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After first taking another glass of the cool wine for courage, Meredyth lay back in the depths of the huge dark-stained bed. She had pulled the bed curtains all around so that anyone coming into the room would not be able to see her. She did not trust the maid to stay away. There had been too much concern in the older woman’s voice when she repeatedly asked after her charge’s well-being.
But it was not to Meredyth’s liking to lie there all alone in the darkness. As time passed she only seemed to become more and more apprehensive and confused about what she might say to the baron. She now realized she should not have drank the wine, for it had only eased her for a time. She felt more than slightly befuddled.
What was she going to say to St. Sebastian when he came to this room expecting to find Celeste? She could only pray that the words would come, that he would not become completely enraged before she could make him understand.
The fire died down, but Meredyth had neither the heart nor the energy to rise and tend it. All her being was centered on clearing her mind and finding the words to make Roland St. Sebastian understand that she had not meant to do anything against him, that she was simply trying to help her sister.
Meredyth tried to imagine what he might say, how she might answer him. The thoughts swirled in her mind until they became less and less coherent, until nothing remained but a circle of confusion.
To her utter surprise Meredyth felt tears sting her eyes. She was not one to cry, did not feel that there was any honor in tears. Yet the day’s events had taken their toll and she was crying. Meredyth could not seem to stop, once begun.
She curled around the aching ball of loneliness in her chest and buried her face in the pillow. How had this happened? Why had she allow Celeste to convince her to do this mad thing?
Because she was Celeste.
All her life Meredyth had been accustomed to thinking her sister needed more looking after, even though she was the elder by a year. When Meredyth was six and Celeste seven they had been playing in the clearing near the castle. Celeste had been picking flowers and had begun to wander further into the wood. Meredyth had told her she should not, that Agnes had said they must stay within sight of the walls. Celeste had replied by taunting her to come along. Meredyth had remained where she was, and when Agnes had come to fetch them she had been horrified at realizing that her elder charge was indeed gone. Celeste had not been found for hours, as she had tripped, hurting her ankle in the dense forest, and been unable to walk back.
The thing that Meredyth would never forget was her father’s surprising anger toward herself. He had said that Meredyth should not have allowed Celeste to go off alone, that she was never to abandon her sister again. Did Meredyth not realize her sister was of a delicate, fanciful nature and therefore must be cared for?
There had been no words of comfort for Meredyth, who had feared for her sister. No words of praise for having obeyed Agnes’s instructions. From that day Meredyth had understood that to keep her father’s love she must protect Celeste, who was dearest to him of all things.
It had been a hard lesson to bear, but bear it she had, and without tears, until now.
How long she cried, Meredyth did not know; only when she was physically exhausted did the sobbing cease. She lay there drained, her lids heavy over swollen and gritty eyes. She closed them, needing to rest, to regain her courage, to ready herself…
Roland followed the directions that had been given to him by the serving woman. This was the most peculiar marriage he had ever heard of, to say the least—the groom expected simply to present himself to his bride with none of the accustomed preliminaries.
Yet the closer Roland got to his destination, which purportedly lay at the top of the tower steps, the less concern it gave him. He could think only of the beautiful woman who awaited him. He knew she was frightened and inexperienced, as was evidenced by her fearful manner toward him. Yet he recalled again the trembling of her body when he had touched her hand. Surely his instincts did not play him false and there was passion in his bride.
He was not a selfish bedmate and even took pleasure from giving satisfaction to the women he bedded. He had noted that doing so made a woman much more malleable and eager to please him, not just in bed, but in other ways as well.
He told himself that to begin thus with his wife would only be wise.
Roland reached the top step, and opened the door, surprised to be greeted by a darkness that was only slightly alleviated by the bed of glowing coals in the hearth. Quietly Roland stepped inside, his warrior’s reflexes always at the ready for danger. This was, after all, the home of the Chalmerses, enemies to his family for several generations. He stood still, giving his eyes a moment to adjust to the dim interior. But he soon realized there was no threat here. There were no skulking shadows, no unusual sounds. Most telling of all, there was no lurking heaviness, the kind that always accompanied danger.
He allowed himself to relax somewhat. Eagerly now, Roland looked about the chamber, but was unable to locate his bride.
He was just beginning to believe the room might not be occupied at all when he heard the sound of a soft breath. Gauging the direction immediately, he moved to the bed. He was surprised, having thought her fear too great for her to await him there. He was also pleased. Perhaps the maid was not as frightened as he had thought.
He made his way to the huge shadow of the bed. Quickly Roland removed his garments. He then drew open the heavy hangings and climbed inside.
Roland reached out a seeking hand and came into contact with the delicate curve of a hip. His bride. His loins tightened at the memory of her beauty. Though his desire stirred he knew he must go slowly to bring her a pleasure to match his own. But he had no wish to speak with anything but his body. That they were strangers could not truly be changed in moments. Yet tonight they would form a bond of pleasure taken and given. This bond Roland trusted more than any ones of an emotional nature.
Sensing rather than seeing the shape of her form beneath him, Roland moved up to lean over her. Her breath was sweet and warm on his face and he felt that stirring again. Slowly he bent over and placed his lips to his bride’s.
She gave a slight start and reared up beneath him. He continued to press his mouth gently to hers and in a moment felt a stab of satisfaction as her small hand came up to curl in the dark patch of hair on his chest. He continued to ply her mouth with his own, nipping and sucking at hers and soon she reached up with the other to hold the back of his head.
Roland laughed deep in his throat, pleased with her reaction to his kiss. He felt a rising satisfaction and growing ardor of his own as he realized he had not been wrong in thinking she would respond. His ardent mouth moved from hers to trail over her soft cheeks and then down the delicate line of her throat.
Meredyth had been dreaming of lying upon an enormous soft bed. It was so soft that she had the sensation of floating in a peaceful sea of white linens and light. Nothing could trouble her here, where she was safe and warm and content.
Slowly she became aware of the lips that touched hers, and it seemed at first as if they too belonged to the dream. They were firm yet gentle, and oh so very certain. It seemed they heightened that sense of floating in warmth and light.
Then as she drifted more fully into semiwakefulness she felt another odd sort of tingling in her belly that also seemed brought by the confident and knowing urgency of the lips on hers. Her hands acted of their own accord as they searched instinctively for the source of that sweetly rousing pressure.
She came into contact with smooth bare flesh over hard muscle. Meredyth moaned at the immediate quickening of her pulse as the lips left hers to press hot gentle kisses to her face and neck. Meredyth had dreamed of such things before, had woken feeling guilty at her own responses and unaccountably sad that it was not real. Yet her dreams of being kissed, touched, of touching in return, had never gone so far. She could not find the strength to pull herself away. She was too lost in her own responses. By whatever means this specter had entered her slumber, it had come to banish some of the aching loneliness she felt.
Her heart thudded in her breast as the warm sensations turned liquid and seemed to find their way to her lower belly. Meredyth had never felt so…so very…Her hips arched as if her body understood far more of what was happening than did she. Her hands seemed to grasp the source of her pleasure to her with a will all their own.
Roland felt himself harden even more at her touch, at her nearness. There was something about this woman, her delicate warm woman scent, the velvet of her skin. He had not thought to respond so fully, so quickly.
He rose up above her, his hands unexpectedly unsteady as he gently drew her slender legs apart. His fingers found her. He swallowed hard at finding her already damp, and an irrefutably fierce driving need such as he had never experienced coursed through him. “So beautiful, Celeste,” he whispered, even as he knew he could wait no more.
Meredyth felt the hands on her body, heard her sister’s name with a shock of horrid realization. Dear heaven, this was not a dream. It was none other than Roland St. Sebastian whose smooth skin lay beneath her eager fingers, whose mouth teased her to such a fierce response. Even through the fog of her awakening desire she knew that this was wrong. This man was not meant for her.
The woman beneath him gave a start and reared up beneath him. Her voice emerged in a husky whisper. “My lord, I am not…” His mouth found hers, stilling the words. He did not wish to debate or argue. He had meant this time to be more, and was in no small measure surprised with himself for not having more control. Yet he could not wait. Her obvious response to him made it impossible.
Without breaking the contact of their mouths, he knelt between those silken thighs and found the moistness of her immediately. With only the briefest of hesitations her maidenhood was breached. She gasped, as he did, when his mouth left hers.
Convulsively her body tightened on him. Calling on all the will he possessed, Roland lay still, allowing her to become accustomed to him as he rested there in the velvety warmth of her body. He might not have been able to restrain himself enough to pleasure her first as he wished to, but he would not cause her hurt.
As Meredyth felt Roland St. Sebastian enter the private depths of her being, she realized it was too late now. There was no going back. Roland St. Sebastian had made her his woman, though she had tried to tell him the truth that she was not Celeste. Yet as he lay above her, his manhood filling the deepest core of herself, Meredyth felt an unexpected yearning ache stir again in her own body. When he began to move inside her, her breath quickened as that ache began to grow more pronounced.
Only when Roland felt a slight restless stirring of her own slender form beneath him did he go on. Only then did Roland give in to the passion that made him feel as if he would surely burst, the passion that quickly grew to a fierce white point of unutterable pleasure.
When he stiffened and arched against her, Meredyth felt her own body press against him. She somehow knew that he had gone to some place that she could only begin to imagine, and that she had been the one to take him there. It was awesome, that this strong commanding man had been moved beyond himself because of her—Meredyth.
Yet uppermost in her thoughts was the knowledge that what they had just done had awakened some slumbering force inside herself. She could even now feel the way her body held him to her as if it had some instinctive claim to the feel of his flesh, his touch, to him. Even the ragged sound of his hot breath against her ear was strangely thrilling.
Her own hands lay along the hard curves of his shoulders. Unable to stop herself, Meredyth slipped one hand to his chest and over that tantalizing firm flesh, across a corded neck. She tangled her fingers in thick coarse hair. A low sensuous chuckle was her reward, for it did feel like such when the sound made every fine hair on her body stand up as if in reply.
Roland knew he had not fulfilled her, but he was now more than ready to rectify that. He rolled to his side, his mouth finding hers to cover a sigh of what sounded to his ears like disappointment. Deliberately he smoothed a hand from her hip up across delicate fabric, tracing pleasingly rounded curves and valleys. The thin cloth of her night rail did nothing to disguise the firmness of the flesh beneath, and Roland was well pleased. He went on, encouraged by the fluttering of her belly against his palm, finally closing his fingers with firm but gentle pressure over one rounded breast.
Meredyth’s mind swirled anew as that touch sent a shaft of heat directly to that most intimate place betwixt her thighs. Her head fell backward, breaking the contact of those supple lips and she gasped aloud.
She gasped again as his mouth began to mark a trail over her chin, then down the tender exposed flesh of her throat.
When his mouth closed over the bare tip of her other breast, Meredyth was lost in the surging sensations that made her limbs tremble, her breath come more quickly.
As those lips tugged at her nipple, she reached out to hold him near with both hands, arching her back as another shaft of sweet hot longing raced through her core. As the thumb of the other hand began to circle the other nub, Meredyth arched again, her knees clamping tightly to try to relieve the pressure building inside her.
She found no relief, knowing instinctively that the release she so blindly sought was to be found in the body of this night warrior. He had drawn her to this state of heady frustration. Only he could soothe it.
His manhood reared in response to her reaction to his caresses. Roland reached down. With a skill born of instinct and experience, he gently but firmly cupped his palm against the gentle mound of her womanhood. She clamped her thighs around him, her breathing ragged.
He traced his other hand back down those pleasing curves until he reached the hem of her nightdress. He leaned back slightly to remove it and she came after him. Her sweet mouth moved over his bare flesh, making him close his eyes at the throb of heat it brought about. The heavy tangle of her hair seemed to cling to his sweat-dampened flesh, seemed to bind him wantonly in the intimate darkness.
Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Roland told himself he would not be unmanned again. Gently he held her away from him, determined to see her brought to her own pleasure no matter what it cost him in self-control.
Quickly he raised the delicate barrier of her night rail up and over her head. Her hands came back to him immediately, and he leaned his own head back as he slid along her body feeling her cool flesh next to his. Roland lifted her for a moment, feeling the surprisingly small but womanly form against the length of his own heated skin before he laid her back against the pillows.
She sighed as his hands again found her breasts, which were so full and aching from his touch. Unable to stop herself, she whispered insistently, “Please, oh please, help me. I do not know what to do.”
Roland knew he need wait no more. He murmured softly, “I do.”
Gently he reached to again part her thighs. She offered no resistance, only sobbing with an urgency of her own. He took a long deep breath as he positioned himself over her, meaning to go slowly, to take her with tender care. But as the tip of his manhood prodded against the moist honeyed sweetness of her, she rose to meet him and he was once again buried deeply in that golden warmth.
He ground his teeth together, lying stiffly above her, his arms supporting his weight as he fought for control. For Roland again found himself drowning in the sensations she awakened in him with her own unbridled reactions. Never had he suspected the depth of pleasure he would find in this woman.
When she began to writhe beneath him, her soft hands reaching out to grasp his hips, Roland released the rein on the passion burning in his belly.
Meredyth felt the sensations build inside her to a fine point of unfathomable sweetness. It seemed as if all of her consciousness was centered on that one area at the joining of their bodies. Her head fell back and her breath came between dry lips as she found the rhythm that made that pleasure so intense. And then, just when it seemed there could be no more—there was. The pleasure burst inside her, closing over her, encompassing everything that was Meredyth. In that moment she was whole, mind, body and soul, all the parts of her brought together in white-hot perfection.
As the pulsing eased, Meredyth sighed. She had been so worried and tense and was now completely limp from utter fulfillment. Her eyes slipped closed.
Slowly Meredyth roused from a deep sleep, opening her lids almost reluctantly when the light probed them.
Instantly her gaze grew wide with shock. From scant inches above her a pair of startlingly cobalt-blue eyes, surrounded by a thick fringe of black lashes, regarded her speculatively. Those orbs seemed to see right into her, to hold her captive in their unfathmonable depths.
St. Sebastian. Her husband.
For a moment she was held immobile as she finally saw him for the first time—saw him with wondrous amazement. He was much more handsome than anything she had imagined from Celeste’s description. She had in fact given little more thought to his appearance in the midst of the events of yestereve. Meredyth had been too caught up in the passion she had known in his arms to think about such things. Now, with growing dismay, she let her gaze trace a perfectly formed lean jaw, high sculpted cheekbones and sensuous lower lip. He was surely too handsome for any mortal man, too much the fantasy of every young maid who dreamed of fairy tales and legends coming true.
Meredyth felt an unreasonable thrill course through her blood at the intensity of his blue gaze. Her eyes went back to those lips as a brilliant flash of them pulling hungrily on her right nipple filled her mind.
A gasp escaped her as a whole flood of memories raced though her and with them a hot flush that traveled from her head to her toes. The things they had done!
He continued to watch her with speculation and some other unnamable expression that made heat spread over her anew. His deep voice startled her as he said, “And who might you be?”
Meredyth started to sit up, her own bare breasts coming into direct contact with the hard wall of his chest. She jerked backward as a bolt of heat pierced her belly, and she raised her hands to shield her bosom. Desperately she said, gasping, “Please, allow me to rise.”
St. Sebastian reached out and briefly lifted a red curl from the back of one of the hands covering her breast and she shivered with awareness at the glazing touch. She was grateful that he seemed completely oblivious to her reaction when he shook his head deliberately.
As he replied there was a cool ruthless quality to his tone that made her think she would not wish to fall on the hard side of this man. “Not until you explain who you are and what you are doing in my marriage bed.” His gaze raked her from the top of her tousled head to the tip of her slight form that lay beneath the bedcover. “You are not the lovely Celeste Chalmers.”
She stiffened, stung by the harsh comment, though she knew it was foolish, having been unfavorably compared to her sister her whole life. But she was not about to let him see that he had wounded her. She raised her chin. “I am Meredyth Chalmers. Her sister.”
His hand slid beneath her protectively crossed arms and closed over her breast deftly. Meredyth’s heart thudded as it swelled beneath the weight of his hand in spite of the anxiety she felt at facing him—at having to tell him the truth. He leaned closer, his breath brushing her mouth. “Is it the custom of the Chalmerses then to send the sister of the bride to the bridal bed? Very interesting, if so.”
Meredyth gasped and pushed at him with all her might. To her surprise he gave way immediately. She did not wait to question this but slipped from beneath him, dragging the cover with her as she moved to stand at the foot of the enormous bed.
Desperately she clutched the blanket against her bosom, realizing that she had to think clearly, to somehow find the words to explain what had happened. It was actually quite understandable that the man would be angry, searching for an explanation.
Meredyth glanced toward him where he waited, now sitting with his back against the carved headboard, his wide, bronze chest bare. He raised a hand to rake it through his ink-black hair and the muscle in his forearm flexed and hardened. She was assaulted by images of how his strong arms had lifted her against him, as if her weight were nothing to his strength.
Heat suffused her and she had to look away. She took a deep breath. You must think clearly, she told herself.
“Well,” he prompted “I am sorely in need of an explanation here. Enlighten me, Meredyth Chalmers, as to why you are here and my bride is not.”
She forced herself to face him. Would he ever now believe that she had meant only to wait and tell him the truth. Judging by his expression it seemed doubtful. “I am not here in your bride’s place. Well, not in the way you have imagined.” Her pleading gaze met his as she hoped for his understanding. Surely after what had passed between them he might…well she could hope. “You see, I am your bride. It was I who married you, not my sister.”
His shock was nearly comic, his blue eyes rounding to the point of amazement. But Meredyth did not laugh as he said, “What is this nonsense you spout? King John himself ordered the marriage to Celeste Chalmers. It is well-known that your father is a stalwart supporter of John. Why would he disobey him?”
She stiffened, stung from her concerns of the moment by his obvious implied criticism of her parent. “My father has not disobeyed the king, as he should not. John was rightfully named heir by King Richard himself.” She had heard her father say that the rumors of John’s disloyalty to his brother were false, and felt the very fact of King Richard’s naming him as heir was proof of that.
When he folded his arms and stared at her with condescendingly raised brows, she decided to let that matter rest. “I must make you understand what has happened.” She turned away from the condemnation she saw in that blue gaze. “I married you in Celeste’s stead. I meant to tell you last night, but you came late and I had fallen asleep and we…”
“God’s blood,” he shouted as realization clearly dawned, tossing the remaining cover back and leaping from the bed. Meredyth’s mouth dropped open and she swung away, but not before she had a thoroughly thought-provoking view of the very same weapon that had so pleasured her during the night.
Roland St. Sebastian appeared not to notice her interest as he bent to gather his clothing from the floor. As he drew on his garments he spoke with cold disdain. “I shall see justice done. I will not be duped by your father into taking less than was promised to me by the king himself.”
Meredyth felt the words slash into her like a dull blade. To continue to compare her so brutally to the woman he had thought to have, after the things he had done and said to her in this very bed, seemed churlish.
But she would not let him see her pain. Dragging the edges of her shattered emotions about her like a shield, she faced him. Meredyth was not going to take his insults in silence. Rage rose to cover her hurt. “How dare you! You…you knave.” One hand went to her slender hip, the other continuing to hold the coverlet over her nakedness as he swung around to face her, seeming little moved by her outrage if his implacable expression was anything to go by. Yet she went on. “My father knew nothing of this. My sister and I acted alone.”
One moment he was standing next to the fireplace, his arms folded across his wide chest, the next he was bending over her, having crossed the room too quickly, too gracefully for such a big man. Her palms grew damp as she glared up into his angry face, which was still distractingly handsome despite his fury. Annoyed with herself for thinking such a thing, Meredyth also realized that the top of her head did not reach his shoulder. If she stared up at him this way for long she would soon have more than a slight discomfort in her neck. But she did not look away—would not.
Meredyth did her utmost to hide any reaction as he spoke, his blue eyes hard. “Do you expect me to believe that?”
She answered defiantly. “I do, because it is truth and nothing less.”
His face remained hard, and she could tell that he did not expect her to say anything that would convince him, even as he asked, “Tell me then, Meredyth Chalmers, why you and your sister have done this.”
Meredyth frowned, caught off guard by the question, though she knew she should not have been. “I…that is something I cannot tell you.” She could not betray Celeste by telling her secrets. It would gain her nothing to do so now and might cause Celeste great harm.
His tone was calm, too calm, as he replied. “And with those words as explanation you expect me to believe that you and your sister have, for some reasons of your own, decided to defy King John. And without your father’s knowledge. Oh, of a surety, then all is most well, and I should be content.”
Clamping her jaw in reaction to his sarcasm, Meredyth replied with forced aplomb. “Your contentment, or lack of such, is not my concern, my lord.”
Chapter Three (#ulink_a8386fa6-868f-58b3-b5bb-c55113d3634b)
Roland felt the muscles in his jaw flex with nearpainful intensity as he worked to control his anger. How dare the defiant minx speak so to him after what she had done? And did she actually expect him to believe her extremely suspect assurances that her father had not known?
If the outraged honor in her jade-green eyes was any indication, that was exactly what she did expect.
His gaze raked her from the top of her tousled red head to the soles of her incredibly small bare feet. How could he have been foolish enough to believe her to be Celeste Chalmers? She was tiny and delicate where her sister was taller and lithe. His gaze was caught momentarily as he took in the tangle of scarlet curls that tumbled about her. When she turned her back to him and began to pace the oaken floor in agitation, still clutching the bedcover to her bosom, he saw that the flame cascade reached to her knees in back.
He was suddenly struck by an image of that hair draped across his chest as she kissed him with all the fervor of an experienced woman. But he reminded himself that she had not been. There was no mistaking the fact that he and he alone had breached the barrier of her womanhood. Even as he looked at her, the evidence of this stained the edge of the covering she used to shield herself from him.
Why? Why, if her father had not been trying to outwit him in some way, had they done this thing? He would soon be past caring how much rage showed in his voice, if he did not receive an explanation. “If you did not do this at your father’s urging, why have you done it…Meredyth?” Her name felt somewhat strange to his lips, though he had to admit, however reluctantly, that he liked the soft hard sound of it.
He brushed the thought aside. The woman’s name was of no consequence, nor were the memories of how she had returned his passion with an enthusiasm that had surprised and pleased him. Traces of an extremely unpleasant supposition were forming in his mind. Could it be perhaps that Hugh Penacre had thought to somehow cheat him of the heavy dower that had come with his eldest daughter?
Roland was determined that this was not going to happen. He glared at the woman before him through narrowed eyes as he tried not to see that she was quite beautiful, with her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright with animosity. Certainly, he admitted, not in the way of her sister, but in a way all her own. She reminded him of an angry ginger kitten, all eyes and flashing claws.
She tapped one tiny bare foot as she said, “I cannot tell you the answer to that question. Suffice it to say that the secret is not mine to reveal. You must simply trust that I am telling you the truth.”
He threw up his hands in disbelief at her continued pose of outraged dignity. “Again you ask me to believe you, woman. You who have married me under false pretenses.”
