Secret Song (22 page)

“Then I'd best take my fill of you whilst you carry the babe. I'll be tired of you by the time the child is born and that will be just as well. I don't wish to have a dozen babes hanging on to me within as many years.”

She wanted to yell at him; she wanted to howl at the glorious full moon. She did neither. She lowered her head and played with the bread on her trencher. He was trying on purpose to hurt her. She wouldn't let him see that he was succeeding.

“You have been so very kind to me, your majesty,” Daria said later to the Queen of England. “I thank you, truly.”

“Fret not, child. I will see you again. You and Roland will come to London, or perhaps my lord and I will visit Cornwall. Now, my dear, allow my ladies to prepare you for the night.”

With those prosaic words, and not a bit of well-meant advice, the Queen of England left her to the ministrations of two ladies-in-waiting. The ladies weren't so reticent as their mistress. They'd drunk their share of wine and were thus giggling and giving Daria advice on making a man shudder with lust.

Roland paused outside the tent and listened to the women's laughter coming from within. And then he heard Daria's voice, puzzled and low, “Truly, Claudia, how do I do that? Just tell him to stick it into my mouth? Would I not choke? Would I not hurt him with my teeth?”

“Silly girl. Daria, you must stroke your hands over body and follow your hands with your tongue and mouth. It's a wonderful sound.”

Roland's eyes widened. So the queen's ladies were as bawdy as any others. So they were educating Daria. Then his smile turned to a frown when she said, “Perhaps Roland won't like me to do that because I wouldn't do it well. Perhaps he would want another, more skilled and—”

“Daria, hush now. The only way for you to become skilled is to practice. Ask your husband if he minds that you practice on him. Then watch him lick his lips and watch his eyes grow large with anticipation.”

Roland didn't hear what his wife said to that. His
wife.
It was almost more than a man of few years but vast experience could take in. He hadn't wanted a wife, not yet, not until his keep in Cornwall was in proper condition and he'd become—bored. He shook himself. Bored. He wouldn't ever become bored, and how could his mind assume that taking a wife was the cure for boredom anyway?

He pulled back the tent flap and chuckled at the drunken grins he received from the two women. Their thoughts were clearly writ on their faces, and his sex responded. He quickly turned to Daria. She simply stood where she was, staring at him. With new eyes, he thought.

Claudia poked her elbow into Daria's ribs. “Practice, my dear, practice.”

“Good night, Daria, and enjoy what God and the king have given you. The saints and women know there aren't many men as potent and well-formed as this one. Aye, he's a lovely lad, he is.”

The two women eyed Roland through wistful drunk eyes, Claudia brushing her breasts against his arm as she went past him.

Daria stared, feeling no particular anger at the woman. They'd dipped freely into the wine, and Roland
was
a beautiful man. She supposed it made Claudia forget herself. Roland was standing there saying nothing, merely looking at her.

“Will you take their advice?”

Her face turned instantly red. “You heard what they told me to do?”

“Aye, I heard. Excellent advice.”

She straightened her back and looked him squarely in the eye. “Then I will do it. But you must tell me what to do, Roland. I have no wish to offend you or perhaps hurt you.”

“This is a very strange conversation,” he said as he began stripping off his outer tunic. He tossed the wide leather belt onto the fur-covered floor. “The queen's ladies were eager to teach you what to do to me.”

“They seem to understand men,” she said, frozen to the spot, watching as Roland matter-of-factly removed his tunic. There were three candles lit in the tent, in a brass holder sitting atop a small sandalwood table. There was a low cot covered with animal furs. There was nothing else in the tent. When Roland was bare to his waist, the candlelight casting darkening shadows over his body, Daria found herself staring openly at him. He was lean and firm, dark hair covering his chest. When she'd seen him in Wrexham he'd been ill and lying on his back. He'd been beautiful, she'd thought that very clearly, but she hadn't recognized the sheer strength of him, the tautness of his arms, the fluid motion of the muscles in his back and shoulders, the ridges of muscle over his belly. She swallowed, for now he was stripping off his chausses. He stopped then and looked at her. “Why do you stand there? Get off your clothes and into the bed.”

She didn't move. As an order from a loving bride-groom, it lacked even a dollop of warmth.

He raised a dark eyebrow. “Since you carry a babe, I can assume that you have seen a naked man. Indeed, you have seen me as well.” He rose straight and tall and naked, and the look he gave her was mocking. She didn't want to look at him but she couldn't help it. Her eyes fell immediately to his groin. His sex lay flaccid in the bush of thick black hair.

But she knew he would grow large, very large, and he would want to thrust himself inside her body. She swallowed and turned her back to him.

She heard him chuckle. “It's best to begin your caressing of me while I'm still like this. Now, get off your clothes.”

“All right.” Quickly she doused the three candles, throwing the tent into gloom. The torches from without cast dim shadows into the interior, but at least he couldn't see her clearly. She was embarrassed. Before, he hadn't known
her,
hadn't really touched
her,
hadn't really taken
her.
But now he was well; now he was virile and eager; now he was her husband and would look at her.

“What are you doing?” She whirled about, consternation writ plain on her face.

“I'm merely lighting one candle. I don't wish to fumble in the darkness. Get off your clothes, Daria. I wish to see your breasts and your belly. I have paid dearly for the privilege. I will not tell you again.”

With those emotionless words, he climbed into the narrow cot and pulled a fur to his waist. He crossed his arms behind his head and looked at her. Her hands stilled, then fell to her sides. She couldn't bring herself to remove her clothes in front of him; she didn't want to respond to his indifferent command. She was afraid; she knew he didn't want her, she knew that he would take her tonight simply because she was here, she belonged to him, and she could have been any woman to ease him.

Yet this man was her husband, and she must make the best of it. She tried again to untie the ribbons on her overtunic, but her fingers were clumsy and cold. Finally she loosened it enough to pull it over her head. Her gown was loose-fitting, but again she couldn't manage to unlace the strings that crisscrossed over her breasts.

Her husband simply lay there looking at her, his eyes hooded, just looking, as if he didn't really care, as if he simply wanted her to obey whatever order he gave her because he was the master and she wasn't, and because he was angry at her and wanted to punish her.

Suddenly it was simply too much. She looked at her shaking fingers, looked at him and saw that his expression was as cold as the waters of the North Sea, and whispered, “Nay, I cannot.” She saw him jerk upright, and slowly, very slowly, she eased down to her knees. She felt tears sting her eyes; felt despair wash over her. She covered her face with her hands. And she cried silently.

Roland drew back as if he'd been struck. There was his bride, in a heap on the floor, crying. Damn her. Aloud he said furiously, “You have what you want, you cursed wench. And for whatever reason you wanted
me
as your husband, not the Earl of Clare, not God in a precious convent. Well, now you have me. Cease your damnable wailing. It but enrages me. A woman's tears mean naught; they're a sham. I won't stand it. Stop it now, Daria.”

She got a grip on herself. She was being foolish, and crying, indulging herself, her mother had told her, was something a girl shouldn't do with a man she loved because it wasn't honorable or honest. As if Roland would care. “Yes,” she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, “I'll stop crying. I'm sorry, Roland.”

She rose slowly to her feet. He watched silently as she regained her control. She hiccuped even as she stripped off her gown. When she stood in the soft candlelight wearing only her thigh-length linen shift, he could see the faint outline of her nipples, the outline of dark hair at her groin. He wanted to see all of her. After all, he'd paid dearly for the right. “Remove the shift.”

Her fingers went to the narrow straps on her shoulders, then stopped. “I cannot.”

“Why can't you? You're certainly not a maid, so why this excessive modesty? Do you prefer that I strip the shift off you?”

“No. It's the only one I have. I must be careful with it.”

“Take it off, Daria. If you'll remember, you promised before God to obey me.”

She felt humiliated. She searched for a shred of pride and managed to find enough so that she could stare straight ahead, not at him, and quickly pull off the shift.
Pretend you're alone; pretend he doesn't exist, that he doesn't lie there, watching you, seeing you.
And she didn't look at him, simply stared beyond him, feeling the soft linen shift pooling at her feet. She removed herself from the naked girl standing there for his examination, a man who was her husband, a man who disliked her and believed her a liar and a female with no honor.

Roland stared at her, unable to help himself. He'd had no idea she was so very nicely shaped. Her breasts were high and full and as white as her belly, her nipples a pale pink. She was too thin. Her ribs were visible, and her breasts appeared almost too heavy for her slight torso, but he didn't mind that. He did wonder how she could be carrying a babe in that flat stomach of hers. He imagined she would begin to fill out soon enough. Her legs were long and sleekly muscled. He liked that. He remembered many of the women whose beds he'd shared whose bodies were white and soft, too soft. Daria was firm, and even in her thinness, she looked strong and able. He pictured her legs tightening around his flanks and felt his muscles tighten and his sex swell. He wanted her, but then again, he told himself silently, he would want any decent-looking female who was standing before him naked.

“Come here,” he said. “Let me examine more closely what I have bought with my future.”

“You forget that my money purchases a much nicer future than you expected.”

“Aye, you do indeed improve my lot with your vast array of coin, but I pay with myself, Daria, and I keep paying until I die. I told you to come here. I am weary to my bones of your lies and protests, and I know I must take you at least once this night, even though I don't particularly wish to. It is my duty and I won't shirk it.”

“You could pretend that I'm Lila again.”

He sucked in his breath, rage and frustration pounding through him. “I told you once that you are nothing like her, more's the pity. If you don't come here, you will regret it.”

Still she stood there in the center of the tent, naked and white and stiff as a lance. “Will you strike me as my uncle did? As the Earl of Clare did?”

His guts twisted at her words. It was rage at her pretense, nothing more. He rose from the bed and strode to her. He suddenly saw the fear in her eyes, and something else—She jerked back.

He clasped her upper arms and pulled her against him. At the feel of her body against him, he felt a leaping of nearly painful need, felt his sex jutting against her belly. “Yes,” he said as he grabbed at handful of her hair and pulled her face close to his, “yes, I will pretend you're Lila. Even if that fails, even if I recognize you, my wife, it still shouldn't be too difficult for me. I haven't had a woman for a long time, and even you will do.” He kissed her closed lips, and he was hard and demanding. He was the master and he would prove it to her.

“I'm not Lila.”

He released her, her quiet words flowing warmly into his mouth and into his soul, helpless words, despairing words.

He stepped back and looked at her face. She was not the girl he'd believed her to be. He pressed his open palm to her flat belly. “A babe is within, yet you are so small.” His fingers kneaded her. “You say it is my babe, but I know that isn't true. You are a mystery to me, Daria. I remember the girl I rescued from the earl, the girl who traveled with me through Wales, the girl whose gift for languages rivals my own, the girl who was brave and fearless when those outlaws took her.

“And then there is the other Daria, the girl who has lies forming in her mind even as she thinks, and she, I fear, is the girl I married. Who are you, nay, what are you, and why have you done this to me?”

She closed her eyes against the pain. “I didn't wish it to be this way, I swear it to you, Roland. When you were ill, when you believed I was Lila, it was my decision to come to you, to give myself to you. I swore then to myself that you would never know, that I would never tell you, for I wanted no guilt from you, no pity. I even bathed my blood and your seed from you so that you wouldn't wonder. I was stupid, for it didn't occur to me that I could become pregnant. It never occurred to me that such a thing was possible.”

He pushed her away from him. “Come to sleep when it pleases you to do so.”

He doused the candle, and as she stood there naked and shivering in the middle of the tent, she heard him burrow beneath the furs on the low bed, and she said, “You have so quickly forgotten your duty?”

He cursed her then, his voice low, his words crude. He rose and she felt his fingers close over her arm. He dragged her to the bed and threw her down upon her back.