Commanded by the French Duke (Harlequin Historical)

by Meriel Fuller

  Her neck ached from the continual strain of lying to him, the continual avoidance of the truth. She picked miserably at a loose thread on her gown. Beside her, Wilhema hiccoughed loudly, then giggled. She had taken too much to drink, as usual.

  ‘I...’ Her mind cast around desperately for a way out, an escape from his searching questions. She shifted around, recognised the hazy look in her stepmother’s eyes. It wouldn’t be long before she became loud and voluble, drinking at the speed she was going. ‘I...need to take Wilhelma upstairs.’

  Guilhem studied the drooping figure behind Alinor. He laughed. ‘Running away from me won’t help you. I will get the information I need, one way or another.’ He sprawled back in the chair, raising his goblet to his lips. ‘Take her.’

  Alinor hesitated. ‘Are you going back to Prince Edward tonight?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  Her stomach plummeted. She shrugged her shoulders, feigning indifference. ‘It makes no difference to us; your chamber is prepared for the night.’ Standing up, she turned so abruptly that the outer curve of her thigh banged against the table-edge. Her eyes watered as pain seared up the muscle: a cruel bite. Guilhem’s hand was around her arm, his grip like an iron manacle, crushing her fine bones.

  ‘Get some sleep; we’ll talk in the morning. I’m not finished with you.’

  * * *

  I’m not finished with you. Guilhem’s threatening words flew after her, tormenting her as she bundled Wilhema out of the great hall with the help of Mary, her stepmother’s maidservant. They helped her up the narrow circular stairs and on to the first floor where her stepmother’s bedchamber was situated. Every few moments, Wilhelma stopped, bracing one hand against the white-plastered walls, catching her breath, her gaunt face slick with sweat. Then she would stagger onwards, supported on both sides by Alinor and Mary until, after what seemed like an eternity, they reached her chamber. Wilhelma’s slippered feet dragged across the polished floorboards as they manhandled her over to the bed.

  Mary removed Wilhema’s shoes, lifting her legs on to the bed furs.

  ‘Why does she do this?’ Alinor said, almost to herself. ‘Why does she insist on drinking so much?’

  ‘It happens most nights, my lady,’ Mary replied. ‘But more so since the men left to fight in Wales.’ Tucking the blanket more securely around Wilhelma, she straightened up. ‘Oh, I almost forgot, my lady.’ She dug around in the large pocket of her apron. ‘I found this the other day in the stairwell. I thought it belonged to you.’

  Mary’s outstretched palm held a circle of gleaming silver. A ring.

  Her heart knocked in her throat. On the outside of the ring, the crest of an eagle, the crest of d’Attalens, and on the inside, a name. Bianca. Aghast, she snatched it out of Mary’s palm, closing her fingers around it, hiding it.

  ‘Yes, it is mine,’ she replied shakily. ‘Thank you, Mary. I will leave you to take care of my stepmother now.’ Forcing her numb legs to move, she darted out of the chamber, racing for the sanctity of her own room. Once inside, she shut the door, placing the chunky wooden bar across so no one else could enter, and opened her palm.

  Bianca’s ring winked up at her. Proof that Guilhem’s sister had been to Claverstock. Thank God the maid had found it. Digging beneath the folds of her wimple and gown, Alinor extricated the leather lace that hung down on the inside of her dress, on which her mother’s ring had been secured. Undoing the simple knot at the nape of her neck, she slipped Bianca’s ring on to join it. The delicately wrought silver clinked down against her mother’s ring. She would return it to Bianca when she saw her, which, owing to Guilhem’s presence, would be sooner, rather than later.

  Tying the leather lace securely, she tucked both rings down so they sat against her skin. Her mind worked quickly. She would wait in her chamber until she knew Guilhem had gone to bed, then she would slip down, and out, heading for the village where Ralph lived. She needed to persuade Ralph to take Bianca to the coast, this very night, before Guilhem came too close to the truth. If she stayed here, it would only be a matter of time before he prised the truth from her. A vague sense of guilt swam over her as she sat on the bed to wait, her cloak gathered at her side; guilt that she was unable to tell Guilhem that his sister was safe, at least. He was worried; she could see that from the look in his eyes when he talked about her, but still, a promise was a promise, and it was not something she would give up lightly.

  Alinor lay back on her bed, resting her head against the feather pillow, kneading her weak arm. Exhaustion dragged at her eyelids. She could not, would not, fall asleep. Bianca’s freedom depended on her. Her eyelids drifted down. A pair of sparkling midnight eyes barged into her mind, the firm, delineated curve of a bottom lip. The race of her blood increased. What was the matter with her? Ever since that man had barged into her life, her perspective seemed altered, tilted oddly with the norm. He had done this. Her body felt different, flesh tingling, aware, laced with the bubbling heat of expectation. It didn’t make sense; Guilhem was an utter torment, tough and intimidating, yet she couldn’t stop thinking about his big body pressed into hers. She sat up, frowning. There was something about Bianca’s description of her brother that did not add up.

  * * *

  The chapel bell had tolled the hours and she had counted. She waited until the chapel bell rang ten times. Guilhem would have gone to his chamber by now. Rising from the bed, she swung her cloak around her shoulders, fastening it across her chest, and sticking her arms through the slits cut into the fabric in front. Opening her door, she moved swiftly along the corridor, looking neither left, nor right, her slippered tread silent. Her trailing gown and cloak slipped down behind her as she descended the stairs.

  The great hall was in darkness, save for one flickering torch by the main entrance and the dying embers in the fireplace, softly glowing. Alinor’s forehead creased; she made a mental note to speak to the servants about leaving a torch alight after everyone had retired to their chambers. The smell of wax from the spent candles hung in the air.

  From the inky gloom of the high dais, a voice spoke. ‘Good evening, Alinor.’

  Chapter Nine

  Alinor turned in shock. ‘Eustace?’ she croaked out, recognising the voice.

  At the top table, held in the shadows, a shape moved. As her eyes became accustomed to the gloom, she picked out the corpulent outline of her stepbrother, slumped in his mother’s chair, the glint of pewter as he raised a goblet to his lips.

  ‘Eustace!’ She breathed out, astounded. ‘What in Heaven’s name are you doing here? I thought you were fighting in Wales for the King...and Father? Is Father here too?’ She scanned the length of the table, but Eustace was the only person there.

  ‘No, Alinor, your father isn’t here. But I decided to come home. I wanted to sleep in a proper bed for a few days.’

  She moved lightly over to the steps of the high dais. ‘Eustace...we have someone else staying at the moment. You know what happened with Bianca d’Attalens...?’

  ‘Mother sent a message. The marriage was arranged before I left for Wales; I knew what she was planning.’ He grinned nastily. ‘Well done, Alinor. At least you can do something right, for once.’

  She licked her lips, the delicate flesh suddenly devoid of moisture. ‘Well, her brother sleeps upstairs.’

  ‘Sweet Jesu!’ Eustace banged the goblet down on the table. He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, an agitated gesture. Thrusting himself out of the chair, he made his way down the steps into the hall, glancing towards the stairwell, as if expecting Guilhem to come pounding down at any moment. In the half-light, spots of grease gleamed on his tunic. His hair was flat, limp, plastered to his oddly shaped head with dirt, a couple of strands stuck to his wide forehead. He was only a couple of inches taller than Alinor, but what he lacked in height, he made up for in girth. His tunic strained ag
ainst his rounded belly, fleshy folds gathering beneath his jawline. ‘What if he finds out what you have done?’ he demanded grimly. ‘We’ll lose everything! If only you had done as you were told in the first place! If I had been married to you, the Queen wouldn’t have sent that stupid girl in the first place!’

  Alinor sighed. ‘Eustace, you know I’m never going to marry you. Even with Bianca gone. Why can’t you accept that?’

  Her stepbrother’s face darkened, angry patches of colour appearing beneath his pale-brown eyes. ‘No, Alinor, I can’t. I want Claverstock. And marrying you is the only way that will happen.’ He grinned suddenly, showing a row of grimy, uneven teeth. ‘But you know, I don’t even have to marry you,’ he said. ‘Just have you.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Eustace.’ Alinor pivoted smartly on her heel, intending to head for the main door. ‘You’re being a fool.’ Her cloak swirled around her. Eustace was a revolting person, snide and secretive, a bully, and she wanted nothing to do with him.

  ‘Don’t mock me, Alinor.’ His hand snaked out, grabbed at her forearm, dragging her back towards him. He was surprisingly strong.

  ‘Stop this! Let go of me!’ she hissed, wrenching downwards, trying to release her arm. ‘I will tell my father!’

  Eustace smirked, his face looming close to hers. An unpleasant whiff of foetid, wine-fuelled breath, of unwashed body, filled her nostrils. ‘Your father doesn’t care about you, Alinor; all he cares about is his bloodline, you inheriting Claverstock and pleasing his darling Wilhelma: whatever she wants. And she wants me to have you. And frankly, I am bored of waiting.’

  He shoved at her so violently that her hips bumped against the edge of a trestle table. The spindly wooden legs skittered back along the flagstone floor with a discordant, scraping sound. One hand was around her throat, the other against her midriff, pushing her down so that her spine arched painfully backwards. Panic scythed through her, replacing irritation; sweet Jesu, was this truly his intention? To rape her and then claim her as his bride?

  ‘You can’t do this! Eustace, stop, please!’ Nausea swept through her as she read the determination in his round, greedy eyes, in the globules of sweat on his forehead. The hard wood of the table pressed into her shoulder blades; his fingers gripped into her painfully as he whipped up the hem of her skirts. She kicked out forcefully, her slippers falling from her stockinged feet, struggled wildly, trying to make contact with something, anything that would disable him enough for her to break free, but his heavy weight was upon her and she cried out, in fear and desperation. Her arms were pinned beneath her; his hand moved, closing so forcibly around her throat that he began to choke her windpipe. If only she could reach her knife in her belt! This couldn’t happen! She couldn’t let it happen!

  * * *

  Flinging off his tunic and shirt, throwing them down on to the wooden floorboards, Guilhem lifted the jug from the oak coffer and poured the water out into the earthenware bowl. Using one of the linen flannels folded neatly on a low wooden stool beside the coffer, he scrubbed at the bare skin of his torso, his neck, his arms. He ran wet hands through his hair, dampening it slightly. Avoiding his bandaged shoulder, he moved his arm forward in a circular motion, trying to relieve the sore skin around his wound. Drying his upper body briskly with a towel, he looked around the guest chamber. Whilst he had been eating, someone had been in to light the charcoal brazier in the corner and draw the plush velvet curtains across the wide window apertures. Candles had been set in niches around the walls, bathing the whole room in a golden glow. The large horsehair mattress on the four-poster bed was heaped with woven blankets and furs.

  A restlessness plagued his mind; it jumped like a stuttering candle as he thought about Alinor, about her stepmother. The way Alinor shifted uncomfortably, her green eyes wide and huge, when he asked her about Bianca; the dismayed expression on her pale, beautiful face when he announced he was staying the night. Was he such an ogre that she could not trust him with the truth? He realised that he wanted her to confide in him. She knew where Bianca was, he was certain of it. Pulling his shirt over his head, fawn-coloured braies hugging his lean waist, he strode towards the window, thrust back the curtain. Kneeling on to the windowsill, he opened the catch on the diamond-paned window, pushed it open. He looked down into the darkness of the inner bailey; the chill air brushed against his hair. Lit by a single torch, a guard was on duty at the gatehouse, his head lolling forward on to his chest. Guilhem picked out the low roof of the stables on the right-hand side, built into the substantial curtain wall, and the faint outline of a well, outside what must be the door to the kitchens.

  He drew back, about to close the window. And then he heard it. A woman’s shriek, bursting through the silence. Flooding the night air.

  Alinor.

  The screams went on and on. Guilhem wrenched open his door and ran, the desperate sound driving into his chest like a knife. Down the spiral staircase, his long legs jumped down the narrow steps five at a time until he burst out through the archway into the hall. He saw Alinor, arms flailing wildly, skirts bunched up around her hips, bent backwards over a trestle table and a man, pinning her down with one meaty fist, fiddling with his belt. A murderous anger broke over him, a boiling wave of fury, and he sprang forward, grabbing Alinor’s attacker by his collar, wrenching him back and shoving one heavy fist into his face. The man flailed backwards, dropping, sprawling on to the floor, head knocking back against the flagstones. His eyes rolled back as he lost consciousness.

  ‘Oh, my God, my God!’ Alinor was struggling to sit up. Tears streamed down her face, bleached white with fear. She touched her dishevelled hair with trembling fingers, her expression lost, vulnerable. Like a wraith, a ghost of her former self.

  Guilhem came towards her, folding her quaking body into his chest, his big arms tight around her shoulders, her back. The thought that she hid something from him, that she knew what had happened to Bianca, vanished, blown away by her cries for help. All he wanted to do was help her, comfort her. ‘It’s over, Alinor. He’s out cold.’

  ‘I can’t believe he would do such a thing,’ she sobbed against his chest. Her tears soaked through the fine linen of his shirt, wetting his skin.

  Above the silken brightness of her hair, shimmering beneath her gauzy veil, Guilhem frowned. For some insane reason he hoped, he prayed that he had reached Alinor in time. ‘Did he hurt you?’ he asked gruffly, latent anger licking along his veins, a rope of fire.

  She lifted her chin up, face stricken. Patches of exhaustion stained the delicate skin beneath her eyes. ‘No!’ she replied vehemently. ‘No, he didn’t!’ Her speech was jerky, blunt. One of her braids had come adrift, coiling down in a loose, glossy rope across the slope of her breast, tickling his wrist. Her cloak spread out from her neat shoulders, voluminous folds gathering softly on the table behind her.

  Relief coursed through him at her stuttered words. ‘Thank God.’ He touched her cheek, an unconscious gesture. Her skin slid beneath his fingers, a touch of downy feather. Like silk. ‘Who is he?’ He moved his hand away abruptly.

  ‘My stepbrother, Eustace,’ she whispered.

  He stepped back, hands on her upper arms, disgusted. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘I never thought he would go this far.’ Alinor raised her head listlessly, meeting Guilhem’s piercing blue eyes ‘I thought at least that I was safe from that.’

  ‘God, what sort of family do you belong to?’ he bellowed at her. He pushed his fingers through his hair, jawline rigid, strained taut.

  Alinor blinked at him, stunned by his reaction. ‘It’s not that bad,’ she ventured in a small voice.

  ‘Not that bad?’ he said, his heart squeezing at the forlorn look crossing her face. ‘I don’t understand, Alinor. Why would your own stepbrother do such a thing to you?’

  She pressed her palms to her eyes, hard, trying to stop the well of tears. ‘
Before...before the Queen decided Eustace should marry your sister, he was intent on marrying me.’ Her shoulders hunched inwards, shaking from the effort of holding the tears back. ‘But I kept refusing.’ Her trembling hands dropped from her face, her voice toneless, bleak. ‘He wants Claverstock and all its wealth, you see. I am my father’s only heir.’

  ‘My God...’ breathed Guilhem. ‘So he thought by raping you, he could claim you as his bride?’

  She nodded dully.

  ‘The man who is supposed to be marrying Bianca,’ announced Guilhem slowly, tilting his head to assess her, a lone muscle quirking in his jaw. ‘Maybe she’s had a lucky escape. Wherever she is.’

  She flinched at his pointed remark. A pall of guilt swept over her, a darkening cloak. Her conscience nibbled at her, fraying the edges of her nerves, and she shoved the thought away. ‘Do you think Eustace cares about a Queen’s demands?’ she replied bitterly. ‘He does exactly as he pleases.’

  He glanced down, then wished he hadn’t. Her gown was rucked up around her hips. Gossamer-light stockings encased the silky length of her legs as they swung down from the table. The fine indent of her knee, the push of lean muscle in her pearly-white thighs peeked out from beneath the bunched hemline. Breath snared in his chest, a surge of desire pulsing through him. For one blind, insane moment all he wanted to do was lay Alinor gently back upon the table and made long, sweet love to her. God, what was he thinking? He was no better than the man who lay out cold on the flagstones! Harnessing every last ounce of self-control, he plucked her skirts down over her knees, allowing them to fall.

  Alinor scrubbed at her eyes. ‘I thought I was safe here,’ she whispered. ‘But now...’

  He caught her quaking hands, held them against his chest. His eyes sparkled, not blue, but black, predatory, the lean handsome lines of his face inches away from hers. A musky scent rose from him, reminding her of rugged moorland, of tumbling, churning rivers. He smelled of danger, of a wildness; her body cleaved towards him even as she shook in the aftermath of Eustace’s attack. She longed to collapse against him, have his strong arms at her back once more; to draw on that strength, his solidity. She had been battling alone for such a long, long time; it felt good to rely on someone else, if only for a fraction of a moment.