Page 25 of The Sword and the Damsel

Defeated, he pushed up from the pallet, gathered his clothes, and dressed. “You and she have more in common than looks, you know. You both have a special talent for getting under my skin.”

She smiled. “I’ll take that as a compliment. Now go up to the castle and don’t come back. I expect to hear wedding bells within weeks.”

Shaking his head, he gave her all the coin in his purse. He didn’t want his own lack of enthusiasm to hurt her in any way.

He bid her goodbye and made his way back up to the castle, replaying the moment when Lady Alais was in his embrace over and over in his mind. Duty be damned. His self-control hung by a thread. But what kind of knight would he be if he broke his word and pursued her? And how would she respond? He would have to keep his feelings carefully locked away. No one could ever know.

Chapter Ten

Her door wasclosed, and it had been at least half an hour since she’d heard the last footsteps in the hall. Alais gave in at last to the urge she’d been resisting all week. She knew it was a sin. It would be a catastrophe if anyone ever found out, but she couldn’t help it. There was only so long she could fend it off. It was like trying to ignore an itch or trying not to drink when thirsty. Carenza was right. The sooner she got married, the better. It was better to marry than to burn, or so the saying went, and she burned. Oh, how she burned. Her personal hell would surely be a castle full of tasty men she couldn’t touch.

She pulled up her shift beneath the covers and grazed her nails along her inner thigh. Sir Robert came riding up Castle Street in gleaming armor. Her fingers tickled the hair of her mound, lightly teasing. He pulled her onto his horse in front of him and then reached beneath her skirt to touch her most sensitive places. Rocking gently in the saddle, she felt the smooth leather between her legs and the cool steel of his armor against her back. She let her finger enter her warm folds and begin circling and stroking as she imagined Sir Robert’s lips on her neck. Her other hand fondled a nipple as she imagined Sir Robert’s hand on her breast.

He touched and teased, and the sensation between her legs quickened. She let the rhythm take her as her pleasure built, and he continued to caress her most intimate parts. It was bliss to betouched, to be wanted, to take relief from the touch of another instead of being all alone in bed imagining….Oh. Sir Robert dissipated, and she was alone in her bed imagining. The pleasure that had been building fell flat.

Her itch was as strong as ever, though, so she concentrated and started again. Sir Robert lay beside her in bed. It was their wedding night. He kissed her lips, and she felt tiny explosions all through her body. His hands explored her naked flesh, caressing, pressing, teasing. The moment had come. The moment when he would enter her and make her his. Something pressed between her legs, something new, something she’d never seen or felt before, and—

Her mother stood before her, delivering a gruesome lecture about blood and sticky liquid and the importance of ensuring the succession. Alais pounded her fists into her mattress in frustration. Why was it so difficult tonight? How could she need it so much and find it so impossible?

She thought back on her day, reviewing the events and trying to find the point at which the itch had sharpened into something she could no longer ignore. Maybe if she could figure out what had set her off, she could find a path to relief.

Then she had it. The weight and muscle of Sir Victor stretched the entire length of her. His arms had held her for a brief moment. And then he was gone. She’d felt the absence of his embrace the entire rest of the day. And then there was the way he looked at her when she left with Sir Robert. For some reason, she felt an intimacy with Victor that was different. Sir Robert felt like a distant ideal. Sir Victor was all too human, all too real.

She imagined Sir Victor lying beside her, his fingers touching her instead of her own. Tremors shot through her. Her fingers quickened their pace. His twilight blue eye watched as she shook in wave after wave of guilty pleasure, her body finding its releaseat long last. She moaned into her pillow with the final spasm, unable to keep silent.

When it was done, she went over to her washbasin to scrub her fingers clean. She couldn’t leave any traces of her activities. No one could ever know. She splashed water on her face as well to revive herself from the trance of fantasy and sensation, then climbed back into bed.

Sir Victor.That was unexpected. She could swear he felt something for her—something about the way he looked at her and appeared embarrassed every time she touched him. But he’d never said or done anything to indicate a more active interest. She would have to try to draw him out, encourage him to speak.

He avoided her as much as possible. Perhaps he didn’t like her after all. She was still embarrassed about how he’d overheard her asking about his face when they first met. He was probably insulted, even if he laughed it off at the time. He’d had every right to be insulted. She was so rude. There had to be a way to make it up to him. Setting aside the unexpected attraction she felt, she cared what he thought of her. She hated the idea of him holding a poor opinion of her.

It was a little silly, though, for her to get fixated on a man who wasn’t interested when she had five suitors who were. She’d probably end up with Sir Robert in the end, though the idea had lost some of its appeal. He was pretty, and the way he looked at her certainly made her blood race at first. But it was nothing like a moment ago, thinking about Victor. Maybe she needed to reconsider her priorities. Could she possibly entice Victor to propose? As she drifted off to sleep, it was her guard, not her suitor, that filled her thoughts.

*

On his narrowpallet in his spare quarters, Victor lay awake, staring at the ceiling. Whydidn’the court Lady Alais? Other than the fact that he was her protector, there was nothing stopping him. He could speak with Lord Daniel about being relieved of his assignment and try to win her hand. Guestling wasn’t an impressive holding, but it was more than some of the others had to offer, certainly more than Robert had, at least. Lady Alais even seemed to like him these days. It wasn’t only that she kept flirting with him. She flirted with everyone, so that was meaningless. But something had shifted in how she acted around him.

If he were to court her, how would he do it? She wasn’t as vain and shallow as he’d originally thought. She was a flirt without a doubt, but she wasn’t as preoccupied with her own appearance as most young women he’d met. She knew she was beautiful and didn’t fuss about it. She liked to laugh and joke. Her humor tended to test the boundaries of propriety, something the two of them had in common.

He suspected that flattery would be useless with her. Words would only take a man so far if not accompanied by action. The whole episode with Gilbert proved that. It was clear that she had no patience for cowards. Money and position wouldn’t impress her either. She might like the idea of being showered in gifts, but she wasn’t ambitious or avaricious.

What she wanted, as far as he could tell, was a grand romance. She wanted someone who would sacrifice everything for her sake, someone who would offer unquestioning loyalty. He wasn’t sure any of her suitors would offer that. They were all thinking in terms of what she could offerthem, rather than the other way around. But he could offer it. If he was being honest with himself, he already had. He didn’t think he could deny her anything if she asked, not that he would ever admit that out loud.

She also wanted affection, attraction, a spark. Those were not the sorts of feelings he generally inspired in women these days. Robert seemed to be the one with the best chance of kindling her flame. In fact, he seemed to have succeeded already to some extent. Victor had seen the look in her eye whenever Robert kissed her hand or found excuses to touch her—helping her onto a horse, retrieving a handkerchief, pulling a leaf from her hair, clutching her shoulder after offering his cloak. There had been warm moments with the other suitors as well, but not as frequently. Each time he was forced to watch one of these moments, his gut churned and twisted, and at the first opportunity, he fled to Jane.

He shouldn’t begrudge his cousin. Robert saved his life. If they made each other happy, why shouldn’t they be together? But he worried about Robert’s temper and his tendency toward vindictiveness. In his darker moments, Victor sometimes wondered why Robert had bothered to deflect that blade the day he was injured. While Robert made a great show of loyalty and sympathy, it was clear that he resented being second in line after Victor for Guestling.

Robert never missed an opportunity to take a backhanded dig at him. Part of why he needed to leave Hastings had been his exasperation with the way Robert and his friends all called him “poor Victor” and talked endlessly about their pity for him after his heroic sacrifice. Robert made disparaging comments in the company of ladies, questioningpoor Victor’sability to do his duty and produce an heir, as if his wound extended well beyond his face. He’d even tried to drive a wedge between Victor and his father, accusing Victor of neglecting his family to drown his sorrow in wine and whoring. Fortunately, his father had seen through it and told Robert to stop talking nonsense, though for some reason he still expected Victor to treat Robert like a brother.

He’d had to leave Hastings to be free of it all. His aunt had wanted him to marry. She’d even specifically mentioned Lady Alais before he’d left. It would solve a political problem for both his aunt and Lord Daniel if they wed, but he was damned if he was going to marry a woman for politics, even a beautiful woman whom he couldn’t get out of his head. Dear God, he wanted her! But she didn’t want him, so it could never be. And he still had a duty to defend her. He’d given his word to Lord Daniel.

He would have to content himself with winning her favor at the tournament. That one kiss, which he was determined to earn, would have to last him a lifetime.

Chapter Eleven

“Have you decidedwhose token you’re going to wear yet?” Iselda sat on the bed, looking even younger than usual. Alais was less than one year older, but they appeared much farther apart. Iselda dressed too modestly, in Alais’s opinion. That high-necked green velvet gown obscured the few curves on her slim form, and all her luxuriant chestnut hair was hidden beneath a wimple and veil.

“None of them.” Alais smiled and winked at her sister.

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