His expression changed again, and suddenly Sir Rheged of Cwm Bron, champion of tournaments, warrior and knight, looked at her as if she held the power of life or death over him, as if she alone possessed the keys of the kingdom both here and in the life to come. “If you don’t want me for a husband, tell me so.”
Before she could answer, he stepped back and shook his head. “You
should
refuse
me
.
You deserve more than a peasant raised to knighthood who rules a ramshackle castle and has no money to repair it. You should be a great and respected lady, wed to a husband who realizes what a priceless prize he’s won. After I defeat Broderick, you should leave Cwm Bron and find a better man.”
She put her finger against his full lips and shook her head, for that look of sorrowful yet resolute decision told her all she needed to know, all she would ever need to know, about the true depth of his feelings for her. Despite the missteps, the mistakes, the errors and arguments, against all odds, she had found the best man in England, and he loved her. As she loved him. As she would always love him. “There is no better man. No braver, finer man. No one else has ever loved me as you do, or thought me a priceless prize. If I could stay here with you, if I could be your wife, I would be the happiest woman in England.”
Then doubt brought forth its cruel little fangs. “I only wish I had a dowry worthy—”
“You have wisdom and spirit and goodness and beauty. You have everything and more a man can want. You alone are dowry enough.”
“As you alone are enough. I want nothing more than to be your wife, Rheged. I’ve wanted it since that first night, but I was afraid to even dream that such a thing could be. I love you, Rheged. Knight or peasant, king or servant, I love you. But Broderick—”
“Will die and you will be free.” He smiled then, joyfully, wonderfully. “I’ve never had better cause to fight well. When I win and you’re free—”
“I will gladly marry you.”
Like an arrow released from a bow, he tugged her into his arms and kissed her with all the passion and heat and longing any woman could ever want or hope for.
Confirmed in her love, keen in her desire, she surrendered to the desire surging within her.
Until he broke the kiss and stepped back. “I should go. I must go. Now.”
She stood motionless and silent, her heartbeat throbbing in her ears, her body warm and waiting.
“I must go, Tamsin,” he insisted, his voice rough with need. “Tell me to go. Order me to leave.”
Still she said nothing.
Before she moved to block the door.
Chapter Fifteen
“R
heged,” she whispered, opening her arms to him. “Rheged, my love.”
All the reasons he should leave her fled his mind. Nothing existed but her, here with him, as he took her in his arms and kissed her with all the passion and desire she inspired.
Aroused, excited, he brushed his fingers over her bodice, until he encountered the knot of the lacing at the neck of her gown. Swiftly, eagerly, he untied it and slipped his hand inside. Her breasts were perfect, her mouth and tongue amazing, her body made to fit against his.
She
was perfect.
How warm her skin was! How soft, like the finest fleece. And her hair...so long and thick and soft. His lips left hers and he nuzzled her open bodice lower, his mouth gliding across her firm hot flesh lower and lower, until he reached her nipple and drew it into his mouth.
She gasped and arched, her hands clutching him. “Take me to your bed, Rheged,” she pleaded softly and without a hint of shame. “Please, Rheged!”
He would have had to be immortal to resist her insistent invitation, and he was not.
He swept her into his arms and carried her to the bed. She pulled him down atop her and captured his lips with hers, a demanding, harsh kiss that spoke of needs that must and would be met. Desire that would permit no refusal. She would have him now, and he would not, could not, deny her, for they were one in passion, one in need, one in desire. One in love.
She shifted to untie the drawstring of his breeches. He held his breath until she succeeded, and he was free. His heartbeat pounding like a blacksmith’s hammer on an anvil, he reached down and dragged her skirts up to her hips, his knuckles grazing her stockings, then the bare skin of her thigh.
Primitive need and primal excitement took control. Thoughts ceased, replaced only by the longing to possess her. Hands and fingers and palms grazed and brushed and stroked, explored, discovered as tongues entwined, joined in a sinuous dance.
He touched her where her thighs met. If he had any doubts that she was ready, another eager arch of her body put them swiftly to rest.
He positioned himself, then slowly pushed inside. She was tight, so tight. With renewed need and urgent yearning, he pulled back a bit, then thrust again. Panting, she gripped his shoulders and raised herself as if offering her bared breasts to him. He eagerly licked and teased her pebbled nipples, while her gasps and moans excited him yet more.
Tension built, coiled, waited...until she grabbed his shoulders, levered herself up and cried out like a feral creature, her body throbbing and gripping him. With an answering growl low in his throat, he climaxed, carried away on wave after wave of blissful release.
Panting, sated, he lowered her and laid his head upon her shoulder. He had never felt so wanted, so necessary, to any woman. No other woman had ever seemed so eager to be in his arms or as excited to be there.
He had admired her from afar, wondered what it would be like to make love with her, and now...and now he was as close to heaven as it was likely possible for a mortal man to be.
Sighing, Tamsin reached up to tuck a lock of his long, dark hair behind his ear, for the first time noticing the thin scar there. “How did you get this?”
“I think that was...France. Yes, shortly after I arrived. The padding of my helmet came away and I cut myself trying to get it off when the battle was over. If I hadn’t been so parched, I would have had more patience.”
“Was that the battle after you scaled the wall?”
“No, another, minor one some years before.”
“I want to hear all about your battles, and everything else about you.”
He smiled. “That would take some time.”
“A lifetime,” she agreed. “Oh, Rheged, I pray we have a lifetime!”
Determined to make her forget what awaited the next day, he stroked her hair, marveling at its rich thickness. “When was the last time you cut your hair?”
He felt her lips turn up in a smile. “Mavis tried to trim my hair when I was thirteen. Trying to get it straight at the bottom, she kept cutting and cutting until she was almost at the scalp. A scarecrow had better hair by the time she was done.”
“And what about you, Wolf of Wales with the savage hair?” she asked, looking up at him and twisting the end of a lock of his hair around her finger. “When was the last time you cut your hair?”
“When Algar gave me Cwm Bron. I thought I ought to look the part of a landed knight. Instead, I looked like a shorn sheep and swore that never again would I cut my hair like a Norman.”
“Looking like a Viking no doubt makes your opponents even more wary.”
“Perhaps,” he agreed with an unexpectedly mischievous expression, and she knew she’d guessed aright.
“And you call me clever!”
“You are. The cleverest, more intelligent woman I’ve ever met, as well as the most beautiful,” he murmured before he kissed her again.
This time, he was the first to draw back. “I suppose we should return to the hall.”
She couldn’t disagree. “Yes, lest Sir Algar think I’m upbraiding you again.”
Rheged sat up and regarded her with furrowed brow. “Perhaps it would better to let him think you’re angry than to have him guess the truth.”
She, too, sat up and laid her arm around Rheged’s shoulder before kissing him lightly on the cheek. “The servants already think we’re lovers and probably have thought so from the day I arrived. I’m sure Elvina was upset the other day because she thought she’d interrupted something rather like...well, what we’ve just done.”
Rheged didn’t appear at all surprised.
“You knew?”
“Not exactly, but I should have expected it.” He blushed like a naughty little boy. “It seems Gareth told the men about the Welsh custom of abducting the bride and it probably didn’t take much imagination to believe we were already lovers. I did tell him that wasn’t our plan,” he hastened to assure her. “I thought I made it clear that I didn’t even like you, so no one would guess how I really felt. God help me, I was even trying to deny my feelings to myself.” He ruefully shook his head. “Gareth will be saying he was right and I planned to marry you all along. Maybe my heart was wiser than my head.”
She rose and picked up the ivory comb from the table beside the bed. “When you first returned to Cwm Bron,” she said, running it through her tumbled locks, “I hoped you had come to save me from my betrothal, in spite of what I’d said, only to realize—much to my dismay—that it was the bogus prize that had caused you to return. That’s why I was so angry.”
“You weren’t angry because I took you?” he asked as he, too, got off the bed and began to tie the drawstring of his breeches.
“Oh, no, I was furious—and justly so, my love. I meant when you were standing in the courtyard shouting for my uncle.”
“I think I loved you even then. I think I loved you from the first time I saw you giving the remains of the feast to the poor at the gates. You were so kind and generous, I knew you were different from any other lady I’d ever met.”
She flushed as she set down the comb and tied her bodice closed. “I didn’t know you saw me.”
“Which made your kindness all the more impressive.”
Facing him, she held out her arms. “How do I look?”
“Beautiful,” he replied, reaching for her.
“Thank you, sir,” she said, stepping back, “but I meant, do I look like a woman who’s just had a tumble on the sheets?” She smiled. “To think I would ever have to ask that!”
“Nor did I dream, a sennight ago, that I would be in love with the most amazing woman who, incredibly, loves me, too.”
She put her arms around him and held him close. “Come to me tonight, Rheged,” she whispered as a little thread of fear returned, winding around her heart.
It drew even tighter when they returned to the hall and she saw all the worried, anxious faces among the soldiers and the servants gathered there—a forceful reminder that more than she and Mavis and Sir Algar would suffer if Rheged lost tomorrow.
Rheged’s strong hand took hold of hers, and she found hope again, albeit one tempered with the realization that much depended on Rheged’s strength and skill.
There was one man missing from the hall. She gestured for Hildie to come closer. “Where is Sir Algar?”
The maidservant didn’t meet her gaze as she twisted her apron in her hands. “Gone, my lady. Back to his own castle.”
Gareth stepped out from among the soldiers. “He said he would return in time for the contest tomorrow.”
Despite his explanation, it didn’t take a seer to see that he was dismayed, too. Once before Algar had fled rather than stand up to the DeLacs.
“He will return,” Rheged said firmly, his grip on her hand tightening. “Now let us eat and drink and celebrate my good fortune, for this lady has consented to be my wife.”
There was a moment of stunned silence, until Gareth cheered and the hall exploded with the noise of the soldiers also cheering and stamping feet, and the servants, too. Then came the calls for wine and ale to drink to Sir Rheged and the lady, followed by more raucous cheers from the soldiers and a few bawdy jests, too.
“Perhaps I made a mistake announcing our intent,” Rheged said, leading Tamsin to the table. “They’ll all be drunk tonight and the worse for it tomorrow unless I put an end to it.”
He got to his feet and held up his hands for silence. “Men of the garrison of Cwm Bron—and the best men in the land—although I’m happy that you’re pleased for me, this is not the time for feasting and celebrating. That will be tomorrow, after I’ve defeated Sir Broderick.”
“And you will!” one man called out.
“With one blow!” shouted another.
“He’s as good as dead now!” cried a third.
Again Rheged held up his hands. “Believe me, I have every reason to do my best,” he said, glancing at Tamsin. “So let us dine and rest tonight, the better to celebrate tomorrow when my enemy is vanquished. There will be more than enough wine and ale for all, and Foster will prepare a feast worthy of a wedding.”
“Aye, my lord, aye!” Gareth cried while the men cheered with renewed enthusiasm and the servants applauded.
And Tamsin hid her dread behind a happy smile.
* * *
“My lady!” Charlie cried as he ran into the hall where Mavis was supervising the laying of cloths on the tables for the evening meal. “They’re coming back, your father and Sir Broderick!”
“And Tamsin?” she asked eagerly when Charlie skittered to a halt. “Did you see her?”
Charlie flushed and didn’t meet her gaze. “No, I didn’t, my lady. Just the men, that’s all I saw.”
Sweet savior! Surely they wouldn’t have left Tamsin behind!
Unless she was dead.
Her heart in her throat, Mavis dashed to the yard, to see her father, Broderick and their men riding beneath the portcullis and into the yard. Men and horses were all clearly exhausted; they must have ridden hard to get back before nightfall.
She anxiously scanned the mounted group for her cousin.
Charlie had been right. Tamsin wasn’t there.
Holy Blessed Mother, don’t let her be dead!
Mavis prayed as she rushed toward her father, who looked half-dead as he hauled his horse to a halt. Clutching the toe of his boot, she cried, “Where is Tamsin? Oh, Father, tell me she isn’t dead!”
Her father shook his foot as if she were a fly. “Get off, girl! Of course she isn’t dead.”
“Then where is she? Is she so badly hurt she can’t come home?”
“It seems the lady has decided to remain where she is, for the time being, until I kill Rheged,” Broderick answered for her father.