Madrigal-Chapter 11
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Disclaimer: I really don’t own them but I sometimes I think they own me. I’m making no money from this fic.
In honor of the lovely Jen Bachand’s Renaissance wedding.
I have a wonderful friend and beta in the amazing Kristen Elizabeth. She helped so much with this chapter, but I fooled with it after she looked at it, so, all mistakes are mine and mine alone.
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The return to the castle was uneventful. James came to fetch the cask and left again without discussion or promises. He was aware of the import of what he was doing, especially to Grissom. Even if he found that Lord Vincent was cruel to his first wife or beat her, there was nothing the mage could do to prevent the marriage from taking place.
The setting sun reminded Grissom that at sunset the next day, the bride and groom would meet and the wedding celebration would begin. Less than two days after that, she would ride away, another man’s wife. He might never see her again.
Twas a cruel fate that had finally shown him that there was more to life than his work, the natural philosophies, even service to his king only to turn around and show him in absolute terms that he could never have it. It was a wrench, a living agony to know how close she had been and yet he had never taken the opportunity to tell her how beautiful he thought her, how he admired her mind, or that he loved her deeply, passionately, eternally.
He sat in his rooms as day turned to night and pondered the bleakness of his fate, a life without her. Even when he heard the servants come to light the torches along the stairs he did not rise to light his own lamps. As night fell, he did not rouse himself to shutter the windows or draw the curtains. He sat in the dark, in the cool air, with only the fire in the fireplace for warmth, wondering how he could feel such pain and yet not bleed from it. Hours passed and the bustle of the keep that always drifted through his windows quieted and still he sat, unmoving, uncaring.
The end of first watch had come and gone when he heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs outside his rooms. It would be Captain James, he was sure, come to report of his conversation with Tripton. Grissom was too weary from his own thoughts to call out to his friend; let him come or go, it mattered not any longer. The die was cast and fate had him as her plaything, much as a cat with a mouse.
But the voice that reached him through the darkness was not that of the Captain. “Lord Grissom?”
His heart stopped, then leapt forward. “Lady Sara?”
The glow of a lone candle preceded her slim figure into the room. “M’lord.”
Her voice, velvety low, danced along his spine and he stood. He took one step towards her, but stopped. “My lady, what brings you here? And at this late hour?”
Instead of answering, she raised her candle to study him. “You were not in the Great Hall tonight.”
He blinked. The candle light played along the planes and hollows of her face and flickered in her eyes. His heart wondered…was this his last moment alone with her? How many more times would he be privileged to lay his eyes upon her, to speak to her, to hear her voice?
The silence stretched out until his addled brain caught up with her statement of a few moments previous. “No.” He shook his head. “No, I was here.”
She placed her candle on the table between them and he could see that she had abandoned her mourning dress and had donned the green surcoat she had worn on the day of his return. The light from the fire shimmered against the golden cord of the belt tied at her waist. “You…” She bit her lip. “I had hoped to see you.”
His stomach curled in on itself and he wondered how much time he had wasted on his own miserable thoughts. Had he not been just been bemoaning the lost opportunity to tell her how much he cared for her? Why did he sacrifice these precious moments? Was he indeed the fool she had accused him of being when last they spoke?
He took another step towards her and then another. Her eyes widened and he saw her swallow just before she reached her hands out to him.
As he grasped her fingers in his, he felt something loosen within his chest. He held there for a moment, then lifted first one, then the other of her hands to his lips. “Sara,” he whispered her name as he pulled her close. “My lady, my love.” He pressed his lips to her temple and breathed in the scent of her.
He felt her tremble and her voice quivered as she asked. “Am I?” She pulled back to look into his eyes and he saw a glimmer of hope there. “Am I indeed your love? Do you, in truth, love me?”
“My lady, I have ceased to be the man I was.” Again, he brought her hands to his mouth, this time kissing her right palm. “I am no longer mage nor philosopher, lord nor teacher.” His lips found her left palm. “I am naught else but love for you housed in this body.”
Slowly, she leaned into him, lightly brushing her lips against his. “Then I am a fortunate woman to have the man that I love, love me in return.”
He rested his brow against hers. “I have never felt such as this, nor will I ever again.” He sighed, though whether it was one of contentment or sorrow even he could not say. “Come away with me.”
The lady looked at him with wide, startled eyes. “What?”
“Come away with me. Now…tonight.” His voice took on a note of urgency. “Leave with me. We can ride through the night and be well away by morning.”
She was shaking her head before he finished speaking. “Tis treason against the crown to even say such a thing.” He began to protest but she covered his lips with long fingers. “I will not let you give up your life, your title, your work, your lands, your honor.” She shook her head. “What kind of woman would I be if I allowed you to do those things and in so doing, I betrayed my foster parents?”
Her fingers traced the outline of his mouth and stroked lightly over the whiskers on his upper lip. “Even if I cared naught for those things…my mother lives under the King’s auspices, under guard at his country house. She is half mad some days, but others she is her normal self.” Lady Sara’s gaze remained intent on his lips, watching her own finger as it glided along his mouth, through his beard. “She should have been hanged for my father’s murder, but out of his pity for me she has been allowed to live. If I were to commit treason against the crown, the King’s mercy might be come to an end and her life could be forfeit.”
He bent his head under the weight of her words. There was nothing to it then; he would gladly give up all for her, but he knew neither of them would, or could, allow someone to pay with their life. He felt broken, defeated. “How am I to live, then? Always alone, knowing my love is married to another? Hoping you are happy, fearing you are not? Do I spend my nights dreaming of you, imagining that you dream of me as well? Is that all we will ever have of each other?” His voice was rough with anguish.
“Oh my love,” she whispered. “I did not come here tonight to cause you to grieve.” Her hands came up and cupped his cheeks and again she brushed her lips lightly against his.
This time though, he pulled her closer into his body and did not let her pull away. He pressed his mouth against hers. Her warm moist lips parted slightly allowing him to lightly bring her bottom lip between his own, caressing it with his tongue.
He heard a sound come from her that was between a sigh and a moan; he released her mouth and kissed each of her closed eyes, then each of her flushed cheeks, the tip of her nose, her chin. He felt desire coil low in his belly and he relished the press of his flesh against her own. He delighted in each caress and sought to preserve it in his mind. As cooks and farmers preserved the summer crops for winter feasts, so he would save and savor the memory of each touch of his flesh against hers for the long, cold, lonely years that stretched before him.
After covering her face with soft kisses, he again pressed his forehead to hers, sighing. “Why, then, did you come to the tower tonight, my lady?”
He felt the heat rise off her face as she flushed but her voice was husky and unafraid. “I came to ask you to love me.”
Pressing a kiss into her hair, he responded. “I do, lady, I do.”
“No.” She drew away from him so that she could look him in the eyes. “I came to ask you to love me with your body as I have hoped you already loved me with your heart and mind.”
His heart leapt into his throat and a spike of lust shot straight through him before his mind wrested control back from his baser nature. “My lady, I can not soil your honor in such a way.”
“You would send me to a cold marriage bed never having known love?” Her voice held a hint of the same bitterness it had possessed the day under the willow.
“My love, I would give the rest of my life for but an hour in your arms. But I can not take advantage of your innocence; I can not wrong you in this way.” He reached his hand toward her in a gesture of supplication.
She gave him a smile that was bittersweet. “How do you take advantage of me, my lord? I offer myself freely to you, with love. What deceit or trickery is there in that? If I wish to give my body to you as the husband of my heart for my whole life, despite who the laws of the king will say is my husband, how does that wrong me?”
“It would dishonor your name.” He shook his head and stepped back from the temptation that called to him. “You are an innocent; your husband will know if you…”
She gave a little laugh, genuinely amused. “Women have been fooling men about their virginity since the beginning of time, Lord Grissom. A sleeping draught in my husband’s evening goblet and a small vial of pig’s blood for the bed coverings and he is none the wiser.”
He felt his desire for her rising and his reservations slipping, but he would not allow himself to fall. “Lady Sara, I would not be the one to cause you pain.”
Her brows rose. “I am aware the loss of my maidenhead will cause me pain, my lord. Would you rather that happen at the hands of a man that loves me or a man that will own me? Would you rather I be treated with care and gentleness by the man I love or without pity from a man I do not know?” Her fingers toyed with her belt, smoothing the corded material through her fingers over and over.
Their voices were silent, yet the very air seemed to throb with the beating of their hearts. He fought with himself, but then could not fathom why he fought. His longing for her was so intense that he seemed to have lost his wits. Was what she said real and true or did he just want it to be because he loved her with his heart and mind and wanted the gift of loving her body?
His indecision must have shown on his face, for as he watched, her long, nimble fingers unknotted her belt and it fell, unheeded, to the floor.
“Lady Sara,” he breathed, not knowing what to say.
With her surcoat loosened, she seemed nearly formless, almost ethereal. “Let me not be a lady tonight. Let me be naught but your love and your lover.” So speaking, she pulled off the surcoat and stood before him in only her chemise.
The light of the fire made a tantalizing silhouette of the lines and curves of her body and he felt himself harden and burn for her.
One last shred of rational thought remained as she took one step towards him and he took two towards her. “What if there is a child?”
Sara’s face was turned up to his and her eyes blazed with hunger and love. “I hope with all my heart there is.”
There was no answer to that but to pull her into his arms and into his kiss. Grissom’s arms drew her to him tightly, bringing her as close to him as he possibly could, so close he thought they might meld. While he remained fully clothed, the thin material of her chemise was the only thing that separated her naked body from the grasp of his hands and it seemed to him that her skin burned through the fine muslin, branding him forever with the feel of her.
The last remnants of his conscience whispered that he should preserve her honor, but the greater part of his brain and all of his heart and body longed for the touch of her flesh under his fingers and the feel of her body beneath his. If this was all he would ever have, he was intent on knowing every inch of her skin and loving her as she had asked.
Breaking their kiss, he scooped her up into his arms and pushed his way through the draped entry to his bedchamber. Reverently, he placed her on the bed, nearly panting, not from the exertion of lifting her slight weight, but with the racing of his heart, the throbbing of his desire, the intoxicating sight and smell of her. He stood, torn between drowning in her eyes and tasting her lips again. “Lady…Sara…I would not frighten or hurt you. Should you decide it is not what you want after all, I will abide by your wishes.”
She raised herself to kneel before him on the bed. “This…” Her arms looped around his neck. “…is the one thing I do want.” So saying, she pulled his head down, mouth meeting mouth in a kiss of searing intensity. Their lips opened to each other, inviting, tasting, plundering. Her slender fingers wound into the curls at the back of his neck and his thicker hands stroked her back, caressing her skin through her gown.
Grissom broke away from her lips and kissed his way down her neck as his hands skimmed over her bottom, once, twice, then on the third sweep filling his hands with the perfect roundness of the globes, squeezing them gently. He pulled her further into him and unconsciously ground his erection against her as he sucked her earlobe into his mouth. “So beautiful.” His breath was hot against her skin as he used his tongue to trace the shell of her ear and then kissed and licked his way back down her neck and to the exposed skin of her chest.
Drawing back, he drank in the sight of her; her lips were parted and moist, her breath was coming in excited little pants, her dark eyes were unfocused and half closed. He could have stilled and stared at her for a hundred years, but after a moment she seemed to wake from whatever stupor she was in and slowly, reached for his belt. Quickly, his hand covered hers. “Are you sure?”
She heaved a great, put-upon sigh and looked at him with love in her eyes and mischief in her voice. “You are known as one of the greatest minds of our time. In this land and several of our neighbors, your name is revered and the same as saying ‘wisdom.’ Yet, here am I, your pupil, repeating the same information to you.” Tenderly, she ran her fingers through his beard, lightly touched his lips, ran a finger tip through the cleft in his chin. “Love me. Take me, make me yours.” She pressed another kiss to his mouth. “Though I have little knowledge of the art of love, I do know the preferred way is to remove one’s clothes.” Reaching down, she grabbed the hem of her chemise and pulled the garment over her head.
Sara was bare to him, bathed in moonglow and firelight. His breath caught in his throat, desire and reverence blooming in his chest at the sight of her body, her curves and hollows, lines and planes, her silken skin and thatch of hair. His body throbbed.
Her long fingers undid his belt as he stood before her, dumb and aching. The belt dropped and she reached to divest him of his overtunic, all playfulness gone, in its place an eager fire. “Love me, my lord, my love. Love all of me with all of you.”
The tunic dropped to the floor, followed by his leggings and undershirt. Grissom climbed on the bed, naked, and knelt in front of her. He noted how her eyes roamed over him without shame or fear, but only with hunger and love.
Slowly, he enfolded her in his arms and at last flesh met flesh, his hardened member pressing into her soft belly. The feel of so much skin finally meeting its mate caused them both to sigh. They held there for a moment, reveling in the feel of each other, committing the moment to memory, to burn brightly through long dark years of loneliness.
His hands mapped out her body as though mapping out a new world. The plane of her stomach, the perfect weight of her breasts in his hands, the texture of her rosy nipples on his fingertips. He explored the length of her arms with his hands while his tongue traveled the circumference of her nipples, suckling first one, then the other, delighting in her breathy sighs and her surprised “Oh”s.
When he moved back up her body to kiss her mouth again, to devour her lips with voracious abandon, she stopped him with her husky words. “Would you think me wanton if I asked to touch you?” His manhood jumped as he looked down into her face. She looked neither shy nor inhibited; her tone, her expression spoke of one eager to learn, but afraid to offend or do wrong.
Swallowing heavily, he shook his head. “Nay. I would think myself fortunate.”
Smiling, Sara pushed against his shoulder and they rolled so that she was lying atop his body. He could feel the press of her moist sex against his belly and he bit back a moan at the thought of driving into her slick heat.
“I would know all of you, my love.” Timidly at first, she ran her hands over his muscled arms and shoulders. Growing ever more bold, she skimmed her palms over his chest, then over his stomach and down to the heavy weight of his sex. Her fingers were long and surrounded him easily and he fought against quaking at the contact.
“Oh,” she breathed, stroking him. “How can flesh be so soft and so firm at the same time?” He gritted his teeth against the heat pulsing through him with each glide of her hand upon him. Her other hand joined the first, exploring all of him, learning, testing, caressing. He felt his brow begin to bead with perspiration and lust dance throughout his body all in response to her hands on him, the press of her naked breasts against him, the smell of her arousal on the air.
While she stroked him with her hands, she leaned down and licked first one, then his other nipple with a wet brush of her tongue. Grissom shuddered under her mouth and as she sat up, he caught sight of her smile flashing in the darkness. She moved her fingers from the heavy weight between his legs and took his hands in hers, bringing it to her breast, “When you kiss me here…” She moved his other hand down to the delta between her thighs. “…I feel it here.”
His hands moved without thought or plan, they were as a musician and her body was the finest lyre. His fingers sought to wring the loveliest song from her body. His thumb stroked over a nipple as he delved between her folds. She gave a small cry when his finger found and stroked the pearl at her center. Her exclamation of surprise soon gave way to gasps of delight as he continued to caress her, using a rhythm that caused her to begin rocking her hips against him. She moved and he answered, both of them surging with ever increasing tempo, his fingers playing her body. The cry she gave as she reached the pinnacle was the most beautiful of love songs.
She collapsed on to him, shuddering. He encircled her with his arms, pressing soft kisses into her hair until, sliding from his body to the bed beside him, she panted, “I did not know.”
He smiled at his beloved. “We have only just begun the lesson.”
He began kissing her again; her mouth, her cheeks, her eyes, her hair. He pressed his lips to her skin, kissing his way over every inch of her face and lower, licking and sucking on the skin of her neck, then her breasts. He lavished attention on her nipples, her earlobes, her lips. He kissed her belly and ran his tongue around her navel and then suckled at her breast again. He caressed her thighs with maddening light touches, kneaded her buttocks firmly.
Sara moved beneath him, panting and moaning, finally begging him, “Take me, please, love. Make me yours.”
He positioned himself between her thighs and closed her hand over his throbbing hardness and together they guided him into her body.
Grissom moved forward slowly until he encountered the barrier they both knew would be there. He paused. “Love, I can not help hurting you.”
A sensual smile of promise, tinged only slightly with fear, met his words. “Make me your lover, m’lord. There is no amount of pain that would stop that from being my heart’s desire.”
Kissing her tenderly, he moved forward, a bit at a time, feeling the barrier stretch and Sara tense with the stretching. She did not cry out, but he could feel her body stiffen against his own and at one point, she gave an involuntary wince. He paused, allowing her a moment. Then, kissing her softly, he continued and moved into her with agonizing slowness, pushing himself into her little by little until he was fully sheathed in her warmth.
His heart was thumping; his chest was heaving. His body wanted to drive into her, to take her as she had said she wanted to be taken, but his heart and mind bade him to patience. If this was to be their only time together, if this was the only time she was to know tenderness in the meeting of her body with another, then he would gentle her into the ways of love. His love, he knew, must override his passion and there was so much of both roaring through him now, holding her in his arms, surrounded by her slick heat.
Sweating, gritting his teeth, he held still inside her until he felt the tension leave her. Then, still full seated within her, he began kissing her again. Her mouth, her neck, he breasts. He rubbed his beard against her chest and nipped at her neck. He sucked on her collarbones and licked her ears. What he could not reach with his mouth, he caressed with his hands. The touch of his lips, the touch of his fingers, the touch of his flesh against hers were exquisitely gentle and he waited to feel her body to begin to respond to his again.
Gradually, Grissom heard her breath quicken again in response to the caresses of his hands and mouth. He kissed her deeply, his hunger for her mouth ravenous. He felt relief flood through him when he felt her answer the kiss just as passionately as before, meeting him with her own insatiable hunger. He wanted to weep at the perfection of his body joined with hers, her mouth caressing his.
Slowly, he rocked forward and Sara gave a small moan. He stilled, afraid he had hurt her again.
Seeming to know his very thoughts, she shook her head. “It doesn’t hurt anymore. Please, love, teach me.”
They were words she had spoken to him so long ago, when she was but a girl and he was a different man. Yet somehow, it had all lead to this moment. “Sara,” he whispered. He rocked against her again, this time hearing the need and desire in the responding sound she made.
Unexpectedly shifting beneath him, she raised her right leg and he gave an involuntary thrust in response. He groaned. “Sara, if you move, I will lose control.”
He caught a glimpse of a wicked and teasing smile. “I think I must be a wanton after all, my lord.” She rolled her hips against him, laughing when he surged forward again. Then both of her legs wrapped themselves around his body. “I want to wrest your control from you.”
“Love…”
Her fingers covered his lips, hushing him. “I want to know all of you. Love me.”
He knew not why he argued, some lingering thought of sensibilities and honor perhaps. But what was all that for a lifetime when faced with only one night to be with her, to love her. Finally, abandoning all thought, Grissom pulled her body tighter into his embrace and began sliding into her with deliciously long, slow strokes, muttering her name and words of love as he moved within her.
He pushed into her body and pulled out again, striving to remain in control. The fit of his body within her was perfection and desire combined. There was nothing but the two of them, their love, their joined bodies sliding together as he moved within her, thrusting again and again.
For her part, Sara found her own natural rhythm, surging up to meet him, matching every push of his body with a raise of her hips, making wordless sounds of pleasure and yearning. Each movement of her body against his, every moan and sigh, each bounce of her breasts as he thrust into her drove him closer to the primal edge where craving moved into need and blossomed into completion. The tight grip of her body around his manhood caused the ache of elemental lust to coil and tangle low in his groin, tighter and tighter with every plunge of flesh within flesh.
Her warm breath whispered against his face as she gasped again. She began to writhe beneath him in earnest, moving, meeting, seeking. Slipping his hand between their sweat soaked bodies, his fingers sought and found the jewel between her slick folds. She gasped loudly at his touch, but he did not take his hand away, stroking her in time to the stroke of his hips as he watched the pleasure overtake her. Her gasps became little cries of need. She arched her back, bucking against him in near desperation, her arms tightening around him. “Love,” she cried. “Oh, love.”
He felt her body begin to pulse and spasm around him and his body answered. He drove into her in earnest, thrusting, thrusting, thrusting and then there was nothing but the sweet release within her, gasping “Sara” as he felt himself pulsing into her warm wetness. He knew with clarity stronger than prescience that there would never, could never, be another woman for him.
Madrigal-Chapter 1
Madrigal-Chapter 2
Madrigal-Chapter 3
Madrigal-Chapter 4
Madrigal-Chapter 5
Madrigal-Chapter 6
Madrigal-Chapter 7
Madrigal-Chapter 8
Madrigal-Chapter 9
Madrigal-Chapter 10
Madrigal-Chapter 11
Madrigal-Chapter 12
Madrigal-Chapter 13
Madrigal-Chapter 14