Lord Liar Part 37

"Hush," he said in a low voice.

"I care not." With that, he scooped her up, one hand under her legs, the other around her shoulders, and made his way up the stairs as if she weighed nothing at all.

As the staircase twisted around and they were lost to the sight of the woman below, Aldyth allowed herself to look into his face, which was almost on a level with hers. He was smiling slightly, and from this proximity she could see that his pupils were dilated in his dark, almost black eyes. His nostrils flared as their eyes met. He smelled of horse and sandalwood and male hess

By the time they got to the top, she was trembling. Could he feel it?

He pushed open the door with his foot and dopositecl her in a chair by the table.

"Thank you, Ranulf. I--I'll be all right now, if you will but send up one of the women with that poultice you mentioned " "I'm not leaving you till I'm certain you're all right." What did he mean by that? Did he intend to undress her and examine her bone by bone?

"Nay, Ranulf, please. I'll be fine, truly. Lady Desiderata is already eyeing you oddly. She'll either think you prefer 193 boys or she'll figure out I'm female?" She dosed her eyes to shut out the image of Ranulf coming closer, kneeling by her chair.

"What matters it what that trollop believes? Are you so tired of my company, Aldyth?"

The acc.u.mulated tension of maintaining her disguise and her long-suppressed desire for him, mingled with her present confusion at his sudden change of behavior, touched off an explosion.

"d.a.m.n you, my I I don't know who you are an- more! You acted as if you were one of Rufus's rogues, then I find out you're intriguing with Henry. And why aren't you pursuing Desiderata or one of Henry's other ladies-in residence I thought she was exactly the type of woman you" "To the devil with her! Why are you being such a shrew? G.o.d's toenails, wench! I thought you'd broken your neck out there!"

He was shouting at her!

"And what would it matter if I had? You made it very I wasn't... wicked enough for you. You only brought me along out of chivalry."

"Is that what you think, you little feel? I'm tired of hiding the truth.

I'll show you what I feel for you--and I promise you, Aldyth, it isn't chivalry." Rising on his knees, he seized her face between two none goo-gentle hands and took her month with his. It was an angry kiss, full of force and hunger. The storm sudden pa.s.sion broke upon her, claiming her with ihattering intensity.

"I tried to leave you alone, Aldyth, for as well as mine," he said, keeping her face imprisoned between his hands so that she must look into the of his eyes.

"I didn't want to expose you to the let myself be distracted by loving you"

"Distracted?" she repeated.

"Yes, distracted--by you as my wife, Aldyth! I dared not heed anything else until I was done with all this plotting. Oh, I was going to come for you, as soon as the right man wore the English crown. Realizing you might not have waited for me, you might have wed someone else, made me die each time I thought of you. Yes, what I'm doing is dangerous, and if Rufus discovers whose man I am, I could lose my head. And as my wife you could be made to suffer, as well.

But G.o.d's toenails, I've already lost my head! I'll keep you safe somehow, Aldyth, but I can't live any longer without you"-- " Then do not be without me another moment, Ranulf," she told him hoa.r.s.ely.

"You great fool, why do you think followed you to Normandy? I'd rather live with you, whatever the danger, than without you in the greatest safety."

He leaped to his feet. One hand dived under her thighs, the other behind her back, and she was being carried against his chest again, but only for a moment as he moved toward the velvet-hung bed.

She thought he would drop her there, like a conqueror's prize, but even in the throes of pa.s.sion he had a care for her injured ankle and lowered her with infinite gentleness, careful not to let her foot hit the bedpost. He shrugged off his cloak, then pulled over his head his short outer tunic and the longer one underneath. He stood gazing at her for a moment, still clad in his sherte and chausses, his dark eyes sweeping over her from head to foot.

Aldyth felt a surge of regret for her page's clothing and shorn hair.

This was not the way she had pictured this moment.

Nay, she had imagined wearing some gauzy, lacy nigh trail her hair fanned out over the pillow or hang' rag over him like a s.h.i.+mmering curtain . Evidently he agreed--about her garments, at least. "Aldyth," he growled, "you have spent too long a time in " Edward's' clothes. I would see the woman underneath. " He pulled the short pageboy's tunic with its silver unicorn emblem over her head, then her sherte, and frowned when he saw the band of cloth wound tightly around her chest.

"So that's how you made yourself look flat as a lad," he said with a chuckle.

"I remembered your body feeling much more... womanly against me in that barn at Kingsclere." Aldyth blushed, but it was the veer thing she needed to hear to restore her damaged feminine self-confidence, enabling her to reach up and pull out the bone pin that held the binding in place--the bone pin that had p.r.i.c.ked her side countless times during this masquerade--and, under his rapt gaze, unwind the doth until her b.r.e.a.s.t.s fell free, soft and womanly.

"Is this... is this better, my lord?" she asked softly, feeling all female as she saw the heat in his eyes.

"Ah, yes. And one more thing will make it better still..." His breathing was ragged as he reached for the string that her braies in place at her waist and pulled them off her, still remembering to ease them gently over her swollen ankle.

She lay exposed to his gaze and felt no shyness about it as she saw the admiration register in his face. The throbbing in her ankle and her boyish haircut were forgotten as she saw him reach to unfasten the tie at the neck of his s.h.i.+rt and pull it off, before turning his attention to the tie at his waist. His hands shook and he swore softly as he strove to undo ao knot his haste had caused. His impatience made her : mine.

Worldly, wicked Lord Ranulf, balked by a mere knot!

He was not to be put off, though. Reaching for the knife dangled from his girdle, he made short work of the "My lord, you make more toil for your long-suffering page," she mocked.

"Poor Edward will have to find another string" -- she stopped speaking as the linen slithered down over his hips and pooled at his feet, revealing his rampant staff.

"Edward is dead, at least in this room," he growled in a husky voice as he caught her gaze.

"But we'll never mourn him, will we, Aldyth?" he asked as he lay down beside her and gathered her against him.

She s.h.i.+vered as she felt the hard, muscled length of his warrior's body touching every inch of hers. His male hess pulsed again at her abdomen. For a moment, she was afraid. She had never known a man intimately, and he was built like a stallion, not a mere man. And yet he had not fallen on her like some ravening wolf, the way Turold had, intent only on breaching her virginity.

And then his lips touched hers, and she forgot her fear and felt only fire as his tongue stole inside her mouth, caressing hers. She felt his hand cupping her breast, stroking it with his thumb, until the nipple was as erect as his manhood.

Her breast tingled at his touch, and yet it was the pit of her belly that felt aflame as he continued to circle the areola. Then his mouth left hers.

Aldyth felt abandoned and was about to beg him to kiss her again, when she felt his lips dose about the breast he had been touching. The change, from his dry, firm thumb to the hot moistness of his mouth and tongue around her nipple, made her gasp and arch against him, calling his name. His other hand, beneath her, splayed over her b.u.t.tocks.

Her corresponding relaxation against him a heartbeat later brought her squarely in contact with his hardness, and she moaned inarticulately, clutching at him as she felt it seeking, probing at her woman's entrance.

She ached to feel his full length inside her.

"Soon, sweetheart, soon," he promised, "when you're ready..."

"Ranulf," she cried softly, "please..."

He rolled her onto her back, and his hand left the breast he had been holding up to his seeking mouth and stroked slowly over her taut abdomen, lower, lower. She whimpered as he touched the silken triangle of curls at the juncture of her thighs, and he dipped his hand between her legs, parting her slightly, a finger sliding gently inside her. The shock of the gentle invasion made her go rigid.

He grinned wolfishly.

"Ah yes, you're ready for me, my darling Aldyth, and so quickly. How wet you are, love, wet for me... " His voice, she noted with amazement, was not mocking but held an awed wonder that filled her with glowing heat. Perhaps she was woman enough for him, after all.

A second finger joined the first in its stroking, in and out, in and out, while his thumb did wonderful, magical things to the little bud of flesh just above them.

She would die, consumed in flames, if he did not take her soon--this very moment!

Somehow he read her mind, for he lowered his long, lean frame onto her then and his hand left her, replaced by the velvet-tipped hardness that throbbed just outside her opening.

"Now, Aldyth," he breathed, impaling her eyes with his midnight gaze, "I'm going to make you mine now..."

His hands burrowed under her hips and lifted her to him then, and his mouth covered hers, swallowing her soft cry Of pain as he buried his shaft deep within her, and she left girlhood behind forever.

Chapter Eighteen