“Are we right to come here?” Joanna asked. They had ridden through the night from Castle Manhill, but she was not weary. Too much was going on for her to be tired.

First Lord Roger-Henri had sent out messages. Then he ordered a feast. Next he embraced David and Sir Brian, calling them “my dearest brothers-in-arms” and praised Hugh lavishly, calling him “a true champion, better than William the Marshal.”

Under this SirYves had merely observed that he should send word to his eldest son, Nigel, so he might come to show honor to his great guest. He had seemed dazed throughout the feast and scarcely spoke a dozen words to either of his sons.

“No grief to me,” David had said, using Hugh’s words as he tossed a candied fruit at his brother with a little show of his former lightheartedness.

Late on in the feast Lord Roger-Henri called for musicians and dancing. At that point, Hugh lifted his eyebrows and caught Joanna’s eye.

They had slipped out of the hall at different times and met on the stairs.

“Will you come with me?” Hugh had asked her.

“I will.”

So they had gone to the stables and taken Lucifer and left Castle Manhill. Joanna’s mood lifted more as they rode away without looking back. Where they were heading, she did not greatly care, so long as they were together. It was not a cold night, but Hugh asked if she wanted his cloak to wear and she said yes, because it was his.

On the road they did not speak much, although Joanna did ask once, “Are you and David friends now?”

She felt Hugh kiss the top of her head and sensed him smiling.

“We are, and more: he admits he was a fool over you. I think David will do well enough now, especially as Sir Brian has offered to be with him when he returns to the Templar house at Templecombe.”

“Good!” Joanna snuggled more deeply into Hugh’s cloak. She and David would have years to make peace between each other, so for now no more needed to be said.

“Should I guess where we are going?” she said later, as the full moon winked at them through gray clouds.

“If you like.”

“The village of the bees.”

Hugh tapped her thigh lightly with a finger. “Almost.”

“There is more to tell?” She twisted round and almost fell off Lucifer. Hugh grabbed her back and steadied her till she had caught her gasping breath.

“You are a half-wit on a horse.” He was chuckling: she could feel his laughter roll against her ribs.

Joanna agreed but she was not about to admit it. “I think I should teach you to read. Then I can look down my nose at you for a change.”

“I am a bad pupil.” Hugh lifted her hair and kissed the back of her neck. “My old teachers could tell you much.”

Joanna wriggled her hips against his thighs to distract him. They rode past a darkened hut, then an orchard, then a field of some crop too dark to see.

“Enough,” Hugh said then, and he rode Lucifer off the track into the field. In another moment they had stopped, Lucifer was grazing the crop, and Hugh had pulled her, and his saddle, off the stallion’s broad back.

Before she could speak, Hugh had dropped the saddle off into the darkness and was kissing her.

“You will marry me, or I will tie you over this saddle and use you thus until you beg that we are wed.” He cupped her backside as he had earlier that day and lifted her off her feet. “I know your passion, harem girl, and I will use it in my favor.”

His hands were where she most liked them, caressing, scooping, lifting, tickling. His manhood rose like a standing stone between them and all Joanna could think of was of ripping back his clothes. “Use me, Hugo,” she moaned, barely aware that she had spoken aloud.

He had bared her breasts but now he paused. “Say yes.”

The night air peaked her nipples but she felt as warm as the summer. “Yes?” she whispered, tonguing his chest through his tunic.

“To our marriage. Yes?” He lowered his head and sensation flooded her as he kissed her breasts, first quick and darting, then slowly.

Her legs buckled but he had her safe. Caught in his arms he floated her safely down amidst the sweet-smelling crop of hay.

“The priest will marry us at his house. The churches may be closed by the will of the pope and King John, but he will see us truly wed.”

He was drawing off his cloak and lifting her skirts and she was saying nothing. When he dragged the saddle out of a nearby ditch and rolled her onto it, facedown with her rump in the air and her head cushioned in his arm, she said nothing.

He did not enter her, as she hoped, but stroked her flanks and her bottom, kissing down the length of her spine.

“You are a little more plump, my lady,” he drawled. “A little rounder here and here. I think you are in lamb.”

“You are the expert when it is we women who bear?” Joanna gasped, not as keenly as she would have liked, for Hugh was caressing her more intimately. Even as a nightingale burst into midnight song from the nearby hedge, she was singing and soaring herself, in her head.

“I have seen mares in foal.” Hugh drew her more over the saddle, wrapping an arm about her middle. “You are in foal to me, and I will have your answer: Do you say yes?”

“But my father—”

“I spoke to him at the start of that never-ending feast. He is happy we wed and says I must do as I will. I will this.”

His stroking hand had quickened, his fingers questing more deeply. Joanna clenched her teeth and tried to ignore the building pleasure within her. She wanted to tell him first of Elspeth’s generous gift.

“I have a dowry!” she gasped out.

“From the lady Elspeth? I guessed as much. And when were you going to tell me that, eh? Wicked wench.” He smacked her lightly and said in a more urgent tone, “Good girl, rise yourself to me. Come now.”

The moon broke through another bank of clouds and Joanna raised her hips, feeling the delicious reward of Hugh’s fingers exploring, fondling, playing between her thighs. With her face half smothered by the cloak and half on hands and knees over the saddle, she raised herself again to follow Hugh’s caressing hand.

“Yes!” she cried, as the silver moonlight seemed to change to rose about her and the sweetness of her yielding was richer than gold.

“Marry me, Joanna.” Hugh had turned her again and now they were face-to-face and he was in her, deep within her. “Say you will.”

“Yes.”

“Say you will.” He began to move.

“I will.”

“Say it!” He was kissing her and staring at her, his eyes fierce with possessive tenderness.

“Yes, yes, yes!”

He caught her rhythm and moved with her, their joining suddenly urgent yet luscious, honey of the body and spirit. As he reached his climax he roared her name; as she crested her second she was beyond speech, but that no longer mattered. In this they had their own language, their private language, one they were constantly learning and re-shaping.

As one they flew into slumber, rocked and locked tight into each other’s arms. When the new day dawned, it was only the alarm call of a blackbird and Beowulf’s baleful howling that roused them reluctantly from sleep.

“To the priest’s house?” Hugh asked.

“To the priest’s house,” Joanna agreed, privately hoping that the holy father might give them breakfast, too.