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  Piers backed her up against a sturdy oak, lifting her legs around his waist and making sure her dress was far enough up to expose her buttocks. He reached down to grab them tightly, partly for grip, to support her and keep her in place while he pumped into her once, hard, just testing the waters.

  She was still so tight. A newly opened virgin. His, completely. She would never, ever know another man.

  The thought was nearly enough to drive him over the brink, but he had something else in mind that he had to reel himself in for.

  When he arched back a bit, pinning her with his hips and the spike of himself inside her, he could see that her eyes were squinched closed. “Am I hurting you?” he asked, genuinely interested in her answer.

  “No, it doesn’t hurt so much as it aches.”

  “Good ache, or bad ache?” He flexed his hips and she groaned, back deep in her throat. He had his answer.

  “Good.”

  “Shh. I know.” Piers nibbled her neck and the side of her cheek, then arched back again, his hands still clenching her bottom tightly. “Look at me, Amber, my flower.”

  She opened her eyes, and his face was very close to hers. His size always startled her, how they were able to fit together at all. He always loomed so large over her, and now inside her. She felt as if she was going to burst, she was so stretched full of him.

  “When I tell you to tend the fire, that’s what you do.” His hands left her rear long enough to crack each cheek from the side, hard. It wasn’t an orthodox position for a spanking, and it wasn’t quite as rigorous as he would usually deliver, but it would get his point across, as he continued to fuck her rhythmically. He wasn’t sure how long he would be able to continue either the lecture or the spanking, because at some point the fucking was going to take it all over, but he would soldier on until he was overtaken. He used the thrusts of his hips, as well as the palm of his hand, to accent certain words. “You knew when I sent you back that I didn’t want you hunting.”

  She opened her mouth to argue with him, and earned herself a flurry of swats that rivaled any other punishment he’d given her. And they mixed with the distinct pleasure of his possession, of this new sensation of being filled almost beyond her capability. And he was teasing and tantalizing her with his body in this new way that had her clinging to him breathlessly.

  She refused to admit that the spanking added anything pleasurable in the least, despite the evidence he’d shown her himself in the past. But it did. She knew that those two very strong responses were warring within her, and that that rivalry had already paved the way to deepen his possession of her.

  Piers could feel her distress and knew the moment she had begun to feel her own pleasure—whether it was a result of their joining or his palm cracking on her rear, or even the lecture he was delivering. He could feel her tensions release around him, feel the way slickening, and suddenly he was hilt deep and unable to speak, spank or think.

  He just wanted her.

  His hands naturally found the rough tree trunk, planting themselves there and hanging her from her knees, leaving her completely open to him as he took his pleasure with her. And that was what it was. He’d always prided himself on pleasuring his woman, especially when he knew most men didn’t bother, but this time, he couldn’t even manage to do that. All he could do was take her, mate with her, claim her as his own with a primal scream that he knew the men, sitting around the fire, would laugh about.

  But when he was done, he knew she ached for the same release he’d had, and, though she struggled liked a pinned butterfly, he wouldn’t let her go until he felt her attain the same sweet release, with an echoing cry of pure ecstasy.

  He was right. When they returned to the fire, they were teased mercilessly, until King William put his foot down, telling them that they were all just jealous, including himself, who was missing his wife.

  Piers and Amber spent the second night of their marriage cuddled together on the ground, spooned with Piers sword arm tight around Amber’s waist, just in case she decided to wander during the night. He wouldn’t put anything past her, especially the closer they got to her home territory.

  She brightened noticeably as they did, and Piers found himself glad that they wouldn’t be too far from her family once they settled into the castle. He assured her that she would have time to see her family, but they would be going to the site first and making camp there, which they did.

  They hadn’t had much word as to the condition of the construction, and it was worse than they thought when they got there. Not much had been done at all, and there weren’t very many men there, working on it, when they got there. Piers was hard pressed to find the person in charge, and the man he’d put in charge seemed to be gone altogether.

  Amber could feel the scornful eyes of her neighbors on her again, as she always had in the past. But this time was different. She was their countess, not that they knew it yet, since she had yet to be introduced to them as such.

  But she had a feeling she could be of assistance to Piers in this situation, since she knew most of the people he would be dealing with. She didn’t want to interrupt his discussion with the king, or cause him to lose face in any way.

  So she begged the king’s pardon in a pretty way, asking if she might borrow her husband for a moment for a woman’s matter. The king seemed to like her, and was feeling indulgent, so he granted her that boon.

  Piers, however, was not. They were right in the middle of negotiations to get things back underway when Amber had interrupted them. She began walking them over to a small shop, well away from the rest of them and the construction site.

  “This had better be something very important, wife, or I’m going to be extremely unhappy, and so is your backside this evening, or as soon as I can attend to it.”

  Amber looked up at him and smiled. “I want to help. I know these people and I can be of assistance to you. You shouldn’t be working with John Smith. He’ll do exactly what he’s already done to you—take your money and do nothing once you’re out of sight. Cut him off before you lose any more money and go with Robert Squires and his family. He has nine boys, and they’re all hard workers. You’ll get your money’s worth. Give them half the price up front, and half when it’s done. Promise them a good bonus if it’s done a year ahead of time, and I bet you they’ll meet it. Throw in that I’ll come once a month to see to the workers health, if you like.”

  He considered her idea for a moment. She had several salient points, and she did know the people and the area. He wish he’d known her when he’d first come here.

  As answer, Piers leaned down and captured her mouth with his in an infinitely gentle kiss, one that he was happy to note she returned wholeheartedly. “You, my wife, are a wonder. The king is right to praise you, and I need to take a page from his book and begin to do more of that. Although I think I’ll definitely continue the discipline, too.”

  She was smiling at him as if he’d set the sun to rising this morning, and, at that point, he didn’t care whether the damned castle ever got built, as long as she continued to look at him like that.

  “Ahoy, lovebirds, we have a castle to build yet. Save your sweetings for this evening,” the king teased, approaching them with a wide smile on his face.

  Amber curtsied deep and prepared to leave, but her husband surprised her and reached out for her hand. “As you know, my liege, my wife was raised in this area, and she has some very good ideas I would like to discuss with you.” He kissed her gently, then released her.

  “My lord, is it all right if I visit my family?” she asked, surprised and amazed that he had told the king that the ideas that he was going to broach with him were hers.

  He was very proud of her for asking, as he knew it didn’t come naturally to her, and in front of the king, as well. “Of course. Would you like some coin to bring them each something special?” Piers handed her a drawstring purse with several gold coins. Sunder wasn’t a thriving metropolis, but there were things to be h
ad there that couldn’t be found in the woods where she grew up.

  “Thank you, husband!” Amber kissed him warmly on the cheek and, after executing another blushing curtsey to the king, fairly ran off to see what small trinkets she might secure for her sisters, and what tools she might find for her father that would help him with his daily chores.

  She settled on a small doll for Faine, although she wasn’t even sure if she was still playing with them, really, and a new knife for her father that she knew he’d love. Starr was harder to buy for, mostly because she knew her middle sister the least, but she settled on a small gold pin.

  Chapter Nine

  She desperately wanted to but didn’t dare to change into her boy clothes to walk to her father’s house. It was funny to think that it was no longer her house, but it wasn’t. Fordwick was her home now and eventually, the new castle would be.

  She wasn’t sure whether her family even knew she was still alive. She breathed deeply every step of the way through her woods, pulling in every single remembered scent that brought her back to her childhood. Soon she was in the clearing where their small shack stood, and she could see her Da in the front yard, sharpening his scythe, and she could walk no longer.

  Something—or, more accurately, someone—hit Lawson Cooper like a boulder, and it turned out to be the person he was missing the most, after his wife. “Amber! You’ve come back!” he cried, hugging his eldest tight against him, then standing back and gazing on her with a precise paternal eye. “How’ve you been? What’s happened? We’d heard you ended up at Fordwick and pushed some toff into a fountain!”

  Faine appeared in the doorway, looking more and more the young woman and less and less the little girl, and finally Starr, her least favorite sister, peering over her shoulder, then, upon seeing who it was, ducking back into the cottage with a sour look.

  Da ushered her into the house and they all sat around the table like they used to—except Starr, who kept popping up for one reason or another, because she still preferred to avoid Amber as much as possible—and Amber almost teared up at how much she’d missed just this simple thing.

  “So, what are you waitin’ for, girl? Tell us what happened?”

  She did just that, leaving out the parts she knew her father really didn’t want to hear, or that she thought would hurt him. And when she got to the point that she was going to reveal the fact that she was now married to Cruel Piers, the eagle eyed Starr came up behind her and grabbed her left hand.

  “You’re married!” she crowed, jumping around as if she’d discovered how to turn lead into gold. Now, she could finally get married herself, if Bertram, the smithy’s son, hadn’t lost interest by now.

  Amber blushed. “Yes, I am.”

  Her father wasn’t any too happy to hear about that. “To a man who didn’t even bother to ask your father’s permission? What sort of guttersnipe is he, this husband of yours?”

  Piers ducked through the small door to the cabin at that point, barely able to wedge himself through it. Everyone either bowed or curtsied, then Amber rose to join him at the door as he looped his arm around her waist.

  “Da, this is my husband, Piers de Montforte.”

  Piers came forward and shook hands with her father, who was quite literally bug eyed. “Y–your husband? Why didn’t you tell me that, girl?”

  Amber laughed. “Because you hadn’t given me a chance.”

  Then Piers said something that endeared him to Amber’s heart forever. “I’m sorry for not asking your permission for your daughter’s hand in marriage, Mr. Cooper, but the king bade us marry, and we were joined within the hour, so there was no chance. I had intended to meet you with Amber, but the king and I got involved in straightening out the building of the castle.”

  Lawson accepted the younger man’s apology with aplomb. “Why, that means that you’ll be livin’ close to us, then, not so far away at Fordwick forever?”

  “That’s right. We’ll be not too far away, and we’d be glad for you all to come stay with us. I lost my family to plague years ago, God rest their souls, and I would be very happy to have family around me again,” he looked down at his wife, “including, of course, our own children.”

  Amber swallowed hard. She hadn’t thought of children.

  Faine tugged on Amber’s dress, and she squatted down instantly to be on her level. “Yes, poppet?”

  “B’fore you left, you tole me you were gonna teach me to hunt.”

  The entire family laughed, but Faine looked quite indignant.

  “No more hunting females in this family,” Lawson proclaimed, swinging his youngest around in his arms.

  Amber frowned at her father. “It didn’t serve me too badly, Da, did it?” she asked, patting Piers’ shoulder.

  “You were dead lucky, girl, and you know it.” Both Lawson and Piers shuddered, and Amber sensed that they were going to start with the “what ifs”, which never ended well for her. “When I think of the times that you could have–”

  “Don’t we need to go, husband?” she asked, smiling sweetly up at him.

  But Piers was intrigued by what his father-in-law was saying. “I believe I will need to confer with you on a few things, Mr. Cooper, about my wife’s upbringing. The first time we met, I had to spank her, but someone had already done quite a remarkable job.”

  “Say no more.” Lawson had already turned to go to the place beside the door where he hung the belt he used only on Amber. He presented it to Piers as if he was giving him a prized calf. “This is yours. Don’t spare it. I wasn’t strong enough to give her the discipline she truly needs. I’m glad she’s found a man who can do that for her. Don’t ever hesitate, no matter what she says or does. She needs it, as did my wife before her. They’re very much alike, in looks and deed.”

  As much as she wished the ground would simply swallow her up at the humiliating conversation that was going on between her husband and her father, Amber had never heard her father say that about her mother and how much like her she was. It made her want to cry.

  To say nothing of the fact that he’d just told her husband not to spare the rod with her—as if he already did. He didn’t need any encouragement.

  Trying desperately to bring their conversation to an end, Amber opened the door, saying, “I think I hear the king calling.”

  She wandered into the yard to the sound of her family laughing behind her. She knew she was going to have to do her level best to keep her father and her husband well away from each other, or they were going to prove to be quite dangerous to the health of her backside.

  Her father offered his hospitality—such as it was—for them to stay as long as they would like, but they politely declined. They had to stay with His Majesty, anyway. They set up a camp not far from the building site, where they could keep an eye on things. It was decided that a better guard contingency would be left there, to make sure that work continued apace, although Amber assured them that it would.

  There was a seamstress in town, and Piers had Amber fitted for several new gowns. Not an entire wardrobe, but enough to replace the ones she was currently wearing with ones that better befitted her current station. Amber had never had clothing of such fine make or fashion, and she knew she would almost be afraid to wear them. They made the same arrangement with the seamstress as they had with the builders; they ordered five dresses, and were going to be here for four days. If she could get them done before they left so that Amber could have them to take home, then she would earn a bonus. She was required to complete at least two of them before they left so that she would have some new dresses to wear once they arrived back at Fordwick.

  Not only did he buy her gowns, but belts, hose, shoes, everything else a woman could want, plus one beautiful ruby broach that would go with almost everything they’d bought. He’d seen her looking at it and had surprised her with it later that evening.

  While the men were busy trying to get the construction back on track, she kept herself busy seeing patients that
had been neglected while she was gone, glad that she’d brought as much in the way of potions as she had.

  One day, while she was seeing to someone’s tooth and the men had wandered off to see about lumber or some such thing, the town came abuzz as a rag tag bunch of soldiers drifted back into town, dazed, having been ambushed deep in the woods by a group of rebellious men with visions of glory and murder in their hearts. Many of the king’s guard had been killed and the king himself had been injured.

  Amber finished up with her patient as quickly as she could and gathered as much information as was possible from the returning men. She knew that Piers was with the party that had gone into the woods with the king, and her heart leapt to her throat.

  Luckily, the place that they described was one she knew well, and she thought she had an idea of who the attackers were, too. As she divested herself of her feminine trappings and donned the look of a boy, hiding her glorious hair beneath a disreputable cap, she was glad she’d followed her instinct and brought almost all of her provisions.

  But the good thing was that she still had a lot of secret hidey-holes that contained even more items. Unfortunately, most of those were defensive rather than offensive, although there were a few arrows and knives amongst them, which she quickly retrieved.

  Moving stealthily through the underbrush, she spotted the killers easily, stomping through the woods like elephants, looking for their prey, then found where the remains of the king’s guard, as well as the king himself and her husband were holed up.

  “It’s me, Amber,” she whispered to Piers before touching his ankle. “I’ve brought supplies. How is His Majesty? Where was he wounded?”

  “Bleeding. His leg.” He was glad she’d identified herself before touching him, or he would have swung his sword before thinking and she would have been dead right then and there. What the hell was she doing out there, anyway?

  She pressed a wad of clean cloths into his hand. “Press these onto the wound hard, and lift the leg if you can without giving yourselves away. I’ll be right back.”