What had happened to Hastings? Why had she changed toward him? Had she dreamed about him? Did she feel guilty that she had not treated him as she should have?
He heard Gwent say quietly, “I do not yet know if Torric the steward is a thief. I do not calculate and figure as well as you do. You will have to see to it, Severin.”
“Aye, I will see to it on the morrow. But today—”
“I know. Today and tonight it is your lady who will get all your attention.” Gwent stared after her. “I wonder,” he said slowly, “if your lady has experienced an epiphany.”
“You mean, has a vision visited her and told her how to be a proper wife?”
“Something like that,” Gwent said, still staring after that laughing girl he didn’t know. “Don’t muck up this miracle, Severin.”
“But—”
“Bend as she has bent.”
“Oh aye, but I’m too hard to bend, truth be told. She kissed me, Gwent. It was a girl’s kiss, for she doesn’t know yet what to do with her mouth, but I will teach her, and it wasn’t bad, all soft and warm, and—”
Gwent threw back his head and laughed deep and long. Other men joined in, not knowing why they laughed but seduced by the laugh from a man who could pound most of them into the ground in the practice field within a matter of minutes. Beamis laughed, picked up his little boy, whirled him over his head, then tossed him to one of his waiting men. The child shrieked and shrieked with laughter.
Severin punched Gwent hard and strode into the great hall.
Had Hastings really had an epiphany? Or had she let another man in her bed and felt guilty for it? Was that why she had run to him, hurled herself at him, and kissed him? No, not Hastings. Why had she changed toward him? Would it last, this change of hers, longer than a goblet of wine?
12
HASTINGS LAUGHED AS SHE LEANED OVER HIS BACK, a sponge filled with her lavender soap in her hand. His muscles were deep and hard. She was startled to find that she liked the feel of him, the texture of his flesh. He wasn’t very dirty and she was surprised at that. Surely he had ridden hard many days he had been gone, surely he had not been near too many bathtubs.
“Ah, that is good,” Severin said, leaning back against the edge of the tub, his eyes closed. Though at each of his keeps he had visited, the castellan’s wife or one of the ladies had performed this ritual for him, this was different. The way she touched him was different. He didn’t believe, at this moment, that he had enjoyed a scrubbing more. He wished it were her bare hand rather than the thick sponge.
“You are very big,” she said at last, and her voice was just a bit thin. But then she laughed again. Mayhap that laugh was a bit on the thin side as well, but Severin didn’t care. He turned and grabbed her wrist. “Hastings,” he said. He saw indeed that her laughter was now forced, that her smile looked painful, her eyes a bit wild. She was chewing on her lower lip. This laughing bride of his wasn’t all that certain of herself or the new role she was playing with him.
He thought of Gwent’s awed words about an epiphany, released her wrist, and said, “Kiss me and then leave me else we won’t enjoy MacDear’s capon until tomorrow.”
Her eyes nearly crossed. Then she lightly touched her fingertips to his wet shoulders, leaned down, and kissed his closed mouth, her lips even more closed than his. Sewn together, he thought, but it didn’t matter. He waved her away with the thick sponge.
Hastings closed the door behind her and slumped against it. She drew a deep breath. This was all very strange. Because she had met him with kisses and hugs, he seemed a different man. Could Dame Agnes and Alice be right? All she had to do was laugh and feed him well and kiss him and then he would not force her again? He would go gently with her? He would no longer yell at her or shake her until her head snapped on her neck? She pushed away from the wall and walked quickly down the solar stairs.
She wondered where Trist was. She had missed the marten. She would oversee boiling an egg for him herself.
Severin was wearing the new tunic she’d sewn for him. It was pale blue, soft as Trist’s pelt, and beautifully made. It was too tight across his shoulders.
But he had worn it. To please her. She had left it smoothed out atop the bed and kept her fingers crossed. He had worn it. When she met his eyes, she smiled. Then, before she could lose her courage, she skipped to him, stroked her palms over the wondrous soft wool, and said, “You are magnificent. I am sorry, Severin, but I did not think you were so wide. I will make the next tunic larger.” She measured him with her fingers, making the calculations in her head.
“It is a fine tunic,” he said, and his voice was low and gruff. He looked as if he would say more, but both of them became aware that there was a growing silence in the great hall. Even Edgar the wolfhound, who had been barking his head off just a few moments before chasing one of the little girls about as she waved a ball of wool in his face, was silent, sitting on his haunches, staring toward them.
“I was wondering why you always wore gray.”
“I believe it is because the women who did all the weaving and dyeing at Langthorne only knew how to dye gray. After I left, I suppose it was just a habit and I sought nothing but gray. You believed perhaps it was a superstition for me? Some sort of ritual?”
“Aye, perhaps. I know how to dye beautiful colors, Severin. May I sew you more tunics, each a different color?”
“You may do whatever you wish with my tunics. This one is very soft. I thank you.”
“Everyone is wondering what has happened between us,” Hastings said, and to prove to herself that she knew exactly what she was doing, she thrust her chin in the air and looked him right in his dark blue eyes.
“Shall I tell them that nothing has happened as yet?”
“But it has,” she said, just a bit of desperation seeping into her voice.
“Aye, I much enjoy hearing you laugh. I have never heard you laugh before today.”
“It is not ordinary?”
“Nay,” he said, smiling down at her. Then he rubbed his knuckles lightly over her cheek. “You are so soft,” he said, then leaned down, kissed her lightly. “Softer than my new tunic.” He laughed at her stunned expression and strode to the lord’s high-backed chair.
Trist had wrapped himself around Severin’s wine goblet. He stretched out his arm to pet Trist, feeling the tightness of the material under his arm. Too, he wished the new tunic were more full-cut. He was hard and hurting. He quickly sat down. Trist unwrapped himself and came to rub his whiskers against Severin’s hand.
He stroked the marten’s soft fur until Hastings herself placed his pewter plate in front of him. There was a thick, rich slab of white bread and atop it was a capon, perfectly roasted, with honeyed almonds, peas, cabbage, and onions around it. He had been well fed in his three new keeps, but none could compare to MacDear. He fell to his meal, wanting to eat quickly so he could grab Hastings and haul her to their bedchamber. She wouldn’t fight him tonight. She would smile. She would hold out her arms to him. Just as Anne had. No, he wouldn’t think about Anne, that woman child who had given him so much guilty pleasure that he’d almost swooned with it. No, he should not have felt guilt. Hastings was his wife, nothing more, nothing less.
There was nothing to change here. Except her. Aye, she had changed, and he was pleased. He hoped the changes continued.
He would not rub her nose in the dirt for bending to him. No, he would be magnanimous. He wondered what had happened to turn her from a bold-tongued shrew—who had helped him, he admitted that—into this lovely smiling girl who looked at him as if she were actually enjoying looking at him.
No, he would not muck up this miracle.
His men talked at him, around him, through him, but it made no difference, he merely nodded at them and ate. He knew MacDear’s capon was delicious, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything except shoveling down MacDear’s food and getting to the bottom of that well-shined pewter plate.
The meal had
just in fact well begun when he shoved back his chair and grabbed Hastings’s hand.
Every head in the great hall slewed around to look at them. He felt Hastings grow stiff as the beautiful silver laver that had dents in it. He said out of the side of his mouth, “Ignore them. They have no idea what we are about.” That was more surely the biggest lie he’d told in many a month. “Come, Hastings, I will please you.”
Please her? She couldn’t begin to imagine this pleasing thing, but she smiled and nodded and clasped his hand more tightly. Trist jumped up onto her shoulder and crept carefully around her neck until he was half on her shoulder and the other half of him was leaning against Severin’s chest.
When the cheers started, Hastings thought she would sink into the rushes, not because she was embarrassed but because she was excited and she was afraid everyone saw it on her face. Everyone knew about this pleasure thing but her? She saw riddled old Belle, sitting at a trestle table, leaning heavily against Old Morric the blacksmith, who was feeding her bits of beef, one of his huge hands lightly caressing her breast. Why hadn’t Hastings noticed this before? Belle winked at her. Hastings knew Dame Agnes and Alice were both grinning like fools, but she simply couldn’t bring herself to look at them.
Just before they reached the solar stairs, Severin gave a shout of laughter, picked her up, and tossed her over his shoulder. Her long braids nearly brushed the floor.
Then he lightly slapped her bottom, making his men yowl with laughter. This is what it should have been like the night of their marriage.
He didn’t let her down until he reached their bedchamber. Slowly, he eased her down his chest, feeling her breasts, her belly sliding against him, letting her feel the length of his body, and when her toes touched the floor, he pressed his hands against her bottom and brought her against him.
“Oh,” Hastings said.
“Look at me, Hastings. That’s right. Don’t be frightened of me. Those other two nights, forget them. They were nothing, just bad dreams that will fade with time until they are no more. Will you try?”
“Aye, I will try.”
They hadn’t exactly been bad dreams for him because a man’s lust was easily assuaged, though he had wished she wouldn’t have fought him, that she would have welcomed him, at least a bit. That was over now. Now he had a girl who had bowed completely to him. He wasn’t about to let her unbow.
Trist leapt from Hastings’s shoulder to land on the bed. He stretched out his full length and stared at them, mewling loudly. Severin remembered Trist sitting beside him when Anne had been in his bed. The marten hadn’t made a sound.
“Will you come willingly with me, Hastings?”
“Aye. You are breathing hard, Severin. Does MacDear’s capon not sit well in your belly?”
He merely grinned down at her and gently pushed her back. She sat down on the bed, her hands folded in her lap, watching him intently, her lips slightly parted. So she wanted to see him, did she? If this was what it took not to muck up, then so be it.
He fumbled with his clothes, but finally it was done and he was naked, standing in front of her. He forced himself to keep his arms at his sides.
He would not muck up.
“You,” she said finally, her eyes on his belly, “are beautiful, Severin. I’ve thought so before, but it was just a simple thought with nothing to go with it. I did not realize what your beauty would mean to me. Please, come closer. Mayhap even close enough so that I could touch you if I wished to.”
Never had he stood before a woman naked, his sex swelled because he had no say in that, and he knew his sex would swell more and she would be afraid, but he prayed she would not be overly afraid. Just a bit. Aye, he wanted just a bit of hesitance in her when she looked at him. He stood directly in front of her. He watched her white hands reach out to lie palms flat against his belly. He shuddered and his sex hardened. He saw then that she had closed her eyes. She was feeling him, every bit of him, her fingers probing lightly into the muscles over his belly, moving slowly lower until her fingers tangled in the bush of hair at his groin. He wanted her to touch him so badly he thought he would howl if she didn’t. Lightly, so very lightly, her fingers found him.
His flesh was alien to her, he knew that. She circled him, coming ever closer. He wondered how much longer he could stand it. Then her fingers closed around him. Her eyes opened and she stared at her hands and at him held between her hands.
“Don’t be frightened, Hastings. Well, mayhap just a bit, so I will know that you admire my endowments.”
She licked her tongue over her lips. He nearly leapt on her. He threw his head back, his hands dug into his flanks, his throat worked convulsively, striving for control. But there was very little left. He pulled slowly away from her.
To his shock, she didn’t release him. She rose, still holding him, walking toward him even as he moved back.
He laughed, an agonizing laugh, but still a laugh because surely if one were to see this odd dance of theirs it would bring laughter and a bit of amazement.
He clasped her arms in his hands. “Release me, Hastings, else I will spill my seed on this beautiful carpet.”
“It is from Flanders,” she said, still holding him, her fingers stroking him slowly. “It is very old. Nay, not yet. Let me hold you longer. You’re hot between my hands, Severin. Hot and smooth.”
“You cannot. Please let me go, Hastings. It will be a close thing.”
She sighed. “Very well.” She released him. She sighed again, then said, “Will you help me, Severin?”
He was breathing so hard now, his chest was heaving. “Hastings, I cannot. If I do, I will rip your gown. Nay, sweeting, you do it. But be quick. I cannot wait.”
This was not the same man who had shamed her those two nights. Not the same man who had insulted her, who had looked at her as if he didn’t care if she were his wife or not. No, not the same man at all. She didn’t understand this, but she realized that she hadn’t wanted to release that male part of him that came inside her. She had liked to hold him. It made her feel incredibly strange, somehow urgent, mayhap even frantic. It also made her feel powerful. She wasn’t aware that her own breathing had quickened, but Severin was. He sat on the bed, watching her as she had him. She was quicker, her gown and shift pulled over her head in but an instant of time. Then she was pulling free her garters and rolling down her stockings. She kicked her feet free of the pointed-toe slippers.
“Come here,” he said.
She blinked at him, looked over her shoulder, looked back at him, and said, “All right.”
“Is there someone behind you?”
“Nay, but I’m naked and I am not at all certain if I should be doing this.”
“Do it. I did.”
When she was standing in front of him, between his legs, he reached out his hands and cupped her breasts. Her flesh was soft and smooth, and she was so very white. He wanted to weep. She looked down to see him close his eyes. He wasn’t looking at her. That was better. She moved a bit closer, resting her hands on his bare shoulders. The wound had healed nicely, the scar long and nearly flat.
His hands closed about her waist. He squeezed inward, his thumbs angling downward to touch her navel. His hands were large and dark against her white skin. Just looking at his hands on her made those odd urgent feelings grow stronger. She wanted him to touch her lower. It was that simple. She had held him and he had wanted her to hold him, she had realized that quickly enough. And now she wanted his fingers on her, where, exactly, she didn’t know, but the feelings were beginning to pound into her now, and there was so much heat, liquid heat, and she could feel it in and on herself, but she didn’t care.
“Severin,” she said.
He didn’t raise his head. He opened his eyes and stared at her belly, stared at his hands that were parting her woman’s flesh now, staring at her, and she thought she would die from the incredible feelings that were roiling through her. Then his callused fingertips were touching her and she cried ou
t, a low, hoarse cry that filled the bedchamber, and her back arched, and she was pressing herself against those fingers of his, and her belly was nearly pressed against his face. Then to her utter shock, he held her parted with his fingers and touched her with his mouth.
She screamed, hard and loud, not caring if someone were passing outside the bedchamber to hear that scream and to wonder. Not with shock or embarrassment, but at the bolt of pressure that tore through her, very low, yet it seemed to be throughout her entire body, and somehow she knew there was more. But what he was doing to her, where his mouth nuzzled, she had never known, never imagined such a thing.
“Severin, I don’t know—”
She felt his finger ease upward inside her even as he caressed her with his mouth, and it was all over for her. She crumbled over him as the pleasure took her, and he caught her and gently laid her on her back, his fingers on her now, stroking her, keeping the feelings churning and erupting in her, and she wondered how a woman could survive such a cataclysm. She closed her eyes, arched her back, and whispered, “Severin, this is like nothing in the world.”
“No,” he said, “it isn’t. Hold still, I would come into you now.” And he did, but slowly, easily, and he was hard and slick and she found herself lifting her hips to bring him more deeply into her. He felt wonderful, filling her, making her want to hold him so close he would meld into her even as his sex was deep and deeper still inside her belly. He shuddered and tensed and reared back, and she watched him take his release and it was a very different feeling she had watching him now than when she’d lain cold and angry beneath him before.
He was sweating, breathing heavily, his chest heaving, but he kept up on his elbows, looking down at her, and his eyes were vague, the dark blue warm and blurred, not cold as she had first believed when she saw him stride into Oxborough that day to marry her.
“You are not ordinary,” he said, leaned down, and kissed her mouth. “Part your lips for me.”
She did. He kissed her again and she felt his tongue glide over her lips, then ease inside her mouth. She made a tiny sound and he drew back to look down at her.
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