Part 13 (1/2)
Alex waved a dismissive hand. ”That will sort itself out in time.”
”What will sort itself out?” Had Luke discussed their sleeping arrangements with his brother?
Alex cleared his throat. ”I've got eyes and ears. I know how things are. Don't worry. These situations have a way of righting themselves. It's like steam building up in an untended kettle. There's nowhere for it to go, and the kettle trembles and shakes and threatens to erupt, but finally the top flies off all on its own, and the steam comes shooting out.”
Somehow that imagery provided little in the way of rea.s.surance. ”So... I should just wait for the top to fly off?”
He shrugged, grinning carelessly. ”Have you got a better idea?”
Luke awakened in the moonlit bedchamber, facedown in the rushes, his body quivering, hips flexing involuntarily, ready to explode.
Nay! Not again. He rolled over and sat up, drenched in sweat and painfully erect beneath his drawers.
It had happened once before, several nights ago, during one of his dreams about Faithe, naked and glistening and writhing in his arms. Only that time he'd awakened to find his pleasure already shuddering through him. He'd swallowed a groan as his seed discharged, then lay there breathless, praying that Faithe was still asleep. He hadn't been p.r.o.ne to this sort of thing since adolescence, and it shamed him to be subject to it now.
Standing, he approached the bed stealthily, so as not to awaken his wife.
Faithe lay on her back, her face turned toward him, mouth half open, arms and legs at odd angles. In deference to the warm night, she'd kicked the covers off, and her s.h.i.+ft was rucked up around her thighs. Silvery moonlight caressed her lissome body, all too visible beneath the delicate linen. Her luxuriously round b.r.e.a.s.t.s rose and fell steadily. His palms tingled with the need to caress them.
Instead, his hand stole to the rigid shaft between his legs. It jerked at his touch; he clenched his jaw against the pulsing need that hovered just on the verge of erupting.
Not here. Yanking his chausses off their hook, he pulled them on and tied them, then tugged a s.h.i.+rt over his head. He'd go outside, find someplace private, and put an end to this excruciating ache himself.
Treading on silent feet to the door, he slowly opened it, stilling when he noticed movement down in the main hall. He squinted into the vast semidarkness.
Alex is awake, he thought. And then he saw that his brother was not alone. Two people occupied the pallet by the fire pit-Alex and one of his charmingly debauched twins.
They were naked, both of them, their bodies locked together as they sat facing each other, moving in a lazy, sensual rhythm. Alex smiled and whispered something to her; nodding, she slid her hand between them, to where they were joined. Even from this distance, Luke could see the glitter in Alex's half-closed eyes as he watched her pleasure herself, her head thrown back, her expression rapturous. Gripping her shoulders, he increased the tempo of his movements, every muscle in his body standing out in sharp relief.
Luke closed the door and pressed his forehead against it. His c.o.c.k felt like red-hot steel. He lay on his back in the rushes without undressing.
Over the quiet breathing of his sleeping wife, Luke could just barely hear a series of soft, feminine cries from the main hall.
It was going to be a long night.
Chapter 9.
She saw him as she strolled along the narrow path that led past the small sheep pasture tucked between the village and the river. The pasture was empty, the sheep having been gathered for shearing into the sheepfold, an open pen with a wooden shelter at one end, surrounded by a scattering of shade trees.
Her husband stood beneath an ancient oak, his back to her, his arms crossed, watching the annual shearing ritual. Even at this distance, Luke de Perigueux could not be mistaken for anyone else. His height, the breadth of his shoulders, and the uncommon stillness with which he held himself, distinguished him from other men.
Next to Luke, sitting on a stump with his cane across his lap, was his brother. Faithe was pleased that Alex had walked so far from the house. The wound to his side had knitted nicely, but the deep gash in his hip was healing more slowly, and with a dreadful scar. Even now, more than a month since the attack, it pained him to put his weight on that side. He walked with a limp, but Faithe hoped that wouldn't last.
It was a clear, sunny morning, and sultry for early June. The brothers de Perigueux were in s.h.i.+rtsleeves and chausses, having abandoned their tunics as a concession to the heat. As for Faithe, she'd chosen her lightweight, front-lacing russet kirtle and dispensed with an unders.h.i.+ft altogether.
As she approached the men, Faithe noticed that they weren't alone. Little Felix sat cross-legged in front of Luke, lining up his collection of clay soldiers in the gra.s.s. The fatherless boy had been Luke's shadow for the past three weeks, tagging along with him whenever his mother would permit it.
Alex pointed toward the sheepfold and said something to Luke, who nodded. Faithe knew what had caught their attention; a woman had taken up the shears, joining the half dozen men laboring industriously on the hard-packed earth outside the sheepfold to strip the animals of their wool.
”That's Elga Brewer,” Faithe said, coming up behind the two men and dropping her satchel on the ground. They turned to greet her; Luke's expression of pleasure warmed her. ”Elga takes time out from her ale making every June to help us with the shearing. Her father was a shepherd, so she grew up doing this.”
Luke's dark eyes sparked with amus.e.m.e.nt. ”Why aren't you pitching in yourself? I've seen you milk cows, rethatch roofs, weave wattle...”
”She was spreading manure yesterday,” Alex put in with a grin. ”I saw her.”
”I'm not surprised.” Luke smiled at her, something he did more and more recently. ”Why draw the line at shearing?”
”Even if I had the skill, and I don't,” Faithe said, ”I'm not strong enough. Look at Elga.” The brewer was as big as the biggest man, with arms of solid muscle from hauling around full kegs.
”She scares me,” Felix said.
Luke chuckled. ”She scares me a little, too.”
They watched the shearing in silence from the tranquil shade of the old oak. Faithe smiled to herself. When the sheep were stripped of their winter coats, it meant that spring was drifting into summer, and there was no finer time of year than summer. Dunstan supervised the work, Orrik being off on one of his unexplained ”errands.” Faithe wished he'd just go ahead and marry the Widow Aefentid and move her into his house. These increasingly frequent visits to her under the guise of estate business took him away from Hauekleah at inconvenient times.
Not that Dunstan was unequal to the challenge of overseeing the workings of the farm. In fact, Orrik's recurrent absences had provided the young reeve with the opportunity to prove his mettle. Despite his youth, he was more than competent, and a natural leader. Just as important, unlike Orrik, he appeared to harbor no ill-will toward Luke. In fact, from all appearances, he'd come to hold his new master in as high a regard as he'd held Caedmon-possibly higher, for Luke took a far more active interest in the affairs of Hauekleah than Faithe's first husband had.
The young reeve strode back and forth, keeping tally on a wax tablet and calling out instructions over the bleating of the sheep. Each shearer had a child working alongside him, gathering the shorn wool into giant sacks and offering the workers ladlefuls of water from buckets.
”Why aren't you helping to collect the wool?” Faithe asked Felix.
The boy's shoulders slumped. ”Uncle Dunstan wanted me to, and I tried, but I'm no good at it. The other boys... they said... well, I'm just no good at it.”
Alfrith and Brad and the others had eased up some on their incessant taunting of Felix-a result of Luke's taking him under his wing-but it appeared they hadn't abandoned the sport altogether.
”You're just not as big as those other boys,” Luke told him. ”That's why you had trouble. You'll be better at it next year.”
Felix shrugged and continued desultorily arranging his toy soldiers.
Alex grinned up at Luke. ”What's stopping you from helping with the shearing? You herded swine yesterday.”
Faithe raised her eyebrows at her husband.
”I helped to gather up the pigs from the woods where they were foraging,” Luke explained to her. ”That's all.”
”You're so keen on finding out how everything is done around here,” Alex goaded. ”Go on. Go ahead. Offer your services.”
Luke hesitated.
”Perhaps you shouldn't,” Faithe said. ”'Tis highly skilled work. An inexperienced shearer can cut a sheep pretty badly.”
”He's done it before,” Alex offered. ”He told me.”
”At the monastery where I was brought up,” Luke explained. ”But I was young, and they trusted me only with the wee ones. I was pa.s.sably good at it, though.”