Only For You

by Hannah Howell

  “Aye, but I was wondering if she could stay on after the wedding.”

  “Do you feel you will have a need of her?”

  “Oh, I shall certainly enjoy her visit, but ‘tis not that. Thylda and I have ne’er been apart before. I left in the dead of night on a mission of vengeance. Now I am to be wed. Without warning, she is now alone, the only sister still living at Wolfshead Hall. Thylda has the skill to be chatelaine, but I am not sure she is prepared for it in her heart and mind.”

  “And you feel that, if she stays here to see you wed and settled, she may accept it with more ease,” he concluded.

  “Aye, m’lord. She could also learn from Lady Mary. Thylda is not as rough as I am, but she is also without training.”

  “I do not mind if she lingers here.” He brushed a kiss over her cheek. “And you are not rough.” He smiled when she blushed. “I will include an invitation for her to stay with us when I send out my messenger. Is there a woman to take her place as chatelaine while your sister is here?”

  “Old Marta. She is all things, yet not any one thing. Her whole life has been spent at Wolfshead Hall.”

  “We have a woman like that named Elizabeth. There is no place she has not held at one time or another.” He watched her pulse and breath quicken when he smoothed his hand over her throat. “She, too, has spent every day of her life in this one place.”

  Saxan covered his hand with hers, took a deep breath to steady herself, and said quietly, “I believe it comes time for me to leave.” She frowned as she mused aloud. “I think it is for the best that you did not wed the Lady Odella.”

  “A woman capable of such deception is certainly not one I wish for as a wife,” he agreed, unable to believe that he had been so wrong in his judgment of Lady Odella’s character. It made him fear that he had learned nothing from his disastrous marriage to Alice.

  “I was not thinking of that, but, aye, it is a consideration. May God forgive me if I slander Lady Odella, but I think that, if you had married her, you would not have found all, er,” she blushed, “as it should be on the wedding night.”

  “Mayhap, although her father did make a timely arrival.”

  “True, but, if you were not so honorable or if you were weaker of flesh, where do you think the two of you would have been found?” She glanced at his robe even as understanding widened his eyes, their dark depths sparkling with anger. “Time would not have been wasted in the shedding of your clothes,” she drawled. “To my way of thinking, a maiden would find it very difficult to come to a man’s bedchamber with the plan of dragging him into bed. Maidens need the heat of the moment to banish a natural reticence. Cold plotting is not their way.”

  “Nay, and until I set eyes upon you, it was in my mind to offer for her.” He slipped his arms around her, but held her lightly and winked. “On the one hand you have rescued me, but on the other, you have sorely abused my vanity.”

  “How so, m’lord?” She smiled faintly, recognizing that he was teasing her.

  “I was quite flattered by her avowals of burning love and need.” He sighed with an overdone mournfulness. “ ’Twas all air.”

  Saxan laughed. “You must feed your vanity with the knowledge of the great trouble she went to in an attempt to gain you.” She suddenly became far too aware of how close they were and how little they wore. “I think it is time I returned to my own chambers,” she declared unsteadily as she quickly stood up, breaking free of his light hold. When she saw his knowing grin, she scowled. “Good sleep, m’lord.”

  Botolf followed her to the door. With each hint of her passion he grew more eager to marry her. He fixed his gaze upon the long waves of silver that rippled down her slim back. He ached to wrap himself in its silken depths.

  Saxan paused as she stepped from the chamber and flushed beneath the warmth of his gaze, then smiled pertly. “I should bar my door, m’lord.”

  He grinned and tugged her against him, gave her a brief hard kiss, and gently pushed her toward a wide-eyed Jane, who waited in the hall. “Good sleep.”

  Saxan grumbled about men in general all the way back to her bedchamber. It had been difficult enough in his presence when he wore nothing but a robe. Now she had that brief but hungry kiss to think about. She tempered her annoyance just enough to bid Jane a pleasant good night. The girl had been more than helpful, and she did not want to take her frustrations out on her maid.

  “I ought to march back to his chambers and give him a little something to ruin his sleep,” she groused as she tried to settle her restless body comfortably in her bed, but then laughed ruefully over her threat.

  There was no doubt in her mind that, if she went back to Botolf’s room, she would not leave it until the morning. She could not heat his blood to the point of discomfort without doing the same to herself. The fire burned both ways. Such heat could not be so carefully controlled.

  The strength of her desire for the man puzzled her. Despite all the times they had talked, she could not honestly say that she knew him well. Saxan could not help but wonder how much of her desire was for Botolf the man and how much was simply her lusty Todd blood reacting to the caress of a young, handsome, strong male.

  Her heart ached for it to be more than that, so much more. She wanted a marriage like so many of her own kin had, one where both love and friendship were intertwined with a happiness and a satisfaction that would last. She did not want to find herself alone in her later years with a man who was still a stranger to her and stuck in a bed that had grown cold. Her fears were real and ran deep, but she realized that even those were not enough to make her turn away from Botolf.

  Eight

  “You are such a lovely bride,” Thylda murmured, sitting on Saxan’s bed and watching the preparations for the wedding.

  Saxan grinned at her sister, who had been at Regenford for a fortnight, having arrived within a week of Botolf’s sending out his messenger. “Loyalty prompts your flattery, Thylda.”

  “Not fully, Saxan,” said Lady Mary as she wove another bright ribbon through Saxan’s hair. “You are lovely, and this hair will draw all eyes to you. It will not be the bright ribbons, either. The gown fits perfectly and, now that you wear it, I realize that the blue is truer than I had thought. ’Tis nearly a perfect match for your eyes. Stop worrying your hands, child.”

  “I cannot help it.” Saxan’s nerves grew tauter with each passing moment.

  “Ah, well, most brides become nervous.”

  “ ’Tis not becoming a wife which makes me tremble, but the ceremony itself, m’lady.”

  “What is there about the ceremony that could frighten you?”

  “That I shall do it all wrong. That I shall trip and fall on my face. That I shall make an utter fool out of myself.” Saxan clapped a hand to her forehead and wailed. “That, when it is time to stand after kneeling before the priest, I shall discover that my legs no longer work.”

  Lady Mary firmly repressed a laugh, made all the more difficult by Thylda’s giggling, and said sternly, “Do not be so fretful. As Botolf’s wife you had best become accustomed to ceremony and being before many people. Now,” Lady Mary fought against the color that tinted her cheeks, but her voice remained calm. “I know I am late in asking, but is there anything you wish to ask me?”

  “Ask you? Nay, I do not believe so.”

  “I think she means any questions concerning the night to come, Saxan,” Thylda said.

  “Oh. Nay, I know all about that.” Saxan smiled at Lady Mary’s shocked expression. “M’lady, with kinsmen such as mine, I would need to be deaf, blind, and a simpleton not to know all about that. The wedding night does not worry me.”

  “Not even a little?” Lady Mary asked in surprise.

  “Well, I do wish there were no need to endure the bedding ceremony. ’Tis well that I need not be naked as was required in my father’s time. I should swoon. The rest? Ah, well, that is but nature and God’s will. I can see no reason to worry on it.”

  “Would that I could h
ave gone to my marriage bed so calmly.”

  “You were raised a fine lady. I cannot help but feel that the lessons taught to fine ladies are not the wisest ones. No bride should go to her wedding bed all atremble with fear. ’Tis not a good way to begin.”

  “I think ’tis not only the bride who goes to the marriage bed with fear,” Lady Mary quipped, and they all laughed.

  Sir Wesley eyed Botolf with friendly annoyance, his green eyes expressing both anger and amusement. “Will you stand still, Botolf? I cannot tie these points.

  “I am standing still,” Botolf grumbled.

  “Ha! You tremble and fidget as if you were the virgin to be bedded tonight.”

  “Have patience, Wesley,” Sir Roger said with a laugh. “ ’Tis a grave deed the man performs this day.”

  “Aye,” agreed Sir Talbot as he served them all wine. “He will soon claim all those Todds, Healdons, and Jagers as his kin.”

  “A handsome lot though,” Roger murmured.

  “That they are, Roger.” Wesley grinned. “That young Thylda holds great promise.” He straightened up. “There. Your lacings are done, but do not hold me to blame if any of them come undone, m‘lord. ’Tis hard to do it right when you are squirming about so. What ails you?”

  Botolf smiled crookedly. “I am not sure. ’Tis not as if I have never done this before.”

  “Then, since there is nothing new to face, you should be far easier of mind than you are.”

  “Ah, but there is something new, my friend. I have never bedded a virgin.”

  “But, Lady Alice,” Sir Talbot began, then flushed at touching upon a long-forbidden subject.

  “When one is half-mad with love, the lack of a maidenhead seems a small fault,” Botolf drawled. “Now, with what occurred with Lady Odella to consider, I begin to wonder how many of these self-proclaimed ladies go to their marriage beds as chaste as they claim to be.” He smiled when Wesley frowned yet clearly hesitated to voice his thoughts. “Saxan is chaste,” he said, laughing briefly when Wesley blushed. “God’s beard, the girl was innocent of even kisses ere I gained hold of her. When one sees the beauties that infernal clan produces, it seems almost a miracle. Their kinsmen guard them very well indeed.”

  “Yet there is something in your voice that makes one think you wish Saxan were not so chaste,” Roger said.

  “There is a part of me that does wish that, Roger,” Botolf replied. “Consider all I could do wrong tonight.”

  “Have you ever seen any fear in her before this?” asked Wesley.

  “Nay,” Botolf answered, “but I have restrained myself and, of late, I have made sure that we are rarely left alone.”

  “You have restrained yourself? The girl does not pull away?” Wesley asked with an assumed idleness.

  “Nay.” Botolf thought of the night in the garden when they had been hiding from Edric and nearly allowed passion to steal away their good sense. “Do you think I worry for no reason? Well, mayhap I do. Still, she is such a small woman. I have no wish to hurt her and, if I hurt her too badly, I could kill all the promise of passion she now holds. I have heard of promising unions that died on the wedding night.”

  “We all have, but I cannot foresee that happening to you. The girl is no gently reared maid despite her innocence. She does not quail from a fight or the need to use a weapon. A little pain and bloodletting on her marriage bed will not turn her craven. Thinking on the lusty family she comes from, I believe she fully knows what is to come.” Wesley clapped the earl on the back. “Come. Let us get you wedded and bedded so that you may finally set all this worry aside,” he said as, with Roger’s and Talbot’s assistance, he urged Botolf out of his bedchamber.

  When Botolf reached the great hall where his guests had gathered, he had to smile. Saxan’s kin had turned out in large numbers, and there seemed to be a veritable sea of fair hair. He was noting how many of his bride’s family were male when he found himself alone with Hunter and Roc. They were tall for Todds, but still several inches shorter than he was.

  “Relax, m’lord,” Hunter teased. “My sister is not so fearsome.”

  “You must call me Botolf,” the earl said. “We will be family soon.”

  “That would be easier, for we could m’lord ourselves to death otherwise.” Hunter grinned when Botolf laughed, but then grew serious. “You are tense. Do you regret your choice now that the vows are about to be said?”

  “Nay. I do not believe I shall ever regret my choice.”

  “Ah, then ’tis the bedding that troubles you.” Hunter laughed when a light color touched Botolf’s cheeks. “You wed no swooning child. Saxan is as chaste as any maid can be, but she is not ignorant. She holds no fear of what happens between a man and wife. Aye, she is small of build, but most of our women are and there has not yet been one who has broken beneath a man’s passion or fled from loving. Indeed, when I think of the blood that runs in Saxan’s veins, I begin to fear for you.”

  In a few moments, the lusty jests of the twins eased Botolf’s fears. If they were not worried for their sister, then he felt his own concerns must be foolish. Those worries flickered to life again, however, when Saxan entered the great hall and moved to his side. She looked beautiful in her wedding finery, but she also looked delicate and very young. When he took her hand, he felt her tremble and wondered if she suffered from some of the same fears he did.

  Saxan was unable to relax throughout the entire wedding ceremony. It was not until Botolf kissed her, marking the end of the ceremony as clearly as the loud chaos of the crowd, that her tension left her. She smiled widely at Botolf and saw passion darken his eyes. For once she did not immediately respond to that show of desire. All she could think of was that she had accomplished the difficult part of the ceremony without a fault and now she could enjoy her own wedding.

  As the servants and pages hurried to set the tables with the wedding feast, Saxan tugged her new husband over to meet Denu’s and Tuesday’s husbands, Thomas and Godric respectively. “I had not expected to see either of you, Godric,” she exclaimed as she hugged and kissed Tuesday’s husband. “Are you fathers again yet?” she asked even as she greeted Thomas in the same manner.

  “I have that honor,” Godric replied. “A daughter.” He smiled at Saxan’s obvious and vocal delight. “We called her Honey Pipere Soames. She has flaxen hair, but she was only days old when I left so I cannot tell you what color her eyes are. Tuesday would have been here, but I swore I would tie her to her bed if she tried to move,” he growled, but a smile continued to curl his lips. “She sends her love, many wishes for happiness, and a hearty prayer for the man daring enough to take you as his wife.”

  After scowling at the three laughing men, Saxan asked, “How fares Denu, Thomas?”

  “Our babe will soon be here. I should not be surprised to find the birthing over when I return. Denu sends her good wishes and love as well.”

  When she and Botolf were finally seated at the table, Saxan could not resist a glance toward Odella and her father. Due to their high position and relatively favorable place in Edward’s court, Botolf had not felt he could refuse them if they wished to stay for the wedding. To her dismay, they had decided to remain. Although she was no longer concerned that the woman would try any more tricks with Botolf, Saxan found Odella’s constant venom unsettling. Saxan could not shake the feeling that there was more trouble coming from that direction, but did not know what form that trouble might take. She prayed that the Alansons would leave immediately after the wedding.

  The gaiety of the guests soon diverted her from her concerns. People came and went from the head table, including her husband. At one point, she found herself alone and glanced toward the door leading to the garden. She was just about to give into the temptation of some fresh air when she saw Lady Mary leave, quickly followed by Edric. Saxan grabbed Thylda by the hand and hurried after the couple. She signaled Thylda to be quiet as she crept along until they were hidden by some greenery yet could still see and hear Lady M
ary and Edric.

  Botolf frowned as he watched his wife and her sister leave. “And where are they going?” he wondered aloud.

  Hunter shrugged. “They did appear to be a little furtive. Ah, well, no harm can come to them. Uncle Edric is out there. Aye, and your lady mother. They both wandeted out there a moment before my sisters left.”

  “Is that so,” Botolf drawled and, knowing exactly what his wife was doing, waited only another moment before going after her.

  Lady Mary stiffened when Sir Edric approached her. “It began to get very warm in the great hall.”

  “Too many people. Your musicians play very well.” Edric took a deep breath. “I wondered if you would dance with me.”

  “I think it would be best if I declined,” she replied in a soft voice.

  Saxan knew her uncle had been pushed to the point of desperation when he grasped Lady Mary by the shoulders. Edric would never normally handle a woman so roughly. It was all the proof she needed that something very strong flared between the couple, something Lady Mary fought to deny. She hoped that they would soon reveal exactly what that something was. There could be a simple solution they had failed to see.

  “Would you have me toss aside my given oath?” Edric demanded in a hoarse voice. “Is that what you demand of me?”

  “Nay,” Lady Mary replied, her voice thick with tears. “To do so would be to destroy the man you are.”

  “Are you saying you would not wish the man dead if he succeeds in killing the son of your body?”

  “Nay,” she cried, breaking free of his hold. “Oh, sweet lord, I do not know. I cannot say I will do as I fear, but I cannot chance it. It would pain me as much as it would you if I held all that could be between us only to watch it die because your vow forced you to cut down Cecil. Please, have the kindness to cease tormenting me.”

  Saxan hurried away, dragging a stunned Thylda after her. She winced as they came face to face with Botolf just outside of the door to the great hall. Hastily motioning him to be silent, she linked her arm with his. Thylda quickly did the same. When Edric suddenly rounded the corner and saw them, it appeared as if they had just stepped out for a breath of fresh air.