Lords of Ireland II Read online

  He looked every inch the conquering hero; her impression of him the previous night had been that of darkness and cruelty, but even as she pondered that impression, she also remembered his warm, soft, pale skin against hers. God, he had been so overwhelming and powerful, everything about the man filling her brittle senses.

  Now, in the light of a new day, she could see just how large the man truly was; he was wearing leather breeches and a tunic that strained against his broad chest and muscled arms. His hands, those warm and rough things that had stroked her into madness, were as big as her head. His dark red hair had brilliant golden highlights in the sunlight and the deep blue eyes regarded her.

  Emllyn stared back. She had no idea what to say to him but she was very fearful he was going to throw her on the bed again and have his way with her. For a moment, they did nothing more than stare at each other as each one reappraised the other. There was re-evaluation in the air. There was curiosity. Devlin finally broke the spell.

  “So you are awake,” he said with his rolling Irish brogue. “I would assume you are hungry.”

  He started to motion to someone standing outside of the door but she stopped him. “I would rather have dry clothing,” she said, sounding as if he owed it to her since it was his fault her clothes were ruined. “I am cold and my clothing is still wet from last night.”

  He looked at her, and at her state of dress, as a big, ugly Irishman entered the room with a hunk of bread in one hand and a rough wooden cup of something in the other. Emllyn eyed the man fearfully and backed away, ending up over near the lancet window as the Irishman set the bread and cup down on the end of the bed. When the man quit the room, Devlin finally spoke.

  “I will see what I can find for you,” he said.

  He was starting to close the door but she stopped him. “Wait,” she said, coming away from the wall. Her manner was anxious, uncertain, but there was boldness there. “And… and I would like a bath if it is not too much trouble. I have sand everywhere and I would like to clean it off.”

  His gaze moved over her; in fact, it seemed that all he could do was stare at her as if remembering the night before and the delectable taste of her upon his tongue. Something about the woman was addicting, infiltrating his senses like a fog. Since the moment he’d touched her last night he’d not been able to shake her. This morning, the sensation had only grown worse. It unnerved and distracted him, translating into a brusque manner.

  “We have no bath here,” he told her, watching her face fall. He realized he didn’t like that expression on her face, not one bit. “But… I will see what I can do. Mayhap there is something you can use for bathing.”

  “Thank you,” Emllyn said. She meant it. He turned to leave but she stopped him once more with a rushed and breathless question. “What… what do you intend to do with me?”

  Devlin paused at the door, his gaze penetrating. “I already did it last night.”

  Emllyn flushed deeply and looked at her feet. “I… I did not mean…,” she stammered, now struggling not to weep. “What I mean to ask is if you intend to send me home in disgrace or if you intend to keep me here… with you.”

  He came back into the room and shut the door. “I am not sending you home,” he said with finality. “You stowed away on a fleet you had no business sailing upon. You knew that. You knew there were risks. Now you belong to me. You, lady, are the spoils of war.”

  Her head snapped up, torn between anger and tears. “But you no longer have use for me after… after what you did,” she said. “Why would you keep me here? You have already damaged me beyond repair. I fail to see why you would keep me here unless it is to make me a daily campaign of humiliation and degradation.”

  Devlin had to admit that he rather liked it when she stood up to him. She had spirit for an Englishwoman, which was surprising to him. He’d always thought the English female to be a weak and foolish thing. In fact, her spirit fed his lust, a flaming thing that apparently ignited at the slightest provocation where she was concerned, and he was upon her in three big strides, his big hands digging into the tender flesh of her upper arms. She squealed as he pulled her against his broad chest.

  “It is not humiliation and degradation,” he breathed. Then, he tossed her onto the bed and leapt on top of her before she could get away. His big body pinned her to the rough straw mattress as his hand began to yank the sandy surcoat from her body. “It is domination, pure and simple. It is my punishment to your brother and to every damnable English who has ever set foot upon the green fields of Eire. I will dominate you day and night, and any other time that strikes my fancy, and I will pump you full of my seed until I beget you with child. Even then, I will continue to join my body with yours until the child is born and when I gaze upon my Irish son of an English mother, I will bed you again until you deliver unto me another son and still another. I will breed an army of sons from your body, sons that will sail upon England and wreak havoc. You, my lady, will be the mother of an army of Irish rebels that will kill your countrymen just as they have killed mine. You will be my brood mare.”

  With that, his mouth clamped down over hers, kissing her so forcefully that Emllyn could scarcely breathe. His heated hands had stripped off her surcoat and she could feel him fumbling with his breeches. She knew what was coming; God help her, she knew, and she began to twist and fight, pushing at him and trying to avoid his seeking mouth. But somewhere in the tears and gasps, she began to feel a heat blooming in her belly, something odd and fluid, something that made her want to succumb to all of his male roughness.

  It was an odd urge, really. When his seeking mouth moved to her tender breasts and began to suckle, she beat at his head with her forearms but there wasn’t much force behind it. It was hard to beat him when his mouth was doing such wicked and exciting things to her. As he suckled, her angry screams gradually turned to moans and the more he drew at her nipples, the deeper the moans.

  His mouth moved to the under swell of her breasts, suckling and lapping at them. The hands that had been beating at his head now gripped his hair and his actions turned from brutal to lustful, infused with a heated passion that took Emllyn’s breath away. She was struggling very hard to keep her mind on task, to fight him as he did this atrocious thing, but something was happening to her. She couldn’t quite find the will to battle to the death. Something about his heated mouth and warm, moist tongue drew the fight right out of her. When he finally lifted himself up and thrust into her warm, wet body, she cried out with both passion and pain, raw from the previous night’s activities but somehow finding pleasure in his dominance. When he began to thrust into her, it was with long, powerful strokes.

  Emllyn had no idea how to respond. She wasn’t fighting him, but she wasn’t responding, either. She lay beneath him, legs spread open, knees slightly raised, and arms out to her sides as he pounded into her. Devlin began to suckle on her neck, her shoulder, tenderly biting her and causing her to shudder with newly awakening passion. His fingers toyed with her nipples as he nibbled her neck and Emllyn could feel a fireball blooming within her loins. She had no idea what it was, or what her body was responding to, but she knew that the fire seemed to increase with each successive thrust.

  It was a feeling that intensified when he grasped her buttocks and ground his hips against her, grinding his body against her most private core and impaling her as deeply as he could with his enormous phallus. He was buried fully in her slick body and yet still he tried to go deeper. When he shifted his body and pulled her pelvis tightly against his, the fireball in Emllyn’s loins erupted with the iridescent burst of an exploding star. Sparks flew as her body convulsed with ripples of pleasure.

  Devlin felt her release, the strong pull on his manhood demanding that he release his seed. It wasn’t difficult to answer the task; she had him so highly aroused that he spilled himself deep within her, feeling the greatest satisfaction he had ever known. It was a long and powerful climax and when it died down, he realized that he was holding
her tightly, kissing her shoulder and arm because they happened to be next to his head. They were tender kisses when they should not have been. He was overwhelmed with the feel and taste of her like nothing he had ever known. Withdrawing his manhood from her tight body, he thrust two of his fingers up into her still-convulsing body.

  “Feel me?” he whispered, his lips against her cheek. “Do you feel my seed as it settles into your womb? I am all about you, and within you, and you belong to me. Never ask me again what I intend to do with you; I intend to do just as I am now, until I die.”

  Still gasping from her release, Emllyn heard his words. She could feel his fingers inside of her, foreign but not unpleasant. In fact, above her haze of passion and embarrassment, of shock and desire, she realized she rather liked his fingers inside of her. He was stroking them in and out of her, dragging them along her thigh, before plunging back into her body again. On the third such plunge, she groaned and trembled because she could feel the fireball starting again. Devlin laughed low in his throat.

  “So you like that, you English vixen?” he murmured. “You are a whore after all.”

  Emllyn’s eyes flew open. Quick as a flash, she hauled off and slapped him so hard across the face that his head snapped sideways. Leaping off the bed, she made a break for the lancet window but Devlin was right behind her, grabbing her as she tried to throw herself from the window, three stories above the jagged rocks and crashing sea below. He had her around the waist, her arms pinned, as she screamed and fought against him.

  It was a vicious fight. The mood, rather warm and sensual only moments before, was now brittle and fierce. Although Emllyn’s arms were pinned, her legs were quite free and she ended up kicking him in his semi-arousal. Grunting with pain, Devlin staggered to the bed and fell upon it with Emllyn sandwiched beneath him. He listened to her snarl and weep, so much fight in her soft little body that it surprised him. For an Englishwoman, she was tough.

  “I hate you, do you hear?” she sobbed. “For everything you have done to me, I will hate you until I die!”

  Devlin lay atop her, his face pressed into her back between her shoulder blades. She couldn’t get to him here but he knew what had triggered her rage; whore. He had called her the lowliest form of female life, reminding her of what her foolish actions and bad fortune had brought her. She was the whore for an Irish warlord who intended to use her for nothing more than breeding stock and pleasure. It was a shameful and bleak existence. In that sense, he understood her reaction.

  Torn between remorse and the reality of the situation he refused to apologize, but unless he wanted to physically restrain her for the rest of their lives, he had to say something to calm her. He was afraid if he left the chamber, she really would throw herself from the window. He didn’t want to think of that sweet, soft body broken and bleeding on the rocks below. It would have been a damnable waste.

  “I will have a bath brought up to you,” he said, his voice calm and steady. “I will send up more than bread for you to eat and clothes to wear. You will feel better after you have had a chance to eat and dress warmly.”

  Beneath him, Emllyn’s hysteria had dissolved into tears of shame and anger. “Why?” she sobbed. “Why give me comfort? Simply kill me now and be done with it.”

  His cheek was against the soft, warm skin of her back. “I am not going to kill you,” he said. “You are my captive and I intend to take very good care of you. A dead captive is of no use to me.”

  Emllyn’s weeping lessened at his odd statement and her eyes opened. She appeared somewhat bewildered. “What… what do you mean?” she sniffled. “What use could I be to you? I already told you that my brother will not care if you hold me captive. He will not pay your ransom demand.”

  Devlin could feel that her struggles had weakened. In fact, she wasn’t struggling much at all. She was simply lying beneath him, trembling. Warm, soft, and compliant once again; he resisted the urge to brush his lips on the soft skin against his cheek. It was difficult not to feel his arousal once again.

  “I will not ransom you,” he said, his voice low.

  She didn’t say anything for a moment. He felt her sigh; the tears were gone and now there was despair in the very air she breathed. It was a hollow and bitter mood, all settled in about her. He could feel it.

  “I do not want to be your whore,” she muttered. “Why could you not have simply killed me last night as you did all the other English? It would seem that you have shown mercy to the dead. You have shown me no mercy at all.”

  Devlin lay there a moment before taking the chance and letting her go. He sat up, watching her stiffly push herself up off the mattress. She recoiled from him but she didn’t try to run again. She was also quivering, with cold and emotion, and he gazed at her steadily a moment before standing up and going in search of his breeches.

  “If I ask you a question, will you give me the courtesy of an honest answer?” he asked.

  Arms wrapped around her slender body, Emllyn watched him bend over and pick up his leather breeches. It took her a moment to realize she was gazing at his bare buttocks, white and firm things that rippled with muscle when he moved. In fact, his entire body was stark white, whiter than any skin she had ever seen before, but there was such creamy beauty to it. His red hair was a blatant contrast against the pale of his skin and as he pulled his breeches on, she averted her gaze because he was turning to face her and she was embarrassed by their nakedness. She tried to put her arms more tightly about her body for both comfort and concealment.

  “Why?” she demanded, feeling hollow and spent.

  “Because I ask it. I would not lie to you so I do not expect you, as an honorable lady, to lie to me.”

  She was tired. Too tired to fight with him anymore. Their activities on the bed had somehow sapped her strength and will to fight. She just didn’t have it in her at the moment. “What is it, then?” she asked quietly.

  “Will you answer honestly?”

  “Aye.”

  Devlin eyed her lowered head as he fastened his breeches. “When you stowed away on your brother’s vessels, where did you think they were going?” he asked. “You knew his armies were sailing for Ireland. You knew it was a battle fleet. Did you not think they would find resistance the moment they arrived?”

  Emllyn shrugged, her gaze still averted. “To be entirely truthful, I did not,” she said. “I knew they were going to battle… that Trevor was going to battle… but I did not think it would be so immediately. I thought mayhap a battle march once they reached shore… and there would be time for me to reveal myself to him.”

  She was starting to tear up; he could see it. She sniffled and wiped at her eyes but he felt no pity for her. “And then what?”

  Her head came up, looking at him. “What do you mean?”

  He lifted his eyebrows expectantly. “What did you intend to do once you revealed yourself to this man?” he wanted to know. “They have names for camp followers like you. They are, in fact, called whores, so mayhap I was not too far wrong when I called you one.”

  Her features flushed red. “I am not a whore,” she snapped. “I love Trevor and he loves me. I want to be his wife.”

  “Loved,” he emphasized, past-tense. “Your lover is dead. Did you not think that would be a possibility?”

  Her tears came faster and she looked away again. She didn’t reply for a moment, shaking her head and wiping at her eyes as if thinking all manner of terrible things about him. “I suppose I did not think on it,” she finally murmured, her voice hoarse. Then, she turned to look at him again. “Did you really kill all of the English soldiers or were you simply gloating?”

  He gazed steadily at her. “Those who were not put to the sword drowned in the churning waters,” he said. “There are no more than twenty or thirty still alive, and those men are to be killed or sold for ransom.”

  She looked at him, shocked. “But…,” she gasped, “but there were at least a thousand men, mayhap more. They are all gone?”
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  “I told you they are. Do you not believe me?”

  Emllyn averted her eyes, unable to hold his gaze. She did indeed believe him and the knowledge sickened her. All those men… and Trevor!

  “Trevor was a knight,” she said softly. “He comes from a fine family. May I… may I see the men you have captive to see if he is still alive?”

  His jaw ticked. “Nay,” he said flatly, surprised at the ferocity of his reply. She belonged to him and he wasn’t about to let her even think of another man. He thought it was only possessiveness but was startled to realize there was perhaps jealousy there as well. “Your lover is dead and you will put him out of your mind. He no longer exists to you.”

  His words had emotion to them, as if there was anger there. Emllyn’s fury surged. “You cannot erase someone I love so easily,” she snapped at him. “You cannot wipe a memory clear of my mind as the sea washes away the sand. I cannot forget deep and abiding memories just because you command me to.”

  Devlin was starting to grow angry for reasons he did not understand. All he knew was that he didn’t want her thinking about another man. Even in this short time he had known her, not even a full day, something about her had infiltrated him, getting under his skin. She was English, that was true, and worse yet she was his captive… but there was something about the girl that went beyond all of that. He wasn’t sure what it was yet, but until he did, she would come to understand that she belonged to him and he wouldn’t tolerate her thinking of anyone else.

  “I told you he is dead,” he muttered. “It would therefore stand to reason that your love for him is dead, too. Why would you waste such effort on a memory?”

  Emllyn stared at him, shocked by his callous words. But as she pondered them, a thought occurred to her. “Have you never been in love?” she asked, almost beseechingly. “Do you not know what it means to hold such feelings for someone that the glory of the moon and the sun pale by comparison?”