The Maiden Bride (17 page)

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Authors: Rexanne Becnel

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #General, #Medieval

BOOK: The Maiden Bride
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He eyed her warily. “Would it mend my head
and
soothe this unease in my gut?”
Linnea shrugged. “It manages both. I have prepared it many a time for—” She broke off. Any mention of her family members seemed to enrage him; to rouse his temper now was not her intent.
But he must have sensed her thoughts, for he studied her closely. “For your father?”
She met his gaze. “And my brother.”
Their eyes held a long moment. But it was a different sort of look than they’d shared before. For once he was not the predator and she was not his prey. It was as if his temporary weakness had made of them equals, and she could not let her opportunity pass.
“When the men of Maidenstone have overindulged themselves with drink, my preparations have ever seen them more quickly recovered. Shall I make it for you?”
He nodded, but she detected a puzzled expression in his eyes. She decided to answer his question before he asked it. “It is my intention for there to be peace between us.”
“Peace,” he repeated. “Tell me true, Beatrix. Is it your hope that through this peace I shall keep your grandmother here with you at Maidenstone?”
That gave her pause. Last night she would have said yes. But the Lady Harriet would rather be gone from the castle—so that she could better see to Axton’s inevitable defeat. Linnea searched for the right words.
“In the light of a new day I see that it might be better for everyone if she were settled at Romsey Abbey. She would never be content here. But what do you plan for … for the other members of my family?”
“The men of your family await Henry Plantagenet’s pleasure. Do not ask me for their freedom,” he warned. “For ’tis not mine to give.”
Linnea looked down at the floor. “I understand. But I would plead with you, Axton, to consider your vengeance done. You have achieved your aim. Do not heap further suffering upon them who cannot defend themselves any longer.”
“In case you have not noticed, wife, ’tis you who have of late suffered the worst brunt of my temper.”
Linnea looked up, startled by his blunt words. He was much nearer now, and his expression was not so much of pain as it was of undisguised desire. She sidled around the back of the tub. “You have not always seemed angry when we … when we came together.”
A faint grin of amusement curved one side of his face. “Nor have you, else I would sport more than one fresh scar,” he said, rubbing the ragged scab on his shoulder. Then his expression sobered. “I cannot promise you a mild-tempered husband any more than you can promise to be a meek wife to me. But we shall manage one way or another.”
He removed his boots one at a time, then reached for the ties at the waist of his braies. Linnea was once more made uncomfortably aware of the raw beauty of the man. “I would bathe now,” he said. “Then retire to bed.”
The ties came loose. The russet caddis cloth dipped low on his lean belly, and Linnea could not help but stare. Only at the last moment, when he tugged the garment down past his hips and stepped out of them gloriously naked, did she jerk her eyes away.
“We … we cannot … The bed is broken.”
“Call someone to fix it then.” She heard his step on the floor, then the soft ripple of water as he eased into the steaming tub, followed by a slow, heartfelt sigh.
Fix the bed. Easier to tend to that task than to the naked male body that awaited her attention. So Linnea took him at his word. She backed away from him, staring at the wide, muscular chest and its sprinkling of curls with a dark fascination she could not hide. Call someone to fix the bed. Yes, she would do that. And she would prepare the decoction for him as well.
“Soak you a while,” she said, angling toward the arched opening to the stairs. “I will see to … to other things,” she finished in a mumble.
“Wait. Beatrix!”
But Linnea did not heed his call. Once again logic had succumbed to emotion. As always, the potent combination of his masculine threat and magnetic appeal conspired to scare her to death. She backed out of the chamber, nearly tumbling down the steps at the last glimpse she had of him. He’d stood up in the tub, with water sheeting down his body, every inch a man—a man who was her husband. Despite the intimacies they’d shared, she was not accustomed to his casual nudity. She did not think she ever would be.
She would have to face him again, of course. And soon. But maybe by then she would be better composed. Maybe she would be in control of herself, she prayed, as she hurried to her tasks.
But she feared that somewhere along the way she’d lost all control to this man. And she feared also that even St. Jude could not help her recover it.
 
L
innea sent an army of workers in ahead of her. Axton would be annoyed, she feared. But the infusion would appease him. And mayhap he would begin to see her as more than merely a convenient female body.
But why should she have such a foolish notion? she asked herself. Why should she care that he appreciate her housewifely skills? If her grandmother’s plan came to pass, he would soon be gone from Maidenstone, replaced by her sister’s husband, whoever he might be. How Axton felt about her wifely skills would be completely buried beneath the pure hatred he would feel for her deception.
Unfortunately, that bit of logic did her no good at all. The fact was, there were those aspects of Axton de la Manse that appealed to her. He might be a fierce warrior and possessed of a lethal temper, but he was still better tempered than her brother, Maynard. Even ignoring the incredible intimacies they’d shared, she could not entirely hate him. For the most part he treated her decently and she, perversely, wanted him to appreciate her.
Of course, he thought she was Beatrix, she reminded herself. Even Maynard treated Beatrix decently. If Axton knew she was not Beatrix, he would not be nearly so decent. Indeed, his temper would very likely become uncontrollable.
He had not struck her last night, but when he learned the truth … She shuddered to even think of his reaction.
But that day was a long way off, she told herself. A long way. Meanwhile, whether she liked him or hated him, she must play the part given to her. She must appear to be a dutiful and loving wife to him, and thereby prove her worth to her family.
“Does Ida go to Romsey with the Lady Harriet?” she asked Norma as they started up the stairs.
“Yes, milady. They depart very soon with a small guard to escort them.”
Linnea grimaced. Truth be told, a part of her was relieved to have her grandmother’s dour presence gone. But it created problems as well. “I pray her absence does not hasten my father’s decline.”
Norma shook her head. “’Tis a sad thing, but not unknown. His father was the same. One day a strong man; the next crushed by adversity and robbed of his senses.”
“Did he never recover?”
Norma’s answer was a grim shake of the head.
Linnea digested that in silence. She’d known her father would offer her little help. To know he could offer her none, however, was bitter indeed. She sighed. “I hope my grandmother does not have to endure the journey to Romsey on horseback.”
“She travels in a horse litter. Milord Axton did order it so.”
Linnea paused on the steps and stared at Norma. A horse litter? Her husband had ordered a horse litter to make the journey easier for an old woman who did hate him and conspire against him? Not that he knew she conspired. But he did know she hated him. No one could mistake that. Even so, he’d ordered a horse litter for her.
The news of her father had depressed her, but this knowledge of Axton’s kindness unaccountably lifted her spirits. When Linnea entered the antechamber and he scowled at her and the several carpenters who headed into the bedchamber, she met his frown with a sincere smile.
“They will not be overlong, my lord. They do but repair the bed …” She trailed off. The bed they would very quickly retire to. She might have avoided an escapade in the bathtub with him, but she could not avoid him for very long.
He watched her as she approached with the pewter goblet that held her remedy. He sprawled back in the huge tub, his hair wet and slicked back, his shoulders bare and gleaming in the strengthening morning light. The water covered the lower half of his torso and all of his legs except the tops of his bent knees. But those portions of him that showed—the powerful chest and well-shaped arms—were enough to unnerve any woman alive. Even feeling as wretched as he must, he looked the perfect image of glorious manhood.
“What is in this vile brew?” he asked, sniffing suspiciously at the dark liquid she held out to him.
“Lavender, pennyroyal, and sweet woodruff,” she answered. “I will drink of it first if it please you.”
His hand closed around hers and lifted the chalice to his own lips. Cool metal and warm flesh cupped her hand and Linnea felt a frisson of heat. Against her thigh his chain of ruby and gold did seem to sear her skin.
“That’s not necessary,” Axton murmured. “Methinks you anticipate the reward too well to strike down he who would give it to you.” So saying, he drank deeply. But he kept his eyes locked upon her face.
For her part, Linnea wanted nothing more than to escape his smug confidence. She jerked her hand from his hold, sloshing a goodly portion of the infusion into the bathwater. The fact that he only chuckled riled her further.
“Do you deny the pleasure you find in our joining?” he asked, not the least concerned by the several servants and workmen who labored within the sound of his voice. “Answer me, wife. Your coyness is unnecessary now.”
“I would rather have this conversation in the great hall,” she snapped. “That way the
entire
populace of Maidenstone Castle can hear of what we speak. ’Tis what you want, is it not?”
His silent chuckles started a series of waves within the tub, soft, fragrant lapping that was at odds with the intensity of her feelings. “Never let it be said of me that I do not honor my ladywife’s delicate sensibilities. Come, my lovely little shrew. While the carpenters repair one part of what my temper has wrought, you can repair the other part.”
When she hesitated to approach him, unsure exactly what he meant, he extended a hand to her. “Do not fear. I shall harness my base nature and ask only that you scrub my skin while the carpenters labor.”
Linnea looked away from him. Why was she always so easily unsettled by him? How could she be one moment pleased by his thoughtfulness toward her grandmother, the next minute unnerved by his masculine beauty then, like lightning, outraged by his innuendo and unnerved all over again. It was perverse.
She
was perverse.
She swallowed hard and willed herself to a self-possession she did not truly feel. “As you wish,” she murmured, edging toward the tray of soaps and bathing cloths.
He did not move when she came up beside him. His eyes followed her, watching her with a burning gaze she felt even when she did not look at him. But his arms remained stretched along the sides of the tub and his head relaxed against the high back.
She dipped the cloths in the hot water and rubbed it with the castile soap her grandmother had purchased at the last fair at Chichester. Once she’d worked up a lather, however, it was time to actually scrub him. But how to begin? And where?
As if he knew her dilemma, Axton raised one foot out of the water. She began there.
His feet were large and well shaped. His ankles strong, and his calves muscular. As she soaped them, first one leg and then the other, she knew she scrubbed harder than necessary. But he did not rebuke her.
His hands and arms were next, long fingers, square palms, and well-formed arms, like hard, living steel. Under the touch of those clever hands of his she might forget everything but him.
“Shall I stand for the rest?”
Linnea dropped the cloth with a soggy plunk. Conversely some wanton part of her seemed to leap. “No. Not … not yet,” she managed to get out. She pulled her gaze away from his face, with its planes made sharper by the wet gleam of light on it, and stared instead at the soapy surface of the water. The washcloth was down there, somewhere near his hips, she suspected. And now she had to get it.
She closed her eyes and plunged her hand in. Slippery skin that was nonetheless hard and firm as the oaken beams that held up the roof rubbed against her hand. Coarse hair, then no hair. Her heart began to thud an almost painful rhythm. Then she felt the cloth, and her fingers clutched it as fiercely as if it were the Bacon of Flitch prize that she’d grabbed from a pike.
Before she could right herself, however, one of Axton’s hands caught her at the nape of her neck. “Come in here with me,” he whispered in a husky tone. “I would do to you what you have done to me.”
“I … I can bathe myself without aid of—”
“’Tis not the bathing I speak of,” he interrupted her. His other hand caught her wrist and drew it back down beneath the water, pressing it against the thickened arousal hidden beneath the fragrant suds.
Their eyes met and held, and Linnea knew he must see the way he affected her. She might protest with words and evasive actions. But when they were this close, when her fingers felt every inch of his desire and her eyes could not close away the answering desire she felt, she knew he recognized the truth. Time and circumstance might make of him her enemy, but there was a will in her that ignored everything but the way he made her feel.
She wanted to be in the tub with him. And he knew it.
“What of the bed linens, milady? Shall we change them—” At the sight of them, Norma halted in the doorway to the bedchamber. “Beg pardon, milord. I did not … um … that is …”
Linnea jerked her hand out with a splash that wet her skirt. The soggy washcloth dripped all over her shoes and the floor, but she was too dismayed to notice. Her cheeks had turned to scarlet and she wanted nothing more than to slink away in shame.
Axton, however, seemed entirely unperturbed. “Leave the bed linens as they are. And get those carpenters out of there now.”
“Yes, milord.” Norma backed away, bowing as she went. “They are nearly finished, milord. They’ll be gone at once.”
Linnea stared down at Axton. She should dread what was coming, but she could not. She could not.
Lord help me
, she prayed.
St. Jude. Mother Mary.
Afraid to even think about what she was doing, she circled behind Axton. “Dunk your head,” she quietly ordered as she took up the soap once more. To her relief, he complied, and when he surfaced, she applied the soap to his head and began to scrub his raven black hair.
The carpenters were noisy as they approached the antechamber, as if to give fair warning of their presence. They were completely silent as they marched through, however. Norma was the last to leave. She hesitated a moment at the top of the stairs. But when Linnea shook her head, then turned her attention back to Axton, the older woman left too.
It was only Linnea and her husband now. Her husband who had been kind to her grandmother and in his own way, kind to her as well.
“Dunk again,” she told him. When he came up sputtering and wiping streams of water from his eyes, she had moved back a pace from the tub.
He raked his gleaming hair back from his brow and looked around for her. “Come here, wife.”
“I am removing my shoes, my lord.”
He watched as she pulled her skirt up and slipped first one, then the other shoe off. “Am I really your lord, then? Your esteemed lord and husband whom you do wish to please in every way?”
The chain burned against her thigh and she shifted restlessly from one bare foot to the other. “Yes.”
“Come here.”
Linnea edged a little nearer. “Shouldn’t I … well, remove my gown first?” she asked, fumbling with the ties at her wrists.
“No.” He sat up straighter and caught one of her hands, then pulled until she was off balanced and had to brace herself on the far edge of the bathtub.
“But how … I mean, the gown—”
“The gown is of no consequence, no consequence whatsoever,” he murmured, pulling her other wrist too. In a trice she tumbled over into the tub of frothy water, falling onto his chest with her legs flailing in the air.
Amidst her frantic efforts to right herself, she only sank more fully into the bathtub. Water sloshed over the edges, splashing across the floor as he pulled her down over him. His hands caught her around the waist and in less than the blink of an eye, she found herself straddling his hips, with her skirt floating around her waist, settling like a wet tent around them both.
“Ah. Much better,” Axton murmured, tugging her a little closer to him. “Now, my troublesome little wife, finish the task you have begun.”
It was preposterous and outrageous, but every part of Linnea that was a woman thrilled to it. The gown was a sodden hindrance. The tub was far too small for what he intended. But somehow they managed. He settled her over his impatient shaft and as if they were of one mind, they began the tandem rhythm, the offering and acceptance. The taking and giving.
“God, woman,” Axton groaned. His hands gripped her waist, digging into her skin, burning the chain he’d given her into her flesh. He drove her down on him, over and over, until Linnea felt the shuddering rush of it, the molten heat of it welling up. She cried out and tried to pull away, but he held her and forced her to more and more. Longer and stronger. Then he cried out too, a hoarse shout that was both a victory over her, and a surrender to her.
That fast was it over, and they collapsed into the much diminished bathwater. The side of Linnea’s face pressed into his wet shoulder. His arms circled her back and the appeased flesh of his manhood rested deeply within her.

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