“And I,” said King Henry, “will join Guy and
Valaire, and Sir Kenelm here, and who else? Ah, William, my son,
you come with us. It’s time you learned of such matters. You are
twelve years old now, and will have to be married yourself before
long. The rest of you,” Henry added, raising his voice, “remain
here and continue the revels. We will see these two well bedded and
then return to you for more feasting.” A cheer went up at this, and
again toasts were drunk.
Selene had time to notice with some scorn how
pleased Lady Aloise looked at these signs of royal favor, before
Meredith and Queen Matilda urged her gently from the room and took
her to her bedchamber. There they quickly undressed her. The
servants brought in a small tub of hot water. Selene stood in it
while Arianna sponged her, letting the water run over her shoulders
and down across her belly and back into the tub. It was more a
ritual than a real washing, since she had bathed earlier.
Then, as required, she stood naked while the
women examined her for obvious physical defects that might prevent
her from bearing children. They were kind to her, and it was only a
moment before Queen Matilda said, “Cover her, Meredith, the poor
girl is shivering,” and a woolen robe was draped over Selene’s
shoulders. Selene could hear laughter outside the door.
“The men are here with Thomas,” Arianna said,
looking white and shaken. She came to Selene and kissed her on both
cheeks. “Be happy, my dear friend.”
“Hurry, now.” That was Constance, the queen’s
elderly lady. “Put her into bed.”
The robe was pulled off Selene’s shoulders
and she was hustled between the sheets. Aloise plumped up the
pillows and tugged a blanket to straighten it. Selene met her
mother’s eyes, then turned away, looking at the other faces
surrounding her. She pulled up the linen sheet to cover her bare
breasts just as the door burst open and the men spilled into the
room. In their midst was Thomas, barefoot, chamber-robed, and
blushing.
“The groom has been examined,” the king
announced, obviously enjoying himself very much, “and found fit to
consummate the marriage.”
While the ladies murmured their approval,
Thomas was pushed toward the bed. Just as he reached it, he was
stripped of his robe, and stood naked. Selene, averting her eyes
from his body, saw Arianna turn her back on the scene.
Now Thomas was in bed beside her, his bare
leg touching hers, while Lady Constance held back the covers so all
could witness it. Selene wanted to pull away from that frightening
contact with Thomas’s body, but did not dare. Aloise and Meredith
were on either side of the bed, drawing the blue woolen curtains
closed. Selene saw Guy looking intently at her, and thought she saw
sympathy in his face.
“Let us leave them,” Guy said. “The work to
be done here this night is best done in private.”
“Come along, lads,” King Henry said, shooing
his son William Atheling and Sir Kenelm out the door. “We’ve
witnessed them bedded together. The rest is up to Thomas.”
Sir Valaire, who had said nothing during the
bedding, came to Selene’s side, just as Aloise was pulling the last
curtain shut.
“Obey your husband in all things,” Valaire
said, and kissed his daughter on the forehead.
Selene caught a glimpse of Aloise, her face
devoid of all expression, closing the curtain, and then she and
Thomas were alone in the bed. It was dark. She pulled up the sheet,
moved her leg away from the unwelcome contact with Thomas’s leg,
and sat very still.
“Do you think they’ve really gone?” Thomas
asked. When she did not answer, he thrust the bed curtains partway
open and looked out. A gleam of candlelight came through the
opening, shining softly upon his golden hair and the strong muscles
of his chest and shoulders.
“Good. We are alone.” He was back inside the
bed, but he left the curtains open. “I want to see you when I make
you my wife,” he said.
The two young people sat in the bed, side by
side, looking at each other. Selene felt frozen, unable to move or
speak or even close her eyes to shut out the sight of Thomas’s
handsome, serious face. The moment drew out, longer and longer,
until Selene, had she been capable of sound, would have screamed.
She saw Thomas swallow hard, and bend his face toward hers.
“I think I should kiss you,” Thomas said. His
mouth covered hers, gently at first, but then with growing warmth,
and his arms went around her.
Selene continued to sit bolt upright, her
arms braced behind her, eyes wide open, her lips unresponsive as
she coldly fought back the feelings awakened by the touch of his
warm, naked body against hers. After a while, the kiss ended.
“Selene,” Thomas murmured, one hand caressing
her cheek, “I know you are frightened. Any young girl would be.
I’ll be gentle, I’ll try not to hurt you. Please trust me.”
“My lord, I know I must allow you to
consummate this marriage.” Selene’s low-pitched voice was husky
with tension. “I have been told what will happen. I will be an
obedient wife, and allow you to do what you wish. I ask only that
you finish it quickly.”
“Quickly? No, my sweet love, it will be slow,
and tender, and you will find pleasure in it, too. I promise.” His
lips brushed hers again. “It is not only I who will consummate this
marriage. We will do it together. With love.”
“No, my lord.” She choked, feeling she could
not bear the awful waiting any longer. “Do it and be done with it.
Please.”
Thomas said nothing to this. He took Selene
by each shoulder and gently pushed her down onto the pillows and
held her there. Then he kissed her again, a firm, warm kiss that
was entirely too pleasant. His mouth caressed hers, pressing
harder, then withdrawing a little, only to return more firmly a
moment later. His upper body lay half across hers, and the golden
hair on his broad chest tickled her breasts as he moved closer.
Selene twisted, trying to get away from the tantalizing prickling
that was making her nipples tingle and harden, but she found she
could not escape. His arms held her securely. Her breasts began to
ache, and Selene, who had been determined that she would feel
nothing at all during this encounter, knew the beginnings of
panic.
She moved her hips and legs, trying to
wriggle out from under him, but only succeeded in kicking off the
bedcovers, and when she moved again, one of his bare legs slid
between hers. Her startled outcry at the sensations this aroused
was lost in his mouth. She managed another wriggle, and a hairy,
muscular thigh surged upward between her own thighs. It felt
wonderful. Selene gasped, and had to suppress an urge to move
against him. Instead, she clamped her legs tightly around his,
preventing further upward motion. Unfortunately, her movements only
heightened her growing tension. Thoroughly frightened at her own
reactions, she put her hands up to push frantically at his
shoulders. Thomas broke off the kiss, but his lips remained only a
breath away from hers.
“No!” Selene panted, struggling against him.
“Let me go.”
“I cannot. This is what we must do, Selene.
Let me show you how sweet it can be.”
“I don’t want it to be sweet. This is lust,
and it is evil.”
“This is love. I love you, Selene. We are
married. There’s no evil here, no harm to anyone. You are afraid
now, but you won’t be for long. Come, kiss me back.”
“Please, my lord, no.” She was close to
tears.
“Do you suppose that you could possibly call
me Thomas?” he asked.
He did not wait for her answer. His mouth was
on hers again, moving slowly and tenderly. Selene reminded herself
it was her duty to please him in all things. She stopped fighting
him, and just for a moment she let herself begin to feel how
pleasant was his nearness. Thomas was strong and clean, his
youthful body hard muscled, and he smelled faintly of some
unfamiliar, tangy spice that must have been tossed into his
bathwater. His breath was warm and sweet. She told herself she was
fortunate. He might have been old and fat and vile-smelling. She
had seen one or two men like that at this court, men who swilled
their wine and dribbled grease down their chins when they ate, and
obviously never washed. She could not have endured the touch of one
of those creatures. At least her new husband was attractive.
“Thomas,” she whispered in obedience to his
request, and was rewarded with a dazzling smile.
He held her face between his hands and played
with her lips, placing soft, quick kisses across her mouth, then on
her chin and nose. Selene lay quietly at first, her hands still on
his shoulders, but no longer resisting him. He kissed her eyelids,
and drew his mouth along one cheek and back to her lips. Selene’s
hands fluttered across his shoulders and into the thick, blonde
hair at the back of his head. She felt his tongue brushing against
her lips. She was so astonished at his action that she opened her
mouth, and he thrust inside, his tongue moving against hers. Selene
moaned, thrashing about on the bed, and felt the pressure of his
thigh between hers again, pushing hard this time, until her legs
fell apart completely and he was tight against her. She would have
cried out and told him to stop, but now one of his hands was on her
breast, teasing at a nipple. The motion sent flame into her belly,
and then suddenly Selene herself was on fire.
She could not help it – her reaction was
utterly uncontrollable, some demon or devil had hold of her. This
was not Selene behaving like this. Selene would never, never clutch
at a man this way and pull his head to hers and push her tongue
into his mouth to meet his tongue in a breathless, passionate duel.
Selene would not rake her fingernails along his back until he cried
out, caught at her hands and held them over her head so he could
nibble and suck at her small, hard breasts while she screamed and
then wrenched her hands out of his grasp and forced his head up so
she could devour his lips again and again. She felt his hands
playing across her abdomen and along her hips, felt her own body
rising to meet his touch. But this was not, this could not be,
Selene.
He knelt between her thighs and she saw his
manhood, huge and stiff. She licked her swollen lips, feeling a
surge of heat and moisture through her loins, and somewhere deep
inside her another Selene cried out in horror at the panting,
heaving entity who reached out to touch that erect symbol of all
that was lustful and evil, and stroke it with heavy desire.
“Ah, Thomas, I am afraid!”
It was a wild, hysterical sound, and Thomas
paused for an instant, reining in his own almost uncontrollable
desire, to kiss her trembling mouth and reassure her, but then he
could not wait, not any longer. He wanted her so desperately, and
the way she writhed on the bed, the sight of her heaving breasts in
the dim candlelight, the movements of her small, strong hands on
his body, all combined to drive him close to madness with urgent
need.
“It must be now, Selene,” he said, moving
against her.
Her eyes widened as he sought entry to her
most intimate place. With an almost superhuman effort, Thomas
stopped his forward motion, giving her a little time to adjust to
his presence. To his surprise, there was no more evidence of fear.
Instead, she moved boldly onto his manhood, pushing herself upward,
her lips parted and her expression rapturous. Her cry as he took
her virginity was one of intense pleasure, not pain. She wrapped
her arms and legs about him and bit at his shoulders and screamed
again and again, like a madwoman, matching him thrust for thrust in
a wild frenzy of hot, pounding desire. Thomas was consumed in her
fire. He blazed brighter and brighter with white-hot, unquenchable
heat, flaring into a final, nearly intolerable explosion of all his
pent-up desire as his very essence poured into the avid, moaning
creature of flame and ice who lay panting and throbbing beneath
him, her emerald eyes staring sightlessly into his while she cried
out her own passion over and over again in wordless sounds.
He thought he had killed her. He was still on
top of her, his face tucked into the curve of her neck, and she lay
so perfectly still and silent that he thought she was dead.
Horrified, he lifted his head and looked down at her. Her eyes were
closed, the grey-shadowed lids shut tight, the thick, black lashes
heavy against her cheeks. Her bruised and swollen lips were
slightly parted.
“Selene.” She did not respond. He tried
again. “Selene, my love.”
She drew a deep, shuddering breath, and
Thomas uttered a wordless prayer of thanks. He kissed her lips. Her
eyes flew open.
“What are you doing, my lord?” It was her
usual low-pitched, throaty voice, and cold. So cold.
“I am loving my wife.” Shaking off a twinge
of fear at her tone and formal mode of address, Thomas rolled to
one side, releasing her from his weight and pulling her into his
arms to cuddle her against him. She came quietly, letting him
arrange her body as he wanted. “I love you, Selene. You are
wonderful.”
His lips brushed her forehead. He sighed
happily. She was silent.
“I did not hurt you too badly, did I? I tried
to be gentle, but I have never felt such passion before.” When she
still did not answer, he added, “I thought you enjoyed our
lovemaking, too. You seemed to.”
“I will always do my duty, my lord,” she
said.
“It’s no duty when it’s love,” he whispered,
hugging her close.
Selene moved her head to a more comfortable
position against his shoulder and lay quietly until his even
breathing told her he was asleep. Then she carefully disengaged
herself from his embrace and sat up in the bed, chin on knees,
staring down at her husband. The single candle he had left burning
by the bed so he could see her had guttered low, but still she
could make out his form and his square-jawed face. She put out a
tentative hand to brush back a lock of golden hair that had fallen
over his forehead. But before she had made contact with his flesh
she snatched her hand away.