“I can’t, Kate.”
All Kate could do was glare. He lifted a hand to touch her face. Panic jolted through her. God save her, but what if the pleasure his caresses gave her returned despite his betrayal? If so, she was be done for; she’d give him whatever he asked of her without so much as a slap. She turned her head to one side.
Feather-light, his fingertips brushed her aching jaw, where Warin had struck her. “I should kill him for what he did to you,” he said, his voice low and harsh. “Would that I’d found you sooner before he laid his filthy hands on you. My poor Kate.”
The false endearment rallied Kate’s anger. She turned her head just far enough to shoot another glare at him. “I am not your Kate. I will never be your Kate. You used me.” Damn her voice for quivering.
The smile he offered her was small and sad. “So I did. Would that I never had.”
That brought her around to squarely face him. Kate lifted her chin to a haughty angle. “Hah! Whatever regret you pretend is surely well assuaged now that you have both Glevering and me. Spare me your flowery words and sugared phrases. Bring your ropes and gag to bind me. I’ll have this wedding of yours over and done with so I can return to despising you in peace.”
His face tensed with her words then he shook his head. “I’ll not insist on marriage.”
“What is this?” she demanded with new suspicion. “You drag me all the way here, threatening forced marriage at every step, only to change your mind at the last moment? I doubt that. Nay, you’re but trying to use my emotions against me once again. What else could I possibly own that you need to steal it from me in this way?” Although she tried mightily to hide it, her voice filled with more than a little of the hurt he’d caused her.
He had the grace to flinch as he heard it. In the next instant a pretense of sincerity claimed his expression. “I’ll take nothing more from you, Kate,” he said quietly, “including marriage.”
Kate’s anger deflated so swiftly that it left her gasping. He really wasn’t going to force marriage on her? The realization hit her like a blow. Of course he wasn’t. He didn’t need her now that Glevering was his, made so by the strength of his sword arm.
Humiliation swam in the tears that filled her eyes. Now that he knew she was a lightskirt he meant to discard her. He’d give her back to her sire and she really would have to wed with Sir Gilbert--if Sir Gilbert would have her.
Only then did the reality of her new position hit Kate. Now that Rafe owned what had been her dowry, all she had to attract potential husbands was her dower portion from the de Fraisneys. That was but a third of the value of the few lands she’d taken with her into her first marriage. She was impoverished and without prospects.
That wasn’t all of it. She’d also spent the night as captive to both Warin and Rafe. Even if she didn’t come with child because of what she and Rafe had done there wasn’t a soul in all the world who’d believe her yet a chaste woman. If Rafe cast her off without marriage now she’d be worse than ruined. She’d be humiliated, abased, shamed for all time. Her sire might well discard her, so useless was she to him now, leaving her to beg for her daily bread.
“How can you do this to me?” she cried in new panic.
Something Kate couldn’t decipher flashed through Rafe’s gaze and was gone. His eyes darkened until they were nearly black. He placed his hands on the wall at either side of her head then he shifted forward, closing the gap between them.
Kate flattened herself against the wall behind her. It didn’t help. His nearness made her heartbeat lift until her pulse sang. He smelled of soap. Even with the bedclothes wadded before her the heat of his body reached out to embrace her.
No matter that she knew Rafe was intent on destroying her life just as completely as he’d destroyed her illusions. She wanted to feel his mouth on hers again. “Don’t touch me,” she warned, but it was more plea than command.
“I cannot help myself, Kate,” he replied, his tone the one that Kate had previously mistaken for love. His mouth was but a hair’s breadth from hers.
She wouldn’t let him use her again, she just couldn’t. It took all her will to turn her head to one side, hoping to deny them both the kiss they craved. His lips came to rest on the corner of her jaw just beneath her ear. Heat, tainted by the longing for something more, flowed through her from the spot his mouth touched.
His lips left her jaw then came to rest against her throat. Her skin took fire. Once again a throbbing started in the core of her being. Kate tried to lean away from him, but she was trapped between his hands. He pressed his mouth to the jut of her breastbone.
“Don’t,” she protested, her voice barely louder than a whisper, then groaned inwardly. For someone supposedly trying save herself from further humiliation it was a pathetic defense she staged.
“I can’t help myself,” he repeated between kisses as his mouth traced a path to where the bedclothes met her breasts.
Even as she chided herself for a wanton Kate’s knees weakened. Mary preserve her, but she needed him to touch her as he had last night. The very thought made her breath come faster.
Disgusted with herself, Kate held the bedclothes in place with an arm and shoved at his shoulder with her other hand. Although he moved not an inch back from her, her resistance did disturb him enough to make him cease his sweet torment. Straightening, he caught her face between his palms. His head lowered until his lips touched hers. Although it was but a gentle press of flesh to flesh, Kate’s mouth clung to his. How was it that when he kissed her she felt fevered and more alive than she’d ever dreamed possible?
Then his mouth left hers, and he eased back a half-step. Only by mustering all her will did Kate keep herself from reaching out to draw him back to her. He studied her for a quiet moment, his thumbs stroking pathways across her cheeks, a tiny crease marring the perfection of his brow.
“Would you forgive me the wrong I did you if I fell to my knees and begged for it?” he asked at last.
Even as Kate’s head insisted that this was some new ploy meant to further abase her, her wayward heart demanded she give him what he wanted. The battle between the two extremes left her speechless. In the end all she could do was shake her head in refusal.
He sighed at that. “I suppose it’s no more than I deserve. I should never have misused you as I did.”
He slipped one arm around her. The weave of his linen sleeve felt rough against the bare skin of her back. His hand was warm against her naked shoulder. “As God is my witness I never intended to cause you pain.”
So false was his claim that even her heart ceased its clamor. The floodgates of her anger opened. “Wasn’t what you intended?” she cried. “Liar! Kidnapping me was always what you intended else there wouldn’t have been an army of Godsols waiting but a mile or two from Glevering. You planned this long before Warin took me. Don’t you dare insult me by claiming you didn’t. Even I, who have proved myself a fool many times over these last days, am not so great a fool as that. Now let me go!” She once more shoved at him with her free hand.
Rather than do her bidding, Rafe wrapped his other arm around her and pulled her into an embrace tight enough to make Kate’s breath huff from her. With the bedclothes held in place by the pressure of their bodies she dared release her hold on them and brace both hands against his chest as she tried to put a decent distance between them. She might as well have been pushing at a brick wall for all he moved.
“You’re right. I did plan your taking,” Rafe said, sounding truly regretful. “The idea occurred to my brother in the very hour that Emma and Gerard exchanged their vows. I agreed, without thought or care for the consequences you might bear, only because I found you so lovely I couldn’t resist the idea of making you my wife.”
Rafe thought her pretty? He couldn’t resist the thought of her as his wife? Kate’s arms relaxed a little at his compliment. There was no sign that he noticed her defenses breaching.
“That night, needing to see the sort of woman I
meant to take for my own, I sought you out. You cannot imagine my astonishment when I realized you didn’t already hate me for being a Godsol, that you knew nothing of the feud between our families. You see,” he paused to sigh, “to have Glevering I knew I’d have to force marriage on you. I couldn’t bear the thought of an unwilling woman as my bride. I wanted your affection. I wanted you to desire me. And you did, or so said your kiss.”
Shame seared Kate’s cheeks. “Please God, don’t remind me of that night. Never, until I met you, have I ever behaved so improperly with a man.”
Rafe’s smile was slow and pleased. “Is it solely me who does that to you? Tell me that it is,” he pleaded.
It was a lover’s question. Joy tumbled through Kate, only to stop short, slaughtered by the reminder of how Rafe had used her. Still, the need to answer him wouldn’t be denied.
“I cannot understand how you do it,” Kate offered grudgingly, “but you overwhelm all that I know is right to seduce me into doing what I shouldn’t.”
“God be praised, I hoped you’d say that,” he murmured, his hand shifting up her back until it rested at her nape. There his fingers worked and caressed Kate’s tense neck muscles. She savored the sensation even though she knew she shouldn’t.
“It’s only fair I tell you that you do the same to me,” he said. “Indeed, so powerful is your effect on me you very nearly ruined my plot to have you.” There was a new touch of amusement in his voice. “Before God I vow I’ve never been so jealous of another man as I was when I saw you at the picnic with Sir Warin. That your heart might be given to another ate me alive since that meant I didn’t own it. I’d have died at your sire’s hands before I allowed you to meet Sir Warin in the woods.”
“What?” Kate cried softly, easing back in his arms to better stare into his face.
His expression was soft. “Kate, I am besotted with you,” he said. “My heart is given, yours if you should want it.”
How Kate damned her need to believe him even after all the wrong he’d done her. Rafe’s hand at her nape slipped upward until his fingers threaded into her hair. Cupping her head in his palm, he tilted her face until he could brush her lips with his.
“Kate,” he begged in a whisper, the movement of his mouth against hers provocative, “when I asked you last night it was a question from my heart. Now I ask it again. Marry me. Be my wife and the mother of my children. Share with me whatever joy comes our way and be my comfort in times of trouble. In exchange, take my heart and my vow to hold you safe for all the days of your life.”
His words stunned her. Rafe held Glevering in his own right now. He could seek out some other heiress, one with more than a pittance to her name. If he was offering her marriage it could mean but one thing.
Pushing herself back from him, Kate stared up at him in astonishment. “You love me?”
“I fear I do.” Rafe’s brows rose a little as if he were chagrined. His shoulders lifted, then a flicker of concern flashed through his eyes. “With all that has passed between us I’ll understand if you cannot tell me my affection is returned. Only tell me that I might hope for the future. Our future?” It was a plea, no less.
With a laugh, Kate threw her arms about his neck. “I am a fool, I know it aye, but I cannot help myself when it comes to you. You may do far more than hope for my love,” she assured him, then caught his mouth with hers.
Rafe’s arms tightened around her until every inch of them touched. His kiss deepened, his mouth slanting across hers, demanding. She yielded and happily, as all the glorious sensations she knew he could make in her returned.
Then he released her and took a backward step. Kate gave a quick cry as the bedclothes bunched between them slid. She snatched for them.
Too late. Down her body they went, past her hips to puddle on the floor around her feet. Frantic to cover herself, Kate bent. Before she reached them Rafe caught her hands. Twining his fingers with hers, he drew her up so he could better see what she hadn’t intended to show him.
“By God, but you’re lovely,” he said, his voice suddenly hoarse.
Even as his words made a whole new pleasure thrust through Kate she fought it. If she’d learned one thing beyond the fact that there was no pain in coupling last night, it was that coupling without vows could lead to humiliation. And that she’d had enough of these past days.
“Turn your head,” she commanded in a shaken voice, tearing free of his hold to grab up the blankets. She threw them around her shoulders, pulling them here and there until she was swaddled from neck to toes. “We aren’t married. You mustn’t look upon me until we’ve traded vows.”
“Then marry me,” Rafe managed, his gaze yet aimed at what he’d seen, his voice strained and quiet. “Marry me this very moment ere I eat myself alive for wanting you.”
He raised his gaze to look at her, his eyes lambent with desire. “I said I would not force you, Kate,” he told her, his voice yet full of longing for her. “You must tell me that you’ll marry me, entering into our union because it is your choice to do so just as our lord king granted. But if you agree to wed me, know that I’ll demand a hasty ceremony held this very moment. Delay even so much as an hour, and our chance to marry may well disappear. If the deed’s not done in its entirety before your sire finds us I cannot keep him from claiming you as his property once more.”
Happiness started as a quiet glow beneath the heat Rafe had already made in her. That he made this her decision more than washed away the stain of the wrong he’d done her and the wrong they’d done together, for he risked the chance she would refuse him. An obedient, well behaved daughter, the sort that Lady Adele had tried to make of Kate, would have instantly refused no matter what affection she might hold in her heart for this man. A good lass never questioned her father’s choice for her. However, Kate now knew that she was neither obedient nor well behaved. She smiled. Aye, and because she wasn’t, she’d claim a worthy husband, one who honored and respected her, one who offered her his heart and begged to own hers in return.
In that moment Lady Adele’s tales released their hold on Kate as she recognized them as shallow, even laughable. Not even for honor’s sake should a woman marry a man she despised only to pine hopelessly for the man she loved. If that’s how other women meant to live, Kate would let them. For herself, she’d have the one man who was both courtly lover and husband all in one.
She smiled. “Then I will marry you this very moment.”
Rafe’s smile was wide and pleased. “God be praised! I won’t lose you.”
Reaching out, he tugged at the edges of her blanket as if to cover some tiny patch of skin she’d left bare, then turned and crossed the room. Kate frowned, watching him lift the bar. The door opened, and he took a single step out into the hall beyond it. “Father, she’s agreed to wed with me,” he called out into the hall.
Kate gasped. She hadn’t realized he was serious about wedding her this very moment. “Nay, Rafe,” she cried out, hurrying over to him as quickly as her swaddling would allow. “Not yet. I need to dress.”
Another tiny cry left her, and she whirled to face the filthy remains of yesterday’s finery where they lay near the tub’s end. She couldn’t wear those clothes, not the way they were, and it would take hours to see them clean and hours more before they dried. That left borrowing a gown. Kate’s skin crawled at the thought of wearing some maid’s well-worn, flea-ridden attire on her wedding day.
Rafe stepped to her side. Wrapping his arm around her, he turned her back to look out of the bedchamber’s doorway. “You vowed. No delays.”
Kate’s heart quirked. Before her the hall was full, Glevering’s womenfolk on one side of the room, Godsol men filling the other. Rafe’s brother’s eyes widened when he saw the blanket-clad bride, his lips twitching as he fought a smile. From the hall’s back came a feminine giggle while amusement rumbled from the men.
Embarrassment warmed Kate’s cheeks. She turned her head into Rafe’s shoulder to hide her face from thos
e who watched. “I can’t stand in front of them in only a blanket,” she whispered to him. “My hair’s uncovered and undone.” Not even on her wedding day did a widow uncover her hair; that was for virgins. “They already think me a strumpet for this.”
“They’d best not,” Rafe said, his voice lowered to the depths of a threat. His arm around her tightened then he said something to the hall in the English tongue. There was instant silence.
“Hold up your head, my sweet,” he urged her in her own language. There wasn’t a whit of humor in his voice. “I’ve told them that your attire is ruined and that if I hear another sound I’ll drive the one who makes it out the gate for not treating my wife with all the respect due her.”
Rafe words wove a joyous web of security around her. Kate lifted her head to look into his face. He smiled. She sighed, well pleased with the man she’d chosen. From this moment on Rafe would see to it that she was well treated. Oh, but there was much to value in becoming his mate.
Kate turned to look out over the room. The amusement was gone from every face. The Godsol priest stepped forward with Rafe’s brother at his back then the ceremony, such as it was, began.
* * *
It stunned Kate that one moment she was Katherine de Fraisney, and the next she was Katherine Godsol. Of course, the priest had pared the rite to barely more than the oaths. All that needed doing now was to share the kiss that sealed the ceremony.
Rafe turned her in his arms. Naught but silence owned the room. His lips were soft and warm on hers. However gentle his caress that heat she’d discovered last night returned. She sighed against it, her eyes closing.
Kate let her mouth soften beneath his. It was an invitation, a reminder of the pleasure this sort of sharing between them woke. She felt his jerk of surprise then his embrace tightened. The intensity of his kiss deepened until new heat flooded Kate.
Someone applauded. Approving laughter, both male and female, broke the silence that had owned the hall throughout the trading of the oaths. Kate felt Rafe’s smile against her mouth. Yet holding her in his arms, he straightened, his forehead leaned against hers. Emotion darkened his eyes.
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