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  When next she opened her eyes it was to Sir Fulke’s burning gaze. He was not staring at her, but rather her bare breasts (Adele had extracted her other breast). Or perhaps it was Adele’s lustful performance he minded, it was hard to tell. She didn’t care. Whatever it was that had him so transfixed she was a part of, and that was enough.

  “Take off—uuhhh—your boots, milady. Swiftly!”

  With her breasts yet uncovered, Constance shifted her feet out from under her bottom and did as the panting serving maid ordered. As she did so, Adele lifted her bottom high in the air as Sir Fulke got to his feet, his member lodged deep inside her. He bent his knees, the muscles of his thighs bulging, and took Adele with ferocity. Her urgent cries were like licks of fire in Constance’s belly. The wildness of Sir Fulke’s lovemaking, the tormented mask his mien adopted, caused her drenched sex to pulsate terribly. She hankered for him to take her like that, thrusts and fingers merciless, visage sweaty and scrunched up as if in agony. Yes! Oh, yes!

  Just as Adele screamed in her ultimate ecstasy, Sir Fulke groaned out his. Constance shuddered, her own climax sliding out of her, down her inner thighs.

  Adele gave a contented sigh when Sir Fulke slipped out of her. Snatching up her smock, she tossed it upon the floor in front of the trunk and plopped down. “Come, milady,” she ordered breathlessly, waving her over. “Sit with me here.”

  The effects of her orgasm receding, Constance glanced up and caught Sir Fulke staring at her exposed breasts. Face aflame, she drew her chemise back up over the heavy globes and rose on quaking legs. Adele laughed when she approached.

  “This is no occasion for modesty, milady.”

  Constance stared at the thatch of curls between the maid’s stocking encased legs.

  “Go on. Take off your chemise.”

  Wrenching her eyes from Adele’s nakedness, Constance bent to grasp the hem of her garment. Sir Fulke grasped her hand, halting her.

  “My lady…it is no necessary—” he attempted.

  “But she craves to, Fulke!” appealed Adele. Her eyes shifted to their lady’s. “Do you not, milady?”

  As much as Constance appreciated Sir Fulke’s compassion and commended his scruples, she coveted his passion too much to deny herself this chance she had been accorded.

  Drawing her hand from his, Constance took off her chemise, letting the fine garment float to the ground. When Adele unfurled her legs wider, gesturing for her to sit between them, Constance padded over to her in nothing save her red stockings. Pressing back into the young woman’s naked form, Constance lifted her eyes to look upon Sir Fulke’s mien and halted at the long, hard appendage jutting up and out (he’d at last stripped off his stockings and braise) from the dark patch of coils at the junction of his muscular thighs. Her eyes rounded a little. Gilbert’s manhood had only been half the size of Sir Fulke’s and its head not nearly as huge. She imagined that enormous knob burrowing into her flesh, deliciously stretching, filling.

  She shivered and mewled. At her back, Adele chuckled.

  “You see? She yearns for this—badly.”

  Although the knight was clearly battling his lust and what he reckoned wrong, Constance was thankful when he sighed in acquiesce and knelt between her legs. She quaked with anticipation, panting as Adele reached around to knead her breasts, the maid’s tone mesmeric.

  “And you cannot tell me, sir, that you do not covet a feel—a taste—of these tits.”

  The hunger in Sir Fulke’s eyes as he observed Adele’s sinful behavior was unmistakable. Her simmering desire bubbled hotter. The serving maid abandoned her breasts and cupped her hands underneath Constance’s bent knees, just below her garters. She hauled them back to her chest, exposing her sex to Sir Fulke’s eyes. Adele released one of her knees and snaked a hand down Constance’s body, exploring her thrumming folds. Constance threw back her head to Adele’s shoulder, groaning.

  “Ah, yes. You see, Sir Fulke? She wants to be filled—she needs to be.”

  The knight filled his hands with Constance’s breasts at last, pushing them up and together for his pleasure before bowing his head to draw one of their hardened tips into his mouth. Her groan mingled with his. Her juices started flowing again, soaking her from the inside out.

  Unable to help herself, Constance sifted her fingers through Sir Fulke’s dark, shoulder-length hair and draped her legs about his sinewy thighs. After he paid like attention to her other nipple he inched down her body, his lips molten fire upon her flesh, his breath shallow as he inhaled her fragrance, his large, rough hands kneading, seeking with delicious intent. He sank lower to the floor and pressed her thighs open with deliberation. She shivered as he lowered his head to set his face into her dark curls, sniffing. He muttered something as his descended lower, sliding the tip of his tongue along the unfurled verges of the slick petals of her sex.

  Constance quivered and mewled. Adele chuckled and fingered her nipples.

  Sir Fulke whirled his tongue about the throbbing nub at the apex of Constance’s sex. She juddered violently and sucked in a sharp breath. In shameless fashion she opened her legs wider, urging him to take his fill, to furnish what her body screamed for.

  And he did.

  His tongue at last sunk inside. Tears gathered at the corner of Constance’s eyes at the tantalizing thoroughness in which he loved that part of her body. “Uh! Uhhh!”

  The glorious combination of Sir Fulke’s mouth and Adele’s fingers exhorted euphoria to blaze within Constance, propelling her to release sooner than she had anticipated. Sir Fulke’s pants and groans, vibrating into her sex, was all that was required to push her to her limits. With a final cry she dug her nails into his shoulders. The building pressure broke, sending her sex into horrible contractions about the enticing tongue buried inside. Stars bust behind lids she squeezed shut against the heat that surged through her.

  Boneless, contented, Constance barely noted Sir Fulke’s lethargic abandonment of her body. When Adele pressed her to lie down upon her side, Constance complied. The young woman jumped to her feet and ambled around her to have an additional go with the knight. Constance simply surveyed them through heavy-lidded eyes. Adele pushed Sir Fulke down upon his back that she might straddle him. As she rode him wildly, Adele’s glistening sex consuming the knight’s rod over and over, Constance’s body began to hum with lust once more.

  Following their rapid climax, and they lay catching their breath, Constance admired Sir Fulke’s stones hanging below Adele’s spread derriere. They appeared large and heavy. She conceived how they would feel cradled in her hand.

  “Eh! Do you have to go so soon?”

  The serving maid’s pretty whining ripped Constance from her erotic fancying. Sitting up, she retrieved and donned her chemise. Now that the heat of the moment was gone, and she sat so undressed, she was revisited by her earlier discomfiture. After the pair rose Adele stroked his flaccid member. The knight blushed and removed her hand from his sex.

  “What?” Adele asked. Sir Fulke sent an uncomfortable glance in their lady’s direction. She laughed. “Oh, don’t tell me you’re awkward in front of her ladyship, sir—particularly after you made her squeal like any other.”

  “Enough, Adele.”

  Constance’s cheeks burning at the young woman’s crude remark, she appreciated the knight’s order.

  Adele shrugged and donned her things. Sir Fulke, once clothed and shod, extended Constance a stiff bow and Adele a hard look, though he whispered something to her. Then he was gone.

  After Constance donned the remainder of her attire, she asked in a gentle voice, “Is Sir Fulke angry?”

  Adele was tidying her hair. “Angry? Mayhap in the beginning, but once he saw these—”—She tweaked her ladyship’s nipples through her clothing, making her go scarlet—“—he was lost.” Shaking her head, she linked her arm through her lady’s. “I mean no harm, milady. It’s all in good fun.”

  Nodding, Constance replied, “I am unused to such behavior, is all.�
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  “And well you should be, being a lady and all. Worry not, milady—it shall be our secret.” Pulling her arm free, Adele headed for the door. “I shall go first, milady; wouldn’t want anyone thinkin’ you’ve been up to anything unsavory with o’ Adele here.” With a mischievous flash of teeth she was gone.

  Adele’s concern for her reputation had been for not, for Constance had come to the old Norman hall by way of an underground passage that ran between it and the keep’s cellar. She and Richard had discovered it as children.

  Backing away from the door, Constance raced over to the rush mat employed to disguise the trapdoor. Lifting the mat, which was attached to the door, she descended the steps and locked the door above her. Taking the rush light she’d left burning in the iron wall bracket, she trekked back to the keep. It was a good tramp, for her pace slackened as she ruminated upon everything she’d just experienced. Since first she’d set eyes on the swarthy knight she’d fantasized about him. But the real thing had been so much better! True, he hadn’t entered her body or even kissed her, but what he had done had proved beyond what she could have ever hoped for. It was enough.

  FOUR

  As head knight at Folstoc, and Richard de Molineaux’s most trusted man, Fulke was afforded a place above the salt during mealtimes, and more significantly, a seat at the man’s own side. At present, he sat struggling to focus on the excellent capon in quince sauce. He failed over and over as his thoughts persisted on drifting back to what had transpired in the old Norman hall. Initially, several factors of the situation had made him cringe: Besides his desire not to lay with anyone save Adele, there was the fact that, had it been otherwise, Lady Constance wouldn’t have been one to attract him much, but most importantly, she was his Lord’s own widowed sister. In the end, even this had not signified, for once the luscious Adele had gotten his blood sweltering in his veins, and he’d gotten a good look at the Lady Constance undressed, he’d been unable to deny that her large breasts were anything except divine.

  Fulke hardened.

  Pushing away his trencher in disgust Fulke took up his tankard and drained his wine. The admirer of fine living that he was, the imported beverage from Bordeaux served as a blatant reminder of how jeopardizing his actions that day could be to his precious position if they were discovered.

  Rising his cup to be refilled by one of the household pages, Fulke was staring at his half-eaten capon when the boy’s fine sleeve skimmed along his wrist. At once, Fulke recalled the Lady Constance’s silken skin. He’d never touched a lady let alone bedded one. The incredible suppleness of her breasts would have sent him toppling over the brink into total ecstasy had he not been such a master of his passion. Even now, his member throbbed as he recalled how smooth her flesh had been beneath his hardened hands. And her sent! The unexpected clean, spicy odor that had wafted up from her had entranced his senses, so much so that he’d been powerless to quell the impulse to bury his face into the lady’s most intimate parts.

  Scowling, Fulke tipped back his goblet and drank down its contents. He hoped Adele could meet him that eve, for he now realized that he was going to have to fuck himself free of the strangely enticing memory of Lady Constance.

  Setting his empty tankard down, Fulke rose brusquely. Next to him, Sir Richard peered up with questioning eyes. “Pray excuses me, sir. There is something I must see to.”

  “But you’ve barely touched your trencher, Fulke.”

  Stepping over the bench, Fulke sent a cursory glance in the Lady Constance’s direction. “I find my appetite has deserted me, sir.” Bowing in respect, he quit the dais and departed the keep all together.

  * * *

  A master at affecting indifference Constance might be, but it took all her will not to visibly mind Sir Fulke’s abrupt leave-taking just now. Had it been any other day she would have linked his keenness to be gone with some matter pertaining to his position or some such. But after what had occurred between them earlier, she could not help wonder if, contrary to what Adele might think, the incident had disturbed him enough to ruin his robust appetite.

  Only after the knight had withdrew from the great hall did Constance allowed her gaze to lift from her trencher. As she took a bite of her blancmanger, her sister-by-marriage, Béatrix, who sat at her right, sighed as she speared a slice of capon.

  “How you can countenance such rudeness, Richard, is beyond me.”

  Past the lady, whose golden beauty and classical features were undiminished by her pique, Constance heard her brother answer her habitual unkindness with his usual patience.

  “Sir Fulke is simply battle-hardened, my dear. And who better to safeguard our home than one who is experienced in combat rather than the niceties of genteel living?” Richard de Molineaux was every bit as tall and fit and dark of hair and eyes as his head knight, but where Sir Fulke’s reserve made his appearance a shade darker, Richard’s dark hair and eyes were brightened by his kind nature and ready smile, overlaying them with a warm glow that lessened the severity of their hue.

  Beside the warmhearted Richard, the cruel, shallow Béatrix offered a rejoinder that was no less icy than her initial comment. “Well, I suppose you are right. It still does not make the man’s uncivility any easier to withstand.”

  Granting Constance had not liked her brother’s wife from the off, her strict upbringing had forbidden her to act in any way unkind to the woman. Nevertheless, these current comments about Sir Fulke caused the accounts of her stomach to sour. Setting her spoon down gingerly, she pushed back her chair and rose. “Brother, Sister. I must beg leave—I am…unwell of a sudden.” Richard readily excused her, ordering her to stay to her chamber till she felt herself again. Béatrix, conversely, said nothing. Constance was glad, fearing something along the lines of what she truly thought of her might slip past her lips.

  Leaving the hall Constance ascended the stairwell to the corridor that led straight to the Lady’s Tower. Achieving her chamber she sat herself in the window recess and threw open the wooden shutters. It was late summer, but the breeze was cool enough to calm her roiling stomach. Somewhat relieved, she set her head back against the stone of the recess. For a few minutes she simply gazed out at nothing in particular. Spotting Sir Fulke down in the practice yard in the outer ward she sat up, craning her neck to get a better glimpse of him. He’d taken off his long-sleeve cote and stood in a sleeveless shirt, a weapon in his right hand, its long blade glinting in the sun. His solitude, she surmised, was due to the fact that most of the men and squires and pages were yet at table. When he began hacking away at the nearby quintain post, she was reminded of the ferocious manner he’d hammered himself into Adele. Her nether region heated as she remembered the sensuous roughness of his calloused hands and the sinful skill of his mouth, the spellbinding resonance of his groans. Closing her eyes, she tried to calm the nascent lust by pushing the erotic reminiscences from her mind.

  Just then, Judith ambled in.

  “My lady, Sir Richard said you’ve taken ill.”

  Swallowing, Constance smiled awkwardly, hoping the old woman would not heed the burning in her face. “Only a little, Judith. Nothing you need worry over. If you fetch my needlework, I would sit here a while. Mayhap I will feel better once the fresh air has worked itself upon me.” The woman retrieved her latest embroidery project—a cluster of marigold blooms, her favorite flower, upon the corner of a fine square of linen stretched and secured to a petite embroidery frame—and the basket holding her many silk threads and tools. Constance thanked her and settled further into the comfortable cushions she and her late mother (the loss of her husband had proved too great upon her declining constitution and she’d soon followed him to the grave) had created together prior to her death.

  Her needle threaded with the preferred aurnola dyed silk thread, Constance resumed with the petals she’d started several days ago. As Judith stationed herself at her side on a low stool, aiming to assist her mistress in any method necessary, and because the project commanded e
very ounce of Constance’s concentration lest she pierce a finger or produce a less than smooth curve, all thoughts of the virile Sir Fulke soon ceased to plague her.

  Hours later, when Judith left to fetch refreshment, Constance set down her work and peered out the window. As it faced north she could not see the sun. Nevertheless, the mellow glow that bathed the western end of the wards and the fields beyond the castle, apprised her that sunset was not far off. Supper would soon be underway. She had no desire for food, though, or to tolerate Béatrix’s crossness. She simply wished to sustain the blissful oblivion that was possible to obtain when absorbed in her needlework.

  The distant sound of sword practice lured Constance out from this peaceful abyss.

  The midday meal long concluded, Sir Fulke was now surrounded by several squires. She could not hear what he said, but it was clear by the demonstrative manner in which he moved amongst the boys that he was in the middle of giving them instruction. This deduction was further proved when he gestured for two of his pupils to step forward that they might display their level of ability before all.

  Absently fingering the stitches she’d already completed in her project, she watched as one of the boys managed to best the other quickly. When the loser of the pair stumbled and fell, Sir Fulke surprised Constance when he hefted the boy up from the ground and set him to try again. Often enough she’d witnessed a knight employ a cuff to the ear or a kick to the backside to force an inept pupil to learn his lessons as he should.

  Pleased by this new discovery of the man she fancied, Constance smiled to herself and remained observing him with his apprentices.

  At the sound of Judith’s return, Constance dropped her eyes from the window and made as if she’d been hard at work the whole of her absence. Pulling the orange thread up through the taut linen she asked the woman if she’d chanced to see Adele anywhere about.