She nodded. “All the praise I heard was for Sir Osbert of Carraville, so there can be no doubt. Sir Osbert of Carraville it is.”
Osbert whooped, and William grinned at the man’s unrestrained glee. The prize enriched his penniless state and created new markets for his knightly services. No matter that he was clearly second in the mêlée; to be second to William was no shame at all.
As the other knights and ladies flocked onto the field to congratulate the champion, William beckoned to Saura’s vassals. They presented themselves at once, bowing to the lord and then one by one taking Saura’s hand.
“Do you remember me, my lady? Sir Francis of Wace.”
“Sir Francis. Of course, I remember. I’ll never forget playing with your daughter Elly. She was just my age. I trust she fares well?”
“Married, with three little ones herself,” Sir Francis bragged.
“Do you remember me, my lady? Sir Denton of Belworth.”
“Sir Denton!” She took his hand and squeezed and twisted it.
“My lady!” he objected. “I can’t wrestle with you now!”
“Why not?”
“You’re my lady! ’Tis not respectful!”
She sighed and relaxed her grip. “Indeed I do remember you, but you weren’t Sir Denton when last we met.”
Before William’s eyes, the young man’s dignity slipped, and he grinned adoringly at Saura. “I’ve been knighted.”
“I’m proud of you. ’Twas your greatest dream.” She turned to William. “This knight used to let me tag along after him when I was but a child. He’d tease me and laugh at me, and he taught me to arm wrestle.”
Denton’s ruddy complexion blushed a deeper red, and with an alarmed glance at William he protested, “Now let’s not carry tales, my lady!”
“Of course not.” She smiled. “Perhaps we can meet and talk later. May I enquire about your father?”
“We lost him, my lady, in the bloody disorder two winters ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear it. He was a good man and a true servant.” Saura patted his hand and then released it.
The last man took her hand hesitantly. “I’m Sir Gilbert of Hartleburgh.”
“Of Hartleburgh?” She looked startled. “Where is Sir Vachel?”
“He died and Lord Theobald replaced him with my humble self.”
No one said a word. It was an affront to Saura that she’d not heard of the change, but an overture of friendship that Sir Gilbert had come to her wedding. She had the power to replace him, if she chose, or the power to retain him, and his appearance before her was a gesture of faith on his part. Just because her stepfather had appointed him didn’t mean he was incompetent or cruel. Saura knew that; knew, too, that the lands around Hartleburgh would be better off under the steady maintenance of one man. “I welcome you, Sir Gilbert. I look forward to receiving your pledge of faith and hearing an accounting of the harvest.”
“Aye, my lady, and I look forward to giving it.”
She turned back to the castellan of Wace. “Where is Sir Frazer? Does he come behind you?”
Clearly, this question he didn’t relish. “Not exactly, my lady. Sir Frazer….”
She raised an eyebrow at his hesitation.
“Sir Frazer refused the invitation.”
“Refused?” William negligently lifted a curl from Saura’s shoulder and tucked it beneath her veil, seeming to pay only a bit of attention to the conversation. “He was too sick to travel, then?”
“Nay, Lord William.”
“His wife was in childbed, his children languished with a fever, and he’ll arrive as soon as they’re cured?”
“Nay, my lord.”
“He refuses to pay fealty to his lady?” William lifted his eyes, but they were not casual. His gaze bore into the uncomfortable vassals, and they shifted from one foot to the other with uneasy attention. “Sir Frazer refuses my Lady Saura, my wife, what is due her?”
“Aye, my lord.”
The blue of William’s eyes chilled with frost. “Then let him prepare for siege.”
fifteen
“I have a poem, dedicated to my lady of love.”
The servants cleared the last of the cold meal from the table and refilled the tankards of ale and filled pitchers of wine. The afternoon’s combatants compared bruises and lacerations. They listened to tales of combat and laughed at the defeated, and ignored Nicholas as he stood on his bench at the head table and babbled about a poem. He persisted until Lady Jane tapped for silence, and under her commanding presence the head table quieted in exasperated courtesy. Then he cleared his throat and began a series of verses aimed at the bride’s heart.
Everyone listened politely. Could they do less with Lady Jane’s eye severely affixed to their faces? William listened politely. Could he do less for his guest? Love for a lady was a fashionable commodity, newly arrived from the courts of love in Aquitaine. A knight chose a lady and dedicated his songs to her, languished after her, wore her token into battle. They said that Henry’s wife, Eleanor, encouraged the troubadours with her love of poetry.
These paltry verses didn’t mean anything, ’twas just a young man’s affection. Nicholas had never made a fool of himself over a woman; William should feel amused and proud of the way he worshipped Saura.
These poor verses didn’t mean anything. Just because William wanted to keep Saura for himself, he had no reason to grow violent. If he stood up and cracked Nicholas’s skull as he longed to, his guests would laugh their guts out and then tease him forever.
These clichéed verses didn’t mean anything; so why was he afraid to turn and look at Saura and see the glow of pleasure on her sweet face?
“Describe Lady Jane, please.”
The matter-of-fact interest in his dearling’s voice struck to the heart of his agony. She didn’t sound overcome with admiration, she sounded preoccupied. Turning his head, he stared at his lady. Lord Peter’s squire leaned over her shoulder, and she was whispering instructions to him. The boy bowed and backed away, and Saura took William’s sleeve and tugged it. “Describe Lady Jane, please.” Saura had an advantage over her guests, he realized. She couldn’t see Jane’s strict gaze. She listened to Nicholas until her boredom conquered her good manners, and then she returned to directing the servants unobtrusively and seeking information in her soft voice.
“Lady Jane?” His eyes sought the woman down the table, and his voice sharpened as he flipped crumbs from the tablecloth. “Why? Was she rude to you?”
“Not at all. She’s the sort of woman who wants to do the correct thing for me, but doesn’t know how.”
“She’d never ask, either,” William said with exasperation. He spoke through clenched teeth, annoyed beyond reason by this ridiculous passion Nicholas displayed for his bride, but he controlled himself and continued, “All the niceties of etiquette are at her fingertips and she’d never admit to being unsure in any situation.”
“You don’t like her,” she observed.
By not looking directly at the proclaiming Nicholas, he could study the lady in question. “Nay, ’tis not that. She’s a little older than I, just old enough to remember the time before good King Henry had died, and she never lets me forget it. All she longs for is the peace so she can command her position at court.” His fists clenched tight around his goblet as Nicholas developed his fantasy.
“It doesn’t sound as if you like her,” she said dubiously, misinterpreting his anger.
“Nay, nay. I like her. She’s rigid with manners and she never wavers from them.” He drank a gulp of wine, and his attention skipped away from Nicholas, directed by the sharp poke of painful memory. “She’s got a good heart. When a young man does something cruel or stupid, she’ll roast him over an open pit until he screams with contrition. Then she binds his wounds and hides the evidence and no other word is spoken.”
With intuitive understanding, she guessed, “She saved you from a bad mistake.”
“When I was a squire and far f
rom home. Too young to be on my own, with the cocky arrogance of a new-minted man.” Moving his lips close to her ear, he whispered, “There’s nothing worse than a woman who’s always right. Especially when she really is always right.”
Saura laughed out loud, pleased that the tension in his voice had diminished under her prodding. That voice of his was a seduction: warm, golden, with a manly rumble that vibrated her deep within. She didn’t like to hear the higher notes of stress sneak in; with a shock, she discovered she preferred the job of pleasing William over any other. When had that happened?
She put her hand up to his chin to keep him close, knowing she should be directing the servants but unable to resist the draw of his skin. The proximity of his big body warmed her with more than an outer heat, and as they approached the wedding day, the day of their last mating moved farther back in time. It was hard to wait patiently for tomorrow night when her body was chanting, “Now, now.” Pressing herself down on the hard bench, hoping for its distraction, she asked, “Did you love her?”
“Jane?” He jumped and then chuckled with astonishment. He rubbed his eyes between his thumb and forefinger to clear his gaze and then studied the lady. “Nay. She’s tall and spare, with a waterfall of sagging chins beneath the primary one that recedes into her face. Her face is bony and her veil would never let one wisp of hair escape for fear of retribution. Her household walks in fear of a frown and her husband’s so henpecked he doesn’t even know it.”
“You adore her.”
“Aye.” He slid one arm around her waist and pulled Saura closer, until the fur trim at his shoulder tickled her cheek. As her body contacted his, he seemed to relax that strange tautness that held him in thrall. “I was fostered in her household until I made plans to run away with her daughter.”
“William!” She reared back, awestruck.
“Her stepdaughter, really,” he hastened to assure her. “Lady Jane was the young bride when I came to the household. Lord Nevil taught me war, and she taught me deportment.”
“Running away with the daughter of your lord is deportment?”
“God’s teeth!” He covered her mouth with his palm. “No one knows except Lady Jane and me, and that’s not a story I’d want noised abroad.”
“Then tell me,” she threatened from behind his hand. “Or I’ll stand on the bench and shout it out.”
“That ’tis time to take me to your chamber?”
She kissed his palm, her tongue bathing the callouses, and he jerked his hand away. “I’d shout it out if you’d do it.”
“Scandalmonger.”
She leaned into his mouth and brushed it softly with hers. “If you’d not insisted on marriage, I’d be in your bed at this moment.”
“Your brothers warned me about you.” His lips moved with his words, his breath tickled her. “Dudley said….”
Her kiss travelled to his neck, and he froze with anticipation.
“Dudley?” she encouraged.
“Dudley said you were Eve.”
Tired of the oft-repeated slur, she pulled her face away from him. “Not that again.” Then in a different tone, “Not this again.” Whistles of encouragement from their guests brought her back from her personal heaven; although why she considered a conversation with a thick-headed male to be heaven, she didn’t know. It must be a female quirk that her mother had never warned her about.
Beside her, William withdrew from their embrace with slow emphasis. “Don’t leap away,” he warned her with a growl. “Make it clear we stop because we want to, not because of their foolery.”
“Slow down, son,” his father mocked. “You’ll have her soon. Only one more day.”
“Only one more night,” William retorted with a mock heaviness, turning to pick up his abandoned wine.
“Stop enticing him, Saura,” Lady Jane said. “He becomes desperate if not fed.”
“He’s not the only one facing desperation,” Saura answered, seeking her own cup. William brought his to her lips, whispering, “Here, love,” and held it while she drank. As she finished, he leaned forward and licked the pungent red wine from her lips and the corners of her mouth while their audience laughed their appreciation.
“Your poetry inspires the lovebirds, Nicholas,” Charles mocked.
The jerk of William’s arm beneath her hand surprised her, and with a finely honed instinct she kneaded those stiff muscles, seeking to ease him. He ignored her ministrations, but at the same time relaxed enough to joke, “I need no inspiration. Saura’s presence is enough to bring me to culmination.”
“Make your own vers, William,” Nicholas said. He strove for a teasing tone, but the seriousness of his demand seeped through. “Let Saura hear how you feel about her.”
“William’s vers is magnificent,” Saura boasted. “He has no need to prove himself to me.”
William swiveled around and stared at his bride. “Where did you hear that?” he sputtered.
“You told me.” She rubbed her hand up to his shoulder. “Remember, that day at Fyngre Brook? You told me you made the best vers.”
“I lied,” he confessed with blunt honesty.
In a mighty swell, the merriment of the guests overwhelmed them. With carefully honed timing, Saura waited until the noise died, and then she said, “Thank God. I was afraid I’d have to be polite about your poetry.”
Freshly warmed from their laughter, the guests slipped back into their hilarity and laughed until the tears ran and all memory of Nicholas’s dreadful poem and his inappropriate dedication faded.
He leaned her over a table so her face pressed against the rough wood and tossed her skirt over her head. With no preparation, he spread her cheeks and drove into her. It was not such a great thing as to cause discomfort, for the bastard children she’d borne had stretched her and his member was not large. Not large like Lord William’s; God knew she’d looked at that thistle and wished it would tickle her.
Still, this seigneur’s careless disregard made her angry, and each time his legs slapped her thighs she whispered a new invective about that woman. In only a moment, he finished, pulled out and wiped himself on her smock.
“Get up now.” He smacked her buttock with the flat of his hand. “Get out there and help your mistress.”
Hawisa stood and swung around. “She’s not me mistress anymore.”
“You do as she orders.”
“That bitch—”
His hand swung out and slapped her cheek, knocking her against the table. “Don’t you ever talk that way.” He lowered his head until his eyes were on her level. They steamed with their intensity. “She’s a lady and you’re not worthy to speak her name.”
Recovering herself, she bunched her fists at her side. “She’s not so wonderful. Ye come t’ me for that.” She jerked her head toward the table, and he smiled unpleasantly.
“But I place you so I can’t see your face. You’re nothing more than a dog I can fornicate with. All the time I imagine ’tis her, but she’d be better.”
With compressed lips, Hawisa whirled and fled the room, his semen dribbling down her legs and her face stinging with his blow.
“Did you see the way he looks at her?” The words hissed through the early morning air as the huddled group of ladies went to prepare Saura for her wedding.
“Did you see the way she held his hand during the mêlée?” A knowing brow cocked, laden with insinuation.
“I think ’tis awful. Her future husband—and her bedmate, if the gossip is true—fights out on the field, and she clings to another man and listens only to him.”
“Did you see how she behaved? Mark my words, William doesn’t realize the perfidy of that woman.”
“His father should have never refused our daughter for William. He’ll be sorry now.”
Squeezed in the midst of the women, Lady Jane listened and observed. Sarcastic, outspoken, full of common sense, she cultivated her crusty image and kept her kindnesses well hidden. Now she was torn; Saura had encouraged a m
an by her dependency on him. A faint sense of guilt had haunted Lady Jane as she listened to Nicholas’s lurid portrayal of the fighting. According to Nicholas and his nimble tongue, William had almost been crushed time and time again, barely rising from the ashes to fight again. Now Lady Jane wondered what intrigue he plotted with his well-worded misinformation.
“Have you seen how Nicholas stares at her, like an adoring puppy? Has she ensorcelled him? He’s not even interested in women.”
“Do you think she’s a witch? ’Tis her fault that Nicholas loves her.”
“Nay, she’s like Eve. Leading men down the paths of sin with her body and her face.”
That was too much for Lady Jane. “What nonsense!” she exploded. “Sir Nicholas is naught but a wart on the complexion of honor. If she’s been unaware of the scandal they created, surely Nicholas wasn’t.”
Lady Bertha placed her fists on her ample hips and stopped, and the women straggled to a halt, strung out in the great hall. “How can you say that? Why should she pant after his conversation?”
“Because she couldn’t see what happened on the field, and he told her. She hung on his every word, and no wonder—the tale he wove put William into horrible danger. Did you offer to describe the action to her?”
“I didn’t.” Lady Bertha snapped her mouth shut and looked thoughtful.
Sweeping her gaze over the assembled women, Lady Jane said, “Lady Saura has been our gracious hostess, and you pay her back in the stink of spoiled fish. She’s a bride, and no one should cast a shadow on her joy.”
She started forward with a regal sweep, and a nasty whisper appeared from nowhere. “Lady Saura couldn’t see a shadow anyway.”
Jane ignored it, allowing the hovering maid to open the door and entering the solar, all the women on her heels. Saura sat enthroned on a chair with bread and wine on a tray before her. A robe of brown wool overwhelmed her with its size; obviously, it belonged to William and the rolled-up sleeves and drooping shoulders made her look petite, like a child. With an inquiring lift to her eyebrow, she asked, “How may I assist you?”
Candle in the Window: Castles #1 Page 25