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Her smile faded and her stomach twisted. She clasped her hands as she formed her answer.
“He came around right after ye left for Northwood,” she said. “Honest, William, I was simply looking for someone to talk to because I was so lonely with ye gone, and Analiese’s new friends are a gaggle of silly chickens. He would come up and sit with me for hours in the antechamber, talking to me while I did needlework or sewing for the twins. ’Twas truly all there was to it.”
“Were you alone with him when he came to visit?” he asked.
“Aye,” she lowered her gaze guiltily, “but I dinna think anything of it until Analiese told me of the rumors.”
“What did Analiese tell you?” he asked patiently.
“That the castle was talking about the de Troiu and me, saying that we were…more than friends,” she felt sick spitting out the words. “She said that de Troiu was doing nothing to stop the rumors, but was encouraging them by telling people that he would have me. When she told me that, I had to write ye.”
He paced thoughtfully for a moment and it scared the hell out of her. She had seen that look once before, before he smashed Alexander’s door in. She wondered if he were going to smash her in.
“Did he ever touch you?” he asked.
“Nay, never,” her eyes narrowed, incensed at the question. “I wunna let him, English. Ye know me better than that.”
He put up his hand. “I know,” he said quickly. “I simply meant if he had he ever tried to touch you, or made unwanted advances.”
“Nay,” she replied, still miffed. Did he trust her or didn’t he?
He looked at her for several long moments, studying her lovely face. She gazed back with a mixture of uncertainty and defiance, wondering what he was thinking.
“English, do ye think that I was deliberately sinful with the earl?” she asked, peeved. “Do ye think for one moment that I could be unfaithful to ye?”
“Nay,” he replied before she even got the question out of her mouth. “I trust you implicitly, Jordan. Love, do not misunderstand my questions. I am simply trying to see the situation.”
“And what is it that ye see?” she wanted to know.
He gave her a humorless smile. “I see a pampered, spoiled man who lusts for something that can never be his, and he does not care whose lives he ruins in the process.”
“What are ye going to do?”
He shook his head. “I do not know.”
She took a few timid steps toward him. “Are ye angry with me, English?”
“Nay,” he told her. “The only thing you are guilty of is beauty and warmth, and innocence. De Troiu would take advantage of that.”
She turned away from him and sat on the bed. “I am afraid that I have shamed ye with these rumors.”
He went to stand in front of her. “Never think that you have shamed me in any way, Jordan.” His tone scared her and her head came up to look at him. “You are my greatest single achievement in this life. You are my pride and my joy. The person to bear the shame is de Troiu.”
She sighed, her eyes huge and sad. She was ashamed and depressed, and the sight of William’s face gazing upon her was enough to make her feel weak and childlike.
“Hold me,” she begged softly.
He dropped to his knees, his arms wrapping around her tightly. She clung to his neck, her face burled in the crook. It was enough to simply feel her against him, her fragrance enveloping him until his senses were reeling from the sweet torment of it. They had been apart so long and so much had happened that his heart was twisting from the joy after the long and anguishing separation.
He began to kiss her, every bit of exposed skin on her neck and face. When he tasted salt on her face and knew she was crying, it drove him mad. He would kill de Troiu for the pain he had caused her, he vowed silently. But first, he would make sweet love to his wife.
He began to fling off bits of his clothing between fevered kisses, unlatching his leg armor as she stripped off his tunic. Her dress was off in a matter of seconds, but he left the breeches and garters because he suddenly found them incredibly sexy. Naked, he pushed her back on the bed and covered with his huge, eager body.
“Oh, English,” she gasped into his mouth. “I have waited so long for this.”
His hands were all over her, massaging her plump breasts. “When I saw you in the courtyard this was all I could think of,” he whispered raggedly. “You look better than you ever have, wife. Having babies agrees with you.”
She moaned softly as he plunged his tongue into her mouth, licking her erotically as his hand began to caress her woman’s center. She squirmed and writhed against him, her loins instinctively slick and wet in preparation for his massive organ. His mouth trailed hotly down her neck to her breasts and he gently took a swollen nipple into his mouth, tonguing it endlessly before suckling ever so softly. When he tasted her sweet milk, the essence of her motherhood, he went instantly insane with desire and sucked her dry on both breasts.
