He trailed behind Gavin and entered the kitchen. Joan and Clarimond shared a worktable, one rolling out dough, the other peeling potatoes. Two freshly plucked geese rested on another table by the hearth where Magda stood watch over a steaming cauldron. She glanced at him and gestured with her chin to where Gavin sat on a bench, eyes closed in bliss as Cinnia tended his wounds. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll let the beauty there patch you up. Right now, the other one would just as soon stick a knife in you and call it mercy.”
Ballard’s lips twitched. He could physic his own pains and accepted a bowl of water, stack of cloths and a jar of ointment from a flour-dusted Joan. He bent to the task of scrubbing the blood off his face and floor grime from his arms. “Where is she?”
Magda stirred the cauldron’s contents. “In the buttery. I sent her down there for a crock of ale and one of wine.” She shrugged. “If you’re willing to be flayed, you can offer to help.”
He found Louvaen tucked between two large casks of wine, on her hands and knees mopping up a spill. Still decorated in goose down, she glanced over her shoulder at the sound of his footsteps, arched an eyebrow and returned to her work. Ballard admired her narrow waist and the way it curved into the flare of her hips. They swayed with the motion of her scrubbing, and his breeches grew uncomfortably tight at the fantasy of kneeling behind her and lifting her skirts.
“Do you need help?”
She paused and turned to him a second time, her eyes the color of hot ash. “No, and you’ll not be doing what you’re thinking in this crypt of a room, my lord.”
Ballard smiled and seated himself beside a crock of ale on one of the benches lining the chamber’s walls. “So you’re a seer now, mistress? What am I thinking?”
Louvaen straightened to her feet and tossed the wine-stained rag to one side. She wiped her hands on her skirt and strode toward him until she stood at his knees. He opened them to allow her closer. For the first time in nearly a week, her pinched features softened into a smile. “You’re thinking you’d like a good look at my smallclothes while I mop the floors.”
He passed a hand over her apron. “I’m not interested in your knickers, only what they cover.” His nostrils twitched at the scents of wine and lavender soap. “You smell of summer.”
“You smell of witch hazel.” She touched a fingertip to the split skin on his forehead. “That’ll be a quite a lump.”
Ballard flinched away, though hers had been a butterfly’s caress. “Gavin has an iron skull. Knocked my brains hard enough to make my ears ring.”
“He looked equally worse for wear.”
He smirked. “I might have laid a bruise or two on him, though I think he did more damage to himself. Bit his tongue and nearly gelded himself trying to win the game.”
Louvaen tilted her head, her expression puzzled. “You two do this for fun?”
He captured one of her hands and tugged until she settled into his lap, her long legs taking up the rest of the bench. She felt good in his arms, right, as if she belonged no place else. “No. We do it because we can’t have what we want.” A downy feather wrapped around his finger as he traced the line of her collar bones.
She slipped her arms around his neck, her stern expression at odds with the light caresses she bestowed along his nape. “Gavin can have Cinnia all he wants when he marries her. Not a moment sooner.”
Ballard shivered beneath her touch. All that knocking about in the great hall had done plenty to jar his bones but little to cool his desires for this woman. His cock was stiff, aching, and he thrust against her backside where she sat cradled across his thighs. “And me, Louvaen?” he asked softly. “When do I get what I want?”
“What do you want?” she countered with a teasing lilt.
He nuzzled the soft hairs at her temple and rubbed harder against her buttocks. “You. Beneath me.”
Graceful fingers combed through his hair. “What about on top of you?”
Ballard reared back and gaped at her for a moment before he broke into a grin. “On top, on your back...” He kissed her smiling mouth. “On your belly,” he whispered. “Your hands and knees.”
“Oh, I’m very fond of that one, just not on the cold floor of a buttery.”
They both laughed, and Ballard tightened his hold on her, relishing the easy way she rested in his arms and returned his embrace. No blushing maiden here; no worldly harlot either, just a woman comfortable with intimacy and willing to express her wants and preferences to him. He, not Gavin, held the most beautiful creature in the world.
“Come to my chamber tonight,” he pleaded.
She sighed. “Ballard...”
“Just to sleep if that’s your wish. I’ve a comfortable bed.”
She wiggled her hips. “And a tent pole in your breeches.”
He pinched her earlobe between his teeth, making her squeal. “You’re bouncing that sweet arse on me, and you act surprised? I think you’re more seductress than shrew.”
Louvaen snorted, both eyebrows arched in disbelief. “You can spout honeyed lies better than any court minstrel.”
Her small smile faded when he lifted a hand to cup her cheek. “No false words, Louvaen. All you have to do is breathe, and you seduce me.” He watched, entranced, as a blush purled up her neck to her face and into her hairline.
