The Conqueror's Lady

In spite of the control she exerted over her actions while awake, Lady Fayth slept with reckless abandonment. Reckless and enticing abandonment, even if still wearing her clothes.

She lay half on her side, half on her back, one arm was thrown to the side and the other lay across her forehead, blocking the top of her face from his view. Her legs, though covered by her smock and kirtle, relaxed apart, and the urge grew within him to slide his hand up and explore the area between her thighs. His body tightened as he walked closer and saw that her hair was loose.

She lay on top of most of it, the soft length pillowing around her head with a few loose tendrils softening the look of her face. In the darkened chamber, lit only by the flames in the hearth, it appeared much darker than in the light of day, when it caught the sunlight and blossomed with a multitude of hues of brown and lighter. His hands itched to touch it, to smell it, to rub it against his face and over their bodies as they made love.

Giles shook himself, trying to loosen the grasp of this desire now moving through him. He was no untried boy that his body should react so strongly to a woman. Truly, this woman had not tried to entice or entrance him; instead she’d stood up to him, refused his kindnesses and nearly repudiated his claim to her and these lands. Not the usual bed partner of one of the Breton Bastards, as he and his friends were called.

He walked to the side of the bed and leaned over, giving in to the urge to touch her. With a gentle stroke, he traced down the edge of her chin and her cheek. She murmured in her sleep and seemed to turn into his palm. Holding his breath, he sat carefully on the bed, easing across its surface, and cupped her face in his hand. When she threw her arm away from her head and it landed in his lap, nearly touching his cock, he knew he was lost.

And she slept on.

He almost regretted his pledge to her to withhold relations until she proved she was not carrying a child. Almost. Though it was a near thing when she turned slightly and her lush breasts pressed against the gown she wore. At least the extra fabric in the braies he wore afforded him some relief when his cock grew harder in anticipation.

Drawn to the innocence and the softened expression that sleep brought to her face, he watched as she breathed deeply and evenly. With her cheek still cupped in his hand, he let his thumb slide over her face and touch her lips. They were full and red; he imagined their feel against his. Trying to lessen the urge to take her and claim her, Giles glanced away from her mouth and at her face.

Eyes the color of the darkest forest leaves met his gaze.

Lady Fayth had awakened.

Chapter Four

First Fayth looked at Giles’s eyes, then she seemed to remember where she was and who touched her in such a way. Then she moved, scrambling up and back away from him faster than he thought it possible to move. Within seconds, she knelt against the corner of the bed against the wall in a defensive position, meant to keep anyone at bay. All she needed to complete her formidable pose was a weapon in her hand.

‘You sleep in your gown?’ he asked in a soft voice, trying not to startle her.

‘How did you get in here?’ she asked back, ignoring his jibe completely.

‘Once the hinges were gone—’ he nodded at the doorway ‘—it was simply a matter of lifting the door and the bar out of the way.’ Giles slid from the bed and faced her. ‘Do not bar the door again.’

Her eyes widened in fear at his words or mayhap at the tone he used. When she brushed her hair out of her face, it flowed over her shoulders and down her back in long waves.

‘Come,’ he said, offering her his hand. ‘Take your ease as you wish. Door or no door, you are safe here.’

Now, doubt warred with the fear in her eyes as her gaze moved from him to the doorway and back to the bed. He wondered if she was confused, as waking so suddenly from such a deep sleep could do. Backing a few steps away, he sat in a chair and waited for her to act.

‘You said you would not,’ she began, lowering her voice so that none outside the chamber could hear. ‘You left with your men.’

‘You pushed me from the chamber and barred the door behind me. I could not allow such an insult to go unanswered.’

The fear returned in her gaze and Giles discovered that he did not like it. Anger turned her eyes a flaming green, a shade that sparked with gold, but fear turned them flat and nearly colourless.

‘Is it our joining you fear?’ he asked. ‘Or something else?’

Her cheeks flushed red and she looked away. Was she embarrassed by such frank words? She did not look ready to explain herself to him. Had she, in truth, given herself to Edmund or was this a maiden’s blush?

‘I told you it will not be until I know you carry no one else’s babe, so come away from the wall and seek your rest.’ He motioned with his hand.

‘Why do you insult me so?’ the lady asked as she slid over the bed and climbed off, straightening her gown and shaking it to cover her legs. Her hair tumbled over her shoulders in enticing waves. ‘Do you think I hold my honour, and that of my father, with so little respect that I would succumb easily to the desires of the flesh?’

He was out of the chair in a second and standing so close to her that he saw her wobble and nearly lose her balance in trying not to touch him and yet looking up to meet his gaze. Giles watched her eyes widen and her breaths grow shallow as he stood, not moving, not touching, not breathing.

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.’