LITMIR.BIZ

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Author Note

      Welcome to the beginning of my new series of stories about the Knights of Brittany! Four sexy, brave warriors—three illegitimate and one noble—were fostered and raised together and became a fighting force in Brittany during the rise of William of Normandy. Three followed him to England in the hopes of wealth and lands and power, oh, and wives, of course!

      This short story, A NIGHT FOR HER PLEASURE, is loosely-based on the theme of the O Henry story, A GIFT OF THE MAGI, and is about two people in love who only want to do or be what the other person wants or needs. Trying to ignore their own desires and dreams, Simon and Elise spend their wedding day learning about each other and pledging that they will be exactly what the other wants in a spouse. The results are not quite what either expects, but when the heart is involved, nothing goes as expected.

      I hope you enjoy this sensual story about the path of love and will look for the first of the KNIGHTS OF BRITTANY stories, THE CONQUEROR’S LADY, coming in 2010 from Mills & Boon Historical. Please visit my website at www.terribrisbin.com for more info about me and my current and forthcoming releases.

      Enjoy!

      Chapter One

       Rennes, Brittany Spring, 1066

      “Look at her,” Simon ordered, nodding in the direction of his—wife. It still felt strange and new to him to call her that—not difficult to understand, because they had only married that morning. “Just look at her.” His blood heated just glancing at her.

      Giles, Brice and Soren all turned to look across the crowded hall to where the women sat in various groups during the wedding feast. Elise had made her way over to her mother and her cousins and sat chatting with them, all the while enticing him with her innocent demeanor and simple beauty.

      “She seems to be in good spirits, Simon,” Brice offered. “Though I am surprised she is here.”

      Simon turned and realized that his friends were looking at the wrong woman. Before he could correct them, Giles interrupted.

      “As am I. Alianor looks unseemly happy for a woman who is losing her lover and protector to the clutches of a wife.” Giles held up his cup in a salute to Simon and then to Soren. “Mayhap she will be looking for a new one, Soren. What think you of her beauty and manners?”

      Soren opened his mouth to speak, but laughed instead. “I will wait to see how smoothly things go between Simon and his wife. He may be back in Alianor’s bed sooner rather than later and my efforts would all be for naught.”

      Simon’s graphic curse stopped further discussion of his mistress and startled some who stood close by their group. Turning his back to them, he lowered his voice.

      “I was speaking about Elise, you fools, not Alianor.” Simon drank the rest of his wine in one swallow. “Bastards” He cursed under his breath.

      “Without a doubt, my lord,” Giles said, nodding to Simon. Stepping closer, he smacked Simon on the back and laughed. “We but sought to ease the moment.”

      “Am I that obvious then?” Simon could feel the tension growing within him over the coming night…and taking Elise to his bed. He’d wanted her from the moment he watched her dismount in front of his keep, and now that she was his in the eyes of the law, he only wanted her more.

      “Just as much as any other groom, Simon,” Brice offered.

      Glancing across the room again, he watched as she smiled and nodded at something one of her women said. His body reacted strongly to her beauty and femininity. And the thought of holding her in his arms, touching her skin, tasting her essence and initiating her into the pleasures of the marriage bed this night made him harden yet again.

      Then, as he watched his friends appraise her, the heat of jealousy pierced him. The three drew women to them like flies to the sweet, and he had no doubt that with their experience in the ways of wooing women, if any of them turned their real attentions to her, they could show him up for the rough, brutish man he truly was. It was only the hope that he could be different for her, different to her, that allowed him to believe he could make her happy in this marriage.

      As though his thoughts had called her name, Elise raised her pale blue eyes and met his gaze. Tossing the hip-length waves of auburn hair over her shoulder, she tilted her head to the side. His throat tightened and his mouth grew dry, but his blood pulsed and his heart raced as the corners of her mouth lifted into the gentle smile he was coming to crave. Soon, she would truly be his. The sound of his friends’ whispers drew him from his lost moment and back to the problem facing him of the coming night.

      “She is yours, Simon. Surely you know that even as everyone in this gathering does,” Soren assured him. “What is it that has your ball—trews twisted in a knot?”

      The others laughed at their friend’s witticism, but Simon did not. Taking in a breath and letting it out, he turned to face them. In a lowered voice, he finally admitted his deepest fear.

      “She is a virgin.”

      The others looked one to the other and then back at him.

      “Of course, she is, Simon. Her virtue has been well guarded by her family. Even her dimwitted father knew enough to keep her from his plans,” Giles answered.

      Elise’s father had backed the wrong noble in the dispute between the imprisoned Duke Conan and his usurping uncle Count Eudes who tried to wrest control of the region from him. Simon’s family, connected to both sides of the embattled family by blood, had remained out of the fray, but he suspected that Eudes and his progeny would still come back into power in the duchy. With their cousin William making noises of war in their direction and pressing ahead with his plans to claim England as his own, Simon could believe any number of machinations would move those out of favor back into favor and change the balance of power between Breton, Normandy and the other duchies and kingdoms.

      “Ladies such as she deserve poetry to woo her and to gain her love. Contracts and marriage will not do it,” Simon began. He might be known as a lover of women, but he’d never wooed one in his life—certainly not one so fair and so feminine. “She is so delicate, and I,” he said, “I am so…so…”

      “Worldly?” Soren asked, finishing Simon’s sentence but not with the word of his choosing. “Most women appreciate those years of experience in a man.” Soren laughed loudly and smacked Simon on his back. “Lady Alianor was heard to say just that on many occasions.”

      Simon wheeled around and walked away from his friends. Even knowing that too much wine and the festive, somewhat bawdy mood had loosened their tongues, Simon would probably punch one or all of them soon—and that would bring an end he did not want to their marriage feast. It would show Elise the very side of him he anguished over even now. So he grabbed a pitcher of wine from one of the servants and stalked off up the stairs to the top floor, where he could be alone and watch the hall from the balcony.

      By the time he reached the alcove above, a lovely widow had already approached Soren, clearly with hopes of a liaison for the coming night. Shaking his head over how easily the fairer sex fell over themselves at the feet of the

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