The Wagered Wench (19 page)

“That’s enough,” he burst out, backing against the wall. “You must…stop…Elzinora!”

She grabbed his arse cheeks and clung on, sucking hard at his cock, relentless. This was what her instinct told her to do. He’d told her to follow it, hadn’t he?

“Elz…” he gasped, hissing his words, “you’ll make me spill in your throat as if with a whore. Don’t!”

She was amazed that he made any distinction between a wife and a whore. Were not all women the same in the eyes of a soldier like him? Apparently not. She partially released him, her tongue curling around his cockhead, her lips puckered to kiss the tiny hole that would give her what she wanted. He was breathing heavily, sagging slightly against the wall. He thought she was done, of course. Her hands were still on his buttocks, stroking. She moved her fingers closer to the crevice, seeking out his anus. Instantly he was on the alert again, the muscles in his thighs taut. He grunted, but there was no recognizable word telling her to stop. His cock slapped against her mouth as she wriggled her finger into the puckered hole between his buttocks. And then as he cursed, warning her that she would make him choke her with his seed, she took his prick into her mouth again. Despite his supposed reluctance, he pushed his groin forward and his arse squeezed her finger. If her mouth was not full of cock, she would have yelped.

She forced her finger deeper into his body, felt the heat devouring it, pulling her in the harder she sucked his cock. Elsinora wanted him to feel the pleasure she’d known when he possessed her that way. It was something she could not describe, a potent brew of pain and ecstasy and complete submission. His knees bent and he began to thrust frantically in and out of her mouth, his hands on either side of her head again, fingers tangled in her hair. She struggled at first, then relaxed her throat as that thick phallus plowed in and out. Quite by chance she moved her finger inside his arse and that, apparently, was his undoing.

He howled something in his native tongue and then she felt the warm spunk hitting the back of her throat. Oceans of it, so it seemed. She made him come. She did it. Tonight the power was hers.

* * * *

Teasing, tempting, bossy wench! She would pay for that.

Still not quite recovered, he grabbed her under the arms, scooped her up and lifted her to the top of the wall. She squealed, grabbing fistfuls of his tunic, her eyes growing large, rivaling the moon. “There are fines in Lyndower, you know, for violence against women!” she cried.

“Ah but you are no woman,” he replied wryly. “You are a pixie. An evil pixie!”

“What will you do then? Throw me to my death on the rocks below?”

“Not just yet.” He moved his arms around her and held her tight. There was no better sensation in the world, he thought, than to have her clinging to him like this, her legs wrapped around his waist. He could not be angry with her now, even for the whore’s trick she’d just performed. For a long moment there was only the soft tremor of her breath, the harsher sound of his own, and the mellow wash of the waves far below.

“It was because of a woman,” she whispered, raising a hand to his face, her fingertips gently tracing his scar. “Was it not?”

He blinked, exhaled, felt his heart lifting. It was a sensation akin to sitting astride a wild horse as it launched into the air, soaring over a hedge. That moment when his seat left the back of the animal and he was flying.

She leaned the last tiny distance until their mouths met. It was a gentle kiss, no more than the brush of a dandelion seed against his lips.

Abruptly she looked to the left and he caught the reflection of flames in her eyes.

“Dominic! Look,” she cried, “Fire!”

Chapter Sixteen

He took off down the steps, pulling up his breeches, leaping the last distance to the grass which was so dry now that could catch fire as easily as if it was dipped in tar. The flames were fiercest as they flowed in waves across the thatch of the workers’ timber shelter, but sparks already fell to the wood below and flames licked at the ground. Elsinora ran after him as he tore off his tunic and tried using it to beat back the flames.

“Run to the village,” he yelled to her through the smoke. “Fetch the men.”

She obeyed at once, tripping and stumbling down the hill as if those flames were fast on her heels. Indeed, it wouldn’t take long for this parched ground to lead the fire all the way to the homes of Lyndower. Some folk had already seen the sky glow red up on the hill and they came running toward her, ripping off mantles and tunics to help fight the flames.

She had to do more. Looking around at the frightened faces of the women, she felt a poke in her side, as if her father’s spirit was at her side again. “
There is a fire in you, Elsie. Don’t let them put it out.”

Shouting to the women, she hastily organized as many buckets and water vessels as could be found and then she arranged two lines, one from the well to half way up the hill, and one from the stream that crossed the moor. It was too far down to fetch water from the bay and the tide had not yet come all the way in. Every woman, old or young, volunteered to help and thus they passed the chains of water to the men on the hill. Elsinora ran back and forth, smoke clinging to her hair and gown, carrying water to her husband.

“Tis lucky stone won’t burn,” he said to her as he heaved another bucket of water onto the smoldering grass. “Whoever set this fire had hoped to destroy all our work, but they’ve done no more than take down the builder’s shelter and threaten the village.”

“
Set
the fire?” she exclaimed. “Who would do that?”

“It was no accident, Elzinora. Someone has long wanted me out of the way. When I find the soul responsible for this—” He broke off to stamp out a spark that landed near his foot. “I’ll flog the skin from their back!”

She turned from the smoke, blinking the sting from her eyes. And saw little Nat, standing close behind. His face was white. He took off before she could speak and he raced along the crest of the hill toward the cliff.

And suddenly there was wind, a great gust catching the flames, fanning them higher. Her heart sank and she stumbled back, the strength ebbing out of her. It was over, they could not get water to the flames fast enough and with the dry weather of late both stream and well were low.

But just when she thought they were done for, nature showed mercy. Not far behind that gust of strong wind came the first drops of welcome rain. The sky rumbled overhead and then opened.

Within a few seconds they were all soaked. Lyndower was saved.

Elsinora turned her attention to the boy, who slipped away through troughs of blowing rain until she could no longer see his small shape. Only moments after relief came a sense of fear and foreboding. The cliff path was treacherous in the dark of night and wet with rain it was a death trap.

She shouted to Dominic but he didn’t hear above the storm and then she ran after Nat. Ducking her head she ran into the wind, felt its strength buffeting her as she followed the path higher. She was light but the boy was even slighter and if he wandered too close to the edge…

Elsinora didn’t want to think of it. This was her fault. She’d encouraged this. The boy only did what he thought she wanted. She called his name, one hand cupped around her mouth. Nothing. The cliff side seemed to shake under her feet and she looked down to where it crumbled away. Gales of wind slapped her loose hair across her face, but as she dragged it back she saw the boy below, clinging to a shining wet rock with bloody fingers, his face turned upward, blinded by rain.

“Hold on, Nat,” she screamed, the words torn from her lips. With shaking knees she began a rocky descent, knowing it was too late to go for help. Nat could give up out of exhaustion if she did not reach him quickly. More than once she almost lost her balance, her foot slipping, tufts of weed and grasses breaking away, the rocks slick. Nat saw her at last and called out, sobbing like a motherless lamb, stranded on his precarious perch.

She reached and caught his hand. With all her strength she managed to ease him against her body and he clung with his legs and arms. Together, bowed against the storm they began to make their way back up, but the extra bulk was too much to manage. Her feet, already unsteady and wet, slipped. They tumbled down the jagged rock, their screams lost in the force of the wailing wind.

Dominic left the others and ran through the dark. It was too wet and windy for a rush torch. What was the woman thinking to run off like that? He came to the broken ridge and felt panic, hot and sour rise up in his gut. On his knees, he looked down, searching the face of the cliff. The wind eased slightly, but the rain still fell in heavy lines.

“Elzinora,” he yelled. Far below the tide rushed in, smacking the base of the rocks now in a violent froth. There, on the edge of the cliff, stuck on a twisted bramble, was a piece of cloth from her gown. He snatched it up, his hand trembling. She’d fallen. She was gone. Had he not imagined such as this the first night he saw her? Those small, fragile hands with bitten fingernails. He had not succeeded in making her eat enough, he thought stupidly. Now the wind swept her away from him. Fury and grief battled over his mind and his heart. No, he would not accept it. He had just begun to climb down the cliff himself in search of her, when he heard her shout.

He looked. She limped along the cliff toward him, blood streaking her gown. In her arms she carried the spit boy, who buried his face in her neck and clung like a monkey.

As she drew nearer he prepared to say his first prayer ever. She was not a ghost or a figment of his imagination.

“The tunnel,” she explained, wheezing for breath.

They must have found their way to it just before the tide rolled in and filled the mouth of the cave below. With the scrap of material still clutched in his fist, he walked to meet her.

“Hush.” The Norman was almost as disheveled as she guessed they must look. He still had soot on his face, despite the sweeping rain. His expression seemed oddly fixed. As he approached he jabbered away in a rush of French, until he surely remembered she would not understand. He must have put all the pieces together now. Yes. Here it came.

Suddenly he wiped his face with one hand, smearing it with wet soot. His eyes glowed as if they still smarted from the fire. She waited for the further unleashing of his temper against her and Nat, but nothing happened.

She knew she could trust him. He kept his promises, did he not? Almost to a fault, she thought grimly, still sulking over the distance he’d kept those last few weeks.

“I shall commission your services. You will make a design for my castle, something that joins the Lady Elsinora’s initials with my own. Make certain it pleases me and you shall not be punished for this crime.”

Nat looked up at Elsinora and she nodded, trying not to look too pleased. Tonight he had shown his own fair judgment, as she once showed him hers. In fact he was more than fair, shockingly tolerant for a Norman.

“Now go, boy, back to the village,” Dominic added gruffly. “And get to work.”

As the boy ran off back down the sloping path to the lights of the village, the two adults remained, looking at one another. Dominic stood straight again. “Now our initials will be entwined forever in the stone walls of that castle. Whomever you choose, we will be together there. Toujours.”

And she would give it. She was no longer afraid to give him everything. By loving him wholeheartedly in every way possible—by loving one of God’s creations—she was loving Him too. Her mother had not understood that. Elsinora laid her hand to his bare, wet chest.