She crossed to the door. Corbett opened it for her and then followed close behind her as they went down the steep stone steps. The stairwell was cold but Corbett's nearness seemed to create an aura of warmth. Still, for all the physical heat they generated together, Lilliane could not mistake the emotional chill between them.

When they reached the door to the tower room Lilliane turned to face him.

"I have one caveat upon which I must insist," she started as bravely as she could.

Corbett stood very near her. His great size blocked the light from the single torch so that only his silhouette was clear to her. "No."

The word, though spoken quietly, seemed to roar like thunder in the empty stone tower. Lilliane wanted to clap her hands over her ears to shut out that obstinate, angry sound. But instead, with no forethought, she put her hands up to his cheeks and pulled his head down to meet her kiss.

It was a bold move, one she'd had no chance to weigh the merits of. But perhaps for that very reason it seemed to placate him as nothing else would have. She'd only wanted to ask him to leave his anger behind when they went through the door, to allow them to meet without the emotional enc.u.mbrances that tortured them both. But as their lips clung in a kiss at once both pa.s.sionate and sweet, Lilliane felt as if he'd already given in to her unspoken request.

She was aware when he backed her into the door. Then the door opened and she started to fall. But Corbett caught her up in his arms. The touch of his tongue was like a stroke of fire along her lips and within her mouth. The solid feel of his body cradling hers so easily was like floating off into heaven, for she knew just what a heaven awaited her.

But Lilliane fought off the mind-stealing lethargy brought on by his pa.s.sion. That was not what this night was about. When Corbett lowered her feet to the ground, she put one palm flat against his chest to hold him at bay.

"Wait," she said, panting, although waiting was hardly what she wanted to do. "You must let me do as ... as you said."

Corbett did not smile, but his eyes were smoky with desire and he was breathing hard. "Then go ahead." He gestured to the bed.

Lilliane shook her hair back as she looked over her powerful husband. He was tall and strong, and in spite of the scars that marked him, she thought him the most handsome and desirable man alive. Her hand slid slowly across the breadth of his chest, feeling the definition of his muscles there and the rea.s.suring beat of his heart. It was a steady beat, strong and reliable as he was. If only he could see that she was strong and reliable too.

But she pushed that painful thought away and took a step nearer him. With hands that trembled only a little, she loosened the brooch that held his short mantle on. Deliberately she stood as close to him as she could, and although she did not see his face, she knew the effect she caused on him. Her hair was a loose cloud, tumbling wildly about her face and shoulders. She knew how he loved her hair, and as she bent even closer she felt his fingers stroke down through the long chestnut length.

Before he could gather it into his hands, however, she moved to take hold of the gold-braided hem of his tunic. As she tugged the blue serge up and over his wide shoulders, he raised his arms obligingly and she was reminded of their first meeting.

It had been in this very room and she'd had to undress him then as well. But where she'd been frightened and filled with dread then, now she felt only love.

His shirt was next. She cast it carelessly aside, for she was feeling eager as he stood before her bare-chested.

"Now it's your turn," he murmured huskily, and he reached for her.

"No." Lilliane stared at him seriously, putting up one hand to keep him at a distance.

But Corbett caught her hand and twined his fingers with his so that their palms were pressed warmly together. Somehow it seemed the most intimate of gestures, and Lilliane felt a rush of love for this man go over her. For a moment she could do no more than stare into his deep gray eyes.

"If I may not remove your clothes until mine are gone, then you must hurry, Lily. I'm only human and you tempt me beyond endurance." Lilliane did not delay although her cheeks burned when she removed his braies and then his small cloth. Yet when she looked at her husband standing so erect and proud in his naked glory, she could feel no shame for her brazenness.

She kept her wide, golden gaze locked upon his as she slowly began to remove her own clothes. Corbett's face took on an expression approaching torment as she struggled with the tight lacings at her wrists and at either side of her waist. But as she finally put the full-skirted garment aside, Lilliane was more than pleased to see the rigid evidence of Corbett's arousal. She let her hair fall before her as she bent to remove her hose and then her delicately woven kirtle. It was a gesture done more for the scanty protection it gave her from his gaze than to be provocative. Yet it proved to be the final straw for Corbett.

"Come here, Lily," he murmured in a low, tortured tone.

She started to go to him, as meekly and obediently as a wife should. But then she stopped; she wanted to show him so much more than just obedience.

It took all her mettle to raise her head bravely and shake her hair back. Only when she stood before him proudly in her nakedness did she at last come to him.

Corbett's eyes seemed to devour her. She was trembling with excitement, her own arousal now clearly displayed to him. When she reached him he stood as one entranced until she slid her hands up his chest to encircle his neck and then fitted herself intimately against him. It was an unmaidenly thing to do, indecent by any lady's standards. But Lilliane knew instinctively that it was the right way to show her love to Corbett.

In an instant he gathered her into his steely embrace with a fierceness that took her breath away. She'd had plans to seduce him, to try to imitate all the ways he'd kissed her and touched her in the past until this time he would be the one begging her to come to him. But she'd underestimated both the power of her seductive preparations and the strength of his raging desire.

Corbett's lips were like fire on her skin. Everywhere they pa.s.sed-over her eyelids and her cheeks, down to the corners of her mouth, and the lobes of her ears-she was inflamed. Then he moved in sweet delicious kisses along the sensitive curve of her neck and lower, to the high outthrust swell of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Corbett sank to one knee then and one of his hands moved to cup her derriere. His mouth became more deliberate as he began to kiss the pearly skin of first one of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and then the other. Nearer and nearer he circled until her nipples were aching with need and Lilliane was arching toward him desperately.

She caught his head between her hands, marveling that his hair could be so soft when the rest of him was so hard. She bent to kiss the top of his head and then, using all her waning strength, guided him most demandingly to take her nipple in his mouth.

The exquisiteness of his lips upon that tight rosy nub as he sucked it into his mouth then teased it with his teeth and tongue sapped the last of Lilliane's strength. Had he not held her so snugly to him, she was certain she would have fallen. As it was she sagged against him, crying at the acute pleasure and yet still wanting some ease for the voracious need building in her belly.

But Corbett was relentless. First one, then the other of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s received his total devotion. Then, when she thought surely he must bring her to the bed or she would die of longing for him, he moved his kisses lower still.

Lilliane stood leaning over him, her hands braced upon his ma.s.sive shoulders as he bent to kiss her belly. When his thumbs tenderly opened her most feminine center to those extraordinary kisses, she cried out in ecstasy. "Corbett, Corbett! My one sweet love!"

Then she began to shudder with the explosive power of her release. Her hands gripped him blindly as she arched back in that perfect, perfect agony.

It lasted forever. It ended too soon. She only knew that Corbett was on his knees grasping her so tightly to him that it hurt. His head was bowed just beneath her chin and she rested her tear-streaked cheek on his damp, raven locks.

She was crying and unable to stop when he finally raised his head to look at her. Their eyes seemed to meet forever, and in a brief moment of clarity Lilliane thought that his gaze had never seemed so clear. Then he lifted her high in his arms and laid her down upon their bed.

His entry was swift and sure. Lilliane wrapped herself completely about him, wanting more than anything in the world to give him whatever he wanted. If he wanted an obedient wife, then she would become that wife. If he wanted a mistress to provide him with the most carnal of pleasures, she would be that mistress. If he wanted an heir, oh, please G.o.d, let her bear him their child.

And if he wanted to be rid of her ...

She could not think of that at all. Instead she rose to meet his powerful thrust, taking all he had to give over and over again.

When he pulled her upright to straddle his thighs so that they were face to face, she was certain he touched the very center of her being. Her fingers dug into his shoulders as she felt the pa.s.sion rising within her again. As he strained in an increasing tempo and then began to stiffen, her own pa.s.sion peaked once more and, as if in a violent storm, they reached their zenith together.

There were no words afterward. They lay quietly together after catching their breath, but neither of them sought to break the intimate tangle of their limbs.

Lilliane lay with her head on Corbett's chest, his heart beating strongly beneath her ear. One of her arms lay across his chest and under her hand she felt the three scarred ridges on the back of his shoulder.

That heartbeat. Those scars. At that moment they seemed somehow to symbolize everything about him. He was a warrior, scarred outside and perhaps inside as well. Yet his heart pounded so adamantly, so constantly within his chest. Could that heart ever love her? she wondered wistfully.

The words came to her lips unbidden. Her soft "I love you" was less than a whisper in the quiet night air. But she meant it as nothing she'd ever meant before. Whether or not he was awake to hear, whether or not he would even believe her, it was nonetheless true.

She loved him and she always would.

21.

IT WAS A FRAGILE peace.

Lilliane was truly grateful that Corbett had ceased his nightly drinking and had regained a modic.u.m of his earlier, easy mood. But she knew at the same time that she had but won a skirmish. The enemy was not yet defeated. The war was not over.

She saw it in the way his eyes followed her, although he always had a smile ready for her. She sensed it in the way he concerned himself with every least detail of the castle preparations. The only odd note in his otherwise careful behavior was his annoyance with his friend, Sir Dunn.

Dunn, it seemed, had suddenly grown to like her. Gone were the suspicious stares and the watchfulness. Now he greeted her most cordially, always inquiring after her health, or little Elyse's. And if Corbett was about, Dunn always sent him a smug, almost triumphant look. This would bring a scowl to Corbett's face. But no words would pa.s.s between the two men. Just those strange, telling looks.

Despite the relative calm at Orrick, however, Corbett's tension seemed to increase up to the day the guests began to arrive.

Tullia and her husband, Sir Santon, came first, and the two sisters met in a warm embrace.

"How content you look, sister!" Tullia cried as her soft brown eyes took in every aspect of Lilliane's appearance.

"And you look quite the happy wife."

"Soon to be a mother," Tullia confided with a most rapturous expression. "I hope you are soon so fortunate as I."

"So do I," Lilliane whispered as she hugged her sister anew. Her gaze sought out Corbett who was greeting Sir Santon most hospitably. All the signs were there to indicate that she might, indeed, be with child. Her second monthly flux was even now overdue. And yet she still held back from telling Corbett. She told herself she just wanted to be sure. But a little part of her lived in dread of the doubting look she might see on his face. He'd never again brought up William's accusations-lies was a more accurate term. But she feared he still believed them. Would he doubt the true parentage of this child she bore?

Lilliane shook off those troubling thoughts and smiled at her youngest sister. "You must be quite exhausted from your journey. I had your own chamber prepared so that you may be most comfortable."

She barely had them settled before more guests appeared on their heels. Sir Roger and Sir Charles come from London along with Lady Elizabeth and her father. Lord Gavin from Durmond and the earl of Gloucester. Even Odelia and Sir Aldis from their home in Gaston, their greeting meek and hesitant. Although there was still a reserve between her and her sister, Lilliane was relieved that Odelia and her husband seemed more accepting of her marriage to Corbett.

The castle was filled to overflowing and was in a constant hubbub, for aside from the invited guests, there were also their guards, their personal servants, and their horses to be housed and fed. The kitchen was filled with activity at every hour of the day or night as breads were baked, huge haunches roasted, and every manner of fish and fowl cleaned and prepared for the guests.

Despite the endless supervision and the myriad of details the servants plagued her with, Lilliane took a profound pleasure in hosting the Christ's Ma.s.s festivities. When she had prepared the castle for Tullia's wedding feast-and unexpectedly her own-she'd felt a certain detachment as well as a sense of loss, for she had thought Orrick would never again be her home. And then the wedding feast itself had been a complete sham.

But the preparations for these lengthy festivities were another matter entirely. She was determined to enjoy every aspect of Christ's Ma.s.s: the feasting, the games, the entertainments, and the gift giving. She did not feel at all the same trepidation she'd felt among the crowds in London, for now she was on home ground. Now she was at Orrick.

It wasn't until after the feast of St. Thomas that Lilliane felt the first qualm about the festivities. Corbett had taken the male guests on a hunt in the winter woods quite early. Most of the ladies were taking advantage of this winter reprieve from their own wifely tasks to stay long abed. So it was that Lilliane was alone with her kitchen books when the chamberlain announced the arrival of still another guest.

Lilliane hurried to the bailey as the small retinue of riders crossed the bridge, but when she recognized Sir Hughe of Colchester, her smile began to fade. Still, there was nothing to do but greet him as cordially as possible despite the instinctive dislike she felt for the man. And even though she worried about Corbett's strange interest in his brother's every move, she nonetheless hoped her husband would soon return and relieve her of any lengthy discourse with the ominous Sir Hughe.

"I bid you welcome, Sir Hughe." She curtsied as he dismounted and tossed his reins carelessly to a waiting groom.

"What is this!" he exclaimed with a joviality not reflected in his narrow gaze. "I bid you greet me as a loving sister-in-law, Lilliane." With that he gave her a forceful hug and a hard kiss directly on her mouth.

Lilliane was more than shocked by his unwonted familiarity. She stepped back quite startled and stared at him warily. But Hughe seemed determined to befriend her.

"Don't be so shocked, my dear. Despite all that has pa.s.sed between our houses, I am certain that Orrick and Colchester shall now be at peace. Why, it will almost be as if we were one united demesne." He grinned.

"Y-yes, so it shall," Lilliane stammered, quite certain now that something was afoot. Corbett and Hughe were far from affectionate brothers. Neither Corbett's attempt at only a casual interest in Colchester, nor Hughe's unexpected friendliness toward Orrick could quite disguise that. But Lilliane was intrigued.

When Hughe inquired about a number of the guests and then finally asked after William of Dearne, her curiosity only intensified.

"William is not here," she murmured as she offered him a tankard of ale in the great hall.

"Indeed?" Sir Hughe swished the dark-brown ale thoughtfully in the tankard. Then his watchful gaze rose to her face. "I am surprised he was even invited. Some say he may forgo the pleasure of Orrick entirely."

He sought information. Lilliane was certain of it. Well, so did she, she admitted to herself. It could be quite enlightening to linger at conversation with Sir Hughe.

"Oh, I'm sure he must come." She fingered her heavy meridian ring, then affected a faint, knowledgeable smile. "After all, his daughter, Elyse, remains at Orrick."

"But not with his consent. I heard Corbett was quite ruthless toward William." This time he smiled. "And toward you as well."

Lilliane could not prevent the frown that creased her brow, nor the color that stained her cheeks. Did the entire kingdom know of William's lies and Corbett's suspicions? Did the ladies even now whisper of it in their rooms and the men jest crudely at the expense of her reputation?

She fought down angry words and faced her bland-faced tormentor. Plainly he delighted in the troubles between her and Corbett, as if somehow he benefited from his brother's problems. Well, how much more would he delight if she magnified them even further?

Lilliane did not pause to consider the consequences as she declared war on Sir Hughe. She knew only that he was still her enemy-in spite of her marriage to his brother. She suspected that for some reason, he was Corbett's enemy as well.

"I'm afraid Corbett has a suspicious nature," she revealed slowly. Then she gave him a long, steady look. "I would not ask ..." She faltered, then had to restrain a laugh at the avid expression on Hughe's face. "Has ... has Corbett always been inclined to drink?"

Any humor Lilliane felt fled at the quick flash of satisfaction that lighted Hughe's gaunt face. If she'd had any doubt of Hughe's true feelings toward his brother, they were now banished. For all his pretense of civility and even brotherly concern, it was apparent to her that he would take perverse pleasure in Corbett's downfall.

Hughe smiled expansively and let his eyes slip a.s.sessingly over her. "He has always had a wild and ruthless streak. He was a jealous and cruel boy. No doubt he's become a jealous and cruel man." The last was said as a statement yet the arch of his brow lent it a questioning air.

Lilliane would not confirm it and thereby lie outright, but she did not hesitate to blush prettily and lower her gaze in apparent agreement. When Hughe took her hand and patted it rea.s.suringly, she had to grit her teeth to prevent her revulsion from showing.

"Take heart, my dear. Despite the unfortunate past between Orrick and Colchester, rest a.s.sured that you may always turn to me should Corbett's vile temper get out of hand. Just send word to me and I shall see to your safety." His smile became more knowing. "And despite his absence, I know you may count on William's unwavering loyalty as well."

With that clear innuendo Hughe excused himself and retired to his chamber with many rea.s.surances and smiles. Once he was gone Lilliane remained in the great hall fighting down a wave of nausea that might have been caused as much by the vile Sir Hughe as by her suspected pregnancy.

What was Hughe up to? she wondered in agitation. He and William were somehow tied together in this, and they both saw Corbett as their adversary. But why?

Her musings were halted by someone approaching. When she looked up she saw Sir Dunn's curious face.

For a moment there was silence. They'd never actually sought one another's company despite Dunn's recent overtures of friendliness. Still, the suspicious expression on his face was more a reflection of the old Sir Dunn, and Lilliane almost felt relief as she snapped, "What is it?"

He did not respond at once and Lilliane was sure he debated in his mind how to begin. He finally drew a long breath. "I hope I'm not wrong about you."

"Wrong? What is that supposed to mean?"

"You spoke a good while with Hughe. He seemed well pleased when he left you."

Lilliane stood up in exasperation. "He is my brother-in-law. Should I not speak to him or put him at his ease? Besides, what right have you to spy upon me?"

His face grew grim and he watched her closely. "Your loyalty lies with your husband."

At his solemn expression Lilliane drew back and her annoyance fled. "My loyalty is with him," she vowed most earnestly. "Believe nothing else but believe that."

The blond knight's face was inscrutable as he weighed her words. When he spoke it was slowly and with much feeling. "I believe you. He is not so sure of it, but I leave it to you to convince him. Still, I caution you to be careful of Hughe."

"Can't you tell me what the trouble between them is?"

But Dunn only shook his head and, with a last intense look at her, quit the hall.

Lilliane did not have time to ponder Dunn's vague warning. Much too soon she was called to inspect the four pigs roasting in the huge kitchen hearths. By then the ladies had begun to rise, and no sooner were they being entertained than the men returned from the hunt.

She dispatched a servant to see the game cleaned and dressed, then sought out her husband in the great hall. Corbett was laughing at some antic of Gavin's when she entered, but though he retained his interest in the company she knew his eyes followed her.

"Good lady Lilliane," Sir Roger boomed as he took her hand most gallantly. "Perhaps you can answer this puzzle. Your husband swears the woods of Orrick contain the wildest of creatures. He had us all watching our backs lest some strange animal attack us!"