Lords of Ireland II Read online

  The men snickered as the big brute who had captured her lashed out a hand and slapped her, hard, across the side of the head. She yelped and fell over. The man was going in for another strike but the enormous man in the chair stopped him.

  “Hit her again and you shall answer to me,” he rumbled, watching the man back off before refocusing on the woman. “I asked you a question. Who are you?”

  The woman pushed herself off the floor, meeting his gaze. Resistance was written all over her. He could see it in her expression as well as her manner. After a moment, she simply turned away and closed her eyes. A lone tear trickled down her face but she made no move to wipe it away.

  The enormous man stared at her without making any move to punish her for her insolence. She was a little thing, no doubt, with ashen and creamy skin. Her features, from what he could see through the mussed hair, were fine and clear. Certainly not the features of a whore or servant.

  After a moment, he set the cup down and stood up, moving to where she was huddled on the floor. He loomed over her, carefully inspecting her. He was, if nothing else, an extremely observant man and the five words out of her mouth and the accent that delivered them told him something of her background and breeding. He eventually crouched beside her, snatching one of her hands to him. As she yelped and tried to pull away, he examined her palm.

  “Not a mark on her flesh,” he said, looking at the very fine flesh of her tender arms. “This woman has not accomplished a day of work in her life.”

  By this time, the woman was shrinking from him, quivering from fear. Their eyes met and he lifted his free hand, brushing back the damp hair from her face. She tried to pull away from the hand near her cheek but he was undeterred. He seemed rather passive about the whole thing. Sapphire-blue eyes studied her fine features.

  “Tell me your name,” he asked quietly.

  She looked at him with eyes the color of the sea. They were pure and crystal clear, an unnatural shade of bluish green under delicately arched eyebrows. Her nose was pert, straight, and her lips were lusciously full and pale. She was, upon close inspection, absolutely exquisite. He’d never seen such soft and delicate beauty. He was in the process of lingering on her flawlessly pale complexion when she shook her head.

  “I will not,” she whispered.

  His eyes found their way back to hers. “Why not?”

  She didn’t like how close he was to her, the heat from his big body scorching her tender flesh. She tried to pull away. “Because I will not tell you Irish hounds anything. You are all animals; filthy, barbaric animals!”

  The calm expression on his face faded and he stood up, yanking her off the floor and throwing her over his shoulder. As his men cheered his brutal move, he hauled his squirming, fighting quarry out of the great hall and into a very narrow stairwell near the entry. With his considerable size, it was difficult to maneuver, made even more difficult with her struggling. At one point, he turned sharply and she hit her head, causing her fighting to wane as she saw stars dance before her eyes. But the lull in her twitching allowed him to take the top of the stairs without dropping her, moving into the only chamber on the floor and slamming the rotting door behind him.

  She was still dazed when he threw her down onto a mattress, stuffed stiff with old and smelly straw. Realizing he had put her on a bed, she began to scratch and kick, knowing he meant to violate her and frantic to get away from him. It was cold, wet and dark in the room, her fearful grunting mingling with the sounds of the storm outside the open lancet windows.

  He easily trapped her flailing arms with one massive hand, using the other to pull at her tunic. When she violently twisted away from him in an effort to dislodge his hold, he simply threw his body down to trap her. Ensnaring her with a body that was nearly three times her size, he ripped the wet tunic down the front, exposing a soft linen sheath beneath. With the tunic peeled away, he yanked at the sheath and tore that as well. Soft skin and full, rounded breasts were revealed, but he made no move to touch her. He was more intent on removing her from her clothing. The damp woolen hose were the last thing to be removed but not without a great deal of struggle.

  When the hose lay in a heap next to the bed and her naked body sufficiently pinned beneath his big one, the woman stopped trying to fight him. She knew it was of no use. She was horrified, exposed, and frightened beyond measure. She resorted to the only tactic she had yet to employ; she began to beg.

  “Please,” she pleaded. “Please… I beseech you. Do not do this. Do not….”

  His eyes were on her, his face an inch or two from her own. “Do not do what?” he asked quietly, although he had to admit, he was not feeling as calm as his voice sounded. The little witch had his blood burning. “You will not tell me who you are. I can only assume you were on the ship to satisfy the men’s needs. Now you will satisfy mine, English whore.”

  “I am not a whore,” she snapped, the tears coming.

  “Then who are you?”

  Her little jaw worked furiously as she struggled not to weep. He could tell that part of her wanted to tell him, but the defiant English part of her, the stubbornness, would not allow it. He shifted, wedging his legs between her slender white ones, pinning her wrists above her head with one hand. The other, a massive mitt, was free to roam. The first thing he did was peel back the torn tunic and shift, fully exposing her luscious little body. A big palm closed over her left breast and squeezed.

  She yelped, bursting into loud sobs at the shocking intrusion. He could see how truly terrified she was, torn between mild remorse for his actions and the lust that was growing.

  “Nay,” she wept. “Please… please stop….”

  He squeezed again and she sobbed. Then, he dipped his head low and took a rosy nipple in his mouth, suckling gently. She gasped and bucked, a scream peeling from her lips.

  “Tell me,” he breathed against her nipple. “Tell me and I may show mercy.”

  She was weeping loudly by now, embarrassed and terrified. But in spite of her fear, she kept her mouth shut. He watched her face, the tightly closed eyes and rivers of tears, before moving to the other breast and suckling firmly, hard enough to cause pin pricks of pain. She bucked again, struggling to dislodge him from her breasts.

  “Nay,” she begged tearfully. “Please stop. Sweet Jesus, have you no sense of decency?”

  He lifted his head from her sweet breast. “Nay,” he said flatly. “I am an animal, remember?”

  She opened her eyes, looking at him. “I… I did not mean it,” she whispered urgently. “Please forgive me. I did not mean it at all.”

  He lifted a red eyebrow at her, his mouth hovering above a swollen nipple. “I forgive you,” he said. “But you will tell me your name.”

  She was back to weeping again, closing her eyes tightly and turning away. His response was to drag his tongue over her nipples, her breasts, nursing hungrily and feeling her buck and squirm beneath him. Truth be told, it excited him terribly. She was soft and sweet, much more than any woman he had ever known. The hand that was on her breasts moved down her slender torso, fingering the tight curls between her spread-open legs.

  She began to howl when he stroked the thick outer lips of her woman’s center, his mouth now on her tender neck. She was gasping, shrieking, begging for him to stop but he wasn’t listening. He had only started the game to coax forth her name, but now the game had overtaken him and he was lost in a haze of the most powerful lust he had ever known. He stopped fingering her long enough to lower his breeches, releasing his great manhood that was now engorged and pulsing, demanding relief.

  “Tell me your name and I will stop,” he breathed, his voice quivering with desire. “I want to know who you are and why you are here.”

  She gazed up at him, so utterly terrified she could hardly speak. But she would not allow her stubbornness and pride to be the cause of her downfall. It was time to push that all aside to save herself from this terrible folly.

  “Please,” she begged softly.
“Do not hurt me.”

  “I will not if you tell me your name.”

  “I am the Lady Emllyn Nesta Isabella Fitzgerald,” she whispered after a moment’s hesitation. “My brother is the Earl of Kildare and it is his fleet that the Irish destroyed this night.”

  He gazed down at her, believing every word. She was far too fine and beautiful to be anything other than a noblewoman. Still, his lust had the better of him and he shifted, rubbing the tip of his phallus against her virginal lips. He could feel her stiffen with terror beneath him.

  “Your brother is the Earl of Kildare?” he whispered.

  “Aye.”

  “I find it difficult to believe that your brother would allow you to sail, considering this is a battle fleet.”

  Emllyn was struggling to get away from the stiff, foreign object touching her most private core. It was terrifying and alien. “He did not allow me to sail,” she was starting to weep again because she couldn’t seem to move away from him. “I… I came without his permission.”

  His brow furrowed. “Why on earth would you want to do that?”

  She hesitated and he could see the stubborn streak rear itself again. Using his powerful buttocks, he coiled them slightly and pushed into her tight and wet passage. He had barely entered her but she screamed as if he had just impaled her on the full length of his manhood. He held on tightly while she twisted and bucked.

  “Why did you come?” he asked again, his question coming out as a ragged sigh.

  She was hysterical. “Nay… please do not…!”

  “Tell me now.”

  She yelped as he moved his hips slightly, pushing deeper into her resistant body. “I wanted to come because…,” she swallowed hard, struggling to keep her wits, “because Trevor was on the ship. I… I wanted to surprise him. I wanted to be with him.”

  “Trevor?” he repeated, although he was having great difficulty carrying on a conversation with her hot, tight body pulsing around him. “Who is Trevor?”

  “The man I love.”

  “Are you betrothed?”

  She shook her head. “Nay,” she breathed. “I was hoping… hoping to show him what a worthy wife I would be….”

  His right hand gripped her breast again, fondling it, feeling her tighten with defiance. “And your brother has no knowledge of you coming with his fleet?”

  “Nay.”

  “You followed a man you hoped to become betrothed to?”

  “Aye.”

  “That was foolish. Stupid and foolish.”

  Her eyes lolled open, red-rimmed, to look at him. “I took the risk,” she whispered, the defiance back in her tone. “I had no way of knowing that the Irish hounds would be waiting for the fleet to destroy it.”

  He cocked a serious eyebrow. “Perhaps he should not have tried to invade. The sons of Eire are stronger than the English. ’Tis time they realized that.”

  “Did you have to kill them all?”

  “I did.”

  Surprisingly, she didn’t dissolve into more tears. Her gaze was steady. “I heard that man say that I was your gift for a decisive victory. You led the battle. You must be the one they call Black Sword.”

  His grip tightened. “Your brother has lost two things dear to him this night,” he muttered, shifting his hips so he was penetrating her even more deeply. “His sailing fleet and his sister.”

  She grunted as he gained depth into her body, feeling fear along with an odd, tingling warmth spreading throughout her body. It was not an unpleasant sensation and she struggled to maintain her defiance. “Are you Black Sword?” she demanded.

  His dark blue eyes glimmered in the dark room. “I am Devlin de Bermingham,” he said softly. “If that name means nothing to you now, it soon will.”

  She turned away from him, feeling his manhood slide deeper into her wet and ready body. She could no longer maintain the resistance with the wicked feelings that were betraying her. His sensual intrusion wasn’t painful any longer because her body was loosening, preparing to accept him. The more he squeezed her breast, the more she could feel herself giving in to something she didn’t recognize. It burned deep in her belly and spread through her limbs, this heat that made her want to open her legs wider and pull him deep inside. It was humiliating and frightening.

  “It does not matter,” she whispered, closing her eyes as the tears started to come again. “After this night, Trevor will not want me even if he has survived the battle. No one will want me.”

  He gazed down at her, struggling against any pity he might be feeling. For the moment, all he could see was the most desirable woman he had ever known, her soft body and exquisite face the most potent aphrodisiac he had ever experienced. He was torn between finishing what he had started and walking away, although he did not know why he was so indecisive. He should not have been.

  His night of dominance over the English was not finished, not in the least, and this moment would finally seal his hatred against the Earl of Kildare, the man grossly despised by his people for the inequities and injustice he had spread among them. By pure luck, he had the earl’s sister and he intended to take advantage of it. His mercy, at the moment, did not include her.

  Coiling his buttocks, he rammed into her tender body, listening to her weep with shock and embarrassment. Every stroke was meant for Irish freedom, something he lived and breathed every day against the hated English. He couldn’t think any other way. It would have been better for her had she lied and told him she was Scots or French. Perhaps he would have let her go. Perhaps not.

  There was anger in his movements as he stroked into her. His hands, so big and so calloused, touched her body with something just short of tenderness. He made no move to bruise or hurt her. She was too exquisite for that and he did not want to damage her any more than he already was. What he was doing at the moment was making a statement and nothing more. He was dominating and humiliating Fitzgerald. He was sending the English a message.

  When he finally released himself into her sweet body, he couldn’t remember ever having experienced such pleasure. It was enough to cause him to bite his lip, drawing blood. He could feel her release also, an orgasm that shuddered through her entire body. And then he fell atop her, kissing her, tasting her, licking up the salt from her tears and listening to her groan and hiss with disgust. He had released her wrists at some point and her little hands slapped at him, eventually falling still on the mattress as if disgusted by the very feel of him. His hands were all over her, his mouth on her breasts, her neck, her lips. When he tried to force his tongue into her mouth, she bit him.

  He actually laughed. Withdrawing from her sweet body, he pushed himself off of her, taking a moment to gaze down at her completely delectable nude form. Although the room was dark, he could still see her body in the faint illumination. She was truly perfect. The longer he gazed at her, the more wisps of remorse and confusion he began to feel when he should have been feeling nothing but complete victory. Frustration and anger swamped him.

  “For years, the English have practiced the immoral act of prima nocta,” he said hoarsely. “An English lord is permitted the first right with a bride on her wedding night if she hails from his lands. Many English bastards have been born in Ireland and Scotland because of this deviant law. Mayhap… mayhap tonight, your brother will come to know what it is like to have someone he loves bear the bastard of the hated enemy. If God is merciful, then I will have attained two victories this night.”

  Emllyn’s eyes rolled open, the sea-blue orbs gazing at him as tears streamed down her temples. She lay with her legs closed and curled, rolled up on herself as if to hide from the world. She wished the earth would open up and swallow her.

  “If that was your intention, you will be sorely disappointed,” she whispered. “He will not care. You believe you have punished him by harming me but the truth is that you have only done him a great favor. He will laugh at you for it.”

  Devlin left her lying on the mattress without another word.
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  Chapter Two

  Emllyn awoke to a surprisingly bright room. After the storm and madness of the night before, all she could feel was a sense of hollowness. She was cursed now, a used commodity no better than the whores that followed the armies. She felt so incredibly dirty.

  She lay there for quite some time before realizing she was alone. Facing the wall as she was, she hadn’t been sure. Slowly, she sat up in the big rope bed with the dirty straw mattress, seeing evidence of her virginity on the mattress cover and thinking on the Irish offensive in the bed the night before. Devlin was such a big man, powerful and overwhelming, and she had felt so helpless against him. She couldn’t even think about the fact that her body had betrayed her; she knew, even with the humiliation and lust, that her body had responded in a way she had not expected. She wanted very much not to like any aspect of what he did to her but her young and nubile senses said otherwise. She tried not to hate herself for it.

  Reconciling herself to the events of the previous night, the next order of business was to cover her naked state. The room was cold and she was shivering; however, what was left of her surcoat was on the dirty stone floor, all bunched up. Climbing out of the bed, Emllyn picked the garment up off the floor, realizing parts of it were still wet. There was sand in it, too, but it was all she had. Her shift, beneath it, was a total loss.

  Gingerly, Emllyn stepped into the surcoat and pulled it up over her trembling body. As she struggled to fasten the ties at her back with freezing fingers, she lifted her head to the sounds of noisy gulls, screaming outside of her window. They were riding the sea breezes outside and for a moment, a brief flash of a second, she was no longer the trembling captive of a brutish Irish lord. She watched the birds and their graceful flight, taking simple pleasure in it. There was something innately soothing about their cry, comforting even. It was something familiar in this horrid alien land. But her comfort was swiftly dashed as the door to the chamber suddenly jolted open.

  Emllyn shrieked with fright, arms around her body protectively as she stumbled back against the cold stone wall behind her. Her eyes widened at the sight of Devlin standing in the doorway.