Medieval 03 - Enchanted

opened in shock.

“That’s not—”
    He overrode her words without a pause.
    “The harm, dear wife, is that a compliment
that beginswith your eyes soon ends with
comparing your lips to a bud on the brink of flowering.”
    A small shiver of memory went through Ariane.
    “The harm—” Simon continued
coolly.
    “You made me feel like that,” she said
without thinking. “A bud that was full of
sweetness.”
    Though soft, Ariane’s words cut off the
rising anger in Simon. He looked at her mouth, tender as a petal,
sweet as nectar, the unblemished pink of a wild rose just before it
blooms.
    Dominic hailed Simon from the head of the room. If
Simon heard, he failed to turn away from his study of
Ariane’s lips.
    “Simon,” she whispered. “Lord
Dominic calls you.”
    Simon ignored Ariane’s words as he had
ignored his brother’s greeting.
    “Last night,” Simon said huskily,

“your mouth was just like a tightly furled bud. The feel of
you slowly opening to my kiss made my head spin as wine never
has.”
    The narrowed, glittering darkness of Simon’s
eyes was both warning and lure to Ariane.
    “When you finally did open,” Simon
said, “I knew how a bee feels when it slides between fragrant
petals and sips nectar from the heart of the flower.”
    Breath wedged in Ariane’s chest as
Simon’s words vividly recalled the sweet glide of tongue over
tongue, the taste of him spreading through her mouth, making her
weak with a longing she couldn’t name.
    Without knowing it, she whispered her
husband’s name.
    “Aye,” Simon said. “You remember
it, too. Soon you will open for me in a different way, and the
honey of your desire will be the nectar that drenches
me.”
    A shimmer of heat went through Ariane. It was
startling and pleasurable.
    “But until that day,” Simon continued
smoothly, “you will trade compliments only with me, for I am
the onlybee whose sweet sting your petals will
ever know.”
    Ariane opened her mouth to answer. Nothing came out
but a sound that could have been Simon’s name. She licked
lips that were suddenly dry.
    “You tempt me without mercy,” Simon
said fiercely beneath his breath. “Would that I could do the
same to you.”
    He turned with startling speed and strode toward
Dominic, leaving Ariane to the solace of the harp she held so
tightly against her breasts.

10
    “’T is a beautiful day,
lady,” Blanche said. “Almost worth the six days of
storm that came before.”
    A sound like a cascading sigh came from the harp
Ariane held. The notes were as haunted as her eyes. Ariane’s
fingers continued their slow drawing over the harp while Blanche
set aside the comb and began braiding her lady’s hair.
    Ariane hardly noticed Blanche’s fingers. She
was caught between nightmare and unnervingly sweet memories of
Simon’s kiss.
    Six days a wife .
    Tonight will be the seventh
night .
    “’Tis a blessing the weather has
changed,” Blanche muttered as she braided Ariane’s long
hair. “The knights are wild to be hunting. Or wenching. The
cotters’ daughters are hiding in with the swine.”
    Will this be the night Simon
finally comes to my bedchamber again ?
    Or will he let my nerves
string ever tighter as I wait for him to stalk to my bed, drag my
nightdress up my legs and hammer within me until I
bleed ?
    Ariane forced herself to breathe.
    What a pity one cannot
conceive babes with a kiss .
    Her hands changed on the harp as she remembered the
sweet restraint and gliding caress of Simon’s mouth.
    If he remembered her kiss with equal favor, it
didn’t show in his manner. Since the morning after their
marriage, Simon had been polite to Ariane and no more.
    I don’t want any more
from him .
    It was a lie, and Ariane knew it.
    Yet it was also the truth, and she knew that
too.
    She wanted Simon’s kisses, his gentle
touches, his smiles. She didn’t want the passion that ran
through his blood like lightning through a storm, making his eyes
both dark and glittery at once. She was frightened of the male
strength that so easily could overwhelm her, holding her helpless
while he forced her body to admit his seed.
    Have a care how you mock me,
else I will take what God and king have given to me, and to hell
with your virginal fears .
    “Lady?” Blanche asked.
    Ariane blinked. The tone of her handmaiden’s
voice told Ariane that she had been called more than once.
    “Yes?” Ariane asked.
    “Does your hair suit you?”
    “Yes.”
    With a grimace Blanche set