Unveiling Lady Clare by Carol Townend

Author:Carol Townend
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarlequinUKLtd
Published: 2014-04-08T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

They remained at St Peter’s for four more days, and for three of them it snowed. The sky was the colour of pewter and snow blew into the monastery cloisters. The monks shovelled it out again, but no sooner had they done so than the wind blew it back. The fish pond froze.

Over the four days, Ivo regained his strength. Fortunately, it was soon clear that he didn’t have the lung fever, he had merely caught a bad chill.

Since snow made the roads impassable, Arthur and Clare had the lodge dormitory wholly to themselves. Clare was determined not to argue. She wanted to make the most of her time with Arthur. She wouldn’t marry him, she wouldn’t marry anyone. If anyone tried to force her into it, she would run away. She’d run before, she could do so again. At a pinch, she could always take refuge in a convent.

‘No, no, Ivo,’ Arthur said each night as Ivo rather croakily enquired if he should join them upstairs. ‘You must rest where it’s warmest. By the fire.’

On those four nights Arthur had laid siege to Clare’s senses.

‘If the good brothers knew what we were doing, they would be horrified,’ Clare said on the third night. She and Arthur had retired far earlier than necessary. ‘It’s not dark yet!’

‘And we are not married,’ Arthur said, with a sly grin.

She pulled back, frowning. ‘Arthur, I am warning you...there must be no mention of marriage.’ However much she liked this man, she could never forget her mistress, beaten almost daily by her beast of a husband. A wife was subject to the authority of her husband. Never again would Clare be subject to anyone.

‘We’ll see.’ Arthur bent assiduously over the lacings of her gown and drew it over her head. ‘I shall win you yet.’

Clare was tempted to agree as she lifted his tunic over his head and placed her hands on the warmth of his magnificent chest. Leaning forwards, she kissed the short curls at the centre and couldn’t resist running her nose gently against them. Arthur moaned. She loved the shape of him, his chest especially. She could worship his chest. Those wide shoulders, the way that toned, muscled torso tapered down to that slim waist.

On the fourth night in the monastery, Clare came to the conclusion that she had been wrong about Arthur’s chest. It was his buttocks she loved most. She loved to slide her hands down the curve of them whilst they were making love. She relished their strength as he moved over her, over her and in her. They, too, tempted her to change her mind...

On the fifth night, she was seduced by his eyes. The way they darkened almost to black as, curious as to how he would react, she had skipped laughingly out of his reach and lingered over undressing. She loved the intensity of his focus as a large hand reached out and pulled her impatiently to him. She loved the way his gaze never left her, whatever she did.

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