Birthright

by Anna Markland

  He straddled her again, guiding his rigid manhood into the opening of her body and plunged inside quickly. He felt her maidenhead tear, but there was no stopping now as the white heat drove him on.

  “Rosa, Rosa,” he panted.

  An errant thought flew into his brain. He made a solemn pledge to undertake an annual pilgrimage to the Shrine of Saint Alban.

  * * *

  Rosamunda lifted her hips to lock her legs around Adam’s waist, awed by the passion that underscored the beautiful lines and muscles of his body. He clamped his arms around her thighs, pulling her to the edge of the bed, and came to his feet, bracing his knees against the side of the bed. He drew her legs up to his chest, leaning forward to plunge deeper.

  She reached to brush her thumbs over his rigid nipples, relishing the flash of fire in his blue eyes. “I love you,” he rasped, his words carrying her to an even higher level of ecstasy than the one to which he had brought her with his touch.

  She dug her fingertips into his powerful thighs, feeling the urgency in his thrusts. The brief moment of pain had disappeared as warmth built within her. Her first timid glimpse of his manhood jutting up from its halo of black curls had been a bit alarming, and she had wondered how he could possibly insert it into her body, as Paulina had whispered he would.

  Now she reveled in the fullness of him as quivering muscles pulsed in rhythm with her heart. Her own need built as he drove harder and harder, until his seed flooded her womb and her own body shattered again when he growled out his release.

  He collapsed on top of her.

  She trailed her fingertips through the sheen of perspiration on his shoulders as her mind wandered through the oft told tale of caves and secret passages, of dark, handsome heroes, rescuing maidens in distress. She had dreamed for years such a hero would come to rescue her.

  He had saved himself for her. No other would possess him.

  Now she lay beneath him, savoring his weight as she felt him soften and leave her body. Adam had not only rescued her, he had brought a hero for her beloved sister as well.

  Let's Make A Baby

  “Prepare yourself, my love. It’s not a pretty sight.”

  Denis flung off the linens to reveal his nakedness, his heart in his throat. He knew the ugliness of his body.

  To make matters worse, his unruly shaft stood arrogantly to attention. He had sometimes thought it a cruel jest of God that a small man should be endowed with such a member.

  Paulina’s eyes widened.

  He rolled hastily to his side, gathering the linens to cover his groin. “Don’t be afraid.”

  She shook her head. “I am no longer afraid, Denis. You have made me recognize the futility of fear. In giving me courage, you have given me back my life.”

  He took her hand, savoring her delicate fingers, so different from his own. “My life would mean nothing without you, Paulina. I love you, but how can you love a man like me?”

  She shrugged, then came to her knees, quickly pulled her chemise over her head, and whipped the linens away from Denis’ body. She knelt before him naked, her arms outstretched. “All my life, I have hated my body, resented my size. But your eyes tell me you see only beauty.”

  Denis wondered how she could believe her breasts were not beautiful. The rigid nipples were exactly the color he had imagined, the areolas bigger. He licked his lips, longing to swirl his tongue over her pouting globes. “But you are beautiful.”

  She cupped her breasts, lifting them to her own perusal. His shaft turned to granite. Her eyes wandered over his body. Strangely, he suddenly felt proud of his masculinity. He clasped his hands behind his head and parted his legs slightly. Paulina looked like she might drool. “You want me,” he teased.

  She fixed her gaze on his shaft. “I am consumed with wanting. Can I touch you?”

  He could only nod, sure if he spoke he would blurt out something incomprehensible.

  She traced a fingertip along the length of his manhood.

  Predictably, it bucked, and she smiled.

  “You see the effect you have on me,” he rasped.

  She touched him again, this time circling the swollen tip of his phallus. “Silky,” she murmured.

  Much as Denis hated to put a halt to the progress they were making towards his ultimate goal, they had an important matter to discuss. He curled her hand around his shaft, then reached up to brush his knuckles across a nipple. Her eyelids fluttered closed. “We need to talk.”

  She opened her eyes and frowned. “Talk?”

  “In a few short minutes, God willing, I will thrust this monstrosity inside your lovely heat.”

  She blushed, the flush spreading across her breasts as well as her face. He dragged his mind back to the matter at hand. “We must decide if I am to spill my seed outside your body—or inside.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He groaned inwardly, remembering their talk about cats and teats. Perhaps she did not know how children were created. He longed to fill her belly with his child, but did she understand the risks? Did he have a right to bring children into the world who might bear his affliction?

  He swallowed hard. “It is from a man’s seed that children grow.”

  Tears welled in her eyes. “I want to bear your children.”

  He came to his knees, pressing their bodies together, thigh to thigh, chest to breast, his shaft against her belly. He kissed her tears. “Even if they are dwarfs?”

  She pulled away and looked into his eyes. “Will we love them any less if they are?”

  He had been blind. This woman who had never known love from her own parents would of course cherish children. He had thought to deny her and himself that joy.

  He kissed the top of her head, then broke them apart and lay back on the bed, patting the space beside him. “Come here and lay with me. Let’s make a baby.”

  Epilogue

  Alphonse Revandel seemed to lose his wits after his daughter’s disappearance and his sons’ incarceration. When news was brought to him that Winrod and Dareau had been murdered in prison, apparently by someone to whom they owed a great deal of money, he wandered off into the South Downs and was never seen again.

  Antoine deeded Poling Manor to Denis with the proviso he never sell it. Denis spent summers there with his wife and children. Adam and Rosamunda and their brood usually accompanied them on the journey to England, the Montbryces staying at nearby East Preston.

  Vincent Lallement succeeded as lord of a rebuilt and refurbished Kingston Gorse. Lucien married a wealthy heiress who brought him a sizable house in Hastings as part of her dowry.

  Normandie became divided into two factions, those in support of the duke’s claim to the throne of England, and those opposed. Having pledged loyalty to King Henry, the Montbryces reinforced the defenses of all their Norman holdings, aware of the duke’s anger at what he perceived as treachery. Everyone knew Curthose would eventually attempt an invasion of England.

  King Henry continued to spend time, effort, and money increasing the size and grandeur of Arundel Castle.

  Adam and Denis and their families often spent time there as His Majesty’s guests. The two men were fond of boasting that the Giant and the Dwarf would be boon companions to the end. However, they made sure to return to Belisle Castle months before the king turned his thoughts to the annual celebrations of the Hallowmas Triduum.

  Whenever he was in England, Adam took time to kneel in thanksgiving before the altar of Saint Alban. He became known as one of the abbey’s most generous benefactors.

  * * *

  Book VI, Star-Crossed, catches us up with Ram’s sons, Robert and Baudoin, now young men of marriageable age. Enjoy this excerpt.

  Giroux Castle, Normandie, Spring 1101

  Dorianne de Giroux had grown up in the bosom of a family filled with hatred and the desire for vengeance. Long before she was born, her late grandfather had been blinded and mutilated by another baron after a bitter argument over territory.

&nb
sp; After the evening meal, she and Pierre joined their parents in the gallery, as was their family tradition. She tried to concentrate on her embroidery but, as usual, her father wanted to relive the reasons for the feud that consumed him. “Your grandfather sank into madness after his blinding and made life a living hell for his sons, Phillippe, Georges, and me,” he complained. “Yet it was we who captured the Valtesse castle at Alensonne in retaliation. With the help of Valtesse’s bastard son, we cast him out and exiled him, along with his daughter, Mabelle. Curses on fate that Arnulf would die and Valtesse regain his castle.”

  Dorianne had heard this story a thousand times and knew what came next.

  “Seeking revenge, your uncle Phillippe went to England and plotted against Mabelle de Valtesse’s husband, the Comte de Montbryce.” He sighed heavily. “News eventually reached us Phillippe had been killed in Wales.”

  “Papa,” she ventured with a tentative smile. “Can we not talk of other things?”

  François de Giroux glared at her as if she had spoken in Greek and then carried on. “I’m not a violent man, but I can never forget the torments I suffered at the hands of my mad father.”

  It worried Dorianne that her older brother seemed to hang on their father’s every word, encouraging his preoccupation.

  “Well, Papa,” Pierre said, “you almost succeeded in having one of the Montbryces convicted of adultery by the King’s Court in Caen.”

  François smirked. “Much good that did. The Montbryces were in the Conqueror’s pocket. Had I succeeded in getting Hugh de Montbryce condemned, Phillippe might never have embarked on his plan to aid the Welsh rebels who kidnapped Rambaud de Montbryce’s wife and her brats.”

  Her father rarely showed affection for his children. Growing up, she had looked to Pierre for love. Their mother loved them, but she was a timid woman who wilted under the gaze of her husband and did his bidding in all things. Elenor now sat with her head bowed, as she did every evening, immersed in her sewing, contributing nothing to the conversation.

  Dorianne dreaded the day her father would find her a husband. Having led a secluded existence in the Giroux castle, she had no friends, only her brother. A year older than she, Pierre was allowed more freedom and sometimes travelled with their father through their lands or to other barons’ demesnes.

  She harangued her brother for details of his travels upon his return, anxious to hear about the outside world. Pierre trained with the men-at-arms of the castle, and Dorianne sometimes stole up to the parapets to watch secretly as the men practiced their skills. Her Maman and Papa would be horrified if they were aware she’d seen men bared to the waist, sweating.

  Young noblewomen of eighteen were not supposed to know of such things, and she would never divulge that she admired the strength God had given to men’s bodies. So different from her own.

  Occasionally, seigneurs from neighboring lands would visit, often bringing their sons. This was part of the game to find her a husband, but none of the unappealing young men seemed to satisfy her father’s requirements, which probably had something to do with her dowry. She would have no say in the matter. She was past the age when most young noblewomen married. The only certainty was that her father would never betroth her to a Montbryce, though their lands were apparently but a day’s ride away.

  A few days later, her father took her by surprise at supper in the hall. “Dorianne, two days hence you’ll accompany Pierre and me to the castle of the Comte d’Avranches.”

  “Two days?” she parroted, stunned she was being allowed to leave the castle, but suspecting more would be revealed and that it would concern a betrothal. She waited, noticing Pierre’s nod of approval.

  She grew more apprehensive and toyed with her food, watching her father chew leisurely on a chicken leg and then take a long swig of ale. Noisily sucking food out of his teeth, he confirmed, “We’ll meet with the comte to discuss your betrothal to his son, Otuel d’Avranches. He maybe a bastard son, but your marriage to him will bring us strong allies in the coming war with Henry of England. The comte plans to host a Grand Council to discuss the political situation, and we’ll be his guests. It’s a perfect opportunity for them to meet my beautiful daughter.”

  Her eyes widened. This adventure might turn out to be a good thing, but a bastard? Encouraged by her father’s unusual warmth, she ventured to ask, “Tell me about the comte’s son.”

  He cast her an indignant look. “I haven’t met him. He’s never attended any of the tournaments. He’s but a boy of ten.”

  Her heart plummeted. “Ten! But father—”

  He held up his hands. “Enough of this, Dorianne. He’s a d’Avranches. That’s the important thing.”

  She crossed her arms over her breasts, slid down in her chair and sulked for a while, then something else her father had said came to mind. “Coming war?”

  Pierre scowled at her. “Don’t you know anything? There’ll be war over the throne of England.”

  She gritted her teeth and hissed back at him. “How am I supposed to know what’s going on when I’m a prisoner here?”

  Her father grunted something unintelligible, got up and left.

  Elenor packed up her sewing and dutifully followed him, venturing a strange smile at her daughter.

  Dorianne slumped back into her chair.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Pierre asked belligerently.

  She wondered if continuing to share her feelings with him was a good idea. “In my wildest imaginings of my future husband I never dreamt he’d be a boy much younger than me.”

  Pierre shrugged as he came to his feet. “Dori, it’s father’s decision. You’ll have to make the best of it. Be grateful he’s not sending you to a nunnery.”

  She sat bolt upright, a cold chill chasing across her nape. “Why would he do that?”

  Whistling, Pierre left without another word.

  The future did not look promising.

  ….Grab STAR-CROSSED now.

  About Anna

  Thank you for reading BIRTHRIGHT.

  Reviews are always appreciated and contribute greatly to an author’s success.

  I’d love you to visit my website and my Facebook page, Anna Markland Novels.

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  Passion conquers whatever obstacles a hostile medieval world can throw in its path.

  Besides writing, I have two addictions-crosswords and genealogy, probably the reason I love research. I am a fool for cats. My husband is an entrepreneur who is fond of boasting he’s never had a job. I live on Canada’s scenic west coast now, but I was born and raised in the UK and I love breathing life into European history.

  Escape with me to where romance began.

  I hope you come to know and love my cast of characters as much as I do.

  I’d like to acknowledge the assistance of my beta reader, Maria McIntyre.