His hand closed over her breast, flesh against flesh, so hot and astonishing that it sucked the breath from her lungs. He rubbed her nipples with his fingertips, coaxing little sighs of pleasure from her. When at last he smoothed his hand downward, over her belly, to rest it lightly at the juncture of her thighs, she was trembling in anticipation. “Part your legs a bit,” he whispered against her lips.
She sighed helplessly at the first feathery brush of his fingertip. He kissed her as he gradually intensified the caress, his clever fingers stroking and teasing until her hips flexed shamelessly and she moaned into his mouth.
Her back arched off the bed when he pushed a finger inside her, although it met resistance before it could penetrate very far. “You’re tight,” he whispered, inserting a second finger—to stretch her?—before renewing the intimate caress with fingertips that were now extraordinarily slippery.
The delicious frustration she’d felt all those nights she’d lain in bed next to him, imagining this moment, were naught to the hunger gathering up in her now. It was a hunger Hugh shared, judging from his ragged breathing and the way his entire body seemed to quiver, like a bowstring drawn taut.
There was only one way to appease this hunger, this terrible emptiness. Reaching down, Phillipa untied Hugh’s drawers, eliciting an ardent, almost painful kiss from him.
“Tell me what to do,” she pleaded. “Do I...just lie here, or...”
He shook his head. “We should start with you on top.” Scooping her up, he rolled onto his back. “Put your legs on either side of me, like so.”
“What? No!” She found herself sitting astride him, her kirtle and his roomy shirt blanketing them, although their most intimate parts were in direct contact. “I can’t be on top, Hugh. I don’t know what to do.”
“Yes, you do.” Curling a hand around her neck, he lowered her face to his and kissed her deeply. “You just don’t realize it yet.”
“Hugh...”
“It’s best this way. You’re so small and tight, and your maidenhead is intact. And I’m so...so close, so eager. I’m afraid I’ll end up hurting you if I’m on top. This way, you can take me in at your own pace.”
“But...”
“Trust me, love.” Hugh reached up to stroke her cheek, his gaze heartbreakingly earnest. “‘Twill pain you less this way. I don’t want to hurt you. Here.” Gripping her hip with one hand, he slid the other beneath her kirtle. “Raise yourself up a bit.” She felt a slick, hard pressure as he pushed himself into her, just the tip, although it felt like a fist stretching her open.
“Oh, God, stop,” she gasped.
“I’m stopping.” He let go of her, lowering his hands to his sides. “I’m stopping. I’ll do nothing more. It’s all up to you now.”
Phillipa almost wished he hadn’t left it up to her. As much as she wanted him fully inside her, she couldn’t imagine how he would ever fit—how she would make him fit.
“Just lower yourself slowly,” he said. “Try it.”
She did, biting her lip, and felt him meet the barrier of her virginity. “How will you break through?”
“I don’t have to. You’ll stretch to accommodate me if you go slowly enough. The pain is less that way.”
She pressed down again, grimacing as he slowly impaled her. This was the less painful route?
“Take it slowly,” he reminded her. “And if you want to stop at any time, I mean stop for good and not go on, that’s all right—you can.” He met her gaze reassuringly, looking boyishly handsome lying back against the mountain of pillows, his eyes heavy-lidded, his flaxen hair disheveled, that exotic earring glinting in golden halflight.
“Wouldn’t you be...frustrated,” she asked, “if I chose not to go on?”
“A man learns to live with such frustrations. Either that, or he finds ways to force himself on unwilling women—and I meant it when I said I’m no debaucher. Of course, if you’re going to put a stop to things, I’d prefer you didn’t wait until the very last—”
“I’m not going to put a stop to things. I daresay I want this even more than you do.”
“I highly doubt that,” he said with a chuckle that she felt in her very womb.
Closing her eyes, she bore down again, making minimal progress, although her flesh burned from the strain.
“Lift yourself up a little,” he suggested, “and then down again.”
She did, and found that this greatly facilitated his passage into her body. Keeping her eyes closed, she continued this up-and-down movement, easing him into her by small increments. Presently the discomfort diminished, eclipsed, as Hugh had predicted, by pleasure. The sense of being steadily filled by him reignited her arousal, which swiftly escalated to its former intensity. An exquisite tension gripped her, especially where her body joined with his. Her movements took on a kind of desperate abandon as she strove to take him fully into her.
She heard Hugh’s breathing grow erratic, felt a quivering strain in his hips as he penetrated her inch by inch. When at last he was fully buried within her, Phillipa opened her eyes to find him clutching the pillow beneath his head in his effort not to touch her, his face flushed, his eyes glittering as if he were reeling drunk.
“Are you all right?” he asked in a low, rusty voice.
She nodded. “It feels...” There were no words for the excruciating pleasure of being so intimately connected to him. She felt him throb inside her and instinctively thrust her hips, letting him slide out a bit and then in, moaning at the sensation of being stroked from within; he moaned, too. Surrendering to her body’s driving need, she thrust again, and again, feeling the strange tension in her mount with trembling inevitability toward...something...
Her heart raced with the panic of an impending crisis. Torn between her spiraling pleasure and fear of the unknown, she stilled. “I...I can’t...”
“You can.” Releasing the pillow, Hugh closed his hands around her hips and rocked them slowly, flexing upward to meet her thrusts. “It’s supposed to happen. Let it happen.”
Their sinuous movements made her feel as if she were being caressed, deeply and slowly, where she was most inflamed. Grasping handfuls of his shirt, she writhed in breathless delirium as the crisis approached. She heard her own ragged cry as it overtook her, roaring through her like a thunderclap, sudden and convulsive.
Abruptly Hugh pulled her to him and rolled them over so that he was on top. He drove into her hard; she bit her lip to stifle a whimper of pain. There came another fierce thrust, and another, and then he paused and, with a strangled groan of effort, wrenched himself out of her.
He held her so tightly it hurt, shuddering as something hot pulsed between them. With a ragged sigh, he sank onto her, his arms trembling as they held her. “I’m sorry,” he said shakily. “I hurt you.”
“Shh.” She wrapped her arms around him, under his bunched-up shirt. “It’s all right. I’m all right. ‘Twas wonderful.”
“You’re wonderful,” he murmured, his heart pounding against her chest. “You were...God, it was...” He emitted a masculine little growl of gratification. “Thank you.” He lifted his head to bestow a breathless kiss on her forehead, then slumped down on her again. “Am I too heavy?”
“Nay, stay right here,” she said, loving the weight of him on top of her. She caressed his bare back beneath his shirt, her hands stilling as they encountered an irregularity on the surface of his skin.
He seemed to stop breathing as she lightly traced the ridge of scar tissue, obviously old and well healed, from the small of his back up to his right shoulder. There were other ridges, she realized, criss-crossing each other randomly, but all more or less vertical.
Phillipa did not need to be told that these were whip marks. What crime could Hugh of Wexford have committed to earn what must have been an exceptionally savage flogging—or several of them? Were these awful scars the reason he always wore a shirt to bed? She turned toward Hugh to find him watching her with those fathomless sea-green eyes of his.
Before she could ask him about the scars, he kissed her on the mouth and raised himself up, taking his weight on his elbows. “I am heavy.”
“Hugh...”
Not unkindly, he said, “I’d rather not have this conversation, if it’s all the same to you.” Pulling the covers back up, he managed to ease off of her and retie his drawers without compromising her modesty—a touching effort on his part, especially given that he’d just claimed her virginity.
He got out of bed to dampen a cloth in the wash basin.
“Hugh,” she said, “your shirt.” It was torn down the front seam. “How did that happen?”
“Actually you tore it when you, uh...at the end.”
She gaped at the rent garment. “I...I’m sorry!”
He grinned crookedly. “I’m not.” Returning to bed, he wiped the damp cloth across her belly, then rinsed it out and passed it under the covers and between her legs, very gently; it felt cool and soothing on her traumatized raw flesh. He withdrew the cloth, frowning at the pinkish bloodstain on it. Dropping it back in the wash basin, he extinguished the oil lamp, plunging the chamber into complete darkness, and returned to bed, gathering Phillipa in his arms.
“I hope that wasn’t too much of an ordeal for you,” he said. “I tried to make it...I wanted it to be...”
“‘Twas everything I could have wanted it to be,” she assured him with a kiss. “Thank you for giving that to me.”
“I’m so grateful you asked me. I just wish...”
“Yes?”
He answered her with a long, unsteady sigh. “The second time won’t hurt as much.”
The second time. With Aldous. God, what have I done?
Hugh seemed about to say something, but he stilled his tongue. After a long, ponderous silence, he kissed her on the forehead, very softly. “Sleep well, Phillipa.”
There was little chance of that, she thought, considering what she had to face tomorrow.
Chapter 12
West Minster
“Any idea how long he’ll keep her at Halthorpe?” asked Lord Richard.
Hugh, standing at the window gazing upon the empty bench in the courtyard of the royal palace, sighed heavily. “I really couldn’t say.”
“How long does it take to tire of a woman like Phillipa de Paris, do you suppose?”
A lifetime. Two lifetimes. Hugh closed his eyes and rubbed the back of his neck, fighting back a tapestry of images from last night...Phillipa, untouched and innocent in that alluring scarlet gown, imploring him with those great, liquid brown eyes...I just don’t want him to be the first...
He smiled to himself, remembering how she’d hidden her face in her hands rather than look upon his privy parts...
Only to surrender herself to erotic abandon once he was inside her. He savored the memory of her exquisite little body barely visible through that sheer silken kirtle, of her writhing in delirious ecstasy, crying out in astonishment as she tumbled over the edge for the very first time...
God’s bones, she’d torn his shirt right down the middle. Who would have guess at the hidden depths of passion lurking beneath that prim exterior?
It was he who had been the instrument of her pleasure, he, Hugh of Wexford, who had driven her over that edge, who had awakened her sensual nature...
Only to hand her over to Aldous Ewing for his carnal amusement until, as Lord Richard pointed out, he tired of her and tossed her aside.
In the meantime, would she unearth the deacon’s secrets and save England from civil war? Did Hugh even care anymore?
“You’re to be commended for infiltrating Aldous’s home so successfully without being found out,” Lord Richard was saying, “you and Lady Phillipa both. And for her to have talked him into taking her along to Halthorpe...”
When Hugh had awakened this morning to find that Phillipa had already left for Halthorpe, along with Aldous and the Italians, he’d felt, quite literally, as if his guts had been ripped right out of his belly. It was only through the most profound effort of will that he’d come here to make a full report of this development to Lord Richard, as was his duty, rather than ride off to Halthorpe and drag Phillipa out of Aldous’s clutches, as was his desire.
Clearly Phillipa hadn’t wanted to say goodbye to Hugh, or she would have awakened him. Instead, she’d somehow managed to dress and haul her luggage out of the chamber without disturbing his sleep. Hugh had felt utterly bereft from the moment he realized she was gone, and maddened at the prospect of her sharing Aldous’s bed tonight and for the next...how many weeks?
He’d ridden here this morning in a daze of anguish, rage...and bewilderment. Always, in the past, his fixation on a woman had dissipated after he’d bedded her. He’d expected that to happen with Phillipa, had hoped and prayed for this wild desire to be swept away, replaced by cool disregard. Yet this morning, when he’d found the bed empty and her things gone, he’d felt only the most abject sense of loss.
She’d taken everything with her, even the clothes she’d been wearing yesterday and the hairbrush with which he’d soothed her nerves last night. The only evidence of her that remained was a whispery hint of her scent on the bed pillows and a minuscule streak of her virgin’s blood on the bottom sheet.
“King Henry will be pleased with your progress, I’m sure. He’s most anxious to confirm the queen’s sedition...”
Aldous wouldn’t be careful with her. He wouldn’t know it was only her second time, and that it could still hurt. She would try to keep from crying out, so as not to make him suspicious. Perhaps she’d weep afterward, when she was alone...
Hugh ground a fist against his forehead. Halthorpe wasn’t far away, although it was on the other side of London from West Minster. As long as Lord Richard didn’t keep him here all day, he could make it there by nightfall. He’d need some reason. He could say his sister lived close by—as, indeed, she did, Eastingham being not far to the west of Halthorpe—and that he’d decided to visit with her during the day while spending his nights at Halthorpe with his lady wife...
“Hugh? Did you hear me?”
Turning, Hugh found Lord Richard sitting on the edge of his desk, as was his habit, and glowering; he was not a man to tolerate being ignored. Hugh leaned back against the window sill and crossed his arms. “Sorry, I...”
“I said I’m sending you across the Channel to Normandy.”
“Normandy...” Hugh closed his eyes briefly, cursing the fates. He couldn’t go to Normandy and Halthorpe.
“Rouen. King Henry is there, and he’s requested a meeting with you so that you can fill him in on your progress in exposing the plot against him. Given the nature of your mission, I was going to write and ask him if he couldn’t wait a few weeks for your report, but since you’re available now...” The justiciar shrugged.
“Why must I go at all? Can’t we just send an envoy with an encrypted message?”
Lord Richard shook his head. “He insists upon meeting with you personally.”
Hugh groaned in exasperation. “I am still engaged in an ongoing mission, at least perfunctorily. What if I’m needed here while I’m in Rouen? What if Lady Phillipa finds herself—”
“There’s more than one reason the king wants to meet with you, Hugh.”
“What do you mean?”
Lord Richard leveled his fiery blue eyes on Hugh. “You did not hear this from me, but King Henry is considering naming you Sheriff of London.”
Hugh cocked his head, automatically assuming he’d heard wrong. London’s two sheriffs, responsible for keeping the king’s peace in the great city and the surrounding shire of Middlesex, were among the most powerful and influential men in the realm. Formerly elected by the citizenry of London, they were now directly appointed by the king from among the landed nobility.
“But...” Hugh shook his head as if that would resolve his confusion. “London already has two sheriffs.”
“John of Hilton will be vacating his post as of September. Seems his gout’s getting the better of h
im. That leaves old Martin Fitz William. King Henry wants to team him up with someone who’s actually got some experience in investigating crimes and enforcing justice, and who’s also young enough to handle the demands of the office—although of course you’ll have undersheriffs to do most of the legwork. Commanding them will be one of your two primary duties. The other will be to preside over the sheriff’s court, which will be located in your home—”
“I don’t have a home.” Hugh lived with Joanna and Graeham when he was in the London area, and wherever fate landed him when he was on an assignment.
“You’ll have one if you’re appointed to the sheriffship. Part of your remuneration will be a fine townhouse in the city, as befitting your position. You’ll report to the justiciar of London, who answers directly to the king, and is a good, just man. You’ll get along well with him.”
“You speak as if I’ve already been appointed.”
“The king thinks very highly of you, Hugh. He wants to meet with you in part to take your measure and assure himself that you’re the man for the job. If he decides in your favor, he’ll probably offer it to you on the spot, knowing him. I’d be careful to try and impress him if I were you. Dress like a gentleman, for God’s sake, not in that bloody awful leathern tunic, and show the proper deference. Remember, he’s the king.”
Hugh almost laughed. “You’re assuming I want to be sheriff of London.”
Lord Richard blinked at him. “Of course you want to be sheriff of London. It’s the chance of a lifetime.”
“For a man who doesn’t mind being tied down to one place and one master forever, perhaps.”
“But you love London—you’ve told me so often. And as for having a ‘master,’ you’ll really be fairly autonomous.”
Hugh quirked an eyebrow.
“To a point,” Lord Richard conceded. “Listen, Hugh, I know how you hate to have to answer to anyone, even me, but—”
“I don’t want it,” Hugh said resolutely. “If he offers it to me, I’ll turn it down. That being the case, I respectfully request that I be relieved from having to travel all the way to Rouen.”
Lords of Conquest Boxed Set Page 50
