Lord of Lyonsbridge

by Ana Seymour

  He moved closer to her and took her hand. “Shall I fetch you some food as well, milady? I’ve promised to take you back to Lyonsbridge as soon as I can. There’s no need for you to go hungry in the meantime.”

  She said nothing, but shook her head. He studied her more closely. He’d been right. Her big eyes glistened with unshed tears in the moonlight. The sight gave him a quick stab of sympathy, which was followed by a desire to comfort her that overwhelmed every other vestige of sense.

  He reached toward her face and rubbed gently under her eye with his thumb. “Don’t mar these beautiful eyes with tears, princess,” he said softly.

  “I’m not crying,” she said firmly, but a little hiccup at the end of her statement belied the words.

  Connor looked down at Agnes, who still slept soundly. Then he stood, picked Ellen up in his arms and moved a few yards away to a mossy hillock at the edge of the circle of trees, where he knelt and placed her on the ground. “Your eyes are wet from the night air, then,” he said, gently teasing.

  She gave him a watery smile. “Mayhap.” She wiped the end of her sleeve against her nose and gave an undignified sniff. “I’m sniveling like a coward,” she said with some irritation.

  “Ah, sweetheart, you’ve comported yourself more staunchly than many a soldier I’ve known. I find thee a wondrously brave lady.”

  Her tears had disappeared and a different emotion was in her eyes as she looked up at him. He took in a jagged breath. His head swirled, banishing all thought of the sick woman behind them, the Normans prowling the countryside, the rebellious men asleep in the cave beneath them.

  His own eyes must have reflected his desire, for hers suddenly widened and became unfocused. She lay back against the gentle slope of the hill and held her arms up to him.

  “I find thee wondrous as well,” she whispered.

  Chapter Twelve

  This time Ellen couldn’t say what had filled her with such a mixture of longing and emotion. If she could stop to reason, she’d probably realize that she was altered by the distress of her capture; the lack of sleep, the poor conditions. But as she looked at Connor’s striking, tawny head looming over her in the night, all she could think of was that she wanted to feel his lips once again on hers.

  “Wondrous,” he’d said. Aye, wondrous, she thought, as he lowered himself beside her and took her in his arms. His mouth was soft, yet insistent, and she gave herself up to it completely while all conscious thought fled.

  She lay against the soft ground, and he moved his body over hers so that they pressed together chest-tochest and leg-to-leg. His tongue probed her mouth, magically, sending sensations rushing down through her midsection. She moved restlessly beneath him and moaned softly.

  He pulled away, letting the moonlight stream over her face. “Art wondrous brave and wondrous fair, milady,” he rasped. “You’ve bewitched me, I vow. ‘Tis madness for us to be here like this.”

  At his words, Ellen lifted her head to peer down the small hill toward the sleeping woman. “Agnes?” she asked.

  He shook his head and pressed her back, stopping her question with gentle, nipping kisses. “You heard Sarah. She said the widow will sleep through till morning. But this is madness nonetheless.”

  His hand had traveled down her bodice and ended up resting just over the portion of her body where all the feelings from his kisses had radiated. The heat of it burned through the cloth of her dress. She wanted more of him. She wanted it more than she could ever remember wanting anything in all her pampered life. But she was afraid, too.

  “I’ve not known the love of a man, horse master,” she whispered, averting her face from his hooded gaze.

  He took her chin gently in his fingers and turned her face toward his. “Say my name, Ellen.”

  “Connor.”

  The word was almost inaudible, but it was enough for him. He bent toward her and brushed his lips along her mouth, then feathered kisses down the side of her neck until chills ran up and down her back. Her very bones seemed to have melted.

  “’Tis madness,” Connor said again, and she nodded in agreement. “But I want thee, if you’ll have me.”

  He stopped kissing her and waited. She’d hoped he would continue the relentless onslaught, sweeping her up in the passion she sought without giving her choice nor time for thought. But he waited.

  Her throat filled. The tears that had threatened earlier returned. The ache inside her was undeniable. She wanted him, too, but it was, as he said, madness. She was this man’s captive, this arrogant servant who insulted her way of life and defied the rule of her people.

  He saw the answer in her face and his expression stiffened. He sat up, looked away from her, brushed the palms of his hands together. He didn’t speak.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered finally.

  He shook his head, but remained silent.

  “I’ll check on Mistress Cooper,” she said in a small voice. She tried to get up, but found that her skirts were still caught underneath him, pinning her to the ground. She tugged at them, suddenly desperate to put distance between them.

  Obligingly, he moved to one side, still without looking at her.

  Ellen stood, shook out her dress and walked with wobbly legs down the little incline to where the widow lay peacefully asleep. Kneeling at the sick woman’s side, she said, “I’ll sit with her awhile.”

  She could no longer see Connor’s face in the darkness. His voice was gruff as he answered her, “As you will. I’ll keep to this bed for the night, but lest you get ideas about running off, be aware that I’ll wake at the slightest noise.”

  “I’ll not run off,” she said. “Not this night.”

  He gave kind of a grunt, then rolled over and lay back to sleep.

  Ellen sat listening to the widow’s breathing and stared into the darkness. Her body was slowly cooling, the heated frenzy over, but she felt shaky inside and empty. She’d needed something from Connor, and not just the completion of her physical desires.

  Her entire life, she’d had whatever she desired at the snap of her fingers, the raising of her voice. She’d never had to give of herself in return. As long as she could remember, she’d accepted the admiration of men as her due. But now, when once again the gratification of her whims was offered without price, she hadn’t been able to agree.

  She knew of other noblewomen who had taken their pleasures with underlings. Indeed, some of the more shameless in Louis’s court kept servants for that very purpose. But somehow she’d known that surrendering herself to Connor would require more of her soul than she was willing to give.

  The widow stirred and gave a little moan in her sleep. Ellen leaned over and rubbed the back of the sick woman’s hand with her fingertips, feeling the veins through the paper-thin skin. Her touch seemed to calm the woman, and her breathing became deep once again. Ellen looked over at the mound where Connor lay, but he hadn’t moved.

  What strange irony, Ellen thought. She’d come to England hoping to impose her Norman world on a land of savages and then depart. Instead she was finding herself ensnared with the people here in a way she had neither anticipated nor desired.

  She shivered and hugged her arms around her knees as the night winds rustled the trees around her. The tears that had sprung to her eyes earlier began to come in earnest. She rocked back and forth and let them fall, tears such as she had not shed since the day they’d told her that her mother was dead.

  Agnes was definitely better the following morning. They brought her back inside for the daylight hours, moving the Cooper campsite to the front of the cave where the air was the purest. It boosted everyone’s spirits to see the woman’s smile again, wise and gentle. But by late afternoon, when there was still no sign of Godwin and Arthur, the two fishermen, tempers began to flare anew.

  Ellen had given up her vow not to eat, though she had little appetite. Connor had not mentioned their encounter of the previous evening, and had avoided her company for most of the day.

>   When she finally went near him just as the final rays of sun were slanting through the opening of the cave, he stiffened as she approached.

  “Do you think my father’s here in England by now?” she asked him.

  “Aye.”

  “Where do you suppose the fishermen are?”

  “I know not”

  “What will you do if they don’t return?”

  He scarcely glanced at her. “We’ll send out others.”

  She sighed, a little piqued. After all, he’d been the one to stop their lovemaking the previous evening. If he’d been persistent, she imagined they would now be lovers. The deed would be done.

  “Are you annoyed with me, Master Brand?” she asked finally.

  This got his attention. His eyes fastened on her face, intense and, yes, angry. It gave her a perverse measure of satisfaction. “Angry at you?” he asked slowly. “Nay.”

  “What, then?”

  She could see a muscle clench in his jaw. “At myself mayhap. ‘Twas ill done yestreen.”

  The knowledge that he’d been affected by their kisses as much as she was a balm to the confusion. and depression she’d been feeling all day. It even allowed her to offer a small smile. “Parts of it were not ill done,” she said, gently teasing.

  A light flickered deep in his eyes. “Aye,” he agreed. “Parts were not.”

  His gaze shifted over her shoulder and the light died, replaced by wariness. Ellen turned around to see the same four men whom Agnes had scolded the other day at her campfire.

  Their leader, Humbert White, spoke. “Godwin and Arthur haven’t come back,” he said to Connor gruffly.

  “I’m aware of that, White.”

  “The boys and I have been talking, and we’re ready to put my plan into action.”

  “Your plan?”

  Humbert’s hair was wild and matted, no worse than that of many of the men in the cave, but as he started talking, flailing his arms around, he suddenly seemed to Ellen to take on the look of the madmen one sometimes found wandering around public squares. “About the girl. We’re going to send a messenger to her father and tell him that unless he leaves this land, he’ll get her body back in a box.” He said the words with relish, flashing a twisted smile at Ellen as he finished.

  Ellen expected Connor to get angry with the man, but he stayed calm. “Which one of you is going to be the messenger?” he asked. “Because I guarantee there won’t be enough pieces left of that man to put in a box.”

  The men looked at each other uncomfortably. “We could send a woman, mayhap Sarah Cooper,” Humbert offered, but the others didn’t seem to think much of his suggestion.

  From the back of the group a smaller man whose appearance was a little neater than the rest stated in a quiet voice, “You’re still lord of the Saxons, Brand. What do you think we should do?”

  Ellen looked at Connor in surprise. His glance went to her briefly, then he turned back to the men. “We wait for Godwin and Arthur one more day. If they don’t come back, I’ll ride back to the village and recruit some of the men to find us a new site. There are many there who know this coast as well as the fishermen.”

  The man at the back who had spoken said, “The masons have quarried on these cliffs. They know them well.”

  Humbert White’s expression was thunderous as he turned back to his companions. “How much longer are we going to sit here and wait for Wakelin’s men to find us?” He reached out and roughly took hold of Ellen’s upper arm, drawing her so close to him that she could smell his fetid breath. “I say the girl’s our best hope.”

  In an instant Connor stepped forward, picked Humbert up by his armpits and threw him several yards into the center of the cave. His voice was deadly. “Touch her again, White, and I’ll break my oath of peace long enough to knock your head from your shoulders.”

  White lay sprawled on the floor for a moment, looking dazed, but then he picked himself up and said, “No one’s good enough to touch ‘er but you, eh, milord? Well, you’d best think again. You’re not master of Lyonsbridge anymore. You’re master of nothing more than a stable full of horse dung. If you’re good enough for the Norman bitch, so’s any man here.”

  Then he turned and limped away.

  The rest of his companions were silent as he left. Finally Connor said to them, “Humbert’s mind is getting more unstable. You men would be better off finding someone else to follow.”

  The slight man who had spoken earlier said, “You’re still the one we follow, sir.”

  After a slight hesitation, the others nodded in agreement.

  “Then stay away from him. His kind of poison only leads to more troubles.”

  With White’s departure, all sense of confrontation had disappeared. Two of the men even made a slight bow as the group began to move away. Ellen watched them go, trying to make sense of what had transpired. That odious man had called Connor milord, and now, as she looked at the tall Saxon, she realized with sudden clarity that Connor Brand had never had the bearing of a servant, because he was not a servant.

  “Who are you?” she asked when the last of the men had left them. She’d asked him the same question shortly after they first met, and he’d replied with impudence. But now she was determined to get the answer.

  He regarded her with his steady blue eyes. “I’m the past, milady. The last Brand of Lyonsbridge. The last of the lords who ruled over this place since the days when England was naught but legends and mists.”

  Then he turned on his heel and walked away.

  Connor sat on a rock ledge looking out over the sea. He’d begun to feel the damp walls of the cavern closing in around him and had decided to take over the afternoon watch from Walter Little. He also wanted some solitude to think.

  When the Normans had come to England, Connor’s life had turned upside down, but after his parents’ deaths, he’d managed to achieve some sort of peace with his new existence. He’d expected to live out his life with his horses, seeing to the needs of the villagers and ensuring that war would never again erupt in his beloved home.

  Now it seemed as if the upheaval was beginning all over again, and it had begun before William Booth’s death. From the moment Connor had seen Ellen of Wakelin, the worm of dissatisfaction had begun to gnaw.

  He shifted his position on his uncomfortable perch, then gave a laugh of irony. Once he’d sat in his great hall in cushioned luxury, but today his seat was a hard rock, his bed a bare cave.

  He leaned his head back against the cliff wall, trying to keep his mind on the problems he and his people faced. As he’d told the men earlier, if the scouts they had sent out didn’t return, he’d find another way to search for a hideout, but he had a feeling that wouldn’t solve the problem in the long run. The Normans had left the renegade Saxons alone because the peace had held, but now that Sir William had been killed, they weren’t likely to give up searching until they’d brought someone to task for the deed.

  Then there was Ellen. Her golden eyes danced before him as he closed his own. The previous night they’d almost made love. His experience told him that if he’d pressed the issue, they would have. But he hadn’t wanted her on those terms. He shouldn’t want her on any terms. It was madness, just as he had said.

  His eyes popped open at the sound of a voice calling his name. His brother’s bald head came into view just below Connor on the cliff. “What are you doing perched way up here like a seabird waiting to swoop?” Father Martin asked irritably, puffing at the exertion of the climb.

  Connor moved to make room for the priest and greeted him without much enthusiasm. “Martin. What brings you here?”

  Father Martin carefully wedged himself next to Connor on the narrow rock, then answered, “I’ve brought more bad news, I fear.”

  Connor’s bout of self-pity dissipated and he became instantly alert. “From Lyonsbridge?”

  Martin nodded. “Lord Wakelin’s installed himself in the castle and the grounds are spilling over with men.”


  “They want William’s killer.”

  “Aye.”

  “But no one has told of this place?”

  “Nay.” There was hesitation in the priest’s voice.

  “What is it then?” Connor asked.

  “They’ve issued a warrant for Johnny Cooper.”

  “They can’t arrest him if they can’t find him,” Connor argued.

  Martin’s eyes were grave. “They say the villagers are hiding him. Lord Wakelin has decreed that one villager a day is to be flogged until the boy is surrendered and his daughter is safely returned.”

  “Flogged?” Connor felt as if the air had gone out of his gut.

  “Harry Mason’s to be the first. Tomorrow at midday.”

  “Sweet Jesu,” Connor whispered.

  Martin crossed himself. “Aye,” he said.

  Both men sat and stared out at the dark blue ocean. From this distance the violent waves looked like gentle swells. “I know not what course to take, Martin,” Connor admitted after a long pause. His voice was uncharacteristically shaky.

  Father Martin looked over at his brother and gave him a gentle smile. “Mayhap ‘tis time to look to the Lord.”

  Connor did not return the smile. He continued to stare at the water for several minutes, then slapped his palm against his thigh and stood, bracing himself against the wall behind him. “If the Lord had time for Saxons, we wouldn’t be in this coil. But ‘tis time for action, that much is certain. I’ll not let my people’s flesh be torn from their backs.”

  He slid around his brother, causing the priest to clutch the rock for safety, and started down the cliff at a reckless pace. “’Tis your own flesh’ll be torn by the rocks if you don’t have a care, Con,” Father Martin called after him. Connor did not slow his descent.

  The priest sighed, then turned around and, hand over hand, carefully began to pick his way down the embankment.

  “I’m taking you home,” Connor said.

  Ellen’s head came up sharply. She was kneeling next to Agnes Cooper, helping the widow drink some broth Ellen and Sarah had prepared earlier in the day. “Now?” she asked.