So he closed his eyes and lay there, listening to her fumble with the top of her shift. Something warm and sweet was put to his lips and he immediately latched on, suckling firmly, drawing out her sweet liquid. He couldn’t help the hand that lifted, going to her breast, squeezing and kneading it. God’s Bones, it was the most wonderful sensation in the world, and she was sweet and soft beneath his calloused hand. He could feel himself becoming aroused.
Is she trembling? He swore he could feel her quiver and it fed the lust he was trying so hard to keep at bay. He squeezed harder, putting the palm of his hand against her other breast, through the material, and rubbing at it. He could hear her gasp as that nipple, stimulated, began to leak milk and with his eyes still closed, he yanked that portion of her shift off of her right shoulder, exposing the right breast, and he began to suckle back and forth between the two.
Caught up in the maelstrom, Madelayne braced herself against his shoulders as he suckled from both breasts. He was creating such a fire within her that it was an extreme test of her willpower not to give in to his power. Back by the table, Dolwyd said something about retrieving more medicines from his chamber and she heard the door shut behind him, but her mind was in such a state that she really didn’t hear what he said. She was singularly focused on Kaspian as he drained her breasts and trying very hard not to climax. But it was a monumental struggle. At one point, he suckled her hard enough to cause her to gasp. He froze.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked huskily.
Madelayne was startled by the sound of his voice, as if reminding her that he was conscious and aware. She’d gone the past five days in a fantasy world where only she was aware of the intimacy of their act.
“A little,” she admitted. “They are rather tender”
They, as in her breasts. Kaspian immediately took his hands away from her. “I apologize,” he said. “I… I believe I have had enough. Thank you, my lady.”
Quickly, Madelayne covered herself up and climbed out of the bed, keeping her back turned to him as he watched. Kaspian’s gaze trailed down her torso, thinking of the curves and sweet skin the fabric covered up and feeling like a monster for thinking such thoughts.
“Mayhap we should speak on a few things now that I am coherent,” he said to her. “It seems that quite a bit has happened since I was rendered unconscious.”
Madelayne finished tying up the top of her shift and pulled her robe over her body, covering herself up, as she turned to him.
“Aye,” she said honestly. “A good deal has.”
He shifted on the bed, realizing he was very sore from having lain in one position for some time. He tried to find a comfortable spot.
“First,” he said. “Who returned from Beeston? Where are my knights?”
Madelayne thought on the question as she went to sit on a stool next to the table. “Thomas, Reece, and Ewan returned,” she said. “Thomas has been in command but it is my understanding that he sent a missive to the king to inform him of your injuries and Cairn’s passing.”
Kaspian thought on that. “Good,” he said. “When I am finished with you, I shall want to speak with Thomas. You will send him to me.”
“Aye, my lord.”
He looked at her for a moment, thinking many different things. Mostly, he was focusing on Madelayne and her situation. For Cairn’s sake, he needed to be concerned with the widow.
“Let us discuss you,” he said. “Please let me once again express my sorrow at Cairn’s passing. I do not have many friends but I considered Cairn one. His death leaves me greatly saddened.”
Madelayne looked to her hands, fidgeting. “As it leaves me.”
“And the passing of your child,” he said quietly. “Quite terrible.”
“Aye, my lord.”
His gaze lingered on her lowered head. “What do you intend to do now?” he asked. “With Cairn gone, surely you have plans.”
Her head came back up to look at him. “Plans?” she repeated, somewhat confused. “I do not know what you mean.”
“What will you do now? Where will you go?”
Madelayne had no idea. “I… I do not know,” she said. “I had not thought on it. I have no family other than my father and he was more than happy to be rid of me when Cairn and I married. I have not spoken with him in two years. But… but I suppose I should return to him. There is no need for me to remain at Lavister. Surely you do not want a widowed woman hanging about.”
Kaspian realized that he didn’t like the idea of her leaving. “You and Lady Allington-More have been my chatelaines for the past few years,” he said. “Lavister is very well run thanks to the two of you. I would not want to lose that efficiency.”
Madelayne cocked her head curiously at his attitude. “But I cannot remain,” she said. “I have no husband here; it would not be right. Mavia is more than able to assume the duties herself. You do not need me.”
He shook his head, faintly. “That is where you are wrong,” he said. “You are far more efficient than Mavia is and if it is a choice between the two of you, I should choose you. Besides, it would be uncharitable for me to insist you leave Lavister after all of the loss you have suffered and I do not wish to be uncharitable. ’Tis a cruel fact that a widowed woman such as yourself will face a bleak outlook on your life without a husband to take care of you.”
He may have been trying to convince her that remaining at Lavister as the chatelaine was the best course of action, but he was only succeeding in making her feel worse about the entire circumstance. She had been feeling enough self-pity about her situation without him being so brutally frank about it.
“As I said, I can return to my father,” she said, embarrassed that he was making it clear that he viewed her as a charity case. “I worked with him before and I can do it again. You need not keep me at Lavister simply because you feel as if you should.”
Kaspian wasn’t catching on to the fact that he had insulted her. He had never been very good with women in that sense. “As I said, you are efficient as chatelaine and that is why I would ask you to remain,” he said. “Surely you would rather remain here with people that you know. And Mavia is your friend, so surely you do not want to leave her.”
Madelayne shrugged. “I do not, but that does not change the fact that with my husband dead, it simply would not be right for me to remain here alone.”
“Then I will insist you stay.”
She looked at him pointedly. “My lord, I do not need your charity,” she said frankly. “I will return to my father and you do not have to worry about me telling others that you turned me out. I would say no such thing.”
He was finally coming to see what she thought of the conversation and of him, as if he were asking her to stay purely out of pity. He hastened to assure her that was not the case. “You would be doing me a favor by remaining,” he said. “You will become my ward and everything will be proper. Or do you wish to return to your father so much?”
She shook her head hesitantly. “I do not, my lord, but….”
He cut her off. “Kaspian.”
She had no idea what he meant. “My lord?”
“You may even call me Kaspian. Addressing me formally seems strange under these circumstances. May I call you Madelayne?”
She nodded before she could even think about what he had asked because the conversation had her muddled. “You may,” she said. “But… are you certain I will not be a burden?”
“You let me worry about that,” he said. “For now, you will continue to sleep in the chamber you shared with Cairn and you will continue with your chatelaine duties. It is the least I can do for Cairn, Madelayne. You will remain here with us until the situation must be addressed again.”
Madelayne had no idea how to respond to him. She simply nodded her head, feeling confused and strange about the entire conversation. In fact, she didn’t want to talk about it any longer, knowing that he was allowing her to stay because he felt pity for her. She didn’t like that at all. She did
n’t want to be a charity act for him.
“You said that you wished to see Thomas?” she said, rising off of the stool and heading for the chamber door. “Would you like me to send him to you now?”
Kaspian watched her move, stiffly, and he remembered she had given birth days before. “Send a servant for him,” he said. “You will not go. Return to your chamber now and I will send for you when I need you.”
When I need you. More suckling, more touching, more silent fantasies in her heart about the man. A cold, impersonal man who made her feel more alive and excited than Cairn ever had. It was terrible and unhealthy for her to think that her association with St. Hèver could be anything more than what it already was. The man only needed her breasts. He didn’t need, or want, anything else about her. She was a burden but he was too loyal to Cairn to say so.
A burden. A widowed woman will face a bleak outlook.
As long as she remained at Lavister, that was all she would ever be.
Silently, she quit the chamber and sent a servant to find Thomas. As she slowly descended the stairs and entered her chamber, she looked at the four walls around her and realized that she couldn’t bear to remain. She only had horrible memories of this room, where she had birthed two dead children, and where her dead husband had lived with her. As she looked around, all she could see was pain. She couldn’t stay no matter what St. Hèver said.
She had to go.
Before the hour was out, she did.
CHAPTER SIX
Wrexham.
It was where her father lived, the one she rarely spoke to, but it was her destination. It wasn’t too far from Lavister, to the south about ten miles, so she knew she could make it in a day. She knew that she could have made it faster had she been feeling better, but she was still rather stiff from having given birth a scant five days before.
In the days when women were kept in bed for weeks after giving birth, the fact that she was up and moving, and determined to walk to Wrexham no less, would classify her as something of an idiot, but Madelayne didn’t particularly care. She simply wanted to get away from Lavister where the commander of the keep viewed her as something to be pitied. It was better for them all if she left and she kept telling herself that with every step she took.
This month had been oddly dry which meant the roads were in decent shape to travel upon. Usually, May was a very wet month but this year had seen the anomalistic dry weather pattern. It wasn’t particularly cold, either, but Madelayne was wrapped up in a dark cloak against the weather and also to keep herself covered up. She felt exposed enough, a woman on foot, without announcing herself to anyone she passed. On this main road, she had passed several people, traveling out of Wrexham to points north, but most had been farmers or merchants who hadn’t give her much notice. She wanted it that way.
Foolish wench!
She could hear her father now when she showed up at his door. He’d never much cared for his only child and had been quite happy when Cairn had offered for her hand. Melchoir Gray was a cousin to the Northumberland Grays, an offshoot of a big family who had become wealthy from transporting fabrics and oils from France. Melchoir’s father had started the business, eschewing his family ties because he fell in love with a peasant woman. That woman had been Madelayne’s grandmother, a woman she remembered well and a woman she greatly favored, but a cancer had taken her grandmother away just as a cancer had taken away Madelayne’s own mother away. Two women in the family taken by a cancer. It was something Melchoir had never been able to rectify in his mind.
So he ignored his daughter and spent his time on his business or whores. There was no kind way to put it – he spent his money on women, sometimes two at a time, and Madelayne had grown up in a fine house in Wrexham, ignoring the trollops who dined with her father and stole from him. On more than one occasion, Madelayne had caught the women stealing plate from the feasting hall and she’d taken a broom to them, beating them soundly as they fled the house empty-handed.
It was her duty to tend the house, and the contents, and she wouldn’t tolerate thievery from her father’s companions. Madelayne had been the keeper of the home as well as of the business books, as she had been educated in her youth and knew how to cipher. It was only through her that her father’s business survived, for he spent money foolishly, so she wondered what she was going to find upon returning home.
It made her sick to think about returning to that home where her father cared nothing for her and she lived in loneliness. Perhaps that had been her main reason for marrying Cairn; to get away from the loneliness. But at least in her father’s home, she wouldn’t feel as if she were a burden like she would if she remained at Lavister.
The morning progressed as she continued to walk, moving along the edge of the road, trying to keep her head down and not make eye contact with anyone. It was incredibly foolish to be traveling like this but she had little choice. Her body hurt badly but she ignored it, trudging along, trying not to think on what she’d left behind. A dead husband, dead sons… that was all she had left behind. A life that was over before it ever really got started. She missed Cairn’s guidance and protective instincts but, strangely enough, she also missed the feel of Kaspian’s arms around her. Those few short days with the man, sleeping alongside him, knowing he was dependent upon what she could provide… instead of bonding to her child, she had bonded with a grown man.
And she felt guilty as hell about it.
So she moved quickly down the road, scurrying along, praying to make it to Wrexham before dark. All the while, she kept her thoughts on what lay ahead, on what she would say to her father when he saw her standing on his doorstep. But no matter what she said to him, she knew what he would say to her…
Foolish wench!
She thought on resuming her old life, on seeing her old friends, friends she hadn’t seen since she had married Cairn. There were the baker and her daughter, and the butcher’s wife down the avenue. Round women with lips that were perpetually blabbing everyone’s business. She thought on what she would tell them about her life at Lavister, being married to a powerful knight. She knew that whatever she told them would make it all over town in minutes. She was thinking so much on seeing her old friends again that she failed to notice a farmer and his son who had been trailing her.
The pair had passed her going the opposite way about an hour earlier and they had eyed her with great interest. A lone woman traveling down the road. The farmer had been more interested in her than his son had been, for the farmer had recently lost his wife and had been on the hunt for a new one for some time. This lone woman traveling might be the perfect wife for him. A lady that surely had no one, for no man would allow his woman to travel alone as she was. He had caught a glimpse of her face beneath her hood and from what he had seen, she was pleasant enough to look at. And that gave him an idea.
So he turned the wagon around and began following her, far enough back so she couldn’t hear noise from the horse or the creak of the wagon wheels. Surely she didn’t have any kin or even a husband if she was traveling alone, which was why the farmer thought he might very well like to pluck her right off of the road and take her home. The son wasn’t so keen in abducting the woman but the father was. He needed someone to cook and clean and sew, and he’d been unsuccessful in finding a wife candidate on their weekly visits to town. Some women seemed to react adversely to his one brown eye and one milky eye, and also the fact that he reeked of cheese. It was an appalling smell but the farmer had never really noticed. He didn’t particularly care.
If he couldn’t find a wife, then he would take one.
Unaware of the danger behind her, Madelayne’s pace was slowing as her exhaustion increased. Her legs hurt, her belly ached, and the area between her legs was sore and chaffing. She could see Wrexham in the distance, nestled amongst the green Welsh hills, so her goal was in sight. Just a little further and she would be able to rest under her father’s roof. Already, she was thinking ahead to what possible mess
might be facing her in the two years since she left. She would be surprised if her father was still in business. Therefore, she tried to work up the focus to face what was to come and not think about what she left.
Who she left.
But those were her last coherent thoughts as someone grabbed her from behind. Strong, sinewy arms went around her ribs, lifting her off the ground, and she immediately began to scream and fight. Caught off guard as she was, all she could feel was utter terror. Cowering in fear, or surrendering to whoever had overwhelmed her, never came to mind. She screamed her head off, trying to kick whoever held her, and she was lucky enough to make contact with a bony knee. With a curse, the man dropped her and she fell to her hands and knees. Before she could pick herself up again, he grabbed her once more and dragged her backwards. Madelayne could see a wheel and part of a wagon bed from the corner of her eye.
“Enough with ye!” a male voice in the wagon hissed. “Put her in the wagon and let us be off!”
Panicked, Madelayne continued to twist and fight, knowing that whoever had her was strong and obviously male. There was a second man in the wagon. Put her in the wagon and let us be off! Obviously, they had wicked intentions. God help her, she was in the exact situation she had strived not to fall in to during her journey from Lavister. She’d covered herself up, tried to move swiftly, but in spite of her precautions, she had been set upon. She could only scold herself at the moment, much in the words of her father.
Foolish wench!
Aye, she was foolish. Foolish to let herself fall into lascivious hands. But she had fight in her and unless they tied her up or killed her, she would continue to fight. She wouldn’t make an easy victim. So she continued screaming and fighting with her overtaxed and sore body, even as she was dragged into the bed of the wagon. The entire vehicle lurched forward, nearly spilling her and her abductor off of it. Madelayne tried to climb off of the wagon bed but bony, strong fingers held her tight.