She said nothing, and he realized indeed how much she’d changed. She was willing to accept his word. “You really have changed since we left England.”
“There has been little chance for me to commit the sin of angering you.”
“All you need is opportunity, and we would be at each other’s throats again? Is that what you mean?”
Jerval lightly touched his fingertips to the tendrils of hair on her forehead and brushed them back. “Do you know that you would look beautiful with your belly rounded with child?”
She turned away from him, looking out over the gardens. “I lost a child. It hurt, Jerval, both my body and my spirit.”
“I know. I remember, too well. All the blood, your screams. It was very bad, Chandra. I am also sorry for blaming you. I was wrong. I hope you can forgive me. You know, of course, that Camberley must have an heir.”
“Aye, I know. Since you are with me each night now, I will probably conceive your heir a long way from Camberley.”
“I will keep you safe if you do conceive. I do not want you to be afraid.”
“I am, but it doesn’t matter. What we do each night—I don’t wish you to stop and thus I will have no choice in whether or not I conceive.”
“I know.”
She thought of his mouth on hers, the feel of him deep inside her, pushing and pushing until she was screaming with the pleasure of it, holding him tightly.
“You haven’t cried.”
She knew exactly what he was talking about. She said only, not looking at him, “I do not understand it.”
“Change,” he said. “You are changing.”
“And so are you, Jerval. You are changing back to the man I married.”
Was he? he wondered.
A silent Sicilian woman had brought Chandra buckets of steaming, lavender-scented water for her bath, and at Chandra’s distracted wave, had left her. Chandra sat on an ornately carved stool in her bedchamber, her legs resting over the side of the wooden tub, soaping herself as was her custom before rinsing herself in the clear water. She was thinking of Croyland, of the days before her marriage, when she had competed with Jerval in every sport she could devise. She could practically hear his laughter mingling with hers, hear his voice teasing her. She had
felt a sense of freedom, and of belonging with him then. Her washcloth slowed its path over her breasts as she remembered watching him riding tall and ramrod-straight in his saddle, his lance held firmly in his strong hand, his eyes bright with concentration as he galloped Pith toward Rolfe on the tiltyard. She remembered the sunlight illuminating the darker golden streaks in his hair the day he had galloped toward her on the promontory. She sighed, and felt her body still pulsing from the early morning when he’d awakened her, his mouth on her breast, his hand on her belly, kneading her, then going lower until she was panting.
She did not know herself. She was not what she’d been, she realized, and Jerval knew it as well. It pleased him. She wondered what was happening to her.
Jerval opened the door of their chamber, grumbling silently at himself for his stupidity. He had forgotten a sheaf of notes Edward needed for discussions with King Charles. He drew to a halt, all thoughts of the notes wiped immediately from his mind. Chandra sat naked on a stool beside a wooden tub, her profile toward him, her back arched as she trailed a soapy cloth downward over her shoulders. He watched her touch the cloth as would a gentle lover over her breasts. She threw her head back, showing him the graceful line of her throat. She looked exquisite, her firm breasts thrusting outward, almost too heavy now for her slender torso. His eyes dropped downward to her waist, so slight that he could encircle her with his hands. He had, just that morning.
She began to hum softly to herself as she rubbed the soapy cloth downward over her belly. When she at last parted her thighs and touched herself, slowly caressing the cloth over herself, he was hard, painfully so. It had happened so very quickly. At last he recognized the song she was humming, a song of love she herself had written and sung to him, in all innocence, he knew, long ago at Croyland.
She rose slowly and leaned over to rinse the cloth in the water and wring it lazily over her body. His eyes swept down her long legs, sleek and smooth, endlessly beautiful legs. In that instant, she saw him. For a long, still moment, she simply stared at him, her eyes locked on his, the cloth quiet in her hand.
Jerval could think of nothing but her, being inside her, kissing her, every bit of her. He strode to her and closed his hands about her waist, lifting her to him. At the touch of her, he moaned deep in his throat and swept her upward, pressing her against the length of him. He tugged at the thick knot of hair at the back of her neck, spilling her hair over her shoulders and down her back. He pulled her toward him until he had her mouth beneath his. He buried his face against her throat and breathed in the lavender scent of her.
“Dear God,” he whispered against her temple. “It has been but three hours since I had you beneath me, and now I would willingly hurl myself in front of a Saracen army to have you again, right now.” He took her mouth again and moaned her name against her lips.
She didn’t hesitate. She welcomed the leap of pressure deep in her belly, the fierce hardness of him, his fingers curving over her hips to find her. She’d felt an immediate awakening when he’d appeared so suddenly, so unexpectedly. And then, when he’d nearly run to her, she saw herself as he must have seen her—languid, her every movement inviting. Actually, she’d been thinking of him, weaving him into the soft, incoherent thoughts and memories that had held her as she bathed herself.
She felt him bend her gently against his arm, felt his fingers trembling as they caressed her breast, then swept lower to her belly. “Surely it must be against the commandments of the Church to feel this way,” she said, and her hands were on him now, trying to pull off his clothes. He was laughing, slapping away her hands, and soon they were together, naked, on their bed, and he was kissing her and laughing between the kisses, telling her what he was going to do to her, and then she managed to get him onto his back and she was over him, telling him what she was going to do to him. Before he could do anything other than suck in his breath, her mouth was on his belly, and he tensed tighter than a bowstring. When she took him in her mouth, he yelled, nearly beside himself.
Just before he lost control, he heard her laugh, felt her warm breath all the way to his soul.
He was so felled by pleasure that it was many moments before he could speak, much less think. She was on her knees beside him, her palms on her thighs, and she was grinning down at him.
“I have brought you down,” she said.
“Aye, you have. Now it is my turn to show you that I’m your master in all things.” And he did. When she cried out, her body arching madly, he tried to laugh, but couldn’t.