how much I want you! You think this is easy for me? You've no idea how hard it is to resist you. You're all I think about when I'm working in the fields or lying in my bed at night. Half the time, I don't even know what the other lads are saying to me, because my head's that mithered with you. If you knew how many times I've made up my mind to march straight into the manor and carry you off right under their noses. And I would have done it too if I wasn't scared of hurting our bairn. Mam says ...' He broke off, evidently realizing just in time that this was no time for another of his mother's famous sayings.
Elena scrubbed her eyes with her sleeve, took a deep breath and tried to smile. She lifted Athan's work-callused hand, cupping it to her mouth and kissing the warm palm. She drew his fingertips gently into her mouth, caressing the rough skin with her hot tongue, until she felt the powerful muscles of his arm soften a little in her grasp.
'But I need you, Athan. It's been so long. I lie in bed every night just wishing you were holding me. If you're gentle and I lie still, then it can't do any harm. I know it can't. And ...' she couldn't stop herself from adding, 'I don't want you running off to my cousin Isabel because you can't get what you want from me.'
He opened his mouth to protest against this outrageous slur, but she hastily put her small hand over his lips.
'If you don't make love to me, I'll only fret myself sick that you're doing it with someone else, and that will be worse for the bairn, won't it?'
She put her head on one side and tried to look up at him coquettishly as she'd seen the other girls do when they were trying to wheedle a man round, but she wasn't practised at it and only succeeded in looking even more like a child. But the look was enough to make Athan laugh. Scooping her up in his arms, he laid her gently down on the hay and began to unknot the drawstring of his breeches.
'Where have you been?' The old widow Hilda stepped out of the darkness of the courtyard and grabbed Elena's arm, digging her sharp nails into the flesh.
No, no! Elena wailed to herself. Not now. What was the old witch doing lurking about out here? Why wasn't she waiting on Lady Anne? Her heart thumped in panic as she felt the slippery wetness on her thighs drying even as she stood there. She had to get back up to the bedchamber now, before it was too late. But Hilda was gripping her too tightly, and though Elena desperately wanted to push her out of the way, she dared not lay hands on a free-born woman.
'Answer me, girl!' Hilda shook Elena, trying to wrest out an answer to her question.
'The privy ... I've been to the privy. Where else would I go at this hour?'
'Don't you take that tone with me, girl. I saw you creeping out of the barn. Don't think I don't know what goes on in there: the filth, the shameless acts of lust, girls fornicating with men, boys committing unnatural acts with each other. So who was he, this man you crept off to meet? One of the stable lads, I suppose. They're no better than the beasts they care for; they'd pant after a pig if it was dressed in a skirt.'
She thrust out her chin in disgust and the light from the guttering torches on the courtyard walls deepened every nook and cranny of her embittered old face, until you might have been forgiven for thinking that the church stonemason had used the old widow as the model for his malevolent gargoyles.
Elena glanced helplessly up at the window behind which lay her chest containing the precious shrivelled black root. If she didn't get to the mandrake now and wipe Athan's milk on it, all that effort would have been in vain. It had been hard enough to coax Athan to make love to her tonight, and even then he had crept away with a look of guilt and anxiety creasing his forehead as if he was already regretting giving in to her. He'd probably not trust himself to come near her alone again until after his son was born, thanks to that old