For Her Honour (Swords of Passion) Read online

  She smiled, spread her thighs to let his heavy cock and balls dangle between her lips. “Consume me, my good lord.”

  “Aye!” he growled and one arm beneath her hips, he lifted her and slid his fiery shaft inside her to the hilt.

  They both paused.

  Her mouth open, she reeled with the delight. The girth of him, the heat, the way he seated himself firmly once, twice, three times to her womb, the way he drew back and adored her eyes all formed a moment of supreme joy. “My dear one,” he said on a reverent breath, “for this I will thank you all my life.”

  Tears sprang to her eyes. She combed his pale hair back from his brow. “Sweet Will, I never knew such happiness was possible. ‘Tis I who am grateful to you, my darling. “ She kissed him. “Now make love to me before I die of curiosity.”

  He hooted and stared into her eyes as he withdrew his rod and sank into her once again. With such ease and grace, he possessed her core, her body, her heart, her mind. With devotion, he plumbed her with fervid care and a wicked smile curving his lips. With increasing rapture, he sat back and watched his cock‘s thrust. She heard the liquid declarations of their mating and she arched in delight. He rocked her quickly then, grunting at her moves and hooking her legs over his arms to pump her harder, faster.

  “Not enough!” he yelled and shifted her legs up over his shoulders. Then he gripped her hips with meaty hands, lifted her lower body from the bed and hurled her into a mighty whirlwind that tossed her and took her to a throbbing maddening release. She groaned as her core pounded with a wilder ecstasy than she’d felt this glorious night.

  He groaned as he came to his own joy.

  And she felt his hot seed spurt into her body.

  He held his hips to her cunny for minutes longer. His eye was closed, his jaw lax. “Dear god,” he gruffed, “I grow hard to take you again.”

  She wiggled closer. “Have me as I will you.” She traced a finger down his handsome face. “There will be so many years without you.”

  He fell over her then and as he shook in her arms, she stroked his back and wondered if he cried.

  She hugged him. “Love me, Will. I need the delight to treasure till I die.”

  He towered above her then and lifted her hips once more to secure them to his loins.

  He fucked her once again, his shout of triumph at his climax a joyous cry that branded itself upon her mind, a celebration and remembrance never to be shared.

  * * * *

  He stroked her shoulder much later as she lay in his arms. “I must apologise to you.”

  She put a hand to his heart as she glanced up at him. “I await that with eagerness.”

  He hugged her and kissed her hair. “I should not have assumed you would try to leave me.”

  “Clothes or no?” she taunted him.

  “Rain or no. I knew you better. Know you better than all that. So you see I am more furious with myself that I acted like a lunatic.” He pushed a lock of her bright red hair behind her ear. “I do not do that.”

  “Not King John’s fabled diplomat, nay.”

  “I was appalled you would leave me after what we had shared.”

  “Never had a woman leave your bed, eh?”

  “Never had a woman whom I wished would stay in my bed.”

  She grinned. “The best answer.”

  “A true one.”

  She ran a finger around one of his nipples and he tingled as she watched it harden. “Perhaps all that irrational behaviour that can be explained by your lack of your eye patch.”

  Laughing, he clamped a hand over hers to still her. “How is that, I do wonder?”

  “It fell off when we were making love. When I rose to find logs for the fire, I found it on the floor where it must have fallen as we played. I put it on the table for you.” He clamped a hand over the roughly sewn wound where once his other eye had been. She gently took his hand away and leant up to kiss his eyelid sown shut to his socket. “So when you awoke without it, you could not see straight.”

  “My sight fills with only you, Blaze. You are a temptation I cannot resist.”

  “I am honoured.” She tipped her head, wistful. “I can face my fate better because of this that we have shared.”

  “I fear your future is in danger for what we have shared. I will work to lessen the danger.”

  She clutched his arm. “You will not withdraw from me now.”

  “Nay, my sweet. How can I do that?” He inclined his head towards his rising cock. “You fill me with desire just to talk to me.”

  She grinned up at him, her eyes rolling in mischief. “Meanwhile, the rain shows no signs of abating.” Her hand wended to his shaft and cupped his balls. “Neither does my need.”

  He pulled her flat to the bedding. In one move, he filled her creamy cunt, then satisfied their hunger for each other once more.

  When she slept afterward, he steeled himself to plan the coming weeks. He must now gird himself to accomplish the most difficult task of his life. Terrified when he’d awakened to find her gone, he knew now his instinct had spoken to him. His instinct had never failed him. He knew then as he did now that once he had tasted Blanche, once he had enjoyed her, he might also act irrationally with that most irrational man, his sovereign. One did not cross a mad man with another. Will had learned that at Saladin’s court and he could not ignore the possibility now.

  Because once he met his lord and master again and presented to him this lovely lady who should be—by God’s holy ordinance—his to have and to hold, he might become again the raving beast who must have her for all his life.

  That meant he could not tell two people the truth that gnawed at his guts.

  For no good would come of either John or Blanche knowing that he loved her.

  And to say it aloud to anyone was to admit that he had lost the biggest battle of his life.

  One against irrational men.

  His king.

  And now his very self.

  * * * *

  For three more days, he had the pleasure of tutoring her and taking her in heights of pleasure. The rains conspired, becoming a deluge that swelled above the river banks like Noah’s flood. Dykes broke. Friar Julian announced nothing passed in roads that were knee high with swirling waters. They could not leave the monastery if they wanted to.

  And they did not.

  In those wild hours together, they were warm, well-fed and cocooned from the world neither had ever before enjoyed. Given a reprieve from cares, Will enjoyed himself as he never had. He sucked his lover’s luscious breasts and drank from her creamy cunny. She took him into her mouth with increasing dexterity, and he permitted the delight until he thought he would burst with the lavishness of her love. So he would take her, spread her legs and explode inside her body, fragrant with their juices, swollen with his careful ministrations to the only woman he had ever desired beyond his bed.

  Because as the days wore on, he admired her more. He played with her and laughed with her. She told him stories of her brewing and those who came to buy in copious amounts, their inebriated ways, their efforts to buy more for less. He also came to love her mind. She pleaded for stories of his years with Saladin, the Doge in Venice and King Richard’s captors in Germany and Italy. He told her of his talent with languages.

  “No need for proof,” she said with a wink. “I know how skilled you are with your tongue.”

  He laughed as he shared more with her. Tales of his youth, his parents, his Viking lineage, his extensive lands and three castles.

  “You are then a wealthy man,” she concluded.

  In all but a wife to love me. “In much that I value,” he admitted. “Nothing I have lacked.” Until now.

  Smiling, she took what he told her and admitted he was a man born to his diplomacy.

  “No less you, my Blaze.” For she was a brilliant strategist, beating him at chess half the time they played. No one had ever won over him.

  “My wily lady, I vow you’d make a diplomat yo
urself.”

  She’d tossed her hair at him and wagered a new bout of love making if she won again. “Any way I want you, that’s my reward,” she announced.

  He let her win, just to hear the prize she’d name.

  “Chained again,” she told him as she had let the black worsted gown slip to the floor. “Bound to you, my dear man.”

  So of course, he restrained her to the straps, her arms above her head. Later, he tied her feet and the result was a riotous fuck for both of them.

  Would that he could have her that way for years, he told himself as he pumped his seed into her for another countless time.

  But their tryst did end as the rain abated and the sun shown again.

  They waited for one more day to ensure the earth dried and Will gave the instructions to his four men to prepare for their journey to London. The two elder men he drew aside and gave them special instructions which they were to accomplish to the letter, to the timing he proscribed.

  “Where do they go?” Blanche inquired.

  “To do my will,” he told her and no more. For her to know his plans might give her hope and with John, he never allowed himself any. The man was too unpredictable. What he did say was, “John is in residence at the White Tower until Christmas.”

  “And my groom,” she asked him in a small voice, “where is he?”

  “God knows,” Will replied. “We will not speak of Hugh.” Or marriage. Not until I put my plan in place.

  Chapter Eight

  The four dismounted before the main gates of White Tower on a frosty afternoon eight days later. Blanche raised her eyes to examine the curtain wall before her, never having seen one so high. Here, upon the Thames River, this castle was John’s defence against invaders. Would that she could invade John’s mind with a lofty kindness equal to the magnificence of this bulwark. She might then gain what she wanted, not what he decreed.

  As the massive wooden gates creaked open on their hinges, Blanche steeled herself to a haughty posture on her palfrey.

  “Come, my lady,” Will told her, his formal address of her one she understood was necessary here. Though he led her by her chains as he sat atop his own destry, he gazed at her with reassurance of his protection, as had his words and his caresses these past weeks. But of his actions here with John, he told her naught. “‘Tis best you let me lead.”

  She trusted him. Instinct told her she should. She must. But her heart was breaking that their amorous sojourn was now done and her subjugation to a man she did not want must now begin.

  Will swivelled in his saddle, staring at her now with a stern demeanour she’d not seen since first they met. “You must now make me a solemn promise.” He spoke for her ears only.

  What was this he wanted? “Anything.”

  “Whatever you are asked here, you will speak the truth. Baldly. Simply.”

  “I swear.” She had no time to say more.

  King’s men swarmed around them, forming an escort. Their red tabards with Plantagenet leopards proclaimed who their master was. They held pikes, though they did not brandish them. They knew, she concluded, this visitor on sight. And to her, they all looked alike. All had a burly ferocity to their features that made Blanche stiffen her spine.

  The bailey was crowded with knights conversing, servants carrying wash and baskets of roots and vegetables. Two ladies in a huddle paused to watch the procession and resumed to talk beneath their breaths at the sight of a woman held captive by the noble earl of Greystone.

  At the far end stood four armed men with their mighty stallions. Blanche realised with a start that two of them were Will’s retainers whom he sent away on the errand he would never describe to her. His men hailed him and hung back while the other two with them strode forward. Both wore chain mail and over it, tabards of black wool signed with the Crusaders’ cross. Yet, each man was his own lord, for each had a different heraldic sign atop the cross. Neither man smiled, but when Will climbed down, each clasped Will to them in turn.

  “Thank you for coming,” he said. “So quickly, too.”

  “We would not fail you,” proclaimed one dark giant.

  “We vowed support to you when we were young,” added the other, a man as tall, as broad as his fellows, but with hair so red, she knew it rivalled her own for brilliance.

  “I am indebted,” Will declared. “If all goes well, a king’s guard will call for you.”

  Both men nodded and murmured well wishes.

  Will helped her dismount and did not introduce her, though each man offered her a courtly bow and a strained smile.

  “Come, Lady Bergeron,” Will led her by her chains while one guard tethered their horses to a post.

  She followed quietly, wishing she were a sorceress and could predict her future here.

  Into the chill of the castle, they marched behind their guards to climb the winding stairs up to an ante-room so cold and dank Blanche’s teeth rattled. She rubbed her arms, her cloak no succour for the freezing remorse that invaded her. Will stood one pace ahead of her, facing the doors, silent as the dead, his gaze focused on the coming audience.

  Two guards hauled open another set of doors. A huge room appeared before her and out flowed a draught of hot smoky air.

  “Enter!” shouted a man.

  Will walked forward, her chains clattering on the stone floor as she followed.

  Inside, Will turned to his right, and as she did, too, she saw the man who would define the rest of her life. He sat upon a large gilt chair, blood red cushions plumped around his thick body. Swarthy, with round head and round face, King John of England beckoned them with impatient fingers.

  “My liege,” Will greeted his master and went to one knee.

  Blanche did the same.

  “Get up, get up!” their sovereign barked. “Draw closer. Took you long enough, Greystone. Where the hell have you been?”

  They both rose to their feet and took a step forward. Behind them, Blanche perceived Will’s two retainers did the same.

  “Sire. Rains detained us.” Will raised his calm face to his master. “We are most happy to attend you.”

  Blanche knew what a lie that was. And though the blazing fire in John’s two fireplaces warmed her body, her heart grew colder with the details she now absorbed about her king. He was fat. He had badly yellowed teeth. And though he had clean nails and hair, he repulsed her with his bulbous eyes, his fleshy mouth and double chin. If he had ever been handsome, that must have been in his youth when time, wealth and power had not marked him for the worse.

  “Aye, I hear you. Happy to see me.” John eyed them. “How happy, I must know.”

  “Sire, surely you know my good intentions,” Will said smoothly.

  “Bah! I always know your good intentions, Will. That’s why you still advise me after all these years. Come introduce me to the latest of my own intentions.”

  “Sire, the Lady Bergeron.”

  She sank once more in deference, then rose again.

  John climbed down from his throne and strode towards her. He was at least half a foot shorter than she. Reaching up, he tipped her chin this way and that. “Very lovely. They grow beautiful women in the western marches, do they not, Will?”

  “So they do, my liege.” Will’s gaze caught her own. His expression said, let him do this.

  And she did. John took his time about it, too, tilting her face down to his, ordering her to remove her headdress and her netting. Complying, she let her hair loose to spill of its own accord over her shoulders in a long red river.

  John hummed. “De Morency will find himself with a prize.”

  Will agreed. “In more ways than one, Lady Bergeron is a jewel, Sire.”

  “How so?”

  “She is learned, witty and an excellent gamesman.”

  “Is that right? What games did you play?”

  “Chess, Sire.” Will told him.

  And Blanche felt her cheeks blaze.

  John narrowed his eyes. “Who won?”

/>   “Both of us,” Will answered.

  Blanche wished she could sink through the floor. Her face aflame, she recalled the hot ecstasy she’d shared with Will.

  John pursed his lips, never taking his gaze from her. Suddenly, he chuckled. “Who taught you to play chess, Madame?”

  “My father,” she responded.

  “And how to brew?”

  “My mother.”

  “A good brewer, too, aren’t you, my lady?”

  “Aye, Sire,” she spoke, her voice as steady and as demure as she could manage. “We make the best beer in the west.”

  John put his fists on his hips and rocked on his heels before her. “You must have thought we’d not hear of that here.”

  At his baiting, she cast her eyes to the floor.

  He stepped nearer, his face an inch from hers. “Did you think you would escape our notice?”

  “Sire,” Will intervened and took a step towards him, “Lady Bergeron admits she made a mistake not to pay her taxes.”

  “Do you?” John demanded.

  She let her gaze meet the umber ones of her sovereign. “Aye, my lord.”

  “Would have saved you the necessity of getting a new husband.”

  “Aye, my lord.”

  “And paying the taxes and the penalty!” he yelled, pleased with himself. “But how come you to put chains on her, Greystone?”

  “She ran from me.”

  “Ha! Did you now?” John marched around her. “When I speak, you answer, Madame!”

  “Aye, Sire, I did try to escape.”

  “Hunh. ‘Tis the first time any woman has tried to escape the legendary Knight of Pleasure.”

  Blanche had never heard this name for Will, but she had her own proof it was an accurate one.

  John stood before her again. “Ah, Will, what will become of your reputation now this one has ruined it? No matter. She seems worth the trouble. Eyes like turquoise gems. Skin unblemished by pox. Plump lips.”

  She gulped at the effrontery of the man to describe her so boldly in public.

  “Forgive me,” John murmured, sounding as if he did not mean the sentiment. “I forget my etiquette. Nonetheless, I must declare the truth. Tall, aye. Buxom, too. Well built for a man who can handle you in bed. Aye, you are a beauty.” His gaze defined her breasts and fell to her hips.