Baron of Blackwood

by Tamara Leigh

  She shrugged. However, the gesture was so lacking nonchalance she laughed. “I do like it.”

  “I am pleased,” he said, and she sensed a lessening of his tension that was surely due to her unease over the circumstances under which they had wed. He jutted his chin in the direction of Castle Mathe that had come into view minutes earlier. “With regret, the ring must be removed.”

  Before they rode over the drawbridge with the felled deer that was to account for their early departure.

  Quintin glanced at Sir Mathieu where he rode behind, leading the horse over which the two men had tied the deer they had hunted following the wedding ceremony. The fresh venison at table this eve would make their meal as near a wedding feast as was possible without any but the three of them knowing it was the Lady of Blackwood who presided over it alongside her husband—her left hand as bereft of a ring as it had been when first she had sat at table with the man who was no longer her enemy.

  “Alas,” she said and passed her reins to him. As he guided her horse with his, she unfastened her necklace from which a cross hung and threaded the ring onto it. Then she secured the gold chain about her neck and tucked cross and ring into her bodice.

  “This eve, you shall wear it again when we are together as man and wife,” Griffin said.

  This eve. Once more, the prospect of being intimate with him thrilled and frightened. She longed for the promise of what there was to learn beyond kisses and caresses, but how would he react when he saw the result of his brother’s cuckolding? If he saw…

  Not for the first time, she considered snuffing the candles and hoping his hands did not learn what his eyes could not. It would only delay the inevitable, but it was her wedding night.

  Griffin reached her reins to her. “This eve, no mere imaginings of how you will fit against me,” he said when their hands touched.

  Warmth suffused her face, and feeling more a girl than a woman, she boldly said, “Methinks what remains of the day shall seem much too long.”

  He laughed. “’Tis good you have grown accustomed to my smile. Such talk inclines me to it—and makes me long to press it to yours.”

  She marveled at having previously deemed its half hitch arrogant and self satisfied—of course, it had been whilst they were enemies—but since Bayard’s departure, she more often saw its wonder, amusement, and flirtation. Rather than offend, it made her smile in return, and so she did until they drew near Mathe’s walls.

  As expected, awaiting them in the outer bailey was not only Arturo, who had hours past accompanied them to the stables, but Sir Victor. A vexed Sir Victor, though few would know it to look upon him.

  Quintin had known he would not like that she had departed without his escort, but Griffin had said Sir Mathieu’s witness to their marriage would have to suffice since her brother’s knight might insist it be delayed until the king made his determination.

  “Baron de Arell,” Sir Victor said as Griffin swung out of the saddle, “you ought to have informed me of your plan to take Lady Quintin hunting so I could accompany her as is the charge given me by my lord.”

  “I considered it.” Griffin reached Quintin’s side ahead of the other man and lifted her down.

  Since she would not be so near him again until she joined him in the lord’s solar this night, she was reluctant to lift her hands from his shoulders.

  He must have seen it on her face, for he said low, “This eve,” and turned to her brother’s knight. “My apologies, Sir Victor, but ’tis a poor host who unnecessarily disturbs his guest’s rest in the absence of need. And as you can see, naught befell your lady that might reflect ill on you. Her restlessness has been calmed by a day of riding and hunting, and she is all the better acquainted with the one she shall soon call husband.”

  Quintin stepped before Sir Victor. “I did not mean to cause you worry. Since the man I believed to have stolen my brother from his bed has proved himself an ally, I saw no harm in joining him.”

  “No harm? Regardless of whether or not you are to be his wife, Lady Quintin, ’tis unseemly you rode from Castle Mathe without me.”

  She smiled, and feeling one side of her mouth tug higher than the other, wondered what other mannerisms of Griffin’s might find their fit on her face in the years to come. “No more unseemly than that I rode on Adderstone,” she reminded him.

  “You err, my lady, for then you had an escort.”

  She nodded at Sir Mathieu. “Baron de Arell and I were not alone.”

  Sir Victor’s nostrils flared with a breath that returned composure to him. “I would have your word that whilst you remain under my watch, you will not venture forth again without me.”

  She glanced at Griffin.

  “Your word,” her brother’s knight insisted, “else I shall eschew the chamber Baron de Arell gave me and sleep on the floor outside your door.”

  And no wedding night would she have. “Very well. Do I go venturing again beyond Castle Mathe’s walls, I shall do so in your company.”

  He nodded curtly.

  Griffin stepped forward. “As Sir Mathieu and I will be occupied in seeing fresh venison on the table this eve, and I am sure Lady Quintin would like to rest, I shall leave her in your care, Sir Victor.”

  “My lady.” The knight motioned her to precede him.

  Looking one last time at Griffin, Quintin slid a hand up beneath the cover of her mantle and touched the ring nestled between her breasts.

  Upon reaching the great hall, she was relieved Lady Thomasin was not present, there being nothing Quintin wanted more than to enjoy a bath and a long rest in preparation for the night ahead.

  Sir Victor saw her to her chamber, and at her bidding departed for the kitchen to arrange for bath water to be heated.

  Feeling the fatigue of her early rising and all that had followed, Quintin crossed the room. As she sank onto the bed, she mused that she would not sleep there this eve. But then, neither might she sleep in Griffin’s bed.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The sleep of the eternal, for which the one remaining Foucault might find it hard to forgive him.

  Griffin stared at Thomasin who delivered grim tidings, she who was not to have known that when she ventured outside the walls, ever a knight followed at a distance to ensure her safety. But now she knew, Sir Otto having been forced to reveal himself when, during her return from a nearby village, Baron Boursier had overtaken Thomasin.

  However, Otto’s defense of his lord’s daughter had been unnecessary. Boursier’s ride across Blackwood had not been an act of aggression. He had come to deliver news to his sister of her mother’s passing. And yet he had deferred that pressing duty when Thomasin inadvertently revealed the location of the hovel where a friend of hers dwelt—a woman she called Aude—whom Boursier had suggested might be Agatha of Mawbry. If so, had the one who aided Lady Elianor in imprisoning the Baron of Godsmere escaped her own imprisonment?

  Griffin pressed his hands to the table in his solar where Thomasin had insisted she reveal that which made her nearly breathless. “Speak to me of this Aude.”

  “As I told The Boursier, she is a simple woman, a wanderer upon the three baronies who aids me in distributing food to the poor.” She raised her eyebrows as if challenging him to rebuke her for taking food from Mathe.

  But he knew about her ventures. And approved. “Continue.”

  “He wished to know when last I had seen her, and I told ’twas five days past here at Mathe.” She frowned. “And peculiar that was since never have I known her to enter the walls, and as she did not seek me out after I lost sight of her, she seems not to have come for me.”

  Griffin looked to Sir Otto who stood alongside Sir Victor at the end of the table. As he was the knight most often tasked with following Thomasin, he asked, “You have seen this Aude?”

  “I have, my lord. As Lady Thomasin tells, she appears harmless, so much methinks her simple minded.”

  It did not sound like the cunning Agatha whom Griffin knew only by
word of mouth, but that did not mean it was not. He returned to Thomasin where she stood opposite him. “So now Baron Boursier rides for that woman’s hovel you say is upon the lake where the three baronies converge.”

  “Aye, he seemed to think she is in danger.”

  In danger? Or a danger? Likely the latter, considering the import of informing his sister of her mother’s death.

  With whom had Thomasin been consorting?

  She sighed. “He said he shall explain all later, and I should tell you and Sir Victor of Lady Maeve’s death so you may be prepared to relinquish his sister for her return to Godsmere to bury and mourn her mother.”

  “He would himself reveal to Lady Quintin her loss?”

  “Aye.”

  Griffin lowered his head between his outstretched arms. This day, the joy of a wedding was met with the sorrow of a death. While he had spoken vows with Quintin, had her mother, who would never know her Foucault blood would live on in the generations born of his union with her daughter, breathed her last? And how would Quintin receive the tidings?

  He nearly groaned in remembrance of her concern over being long absent from her mother and insistence she depart Mathe with her brother. Though she had admitted she preferred to remain with Griffin, a daughter’s loyalty would have returned her to Lady Maeve had he allowed it. But he had been determined to ensure the woman who entranced him was all the sooner his.

  He looked up. “Did Baron Boursier reveal the cause of death?”

  “He did not.”

  “When shall he arrive to escort her home?”

  “He did not say, though surely by the morrow. What will you do, Father?”

  He straightened. “Honor his wish that he be the one to tell Lady Quintin of her mother’s passing.”

  And pray her loss does not come between us, he silently added.

  The abundance of venison lent a festive air to the wedding feast though only three knew it for what it was. But most peculiar, that air did not extend to Griffin. The smiles he returned were forced and not one was uneven.

  Under cover of the table, Quintin had placed a hand on her husband’s thigh, and when he looked at her and she asked if all was well, his assurances had not been genuine. Something troubled him. As then, now her mind turned over the possibility he regretted taking her to wife. Still, when he came abovestairs, he would find her waiting.

  Having remained in her chamber while others sought their night’s rest—among them Thomasin and Rhys who shared a chamber and Sir Victor who had so often looked kindly upon her during supper he had surely forgiven her—she had slipped out after Griffin’s squire finished readying his lord’s chamber for the night. Though she had feared Arturo would follow her, he had merely raised his head and watched as she entered the solar.

  Some of what the squire had done Quintin had undone. With the iron poker, she had rearranged the logs on the fire so they did not burn as bright. She had extinguished the candles except for the one on the table beside her. And sitting on the mattress against the headboard, she had drawn up to her waist the covers the young man had turned down.

  And so she waited, often touching the stones in the ring she had returned to her finger and pressing her arms to her sides when shivers of anticipation ran through her.

  At last, the sound of boots coming off the stairs. One set only. Had Griffin and she wed openly, he would have been accompanied by select guests who would put him to bed with his bride. She did not miss that ritual, though she prayed for Bayard’s retention of his lands that would give Griffin and her occasion to wed before others. Her mother would not like losing her daughter, but she would wish to witness the ceremony.

  The door opened, and she felt more than saw Griffin’s gaze fall upon her as he entered the warmly glowing chamber.

  He secured the door, crossed the solar, and halted at the foot of the bed.

  Had there been only the hearth’s fire at his back, she would not have seen the set of his face, but the candle beside her cast enough light to show it was solemn and his eyes did not speak to her as they had done this day upon their return to the castle.

  “My bride is abed,” he said, no eagerness in his words.

  “You do not seem pleased, Husband. Though at meal you assured me all is well, something troubles you.”

  “I received ill tidings late this afternoon.”

  “Of?”

  “Naught you need worry over, though I think it best we delay our nuptial night.”

  Disappointment gripped her. “’Tis quite serious, then.”

  “It is.”

  “I am sorry to hear it but relieved ’tis not me who causes you to be distant. I feared you might regret your haste in wedding me.”

  “Nay, Quintin, I am pleased you are my wife.”

  In this he seemed sincere—and determined to hold her gaze lest what lay beneath her chemise proved too much temptation.

  “Then come to bed.” She turned back the covers on his side. “Even if only to hold me again as you did that night I feared all was lost.”

  And might yet be if the king denies Bayard, the thought slipped in. But she would not think there.

  Griffin nearly smiled. “Certes, this time I would not be satisfied with only holding you.”

  “Then do not. Whatever has happened cannot be undone, aye?”

  His jaw shifted. “It cannot.”

  “Then its worries can save until the morrow.” Or could it? Might the tidings be something over which she ought to be concerned?

  “I do wish to lie with you,” he said, “but—”

  She drew a sharp breath. “Have you received word from the king? Has he decided against Bayard?”

  “Nay, no word yet.”

  “Then?”

  “I cannot say, Quintin.”

  Her anger stirred, but a quarrel was not how this eve was meant to begin and end, not after the vows exchanged this morn and the words passed between them on their return to Mathe. She wanted what they had promised each other, no matter what might be learned of her.

  She pushed aside the covers, revealing bare calves and ankles beneath the hem of her chemise, dropped her feet to the floor, and stepped forward.

  Griffin opened his mouth as if to protest, but his eyes had strayed where he clearly did not wish them to.

  She halted before him. “No matter what the day has wrought, Husband, first it beautifully wrought you and me.” She slid her hands from his chest to his shoulders. “As you advised my brother, consummation is as much a measure of marriage as the speaking of vows. So on our wedding night, let us be one.” She leaned up and offered her mouth.

  “Quintin,” Griffin groaned and took her face in his hands. It was no gentle kiss, nor was her answer to it. It was long and of such hunger that, were it of the belly, she thought she might not cease filling it even at the risk of death.

  Then it ended, though only long enough for him to swing her into his arms. Reclaiming her mouth, he carried her to the mattress, followed her down onto it, and began drawing up her chemise.

  As air whispered up her knees and thighs, followed by his hand, she remembered. And reached to pinch the candle’s wick, leaving them in naught but the fire’s glow.

  Eyes glittering above hers, Griffin asked, “Is this modesty, Wife?”

  That, too. More, it was the scar and his brother, neither of which had any right to her wedding night.

  She laid a hand on his jaw. “Did you not once say a man and woman alone in the dark does not a restful night make?”

  His laughter fanned her face. “I did, though methinks not so dark a husband’s eyes are denied being as intimate with his bride’s lovely form as his hands.”

  “Might your eyes be jealous?” she quipped, though her stomach cramped with fear he would relight the candle.

  “Indeed,” he murmured, “but there will be other nights. So this one… You would not have it be restful?”

  She moved a hand to the belt about his tunic. “For this, I slept
hours ere supper.”

  “You, Quintin de Arell”—he lowered his head—“are a most eager bride.”

  “Meaning you, Husband, ought to take advantage.”

  He did, and when night began to move toward day, his contented wife tucked her head beneath his chin and whispered, “I am yours.”

  “Of course you are,” he said, and she smiled in remembrance of those being the first words he had spoken to her the day she had come before his walls and announced she was Lady Quintin of Castle Adderstone, of the barony of Godsmere, sister of Baron Boursier. Now she was of Castle Mathe, of the barony of Blackwood, wife of Baron de Arell.

  And as she drifted toward sleep, it struck her that the only thing that would make her happier was tidings that Godsmere remained Boursier.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Were it possible, Griffin would have his only regret of the night past be that he had not been careful to ensure his bride did not conceive whilst their marriage remained unknown, but there would be other regrets.

  He should not have succumbed to Quintin’s sweet seduction. Once she was told of her mother’s passing, she would regret they had known happiness during a time better given to grieving. Though Griffin had honored the behest that Bayard Boursier be the one to inform his sister of her loss, her guilt would manifest itself in anger.

  Almost wishing that when she had pressed about the ill tidings, he had delivered them, he set another log on the fire, causing the flames he had coaxed from the embers to begin an exploration of the new addition that would ensure the chamber was comfortably warm when his wife arose. It was a task usually left to his squire, who had tried the door a quarter hour past and, finding it locked, departed.

  As for the maid who straightened the chamber each morn, Griffin would tell her to leave it be, allowing Quintin to sleep as long as her body asked it of her. Hopefully, a long rest would allow her to better endure her loss.

  He straightened and looked around. While he had tended the fire, Quintin had turned from her side to her back. Black hair beautifully stark against the white pillow, displaced covers revealing the tops of her breasts bared by the absence of the chemise he must have rid her of during their lovemaking, she tempted him to return to her. It was good she yet slept.