Forty-Four

**ONE year later.**
It was a fine afternoon as Adalene practiced in the shooting range built nearer the manor since she started training.
When they started planning on doing the trips Fabian and Duke Philip Lornier privately discussed the first time she accompanied her husband to the Duke’s castle and court, she told her husband she wanted to learn how to shoot arrows and defend herself.
As she expected, he thought about it instead of negating as it was unwomanly to do so, and only about if they had what she needed in their weapons room.
It took more than a month after the wedding before he started teaching her himself. She could easily move by then as her wounds have completely healed, and he had tasked a favorite bow and arrow craftsman to devise a set for a woman of her build and height.
So the first time they went on the trip to Italy to trade in the ports where merchandise arrived from the remnants of the silk road, she already knew how to shoot arrows.
News about robbers on the roads was rampant, and the Baron’s entourage wasn’t without a show of strength.
But during scuffles, men were distracted. Robbers could get to the carriages, and she didn’t want that to happen again so…
She wanted to shoot arrows and help narrow the number of enemies their men and knights would be fighting.
That proved almost prophetic.
They were ambushed almost thrice when coming back from Venice and Adalene, just by staying inside her carriage, had shot more than seven robbers that she could remember.
She didn’t want to think if she had actually killed them. She watched them fall, and the men took care of the bodies… buried them on dug earth near the side of the roads while leaving the injured to cope on their own, before we continue our ride.
When in the middle of a scrimmage, she couldn’t think of counting anymore and she never had the chance to come down her carriage, which was specifically built to have a large window at the back of its seat with a slat she could slide on the side and slits where she could direct the arrow before she released it from the bow.
She was more concerned about accidentally shooting and injuring any one of their men or knights.
They might never let her hold anything that had a pointy side again after a blunder like that, which they usually threatened to do jokingly during practice.
But she believed that after that trip, she had earned their respect.
But she couldn’t forget an instance on the last attack on them on the trip back home.
One thief got to the carriage on its blind side and if Sir Yves hadn’t suddenly appeared and struck down the man who was forcing the door to open, the brute would have pushed himself in and injured her or Odette.
Dragged them out… like what happened on that road back from the Duke’s castle…
Adalene took a deep breath at the memory and she impulsively reached for the scabbard on the side of her hip that fitted her dagger.
This was just one of her knives now. Ever since she asked Fabian to teach her how to use a knife to fight, he’d gifted her a fighting knife, a dagger that was as long as half of the length of his sword, and this shorter one that she was going to use for practice today.
No one else was there. Some of the men left with Fabian three days ago to bring goods to the Duke’s castle.
These were ladies’ gowns and men’s coats and waistcoats designed and sewn by women from the farms skillful with the needle and thread.
There were pieces of jewelry crafted, knives designed and cast, and other commodities the royal members of the court would be interested to acquire.
They did not stop at just trading.
She and her mother had both wanted to produce something more out of the materials they procured from Italy and made use of a third of the lot for this venture.
Lady Madeleine loved the idea and gave the advice in the beginning, then enthusiastically dove in, strictly inspecting that the craftsmanship and creativity of the design were up to standard.
The first attempt was wildly accepted in court and there were more demands. It was the second one that Fabian and the knights had driven to court to transport.
And once they were done with the third one, they would be preparing to go back to Italy to trade again. She must be good with her knives by then.
She started the motions of thrusting, slicing, and sparring that Fabian and some of the knights helped her memorize.
Her mother had sewn her a dress with loose and billowing trousers that one could still mistake for a skirt, but it helped her move easily.
She didn’t wear an overdress for the exercise so it would be easier to lose her clothing when she went inside to take her bath after sweating so much.
She was at it for a while now when she realized she wasn’t alone anymore and she spun to find Fabian standing there, and her mouth gaped, and then she was running to him, screaming a little in her excitement.
He was laughing and when she threw herself in his arms, she received the kiss she knew was ready for her.
And that went on for a while, his arms squeezing her to him, his lips deliciously going over hers, thorough and intense. When he raised his head, they were both breathing hard.
“I’m sweaty,” she breathed.
“I’m dusty,” he replied.
“The armament chamber,” she gasped.
As they rushed to go behind the columns towards the door to the chamber where they kept crossbows and longbows, swords, spears, axes and maces, and other fighting armaments. It was mostly locked but Fabian had one of the keys and as soon as he’d had it opened, he pulled her in and closed it, and locked it from the inside.
Their lips locked again as she helped him lose his trousers and hers.
As soon as she was bare, he lifted her to the edge of the wooden table and opened her thighs to him.
His cock was so hard it glistened, and she felt her pussy clench in anticipation of him.
He directed its head towards her, knowing her enough to know that she couldn’t wait as he was, and she let out a strangled groan as she felt him enter her, stretch her, and fill her.
And she almost cried at the wonderful, exquisite feeling of being claimed.
“Ooohhh… Fabian…”
“Ahhhhh… I come home to this… I live for this…” he whispered roughly near her ear as he continued to do slow thrusts until she had adjusted, and then he began to rock in earnest.
She writhed, bent, and bucked in his arms as she accepted and urged every thrust with the noises she made, with every gasp and frenzied groan.
She felt heat crawling on her skin, up her neck towards her face as she felt her inside tensing.
“Oh, god, I’m cumming!”
And he clamped his mouth over hers to cover her scream when heat exploded and spread over her body, running over every vein and sinew, consuming everything on its path, destroying and then constructing her again when he, too, pushed for the last time and filled her with his seed…
She cradled him as he shivered violently against her, and when he started to melt against her, his body replete, and she giggled. He took that away with a lazy kiss.
“That’s so grand… every single time,” he whispered once he was able to let go of her lips.
She rained kisses on his cheek and followed the line of his strong jaw then reveled at the saltiness of his skin when she tasted the side of his neck. “Hmmm… I’ve missed you…”
He laughed his pleasant, arousing after-sex laugh. “I know, *mi amour*… me, too.”
They kissed for a while and when he pulled himself out, he took a kerchief from inside his doublet jacket to help clean her first before he did him.
And they helped each other into both their trousers, smiling all the time.