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She looked up.

“You know those things I said about paying prices and mistresses was all just bullshit, don’t you?”

She hesitated. “Previously, you did say you’d lived a celibate life for many years,” she said, looking to him for confirmation.

He nodded. “That’s right, I did.”

Fen thought this over as she slipped under the covers. She had been a fool to overreact the way she did about Lady Anne. She was ashamed of herself. That lady had done nothing but act kindly toward her, even if she wasn’t very friendly.

Oswald was re-fastening his crotch and to her surprise, apart from some hectic color in his face, looked otherwise completely unscathed from the encounter.

“Are you not joining me in bed?” she blurted, watching him straighten himself.

“I certainly am,” he said with a faint smile. “But I’ll go and see about some hot water first. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

Fen pressed her thighs together and acknowledged that a wash would be good. She hugged her knees as he went out the door and shut it behind him, her feelings in a tumult. She had never thought herself a particularly jealous woman before. If she wasn’t careful, she’d give him a disgust of her she thought anxiously. Men hated jealous women, or so everyone said. She was just experiencing a severe dip in her emotions when the door re-opened and Oswald himself came in carrying a jug of hot water.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s have you.”

Fen slipped from the bed and joined him as he poured some into a bowl for her and handed her some sweet smelling soap leaves. She quickly worked up a lather and gave herself a thorough wash under her shift. Oswald made no comment about her modesty, just handed her a drying cloth and when she had finished, stripped down and washed himself. Fen got back into bed and he joined her mere moments later, sliding right across into her space and taking her in his arms.

Her husband settled against her back, kissing her shoulder and holding her close. A comfortable silence stretched, when to her surprise, he suddenly broke it. “Lady Anne Sumner is in my employ,” he said quietly. “She’s a spy for the Crown. I never felt anything for her. Any time we spent together was just business. Since you and I have been reunited, Bryce has made sure she receives any orders from him. He’s made it clear it offends his sense of propriety for me to be in a room alone with her.”

Fen considered this for a moment. “I do like Bryce,” she sighed. “It was foolish of me to bring Lady Anne Sumner up like that that,” she said, hanging her head. “I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t show you up too badly in front of your family. I will apologize to them all on the morn.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” he told her firmly. “It’s really not necessary. You should have seen the way Mason carried on when he first wed Linnet. He was always flying up into the boughs about something or other.”

Fen thought about this a moment. He was kind to make excuses for her, but she had been out of order. “It shouldn’t have bothered me,” she said. “But it did. The Queen said that she thought Lady Sumner would be the sort of person who would be ideally-matched with you.” She paused while Oswald made an irritated noise. “But she meant no mischief by it.”

“Oh, didn’t she?” he said grimly.

Fen carried on in a rush. “I know I shouldn’t care about that your association with Lady Anne, now I know she’s protecting the realm. But I can’t help but be glad that Bryce is a stickler for propriety,” she admitted wretchedly.

He lay very still a moment. “Say that again, Fen.”

“I never thought of myself as a petty, jealous wife before,” she said in a small voice. “But it appears that’s what I am.”

To her surprise, her husband loomed over her a moment, before rolling her on her back and taking her under him. “I don’t mind you being jealous, Fenella,” he said, taking her mouth in a deep, drugging kiss. He pulled back. “You can be jealous all you want. It only seems fair. After all, I won’t be able to rest until I’ve run that bastard Thane clear out of Aphrany.”

Fen opened her mouth to respond to his astonishing news, only to find her lips taken again in a strangely tender, yet erotic kiss. His tongue danced against hers, and daringly, she responded in kind. He made a strangled noise into her mouth, then his hands were running up her thighs, bunching up her shift.

“I’m going to get you all dirty again,” he warned.

Fen huffed out a breath as she felt his manhood, hard and heavy against her stomach. “So…no mistresses?” she said, biting her lip as he hooked her knee and drew it up.

“None,” he said simply. “I only want you. Wrap your leg around my waist.”

Fen breathed out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. I only want you. It was strange to think her jealousy had so inflamed him, but it seemed that was indeed the case.

This time their coming together was slow and thorough. Fen ran her hands up and down his back and sides, and if he wasn’t kissing her lips, it was her throat, or her breasts.

“You’re so beautiful, Fenella,” he told her, his mouth against her ear. “And you’re all mine.”

Afterward, as they lay entangled and depleted, Fen drifted off into a dream about a small wooden bridge she could not cross because a man had hold of her hand and would not let go. She frowned in her sleep until she recognized the ring on his finger bore her family crest of the Bernard bear, and then she relaxed. For some reason, she could not raise her eyes to his face, but she was content to let him lead her away from the bridge, toward an oak tree that stood on a hill.

**

“Fenella.” Fen’s eyes opened, even though the word was spoken quietly.