Broken Vows, Mended Hearts: A Bouquet of ThistlesPaying the PiperBattle-Torn Bride

by Gail Ranstrom

  She took a deep, fortifying breath and hardened her heart, determined not to ask him why. No matter what he said, she would move heaven and earth to make the marriage happen. She simply could not give up the only home she knew and the little boy who depended on her. Or the man who needed her, whether he knew it or not.

  For the remainder of the day, John plied her with sweet words and direct attention. His very touch as he helped her mount and dismount and the way he put a palm to the back of her waist as they walked the village and met his tenants kept her in a high state of discomposure. She felt a flutter in her belly, a rapid thumping in her chest, that tingling within her center that she always experienced when he was anywhere near.

  Somehow, she had lost the upper hand in this arrangement. The problem of her faltering control would not leave her as they rode back to the castle.

  Again he helped her to dismount when they reached the stables. He handed off their reins to the stable lad who led the mounts away.

  John drew her into the shadow of the castle wall and looked down at her. As if he had heard her recent thoughts, he said, “You have called the dance too often, Alys. Now you do not need to.”

  Ah, so that was it. He resented her taking charge after his mother died. In defense of herself, she reminded him, “You know there was no one else to do it, John.”

  “Now, there is,” he replied evenly.

  He cradled her face and leaned down to gently kiss her lips. His were cool and firm and remained closed upon hers. No grand passion stirred in him that she could discern, even though her own heart thundered like a great bevy of hoofbeats on the drawbridge.

  This would not do. He must want her, too, or all would be lost. To that end, Alys stood on her toes and kissed him with her whole heart. She slid her arms about his waist and pulled him close with all her strength. The heat of his open mouth on hers sent her senses swirling. She breathed him in, clung to him like ivy to a wall and explored his mouth with her tongue. She had never kissed a man so in her life. Blood sang in her veins and stars sparkled behind her eyelids.

  He made a sound in his throat of pleasure or pain, she could not tell and did not care. She angled her head and renewed the kiss, bound and determined that he would feel all she felt and more. He would love her back. He must!

  His arms enclosed her while his hands moved restlessly over her back, clutching her gown and caressing her through the fabric.

  Yes! He did want her! No man could give himself this way and not want her as much as she wanted him. She pressed herself to him where she wanted his touch the most, a commanding move that seemed as natural to her as drawing a breath.

  Suddenly, he broke their kiss and set her away, wearing a heavy-lidded look that made absolute clutter of what reason she had left. He removed her arms from around him and gripped her hands tightly in his. “Not like this,” he muttered.

  Then like what? she wanted to demand. Alys felt bereft, rejected and totally at a loss. That had been her best effort.

  He let go of one hand and held the other as they walked silently into the keep. Her body was on fire for him. Did he not feel anything? What must she do now?

  He stopped her before they entered the keep and turned her to him, grasping her shoulders, his fingers kneading the muscles there as if to soothe her. “The consummation would be binding, Alys, before the ceremony as well as after. If we anticipate our vows now there could be no turning back.”

  She yanked her hand from his.

  “Listen to me, Alys,” he commanded.

  She looked away, containing herself as best she could. “I cling to your every word, my lord.”

  He blew out a breath and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “Come with me,” he said finally. It sounded like an order, but she was just curious enough to obey.

  With the determined stride of one on a mission, he led her into the keep, straight through the hall and into the solar. His chamber. Once inside, he closed the door and shot the bolt. “Sit there,” he snapped.

  Alys sat, now doubly curious and somewhat amazed when he began removing his tunic. Her eyes widened when he stripped off the linen chemise beneath that and stood bare-chested before her. He lowered his chausses a bit so that they rode just below his waist.

  She stared with appreciation at the smooth, well-honed muscles of his chest and stomach, the enticing dip of his navel and the tightness of the fabric just below it. He was clearly aroused.

  “You think to impress me, my lord?” she asked with a wry smirk. “I have seen naked men before, though I admit, none so fair. Continue at will.”

  “Enough of that,” he snapped. He had stopped removing his clothes. His hands rested on his hips as he fastened his gaze on hers. “You do not know me, Alys. You think you do, but that knowledge is as false as the smile you put on when something displeases you.” He nodded. “Aye, false!”

  She dropped the smile. “I have never had anything but admiration for you, John. Surely you do not doubt that?”

  “Oh nay, I do believe it. You think I am perfect. You have said as much and I could never live up to that, Alys. You must see me as I am.”

  She leaned forward, elbows propped on her knees and her chin in her hands as she regarded him. “You will not convince me of your flaws by undressing, John. Best take another direction.”

  Without a word, he turned. Alys gasped and flew out of her chair to him, her hands stopping just short of the horrid marks upon his back. “Oh, God!” she cried, choking on the words. Tears filled her eyes, blurring the awful sight of the marred skin.

  He stepped away, then turned to face her again. “You see but one side of me and set your judgment. I do not think you shallow enough to mind a few scars, Alys, but I mean to use this as the example of what you cannot see.”

  “Wh…what do you mean?”

  “Flaws, Alys. Faults. Marks placed upon me by life these last ten years. I am but a man with those aplenty.” He reached for her hands and squeezed them almost painfully. “See me, Alys. See me, the man, not some paragon in polished armor my mother placed in your mind.”

  Alys drew her hands from his and placed them on his face, cradling it as she would a child’s. “I see you, John,” she whispered. “I feel you, the timbre of your voice, the sweetness of your breath, the longing in your eyes. You touch me even without touching.” Slowly, she lifted herself on her toes until she could reach his lips with hers and pressed a kiss there. “You are in my heart.”

  “Alys,” he groaned and took her mouth in a heated kiss that stole both breath and thought. When next she knew, she was in his arms as he carried her to his bed and placed her on it, joining her there without a pause. His hands were everywhere at once, caressing softly, then desperately, the curves beneath her gown. She writhed against him, undulating until she could feel him where her body craved him most.

  “Love me,” she whispered, pulling at his clothes even as he stripped hers away. In moments, they lay skin to skin, bodies urgently seeking, finding, pleasuring.

  Oh, she had known it would be so. How strong he was, commanding, masterful and supplicating all at once. Her fingertips explored the firm muscles flexing beneath his skin. She reveled in the way his mouth devoured hers in a shared hunger neither could satisfy with kisses. He wanted her! And she had never desired him this way even in her greatest imagining.

  Alys gave herself up to his need as she assuaged her own. She cried out to him, eager and joyous as he claimed her, making her his alone for all time. Or at least for this moment in time, a moment that swayed on the very edge of bliss for an endless golden time before crashing into it with a force she did not expect. Her body and his shook violently with shared power, surrender and a blending of souls. They were one, she thought as she floated gently down from the last tier of ecstasy.

  When he quieted and lay atop her, obviously as spent as she felt, Alys smiled into his shoulder. “I did not plan for this,” she murmured. “But I cannot regret it.”

  John s
ighed. “You might come to.”

  Dread skittered up her spine. She sighed and wrapped her arms more securely around him, feeling the scarred ridges on his back. Someone should pay for those. She understood his need to make that happen. If she were able, she would go to Spain herself and destroy the ones who hurt him so. “You think I will regret this loving when you leave me?” she guessed. “Nay, not even then. I will protest your leaving, but I understand your need to go.” She lowered her gaze. “At least I shall have this.”

  He withdrew from her and rolled to his back, lazily trailing a hand over her, pausing to cup her breast. “What have I done, Alys? Here you lie with a man you do not even know. How can I reveal myself to you when you only glorify everything I do?”

  “You speak again of these faults I should recognize?” She tangled her fingers in his hair, combing out its length and enjoying the dark softness of it. How could she help but adore him?

  “Do not tell me you know of none,” he said, stroking the curve of her shoulder as he looked away from her. “Admit them, Alys. Tell me what you truly know of me. Show me you are not the starry-eyed child I left behind.”

  She was no child. She supposed she must play this game if he was to know that. “You have a foul temper?” she muttered, glancing at his expression to judge whether that was the sort of truth he wanted from her.

  He nodded, one corner of his mouth quirking up. He made a rolling motion with one hand, encouraging her to continue.

  She inhaled a shaky breath. “You brood.” He nodded again.

  “Poor table manners,” she added, gaining a good understanding now. He was giving her leave to list everything and she was not hard put to recall a few. “Comes from eating in the field, aye?”

  “Do not excuse me. Just say your piece,” he instructed.

  Alys shrugged and inclined her head. “You scorn tradition.”

  “How so?” he demanded, then seemed to catch himself. “Never mind. Go on.”

  Alys warmed to the task. “You abhor figures.” When his brow furrowed, she explained. “The account book. You never read it.”

  It was his turn to shrug.

  “And you do…not…write…letters,” she accused, then worried that perhaps he did not know how. “Can you write?”

  He tightened his lips and nodded, looking slightly sheepish.

  “Small regard for your servants. I have yet to see you thank one.”

  “I do so!” he argued, raising himself to one elbow and glaring down at her. “I plan to knight Simon.”

  “The others, I mean. You take them for granted, John, and they work very hard for us.”

  “I see,” he said with a slight huff. “And…?”

  “Walter, of course. You should pay him more attention. He loves you well.” A thought occurred. “For the same reasons I did, of course, but let us not disabuse him yet if you intend to foster him yourself. He needs a hero.”

  A sad look crossed his face then. “You say you did love me. But now you no longer think you could? Have I gone too far with this?”

  Alys laughed a little. “You always go too far, John. That is your main fault, I think. Sometimes you must simply let things be.” She softened when he looked abashed. “The stars in my eyes are gone.” Her laughter had died. “I merely clung to the one dream that offered comfort. The dream your parents provided to sustain me.”

  “And I dispensed with their lies,” he said, his tone slightly bitter.

  “Everything they said was born of love, John. Your mother and father adored you. They had no other cause to lavish me with so much attention and guide my heart to care for you. It must have been their fondest wish to have you lead a happy and contented life once you came home to settle. It was not only for my benefit they had minstrels sing praises of your feats so often. The people here at Hetherston are ready to have you govern them as lord. I am ready to have you to husband. How do you think that was accomplished?” Alys took his hand in hers. “They laid this path for you because they cared for you so deeply.”

  He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, disturbing its neatness. Alys could see a shadow of the young lad John had been when separated from his parents by the custom of the day. His uncertainty lingered.

  “That is something to consider,” he admitted, then met her gaze with one of doubt. “But perhaps it was you they wished happy. I do see how easy it would have been for them to love you.”

  “Can you?” she asked, feeling rather wistful. “Could you?”

  John looked away, the ghost of a smile on his lips. “I do wonder how many of my mother’s letters singing your praises never reached me. Or perhaps she counted upon your beauty alone to enthrall me when I returned.”

  Alys laughed and smoothed her hand over his naked chest. “As if you would be swayed by my looks! Nay, I am not modest, only truthful. You were appalled by me when you rode in, do not deny it!”

  “In truth, I was blinded that day by my pigheaded pride and tired to death at the time.” He took her in his arms. “But you wore me down.”

  She gave him a push, then turned from him so he would not see the hurt in her eyes. What had she done? Worn him down? Pestered him into agreeing to this? Even threatened him. Where was her pride? And if she loved him, how could she hold him to those early vows he had never meant?

  “God forgive me, I would have done anything to remain here, to be your wife, to rear your brother as I promised. Anything, as you have witnessed,” she admitted with a short bitter laugh.

  “You said you did not regret it, Alys,” he reminded her.

  She shook her head. “I cannot regret the deed. I do not. But this was so wrong of me. I see that now,” she whispered, realizing the enormity of what she had done.

  “But we shall make it right, Alys. Never worry about that.” He kissed her shoulder, his lips hot, the hand he placed on her waist an intimate caress.

  For a long moment, she remained silent, then did the only thing she could do. She turned back to him, though she refrained from touching him as she longed to do. “I release you, John. We need not marry. If you will but let me have care of Walter now and again, I shall be content.”

  Oh, the lie, she thought. Quickly she climbed out of bed and kept her back to him. Tears stung as they gathered and fell. She could hardly bear to think of leaving this place and returning to her estate in the south. Leaving Walter would break her heart, but leaving John might well destroy her.

  No matter what he thought, what his mother had done or how he had dismantled her girlish dreams, Alys loved him. The man he was, not the paragon she had idolized for so long. He had been gracious in his defeat for the most part, giving in to this loving that should seal his fate, but she knew he would come to hate her for forcing his hand.

  He stood behind her now, pulling her back against him where he enfolded her in his arms and rested his lips near her ear. “You climbed into my heart and made a place there, Alys, long before today. I could not oust you if I wished to. And I do not wish to. It is your inner beauty, your fealty and constancy that have caused me to love you.”

  “You…you love me?” she asked, breathless with anticipation, not caring how love came to be, only that it was. If he were being honest, she warned herself. Was he lying to save face, to make her seem his choice and not that of his parents?

  He shook his head slightly as he spoke. “I do love you, and I am glad it is not the result of high-flown praise of you written upon a page by Mother’s hand. This is my reckoning, Alys. My love, bestowed upon the woman you have become. Were we not betrothed, I should fall on my knee and ask you for your hand this day.” He caressed her throat with gentle fingers and placed a heated kiss upon her neck.

  A shiver of pleasure rippled through her entire body in spite of her doubts. “Such a gesture I could not imagine.”

  He promptly turned her in his arms to face him, then trailing his hands down her arms to grasp her hands, he slowly dropped to one knee and bowed his head. “I beseech you,
Alys of Camoy, do me the honor of becoming my wife.” Then he looked up at her and smiled.

  Alys gazed deeply into his eyes, searching for the truth of his feelings. “Nay, I cannot,” she whispered, simply to see whether he would persist.

  “Aye, you will,” he commanded, rising and lifting her hands to his lips for a fierce kiss. His smile had flown. “And right soon,” he added with a determined lift of his brow. “Plan the wedding, Alys. Now.”

  Chapter Seven

  Their wedding day dawned bright. John hoped it boded a sunny future. Alys had agreed to release him from their contract, even after he had bedded her. He knew they must wed, though not strictly because of that. And not because his parents had wished it or that he had pledged himself to her when they were young. Nay, it was due to the fact that she had slid straight into his heart as easily as a thrice-honed dagger and he had been felled before he knew what happened. He loved the girl. The woman, he corrected his thought. The beautiful, spirited, persistent woman. He could not deny how he felt about her any longer. Still, he continued to worry that some cloud would suddenly descend and ruin everything.

  Alys had not come to him again, nor had she made any mention of their joining. She had merely thrown herself into preparation for the wedding, giving him looks that said he had leave to stop her at any time. No chance of that.

  He gave her the time to herself because she seemed to need it. Perhaps he could have enticed her into bed again, but he felt she might be suffering an attack of guilt because they had not waited. Would he ever understand her?

  He ached constantly for her, to hold her again, to feel her touch and see the love in her eyes. Could it be that she no longer wanted him as a man now that she knew she would have him as a husband? Had she been that good at pretense? Nay, she loved him. Of that, John was certain. Her passion had been real.

  Simon held out the elaborately embroidered tunic of forest-green with an edging of woven gold threads and the Greycourt device emblazoned on the breast of it. He wore dark, tightly knitted hosen to match and gold garters below the knee.