“What?” Durand dropped his hands to his sides. The vial slipped from his fingers to roll away. “You were resisting me?”
Cristina snatched up a length of linen, knelt, and wiped away the wet stain. “Aye, ‘tis a simple matter to make a resistance potion. Any good herbalist can do it.”
Durand shook his head and paced about the small sleeping space surrounded by stores and goods from cloth to casks of pickled herring. “You were resisting me. Mon Dieu. Would that you had made such a potion for me weeks ago.”
She sat back on her heels and dropped the cloth, her expression stricken.
“I can still do so, my lord.” The words were like thorns on her tongue.
“Nay, resistance is not what I desire.” He raked his hands through his hair. “I thought you had poison. That you wanted to end… What is the matter with me? You, of all women, do not lack courage.”
He extended his hand. Hers was cool and smooth in his. He pulled her to her feet. They stood there, hands clasped. “Do you truly wish to resist me?” he asked softly.
In answer she tugged her hand away and headed for the ladder. He followed her down. Felice lay nestled in her sheepskin, eyes closed, lips moving as if she suckled in her sleep.
“You have not answered me,” Durand said when Cristina took up her stick and stirred the laundry with great vigor. “Do you want to resist me?”
She sighed and looked at him over the rising steam. “Verily, you are not the smartest man in Christendom, are you?”
Her insult made him grin. “Lest I completely shame myself, let me guess why you felt a need to drink a resistance potion.”
All signs of amusement left his face. Cristina thought him the finest man she had ever seen. Every line of his face, from his stubborn jaw to his noble nose, reminded her that his birth and ancestors destined him for another, more worthy woman.
Durand pulled the paddle from her hand and cast it aside. “You took a resistance potion because you are as hopelessly bewitched by me as I am by you. But, in truth, you do not want to resist this thing between us any more than I.”
She shook her bowed head.
He folded her into his embrace. The back of her gown was damp beneath his hands. “The king has plans for me, else you would be mine, claimed this instant, part of my body and blood.”
How his words touched her with joy and equally with sorrow.
“I understand,” she said, the words barely making it past her tongue. “You must act for your sons, as all barons do.”
“I did not speak lightly when I said you’re to take Felice and go. Besides the king and queen there is someone here who aided Simon, and that person is still unknown. Until I return, I will not rest easy with you here unprotected. I shall have Father Laurentius will arrange everything that your days shall be filled with joy. Never will you want for anything from now until the day you die.”
He did not understand. There would be no joy without him. And that thought pierced the shield about her heart.
She squeezed his waist and rubbed her nose on his chest. “We will miss you.” How little the words meant when she wanted to cry out at the unfairness of it all.
He tipped up her chin. “I spoke to the king in hopes he might find Lady Nona another husband. He did not look kindly on my wish to be shed of her. In truth there are many who might make a fine match for her, but John will use this as a stick to beat me into submission. Should I refuse to wed Lady Nona, John will seize both her property and mine.”
Cristina went to the window and threw open the shutters. The rain had stopped, but the sky was still filled with clouds. The view was not the heady one from the high towers of Ravenswood, but still, it soothed her.
He had no choice but to wed Lady Nona. The fact that he had tried to slip from the king’s plans polished some of the raw edge off her pain.
She looked over her shoulder at Felice. She knew it was likely the babe would wake when it was least propitious, but she wanted this last moment with him.
He went to her and hugged her, but loosely. His heart beat with a slow thud against her cheek.
“We have said this before,” she began. “And if I had drunk the potion, I might not say it now, and yet each time I mean it.” Cristina leaned back to see his expression. Her heart raced. “I wish with all my heart that we might… That is…”
“Just once more,” he finished for her, then settled his lips on hers. Every fiber of his being flashed hot when she moved her body against his. He kissed down the damp line of her throat and chest, down her middle until he knelt before her.
He ran his hands up the backs of her legs to her hips as his mouth pressed to the apex of her thighs.
To do just this, on her skin, to breathe her essence, to rub his cheek against the smooth skin of her belly, would be paradise.
She crumpled to the floor, her skirts at her waist. He touched a kiss to the tender flesh on the inside of her knee.
“Durand.” His name was sweet on her lips. “Undress for me. I want to feel your body against mine.”
He did as bidden and watched her as she also disrobed. He spread his tunic on the floor.
“Now,” she whispered, and put out her hand.
But he shook his head in denial of her request. There was something raging within him, something so frantic that if he let it loose, he might harm her.
He took her hand and guided it to his hot flesh. “Touch me,” he said. She made a soft, breathy sound in her throat. Her fingers curled about him.
He whispered, conscious of his daughter who slumbered so close by. “What more can a man wish than to lay with the woman who is all he desires?”
The full, ripe shape of her body drew him with unmerciful need. Her hand was no longer gentle. She urged and inflamed.
“There is no resistance potion strong enough to combat this,” he said against the smooth skin of her shoulder. Shocks of sensation cascaded from his belly to his feet. He floated on the edge of madness, saved only when she let him go.
She fisted her hands in his hair and arched to the kiss he placed on her breast, then lower and lower to her inner thigh. Her body bloomed with the scent and heat of passion’s thrall.
When his lips moved to the core of her, she gave a sharp exclamation, bitten off before it escalated to more.
He breathed the heady scent of her and licked up the sweet essence that would envelop and ease his way.
“Durand.” She gasped when he moved up her body.
Her nails bit into his arms as he thrust into her heat. For several long moments he held himself still, gazing into her eyes, combing her hair from her brow, examining the precious face that would soon be seen only in his memories. “How can just once be enough?” he asked.
“You rule my heart, my lord,” she said. Tears slipped from her eyes. He lapped them with his tongue and then drew their moisture across her trembling lips.
Her heart raced against his hand when he placed his palm to her breast. “As much as I thought I knew of making love…” He gasped as her hips lifted beneath him. “Yet until you…I knew nothing of being loved,” he said.
With an iron will, he held himself in check against a quick end, knowing it would be their last. As slowly as if he measured precious gold, he slid in and then out of her. Her hands roamed his back, buttocks, hips, shoulders, and hair. She whispered his name again and again along with indistinguishable sounds of suppressed passion.
“Hold nothing from me, Cristina.”
He thought his heart might cease its beat when she pulled his head near and whispered. “I love you,” she said so softly he thought he might have dreamed it.
Then she gasped, her thighs tightening on his hips. She had found her pleasure. Still, he waited. He fought a need to move, to give in to it, until each pulse of her body had stilled.
When she settled beneath him, he rose over her. Outside the window, a thrum of raven’s wings beat time to the pulse of his ending.