Part 24 (1/2)

She crossed to the door. Corbett opened it for her and then followed close behind her as they went down the steep stone steps. The stairwell was cold but Corbett's nearness seemed to create an aura of warmth. Still, for all the physical heat they generated together, Lilliane could not mistake the emotional chill between them.

When they reached the door to the tower room Lilliane turned to face him.

”I have one caveat upon which I must insist,” she started as bravely as she could.

Corbett stood very near her. His great size blocked the light from the single torch so that only his silhouette was clear to her. ”No.”

The word, though spoken quietly, seemed to roar like thunder in the empty stone tower. Lilliane wanted to clap her hands over her ears to shut out that obstinate, angry sound. But instead, with no forethought, she put her hands up to his cheeks and pulled his head down to meet her kiss.

It was a bold move, one she'd had no chance to weigh the merits of. But perhaps for that very reason it seemed to placate him as nothing else would have. She'd only wanted to ask him to leave his anger behind when they went through the door, to allow them to meet without the emotional enc.u.mbrances that tortured them both. But as their lips clung in a kiss at once both pa.s.sionate and sweet, Lilliane felt as if he'd already given in to her unspoken request.

She was aware when he backed her into the door. Then the door opened and she started to fall. But Corbett caught her up in his arms. The touch of his tongue was like a stroke of fire along her lips and within her mouth. The solid feel of his body cradling hers so easily was like floating off into heaven, for she knew just what a heaven awaited her.

But Lilliane fought off the mind-stealing lethargy brought on by his pa.s.sion. That was not what this night was about. When Corbett lowered her feet to the ground, she put one palm flat against his chest to hold him at bay.

”Wait,” she said, panting, although waiting was hardly what she wanted to do. ”You must let me do as ... as you said.”

Corbett did not smile, but his eyes were smoky with desire and he was breathing hard. ”Then go ahead.” He gestured to the bed.

Lilliane shook her hair back as she looked over her powerful husband. He was tall and strong, and in spite of the scars that marked him, she thought him the most handsome and desirable man alive. Her hand slid slowly across the breadth of his chest, feeling the definition of his muscles there and the rea.s.suring beat of his heart. It was a steady beat, strong and reliable as he was. If only he could see that she was strong and reliable too.

But she pushed that painful thought away and took a step nearer him. With hands that trembled only a little, she loosened the brooch that held his short mantle on. Deliberately she stood as close to him as she could, and although she did not see his face, she knew the effect she caused on him. Her hair was a loose cloud, tumbling wildly about her face and shoulders. She knew how he loved her hair, and as she bent even closer she felt his fingers stroke down through the long chestnut length.

Before he could gather it into his hands, however, she moved to take hold of the gold-braided hem of his tunic. As she tugged the blue serge up and over his wide shoulders, he raised his arms obligingly and she was reminded of their first meeting.

It had been in this very room and she'd had to undress him then as well. But where she'd been frightened and filled with dread then, now she felt only love.

His s.h.i.+rt was next. She cast it carelessly aside, for she was feeling eager as he stood before her bare-chested.

”Now it's your turn,” he murmured huskily, and he reached for her.

”No.” Lilliane stared at him seriously, putting up one hand to keep him at a distance.

But Corbett caught her hand and twined his fingers with his so that their palms were pressed warmly together. Somehow it seemed the most intimate of gestures, and Lilliane felt a rush of love for this man go over her. For a moment she could do no more than stare into his deep gray eyes.

”If I may not remove your clothes until mine are gone, then you must hurry, Lily. I'm only human and you tempt me beyond endurance.” Lilliane did not delay although her cheeks burned when she removed his braies and then his small cloth. Yet when she looked at her husband standing so erect and proud in his naked glory, she could feel no shame for her brazenness.

She kept her wide, golden gaze locked upon his as she slowly began to remove her own clothes. Corbett's face took on an expression approaching torment as she struggled with the tight lacings at her wrists and at either side of her waist. But as she finally put the full-skirted garment aside, Lilliane was more than pleased to see the rigid evidence of Corbett's arousal. She let her hair fall before her as she bent to remove her hose and then her delicately woven kirtle. It was a gesture done more for the scanty protection it gave her from his gaze than to be provocative. Yet it proved to be the final straw for Corbett.

”Come here, Lily,” he murmured in a low, tortured tone.

She started to go to him, as meekly and obediently as a wife should. But then she stopped; she wanted to show him so much more than just obedience.

It took all her mettle to raise her head bravely and shake her hair back. Only when she stood before him proudly in her nakedness did she at last come to him.

Corbett's eyes seemed to devour her. She was trembling with excitement, her own arousal now clearly displayed to him. When she reached him he stood as one entranced until she slid her hands up his chest to encircle his neck and then fitted herself intimately against him. It was an unmaidenly thing to do, indecent by any lady's standards. But Lilliane knew instinctively that it was the right way to show her love to Corbett.

In an instant he gathered her into his steely embrace with a fierceness that took her breath away. She'd had plans to seduce him, to try to imitate all the ways he'd kissed her and touched her in the past until this time he would be the one begging her to come to him. But she'd underestimated both the power of her seductive preparations and the strength of his raging desire.

Corbett's lips were like fire on her skin. Everywhere they pa.s.sed-over her eyelids and her cheeks, down to the corners of her mouth, and the lobes of her ears-she was inflamed. Then he moved in sweet delicious kisses along the sensitive curve of her neck and lower, to the high outthrust swell of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Corbett sank to one knee then and one of his hands moved to cup her derriere. His mouth became more deliberate as he began to kiss the pearly skin of first one of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and then the other. Nearer and nearer he circled until her nipples were aching with need and Lilliane was arching toward him desperately.

She caught his head between her hands, marveling that his hair could be so soft when the rest of him was so hard. She bent to kiss the top of his head and then, using all her waning strength, guided him most demandingly to take her nipple in his mouth.

The exquisiteness of his lips upon that tight rosy nub as he sucked it into his mouth then teased it with his teeth and tongue sapped the last of Lilliane's strength. Had he not held her so snugly to him, she was certain she would have fallen. As it was she sagged against him, crying at the acute pleasure and yet still wanting some ease for the voracious need building in her belly.

But Corbett was relentless. First one, then the other of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s received his total devotion. Then, when she thought surely he must bring her to the bed or she would die of longing for him, he moved his kisses lower still.

Lilliane stood leaning over him, her hands braced upon his ma.s.sive shoulders as he bent to kiss her belly. When his thumbs tenderly opened her most feminine center to those extraordinary kisses, she cried out in ecstasy. ”Corbett, Corbett! My one sweet love!”

Then she began to shudder with the explosive power of her release. Her hands gripped him blindly as she arched back in that perfect, perfect agony.

It lasted forever. It ended too soon. She only knew that Corbett was on his knees grasping her so tightly to him that it hurt. His head was bowed just beneath her chin and she rested her tear-streaked cheek on his damp, raven locks.

She was crying and unable to stop when he finally raised his head to look at her. Their eyes seemed to meet forever, and in a brief moment of clarity Lilliane thought that his gaze had never seemed so clear. Then he lifted her high in his arms and laid her down upon their bed.

His entry was swift and sure. Lilliane wrapped herself completely about him, wanting more than anything in the world to give him whatever he wanted. If he wanted an obedient wife, then she would become that wife. If he wanted a mistress to provide him with the most carnal of pleasures, she would be that mistress. If he wanted an heir, oh, please G.o.d, let her bear him their child.

And if he wanted to be rid of her ...

She could not think of that at all. Instead she rose to meet his powerful thrust, taking all he had to give over and over again.

When he pulled her upright to straddle his thighs so that they were face to face, she was certain he touched the very center of her being. Her fingers dug into his shoulders as she felt the pa.s.sion rising within her again. As he strained in an increasing tempo and then began to stiffen, her own pa.s.sion peaked once more and, as if in a violent storm, they reached their zenith together.

There were no words afterward. They lay quietly together after catching their breath, but neither of them sought to break the intimate tangle of their limbs.

Lilliane lay with her head on Corbett's chest, his heart beating strongly beneath her ear. One of her arms lay across his chest and under her hand she felt the three scarred ridges on the back of his shoulder.

That heartbeat. Those scars. At that moment they seemed somehow to symbolize everything about him. He was a warrior, scarred outside and perhaps inside as well. Yet his heart pounded so adamantly, so constantly within his chest. Could that heart ever love her? she wondered wistfully.

The words came to her lips unbidden. Her soft ”I love you” was less than a whisper in the quiet night air. But she meant it as nothing she'd ever meant before. Whether or not he was awake to hear, whether or not he would even believe her, it was nonetheless true.

She loved him and she always would.

21.

IT WAS A FRAGILE peace.

Lilliane was truly grateful that Corbett had ceased his nightly drinking and had regained a modic.u.m of his earlier, easy mood. But she knew at the same time that she had but won a skirmish. The enemy was not yet defeated. The war was not over.

She saw it in the way his eyes followed her, although he always had a smile ready for her. She sensed it in the way he concerned himself with every least detail of the castle preparations. The only odd note in his otherwise careful behavior was his annoyance with his friend, Sir Dunn.

Dunn, it seemed, had suddenly grown to like her. Gone were the suspicious stares and the watchfulness. Now he greeted her most cordially, always inquiring after her health, or little Elyse's. And if Corbett was about, Dunn always sent him a smug, almost triumphant look. This would bring a scowl to Corbett's face. But no words would pa.s.s between the two men. Just those strange, telling looks.

Despite the relative calm at Orrick, however, Corbett's tension seemed to increase up to the day the guests began to arrive.