Gavin pulled her to him, kissed the little mouth that opened widely under his as her tongue plunged into his mouth. He pulled her close, the feel of her gown exciting against his bare skin. His lips moved to her cheek, to her neck. They had all night, and he meant to spend his time making love to her.
“No!” Alice said impatiently as she drew away sharply. She flung her mantle from her shoulders, careless of the expensive fabric. She pushed Gavin’s hands away from the buckle of her belt. “You are too slow,” she stated flatly.
Gavin frowned for a moment, but as layer after layer of Alice’s clothes were flung to the ground, his senses took over. She was eager for him as he was for her. What if she did not want to take too long before their bodies were skin to skin?
Gavin would have liked to savor Alice’s slender body for a while, but she pulled him quickly to the ground, her hand guiding him immediately inside her. He did not think then of leisurely loveplay or kisses. Alice was beneath him, urging him on. Her voice was harsh as she directed his body, her hands firm on his hips as she pushed him, harder and harder. Gavin at one time worried that he would hurt her, but she seemed to glory in the strength of him.
“Now! Now!” she demanded beneath him and gave a low, throaty sound of triumph when he obeyed her.
Immediately afterward she moved from beneath him, away from him. She had told him repeatedly this was because of her warring thoughts as she reconciled her unmarried state with her passion. Yet he would have liked to have held her longer, enjoyed her body more, even perhaps made love to her again. It would be a slow lovemaking this time, now that their first passion was spent. Gavin tried to ignore the hollow feeling he had, as if he had just tasted something but was still not sated.
“I must leave,” she said as she sat up and began the intricate process of dressing.
He liked to watch her slim legs as she slipped on the light linen stockings. At least watching her helped some of the emptiness dissipate. Unexpectedly, he remembered that soon another man would have the right to touch her. Suddenly he wanted to hurt her as she was hurting him. “I too have an offer of marriage.”
Alice stopped instantly, her hand on her stocking and watched him, waiting for more.
“Robert Revedoune’s daughter.”
“He has no daughter—only sons, both of them married,” Alice said instantly. Revedoune was one of the king’s earls, a man whose estates made Edmund’s look like a serf’s farm. It had taken Alice a while, those years while Gavin was in Scotland, but she’d found out the history of all of the earls—of all of the richest men in England—before deciding that Edmund was the most likely catch.
“Didn’t you hear that both sons died two months ago of wasting sickness?”
She stared at him. “But I’ve never heard a daughter mentioned.”
“A young girl named Judith, younger than her brothers. I heard she had been prepared by her mother for the church. The girl is kept cloistered in her father’s house.”
“And you have been offered this Judith to mar
ry? But she would be her father’s heiress, a wealthy woman. Why would he offer to—?” She stopped, remembering to conceal her thoughts from Gavin.
He turned his face from her, and she could see the muscles in his jaw working, the moonlight glinting on his bare chest, still lightly covered in sweat from their lovemaking.
“Why would he offer such a prize to a Montgomery?” Gavin finished for her, his voice cold. Once the Montgomery family had been wealthy enough to stir the envy of King Henry IV. Henry had declared the entire family traitorous and then set about breaking up the powerful family. He had done so well that only now, one hundred years later, was the family beginning to regain some of what it had lost. But the memories of the Montgomery family were long, and none of them cared to be reminded of what they had once been.
“For the right arms of my brothers and myself,” Gavin said after a while. “The Revedoune lands border ours on the north, and he fears the Scots. He realizes that his lands will be protected if he allies himself to my family. One of the court singers heard him say that the Montgomeries, if they produced nothing else, made sons who lived. So it seems I am made an offer of his daughter if only I will give her sons.”
Alice was nearly dressed now. She stared at him. “The title will pass through the daughter, won’t it? Your eldest son would be an earl, and you when her father dies.”
Gavin turned abruptly. He hadn’t thought of that, nor did he care about it. It was strange that Alice, who cared so little for worldly goods, should think of it first.
“Then you will marry her?” Alice asked as she stood over him and watched as he hastily began to put on his clothes.
“I’ve not made a decision. The offer only came two days ago, and then I thought—”
“Have you seen her?” Alice interrupted.
“Seen her? You mean the heiress?”
Alice clamped her teeth together. Men could be so dense at times. She recovered herself. “She is beautiful, I know,” Alice said tearfully. “And once you are wed to her, you will never remember me.”
Gavin stood quickly. He didn’t know whether to be angry or not. The woman talked of their marriages to other people as if they made no difference to their relationship. “I have not seen her,” he said quietly.
Suddenly the night seemed to be closing in on him. He’d wanted to hear Alice deny the talk of her marriage, but instead he found himself talking of the possibility of his own marriage. He wanted to get away—away from the complexities of women and back to the soundness and logic of his brothers. “I don’t know what will happen.”
Alice frowned as he took her arm and led her to her horse. “I love you, Gavin,” she said quickly. “Whatever happens, I will always love you, always want you.”
He quickly lifted her into the saddle. “You must return before someone discovers you’re gone. We wouldn’t like such a story to get to the brave and noble Chatworth, would we?”