Philippa snorted and flung away the pins and ribbons, shaking her head until her hair hung free, framing her smiling face.
“There, now do what you will. As you always do when we are home.”
Dienwald sat back, his fingers absently sliding through strands of her hair, his eyes still melancholy, as he gazed at the orange flames in the fireplace.
“I’m no longer just me,” he said at last.
“True,” Philippa agreed, leaning her cheek against his knee. “I’m part of you now, as is the child I carry.”
His fingers stilled abruptly and his dulled expression vanished in a flash. “The what?”
“The child I now carry. Our babe.”
“You didn’t tell me.” She heard the beginnings of outrage in his voice and smiled.
“Why didn’t you tell me? I am the father, after all!” He was ready for an argument, a banging loud fight, but she didn’t plan to give him what he wished just yet.
In a voice as calm as a moonless night she said, “I wanted to wait until after you’d met my father and dealt with your honors and position. Now that you’ve survived all your new privileges and awards and tributes, all the banquets and fawning courtiers, we can return to Cornwall, to our real life. Tomorrow we leave London, and we’ll look back on this and know it was but a fragment of something not really part of us, Dienwald, something like a dream that scarce touches us.”
“Save that I’m now a peer of the realm and have my coffers filled with royal coin. Royal coin I never sought.”
“Aye, I know,” she said, gently rubbing her palm on his thigh. And, she thought, grinning, you’re spoiling for a fight. You can’t bear that I’m being so quiet, so reasonable. Not just yet, my husband.
His fingers tightened in her hair. “Aye, none of this I wanted. I have been made to feel guilt over a bit of honest thievery, and that from a man who’d cheated me! I won’t have it, wench! And now you deign to tell me you are with child! You decide it is time that I know of my babe. You have deceived me, and I shall make you very sorry that you did.”
“Just what will you do?”
She was teasing him! He stared down at her laughing face, saw the dimples deepening in her cheeks, and wanted to throttle her. “I will think of something, and don’t you doubt it.”
Her voice was as demure as a virgin’s. “Something worthy of an earl? Worthy of Lord St. Erth, that scoundrel and knave?”
He sought for words but couldn’t find a single one, so instead he leaned down, grasped her face between his palms, and kissed her hard.
He pulled away and saw the darkening of her eyes, the sheen of passion building, the soft yielding to him. It was always so, and it always made him feel boundless satisfaction and immense male pleasure. He smiled and kissed her again. His hands left her face and stroked downward until they held her breasts. When she moaned softly, coming up on her knees to get closer to him, to come between his legs, he pulled back and grinned evilly down at her. “There, I have my revenge and it’s worthy of any man in the realm who’s worth his salt. I started to debauch you, and when you were reach to beg me for it, I stopped.”
Philippa stared at him silently for a very long time. He fidgeted, but she didn’t move, didn’t speak. Then, as he looked at her, two tears seeped from her eyes and trailed down her cheeks. She didn’t make a sound. Tears continued to gather and fall.
“Philippa, don’t cry. I . . .”
He gathered her against him, wanting to pet her and fondle her and make her forget her tears. When he leaned forward to draw her up, she suddenly jerked back and smashed her fists against his chest. He lurched sideways, and the chair tipped and fell, sending them both flailing to the floor. But he didn’t release his wife. They lay in front of the fire, facing each other, and she was grinning at him.
“You give over, husband?”
“I’ll give you anything you want, wench.”
“Will you love me here, on this soft Flanders carpet, in front of the fire?”
“Aye, I’ll make you moan with pleasure before I’m done with you.”
“Proceed, husband. I await your pleasure.”
He laughed and drew her to him. She was his wife, this king’s daughter, and he would wear his earl’s laurels as would his sons and his sons’ sons after them. And he would repair St. Erth and it would become a renowned and mighty castle, a bastion to defend the king’s honor, a protector of those in his domain, in all Cornwall. And his wife would birth him a daughter who would likely marry the small son delivered earlier that summer at Wolffeton.
He knew himself unworthy. He prayed he would become more worthy as time passed.
He prayed also that worthiness had nothing to do with an occasional raid, an occasional theft, an occasional assault on some knave, who would, after all, deserve the fate that would befall him.
Philippa’s hands stroked his face, and he kissed her neck. “I love you,” he said, nipping at her earlobe. “As do my son and all the people at St. Erth.”
“You don’t mind that Edmund chooses to call me Mama?”
“Nay, why should I? ‘Witch’ and ‘Cursed Maypole’ don’t go well with your new dignities. Now, enough of this nonsense that has nothing to do with what I want to do to your body.”
“And what is that?”
“If you will close your lips against your silly female words, I will show you.”
Catherine Coulter, Earth Song
(Series: Medieval Song # 3)
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