“I could argue that the mistakes of my own past are uglier than yours. And they, too, might rear their heads in our future, providing even more obstacles for us to overcome.”
“I suppose we’ve already proved that we can overcome anything the world throws at us,” she reasoned, bringing her palms to his chest. “Even death.”
Constantine wrapped his arms around her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “I love you, Theodora.”
She raised up on her toes as he lowered his head, and their joined mouths were warm and wet, gentle and welcoming. The sounds of their long kiss were loud in the room, accompanied by the crackle of the fire in the hearth.
Dori touched his face as they parted. “I love you, too.”
Constantine looked into her eyes. “I will do my best to raise William as a father. To love him as he deserves to be loved. As I know his own father would have loved him.”
Her big eyes reflected the candlelight behind him. “And I will always respect the place in your heart where Patrice and Christian still live. I don’t expect my son to take his place, Constantine. But I know William will be a better man because you first had Christian.”
Constantine’s breath caught in his chest and he forced himself to swallow. “The man I have been since Chastellet, before Chastellet, is also dead. And I need to bury him.”
Dori nodded. “I’ll help you.”
He took one of her hands and brought the backs of her fingers to his lips. Then he released her and pulled the rough brown tunic over his head. Dori slipped out of her peasant’s shoes and untied the coarse apron and tossed it aside, and then Constantine turned her away from him, dropping his mouth to the curve of her neck as he pushed the kirtle from her shoulders. Dori loosened the ties of her underskirt and it fell in a puddle around her feet.
He led her to the stand where the wash bowl sat and dunked, then lathered a soft linen cloth. He ran a trail of suds over her chest, the thin bubbles racing down over her small breasts while she untied the laces of his chausses. Then around her neck so that he could pull her naked torso to his and kiss her once more. Then he spun her in his arms, supporting her with his forearm while he washed the narrow length of her back, over the rounded cheeks of her buttocks. Constantine brought the cloth over her hip and slid it between her legs while Theodora reached up for him, turning her face to the side and seeking his mouth.
Constantine dunked the rag again and then squeezed it atop her head while she turned in his arms, closing her eyes and raking her fingers back through her cropped hair. Then he tossed the rag back into the bowl and pulled a length of linen toweling from its folded stack, wrapping it around her shoulders and then kissing her as he backed her to the bed.
Dori lay across the coverlet, the ends of her hair already curling up as they sent silvery droplets of water across her chest. Constantine hesitated, ready, then, to crawl atop her and love her, but he was not yet worthy of her. Instead, he turned to his satchel on the floor. Crouching near it, he withdrew one of his knives, then returned to the stand. He removed the rest of his clothing and boots, conscious the entire time of Theodora watching him from the bed.
He washed himself quickly, leaving only his hair unclean. And then he picked up his knife and began carefully cutting away his beard and then scraping the stubble from his skin. Constantine reached behind himself and pulled his long plait over his left shoulder. Holding it close at the base, he sawed through the rope with his blade, letting a curtain of tawny hair swing back around his cheeks. Then he poured fresh water over his head from the pitcher, scraping his lessened locks back over his scalp before he turned to face the woman on the bed.
“You’re beautiful,” Dori said to him with a smile.
Constantine crawled onto the bed, feeling his damp skin prickling with cool air and desire and nervousness; anxious to touch her and yet feeling undeserving to do so.
She held out her arms and he came into them.
* * *
His freshly shaved skin was hot and erotically smooth against her breasts where he kissed her, and Dori was breathing heavily through her nose while his mouth slowly traveled up to her own lips and his hand moved over her stomach to her most intimate parts. She had been conscious at first at the change in her body since giving birth to William; she hadn’t seen the whole of it at once in months and the curves and planes were foreign to her. There were marks and scars, still red from the deadly battles she had fought in her war to survive Glayer Felsteppe and to bring her baby into the world, bring him back to her.
Constantine seemed to worship each one as he took his time stirring her to passion. She drank in the smell of his skin, gulping her breaths with her mouth pressed to his damp chest, pulling his muscled body as close as she could.
He kissed her as he at last joined with her, and their coupling was firm and simple as their fingertips dug into each other. There were no words. Just their hot breaths and the sound of Constantine giving himself to her body again and again.
It was over in a sweaty, sweet rush and they lay tangled together, hearts pounding, muscles twitching; their foreheads touching as they faced each other on the bed. He turned his head and kissed her upper and lower lips in turn, pulling them into his mouth, licking the seam, once more seeking entrance. She felt him coming alive inside her again and she pulled him closer with her leg as he was already rocking against her.
“More,” he said in a low growl.
“Yes,” she whispered. “All right.”
And then, in the still of the chamber, William cried out once sharply.
Constantine rolled atop her and pushed himself deep and then stilled. “Shh,” he whispered in her ear.
The baby called again, this time in a staccato cry.
She didn’t want to refuse the man inside her; indeed she wanted him again, but . . .
Constantine rolled away with a sigh, his forearm over his head on the pillow. He smiled at her in the candlelight. “We should leave soon any matter.”
And she loved him even more as she left their bed to tend to her son.
