But when she leaned into him, he was lost again in deep, mindless kisses. When they finally broke apart, they stared at each other, breathless.
“I must leave now!” she said, backing away.
He caught her arm. “These things happen between men and women,” he told her—though it had never happened quite like this to him before. “Please, Isobel, you must not feel badly or blame yourself.”
The huge eyes she turned on him told him his words had done nothing to reassure her.
“Come, you will want to put this on,” he said, picking up the simple headdress he saw lying on the ground.
She snatched it from his hands, slammed it on her head, and began shoving hair into it.
“ ’Tis a shame to cover such lovely hair.” Unable to keep his hands from her, he helped push loose strands under the headdress. He let his fingers graze her skin as he worked. And tried not to sigh aloud.
“Let me go first to be sure no one is near,” he told her. “Watch for my signal.”
He felt her close behind him as he eased the door open. “I am happy to practice with you whenever you like,” he said as he looked out into the yard. “Sword fighting or kissing.”
He spun around and gave her a quick, hard kiss, looking straight into her open eyes.
Isobel touched her fingers to her lips as she watched him go. Her breasts ached, and her whole body still thrummed with sensation.
What happened to her? She was stunned by her body’s response to his touch and by how it addled her mind. Judgment—indeed, all thought—left her the moment his lips touched hers.
Thank God, the shock of his hand on her breast finally brought her to her senses. She could not fool herself—she knew what path they’d been racing down. And, God help her, she’d been right beside him, matching him step for step.
Out in the yard, Stephen waved for her to follow. As if this were a game! She slipped out the door with her head down and walked as fast as she could in the opposite direction.
So, this must be what it is like to have an affair. Sneaking about, taking pains to be sure no one sees you coming from a place you should not be with someone you should not be with. She swallowed hard. Stephen was so practical about it all. Retrieving her headdress, tucking her hair in, keeping watch for her. So practical. And practiced.
She picked up her pace. ’Twas no comfort to know she was one of many women foolish enough to fall for Stephen Carleton’s charms. No comfort at all to know others had fallen further. Fallen? Nay, jumped.
She put her hand to her chest. At least he had listened when she told him to stop. Aye, she asked him with the point of her blade on his neck. But they both knew he could have taken it from her easily enough.
Another man might have felt justified in taking her. For she was brazen, opening her mouth to him, pulling him down on top of her. Good heavens, she was a woman possessed! Even when he covered her with his body—good as that felt—she pressed into him, unable to get as close as she wanted.
Her breath quickened as she recalled the feel of his hands moving over her.
Without a speck of doubt, coupling with Stephen Carleton would be an altogether different experience from having Hume sweating and grunting over her. Just his kisses told her that. His kisses! Remembering how their tongues moved against each other, she could almost imagine—
“Isobel.”
She jumped at the sound of Carleton’s voice beside her. “What are you doing here?” Good God, she’d just imagined the man naked and—oh, she would not think of it more!
“You can slow down. No one saw us leave the storeroom,” he said. “Let me escort you back to the keep.”
“Leave me. I can find my way alone.”
“Isobel, you are going the wrong way.”
She looked around and found she was nearing the Porte Saint-Pierre, the main gate into the town. “Thank you,” she said in a tight voice and turned on her heel.
“Truly, it is not safe for you to go about without an escort,” he said, keeping pace with her. “Promise me you’ll not do it again.”
Promise? He had the gall to think he could exact promises from her? She kept her eyes fixed on the keep across the bailey yard and marched ahead.
She knew just what sort of man Stephen Carleton was. Did he think she did not notice how women fawned over him? She was not blind. Even when he was so drunk she was sure he could not tell one woman from another, they looked at him as if he were a gift sent by the angels.
These things happen between men and women.It was as good as saying it was nothing at all. Perhaps “these things” happened to Sir Stephen Carleton all the time, but nothing like it had ever happened to her before.
