14

ALYS LISTENED INTENTLY TILL the last noises faded from the anteroom. Not until the thud of a door closing in the distance put an end to all sound but that of the crackling fire did she dare to peep round the bed curtains at her husband.

He stood with his back to the hearth, surveying the room, and she wondered what he was thinking. Since he had married her by royal command for the purpose of controlling her estate, she could not believe he had any strong feelings beyond, perhaps, thinking her a nuisance. She hoped he would be kind to her, and she wished she could discern his thoughts from his expression.

He moved at last toward the dressing table, stepping around the tub, pulling off his hat with one hand while he removed the heavy gold-link chain he wore with the other. Large as the room was after Alys’s small, stark chamber, he seemed to fill it as she, the splendid furniture, and five other women had not.

She swallowed, gripping the covers closer than ever, her knuckles aching, her heart pounding so hard she could hear it.

He turned his head to look at her over his shoulder. “Art still awake, madam wife? Do not fall asleep just yet. ’Twould be no good way to begin our marriage.”

She swallowed again, managed to mutter, “No, sir,” and continued to watch him through wide, wary eyes. She had not paid particular heed earlier to his attire, for it was much like that of the other men, but now she was fascinated by every thread.

He shrugged off his black velvet gown and laid it with his hat on a coffer near the wardrobe, then straightened, his hands going to the gold fastenings of his satin doublet. She watched silently while he undid them, one by one, with deft twists of his fingers, and removed his doublet to set it aside on the stool. His shirt was snow-white and of the finest linen, its sleeves softly draped, its body molding his broad chest and shoulders. Standing in only his hose and shirt, his back view reflected in the glass behind him, he was magnificent.

He smiled at her, and her heart leapt, stopping her breath and setting her every nerve atingle. “I brought no servant with me,” he said. “Will you make me continue my disrobing unaided?”

She stared at him, dismayed. “I … I am un—unclothed, sir,” she stammered.

“I had not believed otherwise, but ’tis a natural state, is it not? And I am now your husband.”

She had promised to obey him. In fact, as she recalled the words, she had promised to be meek and obedient in bed and at board. And here she was in bed, but meekly obedient was the last thing she wanted to be. Were it possible to vanish from his sight, to pull the covers over her head one moment and put them down the next to find herself safely back at Middleham with Anne of Gloucester, she would not hesitate for an instant.

But Sir Nicholas was waiting.

Alys said between her teeth, “Sir, I cannot. I am not accustomed to walking about before a man without my clothing. I am sorry to displease you, but I cannot do it.”

“Walk about?” His brow creased in puzzlement, and then he grinned at her. “By the bones of St. David, wife, you have a robe there on the bed, do you not? I did not mean you to serve me naked—not just at present,” he added, his grin becoming more roguish. “Later, we will consider the matter.”

To her surprise, instead of shocking her, his words sent a river of warm blood coursing through her veins, and while her pulses raced, in the pit of her stomach a new sensation stirred, one she could not identify but had no desire to suppress. It radiated downward, making her aware of a part of her anatomy to which she rarely gave much thought, but a part from which every nerve now seemed to emanate. Nervously she licked her lips.

When he chuckled she realized that he had been watching for her reaction, and she saw at once that it had stimulated him. She could feel a crackling in the air between them now that had not been there before. “Put your robe on, madam,” he said, “and I will show you how a proper wife ought to behave.”

“And how,” she demanded with spirit as she leaned forward, still clutching the bedclothes about her, to reach for the green silk robe, “do you know aught about proper wives?”

His eyes opened wide with innocence. “Why, my mother taught me, of course. She has long insisted upon serving my father in just such a way, preferring to attend to his personal wants in the place of our servants. Do you disapprove?”

She drew the robe around her shoulders, hoping he would not offer to help her, and grateful when he remained where he was, though he did continue to watch her. There was an awkward moment when she had to let go of the bedclothes to clutch the robe close across her breasts, but she managed it at last, and arranged the material around her as best she could before pushing back the covers and sliding barefoot to the floor.

There was a sash to the robe, and she tied it tight, feeling nonetheless vulnerable in the thin garment with her hair tumbling down her back. Her toes wiggled in the soft dark fur of the rug near the bed, and she waited for his next command.

Nicholas had been watching her, and she saw that the warmth in his eyes had deepened to a more sensual, more carnal look that made her heart beat faster. As if he sensed her alarm, he turned away just then to the dressing table, and hearing a popping sound and a clink, she realized that among the other things on the table there must have been a bottle and goblets. He turned back, a gold-edged silver goblet in each hand. “Gifts from his noble grace,” he said quietly. “He thought solid gold too heavy for you, and had these made. Each bears our name and device.”

Reminded that she now had her own device, she looked down at the ring on her finger, then up at him, saying shyly, “Thank you for my ring, sir, and for my jeweled girdle. Both are wonderful gifts. I only wish I had a proper gift for you.”

“You do, mi geneth,” he said, his voice low in his throat, “you do.” When her only response was a deep flush, he handed her one of the goblets, watching her turn it in her hand to examine the engravings. He frowned when she did not drink. “The wine will relax you, you know.”

She gave him a twinkling look and said, “Verily, sir, ’tis not relaxation I fear but interior strife. My stomach has accepted a great deal of wine tonight, and only since my bath has it ceased its protesting. I’d as lief not test its patience.”

He shook his head in amusement but said, “You cannot disappoint our Harry. He was vastly pleased with his goblets, intending them to be used for this purpose, and he will ask me if ’twas successful. Would you have me banished from court for disdaining their use or, worse, for disobeying my king?”

“You need not tell him.”

His eyebrows flew upward in pretended shock. “You think it better that I lie to my sovereign liege lord? You surprise me.”

Alys, her judgment dimmed by wine, and her sense of humor stirred by his teasing, managed a casual shrug and said, “He is only a Lancastrian, after all. What can he care about truth?”

Sir Nicholas’s amusement vanished on the instant, and he snapped, “You must not talk so. I forbid it.”

She opened her mouth to offer a saucy suggestion as to what he could do with such undesirable orders but remembered in time, and with a jolt of shock, that since he was now her husband there could well be unpleasant consequences to such a speech. Warmth flooded her countenance, and she lowered her eyelids, still watching him through her lashes, weighing courage born of too much wine against the likelihood of arousing his temper.

He nodded with satisfaction. “You do well to think before you speak,” he said. “Continue the practice. And now, I pray you, madam, take one small sip of that wine, so that I may in good conscience tell our king how much we enjoyed his gift.”

She obeyed, feeling the warmth of the wine soothe her all the way to her stomach. It was heady stuff, and the languor that had begun to abate came back in full force. She drank more deeply and felt herself begin to sway where she stood. When his hands came to her elbows to steady her, she leaned toward him, sighing when his arms went around her and he drew her close.

He murmured softly against her curls, and not understanding his words, she looked up at him curiously. “What did you say?”

He chuckled, the sound low, caressing. “Madam wife, I must teach you Welsh. ’Twill make matters far easier. I said that you are like the wine itself, deep, intoxicating, and delicious. But I suppose you have heard such compliments all your life.”

“Not like those,” she said in surprise. “Why should I?”

“As beautiful as you are, you need to ask? I have had to avoid you of late to keep my lust from overcoming my good sense.”

“Am I so beautiful?” she said, glad to hear he had reason for his apparent neglect, but fearing to put too much faith in his words. He was ambitious. He had said so, and she was as certain now as before that he had accepted their betrothal and marriage with grace because of the wealth she had brought him. Now it appeared that he had also been prompted by lust. She could see it in his silent response to her question, and she knew that men could be motivated by their desires. Had not two women stirred the powerful King Edward to promises of wedlock with only their wiles and the alluring curves and cushions of their bodies? Women had very few weapons with which to sway men or to protect themselves, so it was gratifying to learn that she could arouse Sir Nicholas. However, recalling earlier attempts to influence him with her feminine wiles, she said, “I remember that you did once avow a preference for dark-haired, coal-eyed women.”

“Such women are well enough,” he murmured outrageously, his lips brushing her curls lightly before he set down his goblet and brought his hand to her chin, tilting her face up so that he might kiss her properly.

She had kissed many men, for kissing was not an uncommon greeting in the area where she had grown up, but she had never been kissed as he kissed her. His lips were warm and possessive, taking hers, tasting them, caressing and exploring them; and she found herself responding as though she had been doing such things all her life. She still held her goblet in her hand, and when he took it from her, she scarcely noticed. He put it behind him, meaning to set it on the table beside his own but misjudging the distance. When it fell to the floor neither of them noticed. His other hand had begun to explore her body, and now both hands began to move slowly, tantalizingly, over the smooth silk robe. Before long, he found the sash and loosed it, slipping his hands beneath the silk to her bare skin. She trembled.

“Your skin is as smooth as the silk, and my hands are rough,” he murmured. “Tell me if I hurt you.”

“You don’t,” she said quickly, afraid he would stop. She had never imagined feelings like those filling her body now. Her senses soared, and when his palms moved across the tips of her breasts, first one then the other, her eyes closed and she stopped breathing altogether, tensing, her mind focused totally on the sensations his touch created within her.

He caressed her gently for a long moment, while her breasts strained toward his touch, before his hands moved to her shoulders, to slip the silk from her skin. With a light, swishing sound, the robe slithered to the floor, a green puddle at her feet, but Alys paid it no heed, waiting blind and breathless until the magic hands returned to work their wonder.

Suddenly, Nicholas pulled her close, one hand again stroking her breasts, while the other moved behind, over her slim back to her narrow waist. He kissed her mouth again and then her cheeks, her eyes; and Alys stood, a supple statue now, letting him work his will with her, delighting in her body’s response.

“Kiss me, little wife. Do to me as I do to you.”

Her eyes opened in shock at the thought of fondling him as he fondled her, but then curiosity crept in, touching her mind, stirring her body to movement. He straightened, easing the strain of his position, so he did not seem quite so close, so intimidating. Her hands moved to his face, feeling the light stubble of his beard, for he had not been shaved since morning. Next she touched his lips, his nose, his eyes, and when he smiled, she stood on tiptoe to kiss him lightly on the lips.

“Don’t stop,” he said when she leaned back to see how he was reacting, “unless you’ve a wish to uncase me from the rest of my clothing. ’Tis most difficult for me to undo my shirt laces and hose points all by myself.”

Her lips twitched, but she discovered that the thought of uncasing him was not a disturbing one. At least, not disturbing in the usual sense of the word. His nearness did disturb her, but her curiosity by now was overwhelming. Her fingers moved to the lacing on his shirt. A moment later, the shirt had joined her robe on the floor and her hands were exploring his chest, fingers moving through a forest of dark hair, while her eyes fixed with interest upon the movements of his breathing. To her amazement, she could tell from the change in the way he inhaled that she was arousing him more, and the knowledge delighted her. She looked up, smiling, seeing in his eyes the pleasure he felt.

Instinctively, she wanted to tease him. She began to touch his chest lightly all over, exploring its contours, spreading her palms across the forest of hair so lightly that the hairs tickled her hands, then pressing harder as though she would push him away. He resisted automatically, watching her, and she pushed harder to see what would happen.

He shook his head. “You’d never win a match of strength, lass. Continue with your task.”

“I warrant you’d like to have a bath, sir,” she said daringly. “The tub yonder has been used but once this night, so the water is nearly fresh.”

“Wouldst bathe me, madam wife?” he murmured. “Wouldst rub me all over with thy perfumed sponge? Everywhere?”

She blushed. “’Tis, as you once pointed out to me, sir, but common practice in most households.” Suddenly, she realized she would like nothing better than to have the opportunity to see his body, to be able to run a sponge over every inch of it. The thought was nerve-tingling. Her senses threatened to overcome her, and the warmth in her cheeks now was like fire. She wondered if the task of bathing a man always filled the bather with such feelings. She looked at the wooden tub, which was behind him, to the left of the hearth, then back at him.

Nicholas laughed. “The water in that tub must be like ice, so you must wait for another opportunity, wife. I have no intention either of subjecting myself to torture or of waiting until hot water can be produced.”

She sighed, making him laugh again, and he said, “You delay matters, madam. I would have my lower half uncased as well. You may begin with my shoes.”

Conscious as she had not been before of her own state of nakedness, Alys bent quickly to retrieve her robe. Nicholas’s eyes glinted with laughter, and for a moment, holding the robe before her while she removed his shoes, she feared he would forbid her to put it back on when she stood up, but he did not. He assisted her, smoothing the silk into place over her breasts in such a way as to make her gasp at the sensations he caused.

“I like a responsive wench,” he said, grinning.

Flames of jealousy leapt within her. Just as she had never before experienced the physical feelings he stirred, she had not known she could feel such fiery hostility. “I warrant,” she said grimly, “that you have known a vast number of such women.”

“Oh, not so many,” he said, catching her hands when she would have tied her sash, drawing them instead to the ties of his codpiece. When she would have pulled them away again, he held them tightly, looking down into her eyes. “Unlace me, lass. I want you, and I am not a patient man.”

She had noticed before that the codpiece, that flap of cloth forming a pocket at the fork of his knitted silk hose, bulged to contain his private parts; but now, as he spoke, the cloth strained all the more. He grew larger before her very eyes. He released her, and reluctantly, tentatively, she reached to apply her fingers to the lacing.

“Ah, yes, madam, you will learn,” he murmured, slipping his hands again beneath the silk of her robe to tease her breasts.

Startled, she stepped away from him, protesting, “But I thought—You let me put it back on!”

“Only so that I might have the pleasure of removing it again,” he said. “Come here to me.” When she did so, licking her lips and then, when he merely stood waiting, raising her hands to his laces again, he said, “Perchance you will become an obedient wench in time if you are but properly guided.”

Alys gritted her teeth, looking up from her task to say, “I will do as I must, sir, but I pray you, do not taunt me.”

“But, mi geneth,” he said softly, reaching out now to caress her again where the robe fell open, “you must heed whatever I say to you, must you not, now that we are wed? ’Tis the law of God, and of man, as well. You must obey my commands and serve me as a proper wife serves her husband, or suffer the penalties. Just as, for similar good reason,” he added with another, less easily decipherable note in his voice, “you will learn in time to alter your political opinions in order to accord them with mine.”

Alys went still, her hands loosing their hold on his laces, so that the flap slipped and her fingers suddenly encountered bare skin. Snatching her hand away, she said fiercely, “I doubt that I shall ever do any such thing, sir.”

“Oh, I think you will do just as you are told, my little Yorkist,” he said, capturing her hand again and putting it back where it had been, pressing it against his flesh, watching her, his expression challenging her to defy him. “You are my wife now and thus will soon become a good Lancastrian.” He released her hand, watching to see if she would dare take it away.

She drew a long breath, measuring his mood, considering her options. They were near the fire, and the tub was just behind him to his left. She moved slightly, feeling that sense of power again when he turned with her, his ardent gaze fixed now upon the rise and fall of her breasts. “Women,” she said quietly, “have from time to time been known to exert strong influence over their husbands, sir. I might change you into a good Yorkist instead.”

“Never,” he said firmly. “I am not such a fool.”

“Fool, sir?” She turned a little more. “That makes twice tonight that you have named me fool. Do you truly think me one?”

“Nay, mi geneth, for you will change,” he said, grinning at her and confidently putting his fists on his hips as he pressed himself more firmly against her hand.

“I think you must be taught that we Yorkists are not so easily commanded, Welshman!” As she snapped the words, she smacked both her hands flat against his chest and, her strength increased by her anger, gave him a powerful shove.

Had the tub not been so close behind him, he might have saved himself, but when he stepped backward to regain his balance, his leg hit the side of the tub, and down he went. Even so, his coordination and strength after years of training to be a soldier were such that he only sat down hard, catching the sides of the tub as he did, and sending a flood of the chilly water over the stone floor. His legs bent absurdly over the rim.

When he fell, he reached out reflexively for Alys. Only the fact that she leapt backward, appalled by her temerity and stunned by its result, kept him from taking her down with him. When she saw him about to heave himself out again, she spun toward the door, her robe billowing behind her, her primary impulse being to seek safety as far from him as she could run.

“Don’t touch that door!”

She had nearly reached it, but his tone, if not the words, stopped her in her tracks. She turned back slowly, drawing her robe protectively around her, to see that he had hauled himself out and was standing, dripping, by the tub.

“Come here.”

She swallowed hard. By rights, with wet silk clinging to his powerful legs and his codpiece hanging open, its contents exposed and considerably diminished in size, Nicholas ought to have looked ridiculous, but Alys felt no inclination to laugh. His fury was tangible. She felt its waves from across the chamber. She saw it in his eyes, in his countenance, in the very way he stood. What little courage she had left evaporated at the sight. She remained where she was.

“I said, come here.”

“What will you do?”

His eyes narrowed. He said, “I have been told of an English tradition called the rule of thumb. Do you know of it?”

She nodded, biting her lower lip. A man was not supposed to beat his wife with a stick thicker than his thumb.

“In Wales,” Nicholas went on, “one law fixes the proper penalty for a wife’s insolence at three blows of a broomstick on any part of her except her head, or a more thorough thrashing with a switch the length of her husband’s arm and the thickness of his middle finger.” He held out his right hand as though to examine it. “Which shall it be, mi geneth, England or Wales?”

She had never before thought his hand could look so large. And although he had no stick, and she doubted that he would send for one, she was well aware that in England—and no doubt in Wales, as well—a man might legally, and at any time, use his hand alone to correct an erring wife.

“Well?” His hands were on his hips again, his feet slightly apart. Indeed, he stood precisely as he would have stood fully clothed, as though he had no awareness of his seminaked state or of the fact that he still dripped rivers of water on the floor.

Challenged, Alys drew a steadying breath, straightened her shoulders, and looked him in the eye. “You ought not to have provoked me, sir. You taunted me. I asked you not to do so.”

His jaw tightened visibly in response to her words, and a thrill of fear shot through her, but there was an arrested look in his eyes. He said thoughtfully, “You have courage, little wife, but I am not convinced that you have wisdom. Come here.”

His tone was gentler now than it had been before, less threatening. Bracing herself, she took several steps toward him, and when his demeanor did not alter, she went on until she stood before him, her gaze locked with his. The stone floor was wet beneath her feet, but she did not look down.

“Take off your robe,” he said.

Still watching him, she raised her hands and slid the silk back over her shoulders, then lowered her arms and let the robe slip down them and fall to the floor. His breath caught audibly in his throat, and in that moment she thought he might begin to caress her again, and hoped that perhaps the danger was past.

“Continue with your task,” he murmured huskily.

Her gaze flitted briefly, involuntarily, downward, and to her amazement, she saw that he had grown again. The sight was an unnerving one, and she glanced back at his face uncertainly.

“Do you wish to defy me further?” he asked in a tone that made it clear the danger had not passed after all. But when she shook her head, a twinkle crept into his eyes, and he said, “I did not think to spend my wedding night conversing in sodden hose, madam. Make haste, lest despite the fire on that hearth and the one that burns within me, I fall victim to an ague.”

Reaching out to touch the wet silk with one hand, then with both, she tugged, tentatively at first and then when the material did not submit, more forcefully; but the task was not an easy one, and Nicholas did not help her. He stood as he had been standing, feet still apart, doing nothing to assist her, and before she finally succeeded, Alys felt as if she had indulged in a tug of war. The wet silk clung as though it had been glued to him, making it necessary for her to peel first one side a bit and then the other until at last she had them all the way down.

She looked up at him then. “You must lift your feet, sir. I cannot do that for you.”

He complied and, free of his wet things, bent down without warning, scooped her up in his arms, and carried her to the bed.

“You must dry yourself,” she protested, enjoying nonetheless the sense of being carried like a child in his arms. His skin felt warm, not chilled at all.

“Be quiet,” he said gruffly, placing her on the bed, turning back to snuff the candles, then climbing in beside her. As he leaned over her, his lips close to hers, he murmured, “We have waited overlong, mi geneth. We’ve a duty to be done, a holy obligation to consummate our marriage.”

“I am afraid, sir,” she murmured back, speaking the first words that came to her mind but thinking at the same moment that though he was so large, so powerful a man, and now her husband, the words were not true. She had defied him, made him angry, even physically assaulted him; yet, he had not retaliated as he might have done. He had frightened her, to be sure, but he had controlled his anger, and now she was not so much frightened of him as apprehensive of what lay ahead.

She said none of these things to him in the silence that followed, and she realized suddenly from his expression, lit by the glow of the dying fire, that he had been taken aback by her confession of fear.

“I will not hurt you if I can avoid it,” he said softly. “I will go slowly.”

And he did, kissing, stroking, caressing, and teasing her, preparing her so thoroughly, in fact, that by the time he claimed her she was moaning, burning for him, her body alive and yearning for his. And if the claiming itself was not so pleasant, the ache that followed became a small part of the memories that lingered. Before she slept, she lay beside him, looking into the darkness overhead, distantly aware of a few last cracks from the dying embers on the hearth, and filled with wonder that a mere man could make a woman experience such marvelous feelings. She wondered, too, if she had stirred similar feelings in him.