The Conqueror's Lady

Heat grew between them, around them and within him until he burned from it. Not succumb to the desires of the flesh? From the fear now flashing in her eyes to the shaking of her limbs and the paleness of her skin, he suspected that she had not experienced the fires of passion that could erupt between a man and a woman. It did not mean that she’d not lost her virginity to someone else, but there was much he could show and teach her about desire.

For now, though, a simple lesson would suffice. More than that threatened his tenuous control and he must not allow that to happen … yet. Giles bent his head lower, forcing Fayth to tilt hers more. When he moved his lips so close to hers that he could feel her breath against his skin, he paused.

‘Desires of the flesh, lady?’ he asked, dipping even closer. ‘But there is much to commend those desires.’

Fayth started to object, to explain the true meaning of her words, when his lips—already too close—touched hers. The heat given off by his body intensified with the touch of his mouth to hers and in her confusion, she forgot to close her lips. His tongue, hot and strong, surged into her mouth and sought the touch of hers. Not sure of what to do, she waited, fighting the unbelievable need to throw her arms around him and pull him closer.

Where that desire came from, she knew not, but an urge pulsed through her body then, as his tongue tasted hers, that brought all manner of wicked thoughts and feelings to mind. Fayth could tell he enjoyed the kiss, for he moved closer to her and pressed against her mouth, deepening the simple touch into something more possessive. Just as she was learning his rhythm, thrusting his tongue into her mouth, tasting her own and luring it into his mouth, he drew back and changed it into something different.

Now, he used his mouth on her lips, then, sliding lower, he kissed the edge of her jaw and her chin before moving to her neck. If she’d thought that his first kiss tempted her to more, this one or these many shocked her. With each touch of his mouth to her skin a shattering jolt moved from her skin to deeper inside until the very core of her ached. Moisture grew between her thighs and the unseemly urge to press against him strengthened until she thought she might.

When he reached out and lifted her hair off her neck and shoulders, she did reach for him. Feeling light-headed from holding her breath in excited anticipation, she clutched his tunic to steady herself. Still, he did not stop his attentions, now kissing nearer to her ear and higher on her neck. She thought he whispered something once, but, truly, she could not keep a thought in her head right then.

As he used one hand to loosen the ties of her smock and tug the edges of it open Fayth began to protest, but his mouth took hers in another breathless kiss until she gave up all attempts to make sense. Then he kissed and licked his way down to the opening he’d made, exposing the tops of her breasts to his sight and his touch.

Thankfully, she still clutched his tunic or she would have sunk to the floor as first his finger and then his lips and tongue traced a path there. The aching deep inside grew into a throbbing need she could not understand or ignore. She tried to draw in a deep breath, but it turned to a gasp as he suckled the skin at the top of one of her breasts. The urgent pulling and licking and even nipping at her flesh released a torrent of pleasure and created a longing she could not believe possible.

Fayth let go of his tunic and reached up to pull him closer and everything changed. It was as though her touch were abhorrent to him for he lifted his mouth from her skin, released her hair from his fisted grasp and stepped away from her. Stumbling from the weakness and excitement that pulsed through her, she fell to sit on the edge of her bed. The cool air of the chamber hit the wet, heated skin of her neck, shoulders and exposed breasts, and it shocked her back to her senses—the ones that should have warned her to put a stop to his indecent actions.

Giles watched her with an amused expression lighting his eyes and she suspected she’d fallen into a trap. And she had, for indeed her entire body ached for his touch, for his kisses and the intimate way he had used his tongue on her skin. Then she realised the purpose of his attentions and how he’d made her belie her claim about the desires of the flesh.

‘Does your body not hunger for more, lady? Is there not an aching within to be touched in places you cannot speak of?’ He stopped and looked as though he would come closer once more but he did not. ‘If I slid my hand beneath your gown and smock and into that place between your legs, would I find you wet with desire?’

Fayth did gasp then, both at the vulgarity and truth of his words. She did not have to admit the truth; they both knew it.

‘Just so,’ he whispered as he turned away and strode to the table where their cups and wine still lay. ‘And consider that it was only a kiss between us.’

With his back to her, he poured and drank two cups before stopping. She could see his body move as he took in and released several deep breaths of his own. Before he could face her, she gathered the edges of her smock together and tied the laces tightly, covering all that he had exposed and more. Pushing her hair out of her face and behind her shoulders, she pondered what to say.

Did she admit to her ignorance of the power of such feelings? The few kisses she’d exchanged with Edmund had been nothing like this, more an exchange of affection between old friends. She’d fancied herself in love with her father’s cousin who’d visited two summers before, but it had been one-sided and Gareth never knew of her feelings so they had certainly not shared kisses such as these.

Only a kiss? Oh, no, he’d done more than simply kiss her tonight. He’d exposed a vulnerability she did not know existed as easily as he had exposed her breasts with a tug at her laces.

But the worst of it was that her body had reacted to the touch of a stranger, a man who had very possibly killed her father on the field of battle. With those few kisses and caresses, he’d made a fool of her and her valiant protests about her honour. Shame poured over her, dampening any remaining desire as she contemplated her weaknesses and the true power of errant desires of the flesh to lead one astray or to aid in compromising their honour.

Lord Giles stood before her, holding out a cup. How long he’d been there, she knew not, for she’d been lost in her thoughts. Fayth accepted the cup and drank deeply from it, hoping to ease the tightness in her throat with the cool wine. She could not meet his gaze and see the triumph there, so she walked past him to place the cup on the table.

Giles saw the shame in her downcast eyes and the way her shoulders slumped. He recognised it well enough, for his mother had carried it most days of her life. He cursed under his breath at his stupidity. Lady Fayth shuddered at his words.

‘My lady, I but sought to show you the control that desire can exert, even on someone who thinks to resist its call.’

‘And it has been a lesson well learned, my lord,’ she answered. When she turned and faced him, he knew from the bleakness in her eyes and the paleness of her skin that they were not speaking of the same lesson.

Giles could not answer, for every word that came to mind would not ease her embarrassment or would undermine the message he wanted to send to her. He nodded at the bed.

‘Seek your rest, my lady. ‘Tis been a long and trying day and much work faces us in the morn.’

She continued past him until she stood at the side of the bed. A glance over her shoulder at him and then at the chair and the floor and back to the bed spoke of her confusion over his place to sleep this night.

‘Lady, climb in and seek sleep.’ He walked to the bed and lifted the many layers of linen sheets, woollen blankets and even thick animal skins that covered the bed and offered warmth in the long, cold autumn nights. He did not ask her about removing her gown and tunic or even her stockings, for the fear within her was palpable to him.

She let out a deep breath and kicked off her shoes, sliding them under the edge of the bed. Lady Fayth lifted her gowns, climbed up and shifted over the bed, rearranging her many layers once she reached the other side. Giles dropped the coverings and let her find her place under them. When she seemed settled, he moved around the chambers, blowing out candles and banking the flames in the hearth, all preparations for the night.

‘Will you sleep here?’ she asked in a whisper.

‘Aye, lady, I will seek my rest at your side.’ He waited for her protests and when they did not come, he tried to explain. ‘If I’d wanted to tup you like the barbarian you think me to be, it would have happened after the battle, when the heat of it yet burned in my veins and control of such passions are difficult. Or when I watched you lie senseless here those nights and could have had you without any protests. When I decide to have you, lady, you will not have a moment to spend worrying over my taking of you. it will happen.’

He blew out the last taper and began removing his tunic and shirt as he moved closer to the bed. He sat and tugged off his boots and then untied his breeches and let them drop. Leaving one layer of sheeting down, he lifted the rest and climbed within, allowing the lady her own clothing and the sheet as a barrier between them.

As he lay next to her in the dark, listening to her low breathing and knowing she was backed up to the wall and as far as possible from him, he knew there were so many more barriers separating them and none were easily overcome. And, as his own body still pulsed with the desire for her that touching her and kissing her and stroking her caused, he tried remembering why he thought it such a good thing to teach her about passion. The blood that rushed through his veins and made his cock stand confirmed that he could be caught in the same trap he set.

So much for lessons to learn.

Fayth knew she’d not slept a wink all night, not with the stranger sleeping naked so close to her. Yet, when she found him gone as the sunlight finally pierced through the veil of night and she had no recollection of his leaving, she knew that sleep must have claimed her unaware at some moment earlier.

Her back ached from being pressed against the hard surface of the wall all night, trying to keep her distance from the very large, very warm body in her bed. If he was troubled by what had occurred between them, his manner of falling immediately into the embrace of sleep and breathing deeply through the long night spoke not of it.

Rubbing her eyes, she allowed a yawn to escape before dragging her body across the bed to its edge. Her cyrtei and syrce twisted around her legs and waist and Fayth tugged it down in place just as the door of the chamber opened, or was moved away from the frame. Fearing another encounter with her new husband, she was comforted when her maid entered instead. Within minutes, a tub and buckets of steaming water were brought into the room and set up in front of a fire in the hearth.

In Emma’s care, her own worries fell away as her maid issued stern commands about placing the door back on its hinges and huffed about the chamber protecting Fayth’s privacy during her bath. Once satisfied that the door, jammed against the frame, would be an able barrier to anyone entering, she turned and faced Fayth. With a frown and grimace at finding her in her gown and barely a pause to acknowledge it, Emma efficiently lifted the outer tunic off, unlaced the long sleeves and loosened the cyrtel and finally the linen shift. Then she lifted all the remaining layers over Fayth’s head. Her maid’s unstifled gasp made her turn sharply at the object of Emma’s concern.

There on her breast was a mark, a bruise of a sort marring her skin. She laid her fingers there, but there was no pain as she would have expected, but her skin felt heated.

‘Did he hurt you?’ Emma whispered, nodding at the mark as she busied herself shaking out Fayth’s clothing. ‘Did he, my lady?’

First waves of embarrassment filled her. Then the realization that Emma thought Lord Giles had done this. The worst was when the truth struck her and Fayth knew that the passionate kiss Giles had placed there, the one when he had used his lips and tongue and even his teeth, had left such a mark. She felt the heat in her cheeks and her breasts even ached as she remembered the pleasure of it and even as she tried to find words to say to Emma.

‘He … I …’ she stuttered, not knowing whether to explain or not.

‘Hush, now, lady,’ Emma said. The old woman guided her to the waiting tub and helped her step inside. ‘The hot water will soothe you.’

Fayth decided not to protest or to explain something so personal as this. Sinking into the bath, she could not meet Emma’s gaze. Inhaling the pleasant scent of the herbs and oil added to the water, Fayth tried to put her fears out of her mind for the moment and it would have worked if not for Emma’s whispered words.

‘How could he do something like this?’ The maid continued her work around the tub and continued her diatribe against their new lord as well, still in hushed tones. ‘I thought he had more sense than to mistreat an innocent.’

‘He does not believe me an innocent,’ she blurted out.

‘Not innocent, my lady? I would swear on my mother’s grave, may she rest in peace, that you are as pure as the day you were born.’ Emma, her nurse, then maid and now friend, too, would be one who knew it.

‘And this new lord would believe you not, Emma. He accused me of giving myself to Edmund and carrying his child.’

Emma dropped the soapy washing cloth into the water and gasped. Stumbling back from the tub, she shook her head. Fayth could tell when shock gave way to anger, for Emma’s round face grew red and beads of sweat, not related to the task at hand, began to roll down her forehead and cheeks. Leaning back closer, she whispered once more to her, glancing first behind her as though to see if anyone had entered.

‘But surely, my lady, he discovered the truth? When he bedded you?’ Emma took Fayth’s hand from where it lay on the edge of the tub and stroked it gently. ‘Fear not, lady. I always keep your confidences.’

Fayth’s resolve not to speak of such matters, even though Emma had held her counsel in the two years since Fayth’s mother’s death, dissolved then in the face of Emma’s kind-hearted concern and in knowing that Emma would carry her secrets, if she knew them, to the grave.

‘He did not bed me. He said that until he knows I am not carrying a child, he will not. And he did not believe me when I told him I have not given myself to anyone.’

Spilling out the words brought a deep sense of sadness to her. As daughter and heiress to her father, her word had always been accepted, her honour never questioned. Sliding forward and wrapping her arms around her knees, she laid her face there and thought on it as Emma attended to her back and began washing her hair.

‘Hush now, lady. All will be well. At least he did not take you roughly or against your will,’ she offered as she lathered up the length of Fayth’s hair. But instead of soothing her troubled thoughts, her words added to them.

‘Emma, how can it be other than against my will? This man attacks my people, takes my lands and forces me to marriage. I do not want this and I suspect he does not want me either.’ Emma’s hands stilled and Fayth could swear the woman stifled a laugh.

‘I know he covets what I bring to him, Emma. I am no fool in that regard. But I want him no more than he wants me.’ Tears threatened then and her throat tightened as she thought on her reaction to his touch and to his kiss. ‘I cannot want him,’ she whispered.

Emma did not press her for more and Fayth was glad of it. The fact that her body came to life under his touch shamed her and she did not wish to repeat such a weakness again. They accomplished the rest of her bath in silence and Fayth stood so that Emma could rinse her of the soap. Allowing the water to pour down over her, Fayth closed her eyes.

The sound of his loud, angry voice preceded that of the door crashing against the wall by only moments.

‘I told you not to bar this door,’ he yelled, but then his voice dropped lower, much lower when he looked at her, ‘to me.’

Chapter Five

The sight of Lord Giles standing there, filled with anger, fist still raised and glaring at her gave Fayth pause. She did not dare move, for it was only his tall body that blocked those behind him. Fayth heard Emma’s indrawn breath behind her and, as she watched, the warrior’s gaze moved over her nakedness.

Her skin tingled wherever his eyes looked—first her face and neck and then her breasts as she saw the glimmer of recognition as he noticed the mark there. Then his gaze slid down until he stared at her legs and the area between them. The tips of her breasts tightened under his bold, sexual stare and shock finally gave way to action. She covered herself as she could with her arms and hand while reaching for a drying cloth, one which Emma could not seem to find.

Fayth turned her back to him, chancing even more of his anger, to grab the large cloth from Emma’s hand and to wrap it around herself. For some reason, her maid did not move to aid her and it took some moments for Fayth to accomplish. It was then that she heard Emma’s whispered words.

‘I do not think you need to worry about him wanting you, lady.’

Fayth turned and faced her husband, whose expression had changed from anger to lust in those few moments. Now, his eyes burned hers with a heated stare. His hands fisted and released several times before he let them hang at his sides. Lord Giles wore his mail hauberk once more with his sword at his side, apparently ready for battle.

Realising she still stood in the tub, Fayth leaned down to hold the edge while stepping out. Before she could manage, he warned off his men and strode across the chamber in a few steps. Lifting her from the water and holding her high against his chest, he carried her over to the side of the bed and placed her on her feet. As she thought to thank him, Fayth was horrified to realise that she’d wrapped her arms around his neck and was still holding him so.

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