George & the Virgin Read online

  CRITICS PRAISE RT BOOK REVIEWS

  REVIEWERS’ CHOICE AWARD–WINNER

  LISA CACH!

  “Ms. Cach’s writing is open, bawdy, and laugh-out-loud funny.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  DREAM OF ME

  “Wonderfully exotic, dark, haunting, and powerfully sensual paranormal historical romance.”

  —Booklist

  COME TO ME

  “Funny and sexy, yet touching—a brilliantly constructed dark fairy tale!”

  —Christine Feehan, New York Times Bestselling Author

  DR. YES

  “Dr. Yes [is] a truly fun and thrilling read!”

  —RT Book Reviews

  GEORGE & THE VIRGIN

  “Lisa Cach has once again delivered a story filled with comedy and charm … A complete delight!”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  THE WILDEST SHORE

  “Cach’s descriptive writing is brilliant … A book that’s romantic, sexy, and a lot of fun!”

  —All About Romance

  “Cast aside civilization and allow yourself to be swept away into a new kind of women’s fantasy.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  THE MERMAID OF PENPERRO

  “Cach’s beautifully crafted, erotically charged scenes and light humorous touch will please fans.”

  —Booklist

  “A wonderful and engaging tale with unique twists that offer happy surprises … [Cach’s] ability to create toe-curling sexual tension makes for a must-stay-up-and-readtill-dawn story.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  OF MIDNIGHT BORN

  “A mix of magic, romance and humor, Of Midnight Born delights the reader’s imagination … [It] kept me glued to my seat, turning pages, till the very end.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  BEWITCHING THE BARON

  “With complex and colorful characters, lush detail and a compelling story, Ms. Cach weaves a story rich in humanity and emotional intensity.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  ST. GEORGE & THE DRAGON

  It was a shame to let this man fight the beast. Even with that broken pitchfork and stubble on his chin, he was passing handsome. She was thankful for her concealing hood, that oh-so-necessary fabric that kept him from knowing how often her eyes strayed over the revealed V of his chest and down to that silver-coated bulge, so wrongly exposed by the slit in the bottom half of his surcoat.

  The man was indecent. She ought to have a proper tunic made for him.

  Ought to.

  Did not want to.

  Not only did she like his chest, she would be happy if his surcoat blew away entirely, and left her with an unobstructed view. She understood now the powerful forces that had moved Osbert so long ago to his leering, slobbering behavior. It had taken her twelve years to reach the stage of a fifteen-year-old boy, but she was there now, and by St. Stephen she did not know what the hungers of her body might make her do.

  It was a pity she could not chain him to a wall and keep him like a pet, to do with as she would. He had the look of someone who might know how to properly deflower a virgin, if he did not get himself killed first.

  She looked at him, standing there with his pitchfork and an expectant look on his face. Sadly, his demise was more likely than not.

  Other books by Lisa Cach:

  BEWITCHING THE BARON

  DREAM OF ME

  COME TO ME

  MY ZOMBIE VALENTINE (anthology)

  OF MIDNIGHT BORN

  THE CHANGELING BRIDE

  THE MERMAID OF PENPERRO

  THE WILDEST SHORE

  George &

  the Virgin

  Lisa Cach

  To Tyler, who is not afraid of sharp-tooths.

  DORCHESTER PUBLISHING

  Published by

  Dorchester Publishing Co.,Inc.

  200 Madison Avenue

  New York, NY 10016

  Copyright © 2002 by Lisa Cach

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Trade ISBN: 978-1-4285-1665-6

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-4285-1667-0

  First Dorchester Publishing, Co., Inc. edition: June 2002

  The “DP” logo is the property of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Visit us online at www.dorchesterpub.com.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Epilogue

  George &

  the Virgin

  And though that he was valiant, he was wise,

  And of his bearing as meek as is a maid.

  He never let no villainy be said

  In all his life unto no matter whom:

  He was a true, perfect, gentle knight.

  —“The General Prologue”

  “Then have I got of you mastery,” quod she,

  “Since I may choose and govern as I wish?”

  “Yes, certain, wife,” quod he. “I hold it best.”

  —“The Wife of Bath’s Tale”

  —Canterbury Tales

  Geoffrey Chaucer

  Chapter One

  The southwest coast of England

  Medieval times

  “Hurry up, Osbert! It will be morning soon.”

  “Don’t rush me, Alizon. I cannot do it if you rush me.”

  She held his pizzle in her hand and jerked on it as he had shown her. “Why aren’t you getting hard?”

  “You’re not doing it right,” he whined. “I am not a cow to be milked.”

  “You certainly feel spongy as a cow’s teat. You’ll never get it in me if it stays like this.”

  “Devil take you! If I don’t, it won’t be my fault. You’re the one who doesn’t know what you’re doing. You’re the virgin.” He said it with a taunt in his voice, and she was glad of the dark of the shed, which saved her from seeing his face and being tempted to slap it.

  “I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t a virgin and well you know it. Sheep would speak Latin before I would let you touch me.”

  “Be nice to me. It’s a favor I’m doing you.”

  She bit off the retort that came to her tongue, knowing that she should not alienate Osbert, however much she loathed him, loathed touching his damp and floppy pizzle,
and loathed being here in this dark shed, fuggy with the stink of sheep and cow.

  She had to be nice, at least until she had gotten what she wanted. Even as she reminded herself of that, her hand betrayed her, giving his cock a jerk that made him yelp.

  “Christ’s blood, Alizon! It will be of no use if you tear it off!”

  She took the protest as an excuse to give up the task of arousing him. “You do it, then.”

  “You could suck on it.”

  The thought made her gorge rise. She would never let him put that filthy thing into her mouth. This time it was her own face she was glad could not be seen; otherwise her grimace of revulsion might have angered him into giving up this foul task. “We’ve no time. Please, do what you need to and let’s be done with it.”

  “You’d do it wrong, anyway,” he grumbled. “You’d probably bite me.” And then he was quiet but for the catching of his breath as he worked on himself.

  Alizon turned to the shed door, where through the spaces between the rough slats she could see the lightening of the sky. Sick anxiety roiled through her stomach, cold-hot panic pouring down her chest like water, and she had to clench her jaw to keep from urging Osbert yet again to hurry. Morning was almost upon them, and his family would be rousing. Time was almost up.

  She had to lose her virginity.

  The body heat of the livestock took the worst of the chill off the damp spring morning but could not keep her from shivering. For all her urging Osbert on, she dreaded the hurried, clumsy coupling that awaited her. There would be pain, and a humiliation greater than she thought she could bear.

  Her fear turned quickly to anger, as it had many times in these past weeks. God’s breath, she could not believe this was how she had chosen to lose her virginity. She was fourteen years old, and she should have managed a better deflowering for herself before now.

  Like others before her, though, she had been hoping against hope that something would happen to make it unnecessary—maybe she would be married, or have a chance to leave Markesew, or maybe her menses would wait another year to start and she would still be considered a girl, too young to take part in the annual lottery of virgins.

  None of that had happened. No one had shown any interest in taking her to wife. Her menses had begun three months ago. There had been no opportunity to leave Markesew.

  She was an orphan, and lucky to have been sponsored by the church for an apprenticeship to the widow Bartlett, who wove tapestries with her sister. It would be suicide to leave her apprenticeship and run away; a young girl alone was too easy prey.

  Better Osbert in a shed at her own bidding than unknown men on the road at theirs.

  Even knowing this, she had hung on to hope, waiting until the last minute to get the deed done. Osbert had been trailing after her like a hungry dog ever since her breasts had begun to bud two years past, and she had known she had only to whistle and he would drop his braies and be on her.

  Only, now that the time was at hand, he was having trouble fulfilling the promise of those two years of leers and unwelcome fondles.

  Dawn was coming, it was the summer solstice, and at noon the lottery would be held, just in time for low tide and the march across the exposed causeway to Devil’s Mount.

  She heard Osbert’s grunting breath, his body a hunched wraith in the gloom. “Are you ready?” she asked.

  “Almost, almost …”

  She pulled up her long woolen skirts and leaned against the stone wall. She touched herself, the soft, sparse growth of new hair around her sex, and felt a welling of sadness for what she was about to do. The feeling took her by surprise; before this, she had spared no time to dwell upon the loss of any girlish dreams of a more tender bedding. But her body had always been her own, her private vessel, and now she was being forced to share it with one who would foul it with his dirty hands and his pizzle, and she would never be the same again.

  She let anger burn away the sadness. It was the townsfolk of Markesew who were to blame for this, they who had managed no better solution to their curse than the sacrifice of virgins.

  Damn them! Damn them all for their cowardice!

  Damn them for making her do this thing, in a shed that stank of wool and droppings, with a boy whose nose ran constantly with snot.

  Osbert stumbled nearer, then fell against her, the firmness of his erection against her belly. He kissed her, his tongue plunging inside her mouth. She turned her head away, grimacing against the salty taste of the snotty mucus that had transferred to her lips. He went on slobbering at her neck, his tongue sticky with thick saliva, while his hand fumbled and groped between her legs. She felt him shifting his organ, the tip of it like a thick, hard knob of wood prodding at her.

  “Spread your legs. I can’t get it in like this.”

  She did as bid, and Osbert squatted lower, jabbing with his cock against her soft folds, trying to find entry.

  “Just get it in!” Her revulsion made her want to retch. Could she truly go through with this?

  “Do not tell me what to do! Peace, Alizon! You cannot command me in this!”

  “I would not need to order you if you did it right!”

  “Shut up!” He panted and strained against her, then she felt him softening, his pizzle bending against her. “See what your ordering did? See? I told you to shut up, I told you not to tell me what to do!”

  She was torn between relief and desperation, his failure both a deliverance and her sentence of death.

  “Lie down; it’s this standing that is spoiling it,” he said.

  “I’m not lying down in here.” The floor was made up of matted straw and excrement, and she would not so much as bend her knee to it.

  “Then bend over the stall wall.”

  “What?”

  He pulled her to the stall and pressed his hand to her back, making her lean forward until her face was pressed into the warm side of the cow on the other side, the animal shifting its weight away with a soft sigh. Osbert fumbled with Alizon’s heavy skirts, then shoved them up past her hips.

  She was still confused. “You’re going to do it like a sheep?”

  “Peace! Unless you want to ruin it again.”

  The idea of a ewe must have appealed to him, because he was back at her, harder than he had been moments before, albeit no closer to success.

  “By all the saints, Osbert, not that hole!”

  Suddenly she could stand it no longer: the shed, the stink, the cow her face was pressed against, Osbert and his bungling of this simple task. It was too much to bear.

  She could not do this. She could not let him enter her with his dirty pizzle, could not let him grunt and groan above her and take his animal pleasure from her body. She suddenly knew that she would rather die than give herself away like this.

  “No!” She pushed back from the rail, taking Osbert by surprise and knocking him off balance. Sheep bleated, and he cursed as he fell into the muck.

  “I would rather lie with the Devil than let you take me,” Alizon screeched. “At least he would know what he was doing!”

  Osbert sucked in a breath of horror, and his voice came from the shadows of milling sheep. “God hears such blasphemous thoughts, Alizon. He will make you suffer for them.”

  “It is the innocent girls of Markesew who suffer, and if that is how God cares for the devout, then I will gladly go to the Devil!” Tears in her eyes, she pushed her way out of the cowshed and into the gray morning.

  “The Devil take you, then!” Osbert called after her. “He will welcome a slut like you!”

  She ignored his words, running across the dewy grass until her breath came in gasps and her sides ached. She stopped and stood, looking down over the misty sloping fields to the town that sat upon the edge of the coast. Her gaze then traveled across the gray water to the black silhouette of Devil’s Mount.

  The rocky island and what it contained had been a blight upon the coastal village of Markesew for nearly thirty years. There were a few still living
who recalled the days when the mount had been home to the de Burroughs, rich and powerful barons who had ruled from their castle atop the island, and who had gathered riches from the trading in their harbor.

  And then the dragon had come. Some said the de Burroughs had brought it on themselves by reaching too high, and thinking themselves holy; they said God had sent the dragon to teach the de Burroughs their place.

  Others said it was the Devil who had sent the dragon to devour the de Burroughs, that the barons had been born in Hell and were being called home. But once loosed upon the earth the dragon had been impossible to recall, and, its hunger not satisfied with the de Burroughs, it had turned to the shore for its appeasement, laying waste to the innocent.

  In truth, no one knew why the dragon had come to the mount. And no one knew how to be rid of it. The only way the villagers could keep it from ravaging their shores was to feed it a steady supply of sheep—and once a year a virgin.

  Alizon gazed out at the mountainous island, her heart wrenched with grief and helpless fury. She wept, the sobs tightening her throat and stealing what breath she had left.

  The tears were for herself. They were for the girls who had died over these many years. And they were for the girl who would today be sent to the dragon.

  “Will it be me?” Alizon asked, holding Emoni’s hands. “Tell me. Have you any sense of who it will be?”

  Emoni shook her head, her hazel eyes glazed with tears, the pallor of her face frightening Alizon with the knowledge that it implied. “I do not know.”

  Alizon squeezed the fingers of her dear friend. Emoni had the gift of sight, a secret she had shared with no one else. “Do not be afraid to tell me. It is my future, and I will see it myself whether you tell me or no. I would rather be prepared.”

  Alizon’s hair was a wild and curling red, her eyes nearly black, her build tall and large-boned. Emoni’s hair was straight and brown, her eyes hazel, her build small and delicate. For all their differences of appearance, though, the two girls were as close as sisters. From their first meeting, it had been as if they had known each other a lifetime already—and the bond they shared had only grown stronger through the events of the last year: Emoni’s marriage and her discovery two months past that she was pregnant.