Her hands fluttered up, but he stilled them, clasping them lightly above her head. “You have beautiful breasts,” he said.
“I—I am small,” Kassia said, “but I will be larger when I gain flesh.”
“You are perfectly shaped,” he said, surprising himself. He did not like slight women, but somehow, Kassia’s delicately rounded breasts appealed to him. And the soft pink nipples, so smooth now, not yet tautened with passion.
“You are staring at me,” Kassia said.
“Aye.” He grimaced at the memory of Maurice tearing the leech from her breast and flinging it across the chamber.
“I do not please you, my lord?”
“You please me well,” he said. “I feel well the minstrel’s words.” He lowered his head and kissed the column of her throat. Slowly he touched his lips to her soft flesh until he lightly flicked her nipple with his tongue. She gasped and he raised his head to see her staring at him, a stunned look on her face. He smiled and lowered his head to suckle her gently. He could feel the pounding of her heart against his cheek.
“Someday,” he said, lifting his face to look at her, “our babe will suck at your breast thusly.”
He felt her hands stroking in his hair, pulling him closer to her breast.
“Oh!”
A look of pain flashed across her face.
“What is the matter?”
“I—I don’t know,” she gasped. A cramp twisted in her belly and she cried out.
Graelam sat up and laid his hand to her cheek.
She suddenly lurched up, her face ashen. “I am not well,” she cried.
He handed her the chamber pot just in time. She retched until there was naught left in her belly.
“I am sorry, my lord,” she whispered, and moaned, drawing her knees up against the vicious cramps.
“Hush,” he said. What had she eaten that he had not, he wondered, worry gnawing at him. Had he forced her to eat too much? Had her fear of him made her ill? He dampened a cloth and gently wiped her sweating face. “Lie still. I will get your nurse.”
He watched helplessly as Etta crooned over Kassia, feeling her belly with gentle hands.
“What is wrong with her?” he demanded.
Etta shook her head. “She ate something that was bad, I think.” She rose. “I will make her a potion, my lord.”
At that moment, Graelam felt a cramp in his belly, and doubled over. “Christ,” he muttered, and strode quickly out of his bedchamber.
At least, he thought a few minutes later, his belly empty, it wasn’t her fear of him that had made her vomit. He checked with his men in the hall. None were ill. The cramps continued and he gladly drank the potion Etta handed him.
“ ’Twas the stew,” he said. “Only Kassia and I shared it, and she ate the most of it.”
She was moaning pitiably, her arms wrapped around her stomach. His cramps were lessening, yet he knew what she felt and it frightened him. She was so slight, and had not half his strength. He sat beside her and pulled her into his arms, rocking her.
“She will sleep soon, my lord,” Etta said, hovering protectively close to her young mistress. “And she has
nothing foul left in her belly.”
Kassia’s head lolled back against his arm. She said vaguely, “I shall hang the cook up by his heels with his head in the stew.”
Graelam was thinking of a more ferocious punishment for the hapless cook.
“You will be all right tomorrow, my baby,” Etta said, gently wiping the damp cloth over Kassia’s forehead.