Page 19 of Winter’s Heat (The Seasons #1)

Rannulf whistled to his horse, who whickered in friendly greeting from just beyond the trees. And why not, when the beast had just spent a gentle summer's afternoon cropping meadow grasses with no bridle, saddle, or hobble to restrain it. Rannulf vaulted onto its back and pulled his wife up to sit in front of him. The lanes in town were quiet as dusk gathered to lay velvet shadows against the massive walls of his home. With heel and knee, he guided his mount through Graistan's gate and to a halt in the bailey. Here, the sheep murmured and settled for the night. A cock crowed in irritation as his hens shifted on their roosts.

There was no need within him to speak, so he said nothing as he slid to the ground, then turned to help his wife descend. She came lightly into his arms, and he found himself loath to free her from his embrace. When she laid her head on his chest and sighed, he closed his eyes against the mingling of hurt and hope that awakened within him. By God, it was right to have settled their differences, but why had he needed to destroy his brother in order to accept what she gave him?

From out of the darkness came a stable boy with a lead to take his horse. The child's movement disturbed his wife. When she stepped back, he let her go.

"Rannulf," she said, her voice low, almost shy, "how are we to go in without being seen?"

He looked down at her, somewhat surprised at the question. "Why would we wish to do that?"

"Well," she twisted her hand into a fold of her skirt, a now familiar gesture that indicated she was nervous, "my dress is stained and torn, and my hair is uncovered and unbound, and well, I," she hesitated, then continued even more quietly. "I hit you in front of them and called you names. I had a right to my anger, but I should have kept it private, between us. Instead I diminished you in their eyes with my behavior."

What an interesting contrast she was. She could be as young and foolish as Jordan, only to act as priggish as a grand dame in the next moment. He reached out and cupped her face in his palm, then touched his lips to hers. Her mouth clung to his, soft and pliant. When he would have drawn back, her arms went around him until she leaned full against him. His flesh tingled as she moved to stand on her toes, sliding her body upward along his, and his desire for her once again burst into life.

It was he who tore away, he who drew the shuddering and unsteady breath. She had all but driven away his common sense. In another moment he would have been willing to take her again, right here in this open place and damn the consequences.

She looked up at him, the gentle curves of her face touched with both confusion and concern at his sudden retreat. Before this day he'd had no complaint over their lovemaking, for she had more than fulfilled his needs. But this afternoon all that had changed. By giving herself freely to him, holding nothing back, even reaching out to touch him, he learned that everything that had come before was inadequate.

He started, astounded by sudden realization. The flame of wantonness that drew him ever to her as a moth to a candle, it was all for him, only for him. When he awakened her passions on their wedding night, she had cleaved solely to him. There had never been another for her nor would there ever be. Had she known this when she gave him her body?

"You are mine," he whispered, overwhelmed by exultation and torn by fear.

"Aye, but I don’t think I mind it so very much as I did this morn," she replied with a soft smile, mistaking his meaning.

An easiness crept over him with her words, and he smiled in return. From behind them came a polite cough. They turned in unison. It was the pantler, but his gaze was focused up into the darkened sky filled with newborn stars.

"My pardon, your lordship, my lady, for my interruption, but I didn’t wish you to think me derelict in my duty. My lord, I would have carried your message to your lady, but I didn’t find her until just now. May I assume she has been apprised of the bishop's late arrival?"

"You may," Rannulf returned with equal formality, stifling his desire to laugh.

"Ah well, then I need say no more," the man continued, still keeping his eyes averted. "I’m glad to see you both safely returned." He seemed to choke a little on his final words, then turned briskly and strode back to the inner courtyard. No doubt he would carry the news of their arrival to the whole hall.

Rannulf glanced down at his wife. She stared after the man, her forehead creased in concern. It wasn’t she who had done him any harm here at Graistan. There wasn't a soul within these walls who hadn't known him for the whole of his life or he, theirs. Nothing she did or said would change that bond. It was she who was the stranger here, the outsider. His silences and now his open accusations of adultery threatened her carefully carved-out position.

Well, what he once so steadily undermined, he could now completely secure. "Don’t worry so," he said, and started toward the inner gate. With his hand holding hers, she had no choice but to follow.

They were up the stairs and almost past the door screens before she realized he intended to walk through the very center of the hall. "Wait, my lord, stop," she protested, trying to hold back, but she slowed him not a whit. "Please, Rannulf, wait," she tried again, but they were already well within, and it was too late.

He strode to the spot between the two hearths where everyone would have a clear view of them. "Good evening to you all," he said with a broad grin. Although he hadn’t released his wife, she slipped as far behind him as she could in an attempt to hide. He drew her forward, holding her at his side with an arm about her waist.

"This night, I do something that I should have done in May. I must now present to you my wife, the Lady Rowena of Graistan."

In the instant of stunned silence that followed his words, he looked down at Rowena, who stared in sublime embarrassment at the hearth. Her hair, so incredibly dark and thick, fell free about her, tangled with leaves and a few, tiny star-bright flowers. The rag she dared call a dress bore a multitude of tears, and was grass-stained and muddy. Her brow was smudged with dirt, yet she had never looked more beautiful to him.

He lifted her face and kissed her. At first she remained unresponsive, but by now he knew she couldn’t long resist him. His mouth moved against hers, teasing from her the reaction he desired. She sighed, her arms creeping around him as her mouth opened to his.

The room exploded into laughs as his people stomped their feet and cheered. "Like father, like son, eh, Lord Graistan?" someone yelled. "Aye," another retorted, "although I think he's slower to learn than his father."

"Nay," a woman shot back. "Lord or no, you'll not give a man credit for what a woman has wrought. 'Twas Ermina who captured Lord Henry, not the other way 'round, just as our lady now holds Lord Rannulf. A woman only runs when she knows she’ll be chased, isn't that right?" A chorus of female voices rose to agree with her.

His wife laughed and tore away from his embrace. She looked up at him, her wondrous blue eyes sparkling in joy, and her face filled with such happiness he couldn’t help but to smile in return. "Thank you, my lord," she whispered, then closed her eyes and buried her head against his shoulder.

Rannulf wrapped an arm around her to hold her close as he addressed his folk. "For those who may not yet know, on the morrow the bishop will take up residence here at Graistan until my wife's relatives arrive. My lady and I will retire to Upwood until called by the bishop. In reward for all your hard work and effort this day, I suggest you share a round of beer and ale, and drink a toast to us. Since we are both tired and hungry, we won’t be joining you, but drink to us nonetheless."

As he led his wife up the stairs they were followed by a cheer as well as a few, explicit comments. "Hungry, mayhap," one man called out, "but it's not food they crave."

"And tired it is they say they are? Do you believe that, goodman?"

Rannulf sat bolt upright, startled awake by the soft creak of the door's leather hinges as it opened. "Who’s there," he demanded hoarsely.

"Papa," Jordan called quietly, his young voice trembling with tears. "Papa, I had a dream."

So swiftly did tension drain from Rannulf that he sighed against the sensation. He thrust open the bed curtains and peered out past the puddle of light from the night candle and into the darkness beyond it. "Come here, then," he called to his son.

Jordan hurried across the room and crawled up into the tall bed. He curled onto his father's lap. The flickering candlelight made his tears gleam like jewels. Rannulf drew him closer into the curve of his arm and kissed his head.

"Now, what is this dream of yours? Can you tell me?"

Jordan drew a shuddering breath. "You made her go away even when I cried that she should stay. Then, you were angry at me, and you made me go away, too. I was so sad, I cried and cried."

"And who was it I made leave?" Rannulf asked, already knowing who it was his son would miss.

"Lady Wren, Papa," Jordan said around a short sob. " Did you really make her go as Alais said you would?"

Again, Rannulf sighed. How easily and deeply this woman wound herself into his family. It was as though everyone save he had eagerly awaited her arrival. To his son he shook his head.

"Of course not. She’s my wife and as such, she lives with us. See, here she is, lying beside me just where she’s supposed to be." How odd to say the words to his son only to feel the rightness of them within himself. He reached over to gently stroke her cheek. "Wren, wake up a moment. Jordan’s here. He’s worried over you."

She stirred sleepily, then pushed the hair from her face. As she moved, it stirred the warm scent of their lovemaking from the sheets. "Jordan," she said, her voice still husky from her own dreams, "my heart, I’m here and well." She yawned, stretched, then sat up. "See?"

"You didn't leave." The lad squirmed free of his father's embrace to wrap his arms around his stepmother’s neck. For a moment she hugged him tight, then kissed his cheek.

"Of course not. Where would I go? Graistan is my home, just as it is yours." She rocked him gently in her embrace for a few moments until his head drooped sleepily against her shoulder. "Sweetling, you must go back to your own bed in case Alais should awaken and find you missing, then go about screeching that you've been kidnapped again. That would be horrid, wouldn't it?"

"Aye," Jordan murmured. "She was so loud, she woke us all up."

Rannulf lifted the boy from his wife's arms and set him onto the floor. "Are you content or will your sleep be troubled still?"

"Nay. It was a baby's dream. I won't be scared of it again. Good night, Papa."

"Sleep well." Rannulf watched his son trot from the room.

"Thank the Lord," Rowena breathed from beside him. "He’ll not go back for me, and he’s awful to sleep with. He tosses and turns and kicks."

"So he does," Rannulf agreed even as a quick stab of jealousy thrust through him. But it died almost as swiftly as it was born. He couldn’t deny Jordan his Lady Wren when the boy had no mother. The girl who'd birthed him had left her son with her lord, more than content with a nobleman’s promise to raise the child as a recognized son.

Rannulf leaned over to kiss his wife and felt within him the still glowing embers of their passion for each other. But she drew away with a contented sigh, slid back down beneath the bedclothes, and into her dreams. He watched her with a touch of envy. Perhaps it was her convent upbringing that taught her to fall so quickly and deeply into sleep, in order to squeeze as much rest as possible between night services. Whatever it was, he hadn’t the knack of it. He settled back against the bed wall, his thoughts drifting to the past evening.

When they'd entered their bedchamber she'd been angered to discover someone had dismantled the bed John and Maeve had used and returned their own bed to its rightful place. It had taken more than a little talking to convince her that there was time enough on the morrow to speak with her maids over this supposed act of insubordination. He, on the other hand, had understood completely the meaning behind her bed's return along with the can of water warming on the hearth for washing, the tray of foods on the table, and the ewer of wine with two cups beside it. This was Ilsa's handiwork. She, better than anyone else, understood what happened between her lord and lady this day, for she had been his stepmother's loving slave.

But then, so had he. Ermina had taken him into her heart as her son almost from the moment of her arrival at Graistan. Even after she bore her own children, the love that lay between them hadn’t changed.

So, Ilsa felt that he and his wife weren’t so different from his father and his stepmother, did she? He smiled against the memory of his parents' many arguments, some of which were legendary among Graistan's servants. Lord, but they had been a fiery pair. Yet Ermina had always known just how to sweeten her sting and God's teeth, how his father had loved her. When she died, Henry had gone with her, although he lived on another three years after her death.

When Rannulf remembered his father's pain, the years of loneliness after his wife's passing, he frowned. To love a woman so deeply was perhaps not such a good thing. Women died too easily. He knew that well enough, having lost mother, stepmother and two wives already. Then he shrugged away the thought.

There was no reason to believe he would care for his wife the way his father loved his stepmother. That was a rare thing indeed. More likely, their marriage would become a sort of partnership; she in command of her own sphere and he in his, both equal in their own right while respecting the other's abilities and sharing their children. Although he did not deny his attraction and desire for her, desire wasn’t love.

His wife shifted slightly. He looked down at her and couldn’t resist touching her hair. It was sleek and soft against his fingers. Tonight, when she combed it before the fire, light gleamed through the thin shift she wore to boldly outline the lush curves and tight lines of her body. As she moved the material would now and again stretch taut against her breasts until he could clearly see the outline of her nipples. He'd been so deeply engrossed in watching her that he forgot his own tasks until she took washcloth and water can from him to bathe herself.

Again he smiled. But he hadn’t relinquished them. Instead, he washed her, taking care to wet every morsel of her skin. When he finished with the cloth, he’d done it again, this time with his mouth until she cried out in full realization of her pleasure. Nor had that been the end of it. He hadn’t ceased his ministrations until she once again cried out and he found his own enjoyment within her. Desire was most certainly enough.

Rannulf sighed, his thoughts then drifting inevitably back to Gilliam. He’d been fourteen and a squire well on his way to earning his spurs when his youngest brother was born. All had seemed well at first. His father wrote full of pride that even at his age, he’d sired yet another son. Then something went wrong. The moment of his foster-father telling him the news remained forever fixed in his mind. It had been so hard to imagine Ermina dead.

He supposed he could have hated the baby for her death, but instead he'd done as he was certain his stepmother would have wanted. He vowed to care for her son as she had cared for him. Yet, all his intentions had come to naught, and today he destroyed what remained of his relationship with Gilliam by a jealous accusation that he'd known was untrue the moment the words left his mouth.

"Too late," Rannulf said in pained regret. "I hope you can forgive me, Ermina, and know that I did try."

"Lie beside me, my heart," his wife murmured, speaking to Jordan from deep in her sleep. "It’s only a dream and all will be well in the morning."

Rannulf loosed a short, bittersweet laugh, then did as she bid. Once he gathered her into his arms, he drifted slowly into an easy and dreamless state.