Louisa Rawlings (34 page)

She giggled again. “I only thought…I suppose this means you expect to sleep in
my
bed henceforth!”
 

He eased himself off her and sat up; then he reached down and pinched her firmly on the bottom. “You saucy wench!
Your
bed?”
 

She wiggled in protest. Then, filled again with the wonder of this night, she lifted her hand to his broad, flat chest, idly tracing the strong planes and scratching at the thatch of red-gold curls. She couldn’t get enough of touching his body. She smiled into his eyes. “Do you remember how possessive you were that first night?” She laughed and dropped her voice, mimicking him. “
My
bed,
my
chair,
my
breakfast! Such a pompous lord of the manor!”
 

He raised a mocking eyebrow. “I
was
willing to share my bed, until you slapped my face.”
 

“You were very angry about that slap, I remember. You frowned fearfully! What would you have done, I wonder, had I not swooned?”
 

His eyes swept her body and came to rest on her lips, now swollen from their lovemaking. “I think you know.”
 

“Villain! Would you have assaulted me?”
 

A wicked smirk. “
Au contraire.
Had you not swooned, I think I should have persuaded you.” He smiled in warm remembrance. “How woebegone you looked that night, with your ruined clothes. So beautiful, so fragile. I wanted to hold you in my arms and protect you from the storm. You leaned against me when I carried you, and sighed so sweetly… Do you remember?”
 

She shook her head. “Alas, no.”
 

He bent and kissed her. “I do. I remember everything about that night.”
 

She snorted. “You have an excess of sentiment about that evening
now
! But what
I
remember is that you were dreadfully unkind and insolent to me after Arsène had gone.”
 

“It made my blood boil to think he was your lover!” He frowned as though a thought had just struck him. “But tonight when I…
mon Dieu
! He didn’t, did he? Not ever!”
 

“I tried to tell you. More than once. He’s just a suitor for my hand.”
 

“He’s a roguey villain,” he muttered.
 

She reached up and touched his forehead. “You have a little crease, just here, when you scowl. I like your face.” She smiled tenderly, her heart bursting with happiness. “I don’t want to talk about Arsène,” she whispered. “Do you?”
 

He enfolded her gently in his arms. “I don’t want to talk at all. I just want to kiss you.” This time his mouth on hers was gentle and caressing, the hot passion replaced by a caring tenderness that made her want to weep. After he’d kissed her half a dozen times, his mouth doing honor to her eyelids, her neck, her soft cheeks, he lifted his head and smiled. “The beautiful May Queen. Beautiful and spirited.” He laughed softly. “And ferocious! How does your finger?”
 

“It still hurts a little. And my arm aches.”
 

“You look tired.” He reached for the coverlet, pulling it over the two of them. “Sleep.”
 

She
was
tired. It had been a long day. A perfect day, oh, Cleopatra. She snuggled in his arms. Could anything be more wonderful than to be held, sheltered, enclosed in his warm embrace, her cheek resting against the downy curls on his chest as she drifted into sleep?
 

She heard him breathe her name. A tender utterance, as though he were murmuring a prayer.
 

A sharp sound awakened her. She sat up in the darkness, startled.
 

Pierre stirred beside her. “Hush,” he said softly. “’Tis naught. I forgot to put out the candle. A bad wick at the bottom. It sputtered loudly. It woke me, too.”
 

“Oh,” she said. “What a waste of good tallow.”
 

He chuckled. “Was there ever a merchant’s wife more cheese-paring than you?”
 

With cause, she thought ruefully, reminded unwillingly of her burdens, the reality that waited beyond this room, beyond his arms, beyond her brief holiday. Debtor’s prison for Tintin, unless she could save him, and the lash for her for being a cheat. She sighed.
 

He saw her sudden change of mood. “What is it?”
 

“Nothing. There’s nothing you can do.”
 

“Rouge.” He put a comforting hand on her shoulder. Then, “I know what will cheer you,” he laughed. “Berthe always leaves me a bite to eat in case I should be hungry. A cold joint and a bit of thinned wine, as a rule. Does that sound to your liking?”
 

She giggled, warmed at once by his good spirits, his tender concern. “Need you ask? Where is it?”
 

“She always leaves it on a table near the door. Shall I find another candle to light?”
 

Rouge glanced about the room. The moon was full, streaming in silver ribbons across the floor. “No. The moon is bright enough.” She slipped out of bed and found the food, then carried the small tray back and placed it carefully on the coverlet. They sat cross-legged on the bed together, gorging on the food like greedy children, laughing and kissing in turns. At last Rouge sighed and lay back, spreading her arms wide. “Not another mouthful! Take it away!”
 

Pierre replaced the tray and came back to kneel beside her on the bed, gazing down at her face. The moonlight had moved across the room and now stretched over the bed, bathing Rouge’s skin in its pale gleam. Tenderly Pierre stroked a curl at her forehead. “Your sister, the moon,” he said. “You’re a silvery beam, elusive and mysterious, as she is.”
 

“You called me a silver raindrop the night I came to you in the storm.”
 

“So I did. With those pale gray eyes, that hair. A raindrop. A moonbeam. Heartbreakingly beautiful.” He sighed. “Until it vanishes. Will you vanish, Rouge?”
 

“Oh, Pierre,” she whispered. “Not tonight. Not when you put your seal on my body, as you did tonight.”
 

He reached out and stroked her breast. “I hope I didn’t hurt you before. I wouldn’t have been so hasty, had I realized you were still a virgin.”
 

“I kept telling you I wasn’t Arsène’s mistress.”
 

His eyes were in shadow. “I know. I think I half believed you. Or wanted to. But still I thought…”
 

She took his hand from her breast and pressed it to her lips. “Dear Pierre, what did you think?”
 

He was silent. She could sense the tension in him, see the rigid set of his jaw. “Do you love Tintin?” he blurted at last.
 

“Tintin? Of course I do! What a foolish question!”
 

“Damnation,” he growled, turning his head away. “And still you talk of marrying Arsène and denying your own heart?”
 

She gasped. “Name of God, you didn’t think…! Pierre, Tintin’s my
father
!”
 

He rocked back on his heels. “Your father?”
 

“Of course! I thought you knew long since. Chrétien de Tournières. Chré
tien. Tintin.
It’s how I said his name as a child.”
 

“Your father! Sweet Jesu.”
 

“What made you think…?”
 

“It was when you were feverish,” he said hoarsely. “You called his name over and over again. You cried out that…you loved him.”
 

“And so I do.
Ciel!
What could you have thought of me?”
 

“I thought he was your lover. I thought you were marrying Arsène in spite of it. Forgive me. I thought you were the most fickle, scheming woman on the face of the earth.”
 

“I should be angry,” she said, “that you thought so ill of me. But I suppose if you thought Tintin was my lover, yet I spoke of marrying Arsène…” She laughed softly. “Truth to tell, it’s rather funny. How it will amuse Tintin!”
 

He leaned back against the pillows and put his hand over his eyes. “I was a fool. Mistrusting you without cause.”
 

She perched above him, tracing the smooth lines of his collarbone with hands that gloried in the feel of his body. “But such a dear fool.” She bent down and kissed him on the mouth.
 

He pulled her close to him, holding her against his hard chest. He stroked the side of her cheek and delicately fingered the beauty mark at her mouth. “You may not be a schemer, but you’re the most bewitching devil in the world.”
 

She felt a twinge of uneasiness, the child in her still half believing in superstitions. “But I did scheme,” she said hesitantly. “That’s why you’re here with me tonight.”
 

“How so?”
 

“It was…a magic spell. An enchantment.”
 

“My faith, the charm about your neck!”
 

“Yes. From the gypsy. It was to make my dreams come true today. And one of my wishes…was you.” She felt herself burning with shame. She hadn’t wanted him
this
way! Through magic and guile. “The spell, if it is one, will fade by morning, and you’ll be free.”
 

He held her more tightly against his chest, as if he would never let her go. “Listen to me, you silver-haired sorceress,” he said. “I was enchanted with you from the first moment I saw you. I wanted you. God, how I burned! Night after night I’d lie there, hearing your soft breathing in the dark, knowing you were close…” He groaned softly. “Sometimes I thought I’d go mad.”
 

She remembered the night he’d cursed himself. Sweet heaven, he’d
wanted
her—even then! “But you never gave me a sign! Why did you never…?”
 

His voice was filled with regret. “You talked of returning to Versailles. And Arsène. You talked of Tintin, Mother of God, with such
love
! I didn’t want to be drawn into your life. I saw nothing but folly in it.”
 

She choked back a sob. Their time was so precious, the days of happiness so few. “Oh, Pierre,” she said, “I wish to God you’d taken me to bed that first night.”
 

“Tears?” he said softly. “From the Queen of the May? Then I’ll have to kiss them away.” He kissed her and rolled over with her, taking her body with a tenderness she hadn’t thought possible. She trembled and sighed beneath his sweet caresses, and when he entered her it was with a hesitancy, a gentle rhythm that neither expected nor demanded an impassioned response from her. When at last his body had stilled, she felt peaceful, warm, and sated.
 

She curled up on her side, ready to sleep. He lay behind her, molding her soft body into the curve of his own. She felt the warmth of his breath on her bare back. The room was very still, the May Day revelers having long since taken to their beds. The moon streamed in at the windows and a nightingale sang its serenade to the night. She sighed. A caged bird couldn’t sing. And Tintin would die if he were imprisoned. She sighed again. She would have to drink every drop of sweetness from these days. Soon enough her idyll must come to an end.
 

In the shadowy bed, locked in her lover’s sweet embrace, she wept silently.
 

She couldn’t stop smiling. She had grinned ceaselessly at him as he shaved, so that, distracted, he had finally nicked his chin; she had smiled all through breakfast, her appetite (much to his amusement!) strangely gone; she had watched him buy and load half a dozen sacks of grain, while her foolish mouth stayed locked in a satisfied smile. Now she sat beside him in the wagon this sunny morning on the highroad, and beamed like an idiot.
 

He glanced over at her, one soft brown eyebrow raised in mockery. “Am I to take it you’re happy?”
 

“Oh, Pierre, don’t tease me.”
 

He laughed. “I’ll have you blushing in a moment! Where’s my court lady now?”
 

“The foolish creature’s gone away and won’t return until she must.”
 

He touched the bridge of her nose. “Not until she loses her freckles!” He leaned down and kissed her. “Which are charming.”
 

“Mind the horse,” she scolded, “or we’ll never get home this morning.”
 

“I hadn’t intended that we would. I could only assume that your lack of appetite was a temporary aberration. I took the care to get a large hamper of food for the journey home.”
 

“But it isn’t so long a journey!”
 

He shook his head, a bemused frown on his face. “Strangely, it will take us half the day. There’s a sunny meadow with flowers—I intend to kiss you there. There’s a stone wall with a stile—I’ll have to carry you over it, then carry you back.” He grinned. “Ah, yes. I can think of a number of reasons why we won’t get home too soon!”