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"Five Stars! After reading Wulfgar I was blown away by this medieval romance. This story has a lot of action and some violent scenes. The main characters are magnificent together, they have chemistry and the sexual tension is fantastic in this novella. I really enjoyed this book; the dark brooding of Wulfgar kept him interesting and sexy, the rivalry between the two warriors will keep you glued to your chair. The passionate love scenes between Alinor and Wulfgar are sensual, sizzling and will leave you breathless. So, if you want to take a trip back to the past for a Hot! Romance, I recommend you add this story to your home library." Susan Holly,
Just Erotic Romance Reviews
"Four Stars! Wulfgar is the first book I’ve read by Goldie McBride and I will definitely be looking for more by this great author." Angel Brewer, Just Erotic Romance Reviews
WULFGAR
By
Goldie McBride
© copyright by Goldie McBride
Cover Art by Jenny Dixon
ISBN 1-58608-381-3
New Concepts Publishing
Lake Park, GA 31636
www.newconceptspublishing.com
Chapter One
Alinor had never traveled beyond her father’s holdings in all her short life. Under other circumstances, she would have been enthralled, would have studied everything they passed with keen interest. She was so sick with trepidation, however, that she could not find it in herself to have any interest in her surroundings.
She was not a child. She had matured into womanhood nigh two years past, reached the age when her menses began and she was ripe to bear children for the man chosen for her. She should have left all childish things far behind. And yet, she found that she had nursed the childish hope that her own wishes would outweigh the arrangement that had been made for her, despite the fact that her mother had done her utmost to drum it into her head that, for people of their class, marriage was not an estate to be entered into blinded by emotional attachment. It was a binding together of wealth and power, and most ideally, of superior bloodlines.
Jean-Pierre was by far the most illustrious of those who had offered for her hand. In truth—as they had pointed out to her—she should have been grateful that her parents had chosen a man in the prime of his life when it could easily have been otherwise, particularly since Jean-Pierre was considered by most to be an exceptionally handsome man.
Unfortunately, the beauty of his exterior hid a black soul—one she alone, apparently, could see, but then he had almost seemed to glory in revealing to her his darkness, which he kept carefully concealed from all others.
She had been cold to her parents when she departed. She regretted it now, for it seemed unlikely she would see them again in this lifetime.
Jean-Pierre, no doubt drunk on his newest conquest, had arranged their marriage and sent an escort for her to transport her across the channel to England. Whether it was their usual manner, or Jean-Pierre had given them orders to that effect, they had traveled at a grueling pace, reaching the coast in little more than a day and half. They rested there only a matter of hours and then took ship.
The crossing had been like nothing Alinor could have imagined in her worst nightmares. It was nearing winter, and the channel was treacherous with storms. She had been too terrified by the crashing waves even to fight them when her escort had whisked her aboard, and too sick and fearful afterwards to do more than cling frantically to the nearness support and pray for a quick death, expecting momentarily to meet it.
She had been so weak when they reached the coast of England at last and she was carried ashore that she could not even hold herself upright. The moment the man had set her down, she had collapsed in an ignoble heap on the wet sand. Not so much of a stitch of her clothing had been dry, but neither had she had a more thorough soaking than the one she received when she sank to the sand within reach of the crashing waves, which immediately reached for her and tried to drag her out to sea once more.
Their leader had waded into the water cursing, dragged her out and tossed her onto the back of the horse that had been brought for her. More miserable than she had ever been in her life, Alinor, her jaw locked to fight the chattering of her teeth, had looked around dully at the strange land that would be her new home.
On the cliffs above them, she had seen a solitary rider. His hair, long, falling well past his shoulders, and as dark as a raven’s wing, fluttered around a face that was featureless at this distance, but she had the impression that he was relatively young—no youth from his build, but certainly not old. His bare chest and shoulders seemed broad, deep—massive. Around his shoulders a cape was flung almost carelessly. Of a color somewhere between a deep red and brown, the color alone seemed almost a challenge to those below to notice his presence.
Something about him had caused her heart to leap in her chest. His stillness, the tension in every line of his body had convinced her that it was not mere curiosity that held him enthrall, watching as the small party that had met them brought forth fresh horses for the men who’d accompanied her thus far.
She didn’t know why she hadn’t called attention to him. She had told herself that she was simply too surprised; that she was too ill and miserable to think of it; that the others would probably have noticed him, as well—that he might even be a part of the party who’d come to escort her to Jean-Pierre.
She knew better.
She had glanced around, instinctively, after she’d spotted him, to see if any of the others had noticed him. When she’d looked again, he’d disappeared.
She’d told herself there was little point in saying anything then, but she had caught a glimpse of him again, late in the day, had known that he must be following them—and still she’d said nothing.
* * * *
Alinor found that, despite her exhaustion from traveling, she could only sleep fitfully. Tomorrow, or no later than the following day, she was to be presented to her groom, Jean-Pierre. He’d assured her parents that the wedding had already been arranged and that the wedding festivities were poised to proceed the moment she arrived.
That thought alone made sleep impossible. With the best will in the world, she had not been able to convince herself that he was not as she remembered, that she had only imagined the cruelty she sensed in him. She could not, despite her mothers efforts, and indeed certainty, that it was no more than natural maidenly fears of the marriage bed.
She would almost have preferred to face her wedding night in ignorance. She knew her mother had been well intentioned, but her careful instructions had been far worse than the ignorance that had frightened her before. It was impossible, in any case, that she could have grown up with no knowledge at all of the act of mating. The dogs that roamed the keep mated with a complete disregard for the size, or discomfort, of their audience. For that matter, she had stumbled upon the men-at-arms and maids on more than one occasion and though she’d fled immediately, she had seen enough to have a fair notion of what it was all about.
Her mother’s helpful instructions had left nothing at all to the imagination, however, no room to convince herself that it couldn’t possibly be nearly as degrading and revolting as it looked.
A whisper of sound distracted her from her mental ramblings and Alinor stiffened, listening. She sat up abruptly when it came again, her heart hammering in her chest.
She was seized abruptly, one hand gripping her chest in a bruising hold that flattened her breasts, the other large hand clamped tightly to her mouth to muffle any cries she might have the presence of mind to make. That hand covered near the whole of her face and seemed likely to smother her if the man did not relent in short order.
As he shifted his hand to allow her to draw a decent breath, she closed her eyes, willing the fear to abate, willing her mind to calmer reflection. Panic would gain her nothing but a swifter death.
Her first, instinctual, fear had been that one of the men sent to escort her had crept into the tent and meant to violate her, but no man of Jean-Pierre’s, she knew, would dare to touch her. Jean-Pierre would make him beg for death before he granted it. The man who held her so tightly could not be a member of her party.
Had he come to rob? To rape? To kill?
Despite the fear those thoughts evoked, there was almost a sense of hope, as well, the sense that it might be over for her quickly and she would never have to endure marriage to Jean-Pierre. After her first, instinctual, effort to free herself from the bruising grip, she subsided.
A blade was pressed threateningly to her throat. She closed her eyes, waited, hoping the pain would not be unbearable. After a moment, to her surprise and something curiously akin to alarm, the blade was removed. The hand covering her mouth eased its pressure and then was cautiously removed.
Despite her fear, it leapt instantly to mind that silence was all that ensured life for either her or the man. She would die if she so much as gasped for breath, she knew. He had not had to speak the command to assure her that he was deadly serious. His actions were clear enough.
In a moment, the hand was withdrawn completely and a rag took its place, was bound tightly around her mouth to muffle any sound she might think to make that would alert the soldiers outside her tent. It smelled strongly of animal and she realized that it was not a rag of cloth, but a thin piece of scraped hide. The odor was almost overwhelming given that she had not really recovered from the crossing and she had to fight the bile that rose in her throat to choke her.
A rustle of sound came again as the man moved around her. Despite the darkness, she could make out a darker form among the shadows, could see well enough to tell that he wore no armor—and was still massive. He was not a knight then—nor merely a peasant either. Peasants, half starved for the most part, rarely grew into such giants.
She realized abruptly that it must be the rider she had seen trailing them since they’d left the coast, though she’d caught no more than a glimpse of him either time. This, then, was his purpose—to steal her away. The question was, why?
Ransom, almost certainly had to be the motive. Would Jean-Pierre pay? And, assuming he did, what would he do to her once he got her back? Her captor would almost certainly dishonor her. If she survived it, Jean-Pierre would blame her no matter how hard she fought—if she fought.
That thought stunned her for several moments until she realized that she would almost welcome being deflowered by anyone but Jean-Pierre—it was almost inconceivable that it could be worse--and still shame filled her for such wicked thoughts.
She wondered, if Jean-Pierre paid, if man would return her. Or would he merely use her to rob Jean-Pierre, to taunt him, and then slay her?
Such speculation was useless at this point. It seemed unlikely that he would win free of the camp with her. Jean-Pierre’s men surrounded them. Big as he was, and no matter how competent a fighter, he could not hope to best them all.
Pulling her to her feet, he produced a length of rope and bound her wrists, so tightly she couldn’t contain a moan of pain. He stopped abruptly, studying her, she knew, in the darkness. Her heart skipped several beats while she waited see what he would do and he, apparently, waited to see if she would try to sound the alarm. To her surprise, he loosened the bonds slightly. Gratitude filled her, and hope. He could not, surely, use her cruelly if he could show concern over so slight an injury?
When he’d finished binding her wrists, he picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder. The impact of connecting with his hard shoulder knocked the wind from her. She stiffened as she fought for breath, but he did not appear to notice her distress. Turning, he tossed something onto the pallet he had pulled her from and then made his way toward the back of the tent. Emerging through the slit he’d cut in it, he paused, almost seeming to sniff the wind for the scent of the men who lay sleeping on their pallets.
After that brief hesitation, he struck off toward the tree line, moving as silently past the sleeping men as a wraith.
* * * *
"Je suis Alinor d’Arrus," Alinor told him who she was in little more than a whisper when at last her captor removed her gag. They had traveled miles it seemed through the woods before they had come at last upon a small clearing where a horse had awaited. Without a word, he had tossed her up onto the front of the saddle, climbing up behind her while she struggled frantically to maintain her balance. Settling, he caught her as she lost the battle and righted her, holding her snugly against his hard belly with one hand and gathering the reins in the other. Almost as an after thought, he had tugged the gag down so that she could breathe more freely.
He did not respond to her tentative effort of communication, except by a grunt, which allowed a good deal of room for interpretation. Alinor wondered whether he hadn’t really heard her—since she had been afraid to speak too loud for fear of angering him—if he did not understand her language, or if he was simply not of the frame of mind to allow her to draw him into any sort of conversation.
She frowned. Her mother had thought it imperative that she learn to speak at least enough words of the peasantry of England to direct the servants, but there had been little time to learn once she had located someone who claimed knowledge of the Saxon tongue.
The moon had risen above the tops of the trees before she reached a point in her mental search that she was fairly certain she had recalled the correct words to ask the questions she desperately needed answers for. With an effort, she swiveled around to look up at her captor.
Her heart seemed to jerk to a halt as she looked up at him. His face, concealed by the night as much as revealed by moonlight, was a terrifying mask of harsh planes and angles. His eyes, deep set beneath his straight, black brows, were nothing more than black pits. The first thing that leapt into her mind was ‘devil’. "Oo are you?" she gasped in a frightened whisper.
Instead of answering immediately, he pulled the horse to a halt, grasped the gag that he’d pulled down around her throat earlier, and tugged it up once more until it rubbed the underside of her nostrils.
"Wulfgar," he growled as he kicked the horse into motion once more.
Chapter Two
Alinor was too weak with fear even to feel a great deal of shock when the man pulled her gag up once more. Anger finally supplanted it, that he’d gagged her again when she had made every effort to speak quietly, but she was hardly in a position to argue the matter even if he had not made it impossible to complain.
She faced forward again, sitting stiffly erect. He allowed it all of two seconds before pulling her tightly against his chest once more. Briefly, she struggled to pull away, but her anger had not routed fear altogether and, in any case, she soon saw the gesture was useless. In a physical battle of wills, there was no contest.
Slowly, the tension she’d tried very hard to retain slipped away as weariness set in. She relaxed and, to her surprise, slept. It was still dark when she woke, but the black had given way to a deep gray and she thought it must me nearing dawn.
She sensed that the man who called himself Wulfgar was gathering himself to dismount and braced herself, but the moment he withdrew his support she began to slip sideways, lost her balance and fell off the horse.
He made a grab for her and managed to break her fall, but the jolt sent pain flooding through her just the same. This time he didn’t bother to toss her over his shoulder, he merely encircled her waist with one arm and carried her by his side as he might a bundle. Draped across one forearm, Alinor could see little in the dimness beyond the dead leaves of the forest floor.
He knelt finally and half pushed, half dragged her into a shelter of some sort. Alinor could tell nothing about his expression and thus nothing about his mood or intentions. She was not left long to worry the matter, however. As soon as he’d settled her, he bound her feet, turned and left.
Alinor stared indignantly at the opening for some moments, wondering if he would return. With surprise and a good deal of dismay, she heard him mount his horse and ride off again.
That puzzled her far more than anything else that he’d done.
She’d been given an opportunity to escape, she realized … but how much of an opportunity was it, really?
She was bound hand and foot now, weak, numb from both the cold and from being bound so long, and she was in a strange land that she knew nothing of.
It occurred to her after a little bit that he might have abandoned her for good. Perhaps he didn’t have the stomach to slay a helpless female outright and had simply decided to leave her and allow nature to take its course?
Well, she was of no mind to simply lie still and allow herself to grow weaker until she hadn’t the strength to free herself. She began working at her bindings, twisting her wrists and hands until the stickiness of blood convinced her that she’d loosened the thongs. If she had, it was still not enough, however, for, try though she might, she could not pull her hands free.
It occurred to her finally that he had not tied the gag tightly as it had been before, but had merely pulled it up to cover her mouth, and she began trying to nudge the gag down her face. She was sweating with effort by the time she’d managed it and dizzy from exhaustion. She gnawed at the thong that bound her wrist for a time but weariness finally got the best of her and she dozed.
She woke to bright day. Though she had no notion of how much time had passed, her body screamed for attention. In desperation she managed to struggle upright and began to work on the bindings around her ankles. She was nearly weeping before she managed to untie the knots with her numb fingers and struggle to her knees. With an effort, she grasped the hem of her gown and crawled on her knees through the opening.
She found that she was not in a clearing as she’d thought. The shelter was little more than a box made of branches and covered with leaves and moss, blending in so completely with its surroundings that it was almost invisible before she’d taken a half dozen steps from it. She was of no mind to go far, however, only far enough to ensure a little privacy to relieve herself.
It was not an easy task to accomplish with her hands still bound before her, but finally she managed to situate her shirts.
When she’d finished, she looked around the forest, trying to remember which way she’d come so that she could retrace her steps.
To her dismay, she realized that she’d been so filled with need that she’d paid little heed. No matter which direction she turned, she could see nothing that stood apart from anything else. Finally, deciding upon a direction, she gripped her skirts in her fist and carefully picked her way through the woods. After traveling perhaps twenty paces, she looked around again.
There was no sign of the shelter.
* * * *
A sense of triumph and anticipation sustained Wulfgar throughout the arduous pace he set himself as he crossed and re-crossed his tracks, led the men on his trail in a wide circle that doubled back upon itself, then zigzagged into nowhere. They tracked him doggedly throughout much of the day, but, as he’d expected, they reached a point of frustration at last when they realized they would not be able to retrieve the woman without help. At last, they abandoned the hunt and rode off to inform their master that they had lost his bride.
He grinned wolfishly, envisioning his enemy’s face when the news was brought to him.
When the men-at-arms had disappeared, he turned his weary mount around and wove another round-about trail to the place where he’d concealed the woman. The moment he thought of her, however, an image of her rose into his mind’s eye and he frowned.
When he’d heard his enemy had sent for a bride, he had not seen beyond the chance the gods had given him to avenge his loss—a bride for a bride. He’d imagined taking the nameless, faceless woman and violating her as that pretty faced French spawn of Satan had taken and defiled his own bride. He’d envisioned the tragedy playing itself out in reverse, where he had crushed the heart from Jean-Pierre, duc de l’Cran as his own heart had been crushed when he had discovered the lifeless body of his beloved Freda.
An outlaw now in his own land, he had returned from the great battle, nigh as dead as those he’d left behind on the fields, only to discover that the Norman devils had taken all that had once been his and crushed those who stood in their path.
And his gentle Freda, whom he had taken to wife little more than a week before he’d been called to fight, had been so cruelly used by Jean-Pierre and his men that she had taken her own life.
The burning need for revenge was all that had kept him alive in the time since.
He would let no one deprive him of tasting it at long last.
Yet, he could not banish the sense of uneasiness that had begun to creep insidiously through his mind. The woman was nameless and faceless no longer. She had told him she was Alinor of Arrus. She had gazed up at him in terror through the eyes of a frightened doe—huge in her small, pointed face, soft and full of innocence—and painfully young.
His gut clenched. Determinedly, he summoned the feel of her womanly form. Slight as she was, she was soft and rounded enough to please any man. To his relief, his body responded instantly to the memory of her soft bottom pressing against his groin, to the feel of her plump, pliant breasts resting against the arm he had held her with.
The anxiety, hardly acknowledged, that he would not be able to follow through with his plan receded. In its place, a new urgency grew. He had not lain with a woman since he had lost Freda. He would take the Norman bitch and use her to slake his lust and appease his need for revenge. She was no more to him that any other possession of the duc, an object only, and, as his possession, an extension of the duc himself.
Frustration, fear and rage filled him when he arrived back at the place where he had left the girl and discovered her gone; fear because it had leapt immediately to mind that she had fallen victim to some wild creature, or some two legged animal had stumbled upon her; frustration because he had intended to see the deed through before she could further corrupt his resolve; and rage because he had been thwarted by a mere slip of a girl.
There was no sign, however, that she had been savaged-- no blood, only the discarded binding, and signs indicating that she had crawled from the lean to. Kneeling, he searched the ground carefully and finally discerned the direction she had taken.
She had not gone far and she looked so relieved to see him that he felt his rage abandon him in a sickening rush.
"Monsieur!" Alinor gasped when Wulfgar appeared, so relieved to discover that she hadn’t been abandoned in what appeared to be an unending woodland that she had to fight the urge to burst into tears of relief. "I became lost," she added a little uneasily when she saw that he was flushed with anger.
He strode toward her, bent at the waist and pressed his face so closely to hers that they were practically nose to nose. Alinor looked back at him wide-eyed, but unflinching. "I will bind you better next time," he said through gritted teeth.
Alinor blinked, looked at him blankly, but he’d spoken far too quickly for her to grasp what he’d said. In any case, she was captivated by his eyes. They were the color of emeralds. "Monsieur!" she gasped. "You ‘ave beautiful eyes!"
He looked disconcerted for several moments. A dark flush stole up his neck to his hairline and he straightened abruptly, studying her face carefully. He could see no sign that she was being deliberately provocative—either to test his temper or in a flirtatious manner. Nor did she appear to be short on wit. Her eyes did not have that blank look of the slowwitted. They gleamed with intelligence.
After a moment, he grasped her upper arm without another word and began marching her back toward the temporary encampment.
Alinor did her best to keep up, but his stride was far longer than her own and she found she had to run to keep from being snatched off her feet. Belatedly, embarrassment set in. Her mother had beaten her many times for her thoughtless tongue—much use it had done her for she had never mastered ‘thought before speech’ and feared she never would.
It might well be the death of her.
He was angry, she realized abruptly, because he had been kind enough not to leave her bound too tightly and she had taken them off and wandered away. She’d known he would be angry if he discovered she had removed them. In point of fact, it had been her intention only to relieve herself and return and replace the bindings so that he would never know that she’d left.
She would have except that she had not been able to find her way back. She had a bad feeling, however, that even if she could explain something that complicated in his own tongue he would be no happier with it. "I did not run," she said a little breathlessly.
He didn’t so much as glance in her direction.
"I had need," she added a little desperately.
He halted abruptly, looked her over frowningly.
She gestured a little helplessly toward the woods.
Something flickered in his eyes, understanding, she thought, but in the next moment he was moving again.
They reached the tiny clearing surrounding the encampment within moments, a disconcerting indication that she had wandered all around it for hours when she had practically been upon it the entire time. She had no time to feel embarrassment for her incompetence, however.
He pushed her none too gently onto a pile of furs and followed her down, shoving a hand under her skirts. Alinor gasped, a shock running through her as his hand moved up her thigh and cupped her femininity. Something hard and long, like the root of a tree, was pressed brusingly against her thigh.
She had known this would come. She had battled all day between the certainty that she must prepare herself for this and the certainty that she would be far better off if she could simply not think of it at all.
Fear seized her, but she closed her eyes and her mind to it, bracing herself. Abruptly, her stomach, which had demanded sustenance off and on throughout the day, once again voiced complaint.
When the man stilled, she opened her eyes to look up at him.
He was frowning. The hard root that had been pressing into her seemed to have vanished. He rolled off of her and lay staring up at the trees for some time.
Finally, he got up and moved away. Hesitantly, Alinor sat up, as well, pushing her skirts down, studying him warily as he moved to the pack on his horse and withdrew something from it.
When he returned, he squatted down beside her and opened a leather pouch. Withdrawing something dark and withered looking from it, he tore it in half and handed a piece to her. She took it, looked it over and finally sniffed it. It appeared to be meat of some kind, dried to the consistency of leather. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do with it until he put the piece he still held to his mouth, tore off a piece with his teeth and began chewing.
"Merci!" she said gratefully, and cautiously bit down on the piece she held. She discovered it didn’t just have the appearance of leather. It also had the consistency. Struggling for several moments, she finally managed to pull off a small piece and began chewing. At first, it was about as flavorful as chewing on leather, but it was not an unpleasant taste and the longer she chewed the softer it became. Her stomach, stimulated by the possibility of appeasement at long last, began clamoring once more in delighted anticipation. Finally, she decided she’d chewed it sufficiently and tried to swallow. It took several, convulsive efforts, but she finally managed to get it down.
When she looked up at him her eyes were watering with the effort. Wulfgar, she saw, had returned to the horse for a wine skin while she was working on the piece of dried meat. Without a word, he handed the skin to her. She thought she saw his lips twitch, but when she glanced at him, he was frowning and she decided she’d imagined it.
She had been almost as thirsty as she was hungry, and she took the skin eagerly, but she was not accustomed to drinking from a wine skin and discovered very quickly that there was a trick to it. Her first attempt resulted in a squirt of wine in her eye. Squeezing her stinging eye shut, she tried again. About half of the second squirt went up her nose, but she managed to get some of it in her mouth.
Wulfgar snorted, rose abruptly and strode toward his horse once more. She peered at him suspiciously for several moments after she’d wiped the wine from her nose, eye, chin and neck, but although his shoulders shook slightly, he didn’t appear to be laughing at her. Dismissing it, she returned her attention to her feast.
It was easier to get the wine than to chew the dried meat. Moreover, she’d been very thirsty before she’d tried to chew up the meat and that had only made her more so. She focused primarily upon the wine, therefore, although, in truth, she had never had wine that tasted any worse. Her head began to swim before it occurred to her that she should pace herself more carefully.
Apparently, Wulfgar noticed she’d been imbibing rather too freely at about the same time that she realized it, for he took the skin from her. Shrugging, she returned her attention to her meat and took another bite. A sense of well being settled over her and she smiled at Wulfgar in a friendly way. He returned her smile with a suspicious glare. "Do you not speak French at all, Monsieur?" she asked him in her own language.
He merely stared at her.
After a moment, she sighed. It was going to make things very difficult if he couldn’t speak her language, because she didn’t know much of his at all. "You are like a grumpy bear," she muttered. His eyes narrowed at the comment, but she had turned her attention to her surroundings and didn’t notice. "I wonder if we will stay here until Jean-Pierre pays the ransom?" she speculated out loud.
"No ransom!" Wulfgar said sharply, drawing her attention back to him.
Alinor looked at him in surprise. "If you have not taken me for ransom, then why?"
He said nothing and she decided he had not really understood as she’d hoped, but had merely recognized the word ransom. She searched her mind for some time, but discovered that she simply could not come up with any idea of how to frame the question in his own tongue. "Ransom, no?" she prodded.
He refused to be drawn into a discussion on the matter, however, and Alinor wasn’t certain what to think of it. She wasn’t particularly perturbed either. She thought about it several moments, wondering if it was the wine and finally decided that there was some possibility that the wine had dulled her anxieties.
She wondered if the wine was responsible for the fact that Wulfgar didn’t look nearly as threatening to her as she’d originally thought. In fact, quite the opposite. Now that she’d had a chance to look him over at close range, she saw that he was quite well favored. The sharp features that had seemed so unnerving when his face was shrouded by night, seemed, in truth, rather predatory, but they also made for a face that was quite fascinating. She thought he was probably not much, if any, older than Jean-Pierre. Certainly, he could be no more than thirty.
She sighed, wiped her hands on her gown and looked up at him expectantly. "I am ready, Monsieur. You may ravish me now."
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