The Penwyth Curse (Medieval Song 6)

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WHEN SHE WAS SETTLED against him, her warm breath on his neck, Bishop said, “It’s a balmy night. A night that makes a man think of things other than sharpening his sword or splitting an enemy’s head open.”

She wondered what those things were, but she said, “I’ve never seen heads split open, since my grandfather and all his soldiers were already old when I was a little girl. I’ll never forget he told me that since his strength was failing, he would learn other ways to survive. He is always weaving his plots, arguing with all the other graybeards. They have a fine time of it. When my father died with no male heir, they all knew that there would be trouble. As long as there were covetous men, they said, there would be endless trouble. But they weren’t worried because there was the curse.”

“Aye—that bespeaks a great deal of luck.”

He waited for her to say more, but she didn’t. What was she keeping from him? Her fingers touched his neck, trailed down to his shoulder, paused, then continued, over and over, her touch light, smooth.

Was he, he wondered, nothing more than a big dog for her to pet and use for warmth?

Didn’t she realize he was a man? More than that, didn’t she realize that he was a young man and a young man could easily be harder than the tent pole in the flick of an eyelid? Evidently not.

He reached up and took her hand and brought it down to his belly. He smoothed her palm open. His muscles tensed. He felt awareness streak through her and grinned into the darkness. If he’d been a dog before, he wasn’t one now.

Her fingers moved, just a bit.

“Lower,” he said.

“What do you mean, ‘lower’?”

“Move your fingers lower.”

“You mean like this?” He gritted his teeth and held his breath as those fingers of hers slowly stretched downward. She actually squeaked when she touched him. As for Bishop, he shuddered like a palsied man. He wanted her fingers on his naked flesh.

“Yes, like that.” Oh, God, not really, not just like that. He wanted more. He nearly rose straight off the ground when her fingers traced over him, so light was her touch. He couldn’t help himself. He grabbed her hand and laid it on him, held it there.

“Bishop? Are you all right?”

By all the saints’ gnawed knuckles, no, he wasn’t all right. He was nearly ready to spill his seed on his clothes, and that would be humiliating. He could barely breathe, and she now wanted him to speak as well? He felt her fingers curve around him, his own hand holding hers there. All he could think about was her fingers. “What did you say?”

“You sound like you’re in pain. Should I move my hand?”

He groaned behind his teeth. “I’m all right,” he said, and almost bit his own tongue straight through.

“You are very different from me. At least you are by the feel of you.”

“I know,” he said, and nearly exploded when her fingers tightened.

“Just what do you do with all this?”

He laughed, just couldn’t help himself. It brought him a moment of sanity. He said, “I would come inside you with all this.”

He felt her legs move against his, knew her knees were locked together. Oh, yes, she knew what he meant. Only if she’d been raised in a convent was there a chance she wouldn’t understand what a man did to a woman.

“My grandmother occasionally bathed male guests when she was younger. She once told me that men were just men, some gnarlier than others, and when they were naked in the bathing tub, you just hummed, perhaps whistled, and stroked them down with the sponge. She said the trick was never to dwell on it.”

He laughed. He’d never been an important enough guest in someone’s keep to warrant the lady scrubbing him in his bath. “Would you scrub my back, Merryn?”

“I don’t know,” she said slowly, and stroked him again. “It would have to mean that we were married and you didn’t die from the curse. That, or you would visit my keep once the king makes me the baroness of Penwyth and I would do just as my grandmother told me to do.”

“You would whistle?”

“I don’t know,” she said again, and he could just see her frowning even though it was dark in the shadowed canopy of the maple trees. “Perhaps you are worth more than just a whistle. Mayhap a rhymed song like Crooky sings.”

&nbs

p; Her hand left him and he wanted to weep. She moved restlessly against him. He didn’t know if she realized she was petting him, like a dog again, his belly up to his chest, his shoulders to his neck. He felt her shake her head against his shoulder, heard her sigh. “I don’t want you to die.”