“My arm hurts.”
“Oh.” Dienwald frowned at that. Her revelation was believable, yet somehow he felt insulted, and perversely he said, “Well, did you hear what my son demanded we do?”
Philippa lay on her back, looking up at the man she’d willingly given her innocence to during the night. His jaw was dark with whiskers, his hair tousled, and his naked chest made her heartbeat quicken. He looked beautiful and harried and vastly annoyed. He also looked worried, hopefully about her, which pleased her.
She smiled up at him then and raised her hand to touch his cheek. He froze, then jerked back.
“You’re besotted,” he said, his voice low, “and you’ve no reason to be. For God’s sake, wench, I took your maidenhead but three hours ago, and you’re smiling at me as if I’d just conferred the world and all its riches upon you. You got no pleasure from our coupling, I hurt you, and . . . ah, Edmund, you are still here, then?”
“Will you marry Philippa?”
“You know but one song, and its words more tedious than Crooky’s. By St. Anne’s knees, boy, the wench couldn’t wish to wed with me, for—”
That was such an obvious falsehood that Philippa laughed. “Good morrow, Master Edmund,” she said, facing him for the first time, her tears dry now.
The boy grinned down at her. “We must soon be on our way back to St. Erth,” he said. “Northbert sent me to awaken you. Both of you,” he added, meaning dripping from his voice. “Philippa, does your arm pain you sorely?”
She shook her head. “Nay, ’tis bearable, and thus so am I, unlike your father here, who must bring himself to the morning with foul words.”
Dienwald said nothing, merely stared off into the thick maple trees. “Go, Edmund, and strive to keep your opinions beneath your tongue.”
Edmund frowned down at his father. “We are close to Crandall. Sir Walter could come this very very soon. Shouldn’t we—”
Dienwald’s expression changed suddenly. It was austere now, cold and forbidding, his eyes narrowed, and he said very softly, in such a deadly voice that Philippa could but stare at him, “I want the whoreson to come out from the safety of his walls. I owe him much, and the time has come to repay the debt. I’ve men carefully watching the road from Crandall. Aye, I want the bastard to come after you and Philippa, and ’tis I who will greet him.”
Edmund grinned suddenly. “But Philippa struck him hard, Father. Perhaps he still lies in a heap.”
Dienwald’s expression lost its cruelty and he shook his head. “We’ll see, but I doubt it. We will leave soon, Edmund, for St. Erth. The wench here needs to rest, and I can’t very well wed her here in a forest. Search out Northbert and tell him that if Sir Walter hasn’t shown his weedy hide within the next hour, we’ll ride to St. Erth.”
Edmund, swaggering with importance, took his leave. Dienwald stared after him, shaking his head, seemingly all thoughts of Sir Walter and his hatred of the man gone from his mind, for he said to Philippa, “I can’t believe that my own son, a boy of good sense, would yell at me, and carp and bellow.”
Philippa said nothing to that, and Dienwald, in a spate of ill-humor, flung back the blanket and jumped to his feet. For a moment it appeared he didn’t realize he was naked, but not for a single instant was Philippa unaware of it. She stared at him in the gray light of dawn and was pleased with what she saw, very pleased. Before, she’d admired him, but this morning, now that she understood how men used their bodies to attach themselves to women . . . well, now she had a different way of looking at him, a softer way, a more intimate way.
He scratched his belly, stretched, looked down at himself and saw her blood on his member. He cursed then turned to frown down at her. “Open your legs.”
“What?”
“Open your legs,” he repeated, then dropped down to his knees beside her. He pulled the blanket to her ankles, then without asking her again, pulled her shift to her waist and pried her thighs open. His seed and her maiden’s blood were on her inner thighs. Soft flesh, he saw, very soft, and he wanted to touch her, to ease his finger into her, feel her tighten about him. Curse her and curse his member that hadn’t the good sense to remain calm and uninterested. Well, soon he wouldn’t have to deny himself. He could have her again and again, as much as he wished and whenever he wished it until his member stayed quiet in exhaustion and his heartbeat stayed slow and steady. He drew in his breath and said, “By St. Peter’s toes, there’s no choice for me now. We’ll wed upon our return to St. Erth.”
His duty done, at least in his mind, Dienwald rose again and began pulling on his clothes. He frowned and said, turning to look down at her, “Don’t fret about the blood, Philippa, ’tis your virgin’s blood and all females are so afflicted their first time with a man. It won’t happen again. Now, pull down your clothes else I’ll be tempted to think you wish my rod between your thighs again.”
She thought it was a fine idea but jerked down her clothes. She could hear Dienwald’s men moving about in the woods, very close to them. “Wouldn’t you at least like me to tell you what happened at Crandall?”
“You did,” he said shortly. “I couldn’t force you to keep your woman’s mouth closed last night and you babbled until you finally slept. I learned everything, finally. Are you very sore?”
“But I didn’t get to sleep all that long, did I? You didn’t wish me to! Sore where?”
He shook his head, giving her a sour look. “Nay, it wasn’t all my doing. You wanted me and you had me, curse my man’s weaknesses. Your soreness is in your female brain and between your female thighs. You are small, Philippa, at least inside you are.” He paused a moment, frowning toward her. “I was dreaming about you, wench, empty-headed dreams
they were, and then there you were, beside me, and holding out your arm to me, making me want to debauch you, and making all those whimpering noises in your throat—” He stopped, finished fastening his cross-garters and took his leave of her, not looking back.
“Well,” Philippa said aloud as she slowly got to her feet. “He will wed me and he won’t mind, once ’tis done.” She could still see the appalled look on his face when his nine-year-old son had demanded that he marry her. Truth to tell, that had surprised her as much as it had Edmund’s father.
The boy didn’t seem to mind that she would be his stepmother. So be it. She clutched her arm and gently began to massage it. The pain was a steady throbbing now, but she could bear it. She looked down at herself and shook her head. Her single garment, the once beautiful yellow gown, was now fatally wrinkled, and rents parted its folds, material torn off to make a bandage for her wounded arm. But she had become so used to wearing rough clothing, even rags, that she gave it not much thought.
She was standing there wondering where she could go to relieve herself when Crooky appeared.
“God gi’ you grace, mistress,” he said, and sketched her a bow. “I hear from the lad that you will soon wed the master. ’Tis well done. I knew his lust for you would plant his body in his brain, and so it has. Strange that it struck him so swiftly and here in a wild forest, and with you hurt and all, but perhaps that’s what pushed him, fear for you and seeing you hurt.