The Lily and the Sword (Medieval 1)

“Thank you,” Alice replied stiffly. “I am most grateful.” She turned away.

“Alice…” The word was out before he could prevent it.

She turned and stared at him coldly. She wasn’t going to help him, thought Jervois. She was going to make him work hard for every crumb.

“Alice, I would that I was a man with land and power, but I am nothing. A captain, that is all. I have nothing to offer you.”

Her expression softened. “Have you not some prospects?” she asked eagerly. “I…if I do not name a man soon, my father will marry me to Sir Othric, and he is old. I know you do not know me, and I do not know you, but I feel as if I do, Jervois.”

Jervois met her blue, blue eyes. “Sir Othric? The old man with the…the warts, who was at Rennoc when I came?” He swallowed, holding back a shudder. “Well, he is rich at least. I cannot compete with such as he. Your father would laugh if I tried.”

“Ask Lord Radulf to help,” Alice replied briskly. “If he looked favorably upon us, then so would my father.”

Jervois stiffened. “Ask Lord Radulf? I do not beg favors.”

Alice grew cold. “You are lucky you do not need to!”

Jervois wondered why she could not see that it was no use. “I have to tend Lord Radulf,” he went on in a more restrained voice. “And you must go home.”

Alice spun on her heel and stalked toward the door. Angrily, Jervois bawled out orders, sending men scuttling after her. Women! He was better off without one.

When Lily returned with the wine, Radulf had been stripped of his chain mail, his tunic and undershirt. He sat bare-chested and dripping with sweat, black hair plastered to his head. He took the goblet she held out to him and drained it, then returned it for more. Lily poured, hands shaking. His shoulder appeared deformed and very swollen. She imagined that the longer it took for the deed to be done, the more painful it would be.

“Where is Jervois?” she demanded, her voice shrill with worry. “Jervois!”

“Here, lady.” The grim-faced captain stepped forward. He watched Radulf down another goblet of wine. “’Tis time,” he said.

What followed made Lily feel sick, and Radulf sicker. After one abortive try, Jervois popped his shoulder back into place. Everyone sighed with relief. Radulf was white-faced, his eyes squeezed shut and his lips a thin, pale line.

Jervois wiped his own dripping brow. “You must rest now, Lord Radulf,” he said, as if Radulf could do else.

Radulf grunted. Then, rallying himself, he said, “My thanks yet again, my friend.”

At the door, Lily placed a gentle hand on the captain’s arm. “Thank you, Jervois.”

Jervois managed a smile. “Keep him here, lady. If he moves that arm too rigorously too soon, it will slip out of its socket again. He might listen to you.”

But would he? Lily asked herself wryly, as she closed the door. Even in his weakened state, Radulf was still Radulf. She felt immeasurably weary; her wet clothes hung heavy upon her and her tangled hair dripped. She wanted nothing more than to soak in a hot bath or crawl into bed and close her eyes. But there was still much to do, and no one to do it but she.

Radulf was hunched on the side of the bed. His head was bowed, and the bare expanse of his back gleamed in the firelight. Instantly Lily’s own discomforts were swept away on a wave of longing. Her fingers itched to touch. Her cautious voice told her to restrain them, to hide her need, but she ignored it. Radulf had been hurt, and as his wife, she had the right to tend him. To touch him. Certainly she had more right than Lady Anna Kenton!

She drew closer. Just this once she would touch him, pretend that all was well between them. He was hurt and distracted. Perhaps he would not notice. Carefully, gently, Lily slid her hand down the long, smooth planes of his back.

Radulf started, a little jolt of movement. Lily stilled her hand but kept it where it was, waiting. He did not speak, and after a moment some of the tension eased out of him. Slowly, hesitantly, as if she were approaching a wild, untamed creature, Lily leaned closer. Wild and untamed he might be, but Radulf’s body was everything she had ever dreamed of in her Norse god Thor. Powerful and graceful, and yet the skin so sleek over those hard, curving muscles. She cupped her other hand around the column of his neck, her fingers exerting some pressure as she began to rub the knots from rigid muscles.

Radulf closed his eyes with a grateful groan.

She stood behind him, yet he had never been more aware of her. The stroke of her fingers on his flesh had grown firmer, more insistent as she gained confidence. His body, bruised and battered, went limp. And still, that part that made him a man more than any other tightened with the desire that was never far away.

“Lily,” he gasped.

She stopped. “Did I hurt you?”

Radulf shook his head. “No.” Suddenly he moved, catching her about the waist with his good arm and tumbling her down into his lap. Lily cried out breathlessly, turning wide eyes upon him when her hip brushed against the hard ridge of his manhood.

He stared down at her, his chest rising and falling heavily. Her clothing was damp, but he did not notice; instead he felt the soft body beneath her garments and experienced the full power of those stormy gray eyes.

“Do not think to distract me. What were you doing at St. Mary’s Chapel?” His tone was deceptively mild. When she didn’t answer he leaned his face closer to hers, his breath warm and redolent of the wine with which he had fortified himself, his eyes glittering with determination and fever.