She turned her head slightly, relieved that she could do so, and found Dragon not asleep or at least drowsily replete, as he should have been—oh no, not he—but wide awake, propped up on an elbow, and looking at her with what appeared suspiciously to be amusement.
“I don’t think you are human,” she said sulkily.
He grinned. “I felt like a god a few moments ago, but that’s to your credit, not mine.
You want to control me.” She spoke dispassionately as though observing the plight of another woman far distant from herself.
Dragon looked up, surprised. “You are my wife.”
“Say rather possession for so do you think, do you not?”
He shrugged, wondering why she stated the obvious. “All wives belong to their husbands.”
“I wanted to be free.”
His eyes darkened. There was greater challenge here than even he had thought. “You wanted to be safe from Wolscroft and the rest of them, even from me when you though misguidedly. That is why you fled.”
She shook her head. “Oh, no, safety was a convent from which not even my father could have forced me. But it was not to one such that I fled, was it? I wanted freedom, and having tasted it, however briefly, I want it still.”
His hands tightened on her, driven by the sudden, piercing pain her words brought. Did she think to leave him again? To flee as she had done and leave him once more bereft. No, by heaven, she would not! “No one is free,” he said fiercely. “We are all enmeshed in duty and responsibility.”
“Your duty is of your own choosing, for you did not return here after many years away and willingly take up your inheritance. Your destiny is of your own making and you the master of it as much as any man can claim to be. I want the same myself, no more, less.”
“But you are a woman . . .” His bewilderment was genuine. Such yearnings as she described belonged to the realm of men. Women were for hearth and home, the nurturing of children, such ordered security of days as could be wrested from uncertain fate. A man in the thick of battle, in the fury of adventure, in the depths of night had to be able to count on that, for without it, of what purpose was anything?
“You are a woman,” he repeated firmly. “And my wife. You have been too long apart from womanly ways with no proper influence to guide you. I applaud your strength and your courage; both will breed true in my sons, but—”
“Your sons? Your sons? They will be my sons, Lord Vanity, and my daughters as well, mayhap only daughters, for by heaven it would suit me to thwart you so!
Good,” Dragon said with satisfaction. “Now we’ll try it the other way.”
“Other? But this is perfectly fine.”
“You can’t get anywhere lying on your back.” His smile turned devilish. “Well, actually you can but perhaps this isn’t the time to dwell on that.
Dragon!” she said and moved ahead of her husband to greet her brother-in-law with a warm hug. “You look well. The leg is still not bothering you?”
“It would not dare, after the terror you put it through.
How much choice did you have?”
To Rycca’s surprise, Cymbra laughed. “In my case, none.” She sighed in mocking languor. “I still remember Wolf’s deeply romantic proposal. He told me that if I did not wed him, he would kill my brother.”
“He what?
Take off your clothes. Better yet, I’ll do it.”
“Oh, no!” She stepped back quickly in alarm, which prompted a swift frown from him. It vanished when Rycca said, “I saw how you manhandled that tunic. You aren’t about to do the same to this gown. Just wait a moment . . .”
Even as she spoke, she deftly undid the laces down the side of the garment and lifted it carefully but quickly over her head. Her husband was in a mood, ridden by tension she could not understand. She wanted to placate him, yet she also wished to surrender to the urges he so effortlessly unleashed within her.
Naked save for the gauzy chemise that hid nothing from his eyes, she stood before him, her head lifted proudly to conceal the quivering she felt within. She gloried in his gaze, hot and potent, raking over her. But when he reached for her, she stepped back again. “I ask a boon, lord.”
She had never asked him for anything—save freedom and that he could not give. Caught, knowing he could hardly refuse, Dragon rasped, “What?” He had not meant to be so curt but speech was almost beyond him. He wanted her with a desperation he had never felt before save every time he lay with her, and even then he usually managed to maintain some semblance of control. Not now. He burned, his body drawn bow-taut. If he did not sheathe himself soon within his wife’s silken depths . . .
She looked at him directly, her eyes wide and candid. “All day I have wanted to . . . touch you.”
His dark brows rose. “All day?” Well, that was certainly pleasing but it didn’t make his condition any easier to bear. Harshly, he said, “You don’t have to ask permission to touch me.”
She shrugged her lovely, almost bare shoulders. “I know, but under the circumstances . . .” Her gaze drifted down his body, rather pointedly, he thought.
Which definitely did not help matters at all.
“You can touch me later,” he said and reached for her again. She pressed her palms against his chest, tossed back her gleaming hair, and laughed. Really, he was going to die from this.
“Just a little now . . . please?”
Dragon squeezed his eyes shut and reached deep down inside himself for the control that was so intrinsic a part of his warrior’s nature. It had to be in there somewhere. Any moment now he’d stumble across it.
People were coming and going about their daily tasks, now that the barn was rebuilt, apparently determined to ignore the fact that the lady of their manor was tied to a punishment post. Not Magda, though. That stalwart passed him with as close to a glare as she could ever come and bustled out to ask Rycca advice about something or other. The sheer ludicrousness of that struck Dragon and he was chuckling when Magda passed by again, which earned him another stern frown.
That was the height of levity for the day. Hours passed and nothing happened. Magda came and went, clucking over Rycca’s failure to eat and glaring more at Dragon every time she saw him. Several of the other women began to do the same.
Besides the Hawk’s own men, the men of the Wolf and the Dragon kept watch as well. Night and day, hour to hour, never eased for a moment, three warlord husbands kept guard over their beloved wives.
Josie LittonWhat is it?” Dragon asked.
“There is a man, lord, just off a ship from Normandy. He’s in the tavern over there and he’s asking for the Lady Rycca.”
“Is he? What manner of man?”
“Tall, slender, actually he looks rather like her ladyship. He says she is his sister and he seeks word of her.”
“Does Rycca have yet another brother?” Wolf asked. He was close to Dragon and had overheard the exchange. The news had him fingering the hilt of his sword.
“Yes, she does, but I gather he’s an altogether different sort. Do you mind finishing up here?”
“Not at all. Go ahead.”
Scant minutes later, Dragon set a horn of ale in front of the visitor from Normandy. The young man looked up, startled. He was pale skinned, with eyes like honey and hair that held the promise of fire. Had Rycca been a man, she would have looked just like him.
Happy, happy day that she was not.
“What brings you to Hawkforte, friend?” Dragon asked as he took the seat opposite his new acquaintance.
“I seek word of my sister, the Lady Rycca of Wolscroft. I have had troubling word of her in Normandy and wish to be assured of her safety.”
Trouble involving Rycca? How astonishing. Dragon hid a grin and said, “You would be called—”
“Thurlow. And you are—?”
This time, Dragon’s smile would not be denied. “Ah, well, as to that, therein hangs a tale.
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