By Grace Possessed (13 page)

The sensation was so startling, so exquisite, that she swayed toward him, clinging to his arms. He drew her up with his hands still under her gown, caressed her
hips, clasping the rounded flesh like a miser clasping handfuls of gold. Then, in an abrupt move, he shoved the gown up, and her shift with it, stripping both off over her head. Before she could catch her breath or do more than gasp at the cold, he pressed her back onto the bed and followed after her, hot skin against her coolness, stonelike muscle and sinew against her softness, heated hardness against her soft curves and moist hollows. He reached for a coverlet padded with feathers, lofting it so it settled over them. Then he shifted over on the feather mattress and pulled her beneath him.

“Are you cold?” he asked, while nuzzling her neck, dragging handfuls of her hair from under her shoulders so its pull on her scalp was lessened.

“Not…not really.” How could she be, when his heat enclosed her where she was half submerged in the softness of the feather mattress, and his hard body, faintly rough with hair on his chest, thighs and legs, pressed upon her with delicious friction?

“You’re shivering, but never fear. I’ll warm you.”

Oh, yes, she knew he would, as he slid lower in the bed, his head disappearing beneath the coverlet while he tracked a line of moist, hot kisses down her neck, to the hollow between her collarbones, and between the twin hills of her breasts. He made a wet path between them, climbed in a spiral to the peak of one and then down again, began on the other. He flicked her nipples with his tongue, back and forth, while they contracted to near painful tightness, and then, only then, did he take one into the heated suction of his mouth.

She arched beneath him with a shrill cry, pressing
her heels into the mattress in the need to be closer. She wanted him inside her, needed him to fill the empty ache there.

He was not ready, not done. It seemed he had only begun.

He moved lower, rasping across the flat surface of her belly with his beard stubble, soothing the scrape with mouth and tongue before the sting began. He inhaled her, blew upon her with his hot breath. With his tongue gently lapping, he delved into the fine curls at the juncture of her thighs, then spread her legs wide to lie between them while he concentrated his caresses, feasting, applying suction, endlessly tasting.

She writhed, the breath sobbing in her chest, while he learned her inside and out, or so it seemed. In her extremity, she trailed her fingers through his hair, spanned his shoulders with feverish hands and explored the width of his back. She was captivated by the hard planes of his body, so different from her own, by the sinuous muscles that seemed to enwrap him like a living shield, by the lethal power of him. He was silk over steel, dominant yet supplicating as he whispered commands, guided her movements, placed her as he wanted her. His mastery was complete as the fury of her need burgeoned inside, bursting upon her in pulsing wonder, leaving her panting and breathless.

Rising over her again, he offered his mouth. Mindless, mindless, she took it, drew his tongue into the depths of her own, wanting more of him, all of him, needing something that hovered unrecognized, just beyond her grasp. She was on fire, melting inside, so heated at the
very core that it seemed nothing could soothe the burning ache of it.

He could. He did.

At the very zenith of her most virulent need, he pressed into her moist heat, taking yet giving in slow incursions, withdrawing so she could release the breath she held, doing it again and again until she grasped his hips and dragged him to her again, urging him deeper against the burning sting of it. She sobbed aloud as he broke through the deep internal barrier of her maiden-head and filled her, made her whole.

He set a gentle pace then, a slow friction that made her turn her head from side to side, crying out, wanting more, wanting the wonder yet again. The coverlet slipped away unnoticed while they strained together in elemental need. And when she reached for him again, he pressed her knees wide and gave her everything, sinking so deep that the hardness of bone rubbed against the soft mound of her. He drew back, and then gave himself to her again, and yet again.

It was perfect, a tumultuous pummeling, ever increasing in speed and strength. They moved together with soft thuds that set the bed to rocking on its leather straps, and swayed the bed curtains until they fanned their heated bodies. Every plunge sent waves of pleasure rolling through her, taking away all strain and fear. She met him with stringent effort while seeking for the promise she had been shown, longing for it in simple lust, giving infinitely in order to receive it. And he brought it to her with tireless strength, gave it to her in boundless generosity and sweating effort, as gift and glory.

Afterward, she clung to him with tears sliding from under her eyelids. She tasted the salt of his skin at his neck with a private kiss, pressed her face against his warm skin while she inhaled the raw scent of him, his essential maleness. She absorbed the feel of him into her skin, her bones, the center of her being. She memorized him, this man who had given her such pleasure as she thought never to know again.

She said goodbye.

Ross lay half stunned with satiation, hovering on the edge of an urge for sleep so strong it almost dragged him down into it. The only thing that prevented it was his perplexed amazement. If not for holding Cate’s warm and naked body to his side, he’d have thought the past space of time an unusually fervid dream.

She had come to him.

Against all hope or reason, she had appeared in his chamber with the same thing on her mind that had scarce left his for days on end. She had asked to be loved, and he had obliged her with hardly a coherent thought, because there was nothing else on earth he had ever wanted so much.

Not that it meant anything of great moment. Nay, of course not. They had been thrown into each other’s company, each other’s arms. The prospect of a bedding—the assumption that it would happen—had been there from the first. Some at court were sure it had occurred during the dark and cold of a night spent in the forest. That it had finally come to pass now was a simple matter of two people taking their pleasure, as would soon be their right
and duty as husband and wife. No unruly passion came into it, no heart-burning adoration as depicted by poets.

Still, a swift wedding seemed a thing greatly to be wished.

The lady lying so close against him jerked a little as she drew breath. Concern rose inside Ross as he felt wet heat where her cheek rested on his collarbone. Could she be crying? It was not the reaction he usually inspired in the women he took into his bed.

“Are you all right?” He reached to draw up the coverlet as he asked it, covering them and tucking the excess behind her back.

She gave a quick nod but didn’t speak. The conviction grew upon him that she could not without betraying her distress. As carefully as he was able, he brushed tangled strands of hair away from her face. “I never meant to hurt you. I should have gone easier with you this first time.”

“How…how do you know it was my first?” she asked, the words choked as she stiffened in his hold.

“There are ways.” He continued to comb her hair with his fingers. “You were very…tight.”

“I can’t help that!”

“Nay,” he said, his voice grave, though laughter threatened to invade it, “and I’m not complaining, I promise you.”

“Oh.”

“’Twill be easier next time.”

“If there is a next time.”

He paused in his movements while his heart gave a heavy thud. “If?”

“Never mind. I’m sure it will be quite all right.”

It was that damnable curse of the Graces again, he was sure of it. She believed he would not live to see another time. He was not given to auguries and portents, but her certainty made him just a bit uneasy.

Was that why she had come to his chamber—because she meant to have this time with him before he died, because she thought he was due it? The notion was even less welcome.

Not that he had any right to complain. He had taken her up on her request for reasons that went beyond mere lust. He’d longed for her, longed to prevent a brutal initiation from Trilborn. Ross was glad beyond reason that he had been the first with her. And it had little to do with the feud, though awareness of it was always at the back of his mind. He loathed the thought of Trilborn forcing himself on her, causing her more pain and injury. That the bastard would have was certain; to take his enemy’s bride-to-be would give Trilborn a twisted satisfaction.

How was Ross to explain that to Cate? He could not even try. He would wind up sounding as if excusing his weakness, or worse, accusing Trilborn of intending no more than he had just done himself.

At least he knew a way to take her mind from thoughts of death. It was not entirely selfless, but that could not be helped; he did not pretend to sainthood. She had been so sweetly responsive that his body stirred to the point of pain at the mere thought of his aim. She was every soft and tender thing that had been absent from his life for so long, every honeyed joy he had ever tasted. More than that, she was here beside him, warm under the coverlet, sublimely naked in his arms.

“Ah, well,” he drawled as he turned more fully toward her, nudged his knee between her legs the better to press his heated hardness against her while enjoying her wet softness, “if I am to pass away before—”

“Don’t say that!” she said, her voice thick and her fingers clenching in the springing hair on his chest.

He winced and reached to take her hand, placing it on his flank. With it out of the way, he cupped her breast, bent his head to wet the nipple and then blow upon it, smiling as it budded for him. “If I am to pass away,” he repeated, with his lips brushing the peachlike treasure he held, “I may as well taste again the one pleasure I will most sorely miss.”

C
ake woke in her own bed, in the chamber she shared with Marguerite. It seemed wrong. Lying there, staring at the ceiling, she could not remember making her way back through the sleeping palace.

Ah, yes. That was because she had not.

In a wash of sudden heat, she recalled Ross sliding from his bed the night before and padding to a basin, returning with a cloth. He had cleansed her with such thorough care that she’d almost moaned with the arousing nature of it except she feared he would think her in pain. Afterward, he had found her shift and straightened it before putting it over her head. That process had taken some time, as he seemed reluctant to actually cover any important portion of her body. He had dressed her completely once, only to strip everything away again and pull her into his arms.

They had slept the sleep of exhaustion afterward, slept until cockcrow. In the gray dawn, he had thrown on his own clothes, then tossed her shift and gown over her head, flung her cloak around her in haste and carried her back to her chamber. He’d kissed her and left her
there, left her to slip into bed beside Marguerite where she belonged.

Where she belonged? It did not seem so, not any longer.

Cate stretched in the bed, easing muscles she had not known could become strained. She felt exquisitely tender in myriad places, sore inside yet replete. She should feel some shame for what she had done, or so the nuns would surely tell her, but she could not. She was fiercely glad she had gone to Ross. She knew now what passed between a man and a woman.

Yes, she knew, and the thought that she might never have it again was so painful she turned to her side, drew up her knees and pulled the coverlet over her head. Tears burned behind her nose, but did not seep under her tightly shut eyelids. What prevented them was the sudden realization that she could be with child. As with Isabel, a new life could be quickening inside her.

Ah, no, not like Isabel. In contrast to her sister with Rand Braesford, Cate did not love Ross, nor did he love her. What lay between them was lust of the kind the priests railed against. It was a thing of the flesh rather than the spirit, of bodies aflame and hands touching and grasping; of kisses so deep they were an exchange of life’s breath, and of purest animal coupling. There was nothing of the distant worship of the knight for his lady as was described in the annals of courtly love.

No, indeed not. They were neither of them in love.

“Are you still abed, Cate?”

Marguerite banged into the chamber as she made that inquiry, bringing with her a rush of cold air that smelled
of the fresh outdoors. Cate moaned a little at such rude energy.

Quick footsteps approached the bed, and the curtains were flung open. “The morning is half-gone, and a fine one it is, with promise of sunshine. You will miss it if you don’t bestir yourself. You’ve already neglected to wave farewell to one of your favorites.”

Cate sat up, moving with more speed than grace. She was naked under the coverlet, but Marguerite would not mind, as she slept in the same state of nature. “Which favorite would that be?”

“Trilborn, my dear,” her sister answered with laughing irony. “Are you not pleased?”

Cate sighed with relief as she reached to push a pillow behind her back. For a moment she had feared that Ross…but it was not so. “Dare we hope he will be away for some time?”

“We may, indeed.” Marguerite went on to give the latest palace tittle-tattle, which said Henry had been closeted with the nobleman for some little time the evening before, and his departure was the result.

“What passed between them, I wonder.”

“It’s said Lord Trilborn is to visit every manse and castle between here and the northern marches, letting them know the number of men and arms Henry expects to have supplied to him in the event of rebellion. It’s this business of the pretender. Many claim it’s naught but a farce, while others predict armies upon the roads come summer.”

A shiver feathered down Cate’s spine. “Surely not.”

Her sister looked grave, as well she might after a child
hood made terrible by reports of battles where men were slaughtered like cattle, followed by grisly executions of traitors. “I tell you only what I’ve heard. And there is more.”

“More?” Cate pushed a hand through her hair, trying to free it of what appeared to be a rats’ nest of tangles. How it had gotten that way, she preferred not to think.

“Word is, Lord Trilborn is to send back reports from everywhere he goes, lists of the men and supplies pledged to Henry’s army.”

“Showing proof of his industry?”

“Or his willingness to aid Henry’s cause. The mission was decided upon, they say, during a private meeting between the king and your future husband.”

“But that was about our marriage,” Cate said in protest.

“Was it?” Marguerite asked with her most secretive smile. “Or was the marriage about the mission that has taken Trilborn from among us?”

It was a question for which there was no answer. In truth, it did not matter. It was enough that Winston Dangerfield, Lord Trilborn, was truly gone.

He was gone, which meant the danger from the feud had been removed. If Ross was going to die before the wedding, which was fast approaching, it would have to be from some other cause.

And if he did not die, if he lived, what would that mean? Cate refused to think of it. Her chest ached at the knowledge of just how unlikely that would be.

“What will you do tonight?”

Cate jerked her head up to stare at her sister. “What do you mean?”

“Will you go to Ross or not?”

“How do you—”

“I am a light sleeper, so saw you return this morning. Moreover, I’m no longer a child, have known about the act of procreation for some time.”

“Please, not so loud,” Cate said with a wince.

“Don’t think I blame you, for I don’t. It was brave of you to venture out for what you wanted.” Her sister frowned, lifting a corner of her veil to her mouth, biting on the edge of it. “I don’t know if I’d have had the courage.”

“Courage?”

Marguerite gave her a dark look. “For the bedding, also what comes after it. Suppose you fall desperately in love with your future husband, but the sentiment is not returned. What if he dies, anyway? You will have nothing but heartache to show for your nights in his arms. Even if you have his child, they will take it from you.”

“Never!”

“Of course they will, if you go into a convent as you’ve sworn. If not, it will be the same. They’ll take the babe and banish you to some faraway keep, hold you under guard till you molder away. I would join you either place if allowed, but will it be?”

“You cheer me so, dear sister. I don’t know where I would be without you.” Cate should have seen the pitfalls herself, might have except for all else that was on her mind.

Her younger sister scowled at her. “Watching you and
Isabel, I’ve quite made up my mind. I shall avoid being betrothed again at all costs.”

“The choice may not be yours.”

“I’ll run away before agreeing, I will. If I find a man who suits me, I shall live in sin with him, without need of vows between us.”

“But if he loves you…”

“How are we to be certain of that, you and I? Any man can say he loves us, but the only way we will know is to wait and see if he dies before the wedding. What kind of person does it make us that we can allow a man to risk his life that way?”

“It’s horrible, I agree,” Cate said, her voice not quite even, “yet what else are we to do?”

“You could go to Ross tonight and ask him to take you away.”

Cate gave a short laugh. “I did ask him to go for himself. He refused as a matter of honor, and I can’t believe he would consider it any different if he took me with him. He would probably think it a worse abuse of Henry’s trust.”

“Of course he would,” Marguerite muttered, “the great Scots numbskull.” She looked up. “I don’t know what is to be done, then, except wait. Well, and take what joy you can of him.”

Cate could find no way to argue with such logic. She thought, in truth, that it had much to recommend it.

She failed to allow for the whims of the king.

At midmorning, Henry gathered a group of friends and rode out from the palace. The all-male hunting party
would be gone several days. Naturally, Ross was obliged to go with them.

The news, when Cate heard it, sent horror through her in a blind rush. Ross had seemed reasonably safe from the dangers of the curse while he remained within the palace walls. That was now at an end. Accidents happened with alarming frequency on royal hunts. Men competed with bow and lance to prove their prowess or win favor by providing the most meat for the royal table. Competition led to recklessness.

Beyond the dangers of galloping over uneven ground, crossing streams running high with snow melt or cornering stags and boars that might turn on their pursuers, there were arrows that went astray. All such hunting deaths were not accidental. William Rufus, son and heir to William the Conqueror, had been killed that way. It was claimed his younger brother, Henry I Beauclerc, arranged it to take the crown. If a king could fall, how much easier might it not be for someone less protected?

Nor did it help her fears to know Trilborn was not with the hunt. He could be lingering close by to make certain the wedding did not take place.

Yes, and what of Henry’s purpose? The palace larder might need replenishing before the wedding feast. It was possible he thought the Scotsman should help provide venison and pork for it. Nevertheless, she could not but wonder if Henry knew what had passed between the two of them. He might prefer to remove any suggestion that Ross had been seduced away from loyalty to his native land.

Time dragged past. The palace was unnaturally quiet
without the king’s presence or his guard. Messengers galloped back and forth between the hunt and the palace. Wagons loaded with every manner of game trundled into the kitchen yard each evening, proving the outing a success. No news of disaster arrived from the hunting party. No message arrived to say when they would return. As the wedding loomed ever nearer, it began to seem that Henry meant to keep Ross away until it was past.

Then on the wedding eve, shortly before vespers, a mighty salute of trumpets was heard. Cries echoed through the palace. To the sound of shouts and full-throated cheers, the cavalcade of returning huntsmen clattered through the palace gates.

Cate, hearing the firestorm of welcome that swept through the old pile of stone and wood, ran in haste to a window overlooking the stable yard. She leaned out, watching the men dismount as stable hands came running. For long moments, she could make no sense of the confusion there in the gathering dusk.

Then she saw him.

There was Ross, swinging from his mount in a swirl of plaid, tossing the reins to a stable lad with a smile and a coin. He was safe, unharmed, moving with less saddle stiffness than most as he turned from the milling group of riders and dogs.

Abruptly, he halted and stared up at the palace. He searched the windows as if he felt her presence, knew she watched him.

Cate drew back inside, away from the window, with her heart pounding in her throat. What was she doing? She wasn’t supposed to care about her betrothed. It would
be fatal to fall into that trap, for only pain could come of it.

But of course she didn’t care for Ross Dunbar beyond appreciation for him as an attractive man and breathtaking lover. His life or death meant no more to her than that of any man in whose company she had whiled away a few hours. She would always remember him because of the gift of caring initiation he had given her, but she would not be devastated by his passing. Her most fierce pang would be from guilt that he had become embroiled in the curse that followed her and her sisters.

Yes, that was it. Guilt alone caused the odd choking feeling in her chest. Well, and mayhap dread for what might yet take place between this moment and the hour of her wedding.

The figure of a woman glimpsed at a window set Ross on fire. It had been Cate standing there; he knew it as surely as he knew his name and lineage. He had hunted like a madman these past few days, chasing red deer as if trying to outdistance the gut-wrenching longings that plagued him. It was as if he had drunk some witch’s brew designed to put him in thrall. He could not get Cate out of his head. She rode with him, talked to him in the thunder of his horse’s hooves, appeared in the heart of the fire as he sat beside it, and visited him in his dreams.

Lust, he told himself. His body, denied these many months, had rediscovered the pounding joy of carnal sur-cease and wanted more of it. His thoughts were centered on his bride-to-be because he had tasted her honeyed sweetness but not had his surfeit. The talons of need that
raked him would be routed by a few hours behind bed curtains.

Striding toward the nearest entrance to the palace, he made swift plans to visit the common bathing stew at the laundry room to remove the sweat, mud, horse and animal stench of the hunt, followed by a meal to quiet the clamor in his belly. He’d then find some way to convey the message that he’d be elated to have Lady Catherine lie with him this night.

The room set aside for bathing was warm from a constantly burning fire, and steamy from the cauldrons of water that hung above the flames. The bath was hot, herb-scented and deep. Its canopy of mildewed linen on a wooden framework closed off drafts on three sides, leaving the fourth open to the fire. The maidservant sent to tend him was saucy, plump and clean. The look she gave him from under her lashes held blatant invitation.

Ross was not tempted. He had a finer quarry in mind.

Dismissing the woman with a few curt words, he rubbed a handful of soft soap through his hair, lathered and rinsed. He scrubbed the rest of him and then lay back with his arms draped around the edges of the wooden tub, which were covered by its linen liner. The warmth of the water took the soreness from his muscles and routed the last chill of the long day. The night was deepening, the candles flickering on their stands, leaving the corners of the room in shadow. He closed his eyes while his chest rose and fell in a luxurious sigh.