She savored the thud—so strong and rapid that now she was the one remembering. The last time she had felt this was during his departure from Owen shortly before her ruin. He had leaned down from his mount and stroked her cheek in lieu of a kiss that could not be given in Lady Maude’s presence. When he called her Laura love, she had reached up and placed her hand just there. And been happy knowing how much his heart moved for Laura Middleton, soon to be Laura Soames.
“Does it?” Lothaire’s voice was so deep it throbbed through her palm and up her arm.
“’Tis like a hammer on steel,” she whispered.
He leaned toward her, not close enough to kiss but near enough that if she met him halfway her lips would be upon his. Was that what he wanted? If so and she breached the space, would he still want it? And what of her? She thought it what she desired—certes, for this her own heart threatened to abandon her chest—but the last time she had been kissed…
The memory flashed through her, and as it moved her toward what had come after, Lothaire pulled her to him.
His face before hers. Only his.
His breath brushing her lips. Only his.
His mouth nearly upon hers. Only his.
“Lothaire?”
Lashes sweeping her eyebrow, nose brushing hers, he lightly touched his lips to hers.
“You are sure?” she breathed.
“I am not,” he rasped, but before disappointment could deliver its sting, his mouth was fully on hers.
She thought she would know his kiss, but it was barely familiar. Because it was too long since last she had been thus with him? Or because the kiss was more certain than what she had shared with a younger Lothaire? Perhaps both, but certainly the latter. He had been wed, even if to a woman who loved another, and were he at all like his father, there had been others with whom he was intimate. Whereas she…
Once more battling memories, she slid her arms around his neck, pressed nearer, kissed him back.
He groaned and deepened the kiss.
It was exciting…dizzying…wondrous—until there was no more sweet about it, no more coaxing, and hands were where they ought not be. Not rough like—
She shoved that memory aside. Nay, not rough, but desperate. Too desperate. Not cruel like—
Laura wrenched free and stumbled upright. Though so unbalanced she barely kept her feet beneath her, fear of a man at her back made her swing around.
Lothaire had also risen and was reaching to her.
Only to steady me, she told herself, but she retreated further. Not that he would—
Or would he?
Nay, he did not regard her through the eyes of a predator but with regret. And when she managed to remain upright, the hand he reached to her fell to his side with what seemed relief.
“I know better,” he said. “Pray, forgive me.” He blew breath up his face, causing the hair falling around his cheeks to shift. “But now you know I am no longer a boy, surely you understand why I hesitated to speak here. No matter your betrayal, I want you in my bed.” A bitter laugh. “I thought you wished it as well, but perhaps not. Perhaps as when we were first betrothed, ’tis another you want—the one who fathered Clarice.”
Feeling as if punched in the belly, Laura could not find her breath, but when she did, it burst from her on words over which she had no control. “I do not want him! If needs be, in my own blood I shall write it!”
Lothaire searched her eyes, but whatever he found beyond their color, his tightening lips told he did not believe her. “You are saying you want me—my kisses and caresses?”
Lest what leapt through her present as revulsion rather than fear, she averted her gaze. “I do not know what I say.” She ran her hands down her skirt, tugged it back into place. “All I am sure of is that I am glad ’twas you whom Eleanor called to her side. You who shall take me to wife.”
“You tell, and yet you fear me.”
He might not see it, but he sensed it.
“As you are no longer a boy, I am no longer a girl.” Realizing she continued to pluck at a gown that needed no further straightening, she folded her hands at her waist. “You are wrong if you think these ten years have been easier for the woman I am than the man you are. Different burdens, aye, but burdens nonetheless. Still, I shall strive to be a good wife, in bed and out.”
Lothaire watched her in the dim, wished she would speak what she did not so he might understand—even if he did not like it. Or perhaps more in the hope he would so dislike it that it would ease the ache of this body wanting hers.
“For Clarice you sacrifice yourself?” he said with more knowing than bitterness. Her relationship with her daughter might have been built on sand, but he believed her attempt to rebuild it on rock was genuine.
“’Tis true I am prepared to sacrifice myself, but I have hope I do not. Just as I have hope that in wedding me you do not truly sacrifice yourself for Lexeter.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Perhaps if we both seek to put the past behind us, we shall.”
She inclined her head. “I am very tired as I know you must be.”
“So I am,” he said and led her to her chamber.
At the door, she looked across her shoulder. “I thank you for your honesty. It better prepares me for the morrow.”
Lothaire also wished honesty that he might know how he had lost her to Clarice’s father and if she had truly loved the man and still loved him though she vowed she did not want him. But those things—and greater insight into Clarice’s Donnie—must save for another day.
“I am glad you shall be at my side upon my father’s return,” he said. “Good eve, my lady.”
Chapter 18
Solemn. As was fitting.
Honorable. As expected.
Mournful. Greater than anticipated.
But more than Baron Marshal’s impressive procession numbering two dozen armored and sword-girded men astride fine horses, that last was due to the multitude who journeyed from across Lexeter to pay their respects. The common folk had begun arriving shortly after dawn, but those in the outer bailey were outnumbered by the scores ascending the hill behind the greenery-festooned wagon bearing the casket of Ricard Soames.
The ones now come unto High Castle had been gathered along the route Baron Marshal and his entourage had taken. Surely for this—to allow those on foot to keep pace—the projected midday arrival had come and gone.
Though Lothaire had been frustrated by the two-hour delay, mostly for the added grief given Sebille by their mother, now that he knew the reason, he was grateful for the consideration shown those who wished to mourn their long-lost lord. And that their numbers were so great. He had been aware his father was respected but had not realized how much. Even had he known, he would not have thought so many would spend a day free of work on a man twenty years gone.
“I know him!” Laura gasped.
Lothaire looked to where she stood at his side. “Who?”
“Is that Baron Marshal at the fore?”
“It is, and his lady wife beside him.”
“I know him—rather, I am acquainted with him, though not as Durand Marshal.”