< previous page page_248 next page >

Page 248
confused by his prejudice. It was the perfect opening she had been seeking to keep him at Clyro until Richard's trap, whatever it was, had been sprung. Thus, she was not being honest when she said she did not know what to think of Sir Heribert. The truth was that she felt Walter's word, unwholesome, fitted the man perfectly. However, to admit that she, and Sir Roland, too, agreed with Walter would probably settle the matter in his mind. Doubt, Sybelle felt, could do Walter no real harm, whereas a certainty that would send him off to Usk or Abergavenny too soon might be his death.
Walter heard the words, but it was not the good sense in them that convinced him that a letter would serve his purpose just as well as speaking to Richard in person. Sybelle's lips themselves were a more convincing argument than the sounds they uttered. As if in a trance, Walter leaned forward very slowly until their lips touched. He did not embrace Sybelle nor she him. Their mouths clung together gently, but with great tenacity. After a few minutes, endlessly long and yet timeless, Walter withdrew a hairbreadth.
"Let me love you," he breathed. "I will do you no hurt."
Sybelle made no more reply to this than to move forward the tiny space between them and touch her lips to his again. She had no idea what Walter meant. She remembered vaguely that she had intended to withhold herself as a temptation to marriage so that Walter would come to England and be safe from the war, but at this moment the tenuous contact of lip with lip was stronger than adamantine chains. She could not withdraw. She would think of something else to draw him to England, she told herself, as Walter's fingers found the tie of her night-robe and loosened it.
The cloak was already on the floor, although Sybelle had no memory of Walter's hand undoing the broach that held it. He drew off the robe easily, carefullyand with great skill. He has done this before, many times before, Sybelle thought as the toe of each foot pushed off the slipper of the other, but even that thought could not break the hold of their barely touching lips.
Now he put his arm around her bare waist to swing her off the bed, just for a moment while he kicked back the covers with one leg so he could draw her in beside him. Again Sybelle thought how practiced his movements were. She was shivering, but she herself did not know whether it was with

 
< previous page page_248 next page >