The Virgin, the Knight, and the Unicorn (BookStrand Publishing Romance) Read online

  * * * *

  “Women always want things,” Gawain’s father had told him. “Your mother did her duty and was biddable but she was rare, a jewel. Most women talk too much and want more. Show them who is master from the start or you shall have no peace.”

  It had worked for him with the wenches in the stews and he intended to lay down his terms now to this squirming blonde piece of lusciousness. Lush, yes, she is that and more, but that is the danger. She was so glorious in her gold-and-rose beauty that he was tempted to be soft with her, to tickle her and to make her laugh. I cannot do that. Yet she slotted so nicely into his arms, with her round rump pressing deliciously against him. Each time she wriggled her arms, trying to break free—and she never stopped trying—he experienced a tingling buffeting against his groin so that he rode in a building daze of pleasure.

  “Keep still!” he warned, when she almost pitched off the horse into a hazel. He swiftly snatched her back to safety. Without considering why he should feel the way he did, Gawain realized that he did not want her pretty face to be scratched.

  “Let me go!” She said more and he almost ignored her, but then recalled how she had saved his horse from injury. Irksome as her chatter was, perhaps he should pay attention.

  “What, Matilde?”

  Instead of being grateful that he used her name, the naughty creature glared at him.

  “Off to the southwest there is a woodman’s hut close to the next clearing, a day’s walk from here,” she said in her gruff little voice. “There is a pool close by where many creatures come to drink.”

  “Including a unicorn, perhaps?” This was worth knowing.

  “Yes, perhaps. The hut is old now and abandoned, but sturdy enough still for us to stop there for the night and plan. Now, are you going to let me go? I am as engaged in this quest as you. I shall not try to escape.”

  He snorted at the idea of a peasant on a quest, more amused still when her eyes took on a steely glint.

  “Let me go!” she snapped.

  “No.” He was less amused when, raising her hands that he clasped tight in his left, she avoided her own fingers and bit into his palm.

  And that is quite enough.

  He released her hands, gripped her jaw, and squeezed, reining in at the same time. She yelped and he brought his face close to hers. For an instant, seeing the prints of his fingers glowing red against her chin, he was ashamed of his roughness to her, then sense asserted itself. She was a peasant and, moreover, she deserved it. “Were you a man, you would spit teeth for that trick, girl.”

  The woodcutter’s hut and clearing, the still pool, must all wait. Sure of himself again, Gawain leapt down from his slowing horse, yanked Matilde after him, and dropped into a clump of wild garlic, tossing the girl over his lap. A spanking is what I had planned for Matilde anyway, but now it must be for longer and harder. This wench needs management.

  * * * *

  Trapped across Sir Gawain’s knees, Matilde struggled in vain, cursing the world, the knight, and herself. Why had she bitten him? Because I let my temper reign me, as I always do. She had known that he was already displeased with her because of her love for the last word. Now she had fueled his anger by indulging her own.

  And what was he doing, tying her hands before her with a linen strip? She tried to rear up, crawl away, fight back, and found herself snared again by those hellish long legs of his. He simply hooked her kicking feet under his sinewy calves and she was stuck. “Beat me and be done!” she snarled, still unable to curb her fury.

  “Quiet.” He bundled a cloak under her head and wound an arm about her middle, pulling her so her head was down, pressed into the cloak, and her bottom raised. Lifting herself on her elbows, she struck out with her tied hands, her tiny, flailing movements knocking feebly against his firm male flank.

  “Be still. Be quiet,” came the growled orders above her.

  Was he determined, annoyed, or amused? With the blood singing in her ears, Matilde tried to appeal to his knightly self-interest. “You need my help!” She wanted to break free and punch him first. Disconcertingly, it seemed he understood this.

  “Aye, and you would like to scald me in a cauldron, but I am the man and knight, not you.”

  “Do knights often boil their prisoners?” she shot back, bucking again and failing to budge him a finger-width. The arm coiled about her waist was thicker than rope and as immoveable. Her own blood felt to be boiling as she heard him chuckle.

  “Are you the youngest?” he asked, surprising her.

  “What?” She strained her hands against her bounds, but could not break them. “Yes, but what of it? Why…?”

  To her horror and renewed fury, she found the rest of her question stifled. Swiftly, with a casual efficiency, her tormentor proceeded to gag her with another strip of linen. These are bandage strips. He is using bandage strips to gag me.

  “I am the youngest, too,” observed her captor. “We young ones always have to fight for everything.” He patted her rump. “But you will learn not to fight me. Indeed, ’tis time you learned the rules.”

  “What rules?” she gasped behind her gag but he took no notice of her protest.

  “Yes,” he continued, as if she had not spoken, “My rules. Now you must listen to me, Matilde, and feel my hand as well.”

  Two times he has called me by my name. But this was no comfort, with her tied and gagged and hung over his lap.

  “Finally you are quiet, little peasant, as you should be.” He continued to gloat, the pig.

  “Only by the custom of the nobles,” Matilde tried to say, but all that escaped was a high-pitched, mewing sound.

  “Easy now.” He stroked a hand down her back. “Take your chastisement like a good maid.”

  “Why?” she started to argue from behind her gag, her breath and speech failing altogether as she felt him draw up her skirts, exposing her legs. She rolled and writhed but only succeeded in rucking up her skirts even more. A warm, callused palm tucked her gown about her middle and she was naked from the waist down. Pinned, bound, and helpless, she thought of revenge, of shaving Gawain half-bald, or smothering him in mud, and was mortified when a tear of frustration trickled down her cheek.

  “You will not bite me, or anyone, again.” A large, heavy hand smacked her left bottom cheek. “You will not speak unless I invite you to.” The hand struck her right cheek. “No more argument.” Another stinging slap. “No more questions.” Again, her hips felt to burst into flame. “Never run away.” Slap! “Respect me.” Slap! Slap!

  Determined not to give him the satisfaction of her tears, Matilde bit down hard into her gag. He must stop soon. I will not stay. I will run off.

  Surely he will stop soon?

  * * * *

  Under his fierce attentions, her bottom was already a rosy pink, and promised to become bright red. Gawain smacked on with a will, his anger decreasing and arousal increasing with every swift, stirring slap. Were she a lass from the stews, I would couple with her after this and a fine, lusty joining we would make. But then of course this was not a bawdy, eager wench from the stews but a maiden, and he was not giving her a few love pats but a firm hand spanking, and warnings.

  “You will always address me as ‘sir’ or ‘my lord,’ and you will not scowl. Whatever you may believe, I am no bully or monster, Matilde.” Why did I say that? I give to the poor at the castle gate and I know the lasses of the stews like me right well and will take me for free when I have no coin, but I do not have to justify myself. Flustered, Gawain laid on a battery of fast, stinging swipes to the raised, glowing target presented to him.

  The girl shuddered, but she no longer kicked or tried to evade his punishment. For an instant, he even thought she raised her haunches up to him, but then he heard her whimper and he fixed instead on her scarlet face, her narrowed, tear-filled eyes. He rested his hand on her overwarm seat and thought he heard her whisper through her gag, “Stop. Please stop.”

  Have I been too harsh? The thou
ght was new to him, and disconcerting. Where he had expected to continue spanking until she broke down and wept, he untied the strip of linen he had unceremoniously thrust into her mouth and drew it away from her reddened lips. “There now. Over.”

  Panting, Matilde lay sprawled over his knees, her veil lost somewhere in the undergrowth, her mass of golden hair escaping from its plait. Her face was becoming less red and strained and she swallowed.

  “You will have a drink soon,” Gawain found himself saying, “but first—”

  He reached under her head and brought out a small flask from his cloak. He had bartered this ointment from a peddler who had assured him of its magic and certainly. He found the stuff good on his hurts. He poured some onto his hand and palmed it smoothly over Matilde’s scarlet rump.

  She sighed and he felt her relax. “Better?” he almost said, which was absurd. The girl had deserved her spanking and if she was uncomfortable, so was he. His own arousal was as hard as a sword, and he was sorely tempted to scoop her off his lap onto her back and have his way with her. Not yet, though. I need her to be a lure for the unicorn. Yet perhaps I should ensure that she is indeed a virgin. Just because a peasant girl says she is a maid does not mean she is.

  But they had fought enough for one day and he wanted to believe Matilde, so he stroked and smoothed more of the ointment onto her bottom instead. Just to save her soreness, for we must ride again today.

  * * * *

  Matilde knew she ought to protest. No one had ever spanked her and no one had touched her as Gawain did now. But his caressing, sweeping fingers felt so alarmingly excellent, cooling and comforting. Her whole backside felt to have been pounded to a huge, throbbing blister that she had even feared might burst. She had not realized Gawain could strike so hard or fast, that his palm could hurt so much. At the same time, as her spanking had progressed, she had become aware of a different kind of heat pooling through her loins, making her womanly parts swell and become wet. And now that it was over she felt strangely safe, all the strain of the past weeks taken from her. Even his scolding had not been so terrible. The mint-scented unguent he gently worked into her scalded skin took away the bee-sting pain and left only a glowing warmth.

  Again, as she had during her spanking, she lifted her hips to his attentions, higher and higher. The cool, tingling ointment glided over one cheek, then the other, Gawain’s hand cupping and molding, tender, not punishing. His fingers dipped lower, slipping lightly between her thighs, brushing her intimate folds in a single, long, lovely caress that tipped her from contentment into delight.

  “Sir!” Unsure if she protested or if she was thanking him, Matilde closed her eyes and let the pleasure come.

  * * * *

  Was this little golden firebrand responding to him? Gawain had been unable to discipline himself and keep his roving hand in check. In truth, it had only been the faintest of touches between her thighs, one he had been prepared to deny or claim as a mistake, but now her eyes were wide and sparkling and her face flushed. Even as he raised his hand and so caught a savor of her sweet intimate scent on his fingers, she sighed. Pivoting onto her side against his ribs, she looked up at him and smiled.

  “I am thirsty,” she breathed.

  I spank her and she smiles at me. What next?

  At a loss, Gawain smoothed down her skirts and righted her so she was sitting on his lap. His painfully aroused lap, though clearly Matilde did not know that, for she watched him quite innocently, trying at the same time to reorder her hair. He handed her his flask of ale. “Here.”

  “Thank you.” She drank and offered him the flask again. “Do we move, Gawain—sir?”

  She calls me by my name! The old, pre-Matilde Gawain would have hauled her back across his knees and spanked her afresh for that slip to remind her of his knightly status. Now he traced her soft lower lip with a finger. “I am glad you remembered my title in the end, Matilde.”

  She colored up very prettily and lowered her head. “Yes, sir.”

  He drank himself. “In a moment.” When I can move without feeling aroused.

  She leaned back into the crook of his arm and they sat together in quiet.

  I want to kiss her. Worse, I want Matilde to kiss me. What next?

  He could hardly wait to find out.

  Chapter 2

  Riding amiably with Gawain through the trees, aware of his thighs snug against hers, his hard belly and loins tight against her rump, Matilde tried to gather her scattered thoughts. She glanced about, realizing with some mortification that he had flung her over his lap close to a common woodland path. A forester, a warrener, a falconer, a maid gathering firewood—anyone might have passed and seen. And I did not even consider that. I was so deep within the experience.

  Looking back on it, Matilde admitted it had not been evil. Gawain had never sought to injure her. If I am honest, I found his strength appealing. More, her spanking had been arousing. I would submit to that again. Any thought of running away had been dismissed.

  She smiled and sneaked a peep at her knight. Gawain—she could not think of him as “sir”—was almost as young as she was, the clear, lean lines of his face touched by the sunlight flashing between the limes and oaks. There was a leaf trapped in his nut-brown, curly hair. She reached up and teased it out. He did not thank her, but he gave her a wink. Progress, I think.

  “Unicorns like clear pools from which to drink,” she told him, determined to share her learning now his hands were busy with the reins and he could not gag her. “They sink their horns into the water and make it free of poisons and ill humors. If we capture a unicorn, many nobles will want the beast as a guardian against poison.”

  Gawain grunted. “Easier to slay the thing.”

  “Not so,” Matilde argued. “It will be tame with me and we can guide it.”

  She felt a hot breath against the back of her neck, then heard the grudging, “I planned to take the horn alone, but alive I see the beast might be a wonder.”

  He is listening to me! Jubilation made her relax and lean back farther against him. “Nobles will pay much treasure, especially for a living unicorn.”

  Gawain grunted. “Nobles keep their treasure, in my experience.”

  Hoping he would say more, Matilde remained silent. Sure enough, after coaxing his horse past the shadow of a huge beech stump, Gawain added, “How do you know about unicorns?”

  You mean, how does a peasant like me know? The angry question fizzed on her tongue and she almost spat it out before a more startling insight struck her hard, knocking the breath from her. Now he has asked me a question! We are speaking together. From his knightly arrogance of the morning, Gawain was showing another side, more Christian, altogether more appealing. “All animals are an interest of mine,” she replied.

  She waited, learning his pauses, and now her companion asked, “How long have you been a diary maid?”

  “All my life. Do you train for months to be a knight?”

  He chuckled. “For years, girl. I was sent to our Lord John before I was ten to be his page and to wait at table.” He hugged her briefly with his thighs, a gesture of fellowship. “Now that you mind me of it, Lady Petronilla fed me a spoon of sugar then.”

  “At ten, I was milking and tending cows from dawn to dusk.” Piqued again, Matilde was too resentful to ask what sugar tasted like. She felt his shrug.

  “You are a peasant, and that is enough talk. Is this forester’s hut to the north?”

  I told you southwest already, pig. Incensed, Matilde shook her head, angrier still when he turned the horse in the right direction without her answering and spurred it on. So much for progress! Just as I was starting to like him, too.

  * * * *

  The day wore on and Gawain felt increasingly uncomfortable. He had ridden for days in the saddle, so he could not understand it. Matilde was quiet and feather-soft in his arms, the sun was high and not too hot, and he was mildly hungry, his accustomed stomach gripes less painful for a change. He looked forw
ard to breaking his fast. So why am I uneasy?

  He was no coward and this was not the itch-in-the-armpits pre-combat alert, or the warning prickle at the back of the neck. The woods were free of wolf’s-heads and other brigands, and he caught no sound of the snuffle or squeals of wild boar. It is her, Matilde. He glanced down and spotted her pouting lower lip and thunderous expression. Perhaps more spanking is in order. “Should I find another patch of wild garlic and have you over my knee again?”

  She started and said tartly, “Do I not stink enough for you? I am a peasant.”

  Her lack of respect was beginning to amuse rather than annoy him, but he wondered at her resentment. “Safer for you as a peasant, Matilde, than for me as a knight in battle.”

  Her head came up and she half turned toward him, her eyes steel points. “Safe! Safe to starve. Have you ever eaten leaves?”

  “One winter I dined on roasted acorns, so yes, in a way I have. Now, do you best me with another tale of hardship or do we ride in peace?”

  She laughed, unstiffening at once, and settled back down in the saddle before him. “Acorns?”

  He waggled his eyebrows at her, trying to appear unconcerned. “Acorns. And William the eldest had bread with his.” No! I should not have admitted that. A man should never complain.

  To his astonishment Gawain felt a light brush of a work-roughened hand on his, a brief comfort from Matilde, swiftly offered, that made him think of his mother. Before he could stop himself he hugged her in return, surprised afresh when she batted aside a branch for him.