Sparrows

Part 13

Part 13

He is naught but a proud and pretty knave.
'La dame Coquette' looked at him, all cow eyed and simpering, and he offered her his cup! Oh, and she sipped with such gentility, and all the while ogling him as if she would drink him down too.

When he, in turn, drained the dregs, it was plain as day, he would take all she offered!

How am I so full of jealousy? Fool that I am, to close my eyes is to invite such thoughts of him...his big hands toying with my breasts.

The taste of him was too swift, his lips not tender.

Yet what do I know of tenderness?

Oh, how I hate him.

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In her ire, Haddie caught the ribboned lacing of the dress. It knotted, she stamped, cursing all the Devil's wiles that caused her to wear it. Writhing till it was over her head, she tossed the blighted gown into a corner.

"Ho there woman, I paid honest coin for that!"

She should have been startled, but was not. "Then, be you so fond of it, take it back." Her tone defiantly light. "Wear it. I care not."

"You looked very fine in it." Ignoring her words, he glanced at the gown, then tilting his head to her, smirked. "Even finer out."

"Oh, get you gone, go swive the rich dame you courted." Haddie snapped, but kept her eyes from his.

Robert chuckled; he'd drunk too much and would, no doubt, regret his actions in the morning. But by the Lord of Heaven, she roused and riled him. Stepping too near for modest conversation, he whispered, "show yourself to me."

"No." It was the retort of a sulky child; she turned her back on him.

"Oh, you want to." The words were as sure as the hands that stroked over her shoulders. Hard calluses rasped skin, causing her to shiver. She hardly noticed the fabric of her shift move, till a breast was bared, then both, then it was about her waist.

She was lost, and knew it to be her own doing.

Looking down at her, Rob marvelled that a peasant woman could have such delicate skin, such exceptional...No; t'would be but a futter. To admire a woman's complexion betokened something more than a hearty tumble.

"I hate you." She twisted from his reach, but her treacherous body was already daring her into lustful error.

"How now little bird, you think that of any consequence?"

How could his voice be so beguiling, yet he so pitiless? Still she did not move away.

Rob caught a ripe breast in his palm, lifted and squeezed. He was out of practice at seduction, but in truth this was no wooing, t'was swiving, and that was but an act of relief and, as all women were deceivers, that judgement should make the rest easy. Except this woman fired him, and never was she easy.

Standing more than a full head taller than she, he stooped awkwardly; drew her face to his. Graceless as it was, his kiss invited, held promises she could not forswear. It was not her intent to cling to him; still her arms were about his neck, drawing her up to meet his hard embrace. The sound she made dismayed her, a whining sigh, shamefully weak and unseemly.

"Lay down." He spoke again, voice as rough as gravel.

"No." She groaned, as his mouth grazed her throat.

"Shall we stand then," he hoisted her up, her legs about him. "...like an alley whore and her customer?"

"Wretched dog, do not mock me." Haddie moaned into his ear, then suckled the lobe; she felt his chest vibrate as he laughed low, and she bit him.