“This has been an evil day. Sir John’s boy always was a bit odd. It was only you who gave of your time to him. I always knew…”
“Please, Lucy, could we not speak of it again? I am tired and wish to rest.”
“Aye, Lady Lyonene,” she said as she helped her young mistress to dress. “Shall I send a tray to you?”
“No, I am not sure I shall ever eat again. I would just like to sleep, to lose myself in sleep.”
Lucy tiptoed from the room.
Ranulf paced, ignoring the tray of food that stood before him. He had been a fool to marry again and certainly to marry for any reason but advancement. The Castilian princess would not have caused him problems such as he had now.
Lyonene—emerald-eyed beauty with tawny hair and thick, dark lashes—she was his wife now, and look at the hell he had been through for three days. Maularde had told him of Giles’s presence, and he had given her every chance to explain, to be honest with him, and yet she had not. He had tried not to kill the boy, but he had been mad, insane as he attacked. Ranulf rubbed his hand across his eyes as if to erase the memory. He knew too well what it was like to be young and so in love.
Love? What did he know of love now? This girl had led him easily, yet now that she had her marriage to him she had changed. She was no longer eager for him, nor did she seem happy, as she once had at her father’s house. All seemed to point to a trick, to the truth in the boy’s words.
Too many thoughts overlapped. Frustrated, he removed his clothes and walked to the bed, only to stare at the empty coldness of it, puzzled for a moment. Without dressing, he stepped into the cold hall and pushed open the door to Lyonene’s chamber. She did not waken until she felt herself roughly lifted, the bedclothes twisted about her sleepy body.
&nbs
p; Ranulf’s dark eyes were even darker in the dim light, his face shadowed by a day’s growth of his heavy black whiskers. He did not look at her as he silently carried her, and she longed for his glance, for the sound of his voice. He threw her onto the feather mattress of the wide bed. Only then did she notice his nudity, the sight of him riveting her eyes, making her heart beat faster as he looked at her, her leg and hip exposed by the twisted covers.
“Whatever else you are, you are my wife, and you will not rid me from your bed.” He straightened the covers and climbed beneath them, pulling her to him.
“Ranulf…” she began.
“I do not wish to speak of this day, not now or ever again. The boy is dead now and whether his words be false or no, I will know.”
“How will you know? I will tell you…”
“Nay, I wish for only one thing from your lips now.” His hand caressed her stomach, and he felt her tense and hold herself rigid against him. Mayhaps she thinks of the boy, he thought as he fiercely pulled her to him, causing her to gasp in pain as his hand held her chin and pulled her mouth to his. “You think of him now? You wish you had him near you?”
“Nay, I do not,” she gasped, trying to pull away from him. “Please do not hurt me more. I will lie still. It hurts less so.”
He dropped his hand and moved away to stare at her thoughtfully. “Last night, after the fire, did I … hurt you again?”
She nodded her head.
“Damn, but you try me sorely! I have known you but weeks, yet you have upset my whole life, now as well as the past. This morn I read a letter writ by you, mayhaps to a boy I needs must kill. I have no proof of your innocence; in truth all seems to point to your guilt. The first day I met you, you threw yourself at me with such force I was near blinded, and I have no proof you have not treated other men so. Now I am wed to you for three days and I have been driven to rape you twice and kill a boy for you. Yet here you lie in a tangle of hair and naught else and all I wish to do is make love to you.”
Lyonene blinked up at him, torn between wishing he would kiss her and wanting to avoid what she knew the kissing would lead to.
He pulled her close to him, and she buried her face in the thick mat of hair on his chest, rubbing her cheek against the softness. “I do not know of your loyalty yet,” he said, “whether you be an innocent or worse than Eve, but I know I desire you more than any other woman I have ever seen. Here, do not pull away. I will hurt you no more. I fear I have used you badly in my clumsy attempts, but I will try to redeem the time we have lost.”
He lifted her mouth to meet his and softly, gently, touched her lips, taking a long, slow time before building the pressure on the sensitive flesh. He moved his lips, raking his teeth on her lower lip before drinking of the sweet honey of her mouth.
Lyonene felt herself go liquid at his now gentle touch, at the feel of his skin, the size of him. He rolled her on her back, and she stiffened against the pain she knew came next, regretting the end of the sweet moments of his kisses. But he did not seem to notice her movements and began to trail hot kisses from the corner of her mouth to her ear, tasting her earlobe with the tip of his tongue.
His lips moved down her neck, causing her to arch her neck, to surrender herself to him more fully. One hand moved along her hip, her waist, strong fingers on her ribs; then he touched her breast and she almost protested, so startled was she, but the sensation his hand sent along her body was not to be thwarted. His mouth traveled slowly down her body, igniting exquisite new fires.
She felt herself leaving her body, her reason fleeing, and all that remained was a new, unfulfilled desire, a desire for something unknown. He seemed to have a hundred hands, a thousand lips, all seeking, touching and filling her mind till she was only sensation, nothing else. Frantically, she put her hands into his hair, the thick, soft mass curling about her fingers—her sensitive, vibrating fingertips.
“Lioness, sweet Lioness,” he murmured, the deep rich tones adding to her wildness, the tremors of violence that shook her body. He came to her and there was no fear, no pain, only the beginning of the end of a need that consumed and blinded her.
She did not need to follow his example, but the desire that overpowered her took hold and she more than met his passion. At last she cried out as she sank her nails into his back and arched to meet him. Slowly, receding waves shook her and she gradually relaxed and fell back on the white linen sheets. As Ranulf moved to roll from her, she pulled him back, not able to release him yet, exulting in the heaviness of him, the way his dark skin covered her body, damp, smelling strongly of earthy, masculine sweat.
He rubbed his damp face in her neck, playfully, whiskers caressing, and moved to one side of her so he could see her face in the light from the thick candle by the bedside. He smoothed back a damp strand of hair from her temple.
“I pleased you?” she whispered.