Maiden Bride. Deborah Simmons

it wide, without pausing to knock.

      She turned, startled by the noise, and he could see that she had, indeed, completed her toilet. In fact, while he watched, she finished plaiting her wet locks into a fat braid that fell over one shoulder. Her fingers were slim and nimble, and her hair… Faith, even damp, it was a fiery color, like a bright sunset, and ungodly thick and long, for his eyes followed it down below her breast.

      She was wearing one of Aisley’s gowns, a dark green that matched her eyes, but it was not right for her by any other means. Crafted to fit his sister’s dainty, slender frame, it was too short and much too tight for his wife. Gillian was far more generously endowed, a fact that had been hidden under her shapeless clothing. Far more generously endowed, Nicholas realized as he stared at the bodice of the dress, where her breasts were flattened into two great mounds.

      She must have hurried, for Nicholas thought he saw a patch of dampness where the linen was stretched taut. It looked as if it could accommodate nothing more without bursting at the seams, and yet Nicholas suddenly saw it ripple as her nipples hardened, creating two tiny points in the fabric.

      He whirled away from the sight. “You will make yourself some clothes that fit,” he ordered, hoarsely. His plans to robe his wife in rags were forgotten at the swift and sure knowledge that he not want her appearing below in such provocative garb as this.

      Eyeing the still-steaming bath, Nicholas yanked off his boots. “Help me from my mail before the water is stonecold,” he snapped, and soon her hands, surprisingly strong, were lifting the coat from him. He tugged off his hose and his braies and stepped into the tub, but when he looked around, his wife was conspicuously absent.

      “Well?” he snapped, irritated to discover that she had turned her back in some sort of misplaced modesty. “Get over here and do your duty!”

      Her eyes flashed fire at him, and her braid bounced over her shoulder as she grabbed up a swatch of linen and the lump of soap. Well satisfied with his victory, Nicholas leaned forward, only to feel her begin scrubbing his back fiercely enough to take the skin off. What the devil?

      His hand shot out to snare her wrist. “Gentle yourself, vixen, or else,” he warned. Her green eyes clashed with his for a long moment, as if in a battle for supremacy, but finally they dropped away in sullen acquiescence. With an angry tug, she pulled her wrist from his hold and bent once more to her task yet this time, Nicholas felt no discomfort. Indeed, he began to enjoy himself thoroughly.

      It had been years since he had been washed, if one did not count his months of helpless recovery in the Holy Land. He had no use for women, and certainly had never availed himself of their giggling presence in his bath. But this was different. Gillian was no flirting female or simpering maiden. Far from it, he thought with a smile, and he leaned back, taking pleasure in a welcome, though unexplained, respite from his stomach pain.

      Obviously, the vixen had been a poor servant, for she made no effort to hide her dislike for waiting on him. Nicholas grinned, reveling in the scowl that marred her face. Although he had thought her skin creamy and clear, he could see now that a few freckles were scattered over her turnedup nose. However, they did not detract from her beauty, which struck him now with astonishing force. Was it the change from her black nun’s garb, or had he simply never been near enough to observe it?

      Slowly Nicholas let his gaze rove over her features. Her lashes were dark and thick, her cheeks flushed from anger or exertion, and wispy tendrils of bright hair were drying around her face. Amazing that she had turned out to be so lovely… Nicholas’s reverie was interrupted by a vicious pull on his arm as she stretched it out and soaped it. Apparently she was trying to injure him, but her puny efforts were laughable.

      She moved around him to take his other arm, and Nicholas caught a whiff of her scent. It was clean and heady, like wildflowers. It lingered in the steamy air, fresh and fragrant, teasing at his senses and robbing him of his brief tranquillity. The atmosphere changed, and as she bent close, he was no longer filled with triumph, but with an unnerving desire to reach out and touch the thick braid that fell down her back.

      Tearing his gaze away from it, Nicholas looked down, but that view was worse. She was washing his chest, her strong fingers tangling in his hair as she spread the cloth over him, and he drew in a harsh breath as he watched her move lower, across his stomach, kneading his flesh, more slowly, more gently…

      How long had it been since someone had touched him like this? He had never felt comfortable with close contact. Even his experiences with women were swift and sure, and yet he knew none of his usual repulsion now. Indeed, Nicholas felt heat spreading through him, filling him with sensation…

      When her wrist brushed his upraised thigh, his calming bath suddenly was transformed into something else altogether by the reaction of his body, both immediate and unexpected. His blood ran hot and fierce, and his tarse stiffened and swelled, as if reaching for her, and for a moment he wanted nothing more than to feel those blunt fingers stroking him to release.

      “Get out!” he shouted. Unwilling to let her see his response to her touch, Nicholas sat up, sloshing water over the sides in his hurry to hide the evidence from her gaze.

      “What?” Gillian lifted her head, and Nicholas looked at her, only to feel himself grow even harder. Her ferocious scowl was gone, replaced by a rather dazed expression. Her skin had gone rosy, her lips were parted, and her green eyes were all soft and dark. Farther down, he could see the rapid rise and fall of her breasts in her too-tight bodice, her nipples outlined boldly by the damp fabric. She resembled nothing so much as a voluptuous dairymaid, ripe for a tumble.

      “Get out!” Nicholas shouted again, and this time the order seemed to penetrate her dulled senses, for she dropped the soap and fled. The door slammed loudly behind her, and only then did Nicholas release the breath he had been holding. And only after firmly disciplining his thoughts did he gain control over his own body.

      But just as he finally mastered himself, Nicholas realized that his wife was running around the castle in that shamelessly small gown and, if he was not mistaken, bare feet. To some randy knight on the prowl, she might have the look of a bold villein eager for a mounting. Although he had no intention of bedding her himself, Nicholas wanted no other man putting hands on his property. The very thought made his blood boil.

      Cursing fluently, he climbed from the tub, dripping-wet, wrapped a linen cloth around his waist and flung open the door. His usual alertness was abandoned as he took after her, heedless of the slippery tiles beneath him. Without a thought as to how he might appear, Nicholas raced along the passage as fast as he could manage while still clutching his scant covering.

      Suddenly, nothing else mattered but that he find her before someone else saw her as he had, before another man was tempted by her vixen’s face and voluptuous body. As for himself, Nicholas put his own reaction down to exhaustion and the unusual circumstances of the bath.

      He refused to consider the mortifying notion that he might be attracted to his wife.

      * * *

      Gillian ran into the first room that stood open. It was smaller than the great chamber, of course, but like all else here at Nicholas’s home, it was quite luxurious. For once, however, Gillian did not stare in awe at the furniture and tapestries, but went straight to the window, where a lovely seat had been fashioned with brightly colored pillows. Throwing herself on them, Gillian put her head down upon her crossed arms and burst into tears.

      She had not cried during her long years without privacy at the convent, but now, unleashed, Gillian’s misery poured forth in wracking sobs. And it might have continued unabated, if she had not heard a noise in between her gulps for air. Lifting her head in cautious curiosity, she was horrified to see an older woman, short and rounded, standing right beside her, cooing to her gently.

      “There now,” the woman said, reaching out to pat Gillian’s shoulder consolingly. “Surely ‘tis not as bad as all that. Here, tell Edith all about it, and you will feel better.”

      Gillian’s embarrassment faded under the warmth in the stranger’s gentle brown eyes. No one had comforted her, really, since her mother