Chosen for the Marriage Bed (7 page)

For Richard the lack of light made it easier to encourage and seduce. The shadows were soft and hid any lack of skill or knowledge on her part that might disturb an in experienced bride. Yet there was no clumsiness in her responses, as she came to him readily enough, rather a lightness, an elegance. Nor was she ignorant. When her first trepidation had loosed its hold she turned confidently, her lips warm on his. Her skin was soft, smooth beneath his fingertips, her movements graceful and feminine as she lifted her arms to lock them around his neck, to curl her fingers into his hair. When, surprising him, she stretched against him, pressing firmly at breast and hip and thigh, a deep sigh in her throat warm against him, it stirred his desire until he was hard for her.

But he held back. Talked to her to ease her fears, knowing al ready that she was a woman who needed the conviction of her mind above the seductions of the flesh. So he talked as he stroked and discovered.

Soft, foolish thoughts, Elizabeth acknowledged in passing, but so very appealing. Whispered words against her lips, against her hair, against the pulse that quickened its beat beneath the satin skin of her throat. Ridiculously flattering, as she knew, but they gave her a gloss of pleasure. Such consideration here for her naïvety. But also, she realised, an imperative demand as his mouth heated, his kisses became deeper, his tongue sliding between her lips to possess. Her skin shivered, but she did not dislike it. She could feel the urgency in the quick tense of his muscles, the need in his heavy erection against her thigh. Now a thrill ran through her, unexpected, a knot of heat in her belly, that it could be so, that he should want her so readily. Her secret fears that he would need to overcome distaste to take her coldly out of necessity dissipated in a bright flame as his mouth captured her breast.

Despite everything, Elizabeth de Lacy was entranced.

Slowly, deliberately slowly as his tongue caressed and excited, Richard let his fingers drift down over her breast, her flat belly, lower still. Felt her skin ripple in tiny shivers. With a gasp she stiffened, then once more stretched against him, breath warm against his neck, and as it must her thigh brushed against his erection. He shuddered on a hissed intake of breath, his control suddenly balanced on a knife edge. It would be so easy to push the matter on. But he drew back a little with his weight on his forearms and breathed heavily.

Elizabeth immediately became rigid in his arms, a stone statue of a victim of the Medusa’s stare. ‘What is it? Did I do some thing wrong? I did not know…’ The words were dragged from her, harsh in the still room.

Here was panic. So the fears were not too far away. He silenced her with his mouth, still gentle despite the over-whelming need to bury himself in her and take what was his.

‘No. Nothing wrong. You are all pleasure, lady,’ Richard gasped.

For a long moment she remained tense in his arms, as if considering his reply. ‘You have a way with words, Richard Malinder.’ Then relaxed against him, her lips opening beneath his, all soft and silken heat. Did she know how alluring she was? Probably not. The desire to push her past edgy thought to drive her to pure sensation became imperative.

‘It will hurt?’ she asked. But not a question.

‘Yes.’ Honesty, tempered by a brush of lips, a slide of hands. ‘But not beyond bearing if I have the skill to make it so.’

‘As I am sure you do.’ Her dark eyes caught a momentary glint of the distant light from the dying fire. He knew she was watching him, alert to his every move, still wary, still thinking. ‘Then I will trust you.’

Such simple confidence in his talents was his undoing. His fingers sought and discovered that she was not unready as her thighs opened for him. He moved over her, into her, a slick wetness. Pushed against her until he was held deep.

There was discomfort and pain, but momentary and, as he had promised, not beyond bearing. Elizabeth stilled, held her breath, aware of nothing but the weight of his possession and the outline of his shoulders back-lit by the glow of fire. He filled her mind, her body, her whole vision. When, in her cold room at Bishop’s Pyon where her uncle had taken her to task, also in the fastness of Llanwardine when marriage to Richard Malinder had never been mooted, she had vowed that she would allow no man such power over her. She had been wrong. She had given herself over to this man’s demands in a haze of shattering need, with a complete lack of restraint. Even when he drove on to his own fulfilment, leaving her teased by delicious sensations that flooded her but yet remained tantalisingly out of reach. Slick with heat, her limbs pleasurably lax, Elizabeth turned her face against Richard’s throat in shock at this new self-awareness.

‘It is done, lady.’ Some time later, sense restored, heart beats evening, Richard lifted himself from her.

And Elizabeth turned away. Was that all he could say? Would he leave her now? Would he not wish her to curl against this warmth and rest within his arms as was her inclination? Suddenly Elizabeth was horribly shy, yet forced herself to ask because she needed to know.

‘Was I…’ she swallowed ‘…what you hoped for?’ she finished in anagonised rush.
Was I an unspeakable disaster compared with the in comparable Gwladys?
She stared into the darkness, waiting.

‘Elizabeth Malinder.’ There was no condemnation here, only lazy humour in the use of her new name. ‘Have you so little courage? I did not think you a coward.’

Was he laughing at her?
‘I am no coward! I did not dislike it!’ Elizabeth clutched the linen covers to her neck in sudden defence.

‘Thank God! An honest woman!’ Richard stretched out to push aside her hasty covering, and draw one long smooth caress from shoulder to wrist, finally capturing her hand and raising her palm to his mouth as he had once before. ‘It will improve, lady. Now come here.’

He pulled her close again, holding firm when she would have struggled for her freedom. It was no contest. Elizabeth found herself pinned against that toned body she had so admired. And Richard felt all the tension drain from her, felt her smile against his chest.

‘What is it?’

She hid her face. ‘It’s true. I did not dislike it.’

‘Faint praise!’ He laughed gently, her hair soft as matt velvet against his cheek. ‘I’ll try to do better. Later, lady.’ Perhaps not too much later. His loins stirred as she sighed in utmost sat is faction, and surprised him by turning her head to press her lips in the lightest of kisses all the way along his jaw.

Warmth, a foolish little surge of triumph, sang through every inch of Elizabeth’s body, with an exhilarating sense of achievement that had nothing to do with her own finesse of which she acknowledged she had none—and all to do with his. More satisfying even than scrying. Jane Bringsty had never warned her of that. And she drifted into unconsciousness.

Richard found himself far from sleep. His attention was thoroughly caught and his mind would not let his new knowledge go. Life had not been easy for her, as Lewis had intimated, and his hatred of John de Lacy deepened. Dispassionately, he considered his impressions of her. Yes, she was slender—thin, he supposed—but not unattractive. Her skin was firm yet soft. Not at first glance a figure to suggest that child bearing would be a simple matter for her, but she would bloom with the life he could give her. His thoughts snapped back to the present as she sighed in sleep, her hand splayed against his chest.

So this was Elizabeth de Lacy. A complicated weave of inhibiting fears, fearsome honesty and driving emotions. He would wager his best stallion that her responses had not been influenced by duty or the careful teaching of her serving woman in the role of her mother. There was a fire here, or perhaps more apposite, a deep well of untapped passions. He could discover them. But then an uneasy premonition touched him as he rubbed his cheek against her hair, not a difficult fore telling to interpret, in the circumstances. It would not be an easy task to woo and win the lady—if that is what he truly wanted. He had looked for no more than an understanding, an affection at best in this union, and yet… The thought caught him unawares but did not displease.

It might be an exhilarating experience, perhaps for both of them.

‘My lord! My lord Malinder!’

At some time in the dark hours between midnight and the late winter dawn there was an urgent but discreet knocking on the bedchamber door, and a ferocious whisper, enough to rouse the occupants, but not the whole house hold. Richard came awake, aware at first of nothing but the warmth of Elizabeth turned into him, cradled in his arms.

‘My lord! You must come!’ As the hammering and the summons grew more demanding, he sat up with a groan, lit a candle and swung his legs out of bed.

‘What is it?’ Elizabeth, awake but sleepy.

‘I don’t know. Some emergency that cannot wait.’ He yawned, shivered from the cold and scrubbed his hands over his face. ‘Probably one of the guests fallen into the well after a skinful of ale.’ Resigned, he began to pull on hose and tunic. ‘Go back to sleep, Elizabeth. I’ll not be long.’ He stayed to press a kiss to her hair and tuck the coverlet round her shoulders, grabbed his sword and a cloak against the night’s cold. The door closed and all was silent.

Elizabeth rolled over into the heat of his body’s imprint and went back to sleep.

In the courtyard, in a shadowed corner between the keep and the chapel, Richard crouched beside a body, face down where the shadow was darkest. Master Kilpin, Simon Beggard, Richard’s Commander of the garrison of Ledenshall, and one of the guards stood uneasily beside him. Simon held up a shuttered lantern, conversation was in muted tones. Better not to alert everyone yet.

‘Who found him?’

‘I did, my lord,’ the guard replied. ‘It’s my watch. There’s rats here—so I came down to see…and when I saw, I roused Commander Beggard.’

Richard touched the body, already cold. There was no question but that he was dead. The lantern, flickering in the fitful wind, was sufficient to show the spread of the dark stain between the shoulder blades. One of the guests, velvet and damask, now bloody and soiled. Wedding clothes.

‘Hold the lantern up. Now, Master Kilpin, help me turn him over.’

They moved the body so that the light might fall on his face. Richard hissed out a breath at the confirmation of his worst fears. He had known the dark hair, the slight build, the damask finery, as soon as he had seen it.

‘Bad, my lord,’ Simon Beggard stated.

‘Couldn’t be worse.’ Richard rose to his feet, his face un read able. Recognising the remains of the man at their feet, the little audience knew why.

‘What do we do, my lord?’

‘What, indeed!’ Richard continued to stare with mounting dismay. He would do what needed to be done and worry about repercussions later. ‘Let’s move him into the chapel. It’s nearest and suitable for the purpose, I suppose. God’s presence in the face of violent and useless death.’ His terse instructions could not hide the anger that flooded his body at this worthless—and possibly disastrous—spilling of blood.

Between them they carried the body in and laid it on the wooden bench along the back wall. Richard took off his cloak and spread it over the still figure. The lantern shone down on a face empty in death, eyes wide perhaps with surprise, lips lax, skin grey with a waxen tinge. A sudden draught fluttered the edge of the material and the ends of the dark hair.

‘Robbery, my lord?’ Simon Beggard whispered, but his voice echoed unnervingly in the roof space that arched into blackness over their heads.

‘It’s possible. His jewels are gone.’ Richard remembered them. His fingers had been stripped of costly rings. Perhaps a chain. And his sword was taken. ‘God help us. This is a bad night’s work.’

Then he began to issue orders. ‘Master Kilpin, you had better find Sir John. Try not to wake the whole castle. The fewer people here, the better. Tomorrow will be enough and more for that. Simon, fetch Sir Robert, if you will. And then ask the guards if they saw anyone out and about after midnight. Anything at all, no matter how trivial.’

They exited smartly, leaving the guard to stand sentry beside the body.

‘Keep this door locked until my return.’ Richard stood for a moment at the top of the shallow steps where his vows had been taken earlier in the day. ‘I need to go and tell my wife.’

Elizabeth awoke fully from a light doze, her mind still suffused with contentment as Richard entered the room. He came over to the bed with a lantern. ‘What’s happened?’

He sat on the edge of the bed. Set down the lantern and curled his hand around hers. ‘It’s bad, Elizabeth.’

She pushed up onto one elbow. ‘Did someone indeed fall into the well?’ Then the amusement drained away as she saw, despite the shadows, the brutal lines of his face.

‘I need you to get up.’

‘Tell me.’

There was no point in pro longing it with soft words. ‘Your brother. Lewis. He’s dead.’

There was a moment of intense silence. Elizabeth felt the words freeze into a solid mass in her chest, so that she could not breathe. Could not speak. Could not think beyond that brutal announcement. Then a low strangled sound deep in her throat. Her hand tightened on his, nails digging in as blood drained from her face in the lantern’s yellow glow. Her eyes were hot and dry, beyond tears, but dark with anguish. Then she was pushing him away as she struggled to leave the bed.

‘Will you take me to him?’

‘Yes.’

He helped her pull on her chemise, put on her shoes. Wrapped her new, festive cloak around her and pulled up the hood to hide her from any encroachment on her privacy. If only he could obliterate her pain quite so simply. Then he took her cold hand in his and led her to her brother.

Elizabeth knelt beside Lewis’s body and turned back the cloak. Someone had closed his eyes, folded his hands on his chest so that he looked at peace. Disbelieving, she touched her fingertips gently to Lewis’s face, his lips. Then to his hands.

‘Lewis. Ah, Lewis.’ Her voice broke on the name he could no longer hear. She smoothed her hands over his shoulders, his chest, as if searching for the fatal injury. ‘How did he die?’