No, he would not muck up this miracle.
His men talked at him, around him, through him, but it made no difference, he merely nodded at them and ate. He knew MacDear’s capon was delicious, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything except shoveling down MacDear’s food and getting to the bottom of that wellshined pewter plate.
The meal had just in fact well begun when he shoved back his chair and grabbed Hastings’s hand.
Every head in the great hall slewed around to look at them. He felt Hastings grow stiff as the beautiful silver laver that had dents in it. He said out of the side of his mouth, “Ignore them. They have no idea what we are about.” That was more surely the biggest lie he’d told in many a month. “Come, Hastings, I will please you.”
Please her? She couldn’t begin to imagine this pleasing thing, but she smiled and nodded and clasped his hand more tightly. Trist jumped up onto her shoulder and crept carefully around her neck until he was half on her shoulder and the other half of him was leaning against Severin s chest.
When the cheers started, Hastings thought she would sink into the
h s not because she was embarrassed but because she was excited and , s afraid everyone saw it on her face. Everyone knew about this
1 asure thing but her? She saw riddled old Belle, sitting at a trestle table,
ing heavily against Old Morric the blacksmith, who was feeding her bits of beef, one of his huge hands lightly caressing her breast. Why h dn’t Hastings noticed this before? Belle winked at her. Hastings knew Dame Agnes and Alice were both grinning like fools, but she simply couldn’t bring herself to look at them.
just before they reached the solar stairs, Severin gave a shout of laughter, picked her up, and tossed her over his shoulder. Her long braids nearly brushed the floor.
Then he lightly slapped her bottom, making his men yowl with laughter. This is what it should have been like the night of their marriage.
He didn’t let her down until he reached their bedchamber. Slowly, he eased her down his chest, feeling her breasts, her belly sliding against him, letting her feel the length of his body, and when her toes touched the floor, he pressed his hands against her bottom and brought her against him.
“Oh,” Hastings said.
“Look at me, Hastings. That’s right. Don’t be frightened of me. Those other two nights, forget them. They were nothing, just bad dreams that will fade with time until they are no more. Will you try?”
“Aye, I will try.”
They hadn’t exactly been bad dreams for him because a man’s lust was easily assuaged, though he had wished she wouldn’t have fought him, that she would have welcomed him, at least a bit. That was over now. Now he had a girl who had bowed completely to him. He wasn’t about to let her unbow.
Trist leapt from Hastings’s shoulder to land on the bed. He stretched °ut his full length and stared at them, mewling loudly. Severin remembered Trist sitting beside him when Anne had been in his bed. The marten hadn’t made a sound.
Will you come willingly with me, Hastings?”
“Aye. You are breathing hard, Severin. Does MacDear’s capon not sit well in your belly?”
He merely grinned down at her and gently pushed her back. She sat down on the bed, her hands folded in her lap, watching him intently, her lips slightly parted. So she wanted to see him, did she? If this was what it took not to muck up, then so be it.
He fumbled with his clothes, but finally it was done and he was naked standing in front of her. He forced himself to keep his arms at his sides.
He would not muck up.
“You,” she said finally, her eyes on his belly, “are beautiful, Severin. I’ve thought so before, but it was just a simple thought with nothing to go with it. I did not realize what your beauty would mean to me. Please, come closer. Mayhap even close enough so that I could touch you if I wished to.”