Hearts of Fire

by Anita Mills

  “Nay, I’d let none other feed her.”

  “She draws your strength.”

  “She is but a babe, Simon.”

  It was an old argument, one they’d had many times over, one that he never won. He’d even gone into the small village and found a woman who’d lost her own babe and brought her back to Beaumaule, but Gilliane would let none but herself and Alwina and Annys tend her precious Amia. Nay, but Richard of Rivaux’s babe required the best of what Beaumaule had to offer—the best of the silk, the finest of the wool—the child even slept in a silk-cushioned cradle. And he resented everything Gilliane did for Amia of Beaumaule.

  His arm still around Gilliane’s slim waist, he moved closer, rubbing against her suggestively, sliding his other hand over her back and down to cup her hip. He could feel her body tense, but she did not push him away. She never pushed him away anymore, but her lack of enthusiasm usually cooled his ardor. This time it did not. This time he meant to make her want him even as he wanted her.

  He stroked over her hip through her gown and whispered, “Hold me, Gilliane—I’d feel you pressed against me.”

  She slid her arms around his neck and stood still within his embrace, waiting. He brushed her lips with his, tasting lightly, telling himself that it was perhaps that he was always too eager for her. He held her closer, feeling the thrust of full breasts against his chest, and every fiber of his being came alive with the wanting of her.

  “Mia,” she murmured, bringing her hands down to hold him back a little.

  “Aye.”

  He released her then and walked to stand over the babe, who’d been grasping at the iron ring of castle keys. The green eyes stared up soberly and then she grinned, waving the keys at him. He reached down and picked her up, carrying her to the stairwell and calling down, “Alwina! Alwina! Come tend—come tend your mistress’s babe!”

  But it was Annys who came, easing her swollen body up the steep stairs slowly, her belly so full that it looked as though she could drop twins even though it was not near her time. She reached for the babe gingerly, as though she feared to touch him, and immediately Amia began to cry.

  “Give her to me,” Gilliane ordered.

  “Nay, take her,” Simon countermanded.

  “Hush, lovey,” Annys crooned, jostling the babe until it settled down. “Nay, lady, but she is all right.” Brushing past Simon without looking at him, the girl carried the child out.

  Simon cursed the girl under his breath, cursed her for again reminding Gilliane of what he’d done. Following her to the stairs, he closed the heavy door and threw the latch. When he turned back, Gilliane had moved to stare out the window, her back rigid.

  “Nay, sweeting.” He came up behind her and tried to turn her around. When she resisted, he held her against him, moving his stomach against her back as heat rose again within him. His hand moved from her waist to touch her breast as his mouth sought the place where her hair parted and fell forward from her neck.

  “I’d have you love me, Gilliane.”

  He did not think he’d ever wanted anything as badly as he wanted her now, but she broke away, moving several feet toward the middle of the room. “Have me, then, but—”

  “Nay, do not say it—I’d not hear it.”

  He advanced on her and she felt cornered despite the openness of the room. Willing herself to let him touch her, she waited. This time, when he caught her to him, he did so roughly, kissing her hard, hoping to evoke a response in her. But the feel of her body against his made his pulses race and his loins ache unbearably. He bent her backward, lifting her, and carried her to the curtained bed, undressing as he went. She rolled into the mattress and turned away rather than watching him. He saw her avert her eyes, and it rankled him that she showed no eagerness for the coupling. But determined that this time would somehow be different, that if he gave her time to respond, she would, he eased his aroused body down next to hers and drew her close to him. And then the babe’s insistent wails floated up from below. As he stroked the rich, silky hair over Gilliane’s shoulder, he could hear Amia crying harder, screaming as though in a rage. He began untying the laces beneath Gilliane’s arms and slid a hand up the wide sleeve to cup a breast.

  His body was unbearably hot with wanting, but she lay still beneath his hand. And as the babe’s screams intensified, he could feel Gilliane’s body stiffen, and he knew ’twould be no different this time—that she’d lie beneath him still as stone, receiving his body and his seed, but she would not love him. Cheated and frustrated, he rolled away.

  “Jesu! A man has a right to expect better than this! Go tend the brat!”

  “ ’Tis not Mia, Simon—’tis not Mia who takes away my desire,” she responded, sitting up to retie the laces that fitted her bodice. “ Twas Annys.”

  “And how do you think it is for me?” he countered angrily. “If I judged you as you judge me, I would never look at you again, Gilliane de Lacey! Aye, I’d think of Richard of Rivaux and hate you!” He lurched from the bed and groped for his discarded chausses, cursing her as he pulled them on. “Damn you, Gilliane! Damn you! You care for everything and everyone in this keep more than you care for me!”

  When she did not answer, he grasped her arm roughly and pulled her up to face him. “You lay for Richard of Rivaux like a stinking whore, Gilliane! You let him get a babe of you! But you have naught for your husband! Answer me!”

  “ ’Twas not a question!”

  “Afore God, there will come a time when you are not cold to me!” he shouted in her face.

  He’d lifted his other hand as though he meant to strike her, but she did not flinch. And strike her he did—her head snapped back and her cheek and jaw stung from the impact of his palm when he hit her. Stunned by what he’d just done, he stared, speechless at the reddening print of his hand on her face. For a moment, neither of them spoke. Her blue eyes met his steadily, holding them, until he had to look away. Then, flinging her from him with such force that she staggered and lost her balance, he picked up one of the benches and threw it against the wall. It skidded across the floor, sending rushes flying, and crashed into the masonry, splintering and shattering on impact. Gilliane shielded her face from the pieces of wood and stood.

  “I think you are mad, Simon,” she told him simply.

  Her voice was quiet and dispassionate, but it carried across the gulf between them, echoing in his mind. Knowing he’d yet again turned her from him, he reached out his hand helplessly before dropping it to his side. And he felt anew the surge of impotent, defensive anger.

  “The time will come, Gilliane de Lacey, when you want me even as I want you!”

  He cast about wildly for something else to vent his wrath on, and finding nothing, he turned, picked up his heavy boots with one hand, and strode for the door. Throwing the bar, he hit the wooden crosspiece so hard that the hinges banged against the frame, and then he was gone. Ignoring her still-stinging jaw, she bent over and began picking up the pieces of the bench, tossing them into the brazier. A dog yelped and Simon cursed belowstairs, and then she heard him shouting in the courtyard.

  Sinking wearily to her seat by the window, she felt an acute sadness for him and for herself also. It had been a mistake to wed him—she knew it now, but at the time it had seemed the best course. What she had not known then was that she could not love him—that no matter how many years passed, no matter what distance separated them, she would always love Richard of Rivaux and none other. And it had been wrong of her to think if could be otherwise.

  Simon stomped across the yard, his scowl sending everyone and everything out of his way, until he reached the small chapel. “God’s bones, but is he not back yet?” he demanded of the boy who studied with the priest.

  “N-nay.”

  “Then I’d have you go tell him I have need of him,” he snapped tersely. “Aye, tell him I’d have him write to a man at Ardwyck this day.”

  “Aye, my lord.”

 
; Simon watched him flee, and then he turned his attention to his rebuilt chapel. Gone were the cracked windows, replaced now by thick panes of amber glass, and the sunlight that streamed golden through them fell on the flagged floor, illuminating the graves of the de Laceys buried there. He stared down, feeling like an intruder, and his resentment of Gilliane grew. If she’d accepted him as her lord, every man in Beaumaule would have also, but he suspected that ’twas not so—that ’twas Gilliane rather than him they followed. Well, that would change, he’d see to that. Aye, and with Richard of Rivaux dead, she’d have to turn to him.

  “My lord.”

  He swung around to face Beaumaule’s chaplain. “Did you have to bury the man?”

  “Aye.”

  “I could scarce afford to lose him.” Unable to meet Father Gerbod’s eyes for the guilt he felt, Simon hunched his shoulders and turned his back to the old priest. “I need two letters written to Ardwyck, Father—I’d send to a man called Talebot—aye, and to Richard of Rivaux also. I’d have him know she does not come.”

  35

  Simon of Woodstock’s letter, couched in terms that bordered on insolence, had said that Gilliane could not come, and Richard of Rivaux was furious with the both of them. Nay, he had to see her again—he’d thought of naught else for days as May drew near—and he’d not be denied. He had to see for himself, to hear from her lips that she’d chosen the hard, lowborn Woodstock for husband. He’d not paid Gloucester two hundred pounds for suzerainty to Beaumaule for naught—nay, he’d done it to bring her into his power again, to punish her for leaving him, for inflicting the pain he still felt whenever he thought of her.

  “I see our wall stands,” Everard muttered dryly beside him, drawing him back to reality.

  Richard stretched in his saddle, relieving aching muscles garnered in a hard two days’ ride, and surveyed the wall he’d had built at Beaumaule. “Aye, and the ditch is widened also.”

  “Would you that we sound the approach, my lord?”

  “Nay. I’d be at the gate ere I warned them,” his lord decided grimly. “I want to see their faces when they look over that wall.”

  “ ’Twill not be an easy task to take it now that ’tis done.”

  “For all that I dislike him, I do not think Woodstock a complete fool,” Richard snapped, betraying his impatience. “I am his suzerain, Everard—he dare not deny me and keep his land.”

  “Aye.” Casting a furtive look at his master’s scowl, the captain felt it incumbent to remind him, “She is his lady now, my lord. If he would not bring her—”

  “I have a right to visit what is mine, and I choose to visit Beaumaule.”

  Knowing the famed Rivaux temper lay barely concealed beneath Richard’s hard, set face, Everard wisely chose to hold back further comment on the matter. To him, it was beyond belief anyway that any woman could so overset a man, but Gilliane de Lacey, gone ten months and more, still held power over his young lord. Aye, he’d seen it all these months past—the disbelief, the anger, the pain, and finally, the bitterness over what she’d done. And instead of healing, the wound festered beneath the surface, poisoning the man.

  Garth was the first to see them from where he stood on the outer stairs of an unfinished tower. Squinting into the spring sun, he made out the red-and-black banner of the younger Rivaux, and he felt a surge of gladness. Too long his mistress had labored to please her sullen, bitter husband. And as Simon of Woodstock was gone to Devon for the ordering of a new hauberk in the absence of an armory at Beaumaule, Garth regarded Richard of Rivaux’s arrival as an omen of better things to come. He hastened down the stone steps and made his way to the gatehouse.

  “Lower the bridge!” he shouted. “ ’Tis Rivaux!”

  “Nay, Sir Simon—”

  “The lord is gone, but he’d not dare deny his suzerain!” Garth yelled when the gateman hesitated. “You’ll not be thanked if you turn Rivaux of Celesin away!”

  “Aye,” the fellow growled in answer. “I suppose ’tis his right.” He climbed to the guardpost and verified the black hawk that sat staring proudly from its red silk pennon, and then without seeking further permission swung down to release the wheel that lowered the wood-and-iron bridge.

  Gilliane, hearing the commotion as the armed retinue crossed over it, hurried down from her solar. A quick glance, obstructed by the scaffolding of the new tower, revealed only that the mesnie in her yard was far too large to be her husband’s. Alarmed, she ran from the tower, ready to urge whatever defense could be mustered in Simon’s absence.

  And then she saw him. He still sat astride his horse, his tall body in full mail, his red-and-black surcoat whipping about in the late-spring breeze, his face hard and set beneath the shadow of his helmet nasal. She cast about wildly for the means to escape, to run, to hide from him, but as he dismounted, she stood rooted to the hard-packed earth of the yard. Her whole body shook as he removed his helm and pushed back his sweat-dampened hair with his gloved hand. Tossing the helm to Walter of Thibeaux, he pulled off the heavy gloves with his teeth and tucked them beneath his saddle. And when he turned around, his look as his eyes met hers told her that he hated her now.

  His step was slow and deliberate, his spurs clinking as he walked to face her. Raking her with dark eyes so cold that the golden flecks were gone from them, he took in everything from her copper braids to her slender waist.

  “You do not appear unwell to me.”

  “Nay, I …” Unable to face him like that, she dropped to make her obeisance to her husband’s overlord, mumbling, “Welcome to Beaumaule, my lord. You find us unprepared—nay, astonished by your arrival.” Then, not daring to feel even the touch of his hands again, she hastily arose and backed away.

  “Where is Woodstock?”

  “He is not here—he has gone to see to a new coat of mail ere he enters your service.”

  “And your … babe?” It was an effort for him to ask her that, for he hated the thought that she’d borne a babe for Simon of Woodstock.

  Wiping suddenly damp palms against the coarse, plain wool of her gown, she tried to keep her voice from shaking as she answered him. “Amia of Beaumaule is well, my lord.”

  “Amia.” He gave a derisive inflection to the word. “You waste your Latin on Woodstock, no doubt—I’ll warrant he knew not what it meant.”

  Her stomach knotted at the coldness in his voice, making her almost sick. “He knew.” She held her breath, praying that he would not ask to see the child, and then was disappointed when he did not. With an effort, she forced herself to ask politely, “For how long do you honor us with your presence, my lord?”

  “I am undecided in the matter.”

  “Beaumaule’s larder is small, and …”

  The black eyebrows rose above the cold eyes. “You would deny your suzerain the hospitality of the keep you hold of him?”

  “Nay, but … my husband is not at home, my lord!” she blurted out desperately.

  “Aye, so you have said.” His eyes met hers again, sending another shiver down her spine. “I will wait that he may accompany me back to Ardwyck.”

  Her heart cried nay—that she would not, could not be at the mercy of this stranger before her, that her dreams of him would crumble in the face of his coldness, and her memories of him would be as ashes from the fire that had once been between them. But aloud she managed to murmur, “Then we will see you are attended whilst you are here. I will send to Dover to my husband, apprising him of your arrival.”

  Tearing himself away from her blanched face, he looked toward his men. “Aye, I’d have a bath and a bed myself, and quarters for my men.”

  She ran her tongue over suddenly parched lips and shook her head. “There is a dearth of beds here, my lord. Only—”

  “As overlord here, I will take Woodstock’s chamber,” he cut in harshly. “You and the babe may remove to the lower floor.”

  “Aye.” She had not the right to argue with him. Instead, she i
nclined her head respectfully and nodded. “ ’Twill be as you wish, my lord. I will see to the ordering of a bath for you whilst you are divested of your mail ere you come up.” Bobbing a hasty curtsy, she turned and fled.

  “Nay, it cannot be as I wish it,” he muttered under his breath as he watched her walk away from him.

  He paced the narrow confines of the small solar restlessly, waiting as the men carried steaming pails of water to pour into the heavy tub, waiting for her to come up. He’d been a fool to come, and he knew it. She belonged to Woodstock now, but he’d had to see her again. The old pain of her leaving washed over him, and he wanted to strike out, to make her pay for what she’d done to him.

  Somewhere below he heard a babe cry, Woodstock’s babe mayhap, and his bitterness over her betrayal was almost too much to bear. Amia of Beaumaule. God, but what a fool he had been—she’d lain with the likes of Simon of Woodstock and borne a babe of the man, living proof that she’d shared her body with her lowborn husband even as she had once shared it with him. And then she’d named the babe for love. Revulsion flooded him, sickening his soul.

  “My lord?”

  He spun around at the sound of the old woman’s voice and shook his head. “Nay, Alwina, I’d not have you tend me. Seek your mistress and bid her come in haste—I do not mean to wait for her.”

  “She thinks it unseemly, my lord.”

  “ ’Tis my right to be attended by the lady of the keep!” he snapped angrily. “Remind her whom she would refuse!”

  “Nay, but—”

  “Now, old woman—I’d have you tell her now!”

  Clearly he was in the devil’s temper, and Alwina was no fool. She backed away, bobbing obediently. “Aye, my lord, I will speak with her.”

  He followed her to the stairwell, calling out loudly enough for those below to hear, “Tell your lady I’d punish her lord for her insult!”

  Gilliane winced at the fury in his voice. Laying Amia in her cradle, she covered her bared breast and looked to Alwina. “I know not which is worse,” she half-whispered in anguish, “whether ’tis better to risk his anger or Simon’s. Sweet Mary, Alwina, but I’d not face him alone.”