She still looked puzzled.
“His illegitimate daughter,” Graeham said. “No one knows—aside from the girls themselves, and their uncle, who raised them in Paris.”
“The canon,” Joanna said softly. “Ada told me her uncle is a canon of Notre Dame.”
“That’s right. And, of course, Rolf le Fever knows. He found out shortly after the wedding. ‘Tis why he hates his wife so much, why he started heaping threats and abuse on her. The marriage was meant to reflect well on him, and all it brought him was—as he puts it—a shameful little secret to keep.”
Joanna nodded. “Yes...that makes sense, knowing him. So Lord Gui began to worry that he’d go beyond mere threats and abuse—as, indeed, it seems he has—and enlisted you to rescue his daughter before real harm could come to her.” She shook her head. “Rotten timing, those robbers smashing your leg before you had a chance to get her out of that house.”
“I don’t think they were mere robbers.”
“Nay?”
“I’d been to see le Fever that afternoon. He was reluctant to let his wife leave with me, but I talked him into it with a bit of blackmail and the promise of fifty marks—or so I thought. He told me to return at compline and he’d have her ready. Olive was there, delivering Ada le Fever’s tonic. I asked her to prepare enough for the journey and have it there by compline.”
“Olive was there? She saw you, then, and she knew you’d come to take Ada away. That’s why you didn’t want her to see you here, because she knew you weren’t just some fellow who ran into a bit of bad luck on his way to Oxfordshire.”
“That’s right. I went back at compline, of course, only to be lured into the alley by some knave representing himself as Byram, who knew why I was there. He and his two cohorts had been lurking about waiting to smash my head in and take the fifty marks. They got the silver and my mount, and if it weren’t for your brother, they might have sent me to my maker that day.”
“You think le Fever hired them to ambush you?”
“Aye. I think he wanted the money without the indignity of losing his wife.”
“One would think he’d have been eager to see her go, regardless of the indignity.”
“Don’t forget, he’d been having her poisoned since Christmastide, just waiting for the right time to finish her off. He wanted her dead, so he could remarry someone more suitable—not packed off to Paris, with everyone wondering why her father had felt the need to fetch her back.”
“Pardon me for saying so, serjant, but it strikes me as awfully poor judgment on the part of your Lord Gui to have married his daughter off under false pretenses.”
“It was. He admits as much himself. And I must confess to some measure of disappointment with him when he told me what he’d done. The very fact that he’d kept two daughters tucked away in Paris all those years was rather sobering. I wondered if all important men had secret bastards hidden away.”
“Two daughters? Oh, that’s right—Ada has a sister. She mentioned her once. Phillipa—isn’t that her name?”
A thrumming panic gripped Graeham at the sound of his future wife’s name on Joanna Chapman’s lips. “Aye,” he managed. “Phillipa. They’re...they’re twins.”
“Does Phillipa’s husband know the truth about her birth, or was he kept in the dark, as well?”
This was his chance to tell her everything, to reveal the terms of his reward, to be as candid as she deserved. Graeham’s heart thumped in his chest as he pondered how best to say it...Phillipa isn’t married, not yet. I’m to be her husband. We’ll be wed as soon as I bring Ada back to France.
“Serjant?” Joanna’s shoulder brushed Graeham’s as she turned toward him; silk against linen; soft woman-flesh against muscle; warmth against warmth. God, she smelled so good; he wanted to drown himself in her hair, bury himself in her body. “Is something wrong?”
Graeham plucked a leaf off one of the bundles of herbs and ground it into dust between his fingers. “Phillipa isn’t married yet,” he said, his voice strangely distant and hollow, as if he were listening to someone else speak. “I’m...” He looked up and met Joanna’s glimmery, molten gold gaze, and it was all he could do to force air into his lungs, much less speak.
“Well, I hope Lord Gui is more forthcoming with his next son-in-law than he was with the last one,” she said with an arid smile.
“I’m...” Graeham shook his head, disgusted with himself, with the situation. He tore off another leaf. “I’m sure he will be.”
She regarded him in that insightful way that he found both disarming and unnerving. “Lord Gui must trust you very much, to have told you this.”
Graeham crumbled that leaf, and another, without looking at her. “He was...almost like a father to me during my adoles¬cence.”
“Almost?”
Graeham thought about it. “I respected him. I still do, despite...his lapses in judgment and the infidelity. I harbor a great deal of affection for him, and I like to think the sentiment is mutual. He’s been good to me, given me opportunities, but...”
“But?”
He did look up, then. “I still sleep in the barracks. I still exist to do his bidding, same as his other soldiers. I’m not his son, just...a favored retainer. I try not to forget that.”
She nodded thoughtfully.
“Your storeroom really is the first private place I’ve ever had to call my own,” he said. I’ve never had a home in the true sense, nor any kind of family.”
“I’m sure you’ve felt the lack of those things very keenly,” she said. “But growing up the way you did—having only yourself to rely one—did have some benefits. You became independent, self-reliant. Those are admirable qualities.”
“I know. I’ve greatly admired them in you.”
She lowered her gaze, letting that statement hang heavy in the air between them.
“We’re much alike, you and I,” he said quietly, acutely aware now of her shoulder pressed to his, the soft caress of her silken robe along the side of his leg. “You must have noticed.”
She nodded, her gaze fixed on her hands, resting on the table in front of her.
“I know we’ve had our differences,” he said, feeling as if he were falling, slowly but dizzyingly, into some dark abyss filled with mystery and promise, and taking her with him. “But when I talk to you, I feel as if I’m talking to...a friend, someone whose soul is attuned to mine. I know you’ve felt the same loneliness I’ve felt, the same sense of isolation.”
With a kind of drunken recklessness, he reached for her hand and took it. She still wouldn’t look at him. Through the serpentine tendrils of hair cloaking her chest, he saw the rapid rise and fall of her silk-clad breasts.
He squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry for the lies,” he said, meaning it—especially the one last, tenacious lie of omission about Phillipa. “I’m sorry for everything I’ve done to push you away.”
“I haven’t been truthful with you, either.” She curled her fingers around his. “I need to tell you something, something I should have told you in the beginning.”
“Mistress...”
“Nay, let me tell you—please. I feel a little silly now, for having kept this from you, and...and a little ashamed.”
“You don’t—”
“I’ve been letting you think I’m a married woman, but I’m not. I’m a widow. My husband...he died last year in Genoa.”
“I know.”
She stared at him. “You don’t know.”
“I do,” he admitted. “I’ve known for...some time now.”
“How long?” she asked in a thin voice.
“Since the day of the fair.”
“The Friday fair?”
He nodded.
“You’ve known since the Friday fair?” A shrill note of anger joined the incredulity in her voice. “That was a month ago!”
“Mistress,” Graeham soothed, feeling as if he’d played a particularly idiotic move in chess, one from which there was no turning
back, “I understood why you—”
“Have could you have gone on letting me pretend, after you knew?” she asked in a quavering voice.
“Mistress, please...”
“You knew.” Her eyes shone too brightly; patches of red stained her cheeks. “You knew all along. All this time...”
He tightened his grip on her hand. “Please listen to me.”
“I feel like such a fool. I can’t stay here and...I can’t.” She jerked her hand out of his and stood. “Good night, serjant.”
“Nay!” Graeham gripped her around the waist with both hands. “Stay. Please just—”
“Let me go!” she said fiercely, prying at his hands. “I’m humiliated enough. Don’t make me stay here and—”
“Joanna—”
“Let go of me.” She slammed her fists into his arms.
He released her. Bracing his hands on the table, he rose awkwardly to his feet. “Joanna, stay. I just want to—”
“Leave me alone.” As she turned, he grabbed her arm. She wrenched away from him, her robe sliding off one shoulder, and wheeled around.
“Joanna!” His splint and the lack of space between the bench and the table put him off balance, but as she turned her back to him, he seized her shoulders. One was uncovered; he felt a moment’s disorientation to be touching her bare flesh, warm and firm and damp with sweat.
Twisting around, she struck out at him. One fist caught him on a forearm, the other on the side of the shoulder. They weren’t hard punches, but they were enough to upset his footing.
He toppled sideways, overturning the bench and landing painfully on its underside. Cursing at the sudden jolt to his leg, he rolled off the bench, both hands wrapped around his splint.
“Graeham!” She knelt over him, her hair brushing him in slick, heavy waves as she softly touched his splinted leg. Despite the situation, it gratified him on an elemental level to hear her call him by his Christian name. “Oh, God, I’m sorry. Are you all right?”
Gritting his teeth, he nodded, stretched his leg out, managed to sit up.
“Thank God,” she said. “I...I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’ve never hit anyone...I’m just...I can’t...I have to go.” She started to rise.
“Nay.” He caught her around the waist and threw her down in the rushes.
With a gasp of outrage, she tried to sit up. He pushed her back down by her shoulders.
She tried to roll out from under him, but he shoved her flat on her back, lowering himself onto her to hold her still.
“Let me go!” She thrashed and squirmed, pushing against his chest. “Get off me!”
“Nay.” He banded his hands around her wrists and pinned them amid the great corona of golden hair blanketing the rushes, but still she writhed against him, trying desperately to pitch him off.
Her wrapper had loosened further in their tussle, exposing her upper chest and arm on one side. He could see the creamy rise of a breast, its nipple barely concealed by the disarrayed garment. With every heave of her chest, every arch of her back, the swath of silk threatened to slip away from the taut nub and reveal what he’d only looked upon in his inflamed imaginings.
Desire, hot and heavy, unfurled in his loins, pushed against her. In her struggles, she didn’t seem to notice.
“Joanna, stop this,” he said, his hair falling in his face as he tried to capture her fierce gaze with his. “Stop—”
“Why?” she cried. “Why didn’t you tell me you knew I was widowed?”
Softly, searching her eyes, he said, “I was waiting for you to tell me.”
Chapter 21
I was waiting for you to tell me. Oh, God.
Joanna gazed into Graeham’s luminous blue eyes, her heart drumming in her chest. His hands were like bands of iron around her wrists, his body heavy and solid as he pressed her into the prickly rushes.
He had one leg, the splinted one, nestled between hers. In the juncture of her thigh and hip she felt, through her silken wrapper and his linen undergarments, a rock-hard column of heat.
She closed her eyes to escape his penetrating gaze and this heart-pounding tempest of sensation, but that only heightened her awareness of him...his damp male scent, the rhythmic whisk of his shirt against her chest with every breath he drew—breath that tickled her face, her lips, growing hotter, closer.
She opened her eyes, lost herself in an intensity of blue. He was close, so close. There was no turning back.
He touched his lips to hers and she fell, tumbling slowly, into heat and inevitability.
It was an ungentle kiss, dark and rough and full of need, and oh God oh God she gave herself to it, surrendered her mouth to him, his lips hot and demanding, his tongue and teeth devouring her.
He released her wrists and closed his hands around hers, tightly, possessively. She squeezed them back. Possess me.
He parted her thighs with his good leg. Still kissing her, he pressed against her, hard. And again.
Yes. Joanna moved against him, against the slide of his rigid flesh on her yielding softness. She throbbed where he thrust against her; her body wept for him, damp through the silk, straining, pushing, trembling.
Please. Oh, God.
He broke the kiss, gasping, released one of her hands and untied his drawers with frenzied haste, his fingers fumbling, grazing her through the wet silk, a fluttery caress.
She breathed his name like a plea, helpless in her need, felt his hands warm and rough as he yanked her wrapper open, just enough, felt the satin length of him hot and taut against her inner thigh, the head slick and ready.
And then he took her mouth again, gripping both of her hands hard, harder, every muscle in his body straining as he readied himself and drove in.
Her flesh burned as he stretched her open. So tight. It had been so long. She tensed, a startled little whimper rising in her throat.
Half-buried within her, he rose on his elbows, his eyes full of concern. “Joanna? Are you—”
“I’m fine.” She squeezed his hands, moved against him, her need for him, for the fullness of him inside her, so overwhelming that she didn’t care about the discomfort. She relished it, because it meant he was claiming her, taking her body as he had taken her soul.
He drew back and thrust again slowly, and again, a sinuous tightening of his hips that quivered through his torso, his shoulders, his hands. Each determined stroke pushed deeper, easing her open, invading her inch by inch.
The initial pain of penetration dissolved into a different kind of ache, a hot tingle, a breathless gathering up that made her moan and clutch his hands.
He reared up, his thrusts growing swifter, more erratic. His damp hair swung above her, sweat dripping from it; his breathing grew harsh, frantic. The rushes crackled beneath them.
Needing him deep, deep, as deep as he could go, she wrapped her legs around him, arched against him.
“Oh, God, don’t,” he said, his gaze unfocused, his body shuddering. “Joanna, don’t.”
“Why? What—”
“It feels too...I can’t...oh, God...” He tucked his wet face in the crook of her neck, groaning raggedly. Joanna felt the tremors course through him, felt the fury of his release deep within her, and savored a sense of completeness that made her want to weep.
“I’m sorry, Joanna,” he whispered against her neck as he lay heavy on top of her, still holding her hands.
“Why?”
“Because I meant to...” He sighed. Levering himself up, he slid his hands out of hers and framed her damp face with them. “I didn’t want to finish inside you.” He studied her eyes, waiting for her to understand.
I promised myself long ago that I’d never sire a bastard.
“Ah.” She frowned as it fully dawned on her. “Oh. ‘Twas my fault, wasn’t it?” She uncurled her legs from around his waist. “Because I—”
“I loved it,” he said, smoothing a hand down her hip and leg with a reassuring smile. “Too much. And that’s the other thing I’m sorr
y about. I finished too soon.”
Joanna blinked in confusion. “Too soon?” How could a man finish too soon? He finished when he finished, and then it was over.
Graeham peeled a wet strand of hair off her cheek, kissed the spot where it had been. “I didn’t wait for you.”
“Me? You mean, to...” Nonplussed, Joanna contemplated the novel idea of having a lover who gave a thought to her pleasure. Prewitt had had her every way a man could have a woman, but never once had he touched her for her pleasure, only for his. Afterward, when he was asleep, she would sometimes slide her hand between her legs and give her body the relief it craved, but she always felt vaguely ashamed afterward, and lonelier than ever.
Still buried inside her, Graeham raised himself on one arm and slid aside the loosened edge of her wrapper, exposing her left breast in its entirety. His eyes glittered as he closed his hand over the sweat-slicked flesh, caressing it in a way that made her purr like a cat having its throat stroked. He tugged on her nipple, sparking a little spasm of pleasure where they were joined.
Graeham felt it, and responded with a spontaneous flexing of his hips, stroking her deliciously from within, although his erection was waning. He continued this gentle thrusting as he untied the sash of her wrapper.
Throwing the silken robe open, he gazed on her with that look of drowsy desire she’d become so familiar with. “How beautiful you are, Joanna.”
“Let me see you, too,” she pleaded, tugging at his shirt. “Take this off.”
He managed to peel the sodden garment off, wiped his face with it and tossed it into the rushes. His chest and shoulders, gleaming with sweat, enthralled her. Joanna caressed him as she’d wanted to for weeks, savoring the planes and ridges of his hard-packed muscles beneath her hands.
He glided his hand downward, over her stomach, to the patch of hair now tangled with his, all the while moving within her in a steady rhythm that she couldn’t help matching. At first his touch was light and airy, maddeningly so.
She closed her hands over his shoulders, writhed unselfconsciously.
Only when she begged him to did he intensify the caress, lightly probing and stroking, but always backing off just as satisfaction beckoned, until she was thrashing beneath him, moaning like a woman possessed.
Lords of Conquest Boxed Set Page 27
