by Tamara Leigh
He was silent a long moment, and then he lifted himself out of the chair. "Emma was concerned that you not awaken alone," he said. The light creeping onto the planes of his face showed signs of fatigue 1 hat Joslyn had not earlier noticed.
"Where is she?" Joslyn asked, surprised that it was not the old woman who had stayed with her, and that I ,iam had thought it his responsibility to do so.
"She and Oliver are asleep in my chamber. She thought it best that your rest not be disturbed."
As Oliver would certainly have disturbed it. But how long had Liam sat in that chair? Joslyn wondered. Hours? Against her will, her heart stirred at the thought that, unbeknownst to her, he had watched her sleep. Had he felt anything as he sat there? Had he wanted to touch her as he'd once wanted to? As she still wanted to touch him?
"I will leave you now," he said, shattering her imaginings.
As he turned away, Joslyn searched frantically for something that might delay him, but in the end there was only the truth. "I do not wish you to go," she said, hating herself for it but wanting too badly for him to stay to spare her pride. Pushing back the covers, she lowered her feet to the floor.
Liam shook his head. "I cannot stay."
Was it Maynard who still stood between them? Joslyn wondered. She remembered again the words Liam had spoken to her at Settling Castle and how dirty he had made her feel for having lain with her husband. Still, when news of the plague had arrived at Ashlingford, he had come to her and told her that one day she would be his. Had she misunderstood? If not, was it simply that Liam had decided he did not want her after all? She had to know.
Swallowing, she asked, "Do you still want me, Liam?"
He did not answer her.
"I know I was your brother's first," she said, "but there is naught I can do—"
Something in Liam's eyes changed, causing Joslyn to fall back a step. Then, suddenly, he pulled her against him. "Never were you Maynard's," he growled, his breathing turned shallow. "Never." Then, as swiftly as his anger had risen, it dropped away. "God's rood, but I was cruel to say those things to you, Joslyn."
"Then why?" she breathed, aching at every place they touched. "Why do you keep yourself from me— especially now when Ivo can no longer do us harm?"
Shaking his head, Liam set her back from him. Don't you understand? He is gone, but the plague is not. There is much to do and not enough time to do it."
"Then you do still want me?"
"I told you one day you would be mine," he reminded her. "Naught has changed. When this black cloud no more hangs over England—"
"We might both be dead," she interrupted.
He issued a harsh sigh. "The time is not right, Joslyn."
Knowing she risked much—that he might turn from her again—she stepped forward and slid her arms around his neck. "It is right," she whispered then raised herself up on her toes and softly pressed her lips against his.
Liam held himself from her a moment longer. Then a tormented groan escaped him and he closed his arms around her. "You are mine, Joslyn." He spoke against her mouth. "Mine." Suddenly, there was no one to stop him—not Ivo, not the church, not even the plague. Hungrily, he deepened the kiss.
For fear she might otherwise awaken to find her-«11 dreaming, Joslyn strained toward him.
Instantly, Liam's body burgeoned against hers, but he prolonged the kiss until she began running her hands over him.
Joslyn did not think about what she did but allowed her passions to guide her where they chose. However, when she slid a hand between them and brushed Liam's rigid manhood, he put a quick end to it.
Dragging his mouth off hers, he swung her up into his arms and carried her back to the bed. "You are sure, Joslyn?" he asked before laying her down.
"I want to know you, Liam."
He brushed his mouth once more across hers, lowered her to the bed, and began drawing her chemise up. His fingers grazed the hose-covered flesh of her ankle, her calf, and the inside of her knee, but the moment he touched her thigh he pulled back.
God, no, Joslyn silently pleaded, do not let him stop now. Looking up at his face, which the dying torchlight flickered over, she asked. "Something is wrong?"
Reassuringly, he caressed the side of her face. "If I touch you any more I might not make it out of my own clothes," he said. "I do not want to rush this, Joslyn. I have waited too long to behave as if I were a rutting youth."
Relieved that he was not rejecting her again, Joslyn relaxed into the mattress and watched as he dragged his tunic off. As she had first seen him by the stream, he was magnificent bared, the muscles of his torso, shoulders, and arms flexing as he tossed the tunic aside. This time, though, Joslyn did not turn away. Instead, she looked long and lingering at him as he bent to remove his boots.
Without pausing to free the ties of his hose from his braies, Liam pulled them off as one and left them at his feet.
He was erect, Joslyn saw, his man's body ready for her woman's depths. But first there was her chemise to be shed. Aching to hold him inside her, she reached down and gathered a handful of her skirts. However, Liam closed his hand over hers, preventing her from pulling them up.
"I will do it," he said. He loosened her fingers and laid her hand back to her side. Putting one knee to the mat-tress, he raised his other leg and straddled her calves.
Joslyn swept her gaze down his body and trembled with the knowledge that now they would finally come together. Tonight she would know what it was like to make love to the man who held her heart. It had to be different from simply making a baby, she knew, for the feelings Liam's touch aroused promised far more than the pain she had known on her wedding night.
Smoothing his hands up over her legs, Liam slid his fingers into the tops of her hose, rolling them down and off her feet. The next time he touched her, it was flesh to flesh, and a moment later he bent his head to put his mouth to those places his hands had gone before him.
Joslyn shuddered as his lips moved intimately upward. However, upon reaching her inner thigh, Liam lifted his head, looked across the chemise that was bunched up around her hips, and met her gaze.
"I want to see all of you," he said, and pushed the garment upward.
As much as she was able to, Joslyn assisted him, and a short time later she lay as naked as he, her hair unplaited and spread across the pillow.
"You are beautiful, Joslyn," he murmured, his gaze traveling over her like tongues of flame.
It seemed so right to be here with him like this. Aching with want, she beseeched him. "Love me, Liam."
"'Tis what I want to do more than anything," he murmured. Lowering himself between her legs so that his manhood was pressed against her opening, he bent and pulled a nipple into his mouth.
Joslyn burned to have him inside her, and with the promise of it so near, a needful sound rose in her throat. She fought to hold onto it, but when Liam released the rigid nipple and moved to her other breast, it burst from her. "Liam!" she cried. Arching nearer him, she reached up and pushed her hands through his hair to hold him to her.
However, rather than enter her, he lifted himself away. "Turn over, Joslyn," he said, his breathing labored.
It took her a moment to rise above the needs of her body to understand what he said, but when she did, she thought she could not have heard right. Confused, she shook her head.
Liam offered no explanation—simply reached beneath her and eased her onto her belly.
The next sensation Joslyn felt was his lips against the cleavage of her buttocks. She quivered. Lord, but she had not known it was so sensitive there. As with all else Liam touched, it seemed connected with the fires of her woman's place, his touch causing her insides to convulse. From there, he worked his way up her back, with his hands, lips, tongue, and teeth, finding every sweet spot Joslyn had not known existed. By the time he finally reached her neck, his body splayed over hers, she thought she might scream with want.
He breathed her in. "At Rosemoor, your bed smelled of
roses," he murmured into her ear, "and of you, Joslyn. When I lie awake at night, it haunts me."
She shuddered. She had not known Liam had gone to her chamber. The thought heightened her desire. "Liam," she gasped, "I think I am dying."
"In a moment," he said, his voice so strained she hardly recognized it. Then, rolling her onto her back again, he entered her.
The pain was only slight, and then it faded as pleasure swept over Joslyn with the turbulence of a winter ocean.
Slowly, Liam slid himself more deeply into her.
Though it did not seem possible to be any more pleasurable, his movement made Joslyn want to cry out.
Once fully inside her, rigid and fiery where he settled himself, Liam stilled. "What do you feel, Joslyn?" he asked.
She did not at first understand what he was asking, but then her body whispered it to her. "As if I stand on the edge of something," she said. "Something so incredible I can never hope to touch it."
Liam drew his hands down her sides and gripped her hips. "But you will," he said. "I promise you that." I le pulled back, causing her insides to ripple with sensation, then he thrust forward and touched the deepest part of her. And again.
Small sounds escaping her, Joslyn remained unmoving, allowing Liam to do with her what he knew far better than she. However, as the feeling increased, her body began moving with his—tentatively, until she found his cadence. Then, matching him, she started climbing toward something that more and more stole her breath the nearer she got to it.
"Joslyn," Liam groaned, and a moment later began moving faster.
Lord, but she had not known she was capable of such feeling, she marveled, her body speaking to Liam's as if it had always known his. As if—
Joslyn thrust aside her ponderings and allowed Liam to pull her toward the precipice. The sensations he awakened swelled and began spinning around her. Then, just when she thought she might collapse, the last of her breath was snatched from her and she plummeted over the edge.
Throwing her head back, Joslyn cried out as her entire body was shaken by jolts of ecstasy she had never before felt. In their midst, she heard Liam's shout and felt him thrust one last time before shuddering inside her. One after the other, the tremors rocked Joslyn, but whether or not they were of her body or Liam's she could not distinguish. They had become one, and only when the tremors eased her down from the heights of passion they had scaled did she flow back into herself.
For what might have been an hour, neither of them spoke, and then Liam lifted his head and kissed her brow.
"I have never felt anything like that," Joslyn said.
"I know," he murmured. "It has never been this way for me either." Rolling off her, he leveraged himself onto an elbow and looked down at her.
"Truly?" she asked.
He nodded and slid a hand up over her belly and curved it around her breast. "I have found fulfillment in many women's arms," he admitted, "but none such as this."
What did he mean? Joslyn wondered. That his heart had been in it the same as hers? That it truly was love between them, and not just the act of sex? She wanted badly to ask him, to know what he felt for her, but the persistent voice in her head whispered that she was a hundred times a fool.
"I must know about your marriage, Joslyn," he said. "About you and Maynard."
The mention of his brother cooled the warmth from Joslyn's flushed skin. Why did Liam have to speak of him? Maynard had naught to do with what had just happened between them. "I do not wish to talk about it," she said.
"Though I can understand your reasons for not wanting to, I need to know."
She stared up into a face that was still handsome in spite of the scarred jaw. Forever, he would bear the marks of that day when Ivo had sought his death. But what was unseen were the scars Maynard had inflicted upon him. Aye, he ought to know.
With a sigh, Joslyn said, "You were right in believing I was naught more to your brother than a vessel for the child who would take Ashlingford from you. I knew it ere we wed, so it did not hurt—at least not as ii would have, had I loved him."
Lightly, Liam skimmed his fingers down her arm. "Why did your father agree to such a marriage? Surely he could have found you someone more fitting—someone who would have made a life with you."
"He had no choice. You see, my father is near as obsessed with his games of chance as Maynard was. "She tried to suppress the shiver that rose through her, but it trembled onto her limbs.
Reaching behind him, Liam pulled the coverlet over them both. "What do you mean he had no choice?" he asked.
"He and Maynard met in London—gambling, of course. Shortly thereafter, Maynard first journeyed to Rosemoor. Though he joined my father and several others in gambling the day and night away, it seemed I could go nowhere without his eyes following me; 'tis a wonder he kept enough of his mind on the game to win. The following day I learned from my father that Maynard had inquired into my betrothal and, upon learning I was without contract, had offered to wed me himself."
"And your father agreed?"
Joslyn hugged the coverlet tighter to her. "He would have liked to," she said, "but he had made my mother a promise ere she died that I would be allowed to marry for love as she had."
"Yet you did not refuse Maynard."
"But I did. I did not love him, Liam, nor did I believe I ever would. Though my father was disappointed, he honored his vow to my mother and told Maynard I had declined."
"Then how is it you changed your mind?"
"Each time Maynard returned to Rosemoor, my father lost more to him, until one day there was not enough coin to pay the enormous debt."
Liam was silent for a minute, and then he said, "I see."
"I had no choice," she said, praying he would understand. "My father would have been ruined had I not agreed to the marriage. In exchange Maynard agreed to absolve my father of the debt, half of it once we were wed, the other half when I . . . when I produced a male child."
Liam lifted a hand to knead his brow. "God," he muttered.
Tears sprang to Joslyn's eyes. "What else was I to do? I could not allow my father to face such ruin when it was in my power to help him."
"Nay, Joslyn," he said, his gaze tender, "it is not that. It is what Maynard did to you. That you had to endure his attentions."
Relief flooded through her. So Liam was not revolted by her having sold herself. Still, she needed lo explain further. "I only lay with him the one time," she said.
He frowned. "What are you talking about?"
"When I agreed to wed him, it was with the provision that during my pregnancy I would not be made to suffer his attentions and that, once he had his son, he would come no more to my bed. It angered him, hut he conceded."
"Then Oliver was conceived your first time g together?"
"Aye. An old midwife helped me determine the day to wed that I would be most fertile, gave me herbs to increase my fertility, and spoke words over me that the babe would be born a boy."
"And Maynard kept his word?"
"The day after we were wed, he left Rosemoor and did not come again until I was near five months into my pregnancy," she said. "As I was only beginning to swell, he did not believe I was with child and sought to gain my bed again. To convince him, my father sent for the midwife, and though she confirmed it, Maynard still tried to break his word. My father held him to it."
Liam smoothed the hair back from her brow. "I am sorry, Joslyn," he murmured. "It should never have happened."
"I am not sorry," she said. "It gave me Oliver." And you, she added silently, even if it was only for this one night. But she would not think of that now....
Liam bent his head and caressed her mouth with his.
It kindled Joslyn—made her want to join with him again. And they did join again, and several times more throughout the night, until the first light of dawn crept into the chamber. Then, finally, she slept.
Joslyn was not surprised to awaken alone in her bed. After all, the sun
was approaching noon when she lifted her head from the pillow.
Sitting up, she gazed at the confusion of covers, some spread around her, some fallen from the mattress to dust the rushes. Portions of the sheet were wound tight with the blanket, the blanket with the coverlet, and the coverlet with the sheet—all three connected in one way or another as if they had made love as vigorously as she and Liam had.
In spite of the telling tenderness between her legs, Joslyn smiled. Last night had been like no other. Last night she had fallen completely and wonderfully in love. True, she had loved Liam before, but their joining had sealed it for her forever.
For a long moment, Joslyn basked in the glow of that love, feeling as if her world was finally made perfect. Then reality intruded and reminded her that last night might never happen again. Even if it did, there was no future in it. Not only was their relationship forbidden by the church, but it could not truly be called a relationship when one loved and the other only desired.
Still, whatever she had of Liam she would take gratefully, for it was far more than she would have had if he had turned from her last night.
Smiling again, Joslyn disentangled her legs from the covers and lowered her feet to the floor. Knowing that Liam would already have been in the fields for hours, she quickly rinsed herself with cold water from the basin, dressed, and plaited her hair. Then she made her way belowstairs.
The hall was empty—at least, at first glance it appeared so. As Joslyn crossed toward the kitchens where she hoped to find a crust of bread and a chunk of cheese to ease her hunger, the rustle of parchment drew her attention to the hearth.
It was Emma, standing with her back to Joslyn, head bent over the fire she fed.
Curious, Joslyn approached her and, as she neared, heard Emma humming a child's song that Joslyn rec-Ognized as one her own mother had sung to her— something about a child's toys lost, found, then lost again. "Emma?" she said.
The old woman jerked her head around. "My lady!" She flapped a hand to her heart. "I did not know you had awakened."
"Aye, not long ago," Joslyn said, then glanced from the blackened remains of parchment upon the fire to the single sheet Emma held down by her side. "What are you burning?" she asked.
