She felt warmed, giddy, by his declaration. “You did? I missed you also. But I kept busy.”
“Is that so?” he shifted so that his arms were braced on either side of her slender body. “What did you do all day?”
“Went through the trunks you brought from Forestburn.”
“And?”
“And I am missing most of my winter clothing. No cloaks or warm things. With this weather, I am afraid that I shall freeze.”
He nodded in understanding. “I apologize. I grabbed what I could find.”
She reached up and touched his cheek. “I know that,” she said. “I did not mean to criticize. It simply means that I must obtain some winter fabric very soon.”
“Of course,” he nodded. “We can go tomorrow.”
“Go where?”
“Into the village. There are a few merchants there, or at least there were. Hopefully they did not run off when Mortimer’s army invaded.”
Toby nodded, not at all pressed to admit she was looking forward to a shopping trip with Tate. She watched him as he played with her fingers, inspecting the skin and acquainting himself with the texture. He seemed preoccupied and weary. Finally, she gaze a squeeze.
“Are you going to tell me why you came to see me?” her eyes were twinkling when he looked at her. “It was not simply to sit on my kitten, was it?”
He relaxed into an easy grin. “Nay,” he said, seeming to hunt for the correct words. Finally he shrugged. “I suppose I simply wanted to see you. I cannot explain it, but you have been on my mind all day and I could think of nothing else but to see you.”
She flushed sweetly. “I am honored,” she said. “And, I will admit, surprised.”
He put her hand against his lips as he spoke. “Why?”
She was having a difficult time concentrating on her train of thought as his lips gently nibbled her flesh. “Because it was only a few days ago that we were at Forestburn and things between us were quite different. A world of difference, in fact; I am still coming to grips with the fact that we are betrothed. And the offer came from a man who openly insulted me when we first met.”
His mouth was still against her hand. “I did no such thing.”
She nodded emphatically. “Aye, you did. You told me that beauty and bad manners were a family trait and that, unfortunately, one trait negates the other.”
He just stared at her. Then he burst out laughing. “Do you memorize everything I say?”
“I have an astounding memory.”
“No doubt,” he sobered, shaking his head. “I shall have to watch what I say around you if you do not easily forget.”
She was smiling in spite of herself, watching the expression on his face. “Nay, I do not forget,” she said softly, her smile fading. “Would you mind, then, telling me what changed your mind about me?”
He cocked a dark eyebrow in mock exasperation. “Must you know everything?”
“I must.”
He was amused. “Suffice it to say that your trait of beauty negated the trait of bad manners. And so did your traits of bravery, intelligence and compassion.”
She watched him as he rubbed his cheek against the back of her hand. Now that they were communicating easily, there were many more questions she wanted to ask him. She was suddenly wildly curious to know more about him, this man who would be her husband. When she thought about it, they’d never had a moment to truly sit and come to know each other. Everything had been in passing or during a crisis. But now, there was time.
“Will you be truthful with me?” she asked timidly.
“I will always be truthful with you. Lying is not in my nature.”
She was sobering, growing serious. “Will you please tell me if the rumors about you are true?”
“What rumors are those?”
“That you are Longshank’s son?”
His smile faded, an odd look coming to his eye. “Does it matter?”
“It does not. But I would like to know the truth.”
He sighed faintly, somehow moving closer to her in the process. There was a lengthy pause, during which time Toby watched his expression as he pondered her question. She held her breath, wondering if he was going to answer her. Finally, he opened his mouth.
“Since we are betrothed, I suppose it is your right to know,” he said. “Aye, he was my father. I was his firstborn son, born exactly one month before his heir, Edward the Second.”
Toby struggled not to openly react to what she had always been told. Still, to hear it from his lips was something of a revelation.
“And your mother? Was she really a Welsh princess?”
He nodded slowly. “From all accounts, she and my father were very much in love,” he began stroking her shoulder, his hand trailing down her arm. “Her name was Dera. She was the youngest daughter of Dafydd ap Gruffydd and she met my father when Dafydd and Edward were briefly allied against Dafydd’s brother, Llewelyn, Prince of Wales. Their love affair was brief, resulting in my conception, and when my mother perished in childbirth, Dafydd turned me over to my father for fear that Llewelyn would somehow harm me. My father gave me over to the great Marcher Lords of de Lara to raise when I was still an infant, hence the name I carry is de Lara.”
“But you are a prince on both sides of your family, not simply a knight.”
He shrugged. “I would be proud to be a mere knight, but by virtue of my birth, I am slightly more. The Harbottle Commons lordship is only the beginning.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “The beginning? I do not understand.”
He drew in a long, thoughtful breath. “Along with Harbottle, I hold title to the baronetcies of Workington and Consett as well as the title Viscount Whitehaven, Lord Protector of Cumbria. I am also the Earl of Carlisle.”
Toby couldn’t help it; her eyes widened. “You are an earl?”
“That is a recent title.”
Her mouth flew open; she slapped a hand over it so she wouldn’t look like an idiot. Tate acted as if it was truly nothing to be shocked over and took her hand back, just so he could kiss it again. The storm cloud colored eyes glittered.
“Now you will tell me about your linage, Mistress Elizabetha Cartingdon,” he said. “And mind you leave nothing out.”
She was still stunned, struggling to gather her wits. “I am certainly none of the peerage you speak of,” she said. “The most I can do is claim relation to the barons of Northumberland. The last baron, Ives de Vesci, had several daughters. My father was a son of de Vesci’s third daughter. And my mother’s sire told me that we are descended from a Viking king named Red Thor.”
He smiled knowingly. “I can see the beauty of Viking maidens in you,” he said. “You clearly should bear the title of ‘lady’, not mistress.”
She shook her head. “My father is only a farmer, a wealthy man through hard work. He is slightly above a peasant and slightly below the nobility.”
“Nonsense,” Tate said softly. “If you are relation to the barons of Northumberland, then you are clearly entitled to be called ‘my lady’. And when you are my wife, you will be much more.”
Toby just stared at him, her hazel eyes limpid with a doe-eyed expression. It was clear that she was still struggling to digest everything. “Will you tell me something more?” she asked softly.
He was moving closer to her, inspecting her, devouring her with his gaze. “Anything.”
“Will you tell me about your wife?”
His dark eyes gazed at her with mild surprise. “What do you wish to know?”
She shrugged, averting her gaze. “I… I suppose I was just wondering who she was and how you met her.” She looked up at him again, speaking quickly. “You do not have to tell me if you do not want to. I am only curious and nothing more. I would hold only the highest respect for her, I assure you.”
He gazed at her a moment before a smile tugged at his lips. “I would never think otherwise,” he said quietly. “And I suppose it is natural to be curious; therefore, her na
me was Catherine and she was a member of the de Broase family, close allies of the de Laras. We were pledged many years ago, in fact, when she was slightly more than a child. I was fifteen years older than her when we married; she was only sixteen.”
Toby nodded every so often, listening to every word. “I take it that she did not have appalling manners like me,” she quipped softly.
He laughed. “Nay, she did not,” he replied. “She was a sweet little thing with big green eyes and a funny laugh. But she had never been in the best of health. When she conceived our daughter, the pregnancy was terrible. She was in bed for the duration. And when it came to deliver the child… well, suffice it to say that her body could not handle the strain. She passed away shortly after the stillborn birth.”
Toby put her hand on his. “I am sincerely sorry,” she said quietly. “It must have been devastating for you.”
“It was,” he agreed quietly. “Catherine and I were together less than a year, but in that year, she showed me something of love. It was a surprise.”
Toby smiled faintly. “That she showed you how to love?”
“That I could feel love.” He looked at Toby’s face, moving an index finger along her cheek to her jaw line. There was something smoldering in his gaze that seduced and devoured her. “I never imagined I could experience the emotion. I thought it was impossible. Then when she died, I thought all of my ability to feel any emotion had died with her. And then I met you.”
Toby’s heart was pounding painfully against her ribs as his storm cloud eyes gazed at her intensely. His touch was hot, gentle, moving across her chin and down her neck, scorching her until she could hardly breathe.
“You felt nothing but frustration with me at first,” she said in a ragged voice. “Of that, you were clear.”
The corner of his mouth twitched and he shifted his body, moving closer still. His hands gripping her upper arms, trapping her. “Frustration then fascination,” he said hoarsely. “From fascination to awe. And then from awe to….”
He didn’t finish as his mouth suddenly clamped down over hers, his lips warm and soft and gentle. But a moment later, his enormous arms were wrapping around her slender body and he was pulling her fiercely against him. He kissed her as he had never kissed a woman before, unrestrained and potent. He kissed her as if he couldn’t get enough of her fast enough. She was sweet and soft and his tongue demanded entry into her mouth, taking advantage of it when she opened timidly to him. He swooped in, licking her, tasting her, feeling his heart pound in his ears and his loins grow harder by the second.
As Tate dominated, Toby submitted. Normally aggressive by nature, it seemed to be her inherent reaction to surrender when being passionately dominated. Her arms were around his neck as he ravaged her, his mouth moving over her cheeks, lips, neck and to her shoulders. In the warm sleeping shift that Ailsa had packed, there was nothing between the garment and her naked flesh. Tate held her ferociously against his torso with his right hand while his left began to wander.
Toby was aware of his lips on her shoulder, his hand moving across her back to her forearm. She was muddle-headed, feeling each new sensation as if she were feeling repeated strikes of lightening. Everything made her quiver and shake. When his big hand moved to her abdomen, she shuddered, and when it finally moved up her torso to gently cup her right breast, she nearly bolted.
Tate held her fast, his mouth coming up from her shoulder. “I am sorry,” he murmured. “I did not mean to frighten you.”
She shook her head, her breathing coming in fast little pants. “You did not,” she said, meeting his half-lidded gaze. “But you… you did startle me.”
“If you do not want me to touch you there, I will not.”
She blinked as if she did not understand the question. “As my betrothed, it is your right.”
He smiled faintly. “I know what my rights are. But I do not want to make you uncomfortable.”
Toby didn’t know what to say. She looked at him, half in apprehension, half in passion, until he gently held her face between his two enormous hands and kissed her cheek.
“Here,” he said softly. “Let me show you what I was about to do. If you decide you do not like it, then I will never do it again.”
Toby nodded unsteadily, watching his reassuring wink. The shift was laced between her breasts; without a word, Tate began to carefully unlace the bindings. One by one, the holes were unlaced until the string was cast aside. The shift was now nearly open to her navel. As the fire snapped softly and the kitten purred at the other end of the bed, Tate very gently pulled her shift off her shoulders, exposing tantalizing flesh inch by inch, not saying a word as the lamb’s wool garment fell away. He watched her breasts become more and more exposed to his hungry eyes until the edge of the fabric was just at nipple level. He could see her taut nipples straining against the fabric. Then he looked at her.
“May I?”
Toby was breathing so heavily that she could hardly speak. It was a terrifying experience for a virgin yet an extremely arousing, intimate one. He was undressing her inch by inch and her body was on fire for reasons she did not understand. When he asked the question, she merely nodded.
He smiled faintly, lowering his head and tenderly kissing the top of her breasts. It was a slow, warm, provocative gesture. When he finally gave a little tug, the right side of the shift pulled way and her entire right breast was exposed. The nipple hardened with the sudden movement. Tate was still kissing the top of her breasts but he moved to the right one, gently suckling on the flesh surrounding the nipple. He made no move to actually touch the puckered pellet. Toby let out a harsh exhale that was something between a gasp and a groan, feeling lightheaded with the flames he was stirring within her. For a moment, he stopped kissing altogether. Then, she felt something warm, wet and firm against her nipple.
Toby couldn’t help the moan that escaped her lips. That primal noise was all Tate needed to unleash the lust that had been building in his veins for the past several minutes; he pulled her against him once more, tightly, and his mouth began to suckle her nipple furiously. Toby cried out as at the pleasure of it, her arms going around his head as if holding a starving child to her breast. The tighter she held his head, the harder he suckled and the more firmly he held her against him. They were engulfing each other.
For as gentle as he had been, Tate was very quickly deteriorating into mad oblivion. He’d never had anything so sweet and strong and delicious. The shift came off completely as he laid her back on the bed, his hands and mouth doing things to her that made Toby oblivious to all else. She was gasping for every breath as his mouth moved between her breasts, licking and suckling with a vengeance. His hands were on her thighs, moving up to cup her heart-shaped bottom with both hands as his passion overwhelmed him. She was soft and warm, and he was raging out of control.
Tate forgot himself as his mouth moved down her torso to her navel; he ran his tongue around it, listening to her gasp with pleasure. He was in a fog and vaguely remembered peeling off his own tunic and removing his breeches. He couldn’t stop himself, not if God himself had appeared and demanded he cease. Everything about Toby was perfect and delectable and he was consumed with the feel and taste of her. He wouldn’t stop; more than that, he couldn’t.
He lifted himself back up so that he was face to face with her, his enormous body atop her slender one. His mouth fused with her lips, once again tasting the honeyed tongue that had driven him mad with desire. Toby grunted when his weight came down on her, instinctively parting her legs so that a good portion of his weight slipped onto the mattress below them. Tate felt her legs part for him and he was lost; he knew what he was about to do and he furthermore knew that he shouldn’t. But what he felt for this woman overtook him until he could think of nothing else. He knew he was in love with her; he’d known that for a while. But he could not bring himself to verbalize it. He realized that his body was about to say it for him and he could not stop it. He did not want to stop it. He wa
nted her.
He pushed into her gently, swallowing her gasps of surprise with his amorous kisses. He withdrew and thrust again, pushing further into her tender body and feeling her tense beneath him. He kept his kisses warm and insistent, hoping to relax her as his arms wrapped tightly around her body. When he withdrew a third time and thrust once more, he slid into her wet folds with a great deal of ease. Another thrust and he was seated to the hilt. A ragged sigh came from his lips as he savored that moment, the joining of their flesh. The feel of her fed him like nothing he had ever known.
He withdrew fully and thrust again and he could hear Toby panting. But she was no longer tense; in fact, he could feel her sweet body relaxing beneath him. His hands began to move, roving her torso, into her hair, against her breast as he thrust again and again, gently at first but increasing in power and passion. He moved into her, against her, feeling her body as it began to respond to his onslaught. More thrusts, more friction, and Toby was moving with him, gasping softly with ecstasy. Her legs wrapped around his hips and he held her buttocks tightly, his pelvis against her, his thrusts powerful and measured, her hips responding in rhythm.
Tate’s mind was consumed with a white sort of fire that seemed to be filled with Toby’s light. He could see her nude outline in the weak light, the flare of her hips and the ripe swell of her breasts. His lips continued to kiss her passionately as his body thrust into her again and again, feeling himself approach complete fulfillment and not wanting to see the glory end so quickly. It was one of the most powerful emotional moments of his life, coupling with this woman that had quickly come to mean so very much to him. He thrust into her hard enough to rattle her teeth, grinding his pelvis against her Venus Mound and acutely aware when her slick walls began to tighten around him. He held her tightly as she experienced her first release, listening to her weep with joy as he took his own.
As fast as the storm rose, it banked swiftly but did not die completely. Tate continued to move within her long after their passionate climax, still wanting to be a part of the woman as he had never been a part of any other. When the gasping and heaving died away, she fell asleep in his embrace and he succumbed shortly after.