Fires of Winter (TJ 2) by Gellis Roberta

Author:Gellis, Roberta [Gellis, Roberta]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Romance, General, Historical, Fiction
ISBN: 1402255012
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Published: 2011-11-01T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Melusine

To see a man lost to himself in passion was a revelation to me—not that I noticed the first few times Bruno and I coupled. In the beginning I was too lost myself to care what he felt, and he came into control of himself afterward faster than I—I suppose because he was much more accustomed to the violent pleasure. I think also, looking back, that in the beginning he was so eager that I be fulfilled, or rather, sated, that he somehow suppressed his own release. Whore’s son that he was, Bruno knew every trick that could be played with the body.

At first I was appalled, for he taught me to crave that pleasure as I craved food and drink, and I feared I was trapped into a kind of slavery where he could control me by my longing. But when he saw that I desired him, he also let me see that he was as much my slave as I was his. That lifted my fear, until I realized that devil had played another trick on me. To see his eyes glaze, to hear him sigh and moan, only excited me to greater transports, tying the knot of my pleasure tighter around my neck.

I had begun to fear that there would be no way to free myself from my passion except to give some trusted servant in Ulle a sign that would cause Bruno to trip over a rock and plunge down a mountainside or fish too eagerly and fall overboard. However, that first night in Ulle, I used Bruno’s weapon against him. With a few reasonable words and many touches and kisses, I diverted his mind from the disappearance of the revenues of Ulle and bound him to the notion that the poorer Ulle seemed to be the more likely Stephen would be to enfeoff him.

Poor Sir Giles. He was so stupid, I almost came to like him despite his greed. Later I learned it was not sheer stupidity, although he was stupid, but a complete lack of understanding of our countryside. Sir Giles came from the wide, flat fields of Norfolk and found it easy to believe nothing would grow among our steep hills. He really thought the demesne farm was all the cultivated land we had, and it was very easy to keep him from the hidden valleys where our grain was grown and the folds in the hills where our flocks were grazed. He did not even seem to realize that the people in the village were not creeping around in the last stages of starvation, which they should have been considering what he left to them after taking his share. But the people of Cumbria are lean and hard; perhaps the folk of Norfolk are fuller fleshed, and Sir Giles thought those of Ulle were thin from hunger. Bruno was not so fooled. I saw the way he looked at the folk and raised his brows to see them so sturdy. But I touched his face and pleaded with my eyes—and he said nothing to Sir Giles.

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