“I am tired of your lies, Hastings.” He turned to Marjorie, whose lip was bleeding and swelled. That made Hastings feel very good as well.
Hastings said, “Are you not used to all my lies by now, Severin? Can you not picture me pouring poison into my own wine goblet? Can you not imagine that I spilled it on purpose for Trist to drink?”
Severin whirled about to face her, his hands on his hips. “Be quiet, Hastings. Hold your sharp tongue. What happened? Why are you like two fishwives trying to kill each other?”
Marjorie only shrugged. “It is a private matter, my lord, nothing to concern you. Your wife has no control. You have remarked on that before. Indeed, you punished her for being so ungoverned. She has not learned. Mayhap she needs more nights next to Edgar.”
Hastings took a step toward her. Severin quickly stepped between them. “No, no more. There will be no more fighting between the two of you, else I will punish both of you. Go now. You are both filthy as Edgar after a boar hunt.”
Marjorie was whistling as she walked through the great hall.
“Hastings, wait a moment.”
She turned to see Gwent staring at her, his distress evident. He walked to her. “I have come to a decision, Hastings,” he said, lightly touching her shoulder. “I will see that the woman is returned to Sedgewick. All want peace again at Oxborough. There will be none as long as the woman remains here. You are not able to deal well with her. You carry the lord’s heir. I will see to it.”
“Severin will not let her go,” Hastings said, shrugged, and walked up the solar stairs.
“Aye, he will,” Gwent called after her. “I have spoken to Lady Moraine and she has told her son what he must do.”
As if that would make any difference, Hastings thought, wincing at a pain in her left leg. When had Marjorie kicked her in the leg?
In the dark of the night, Hastings was in a deep sleep, dreaming of the lupine that bloomed so vividly in her garden, and how the lupine was really a deadly poison and someone was going to pour it into Severin’s goblet. Then something wasn’t right. There were no more lupines. There was the light touch of a hand on her belly. The hand was pressing ever so gently, lightly, stroking her belly, touching the pelvic bones, gently rubbing over the scar from her wound.
She placed her hand over the one on her belly. The hand stilled, then she slipped her own beneath it. She was touching her own flesh. She was naked. What had happened to her night shift? But she didn’t really care. The hand was caressing around hers, fingers sliding beneath her palm, between her flesh and her hand.
Her brain was still heavy with sleep. She knew she should pull away, bu
t she didn’t. Fingers splayed lower. It was Severin. His hand, his fingers, his touch that made her feel so urgent. Aye, Severin. He parted her flesh and was touching her, lightly rubbing, finding a rhythm that she’d forgotten existed. It had been so long, too long.
“What are you doing here?”
His fingers stilled. “This is my bed and you are in it,” he said, and started his rhythm again. She tried to pull away from him, but he pressed his other hand against her, holding her still on her back. He was on his knees between her legs.
She didn’t understand why he was touching her like this. Then his fingers went lower, opening her, easing inside her, and she arched her back. She didn’t want to, but she moaned. Her own moan brought her fully awake. She knew what he was doing to her, but she didn’t care. She wanted more. She wanted pleasure and she wanted him even though she knew that soon enough he would be gone from her.
“That is good,” he said very quietly, even as she felt his warm breath against her flesh. He blew against her, and she shuddered like a leaf in an autumn storm. Then his fingers delved deep inside her, even as he touched her with his mouth.
She cried out, thrashing beneath him, her fingers digging frantically into his naked shoulders. She screamed, “ Severin!”
“Aye,” he said, his breath hot against her flesh. “Take your pleasure, Hastings. Now.”
And she did. She welcomed him wildly when he came into her, shoving deep, high inside her. She locked her legs about his flanks, drawing him deep and deeper still, and when his fingers eased between their bodies to touch her, she felt again the rippling pleasure building and building until soon she could no more control that pleasure that swamped her than she could have prevented herself from throwing the laver at him.
When her pleasure crested, his did just a moment later, and she gasped into his mouth, “I love you, Severin. I’ve loved you for a very long time.”
He froze over her, then shoved hard and fast until he fell over her, panting hard.
Her wits came back slowly. She couldn’t take the words back. The words lay between them, hard and real and immense in their power.
He now knew that he need worry about her no longer.
She leaned up and bit his shoulder. He probably believed it a loving gesture, but it wasn’t. She wished she could bite him to the bone for what had come out of her mouth. Unplanned, all of it unplanned, just because he’d awakened her, loving her, making her lose herself in the passion, in the closeness to him.
She bit him again. He reared up on his elbows, looking down at her. “You must give me a few minutes before I can pleasure you again, Hastings,” he said, rolled off her, and within moments she heard his deep, even breathing. He’d come to her simply because she was here and available to him. But why hadn’t he gone to Marjorie? He’d drunk the love potion, after all. Surely it was Marjorie he wanted, only Marjorie, yet he’d come to her. She was already carrying a babe. Why?
She, lackwit that she was, she’d opened herself to him, given herself completely over to him, told him she loved him. She was an incredible fool.
She cursed. It was the use of the animal parts that made her feel better.