goblet, he moved towards the curtain.
'Where are you going?'
'Below to Walter. There's a pall et made up in an alcove for me and it's getting late.' He picked up his cloak.
'But the bed ...' She gestured around, her heart thumping. 'It's big enough.'
'Not for us both,' he said with certainty.
'Yes it is ...' She drew a deep breath, her eyes enormous.
Guyon looked at her frightened bravery and his heart turned over. 'When I made contract, my love, I did not want you. Now I do. If it were lust, it would not matter, I'd either slake it elsewhere, or take you without thought. Being as it isn't, I'll sleep downstairs.'
Judith swallowed, but the lump in her throat did not go away.
'Good-night, my love,' he said to her with a tight smile and, cloak over his shoulder, snapped his fingers at Cadi.
She waited until he had almost reached the curtain, struggling and struggling until at last she forced her voice beyond the choking lump of fear.
'Guy!' she croaked, holding out her hand. He turned. She cleared her throat. 'Before you go, can you do this for me? I've dismissed Helgund and it seems a shame to waken her for a mere knotted lace.'
Guyon hesitated for a moment, then put the cloak down. She padded over to him and showed him the tangled draw-string on her shift.
'I'm not a lady's maid,' he growled, stooping over the knot. 'Perhaps you should rouse Helgund, or just sleep in it.'
'I would be too hot and I have run poor Helgund off her feet all day. Let her sleep.'
He turned her to the light the better to see what he was doing and began to realise that the task was impossible.
Even the maid's skill would have been unable to undo the knot, so tightly was it pulled. The fact that his fingers, usually so clever and deft, were serving him with as much dexterity as a platter of sausages, did not help matters either, nor the fact that the scent of gilly was drowning him in its spicy waves as it rose from the warmth between her breasts. Her hair kept tangling with his efforts.
Impatiently he reached to the sheath at his hip and drew his knife. 'I'll have to cut it. How in hell 's name did you snarl it up like this, Judith?'
The blade tugged against the material, jerking her against him. She did not resist the pull , but flowed towards him. The newly oiled and sharpened blade sliced cleanly through the knot and the shift dropped to cling precariously to her shoulder edges, held up by the merest whim of fate.
Guyon's throat was dry. He was aware that if he did not pick up his cloak and leave, he was going to do something very stupid. 'In God's name, Judith,' he said hoarsely, 'do you think I am made of stone?'
She raised her eyes to his. They were wide and afraid and full of stout determination. 'Show me.'
She set her arms around his neck, craning on tiptoe. 'I want to know.'
The chemise fell from her body, leaving her slender and naked, pressed against him. Guyon closed his eyes, fighting the urge to throw her down flat beneath him and take her there and then. That was lust as he had said, not love.
Besides, if the best wine was served, you drank it slowly, savouring it on the palate, not swilling it down your gull et in one fast gulp. Very difficult when you were dying of thirst.
'Hadn't you better sheathe that blade?' she said against his jaw.
The wheel had come full circle. He remembered Rhosyn saying that to him, twined in his arms, only her voice had been ripe with amused experience and Judith's was innocent, devoid of innuendo. The message, however, was the same.
He put up the knife. She buried her face in his neck. Gently he held her away so that he could look at her.
'Well,
'Guyon I ...'
He put his finger to her lips, took her icy hand in his and led her to the bed. He sat her down upon it, then he sought around the room, found her bedrobe and gave it to her. 'Put it on,' he said gently. 'You're too much of a temptation without it.'
Tears filled Judith's eyes, but she did as he bid in order to bring some control to her limbs. 'You say you are not sure,' she sniffed. 'But I am. I've had time enough to think and if I have any more, I will go mad, I swear I will . I feel like an ox on a treadmill and there's only one way to end it!'
Guyon shook his head, torn by doubt and desire, by reluctance and need. 'I do not even know if I can show you,' he said. 'I do not know the limit of my control.
Judith blushed and smoothed a crease in the coverlet. 'We have all night,' she offered timidly.
He laughed and looked away. 'You have a blind faith in me, do you not?'
'What else is there?'
Folding his arms, he sat down on the bed and considered her.
Judith cast round for something to say that would sway the balance or lighten the difficult weight of his stare. The silk coverlet was cool to her touch and as red as blood. She remembered that it had belonged to a bishop. 'You haven't said grace yet,' she reminded him, forcing her mouth to smile.
Guyon let out his breath on a heavy sigh. 'I haven't said any Hail Marys either,' he replied, but after a moment's hesitation unfolded his arms to curve one around her shoulders and draw her within the dim red shadows of the hangings.
At first, stricken by the enormity of what she had done, Judith did not respond except to shiver against him, her breathing swift and shallow with fear. He held her, stroked her gently as he might have stroked Melyn or Cadi, spoke to her of trivia, whatever came into his mind, making of his words a soothing flow.
Gradually, Judith calmed and started to relax, all owing languorous pleasure to filter through her.
The rigidity left her body, and she stopped shivering. She snuggled against him while he brushed his lips over her temple and cheek and the corner of her mouth, twisting his head slightly to trail small kisses along her jaw until he reached her earlobe. He paused there to play and then sucked the small , tender hollow behind it.
Judith gasped and pressed closer. Her loins felt as if they were dissolving. Hesitantly she nuzzled his throat where the tunic parted and moved her arm a little further so that her hand touched not cloth, but the hair at his nape. His hand stopped at her waist and tightened and the molten feelings tingled through her pelvis. She tasted his skin.
When he slipped his hand inside her bedrobe she stiffened, more with surprise than fear, but Guyon stopped immediately and made as if to withdraw. She dug her fingers fiercely into his nape, drawing him down, and lifted her face.
'Show me,' she said again, eyes bright with concentration.
He studied her doubtfully and she returned him a look that was at one and the same time wanton and innocent and full of a strange, wild tension, and then she broke the gaze and leaned into his body. Her lips touched the hollow behind his collarbone and her tongue flickered out. Guyon drew a sharp breath and pulled her close, seeking her mouth with his own. Hesitant at first, Judith quickly mastered the skill and pushed herself forward with a soft, impatient sound, lips clinging and yielding sweetly.
He ran his hand up her side, lightly brushed the small curve of her breast, sought inwards with his thumb and feathered it over her areola and nipple. Judith broke the kiss to cry out at the intensity of the sensation and surged against him, craving, but as yet ignorant of precisely what.
Applying gentle pressure to her waist with his free hand, he drew her down and over until she was lying on top of him. 'You have the advantage,
Judith considered him, her swift breathing no longer a mark of panic, but of increasing arousal.
She gave a mischievous smile. 'Do you mean that?' Sitting up she reached to his belt buckle.
