‘Who is that?’ Eleanor’s attention had been diverted, once again, by the two riders.
Mary leaned up to the glass, squinting out. She fastened on the flare of gilded light-brown hair, the familiar broad-shouldered figure and her mouth slackened, aghast, hands clapping up to her cheeks. ‘Eleanor, it’s him, it’s Giseux!’
Approaching Sambourne from the north, across a countryside sparkling with snow, Brianna, wrapped in Giseux’s firm embrace, glanced up at the towering walls of the castle with trepidation. The doubt that had plagued her mind for most of the journey, a doubt exacerbated by Giseux’s aloof, detached manner, clawed at her brain. Who could advise her if this marriage was a huge mistake? She had no one to tell, no one with whom to share such information. After leaving Walter, she had vowed, promised herself, that she would never marry again, but that promise had been made with the assumption that her brother would be in full support of her decision. And, as Giseux had pointed out to her, unless she married, she would never be free of Hugh’s guardianship. Loneliness sliced through her; despite the warmth of the man pressed against her back, she felt utterly, totally alone.
Brianna glanced down, acutely conscious of her legs encased in the rough chausses of a stable lad, the messy ropes of hair trailing across the tunic, pooling in her lap. ‘Giseux, stop a moment!’ She clutched at his forearm. His arms tensed around her as he eased back on the horse’s mane, stopping in the lee of a high blackthorn hedge, out of sight of the castle windows. The horse’s hooves drummed against the frozen muddy ruts, a makeshift path along the side of the field. A blackbird, rustling industriously in the hedge, flew off with an indignant squawking, ebony wings glossy against the snow-covered mud. The dog, tongue hanging out after the exertion of keeping pace with the horse, snapped playfully as the bird flew past, before slumping down and eyeing them with mournful accusation.
‘Why stop now?’ Giseux demanded. ‘We’re almost there.’ His hot breath tickled the sensitive lobe of her ear.
Swivelling precariously without the support of a saddle, her hip dug into his inner thigh; she flushed, trying to ignore it. The lean angles of his face were ruddy, whipped by the bitter east wind; his wide, uptilted mouth, the mouth that had roamed her flesh the night before, that had made her gasp aloud in pleasure, was very, very close: a hair’s breadth from her lips. Her breath hitched—would she ever reach a point where loving him would not be so painful? He held no love for her, he had said as much, stating that he could give her nothing other than his name. This marriage would be a simple business transaction; she prayed her heart would survive.
‘Brianna?’ His eyes glinted down at her. ‘Why have we stopped?’
Mind jumbled chaotically by his devastating proximity, she scrabbled for her reason. ‘I can’t go in there looking like this! Your parents would have a fit!’
He glanced down at her slim form. His fingers curled unconsciously around the mane. Restless, the horse sidled beneath them.
‘They won’t mind. They probably won’t even see you.’ His voice was chilly, dispassionate. The man she had made love to last night had all but disappeared. ‘Wear my cloak around you until you reach a chamber, then I’ll fetch you something.’
She nodded and he began to undo his cloak, his thoughts racing ahead. He had offered her marriage as an escape, to take his name, and his name only, as protection. But did he truly believe that was how it was going to be? In name only? He had said that in order to persuade her to agree, for, after her previous experience, any hint of a normal marriage would have her fleeing like a hare. Loving her last night had devoured his mind; she was like a magic potion, an elixir, and he would have to draw on every reserve of self-control to avoid touching her again.
Chapter Sixteen
Using his thigh muscles gripped tight against the horse’s flank to maintain their joint balance, Giseux swung the heavy cloak from his shoulders, a swirl of cloth in the pellucid morning air. He leaned back in the saddle, chest moving away from Brianna’s neat shoulder blades, creating a space between their two bodies, settling the cloak around her slender frame. The light blue wool formed a striking contrast to the brilliant gleam of her hair, tumbling in loose coils around her shoulders. Desire punched him in the gut, low, unexpected: a vivid image of Brianna lying beneath him, hair rippling out in riotous beauty from her pale face to puncture his threadbare self-control.
He jumped down, irritated, annoyed with his lack of self-restraint, moving towards the horse’s head. ‘I’ll lead us in from here,’ he announced.
‘My hair,’ she moaned, edging back into the dip of the animal’s back, missing the strength of his body behind her. ‘I have nothing with which to secure my braid.’ She had pulled most of the errant strands into a plait on one side of her head. ‘Have you anything?’ she asked, hopefully.
‘Nothing.’ His gimlet eyes trawled her face. ‘Tuck your hair beneath the collar of the cloak and stop worrying. You look fine.’
He started forwards, his leonine head on a level with the horse, his tunic straining across the heavy, bunched muscles in his shoulders. The dog, immediately alert at the slightest movement, unfolded its smooth, tan-pelted body and trotted after them, occasionally drifting to the base of the hedge to follow an exciting smell.
As Brianna studied the back of Giseux’s head, hair matted with dried blood, an acute sense of foreboding built up within her. They were so formal with each other, the conversation so stilted, that she felt exhausted with the very effort. Was this how it was going to be between them? For ever?
‘Giseux?’ Her breath floated out in white drifts on the icy air. The sunlight, so full of promise earlier in the day, nudged behind a shadowed straggle of cloud. She shivered.
He turned, expression guarded. ‘What is it now? I told you, you look fine. Enough to smuggle you in without alarming anyone, anyhow.’
‘You don’t have to do this, you know.’
‘What? Marry you, you mean? No, I don’t.’ A few flakes of snow, carried on the stiff breeze, settled on the dark wool of his shoulder, sparkling.
‘Then why are you?’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Why not? I have nothing to lose.’
‘But you do. You’re sacrificing so much. For me.’
His eyes pierced into her, molten granite. ‘And what, precisely, do you think I’m sacrificing?’
She hated his formal, distant tone, wanted to shake him, to jar him into some kind of emotion; she wanted to see the man she had witnessed last night. Clutching the flapping sides of his cloak, she yanked it sharply around her.
‘A wife to love you.’
‘I told you before,’ he replied tonelessly, ‘I’m a soldier, not a family man.’
Unbidden, a vision of their children sprang to life in his mind’s eye, her children: a little girl, hair a fiery brand, with his grey eyes. A blue-eyed boy standing tall beside his mother. A shiver of delight, of sheer, unbridled joy, flooded through him; he quashed it smartly.
‘You might feel differently in a few years.’
‘I doubt it.’
‘People can change.’
‘Not me.’ But even as he answered her, his voice cautious, wary, he knew he lied. He had changed; Brianna had changed him. She had made him turn back from his duty to King Richard, she had kept him in this country when his first instinct was always to run, to find some mindless battle somewhere with which to engage. The massive stone of guilt that had shackled his heart, dragged at his conscience ever since Narsuf, had reduced, little by little in the time that he had known her. But after what had happened, could he dare to hope to love another?
‘I realise it’s difficult to see me as some form of salvation, as a way out, but believe me, I am your only solution. Even now, your brother might be chasing at our heels,’ he reminded her. ‘You have no choice.’
‘Aye, but you do, Giseux. You do have a choice. Please, think carefully.’
He shrugged his shoulders, dismissing her concerns in an instant
. It was the only way he could keep her by his side, protect her, cherish her. He had no wish to let her go, to see her deal with the unpredictable nature of her brother. He told himself it was purely an altruistic gesture, but in truth he knew it was because he cared.
They moved through the last few fields, climbing a short, steep bank to reach the stone-strewn road that led to Sambourne. Brianna gave a start; the castle was closer than she thought, white limestone walls rising up in a jumbled succession of turrets and crenellations. Rooks wheeled and circled above one of the towers, their incessant cawing the only sound across the muffled, snow-bound countryside. The gatehouse was hushed, empty, the clattering sound of the horse’s hooves echoing in the cramped space.
‘You see,’ Giseux declared as he led the horse into the deserted inner bailey, lifting his head up triumphantly, ‘I told you, no one about.’ The dog, seeing a pack of his own loitering near the stables, bounded off happily, tail wagging.
But Brianna’s eyes were fixed on a point above his head. ‘Then who is that?’ she whispered.
Giseux followed her dismayed expression, spotting two women poised on the top step of the main entrance. An impressive stone arch, receding in graduated layers above them, framed their colourful figures. ‘Ah, well, maybe not quite deserted.’ His tone held a scant note of apology.
‘I recognise your mother,’ Brianna said, studying the slender lines of Lady Mary, a gown of rose velvet clinging to her elegant frame, ‘but who is the other lady?’
Giseux grimaced. ‘My father’s sister. My aunt. Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine.’
Immediately Brianna hunched down in the saddle, cringing, trying to hide herself away. ‘Hell’s teeth, Giseux, she’s the King’s mother…royalty!’
‘They must have seen us from the windows,’ Giseux announced, unperturbed, throwing a brief, terse smile at her cursing.
‘I can’t, I can’t meet her like this, dressed as a stable lad! You have to do something!’
Laughter rumbled in his chest; he slid two hands beneath her shoulders to lift her from the horse. One thumb strayed inadvertently over the rounded softness of her breast as he lowered her to the ground; at his errant touch a leap of passion scythed through her. ‘Act as if we care for each other, love each other,’ he ordered her sternly. ‘I don’t want my mother to think there is anything unusual about this marriage when we tell her.’
I can do that, easily, she thought. I don’t have to act. An overwhelming crushing sensation burst through her chest; she wanted to weep. Her mouth wobbled with emotion; she took a deep breath, steadied herself.
‘Come on.’ Giseux tugged at her hand, oblivious to the brimming wetness of Brianna’s eyes. ‘My aunt will understand.’ He led her across the cobbled courtyard, fingers laced with hers in a fast-paced walk. Brianna clutched frantically at the sides of the cloak, trying to hide her peculiar attire.
‘Giseux, what is the meaning of this?’ Eleanor’s voice boomed down as they reached the bottom of the steps and started to climb. Giseux’s fingers tightened on Brianna’s—a gesture of reassurance, of support? ‘I gave you a direct order to go to Germany and you dare to disobey me? Fortunately for you, Robert de Lacey has conducted himself admirably in your stead!’ One critical eye scoured the girl at his side, a pathetic figure wrapped in a cloak several sizes too big for her. Keeping her eyes trained on the maid, she wrenched her mouth to the side, hissing at Mary, ‘Who is that chit? And what has she done to her hair? It doesn’t look right.’
Mary struggled to keep the elation out of her voice, and the curiosity—her son was still here, in this country, and with Brianna! Undiluted happiness fluttered through her heart; she yearned to know the details, but for now, with Eleanor’s tense, demanding demeanour at her side, she chose to answer her sister-in-law’s question. ‘The girl is the sister of a fellow Crusader, Hugh of Sefanoc. And she hasn’t done anything to her hair—that is the problem.’ She flashed a warning look at her son, who appeared to be dragging the poor girl reluctantly up the steps.
‘My Lady Eleanor, Mother, at your service.’ Drawing level with the two women, Giseux greeted them formally, bowing low. Clamped to his side, Brianna had no choice but to bow as well. One long red-gold strand slipped out from beneath the cloak’s fur collar.
‘Hardly at my service, young man.’ Eleanor sucked in her breath, studying the girl’s dishevelled appearance with disapproval. ‘There had better be a good explanation for this.’ But even as the words issued from her lips, a smile twitched her face. Giseux had always been her favourite nephew.
‘Oh, believe me, there is,’ he replied. ‘We need a priest, and fast.’
Eleanor’s eyes rounded, pupils dilating rapidly in the faded grey of her eyes, plucking haphazardly at Mary’s sleeve. Lady Mary took a step back, almost knocking into the wide-planked door behind her. A gust of wind seized the hem of her gown, blowing it sideways, rose-coloured fabric rippling against the silvered oak of the door.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Eleanor asked, her voice rising querulously. She shook her head, fractionally, as if she hadn’t heard him aright.
‘I said, ‘we need a priest,” Giseux repeated calmly. ‘To marry us.’
Eleanor’s gaze narrowed suspiciously at the portion of Giseux’s cloak covering Brianna’s stomach, lips curling in irascible distaste. ‘And why do you need a priest so quickly?’ she demanded.
A piercing draught of wind cut around the back of Brianna’s neck, chafing her frozen face; she shivered. Balanced on that top step, she wondered whether she clung to a dream. Maybe she would have been better slinking away, away from all this when she had had the chance. Lady Mary caught her slight movement, acknowledged the cold, pinched lines of Brianna’s face and pitched her a look of sympathy.
‘Mayhap we should continue this conversation inside, where it’s warmer,’ Giseux’s mother suggested, resting her hand on Eleanor’s slim arm, clad in a tight-fitting sleeve of green silk. Eleanor nodded briskly, tossing her head around to march inside, close to Mary. Even following at a distance, Brianna could hear her strident mutterings…‘What does he think he is doing? Who is that girl?’ She failed to decipher the low tone of Mary’s calm responses.
‘She’s taking it well,’ murmured Giseux as they moved along the shadowed corridor in the wake of the two ladies.
‘You think so?’ Brianna whispered, incredulous. ‘I would hate to see her when she objects to something.’
‘Believe me, this is mild by comparison,’ Giseux remarked. ‘We’ll be married by the end of the day.’
Her heart plummeted, then leapt in one crazy, jagged sensation. She paused, a shaft of light pooling from a high window lighting her face. Her skin was translucent, glowing with a pearl-like lustre. ‘This doesn’t feel right, Giseux.’ Her words jolted out.
His expression was like stone, inscrutable. The limpid light shining into the corridor highlighted the sculptured angles of his face, lending him a devilish air. ‘I’m not like Walter, if that’s what you’re worried about. Marriage to me means freedom for you, more freedom than if you remained unmarried.’
‘You’d do that…for me?’ Her eyes traced the two definite points on his upper lip, the generous fullness of his mouth.
‘I’ve no wish to curb your ways, your spirit, Brianna. Surely you knew that? You will be able to do exactly as you wish in this marriage, hang on to that independence that you value so highly. I’ll not bother you.’
Her heart folded in upon itself, packing down tight, smaller and smaller. Other than giving her his name, he wanted nothing more to do with her. Would they even live together?
As Giseux pushed aside the thick curtain that screened the entrance to the great hall, allowing Brianna to precede him, Eleanor and Mary had already reached the top table, where Jocelin sat, his head bent, body hunched over a stack of papers. He glanced up, disconcerted, as Eleanor launched into a high-pitched tirade, her beaded gown sparkling in all directions as she gesticulated with a thrusting arc of her a
rm towards Giseux and Brianna.
‘You had better tell me everything, Giseux,’ Jocelin urged, his grey eyes moving with studied interest over Brianna’s slight form. ‘Come, sit beside me, both of you.’ He indicated the two empty seats on his right-hand side, before stacking the loose parchment into a pile, pushing it away from him.
Giseux sat next to his father, raking one hand through his hair, pulling Brianna into the seat beside him. ‘There’s no time, Father. We want to marry and Hugh’s against it. He’s probably on his way here now.’ The husky rumble from his chest reverberated through Brianna’s slight figure; her spine tingled.
Jocelin’s attention turned to Brianna. ‘And you, my dear, I assume you’re the bride-to-be?’
Brianna nodded, mouth suddenly dry. This was it; this was the moment when she would have to start living the lie.
‘You wish to marry my son?’
‘I do,’ she whispered. That, at least, was not a lie. She clamped her lips together, reluctant to enter into the finer details, sure that in her befuddled state she would let some vital snippet of information slip, information that would not tally with their story and give them away, reveal the falsehood of their situation.
‘And your brother is your guardian? I understand both your parents are dead?’
‘That is correct, my lord.’ Brianna folded her trembling hands in her lap, adjusting her position so that the unfastened sides of Giseux’s cloak would not fall open to reveal her boy’s garments.
‘As your guardian, he has the right to decide whom you marry.’
Giseux sprung to his feet, impatient, eyes firing darts of pure silver. ‘Hell’s teeth, Father, we know all this! But once she is married to me, he will be unable to do anything about it! That is why we need a priest, now!’
‘Eleanor can give you the permission you need,’ Lady Mary’s quiet voice chimed in, wondering at the passion in her son, wondering at the lightness in his eyes. He was different, different because of…this maid, Brianna, who sat quietly at his side. She leaned forwards, smiling, snaring her son’s brilliant eyes. ‘She is the Queen of England, after all.’
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