A Knight of Passion(35)
“I cannot believe my good fortune,” she answered honestly.
Sir Bryant smiled. “It is my good fortune.”
She stilled. An echo of the words my good fortune was followed by memory of the words mine to love. By all that was holy, he did care for her.
Chapter Eighteen
Riana stared out of Sir Bryant’s bedchamber window. Torches lit the deserted inner bailey. Tall figures on the battlements were silhouetted against the night sky. Tomorrow morning, she and Siusan would ride through those gates for the second and last time.
There was no doubt what was on Sir Bryant’s mind throughout the evening meal. The looks he cast her way during the evening meal were explicit. Riana should have been relieved, but each passing minute pressed in on her like the increasing weight of every shovelful of dirt tossed upon her grave. She had to live with the consequences of leaving him, but the disgrace she would bring upon him by deserting him wasn’t so easily dismissed.
Cold wrapped around her heart. Why should it bother her that by this time tomorrow he would believe she had betrayed him? He must be made to believe she had used him. All tender feelings for her would die, but he would live long enough to find happiness with a woman worthy of his trust.
Behind her, the light scrape of the wooden door on the stone floor sounded. He had arrived. Silence followed. How long would he stand in the doorway staring at her? Riana turned. Her husband locked eyes with her for a long moment, then he closed the door and crossed to the corner table where sat a pitcher and two goblets. He filled both glasses, then picked them up and strode to her. Once within reach, he stopped and extended a goblet. She took it.
Sir Bryant threw himself onto the cushioned bench beside the window and lifted a brow. “Need I worry about the wine?”
“What reason could I have to poison you? You are my saviour.”
He took a long draught of the wine. “Only an hour ago, you were angry with me.”
“If I poisoned every man who angered me, there would be a string of bodies in my wake.”
He took another drink of wine. “And you did pour out the poison before leaving me in your bed.”
She gave him a recriminating look. He hadn’t been sleeping at all. “I have no taste for murder.”
“For that, I am eternally grateful.”
The words were spoken with amusement, but Riana saw only the assassin’s knife barely missing a vital organ in his body.
“I will be all right, Riana.”
A quiver radiated through her belly. He couldn’t have read her mind, couldn’t know what she planned, but he had read her concern. “Aye,” she replied. She would see that he, at least, was all right.
He abruptly stood and set his wine on the small desk beside the window. He took her goblet and set it beside his, then brushed aside the curls that had worked free of her plait.
“It has been too long.” He trailed his thumb down her cheek. “You miss my touch.”
It wasn’t a question.
She arched a brow. “You are sure of yourself.”
A corner of his mouth twitched into a smile, making his eyes crinkle at the edges. She hadn’t noticed that before.
“I know when a woman craves my touch.” He grasped her shoulders, turned her, and began unlacing the back of her kirtle.
He freed the laces to her waist and Riana closed her eyes, lost in the feel of the long fingers that grazed her skin as he inched the sleeves down her arms. He shifted and warm breath bathed the sensitive spot where her neck met her shoulder. Gooseflesh raced across her exposed skin. Moist lips trailed kisses along her neck to the ear lobe. When his teeth closed around the lobe, she shivered.
“I have not given you a proper wedding night,” he breathed into her ear.
Her heart pounded. A proper wedding night. What man cared about such things after he’d already f*cked a woman twice?
He pushed her sleeves downwards, dragging the bodice over her breasts. Pleasure spiked from the sensitive areolae like thin strands of spider web. Sir Bryant grasped her waist and pulled her against him. She sucked in a breath at feel of the hard ridge that rode the curve of her arse. A tingle began deep inside her. Playing the new bride would be an easy role. Too easy. And would make leaving tomorrow all the more difficult.
Sir Bryant shoved her kirtle down further so that it hung around her hips. She leaned in to him as he thrust against her again. A picture flashed into her mind of him entering her from behind as he had that first night, only tonight, their joining would be all the more intimate, with no one expecting a performance. Her heart broke. No. Tonight she performed for this man alone.