edge of the bed, taking pleasure in the hair curled around her body like errant sea waves. He had never met a woman like her in his life, never imagined one could exist. She was a fascinating blend of monarch and maiden; a determined noble, a devoted ruler, a commanding presence . . . but also a bright and clever young woman, a richly responsive lover. She called to things deep within him, feelings and responses that had long lain dormant . . . the need to defend and uphold, to give freely of himself. For the first time in a long while he had something of his own to strive for . . . something fine and good . . . something that involved the depths of his heart as well as the might of his arms.
The fullness in his chest grew so that he felt he would burst if he didn’t move. And in Mercia there was a great deal that needed doing. To do something for Mercia, he sensed, was to do it for Thera . . . for her heart and soul were bound up with her people. And in that moment, he knew that was the key to her.
He pulled on his skin breeches, laced up his boots, then strapped on his cross braces with his trembling hands. Moments later, he stepped into the passageway and peered through Gasquar’s open door. There sat his garrulous friend in a circle of serving women and maids, teasing them with his scandalous talk. Saxxe beckoned him, and a chorus of protests rose as he joined Saxxe in the corridor.
“Alors—you have had your night,” he said, studying the satisfaction in his friend’s face. Then he started as he realized Saxxe’s face was now naked. “Sacre Bleu! I will not ask how it was.” He rolled his eyes. “I can see for myself . . . she has singed and plucked you for roasting!”
“It’s called shaving, Gasquar,” Saxxe said with a laugh. “Part of barbering, remember?” When Gasquar shook his head in mock ignorance, Saxxe gave the end of his beard a flip. “I tell you, old friend”—he leaned close with a wicked grin—“I had forgotten what an effect a clean-shaven face can have on a woman.”
“Your face perhaps, mon ami.” Gasquar chuckled, stroking his wiry beard dolefully. “My naked chin has never been known to send women into fits of passion.”
Saxxe clapped him boisterously on the shoulder and drew him along. “Come with me. I have a thousand things to do today, and I have to start by finding a tailor.”
“A tailor?” Gasquar stopped in his tracks, searching Saxxe’s expansive mood with genuine horror. “First the shaving . . . now the putting on of clothes. Sacre Mere! Next you will be eating soup with a spoon!”
“Perhaps I will,” Saxxe said. “But then . . . I believe most kings do.”
He turned and strode on, leaving Gasquar gaping after him. A moment later the burly Frenchman caught up and flashed him a grin of understanding. “Alors, it has been a long while since I have seen my chin, also,” Gasquar mused, falling into step beside Saxxe with a glint in his eye. “Perhaps it has improved. After your tailor, mon ami, perhaps we will find me a barber. . . .”
* * *
Out of the sweet heaviness of sleep Thera roused to a lush feeling of warmth . . . the heat held by the soft bed around her and the low, patient burn of the embers of desire banked within her. She came slowly to life, stretching, arching, shifting her arms and legs languidly, aware of every delicious inch of her body in an entirely new way. Lying naked in a bed that bore the subtle scents of a night of loving, she felt like the culmination of femininity . . . whole, encompassing, supreme . . . connected to all that was fertile and productive and sensually alive. And the one responsible for these marvelous new feelings was Saxxe Rouen.
From the strong light filtering through the half-open garden doors, she guessed it must be midday at least. She sat up and looked around, finding the rumpled bed, then the bedchamber, empty. Where had he gone? Why would he leave her alone in his b
ed?
But the sting of disappointment quickly gave way to relief as she thought of what she would say, how she would face him after her wild, uninhibited behavior of the night.
Her garments, which lay damp and crumpled on the floor, were beyond wearing. She pulled a sheet from the tangled bed linen to wrap around her instead. Then she paused and leaned her head against one heavily draped post, seeing in her mind’s eye Saxxe’s newly shaven face. Such handsome features. They could lure a kingdom of women from their hearths and husbands . . . or entice a stubborn princess to his bed.
She’d spent another night with him; that made four. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that, but what she had experienced with him had dispelled many of her doubts about him. He was a knowledgeable and considerate lover, a tender and passionate man . . . and the one person in the world to whom she was a woman first. Between them, there were no rules or boundaries, no protocol. He placed no expectations on her, demanded nothing except her honest response. She wanted him and had begun to understand that in some ways she needed him as well. In their passionate bond, she felt a personal freedom that was a rare and precious thing in her royal life.
A hesitant rapping at the door startled her and she whirled with her hand at her throat. The hinges creaked and Lillith’s head appeared.
“Princess? Thank the saints you are awake! I had to come and tell you . . .”
Thera pulled her inside. “What is it? What’s happened?” she demanded. But instinct told her that the first words of Lillith’s explanation would be . . .
“Saxxe Rouen. He’s in the city . . . going this way and that . . . poking into everything . . . bursting into the closed shops!” She paused to take a breath and Thera felt herself going a little light-headed. She grabbed Lillith’s hands and squeezed.
“What shops?”
“The tailor . . . he pounded on the tailor Lucian’s door just after Prime. Then he and his miscreant friend barged into the barber’s stall and then called the bootmaker to open his shop—the whole of the marketplace was in an uproar! And then he went into the weaver’s row and caused a commotion in the spinning and weaving rooms. . . .”
Uproar. Commotion. Thera struggled for a grip on her reeling emotions. He had left her sated and safely tucked out of the way, in his bed . . . while he took advantage of her absence . . . and her people? How could he? Humiliated heat poured through her, reddening her from head to toe. How could she have been so gullible?
She was halfway out the door when Lillith caught the tail of the sheet she wore and pulled her to a halt.
“Princess, please . . . aren’t you going to put on some garments first?”
* * *
Saxxe had arrived in the city like the rising sun that morning, rousing the inhabitants and spreading his vital energy throughout the streets. He had indeed invaded Lucian’s tailor shop just after Prime . . . with a request to be measured for a tunic and hose. The little tailor was as delighted as he was shocked, and set about marshaling his apprentices to see to Saxxe’s request immediately. And Lucian’s good wife, Faye, set her hearth aglow to provide them something to break their fast.
By the time Saxxe and Gasquar stepped out into the street again, a crowd had gathered. With a growing escort, they went to the barber Stephan’s stall . . . where Gasquar was shorn of a winter’s growth of wool. From there, they visited the bootmaker Robert’s shop to order a pair of soft boots for each of them. And when parsimonious Robert dared inquire about payment, Saxxe told him the king of Mercia would stand good for the debt and gave him a wink.
His comment was passed by those who heard, and soon every person in the crowd that trailed them through the streets knew that bold and handsome Saxxe Rouen planned to someday be their king. They began to call questions to him, begged him to tell of his travels, and offered him samples of their foods and wares at every turn. They blushed at his direct looks and glowed with pride as he examined and complimented their workmanship . . . and their hearts swelled as he lifted their little ones to ride upon his broad shoulders as he strode along.
As he paused to clasp the men’s hands and tousle the children’s hair, he was suddenly swamped by an unexpected wave of protectiveness toward them. They were a gentle folk, generous and trusting, and much too vulnerable. They needed a champion, a defender.
Within the burning fullness in his chest, within that poignant rise of the desire to gird and uphold, he somehow understood . . . the knight in him was being reborn.
He strode on, meeting their curiosity and their enthusiasm with a heartfelt desire to do good among them. Finding himself in the weaver’s street, he made his way to the spinning house and, with a delicacy worthy of an ambassador, suggested ways to speed the winding of the skeins. His broad, winning charm finally made them bend their tradition of counting every loop of yarn as it was created, to try something new.
Then, in the weaving house itself, he described the kinds of shuttles and reeds and the variation of wrapping yarns that allowed the weavers of Paris and Florence to conceal the warp of a cloth entirely and produce a rich, tightly woven fabric with an identical pattern on both sides. By the time he departed, Benelton, the head weaver, was ecstatic about the possibility of trying this new sort of weaving, which Saxxe called “tapestry.” And Mercia’s looms would never be quite the same again.
Thera raced into the city with Lillith at her heels. She had hastily donned whatever garments she came to first in her cabinets and had to be constrained bodily so that old Esme could coil her hair into a proper crispinet. Then, girding herself for a battle royal, she headed for the streets to find Saxxe and see for herself the damage he had wrought.
But instead of the tumult they expected, she and Lillith found the marketplace virtually empty.The ware shelves, stalls, and workbenches were abandoned. With anxiety rising, Thera hurried toward the weaver’s street, where she found the spinning house strangely silent. And in the weavers’ hall, the looms were motionless and the workers were gathered around to watch the head weaver and several of his master weavers trying out Saxxe Rouen’s idea of a new way of wrapping yarns. She intervened and sent them all back to work, then burst from the weaver’s hall to stop passersby and demand the whereabouts of Mercia’s missing citizenry.
She found her people, as reported, gathered in the lane and on the corral rails around the smithy. Far above, on the roof that covered the main building, stood Saxxe and Gasquar and two other fellows . . . armed with iron pry bars and picks, popping wooden planks from the roof. She elbowed her way through the crowd and stood aghast. On the ground lay pieces of the shed roof that had covered the forge’s hearth, and all around lay stones from the hearth itself, which was being dismantled with iron picks and chisels and hammers.
“What in God’s name are you doing?” she roared. “Stop that—this instant!” They looked at her and lowered their tools, then turned to look up at Saxxe . . . as if seeking his direction. Their hesitation and the way they looked to Saxxe set her blood on fire. “Saxxe Rouen!” she yelled at him. “Come down immediately!”
He located her on the ground near the front of the onlookers, and waved. A moment later he was sliding down the sloped roof, and dropping from the eve to the ground. “Well, what do you think?” he asked, gesturing with a broad hand.
“I think you’re mad,” she declared, shaking a fist and almost bashing him with it. “You’ve wreaked havoc in the city all morning and now you’re dismantling our forge! Are you determined to destroy my kingdom as well as my peace?”
“Well, there’s gratitude for you,” he said with a scowl, dusting his hands together and propping them on his hips. “We are not destroying anything. We’re merely rearranging things . . . to make room for two more hearths.” He nodded toward the half-demolished stonework. “One hearth is not sufficient for an entire kingdom.”
Thera mastered her anger enough to note a number of her carpenters clustered nearby with split planks and beams, adzes and chisels, and several of her aged sto
nemasons examining the stones taken from the hearth and making measurements with the knotted cords they had not used in years.
Indeed, it appeared that they were preparing to rebuild the forge!
“Our forge is more than adequate,” she insisted hotly, though with a bit less fire than before. “One hearth is all we have ever needed.”
“Your old hearth wasn’t large enough for proper ironwork. . . hardly enough to repair what tools and cooking irons you have.” He turned to Randall, who stood nearby with a frown, for verification, and the smith nodded reluctantly. “And it’s certainly not big enough to make armor or weapons or tools as large as iron plow blades or vessels as large as iron cauldrons for making dyes.”
Her eyes flew wide with alarm. He spoke of weapons and armor—of arming her people!
“We don’t need armor or weapons.” She matched his determined pose, putting her fists on her hips. “Our mountains are our defense . . . we need no other. You build that hearth and roof back exactly as they were!”
He stared at her flushed face and angry stance, his irritation rising. Then something roused in the back of his mind, delaying his angry blast for an instant as he searched her eyes. Orders. And there it was . . . the shadow of the fears she was channeling into a stream of royal commands. What was she afraid of? The need for weapons? The changes he was working? His effect on her people?
“But you do need plowshares and tools and iron vessels,” he responded, sidestepping the volatile question of arms. “You send your traders off with your fine cloth, and they must spend much of the profits of your labors to buy things that could be made here, by your own smiths. They are fine craftsmen, but their skills are often wasted because they have so little space and so little iron to work. Two more hearths, a smelter, and a few more strong backs would give them what they need to do such work here.”
