Corbett's eyes narrowed. "First of all, they're not your guards any longer. Any man not loyal to me-me-may shed his guard duties and go back to husbanding sheep or tilling the soil."

Lilliane was infuriated by his high-handedness. "You have no right!"

"I have every right!"

She was silenced by his angry words. For a long moment their gazes remained locked in silent conflict. Then Corbett took a slow breath and seemed to calm.

"Things will be different at Orrick now," he began in a reasonable tone. "Accept it and you will find life to be far easier."

He didn't have to say "Fight me and you will lose." She already knew how he felt on that score. Still, Lilliane could hardly resign herself to seeing everything at Orrick turned upside-down on his whim.

In frustration she sought to rise, but he easily stopped her.

"We have unfinished business between us," he reminded her.

"To what business do you refer?" she asked, wondering angrily if he had some further punishment in store for his willful wife.

"You bade me wait, when last we lay together. Tonight I will do just that, wait until you reach your complete pleasure."

Lilliane's amber eyes widened at that; she was caught completely off guard by his astonishing words. On too many painful occasions she had recalled precisely those frustrated words of hers. She had not known why she'd revealed her feelings in such a wanton manner. Indeed, she'd hoped he had forgotten her shameless cry. But it was terribly clear he had not. As she stared at him, mortified by the memory, his stern expression eased and she caught the trace of a smile upon his lips.

"Come now. Why such a shocked mien? Surely you have not forgotten how much you enjoyed the pleasures of our marriage bed?"

"All I remember is how I was forced into this marriage against my will!" she replied angrily, unwilling to admit the truth of his words.

"I don't deny that is how it was." She felt his warm breath against her hair. "But why must you deny that you now find as much satisfaction in our joining as do I?"

It seemed at once that he kindled a flame within her. In place of her anger a new, even more volatile emotion now seethed. Like fire she burned everywhere he touched her: his fingers within the loosened laces at her side; his palm resting above her knee; and most markedly his masculinity beneath her bottom.

Something within Lilliane tightened and twisted with her new knowledge of what was to come. But there was a part of her that still fought such all-consuming submission to him. Instinctively she tried to get free of his hold, but Corbett would have none of it. His hand tightened at her waist to keep her still upon his lap.

"Do not flee, Lily. And do not deny the sweet pleasure we took of one another."

He turned her downcast face up to him then slid his finger slowly along her full lower lip. "What we shared before was only the beginning of the pleasure we shall find in one another."

Lilliane blushed heatedly. Both his words and the sensuous slide of his fingers over her lips set her to trembling. Memories of their earlier joinings besieged her and, indeed, she felt an intense rush of desire for him.

As their gazes held she could clearly see the smoky desire in his eyes. She quickly averted her stare, afraid her own wanton desires might be just as plain to him. She was mortified by her uncontrollable emotions. Hadn't he just flaunted his victory over her? Hadn't he mocked her by robbing her of every authority she held at Orrick? How could she then feel this terrible, overwhelming desire for him?

She was perched on his lap, trembling with longing yet unable to face him and the plain truth of her confusing feelings. But Corbett was not so shy nor so hesitant.

"Show me what you want," he murmured in her ear. Then his lips moved down to her neck and she felt the hot whisper of his words against her oversensitive skin. "Show me."

She gasped in pleasure and her breath quickened as his hand slid along her thigh. With just such a light touch he ignited her, and all vestiges of reason fled her mind.

"Show me what you want," he demanded once again, his voice low and husky.

"I-I don't know," Lilliane cried softly. "I don't know."

In a sudden motion he stood up, lifting her high in his powerful arms. His dark eyes were alive with light as he stared into her heavy-lidded ones. "I know, Lily. I know just what you want."

He crossed to the high, draped bed and she closed her eyes in silent acceptance of his words. He did know, she realized. A tremor shook her.

At the bed he sat down, still holding her close against his chest. She was pliant in his arms as he cradled her; resistance was beyond her now. Then he tilted her face up and captured her lips in a warm, persuasive kiss. His mouth was firm and mobile on hers, sweet and knowing. When his tongue swept sensuously along the curve of her lower lip, fire seemed to dart from her belly, heating her entire being in sudden response.

She remembered these torrid, drugging kisses. Only too well. They made her weak and wet, and made her long for so much more.

Without conscious thought her arms crept up to circle his neck. Beneath her fingers she felt the warm firm skin, slightly damp now with sweat. As she arched closer to him, pressing herself intimately against him, she heard his low groan of desire.

"Ah, woman, how you have tormented me these long, long weeks."

Something in Lilliane exulted in those words, something feminine that she'd never felt before. "Is that why you rode ahead?" The whispered question was out quite before she could stop it.

Corbett laughed at that, then leaned back to better see her. "It was," he conceded with a wicked grin. Then without warning he lifted her from his lap and put her on her feet before him. His eyes gleamed with antic.i.p.ation as he took in her pretty, flushed features.

"I made intolerable haste to return to my bride." He paused and his hungry gaze drank in every inch of her soft, womanly form. His voice grew huskier. "Show me your welcome, Lily."

She wanted him. An ache had begun in her and she knew that only he could ease it. Yet as he sat there, like some finely carved statue, resplendent in his own masculine beauty, she was swept with acute shyness.

How to welcome him? she thought distractedly. She'd fought him and hated him. Now it seemed he might not be a murderer as she had suspected, yet he was still a hard and ruthless man. The king's Bird of Prey. She shook her head in confusion and took a step backward but Corbett caught her wrist.

"Leave off this coyness," he warned. "You may not avoid your wifely duties any longer, Lily."

"I-I'm not being coy. And ..." Her face heated and she lowered her eyes. "And I'm not trying to avoid ... anything."

The sternness left his face then. He pulled her to stand between his legs and placed his broad palms at her waist.

"You need not be shy before me, my sweet little wife." He smiled and pushed a curling strand of her hair behind her shoulder. "But if you prefer that I help you disrobe, so be it."

Lilliane was caught between painful humiliation and a dizzy exhilaration as he set to his task. Her wrist laces were first; then her girdle was taken away. When he helped her lift the gown over her head, she blushed violently. She quickly removed her slippers and stockings, well aware of his fervid gaze upon her pale curving legs. Then she stood up covered only by her thin bissyn kirtle, and looked at him.

In the firelight Corbett appeared a dark, golden shadow, some vision conjured up by her own wanton thoughts. How many times while he'd been gone had she closed her eyes only to see him precisely so? How many prayers had she sent desperately aloft in the hopes of quelling the terrible desires that had overwhelmed her? She had kept her solitude in this very same bed, and yet his memory had been alive in it.

Now, though, it was no memory. Her entire being tensed in awareness and expectation for he was here, flesh and blood, bone and muscle. His skin would be the same, warm and firm, marked with the scars she knew already by heart. His lips would be as sensuous as before, whispering endearments, kissing her, licking and biting ...

Lilliane's breath quickened and her eyes grew wide. Sensing her clear arousal, Corbett pulled her nearer. "Now this kirtle." He put his hand just above her knee and began to draw the soft linen fabric up.

Her heart thundered in her chest as he slowly bared her legs. She swayed toward him, dizzy with the rush of emotions that had her in their grip. When his hand found the tender flesh of her leg, she leaned against him, her hands braced on his wide shoulders.

She closed her eyes helplessly as his hand slid up her thigh. She could take no more of this, she thought weakly. No more.

Then she felt the warm pressure of his other hand at her nape, pulling her face down to his. When their lips met she could have expired from the sheer pleasure of it. Fire seemed to leap between them, and she needed very little coaxing to open to his insistent kiss. She was drowning in pure delight, falling further into some magical chasm where only she and Corbett existed. Her thin gown disappeared. Then he pulled her tightly against him. Her belly and b.r.e.a.s.t.s pressed hard against his chest as he drew her relentlessly down onto the bed.

He rolled them both over, imprisoning her beneath him. "At last I have you, my wild Lily. You play the ice maiden so well, but I shall melt that winter heart of yours."

Lilliane felt anything but icy. Corbett's hard masculine body pressing down upon hers had started the most torrid of fires in her blood. Yet still his words brought her eyes wide open.

"It was never my heart that you sought," she whispered. Then before he could respond she pulled his head down to hers and kissed him. It was pa.s.sionate and desperate, a shamelessly bold move on her part. But Lilliane could not bear to hear his reply. If she could have taken back her words she would have, for she knew they revealed far too much to him.

Her pa.s.sionate response seemed to fire Corbett even further. From her lips, down her neck he planted hot fervent kisses, as if branding her his and his alone. Lilliane felt she was surely being devoured by him. She threw back her head and closed her eyes, a willing martyr to this wonderful torment. Everything in her responded to his skillful touch, to his clever fingers and knowing lips.

Slowly he slid his hard body down hers so that he could nuzzle her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She gripped his shoulders tightly as he took one aching nipple between his lips and then the other. Back and forth he went, teasing, biting, and sucking until she was dizzy with excitement and mindless with ecstasy. She pressed her belly up against him, pleading mutely for some relief to this swelling pleasure deep within her. But Corbett was not quite ready to ease her driving need. His face was flushed with his own pa.s.sion as he stared at her from smoky, heavy-lidded eyes.

"Tell me what you want, Lily." He tortured her with a light wandering trail of kisses up her throat and neck. "Tell me," he breathed in her ear.

Lilliane moaned in boundless pleasure. "I want you." She gasped. "Oh, come to me now ..."

With a low groan of his own Corbett at last capitulated. They were both slick with sweat as he raised up over her. The heavy weight of his masculinity burned against her belly and she squirmed in delicious antic.i.p.ation.

"Ah, my fiery girl. Now you hurry me. But there is no need for such haste." He paused as he probed the silken entrance to her feminine being. Lilliane arched up, eager to feel the relief of his fullness within her. But he would not be rushed. "Tonight I want everything from you, Lily. Everything."

Then with a sureness that stole her breath away, he pressed his full length into her. Lilliane gasped at the intense pleasure; at that moment she was willing to give him all he wanted of her. That, and even more. He slowly began to move over her, a studied torturous rhythm that fired her to unimaginable heights. Her hands grasped his sweat-slick shoulders as he urged her higher and higher.

She was trembling in ecstasy, filled with a wonderful, terrible antic.i.p.ation. In a moment of sudden fear her closed eyes came open and fastened on Corbett's face just inches above her.

"Don't hold back, my lovely Lily." He thrust deep within her, then pulled out with agonizing slowness. Then again and again. And all the time he watched her every expression.

She could not hide from his possessive gaze. Nor was she able to resist the powerful sensations that were building within her. Then it began and she cried out in mindless bliss. Like a tidal wave it washed over her. She was sucked down into a dizzy swirling vortex, then when she could hardly breathe for the very intensity of it, she was cast back up into the light.

As if in a dream she felt Corbett's powerful body tense over her, then he shuddered and she heard his low groan of pleasure. Lilliane's eyes were closed, her body was drenched with sweat, and she had never felt so completely limp and drained. Yet her lips were curled up in a soft smile when he finally slowed his torrid pace.

"A smile?" Corbett kissed her lips lightly, then rolled to his side and pulled her snug against him. He had not yet caught his breath and his heart was pounding beneath her ear. Lilliane slid her hand along his steel-muscled side, marveling at how right such a light and intimate caress felt. Then she laughed softly at her fanciful thoughts. Surely this was nothing as compared to the other intimacies she had just shared with this man.

"She smiles. Then she laughs." Corbett's breath tickled her ear. "Ah, the rare delight of a man whose wife truly relishes the pleasures of their bed."

It was his turn to laugh at Lilliane's heated embarra.s.sment. His palm was warm as he gently slid his hand along her arm. "I hope that tonight eases the frustration of our last time together."

She raised her eyes shyly to her husband's shadowed face. He was propped up on one elbow watching her, a half smile playing on his finely carved lips. Yet the sincerity in his eyes was apparent.

Slowly she nodded, her eyes held captive by his steady stare. When he bent over to kiss her, she closed her eyes in contentment. It was heaven to have his lips moving so seductively upon hers. It was a pleasure she'd never dreamed of to feel his iron-hard thigh move to rest between her own bare legs. She lifted her arm to circle his neck, but he caught her hand and brought it to his lips instead. He kissed her wrist warmly, then moved his lips past her curled fingertips to her sensitive palm.

But in the midst of this tender, pa.s.sionate display, he suddenly halted. She started to speak when he opened her hand wider and ran one finger along her ringless finger.

"Where is it?" He looked at her sharply with eyes that had turned dark and cloudy.

"I ... It is ..." Lilliane faltered, trying desperately to recall where in her anger she had thrown her wedding ring. But Corbett's suspicious stare only fl.u.s.tered her more. "I was ... I wasn't sure of you. My father was dead-"

"Of natural causes," he interjected curtly.

"Yes," she agreed nervously. "But I didn't know that, and when William ..."

Lilliane's heart sank at the stony look William's name brought to Corbett's face. For a long tense moment he loomed over her. All vestiges of the pleasant warmth between them had fled. Then he rolled from her and sat up on the side of the bed.

The flickering remnants of the fire gleamed on his damp shoulders and edged him with gold. Yet she was certain there would be no warmth from him now. She shivered as the cool night air touched her bare skin and pulled the heavy coverlet up to her chin. She feared he would leave her, and she struggled to find words that would smooth over her rash actions. When he spoke she was troubled by his somber tone.

"William is under guard in his chamber this night." He turned his head and locked his dark eyes with hers. "Give me one reason not to throw him in the donjon. Give me one reason not to seek revenge on him for his deviousness."

"It wasn't for deviousness that he helped me," Lilliane argued softly.

"No?" His scarred brow arched in mocking doubt. "Then tell me why he did it."

"He ... he did it merely to help me."

"He did it to help himself." His jaw clenched. "And to help himself to you."

"That's not true!" She started to sit up but he stilled her with a fierce look.

"You are my wife, Lily. Mine! I've been more than lenient with you for I know what it is to lose a parent. But mark my words, woman. Today you went too far. There are some things I will not countenance."

She had no reply. When he finally lay back and pulled the cover over him, she remained still and quiet. In the dark they lay thus until he spoke once more.

"He goes tomorrow. I can offer him no more leniency than that." It was said without inflection, and yet she knew his emotions seethed beneath his contained facade. Still, she could not leave him unaware of all the circ.u.mstances.

"Lady Verone cannot travel," she said quietly.

He moved in the bed but she kept her eyes fixed on the high shadowy ceiling. "Her child threatens to be born any day, but it is too soon," she continued. "She must not travel."

There was a low, m.u.f.fled oath. When he finally spoke, however, his tone was restrained.

"Don't make me appear the villain, Lily." He reached out for her and pulled her close to his chest. "I am lord of Orrick now. You are my wife and mistress here. But I am your lord."

"Yes, you are now lord. But am I truly mistress? You strip me of any authority. You turn my own guard against me!" she muttered heatedly.

His hand moved possessively to her belly and he pulled her snug against his loins. "I warned you before not to fight me. But you refused to listen. Maybe now you'll not make that mistake again."

Lilliane knew it would be useless to argue with him, although her anger festered sorely within her. She tried to convince herself that perhaps time would ease the conflict between them. They would adjust to one another and life at Orrick would become more settled. But even so, she knew it would not come easily.

As she reluctantly relaxed against him and accustomed herself to sleeping in such an intimate embrace, she sighed deeply. She would just have to face each of their encounters one at a time. He wanted William gone. In truth, so did she. But Lady Verone was another matter entirely. She was fighting for her child. Lilliane knew she could do no less for her new friend.

She shifted and Corbett's leg slid between hers. Much had pa.s.sed between them this day, she realized. From mistrust and hate to hesitant belief, and then this unexpected, explosive pa.s.sion. She yawned again as his head settled comfortably at the corner of her neck. Today had been a revelation. Tomorrow anything was possible.

But her first task would be to find her ring.

13.

LADY VERONE GRASPED LILLIANE'S hand weakly. In her pale face her eyes were huge and sunken, terrible evidence of the battle she fought. Her pains had begun in the early hours before dawn and were now coming with frightful regularity.

"Just hold on, Verone. It's almost past. Just hold on," Lilliane encouraged her suffering patient.

"Oh ... oh ..." The woman panted as the pain began finally to subside. Then she shifted her gaze to Lilliane's stricken face. "Do not fret so, Lilliane. What G.o.d wills we must accept."