Dauntless by Tamara Leigh

Chapter Eight

The storyteller was kind, after some disturbance caused her to slip out of the dream, allowing her to return to it—rather, a better dream, this one with her husband leaning over her, candlelight on his face. But why was he not smiling?

She smiled, certain he would do the same, for a time allowing her to forget the only thing between them was what she wanted that he would not give and believe last night was figment and this truth.

Or was it truth? she questioned when still he did not smile.

“Arise, Robine.” Grimly said, meaning the storyteller was not kind.

Lowering her lids, she started to turn away, but his hand closed over her shoulder—and was more felt for direct contact with her flesh.

It should not surprise she was bare beneath the cover skimming her collarbone, but it did. Still, alarm was short-lived. Godfroi might not want to claim his marital rights, but as there was a ring on her finger, there was no shame in being unclothed in their bed.

“Arise,” he repeated.

She peered into eyes so near she might believe this the prelude to intimacy did he not want her out of bed. “For what, Godfroi?”

“Still you wish to be proven wrong?”

She blinked. “I do.”

“Then come.” He straightened, revealing he had donned chausses beneath his undertunic, then raised his robe and opened it to her.

Guessing they would speak in the chairs before the brazier, she tossed back the cover, causing Cat who had claimed his place sometime after she slept to shoot from beneath the cover onto Godfroi’s pillow.

Robine rose. Turning into the embrace of the oversized garment sometimes worn in the solar during her husband’s absences, she pushed her arms into the sleeves and reached to close the lapels, but already he did it and cinched the belt as well.

“Slippers.” He gestured to the end of the bed.

There they were, not where she had kicked them off at the sideboard. Seeing he wore shoes, she guessed the brazier was not their destination, and proof of that was had when he took her hand and drew her toward the curtains.

“Where are we going, Godfroi?”

“The stable.”

“But it is not even dawn, and we are not dressed for—”

“Quiet lest you awaken those in the hall.”

Pressing her lips, she let him guide her from the solar. He exchanged a nod with the man-at-arms patrolling the hall as he led her not toward the great doors but down the passage through which viands were carried from the kitchen in the inner bailey.

Soon they were outside beneath an ebony sky pricked by stars at least an hour from being outshone by the sun. Another nod at a different man-at-arms, then they crossed the inner bailey beneath the watch of those on the walls. But though interest over the destination of husband and wife was satisfied when the two entered the stable in the outer bailey, now surely curiosity of a different sort.

The structure whose front stored all manner of tack and supplies for horses was dimly lit by a lantern on a hook left of the door and one hung at the back between stalls both sides whose many occupants surely slept at this hour.

“What do we here?” Robine asked as Godfroi led her past stairs that ascended to the hay loft.

For answer, he continued to the third stall on the right whose occupant slept standing but roused and nickered when its master halted. It was the stallion Godfroi rode long distances, his unburdened destrier following on a lead when the destination likely required a horse specifically bred and trained for battle.

Godfroi fondled the muzzle pressed into his hand. “Neither has he been thoroughly bathed,” he said and looked down at her.

Though she knew she ought to understand, she shook her head.

“What do you smell, Robine?”

“Horses…their waste…hay…leather.”

“And yet you caught that scent on me,” he grumbled and opened the gate and pulled her inside.

“Godfroi?” she exclaimed, wary of horses less tame than palfreys.

Gripping her hand tighter, he said, “You must draw nearer. Trust me, you are safe.”

She yielded, but hardly was she past the beast’s head than that scent was in her nostrils. “I smell it!”

“Here.” He pulled her in front of him, caught up her right hand, and set it at the base of the horse’s back.

A patch of oiliness stirred by palm and fingers more strongly wafting the scent with which she was first acquainted on the day past, she looked around. “I do not understand.”

“I stowed a vial of perfume in the pack behind my saddle. It was a gift for you.”

Was he to be believed? It was not unusual for him to return from travel bearing household items difficult to obtain near Valeur, and occasionally his offerings included fine fabrics for the ladies, but perfume?

“As the merchant did not properly seal the vial, during the ride the stopper came loose and spilled perfume that leaked through the seams onto my mount. For that and handling of the ruined pack, I bathed well at the inn—albeit not thoroughly enough.”

Robine stared, not because the tale was unbelievable, because it was perfectly believable, rendering her accusation unfounded.

Unfounded with regard to the source of the perfume,doubt reminded. Just because it was not transferred to him by another woman does not mean he has been faithful.

Still, it seemed not to matter in this moment. What mattered was she had wronged him. She turned to him. “I am sorry, Godfroi. It is just…”

“You do not trust me.”

She nearly denied it, but if ever there was a time to confront him, it was now. “I have some cause, do I not? Though there is no more girl about me, still you do not touch me, whether because you find comfort elsewhere or I am offensive for being a L’Épée, or both. If that is not ill enough, speculation of which you must be aware—that I can give you no children—pries at my ears.”

Anger tightened his face, and as if the horse sensed its master’s emotions, it whinnied.

Godfroi led Robine from the stall, and after securing the gate, said, “Who speaks these things to you?”

“Not spoken directly, but within hearing.”

“Who?”

“Weeks past, a lord and his lady lodged here en route to their lands. On one side of their mouths they sympathized with you for wedding a woman unable to provide an heir, on the other side suggested it might have been better had Hugh prevailed since if any could make a child on me, surely it is one who gains a reputation for sowing misbegotten children.”

Though still she felt Godfroi’s anger, when he closed his eyes, it seemed to ease. Returning his gaze to her, he said, “That which should have been remedied sooner was to have been done on the night past. Hence, the gift of perfume.”

Did she understand right? “You are saying…?”

He pressed her back against the narrow wall between stalls, set a hand on her jaw. “The day I departed Valeur, I looked upon you as you slept and, accepting consummation was long overdue, determined that eve I would have what long I denied myself. Then came the call to arms.”

She delved his eyes, and seeing there what seemed truth, groaned. “Much I have wronged you.”

Perhaps only in this instance, the voice within sought to come between them, but she thrust it distant, certain what might now happen would not if she offended further.

He slid his hand inward, watching his fingers brush her lips and trail down her chin over her neck to her throat. “Much prayer ere I returned to you this morn, my lady.”

His touch accompanied by his gaze making her feel so alive she longed to be more so, it took some venturing back and forth over his words to make sense of them. The first piece understood was he had left her sometime after she slept. The second piece was likely he had gone to the small chapel often eschewed for how full his days, much to his mother’s tight-lipped disapproval and wife’s silent disappointment. The greatest piece was that he had prayed, surely a good portent for their marriage.

“I was angered last eve,” he said, “some of it my due, some not. Hence, much searching of myself and beseeching His guidance. I wronged you as well, and more so this last year when I continued to put matters of the barony ahead of my wife though enough were minor I could have given that time to you. Had I, you might be heavy with child—might even have one at your breast.”

Her eyes teared. “We can begin now, can we not? It is not as good as the day past, but better than the morrow.”

“Now is good,” he rumbled and slid his fingers from her throat to her breastbone. At her gasp, he continued downward, parting the robe’s lapels all the way to the belt. “Now is very good.” Then he lowered his head as she had wanted him to do for what felt like forever.

When his mouth touched hers, air became scarce. When his lips moved over hers, she lost her breath entirely. Eager to replenish it from his well, she pushed to her toes, and what had been an insistent caress became something wonderfully—somewhat fearfully—fervent.

She did not know how to kiss, but she knew to follow his lead—pressing and sipping, sipping and drinking, sighing and groaning one into the other.

She did not know how to touch, but she knew to follow that lead—feathering and grazing, grazing and gripping, stroking and tugging hair between fingers.

She did not know how to swiftly remove the barriers between them, but when the robe slid down and pooled on her arms, she knew here in the aisle between stalls was not the place for this.

Feeling as if air whirled around them, she turned her head to the side and, missing his mouth upon hers, dragged the robe over her shoulders and breasts, a glimpse of which she hoped was not enough for him.

Godfroi stepped back, and though he looked almost boyish for how disheveled she had made him and breathed hard as if come from a game of ball, there was nothing boyish about the firm of his mouth. “Robine?”

She smiled. “Not here, Husband.”

As if he had forgotten where here was, he looked around. “Indeed,” he said and caught up her hand. But rather than move toward the doors, it appeared they were destined for the opposite side of the stable.

“Godfroi?” She strained backward, and when he halted, said, “Surely we go to the solar?”

“We do not. That was viable whilst there was feasting beyond the curtains, not now there is sleeping.”

“I do not understand.”

He smiled crookedly, something she had only glimpsed on the rare occasion he was relatively light of heart. “Are you truly so innocent, Robine?”

She was not certain what he alluded to, but she understood enough to take offense. “As well you know, I am a maiden, having no experience with intimacy other than whispers one dare not believe in their entirety and the longing to know you as you tell you wish to know me.”

Keeping hold of her hand, he drew her near, and when she raised her face, kissed her brow. “You have heard whispers of the sound of lovemaking, have you not?”

She gulped. “I have.”

“Then I am sure you wish no audience, even one that bears witness only by way of ears.”

She certainly did not, but— “Oh!” she gasped.

“I have waited too long to now scamper about our lovemaking, Wife. Indeed, I do not think it possible to be silent.”

“Then?”

“Come.” He drew her up the stairs to the loft where just enough light filtered to confirm they were the only ones here amid bales and great mounds of hay loosed from their stays—one of which was to become their bed, it seemed.

She looked sidelong at him. “This our nuptial chamber? Prickly hay our marital bed?”

Another smile she longed to kiss, even though amid the feed of horses. “You forget we brought a cover with us.” He loosened the robe’s belt, and when he parted the lapels, he stared. Though his gaze made her skin warm, she did not yield to modesty that urged her to cover herself. Too long she had wanted him to look at her like this.

“You know not how I want you, Robine,” he rasped, then removed the robe. And there she stood as God made her, chin up, watching deepening desire transform his face, and wanting to look upon her husband as God had formed him.

Of a sudden, he moved past her. It alarmed until she saw he fashioned a bed, flattening a mound of hay and spreading the robe atop. When he returned, he swung her into his arms and carried her to the simple pallet where she aided in removing his garments, straining more than one seam in the process.

Then she was in his arms and he in hers, and there were more kisses and caresses than ever she had imagined until, at long last, she shed the final vestige of L’Épée and became a D’Argent in full.

Henceforth, ever that she would be—first, in between, and in the end.