Page 47 of The Ladies Least Likely
His frown deepened. “Your lace is torn.”
Gwen lowered her eyes and sucked in a breath. The scrap of blonde lace she and Dovey shared, the token of that long-ago babe left on their doorstep and their pledge for what they would build together, had been torn by Calvin Vaughn’s fumbling, unwanted hands.
Rage made her voice shake. “Mayhap Mother Morris can mend it.”
He walked with her as she turned toward the hall leading to the kitchen. “You told them your story.”
St. Teilo’s toes. He’d heard every part of her confession. Her sordid, sob-filled history. Gwen stopped in her tracks. The candle danced in its holder.
“You heard—all that?”
He nodded and put a hand at her elbow, drawing her down the corridor. His lips formed a hard line. “Am I the reason Mathry tried to cast out her babe?”
“Why would you think that?” she whispered, watching his face.
He winced and stepped back to let her precede him into the kitchen. The fire still glowed in the stove, casting heat into the room. “She, ah, invited me into a dalliance. I declined. I may have led her to believe it was about the babe, when in truth—I did not wish to dally. With her,” he added.
Gwen poked at the fire and then swung the kettle on its hook. “It wasn’t you. She went to see Calvin Vaughn today, to ask for his help.”
A small line appeared between his brows, but he didn’t seem to recognize the name. Perhaps Vaughn had been puffing her up about their association, a knight’s lesser son vying for a viscount’s attention.
“And Vaughn, ass that he is, sent her to a cunning woman to be rid of it. As fortune would have it, the woman didn’t know—or Mathry couldn’t pay for—the right herbs.”
“Is he why you don’t trust me? The father of your babe. Is that why you mistrust all men?”
He stood close, and she felt the intensity vibrating through him, awareness, heat. He packed the tea strainer with willow bark and chamomile, and Gwen stared. The man who had asked for a servant’s bell in the infirmary, who had wondered who would empty his chamber pot, stood in the kitchen with her, fixing tea.
“He has no hold over me any longer,” Gwen said. “I’m glad to say.”
“I can keep your secret, you know.”
He turned to face her and the heat from the fire soared up from her toes, traveling through her entire body. Her fingertips tingled. The hair on the nape of her neck rose.
For a moment the sick memory of Calvin Vaughn attempting to kiss her, Calvin Vaughn rubbing his groin against her, flushed through her body. She pushed it from her mind.
“It needn’t be a secret. I know it’s supposed to be shameful, a girl having a child out of wedlock. But it happens all about Wales, and I would guess England, too.”
“Is it shameful? To want to join your body with the person you love? For I am supposing you loved him.”
Ah, this was the more shameful confession yet. “Perhaps at the time I believed that. I had looked up to him, and—the feelings were exciting. Desire is so powerful when one is young. I wanted so much to have someone of my own, and—the longing was stronger than my good sense.”
His voice was a husky murmur. “Desire is powerful at any age.”
Oh, indeed it was. Gwen let her eyes drift closed as a shiver passed through her body. She leaned toward him, riveted by his warmth. His solidity. The delicious scent of him, leather and sweat and the barest hint of rosemary from her soap.
Calvin Vaughn’s lust had left a foul imprint on her. She wanted it erased. She wanted to immerse herself in Pen instead. The thrill that went through her at his very nearness tore free the parts of her she held so tightly. The sheer intensity of wanting him cleared her mind and cleansed, somehow. The man had plucked a burr from Ifor’s collar before it could prick the blind boy. He had let Cerys lure him into her hunt for St. Sefin’s lost treasure.
He had, that very afternoon, come back from mucking stables around Newport with a new set of boots for Tomos. In truth an old set that the cobbler had repaired, in return for Pen’s help in making deliveries. But he had brought boots.
She turned to him and drew a deep, steadying breath. “Will you kiss me?”
“What?” His eyes widened, growing dark, and his voice was thick and deep.
“I asked will you?—”
The rest of the words disappeared on her lips as he swooped in. This was no tentative foray. His hot mouth fell upon hers and she opened her lips eagerly to his seeking tongue. The contact summoned a wave of molten desire, swift and shocking. She’d expected him to know how to kiss a woman. She’d expected to enjoy it. But this—she dug her hands into his hair to hold his head so she could kiss him forever, let the whole world fall away and leave just them, just this, his warm mouth, his clever tongue, the scent of the man making her head swirl. Kissing Penrydd felt like the most important, the most profound, the most necessary thing she had ever done in her life.
Behind her, the kettle screamed.
