26

26

On the walk back to the pavilion, Konrad was still feeling out of sorts. He was not sure what had happened over the course of the meal, but the copper bowl under his arm seemed to proclaim him some sort of people’s champion. He glanced down at Aimee who was tripping blithely along by his side.

“As a matter of fact, I do not dislike Orde,” he said in the manner of one severely goaded.

“I know you do not,” his infuriating wife replied calmly. “You like him. You like him because he treats you as an equal.” While he reeled from this piece of wisdom, she carried on. “There are actually remarkably few people you dislike, Konrad. You even like your manservant, who would have been your enemy in the last war. You like him so well you trust him at your throat with a straight razor.”

Once again, Kentigern found himself at a loss for words. “He’s very careful to avoid my scars,” he heard himself bluster in reply. He sounded like a damned fool.

“Why did you not invite any of your fellow knights to our wedding?” she asked, ducking inside the tent before he could answer.

He followed her inside. “Because,” he said heavily. “It seems my blindness extends to more than just this one eye.” He placed the bowl down carefully. “I did not even realize they liked me here,” he added sounding as confused as he felt.

“Maybe it is not just here,” Aimee said softly. She had started to undress. He moved across at once to help her with the lacing down her back.

“Maybe,” he conceded gruffly. He remembered how he had been sought out at the palace by the likes of Vawdrey and Orde. Vawdrey had wanted him to hold his baby, for the sake of the gods. You did not let your enemy do that. Was it possible, he pondered, that Vawdrey and Orde were also friends of his? He had the lurking suspicion they might be. Or they could be. If he would just let it happen.

He should just have let a lot of things happen, he realized in a moment of sudden clarity. Instead of stubbornly resisting any changes to his barren, arid life. He had thought Magnatrude an embittered fool for shutting herself up in the lodge house at Bartree, brooding on the past. But had he not been just as trapped himself in snares of his own making?

People wanted to like him. Aimee wanted to love him. Why was he forever swimming against the tide when all he really wanted to do was let it engulf him and carry him along? He was not some static piece of rock, but another living creature, with the same longings and needs and concerns as his fellow men.

“Konrad?” Aimee reached up to clasp his hand which was now lying idle on her shoulder. “Is all well?” She started to turn, but he caught her about the waist and pulled her back against him.

“Aimee,” he said tightly and dropped his head to rest it against her black hair. It had too many braids and pins in it, so he started to draw them out.

She was silent a moment, seeming to sense his odd mood, letting him hold her close. “Is something wrong?” she asked quietly.

“I still don’t like the way you sing that last verse,” he admitted lamely.

His thoughts were whirling too much for him to express himself with anything like coherence. He was astonished by the things Aimee had made him admit that night, even if only to himself.

“Lady Aileen sang it very nicely, I thought.”

He grunted, unable to comment on Aileen Howard’s performance as he had not paid it any heed. Setting the handful of pins he had removed from her hair onto the table, he ran his fingers through the perfumed length of her dark hair, separating the strands.

“Jakeman brought all the furniture back into the tent,” she commented, looking about them. “The candle looks like it is about to go out. Let me light another.”

“Do not bother,” he said. “There is sufficient remaining for us to undress by.”

Aimee stepped out of her loosened gown. “Brrr,” she shivered, now down to her shift. “Once the sun goes down, you certainly feel a nip in the air.”

“Get under the covers,” he recommended.

“I will once I have washed my hands.” She removed her necklace and set it on the table and then moved to the basin for a quick wash in what must be cold water by now.

“Should I rouse Jakeman to fetch more water?” he asked.

“No,” she answered with a quick shake of her head. “I had a good wash before dinner. This will suffice.”

She splashed about a bit and then hurried to the bed while he performed his own strip wash and blew out the candle.

When he joined her moments later, they both gravitated toward each other in the darkness, and Aimee gave a contented sigh as he wrapped himself around her.

“How is your body now?” she asked in a muffled voice from his shoulder.

“My body?” He hoped she had not noticed his inevitable reaction to her closeness. He certainly had no intention of making demands of her in the middle of the Howard’s meadow.

“Your aches and pains,” she elaborated. “From earlier.”

He thought about it. “Surprisingly good,” he admitted. Usually by this time in the evening his joints and muscles would be protesting. “You did a good job.”

“Mayhap I will become indispensable to you, given time, husband,” she said, with a wistful catch in her voice.

His throat closed, and he lay blinking in the dark. How was he supposed to answer such statements? He was not good at making other people feel valued. In fact, he was monstrously bad at it. He lay a moment feeling frustrated with himself. Then he realized something. She gave him opportunities all the damned time. Opportunities he failed to take.

Fuck it. “You already are,” he growled and felt gratified when Aimee’s arm, which lay around his waist, tightened in a squeeze. She gave another happy sounding sigh that went straight to his already half-hard cock. Hopefully, she would not realize what was sticking in her hip.

“Konrad?”

“Aimee,” he groaned. “We should really get some sleep. I have the joust tomorrow.” The trouble was that he was aching in different places now, thanks to her.

She lifted her head from his chest. “Of course, if you are tired,” she said reassuringly.

He groaned with frustration and then rolled her under him. “If you truly want to know how my body is, I will tell you. It is aching, wife, but not in my joints.” He ground his hips against hers, letting her feel his hard, aching shaft against the swell of her soft stomach. He wished he had not blown out the bloody candle so he could see her face. Her lovely, beauteous face gazing up at him, with her dark hair spread out behind her. He stared into the darkness but could not make out more than her form.

“Konrad,” Aimee breathed, her arms reaching up to clasp him to her. Thank gods.

“I’m an unreasonable brute to expect you to do this – to let me rut you in a field,” he muttered shakily as he yanked up her shift. “Tell me now if you want me to stop, sweetheart, and I will.”

She gasped, though whether it was from his using an endearment or something else entirely he was not sure. He forced himself to halt his progress, resting his hand at her waist. “Aimee?”

“Yes – I mean no. It – it is not unreasonable,” she stammered, sounding as though she was striving to catch her breath. She slid her legs restlessly against his, and he had to bite back a groan. “I want you to do that. Here and now in your pavilion.”

“You do?” He dipped his head to make sure he had heard her right. “You would tell me if you did not? Aimee?”

“Truly,” she urged breathlessly, and her hands slid down his back so firmly, he could not help but buck his hips against hers. “Yes,” she moaned. “I’ve wanted it since I saw you naked in the tent this afternoon.”

Konrad’s eyes widened in the dark. He had not been expecting that.

“I wanted to – to touch you here.” Her hands slid down over his buttocks and squeezed, drawing a startled grunt from him.

“Fuck, Aimee. Why did you not say so?”

She gave a breathless laugh. “Well, I was not sure you would be receptive to such a strange request.”

“There’s nothing strange about it,” he growled, slipping a hand between her legs. He paused to stroke against her nether hair before sliding his fingers through her cleft. Finding her already wet, he grunted again and teased her there, wedging his thigh between hers and toying with her until he could hear how wet she was. Gods, he was a lucky bastard. A really lucky bastard.

Aimee whimpered. “Konrad!” Her hands roamed over his back again. Her touch felt amazing, and at her touch his body seemed to light up from within, somehow recognizing it as uniquely hers. Maybe he was growing fanciful in the near dark, but no one else had ever touched him with such reverence and obvious pleasure as Aimee. No one else had made him feel as desired as she did. Not even before his face was ruined.

He shifted down the mattress, and Aimee let out a muffled wail of disappointment, her hands landing in his hair. “No, Konrad,” she begged in a hoarse whisper. “Not that. I do not want everyone to hear me.”

“You think only my tongue can make you scream?” he asked, rubbing his jaw against her soft thigh. Aimee shivered and he could deny himself no longer. “Put you hand over your mouth,” he said thickly and lowered his mouth between her plump thighs. It was mere moments before she was squirming and sobbing beneath him.

He did not hold back, sucking and tonguing her tender flesh until she came apart with a muffled shriek that almost undid him on the spot. Instead, he forced himself to pause, breathing raggedly between her trembling thighs as he strove to get himself under control. He concentrated on listening to Aimee’s shallow breathing until he could inch back up her body and take full possession of it with his pulsing cock.

To his delight, she looped her arms about his waist as soon as he moved back up, making him welcome. “See?” he teased. “You were nice and quiet.”

She gave a breathless laugh that somehow made his chest contract. He wanted to kiss her but was not sure how welcome that would be considering where his mouth had just been. Women could be squeamish about such things. Would Aimee? “Can I kiss you?” he asked gruffly.

The bedclothes rustled, and he realized she was lifting her head to meet his. When their lips met, he felt the tightness in his chest relax, even though his ballocks were starting to throb with increasing urgency. He settled his palms over her plump bosom and lightly squeezed, letting his fingers find her generous nipples, plucking at them lightly through the fabric of her thin shift.

Aimee gave a soft moan into his mouth that made his poor neglected cock jerk. He lifted his mouth from hers to whisper her name and thought he caught a gleam from her eyes even though the interior of the tent was black as pitch. He tugged the neckline of her shift down, exposing her bared breasts to the brisk night air. Again, he regretted the lack of candlelight so he could feast his eyes, but he found her hardening nipples just fine with his hot, sucking mouth.

By the time he had traced the underside of her breasts with his tongue and rubbed his beard up and down the tender valley betwixt her lovely globes, her legs had parted once more and tightened about his hips with a pleasing urgency.

“Please, my lord,” she whimpered, and he would have loved to delay, just to hear her beg a little more so prettily. However, he was already going to spend with an embarrassing haste if he was not careful. Reaching down, he took himself in hand and guided himself where he most wanted to be.

His chest was heaving like he’d run a mile, and as he felt the thick head of his cock engulfed in her tight, wet heat, his eyes rolled back in his head and he thrust inside her, once, twice, thrice until he was fully sheathed and had let out a yell far louder than he’d intended.

It was him that needed to cover his mouth, he thought dazedly as he slumped over her, striving for breath. My gods. “Aimee?” he asked shakily.

She reached up her hands and stroked the sides of his face. More shockingly, he did not feel the need to flinch away. Her thumbs caressed his cheekbones. She must feel the difference between the left and right sides of his face, he thought dimly, but could not bring himself to care.

“I wish I could see your face,” she whispered, and for some gods forsaken reason, it made him want to kiss her again. He remained hovering where he was above her a moment, just luxuriating in the feel of her. Even her breath on his face gave him gratification, and suddenly he could stand it no longer and had to start moving.

“Aimee,” he breathed, and capturing her hands, bore them to the mattress, pinning them to either side of her head and lacing their fingers together. She arched her back and must have planted her feet on the mattress to propel herself, for she met his thrusts with a vigor that threatened to take his breath away.

“Oh, my lord,” she gasped. “Oh yes.”

Konrad gritted his teeth. It was almost too much. Somehow the darkness made it feel more intense as it seemed to heighten his awareness of how good how it was. He was losing himself in her and it felt incredible. For the first time in his life, he did not temper his thrusts or worry that his large body might be overwhelming. His wife had made it clear that she reveled in his strength and power.

“Konrad!” she cried out, and he felt the blood rush in his head, pounding in his ears. “Konrad! Oh, Konrad! Yes!”

“Aimee!” he shouted, and fuck, he didn’t care if the whole damn field heard them.