Rosehaven (Medieval Song 5)

“Aye,” he said, his voice stark and deep. He pulled her onto her back and didn’t leave her until she had moaned into his mouth.

Hastings shook slightly with the power of that memory. She imagined that she would renew that powerful memory at least once a week for the rest of her life. Mayhap fewer days than an entire week. She felt a stab of sheer lust when she pictured him yet again on his back, his man’s rod in her mouth. A storm could blow in from the sea and it wouldn’t gain her attention.

She heard a laugh and turned to see Lady Moraine place her hand on Gwent’s arm as he pulled his horse closer to her palfrey. “Alfred is just a cat, Gwent, not a monster, though he does purr louder than a man snores.”

And Hastings watched Gwent and Lady Moraine, watched them ride together ahead of her and the two other men, heard them laughing, saw Gwent reach out quickly to grab her palfrey’s reins when the mare stumbled. She prayed with everything in her that the Healer was right, that Severin’s mother was well again, that her madness had disappeared with the Healer’s potion.

Then she saw her husband, garbed only in a loin cloth, working side by side with twenty men on the eastern wall of Oxborough. Sweat glistened off h

is chest and arms, his dark hair was plastered to his head, and she wanted to throw herself against him and ask him, very quietly, if he would come with her to create more of the wildness of the night before, if he would let her take him again as she wished.

She sighed, knowing he could not leave his men. Unless the rain came down in torrents. She closed her eyes a moment and prayed hard. When she looked up again, she swallowed. He looked hard and lean and healthy, a man with strength, a man with a wife who very much appreciated him. By Saint Catherine’s knees, she prayed that one day he would come to feel about her the way she felt about him. She shook her head, leaning closer to Marella’s neck. No, she couldn’t love him. It wasn’t done. Theirs had been like most marriages, fashioned of money and possessions and power. They each had a role to play. It was just that there were some roles she enjoyed playing more than others.

She thought again of looking down at his face even as she moved over him, and shuddered with the memory of those minutes. She did not think, though, that she had shown true wildness in her blood when he had brought her to pleasure. She had not bitten him or raked his back with her short fingernails. She had just yelled a bit, as she always did. As for Severin, she did not know how he could ever be wilder than he seemed to be naturally.

Perhaps she would ask Dame Agnes and Alice about this. But it wasn’t quite time. Severin waved to her and she waved back. They rode into the inner bailey and she gave Marella over to Tuggle, who immediately crooned a litany of strange sounds to Marella, who butted her head into his chest.

A bit later she saw Dame Agnes with Lady Moraine and—what was that all about?—there was Alice with Gwent. Now, what was Alice saying to him? Was it more about this wildness in the blood? Aye, she thought, the previous night had been a revelation—but was it really a revelation or merely another diversion that men and women shared? She would see.

What was Alice speaking to Gwent about?

Severin did not come to their bedchamber until far into the night. He did not awaken Hastings. But he was there early the next morning when she woke up, lightly caressing her shoulders, the hollows, the bones, kissing the pulsing cord in her throat.

“You did not come to me,” she said, smiled up at him, and touched her fingertips to his mouth.

“Nay,” he said. He fell onto his back and stared at the ceiling, now visible in the early dawn light. “The storm has passed.”

She said nothing, knowing there was something on his mind, content to wait.

“I must travel to this Rosehaven place. None knows what or who is there. Your father went there three or four times a year, taking money with him each time. I will leave this morning.”

“I went with you to Langthorne, Severin. Did you wish that I had not gone there with you?”

He was silent. Finally, he turned to face her. “I do not know what to expect at this Rosehaven. I do not wish to place you in any danger.”

“How can I be in danger if you are beside me?”

“You are flattering me, Hastings, to gain your own ends. Tell me, why do you wish to go to this place?”

“I want to know who is there. I want to know why my father journeyed there for so many years, faithfully, time after time. Something drew him. Is it a debt to King Edward? A debt to a friend about whom I know nothing? Is there a mistress there?”

“I think I will find a mistress. She cannot be young and still winsome, for he has gone there so many years. Or perhaps he kept many mistresses there, ridding himself of an old one, replacing her with a young one. But why not simply enjoy his mistress here at Oxborough? I do not know. But I do believe it must be a mistress that drew him back again and again. There is no other reasonable answer.”

She said very quietly, “I cannot remain here without you. I have an appetite for you that you must attend to, for surely it is one of your husband’s duties.”

He stared at her, then laughed. “So that is how you will bend me so that I will give you what you want. Very well, Hastings, I will take you to this Rosehaven so that you will be satisfied in your woman’s appetites.”

“And Trist will accompany us? I missed him for the time we were at Langthorne.”

“I will discuss the matter thoroughly with him.”

Then he kissed her and came into her very slowly. He did not finish until he heard the servants moving about outside their bedchamber door. She remembered that Trist hadn’t been with them when Severin had shown her his wildness in the blood.

“This is what you must have, Hastings?”

“Aye, my lord. You are gracious. You are generous. I am the most blessed of women.”

He threw his new blue tunic at her, which she caught and immediately smoothed out. “It will fit you now,” she said, very pleased with herself, and handed it to him.