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Perfectly pleased with himself, the nobleman left the shocked Lady Charlotte to stew inside the tiny chamber with just the chair and a simple and very uncomfortable bed.
As he locked the door behind him, she was pounding on the thick wood. “You repulsive boar! Vicious oaf! Loathsome villain!” Her pounding got her nothing but a very sore fist.
Chapter Eight
Charlotte meandered her way through the castle gardens, which were now drearily brown from the stark turns of winter. With the season receding, the thought of spring might come to mind if one had a very good imagination. The air was fresh, if not a bit chilly and she wrapped her woolen shawl about her shoulders for comfort. Fingering what had been the roses, she pricked her thumb so that a tiny speck of blood appeared on the finger.
“The day’s not fit for such things, milady—for a stroll in gardens and such brooding.”
“I say it is,” she disagreed turning around to face Sir Tristan.
“I trust you’ve survived the tower?”
“Mountbane set me free yesterday.”
“Then three days was hardly much to endure.”
“I still say you’re a villain.”
“And I’d suggest you hold your tongue, or I’ll take you there again—or better yet, turn you over my knee right now.”
“And why would I concern you?” Charlotte wondered.
“My concern is Mountbane. I am my Lord’s lieutenant.”
“And so you protect him from his deranged wife?”
He laughed. “You find yourself deranged?”
“I’m becoming so.”
“What happened to your great contentment?”
“Things change.”
“I see.”
They walked together in a tentative way, as though not actually walking together, but just happening on each other by chance—which was the case. Despite her efforts to guard against it, the rush of energy so common when Sir Tristan was near was now rushing heedlessly through her body again. It would be better if he walked away, left her to her brooding, and forgot whatever discourse he had in mind; but then, there was little that would dissuade this man from any purpose he desired.
“Then you are unhappy, milady?” he asked.
“At times. But I do have my life. At least most of the time I’m better off than a common kitchen slave. There are sometimes when Mountbane pleases me. But then, it is heresy for me to speak this way, is it not? For any slave to be so bold? I should have no thoughts, but I do. I should have no will but my lord’s, and still, I do. When we first married, I could go days in the thoughtless pursuit of sex. But that kind of savagery doesn’t last forever now, does it? It’s more a creation of the time that ebbs and flows as nature does. Right now, I suppose is a season of calm.” She spoke with the melancholy of her heart seeming to pour from her in what could be a dangerous revelation—and yet, she was beyond caring anymore. “The tranquility of winter gets inside the bones,” she went on turning to look directly at her companion, “and won’t shake free until the spring begins its thaw. Perhaps a thaw will inspire my husband and me in our more randy pursuits, or, indeed, perhaps we have simply run our course.”
Tristan listened to the woman’s ramblings, finding them quite unique in his experience. In his remembrance, he knew of no woman so candid with her speech. To hear Charlotte speak of such intimacies was as though he were allowed to glimpse another human soul. What made her so, if not her eighteen years outside Ilusia. If those years had blessed her with a thoughtful spirit, Ilusia had blessed her with a robustly sexual vitality. He had only to think of her across his lap just days ago to appreciate that aspect. She was far more womanly and full of fire now than she was when Mountbane’s party plucked her from her homeland. The depths of her proven sexual inclinations, and the breathtaking way she could submit—when she was inspired to—and even now her musings made her one of the most exquisite creatures he’d ever known.
“I would not think two, as vibrant as you and milord, would ever simply run your course. Perhaps you need to get back to what you began with.”
“I should re-enter the dungeon to make him happy?”
“And why not? It is your function to serve.”
“And so I do, but the spirit for such ventures has strangely left.”
Tristan pondered for some time, finally asking, “Were I to string you up and torture your flesh, would you find your spirit gone?”
Charlotte’s response was certainly as apparent as a red rose would be on a winter vine. Her body pulse was quickened by such talk. “Why ask such a question?” she wondered aloud. “It is strictly theoretical?’
“Perhaps not.”
