“Tell—tell me how,” Tristan said, his voice faltering as the heat of her breath warmed his skin, followed by the delicious press of teeth against his clavicle. Portia’s hot mouth made its way slowly up his neck to the earlobe. “You are just going to have to trust me, m’lord,” she said teasingly. “You must be able to tell that I’ve been at this sort of thing for a long time. You’ve been the beneficiary of enough of my talents to be aware of it.”
“Yes, yes I have,” Tristan murmured weakly. “Did you lock the door?”
With a screeching rip, Portia tore apart his shirt, her eyes gleaming with excitement. “Of course not,” she said, her voice growing husky. “The risk of being caught is what drives the excitement higher— isn’t that what you’ve always told me when pushing me into alcoves and behind sofas in your own keep?” With impatient fingers, she began to roughly unlace the stays of his trousers. “Now, I can assure you the kitchen staff is entirely sick of you, and will do everything they can to avoid coming within your beck and call. And the other members of the Council of Dukes have had as much of you as they can stand already today, I have no doubt. So there is little chance of being disturbed.” Her grin grew brighter as her task was accomplished; she took the Lord Roland firmly in hand, then ran her teeth over his chin just below his lips. “But,” she continued, feeling the breath go utterly out of him, “if you like I can stop now, and go to the door, check the corridor, and see if anyone’s coming—”
“No,” Tristan gasped hoarsely. “No.”
Portia chuckled. “Suit yourself,” she said, lowering his trousers to the floor and following their descent with her mouth.
To keep from passing out, Tristan counted the breaths before the succor he was painfully anticipating was at last upon him. When Portia finally indulged him, after a teasing delay, he felt his muscles go slack, and his body crumpled to the floor beneath her. Unlike their last coupling, which had occurred on this very floor the night he had left her here four months before, this time it was he who was naked and utterly vulnerable, while Portia remained almost fully garbed, is complete control of the situation. He was helpless to stop it, totally unable to reverse positions, to regain his standing as the master of a submissive servant.
And even if he had been able, he knew he would never have any desire to do so. Instead, he surrendered himself to her ministrations, breathlessly allowing her to put him through his paces like an obedient mount. Even as she climbed atop him, gripping him, riding him savagely, he felt the sweet consolation of abandon, the helpless freedom that comes when a tormented soul abdicates any remaining control over its own destiny. And one more sensation, a seeping entanglement making its way through his heart like the trickling of a stream or the tendrils of a vine, a soul-deep need for the release that her hot flesh drew from him the way a poultice draws forth the toxin of infection, healing him, burning away the prison of his unhappy life, tying him gleefully to this young servant-mistress in a way that he knew would be impossible to disentangle without pain. The feeling left him weak with gratitude. And when, after many false attempts to summit the jagged mountain peak that was Portia, brought again and again to the brink of ecstasy, only to be held in torturous delay, she finally released him, letting all the poison and disappointment that had taken root in his soul pour forth from him in a heated rush of physical and spiritual delight, Tristan managed to focus his clouded vision for a moment on her face, staring down intently at him with the leaping fire behind it. It was not the rigid mask of pleasure, open-lipped and gasping, that his own aspect had assumed, but rather a studied expression of interest. In that instant, before the surge and the wild remnants of bucking and thrusting transported him back to hedonistic oblivion, Tristan Steward had the impression that she was looking for something deeper in him than he possessed. The thought did not linger past that moment. Later, as they lay, disengaged, side by side before the crackling heat of the fire, the Lord Roland took the hand of the chambermaid and kissed it gratefully, happy to feel connected still, even after the moments of passion had passed, to a spirit so unlike that of his despised wife, so unlike his own indolent nature.
“When I am with you, at last I feel brave, Portia,” he said quietly. “I feel as if perhaps the world is not passing by without me.”
The young woman stretched lazily before the fire, her glowing skin dewy with sweat. “Glad to be of service, m’lord,” she answered, running her fingers idly through his damp auburn curls. “Your satisfaction is the greatest joy to one of my lowly station.”
“I’m so sorry that I made you feel less than you are,” Tristan continued, his strength waning as exhaustion began to set in. “I apologize for making you feel like a nameless whore— you are so much more to me than that.”
Portia lifted herself up onto her elbow and chuckled. “There is where you are wrong, m’lord. I had no objection to you thinking of me as a whore—I am a whore, indeed, one of the most shameless variety. But I am not nameless. I treasure my name; as a lowly chambermaid, I’ve had to hide it for a long time, keep it demurely unspoken; even that smarmy chamberlain barely addresses me by anything but ‘you, girl.’ But by the time my work is done, the powerful will speak my name, and tremble.” Her eyes sparkled. “Beginning with you, m’lord.”
Drowsily Tristan Steward rolled closer and kissed her ear. “Portia,” he whispered softly. “I am trembling, Portia.” The woman only smiled, backlit by the roaring fire. She waited until the Lord Roland was all but asleep, then rose up on her palms and placed her lips next to his ear and whispered her name into it as he fell into slumber. Had he been more awake, he would only have heard the sound of the crackling flames.
26
In the deepest part of that same night, the Lord Roland lay naked on the floor before the dying fire coals, shivering and alone. His exhausted dreams were plagued by an overwhelming sense of loss, of wandering in dark caverns without a light. He was sinking into despair in his slumber when he felt the touch of a soft blanket draped over him, the caress of a gentle hand with pleasantly calloused fingertips across his brow. His body, cold from the loss of both Portia’s warmth and that of the fire, discerned the presence of a delicious heat beside him. Tristan Steward blinked, and rolled onto his back.
In the darkness a woman was kneeling beside him, her long golden tresses catching the remaining glimpses of light from the fading coals. Tristan could barely distinguish her form from the shadows that surrounded her, but the curve of her small face, the shape of her large, dark green eyes was known to him in every waking moment. The familiar scent of vanilla and spiced soap, meadow flowers and sandalwood filled his nostrils, driving away the hollow odor of loneliness and fire ash that had lingered there a moment before. “Rhapsody?” he whispered, his mind still foggy from drink, his body still spent from sexual fury. She smiled at him, the warmth of kindness that held no trace of pity in her eyes. “You seemed cold,” she said, tucking the blanket more snugly around him. “I hate for anyone to be cold in my house.” Tristan struggled to focus in the dim light. “You—you’re here? Are you a dream?” She chuckled, then rose and went to the fireplace, her heavy brocade dressing gown rustling musically in his ears as she passed his head. The coals gleamed as she approached; it was a phenomenon Tristan had witnessed in her presence many times, as if the last vestiges of the fire were greeting her in homage. She moved the screen aside, took hold of two logs and set them carefully into the ashes, her hands seemingly inured to the fire’s sting. The hearth fire caught immediately, the flames leaping in welcome, spilling flashes of brightness around the dark room, dispelling many of the shadows. Tristan watched her, transfixed, as she returned to his side and sank to the floor beside him once more. “Not a dream, no,” she said softly. “As a Namer, I can feel the silent call of those in despair, and can transcend the limits of space and time to come if the need is great enough.” She brushed the shock of red-brown curls from his forehead again. “You must be in very great pain to summon me from so far away. Don’t be sad, Tristan—you have so much in your life to be grateful for.”