Lady of Lyonsbridge

by Ana Seymour

  A glow of light was showing on the eastern horizon. Fantierre looked toward it, his thin face thoughtful. “We will buy your lady that time, my friend. And, as you say, when Richard returns, it will be a better England for all of us. Now I must go back.”

  “Oh, surely you’ll not go back to the castle,” Alyce exclaimed. “What if they know you were the one who led Thomas in tonight?”

  Fantierre laughed and reached for her hand. Though she was grimy and still wearing men’s clothes, he lifted her fingers to his mouth and planted a kiss on them as if the two of them were in the most elegant salon in Paris. “Don’t fret about me, ma chère. I’ve managed to ward off Dunstan’s suspicions thus far. Any day now, Richard will return and I can throw off the mask I’m forced to wear, pretending to be loyal to that cur Dunstan and his master, John.”

  He turned to offer a hand to Thomas, who grasped it with both of his. Then with another one of his unmistakably foreign bows, he whirled around and strode off into the brightening dawn.

  “I’m afraid for him, Thomas,” Alyce said after he was gone.

  “Aye, he barters the devil for his life each day, but, as he said, it shouldn’t be so for too much longer.”

  Kenton came up beside them. “We’re ready to ride, Thomas. The coin is safely loaded. It’s all there.”

  Thomas nodded. “I’m changing plans slightly, Kenton. I’ll meet you and the men in Dover.”

  Kenton looked surprised. His glance slid to Alyce. “Thomas, we don’t have time—” he began.

  Thomas interrupted him. “I’ll not tarry. I’ll ride with the lady Alyce back to Sherborne, but I promise, you’ll see me in Dover shortly after you arrive yourself.”

  Alyce tried to protest. “My men will see me safely back…”

  Neither man paid her any attention. “You know the meeting place?” Thomas asked.

  Kenton’s expression was disapproving, but he made no further argument. “Aye. How long should we wait for you?”

  Thomas took Alyce’s arm, turned her abruptly around and began pulling her toward the horses. Over his shoulder, he answered curtly, “You won’t have to wait for me.”

  “I know you’re angry with me,” Alyce said to Thomas finally, after they’d traveled for half the morning without speaking. The two of them were riding a few yards ahead of the three Sherborne guards.

  Thomas glanced over at her. “’Twas a damn fool escapade, but I blame myself for letting you come with me in the first place.”

  “I insisted on coming.”

  “Aye, you did.”

  They rode in silence for another few moments, then Alyce said, “I’m sorry.”

  “We’re fortunate that no ill came of the episode.”

  “But it did. That poor guard’s face.” She shuddered. “And I wish your friend Fantierre had not had to go back there.”

  “He knows what he’s doing.”

  Alyce sighed. Obviously, nothing she could say was going to soften Thomas’s anger, which even she admitted was well deserved. She made one more attempt. “At least you got all the money back safely for Richard.”

  “Aye.” This time he did not even look at her.

  “I intend to send word to Prince John, telling him that I paid my tax, that my messengers were treated abominably in the bargain, and that I don’t expect to be bothered by him again.”

  This elicited a small smile from Thomas. “No doubt the prince will be less than pleased with that message.”

  “I don’t care. As you yourself have said, he’s not the king. He never should have arranged a marriage for me in the first place.”

  “You already have one powerful man angry with you. It might not be wise to raise Prince John’s ire as well. If he gets angry enough, he could decide to give Dunstan what he wants—tax or no tax.”

  Alyce sighed. “Then I’m no better off than I was before. I’m still at the mercy of unscrupulous men who will do what they want with me.”

  Thomas pulled his horse to a halt just as the road neared a small stream. Fredrick, Hugh and Guelph rode up beside them. “We’ll stop here for rest and water,” Thomas said.

  The three guards dismounted and led their horses down the grassy bank. Thomas jumped off his stallion and walked over to Alyce, holding his arms up to her.

  “I’m beginning to think ’twould be divine justice to let Dunstan have you,” he said, “but unfortunately, I wouldn’t be able to stomach the thought of it. So I guess I’ll have to make sure it doesn’t happen.”

  Alyce gave an indignant huff. Thomas had come to her aid, but his attitude told her that he was just one more male trying to control the way she wanted to live her life.

  “And just how do you intend to do that, Sir Thomas of Havilland? I thought you were leaving directly to meet your men in Dover.”

  “I am.”

  “And from there you will be taking Richard’s ransom to the Continent.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Which makes you a rather unlikely protector to keep me from any schemes that Dunstan and Prince John might devise.”

  Thomas was still holding his arms up to help her down, but she refused to move. “Get down,” he ordered. “If you don’t need the rest, your horse does.”

  Reluctantly, she let him help her off. “You have no answer for that one, do you? How does a knight protect his lady when he’s not even in the same country?”

  She could see that her words disturbed him, but his answer was calm and deliberate. “He’s considering locking her away in a tower somewhere,” he said grimly. “But the first thing that he does is make sure that the lady understands that she does, indeed, belong to him.”

  Alyce opened her mouth to ask him what he meant by that remark, but he had already marched down the bank toward the stream.

  Philip of Dunstan paced the length of his armory, the captain of his castle guard standing at attention in front of him. “Am I to be cursed with idiots at every turn?” Dunstan asked.

  The captain remained silent, uncertain how to reply.

  “Am I?” Dunstan roared.

  “Ah, nay, milord. That is, ah—”

  “First the blundering fools who can’t even carry out a simple assignment to take over a backcountry castle.” Dunstan threw out a long arm and sent a pile of weapons clattering to the floor. “They let themselves be outwitted by a slip of a girl.” He stabbed his captain with a gaze. “Do you have a single soldier who’s worth the food we feed him?”

  The captain swallowed painfully. “Aye, milord. You have many good men in your ranks. I believe if you’d let me pick a contingent to go to Sherborne—”

  Dunstan shook his head in disgust. “Nay, I’m going to have to handle it myself. I should have done it long ago.”

  “You’ll go to Sherborne, milord?”

  “Aye. ’Tis past time I paid a visit to my charming bride-to-be.”

  “Very good, milord,” the captain said. “About tonight. Of course, I’ll be disciplining the guards—”

  Suddenly Dunstan held up his hand and stopped pacing. “We have a traitor,” he said slowly, his eyes narrowing. “Someone led those men into the castle tonight.”

  “Aye, milord. I’m afraid you might be right.”

  “A filthy, bloody traitor,” Dunstan repeated, running his hand over the sharp edge of a sword that was mounted in one of the wall racks.

  “Do you think it’s someone working for Richard?” the captain asked.

  Dunstan shot him an exasperated glance. “Of course he’s Richard’s man. I want him found.”

  The captain bowed. “Aye, milord.”

  “But don’t kill him.”

  “Milord?”

  “Find him and bring him to me. I want the pleasure of skewering the bastard myself.”

  Lettie fussed around Alyce as if she had been brought back from the edge of Hades, which wasn’t too far from the truth, Alyce thought, shuddering as she remembered her night in the bowels of Dunstan Castle. She had sworn Fredri
ck, Hugh and Guelph to secrecy on the details of the adventure, but it was obvious to her old nurse that she had been through some kind of an ordeal.

  The arduous ride had not been conducive to conversation, so Alyce had been left to ponder the meaning of Thomas’s remark beside the stream. He wanted to be sure she knew that she belonged to him, he’d said—words of a lover or a husband. But the remark had been made with a stern, almost angry demeanor, certainly not a loverlike expression.

  She had to admit that his words had caused a tingle to run along her limbs, much like the feeling she’d had when he’d first kissed her. But she didn’t want to belong to him or to any man. Hadn’t they just risked their lives on the botched tax delivery to prove just that?

  They had not stopped on the way home. Thomas had kept pushing them through the entire night. By the time they’d arrived at Sherborne, after nearly two days with no sleep, they were exhausted and aching. Alyce had been barely civil to him as she’d offered him a bed to rest in before he started the trip to Dover.

  “Thank you,” he’d answered, equally short. “I do need to sleep, but I’ll see you before I leave.”

  Without answering, she’d let Lettie lead her up to her chamber. Her nurse insisted that before her charge could seek her bed, she had to wash away the grime of the hard ride. Though Alyce was dizzy with fatigue, she found that it was satisfying to scrub her skin until it stung, knowing that she was washing away any remaining filth that still clung to her from the Dunstan jail.

  Finally, the bathing was done. She donned a light night rail and, refusing the breakfast Lettie brought to her, fell onto her pallet. In spite of the bright morning sun streaming into the room, she was asleep within seconds.

  The sun was reddish gold when she awoke in the late afternoon. A sound had awakened her. She opened her eyes to see Thomas standing just inside the door to her chamber.

  Alyce sat up in bed, not alarmed exactly, but ill at ease. She had a feeling that she was finally about to receive the scolding she’d been expecting since her rescue at Dunstan. But Thomas’s face did not look angry as he turned back to the door and closed the latch with a decisive click. It looked…determined.

  “I’m sorry to have to wake you,” he said, turning back to her and walking over to the bed, “but I have to leave soon for Dover, and we have some unfinished business to take care of before I go.”

  She looked up at him, surprised. “Business?”

  “Aye.” He took hold of her feet with one hand and moved them so that he could sit beside her on the bed. “As you pointed out back there on the road, you may still be in danger from Dunstan or Prince John or both. Do you remember our conversation?”

  She remembered every word of it. “I still intend to send word to the prince, but I’ll try to be diplomatic with my message. Is that what you’re worried about?”

  His gaze was roving over her. Suddenly she was aware that the thin lawn of her nightdress concealed little. She reached for the blanket to cover herself, but his hand stopped hers. “Leave it,” he said, his voice low. “I like looking at you.”

  “’Tis not proper for you to be here—” she began.

  “I don’t intend for it to be proper,” he said. “I don’t intend for it to be proper at all.”

  Chapter Nine

  Somewhere in her throat a pulse began to pound. She didn’t need to ask what he meant by the words. The intensity of his eyes left no doubt that his thoughts were no longer on court intrigue or bride taxes.

  “Thomas, you were the one who said this couldn’t happen between us,” she said, making her words as direct as his gaze.

  “I’ve changed my mind.”

  His hand held hers prisoner against the blanket. She pulled away. “Perhaps I’ve changed mine as well,” she said, but little tremors had begun deep in her middle.

  “I don’t think you have. You want this as much as I. We’ve both wanted it since the first moment we set eyes on one another. Do you deny it?”

  Part of her wished he would stop talking and simply kiss her, as he had done before. The other part wanted to bolt from the bed and flee the room. Slowly, she shook her head. He held in a breath as he waited for her to say, “No, I don’t deny it.”

  That was enough. He reached for her and lifted her to his lap. “I thought about this with every beat of my horse’s hooves all the way from Dunstan to Sherborne,” he said.

  Alyce had had much the same feeling, but she didn’t have time to tell him so before his lips closed over hers and he pushed her back on the bed. His wool tunic was rough and cold against the warm softness of her gown, but she hardly noticed, as all her feeling centered in the silky joining of their mouths.

  Her breasts grew hard, and he responded by moving a hand to knead them softly through the thin gown. “I’ve long thought about doing this as well,” he murmured. “I’ve spent long reveries thinking about it. Though in the best of them,” he added with a smile, “they were bare.”

  As he spoke, he reached down to pull up the hem of her night rail. After a moment’s hesitation, she moved to help him lift the dress over her head, leaving her naked.

  He sat up and threw the dress aside, then looked down at her. “Even ‘Rose’ does not do justice to thy beauty, sweetheart,” he said, his voice suddenly husky.

  Strangely, she did not feel at all shy, lying there with his gaze on her. Even when he ran his hand slowly, almost reverently, from her knee to her breast, she felt no embarrassment. What had he said on the road that day? That he wanted to be sure she knew that she belonged to him. In that moment, she did know it. She belonged to Thomas Havilland, body and soul.

  She closed her eyes and gave herself up to the feeling of his hands on her skin—delicious, sinful pleasures she had never felt before. Then he was naked, too, and it was not just his hands but his whole body that stroked hers, the scratchy hair of his thighs against her smoothness, the hard muscles of his chest against her pliant breasts.

  “I don’t want to hurt you, my love,” he said. “We’ll take as much time as you need.”

  But Alyce was feeling urges that did not allow for leisurely exploration. With a small whimper of longing, she tightened her arms around Thomas’s back and settled her body firmly against his. Sensing her need, he readied her with practiced fingers, then entered her quickly, whispering words of encouragement in her ear.

  She felt a slight sting, but it was soon gone, replaced by more urgent yearnings. “Shh, sweetheart, relax,” he told her, moving with exquisite slowness. Just when Alyce thought she could not stand the wanting, it burst upon her, like dozens of shooting stars radiating from that special private spot where they were joined.

  An exhalation of air and a tightening of his body told her that Thomas, too, had found his release. Afterward, he dropped his head heavily to rest on her chest. She closed her eyes and lay quiet, loving the feel of the weight of his body all along the length of her.

  It was several moments before he lifted his head. She gave him a tired, satisfied smile.

  “My Rose is happy,” he said, dropping a light kiss on the tip of her nose.

  She nodded drowsily, but after a moment, she added, “I thought it would be more complicated than that.”

  He looked a little insulted. “I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

  “You misunderstand me. It was not at all disappointing. It was simple and right and…wondrous.”

  He moved to one side and nestled her in his arms, her head on his shoulder. “Aye, it was that.”

  “I know nothing of lovemaking, but somehow I knew it would be like that between us. I was angry and hurt that night on the road. It seemed that, halfway to the goal, you decided that you were no longer interested.”

  Thomas chuckled. “I swear this must be the first time in history that a man has had recriminations for not taking advantage of a helpless female.”

  Alyce bristled. “I’m not a helpless female.” When he smiled, she added, “I realize that I have managed to get my
self into trouble a time or two since you first met me, but you’ll have to take my word for it that I’m not usually helpless. After all, I did ward off Dunstan’s men for almost a year.”

  “Sweetheart, I take back the words. You are, indeed, one of the least helpless females I know. But that still didn’t make it right for me to seduce you.”

  Alyce refused to accept his characterization of their lovemaking. “I thought we were seducing each other,” she said firmly.

  Thomas gave a snort of exasperation. “That’s not the way it works,” he said dryly.

  “So what changed your mind? Why did you decide to make love to me tonight?”

  He rose up on one elbow to look down at her face. “I told you on the road today.”

  “You said that I belong to you.”

  “Aye. You do. I’ve become convinced of it. When I learned that you were imprisoned in Dunstan Castle, I knew that I couldn’t have stood it if Philip of Dunstan had taken what was destined to be mine.”

  As the flush of their lovemaking faded from her cheeks, Alyce felt the first prickles of irritation. “I’m a noblewoman in my own right, Thomas. Mistress of Sherborne Castle. I’ve paid my tax to the king so that I can be my own woman and belong to no man.”

  “Aye, your obligation to the king is paid. So now you need belong to no man but me.” He gave her one of his disarming grins, but somehow it was not enough to make the words palatable.

  She sat up and said stiffly, “I need belong to no man—including you.”

  Still smiling, he put a proprietary hand on her stomach. “Shall I make love to you again to convince you?”

  She pushed his hand away. “You sound like some kind of pillaging knight, gloating over a conquest. Is that what this is?”

  Thomas’s grin died as he sat up beside her. “Sweetheart, if this was a conquest, ’twas you who did the conquering. When I thought about you and Dunstan, I realized that you were meant to be with no one but me.”

  It was the second time he had mentioned Dunstan. She remembered now that Thomas had admitted he knew the baron. “How did you and Dunstan meet?” she asked.

  “The baron rode with us on Crusade.” His voice had stiffened.