“Stop it for but a moment! By the saints, my head! You’re breaking my head! There, stop! Aye, I understand you. But now you heed me. You’re my wife and you won’t ever leave me again, do you understand me? You will remain at St. Erth or wherever it is I wish you to remain. You won’t ever go haring off to London to see your father without me. I won’t have it, do you hear me?”
“Me leave you?” That made her stop her kisses and clear her brain just a bit. “You left me! For three days I didn’t know where you were or what you were doing. Then I realized you would go to your beloved perfect little Kassia, so I was coming after you, your men and your son with me!”
In her indignation, she tugged at his hair all the harder and pounded his head several more times against the ground. He groaned loudly, and she stopped. “Your head is crushing the violets. How dare you think those awful things about me? You are impossible and I can’t imagine why I love you more than I love—” She broke off, staring down at him, knowing that she’d left herself open to him, open to his scorn, his baiting, his insults.
He suddenly smiled, a beautiful crooked smile that made her want to kiss him until he couldn’t think. “Were you really coming after me, to fetch me home?”
“Of course! I wasn’t going to London. You honestly believe I would steal your son, leave my home? Command your men to attend me? Ah, Dienwald, you deserve this!” She reared back, her arm raised, yet at the last moment her fist stilled in midair. She stared down at him and saw the gleam of challenge in his eyes, the
twist of a smile on his mouth. She cursed him softly, then leaned down and kissed him thoroughly. He parted his lips and let her tongue enter his mouth. It was wonderful. She was wonderful and she was his.
“Aye,” he said into her warm mouth, “I deserve all of you, wench.”
She felt his hands stroke down her back and pulled her flat against him. His fingers were parting her legs, pressing inward through her gown, to touch her. “Dienwald,” she said against his mouth.
He jerked up her gown and his fingers were now caressing the bare skin of her inner thighs, working slowly upward, until they found her woman’s flesh and then he paused, his fingers quiet now, not moving, merely feeling her warmth and softness. He sighed deeply. “I’ve missed you.”
“Nay, ’tis my body you’ve missed,” she whispered between urgent kisses. “Any female would suit you, ’tis just that you are a lusty cockscomb and a man who is randy all his waking hours. I have heard of all your other women, I even know all their cursed names for Edmund recited them.”
“You would surely make me the most miserable of men were I to take another woman to my bed. Do you know that I dream of coming inside you, deep and deeper still, and all the while you’re telling me how it makes you feel when I push into you—”
She kissed him again, wild for him now, unheeding of their surroundings. Dienwald was very nearly removed in spirit as well until he heard Eldwin’s soft voice, “Master.”
Dienwald wanted nothing more than to let Philippa debauch him right here, in the nest of violets and eglantine, the soft warm air swirling about them. He cocked open an eye even as he pulled down her gown.
“What want you, Eldwin? There is an army bearing down on you and you must know where to flee?”
“No, master, ’tis worse.”
“What in the name of St. Andrew could possible be worse?”
“It will rain soon, master—a heavy rain, Northbert says, a deluge that could fill this ditch in which you lie. Northbert reads well the clouds and the other signs, you know that.”
Dienwald looked up. It was true, the soft warm air swirling about them was also dark and heavy and gray. But it didn’t matter, not one whit. “Excellent, my thanks. You and the men take Edmund back to St. Erth. The wench—my wife and I will return shortly. Go now. Wait not another minute. Hurry. Be gone.”
Eldwin wasn’t blind to what he’d interrupted. He turned on his heel and hurried back to the waiting men. Soon Dienwald heard pounding hooves going away from them.
“Now, wench.”
“Now what?”
“Now I shall have my way with you in the midst of the violets and the eglantine.”
When the first rain drop landed on Philippa’s forehead, she was glad for it for she felt fevered and so urgent she felt ready to burst. Dienwald brought her closer to his mouth and caressed her until she screamed, arching her back, wild with wanting and with the mounting feelings that filled her. Overflowing now. And when he left her, she lurched upward and pressed him back and he fell, laughing and moaning, for she was kissing his throat, his chest, her hands splayed over him, and soon she was crouched between his legs and her mouth was on his belly, her hair flowing over him, and she was caressing him with her mouth and her hands. When she took him into her mouth, tentatively, wonderingly, he thought he would spill his seed then so urgent did he feel, but it was as if she guessed, and left him, easing him gently with her fingers, before caressing him again until he cried out with it and pulled her off him. Then he was covering her, and his manhood was thrusting into her, deep and hard, and so sweet that she cried with the wonder of it. And when he spilled his seed within her, he tasted her tears on her lips.
Dienwald said as he kissed the raindrops away, “I love you, Philippa, and I will never cease loving you and wanting you. We are joined, you and I, and it is for always. Never, ever, will I speak to you in anger again. You are mine forever.”
And she said only, “Yes.”
He was heavy on her, but she didn’t care. She wrapped her arms about his back and hugged him all the more tightly. The rain thickened and it was only then they realized that they were lying in the open, sheets of rain pouring down on them, in the gray light. And then Dienwald saw there was something else beside the rain.
There was Walter de Grasse standing at the top of the incline, staring down at them, his face twisted with rage.
23
Dienwald slowly eased away from Philippa and pulled her gown down her legs, pretending not to see Walter.
“Love . . .” she said, her voice soft and drowsy despite the rain battering down on her. “Love, don’t leave me.”