By King's Decree

by Shari Anton

Gerard played with her hair, knowing he’d never known a coupling so satisfying. Not only was his body sated, but his mind as well. Such contentment was a new feeling. No leman, no occasional wench had evoked such serenity, such peace. But Ardith had, with her innocence and abandon. Maybe that was why he—

  He cut the thought short. Surely, the brilliance of their joining had scrambled his brain. He admitted a certain fondness for Ardith, but no deeper emotion. He’d wanted her with an obsession he’d never known with another woman. But that was only because he planned to take her to wife, was curious to know if she would please him in bed.

  He had given no thought to pulling out at the last, a method he’d employed with others to withhold his seed to keep from siring a pack of bastard children. Instead, he’d wanted to stay buried deeply within Ardith’s softness until long after the last tremor of his release. They would marry shortly, and the sooner she swelled with child, the better. Gerard stroked Ardith’s back and scattered feathery kisses on her forehead. Smiling, he conjured visions of ways he would let Ardith express her joy when she learned he planned to take her to wife.

  Ardith burrowed deeper into the nest of down and fur. She didn’t want to wake, but the low buzz of Gerard and Thomas speaking, pulled her from sleep. Then a door closed and all was quiet again.

  The pelts and mat held the warm, rich aroma of Gerard’s masculine scent, mingled with the heady odor of their loving. Awash with lingering contentment, Ardith propped herself on an elbow.

  Gerard had tied back the bed curtain. Slivers of moonlight eased through narrow window slits and candles had burned to mere stubs. In amazement, she realized she’d slept the afternoon away.

  Gerard padded into the chamber—sleepy-eyed, barechested, breeches molded to his lower body like a second skin. She ignored the brief tug on her heart, pushed aside the thought that never again would she see Gerard in all his virile glory, bathed in moonlight and drowsy from sleep. She knew she should feel embarrassment or shame for coupling with a man not her husband, for enjoying this stolen time, but she couldn’t rouse regret for her decision. She’d joyfully surrendered to the man she loved, and would do so again.

  A self-satisfied smile crossed his face as he sauntered toward the bed, scooping up her chemise from the floor without losing stride.

  “I had hoped you still slept,” he said, bouncing down onto the mat. “Since you are awake, ruining my plans for a gentle rousing, you must pay a forfeit—a kiss for each piece of clothing you wish returned.”

  “And if I do not wish to dress?”

  “Then, scamp, I will collect the kisses anyway and our meal will get cold. Then Harold and Corwin will arrive and—”

  “Oh dear, I forgot!” Ardith reached for her chemise but Gerard pulled it out of reach.

  “My kiss first.”

  Ardith tried to satisfy the condition with a small peck on his cheek, but Gerard demanded forfeit in full measure, pulling her against him for a long, tender kiss.

  “We will never get dressed if you persist,” she breathed.

  Gerard chuckled and handed over her chemise. Then he got up, flipped open a trunk and took out a square of white linen. “Here,” he said, tossing the towel.

  While his back was turned, Ardith wiped away the bloody proof of having become a woman in every way.

  Gerard proved an adept lady’s maid, deftly tying laces and plaiting her hair, though Ardith was glad for the veil to cover the uneven twists. After each service he performed, he collected a kiss, each kiss more potent than the one before.

  Gerard ate with gusto. Ardith pushed small bits of meat around on her trencher but rarely put a morsel in her mouth.

  “Do you find the food not to your liking?” he asked.

  “The food is delicious.”

  “Then why are you not eating?”

  Because she knew that when the meal was over, so was this special time with Gerard. Because she knew that Corwin would tell her father of Bronwyn’s matchmaking and Harold would be angry. Because she knew that within a short while the entire direction of her life would change.

  Within the hour, Gerard would name her groom and hand her over to another man.

  Chapter Ten

  “Well, chit, I heard of your mischief,” Harold said, lowering himself into the chair Ardith had given up. “Thought you had more sense. Can see now my mistake. Made up my mind. Sending you to the nunnery. Apologize for any trouble she caused, my lord.”

  Ardith cringed.

  “Ardith is not entering a nunnery, Harold,” Gerard stated. “She and Bronwyn should not have tried to arrange a marriage without your knowledge, but no real harm has been done.”

  “No harm?” Harold challenged. “We cannot let this go unpunished, my lord. What if other women took it into their flighty heads that they could choose their own husbands?” Harold visibly shuddered.

  “Agreed. In this case, however, Ardith is not choosing a husband. I have already decided her future and she cannot fulfill my plans from inside a nunnery. As for trouble,” Gerard continued with a shrug, “I find her company…pleasurable.”

  Ardith felt her cheeks glow red. She could feel Corwin’s knowing stare, but refused to look at her brother.

  “Planning to take her as leman, are you?” Harold asked.

  “Father!” Ardith gasped.

  Gerard smiled. “Nay, I plan to make her my wife.”

  His smile faded as he watched the reactions. Corwin stood with hands clasped behind his back, frowning. Harold braced his hands on his knees, shaking his head in disbelief.

  Ardith’s beautiful blue eyes glistened, her bottom lip trembled. “Oh, nay. Oh, Gerard,” she whispered, then spun around and buried her face in her hands.

  His confusion and frustration exploded. “What is this?” he roared. “I just offered to make Ardith my wife. One would think I had ordered her whipped!”

  Harold looked up and cleared his throat. “Baron Everart once offered for Ardith…for you. Pained me to refuse.”

  “You rejected the offer?” Gerard asked, stunned. “Why?”

  “Had to,” Harold answered with a slight shrug. “Your father did not tell you?”

  Gerard shook his head, a knot tightening in his gut.

  Harold took a deep breath. “Baron Everart wanted to tie Lenvil closer to Wilmont, and to do so through marriage. I had other daughters to choose from, but he was decided on Ardith. Thought her most suited to your temperament. Told me to think on it while he asked royal permission. King William approved, though he felt Everart could do better by you. I did, too. Told him so.”

  “You refused because you thought Ardith inferior?”

  Harold shook his head. “I refused because before I could agree, a boar ripped open her belly. Scrambled her innards. I could not give you damaged goods, my lord, now could I?”

  Damaged! The word slammed into Gerard’s vitals. “Damaged.” He said the word aloud, trying to deny the meaning.

  “The chit’s barren. You need an heir, my lord. Ardith cannot give you one.”

  Gerard remembered tenderly kissing the scar that slashed pale and thin across Ardith’s quivering belly. From end to end he’d paid homage to the mark of her courage.

  Long fingers of defeat gripped Gerard’s heart, squeezing to an unbearable ache. Until now, whenever disappointment threatened, he’d found a way to thwart whatever obstacle stood in the way of victory. But neither wealth, nor influence, nor the strength of his sword arm could make Ardith whole.

  Hellfire, he could not marry a barren woman. He couldn’t marry Ardith. “Are you sure?” he asked, knowing the answer but protesting the unacceptable.

  “Elva may be a ruddy nuisance with her muttering and bones and entrails, but she be good with ailments and such. There is no reason to doubt her judgment.”

  “I doubt,” Corwin said softly.

  Ardith turned, wiping away tears. She wasn’t a weeper, but Gerard’s bittersweet proposal had cut too deep. She’d listened to her father’s e
xplanation, relived the pain of the wound and the sorrow of her barrenness. She’d accepted Elva’s word, as had her parents. That Corwin doubted was a surprise.

  Harold sighed. “Have you trained for midwife now, son? What would you know of female innards?”

  “No more than any other man, I suppose,” Corwin admitted, turning from the fire. “But I do know Ardith. I know my twin.”

  “That foolishness again?”

  “Call it what you will, Father, but Ardith and I know otherwise.” Corwin crossed the chamber and put his hands on her shoulders. She looked up into bright blue eyes, eyes that could peer into her soul if the need was great. “Do you remember when I fell from the tree?”

  “Of course I remember. You had climbed the oak. A limb broke and you fell. But Corwin, what has that—”

  He shook her. “Just answer. Now, what did you do?”

  “I ran to the manor, fetched two men-at-arms to help. I remember running behind them, shouting at them to be careful because—”

  “Because you knew, without touching me, without asking if I was hurt, that I had broken my arm,” Corwin finished.

  “Poppycock,” Harold injected.

  Corwin ignored the outburst. “Who scolded me from here to heaven’s gate when I damn near drowned in the river? Who was the one who came screaming through the wood, cutting through my fear so I could battle the current?”

  Ardith remembered sensing Corwin’s fear, his inability to breathe, and screeching his name as she ran.

  “And who,” he continued very softly, “has kept my most shameful secret these many years?”

  “Nay, Corwin,” Ardith whispered, putting her hand on his chest, begging him not to unburden his guilt before Harold and Gerard. Never, in all of the years since her wounding, had she or Corwin talked about what had really happened.

  “I do not understand, Corwin,” Gerard said.

  Corwin backed away, the slump gone from his shoulders. “Ardith and I share a link, my lord,” he said. “Though my father would wish it otherwise, the link exists. Elva warned us, as children, not to speak of it for fear of someone declaring us unnatural. But I swear, my lord, the link exists. Ardith knew my arm had broken because she could feel the break. She knew I was in danger when I floundered in the river because she could sense my distress.”

  Gerard’s glance flicked from one twin to the other. “This link you speak of works both ways? You know what the other is doing, feeling?”

  Corwin shook his head. “’Tis not constant, though when we are together, we can read the other’s mood easily. Distance weakens the bond, yet if one of us were in mortal danger while far apart, I believe the other would know.”

  Harold slapped a palm on the table. “This bond you think you share with your sister is pure drivel and has naught to do with Ardith’s infirmity.”

  “But it does,” Corwin protested, looking not at Harold, but Gerard. “The link flares hottest at times of great danger, or intense pain. Just as Ardith felt my arm break, so did I feel her pain when the boar slit her belly. Had not her pain stung me, pierced my panic, we might both have died that day.”

  Tension drained from Corwin. Gerard showed no reaction.

  Harold’s features twisted in pained denial. “You did not panic. No son of mine—”

  “Father, I froze. I could not move from sheer terror. And because I panicked, Ardith nearly died. Would you have noticed, shed a single tear at her loss?”

  “Corwin, please,” Ardith pleaded for him to stop. Atop all else, she didn’t want her father and brother to argue. Neither, apparently, did Gerard.

  “What has this bond to do with the state of her…health?” Gerard asked.

  Corwin ran a hand through his hair. “When I broke my arm, Elva straightened the bone and lashed on splints, which I grew heartily sick of wearing. One day, I decided to take them off. Ardith stopped me. She rubbed her own arm, told me the bone had not healed enough for me to remove the splints.”

  Gerard’s eyes narrowed. “Then when Ardith was wounded, you also felt her heal.”

  “Not precisely, my lord,” Corwin plunged on. “’Tis difficult to explain, harder yet to understand. ‘Twas not the wound Ardith nearly died of, though she lost a lot of blood, but the fever that raged and refused to abate. Since that day, I have seen men wounded in battle survive deeper slashes, regain the use of limbs, become whole again. Your chest wound proves my point. Though split by a sword, the muscles healed and you regained the strength needed to wield a sword. Through both the link, and what I now know of wounds, I believe Ardith healed completely. I believe Ardith is whole, undamaged.”

  Ardith worried her bottom lip. Could Corwin be right? The scar slashing across Gerard’s ribs screamed of blood and severed muscle. Her own wound suddenly seemed a mere scratch.

  “Why have you not told anyone before this if you are so sure?” Gerard prodded.

  “Who would listen? Elva and my mother would have laughed. My father?”

  Corwin glanced at Harold, seething in the chair, then looked back at Gerard. “The only one who might have believed was Ardith, and what good would the knowledge do her while at Lenvil? My lord, I beg of you, if you cannot bring yourself to risk marriage to Ardith, then allow her to choose from among the men Bronwyn thought suitable.”

  “Why would those men wish to take the risk?”

  “Bronwyn presented only men who already have heirs, who need neither children nor coin. Or if she wishes, let Ardith return to Lenvil. But, please, my lord, do not allow my father to entomb her in a nunnery.”

  A quick rap on the door preceded Thomas, followed by two kitchen wenches. Thomas quickly sensed the tension in the room. “We can return, my lord,” he said, and turned to usher the girls out.

  “Nay,” Gerard said. “Let them clear away the platters.”

  While the girls bustled about the table, Thomas pulled a scroll from beneath his tunic and handed it to Gerard. “A messenger has just arrived from Wilmont.”

  Gerard broke the wax seal and unrolled the parchment. He read, his face passive, then he handed the scroll to Corwin.

  Corwin scanned the message. “You were right, my lord. What now?”

  “Go down and find the courier. Send him back to Wilmont to tell Stephen to bring the monk to court. When you return, we will seek an audience with King Henry.”

  Corwin hesitated, glancing at Ardith.

  “Later, I promise,” Gerard said.

  Ardith didn’t understand, but obviously Corwin did because he immediately turned and fled the chamber. Close behind, the kitchen wenches scurried out.

  Gerard ran a hand across the back of his neck. He stood but an arm’s length away, easy enough to reach, yet too far away to comfort. Nor was she sure he wanted her touch.

  “You are dismissed, Harold,” he said.

  Her father stood. “May I remind the baron that he cannot risk Wilmont on the whim of a brother who dotes on his twin? I have never believed in this bond they claim to share, nor should you, my lord.”

  “Good eve, Harold.”

  Casting an angry glance in Ardith’s direction, Harold bowed and strode out of the chamber.

  With a wave of his hand Gerard dismissed Thomas, who ducked under the archway leading to Gerard’s bedchamber, leaving her alone with Gerard in the sitting room.

  Gerard paced. “Well, Ardith, you have been very quiet.”

  “I was not asked to speak.”

  “Which, I have noted, has never before stopped you from offering an opinion.” He stopped pacing. “Tell me, does this bond really exist between you and Corwin? Can you sense when the other is hurt or endangered?”

  Ardith took a long, calming breath. She could hear Elva’s warnings never to speak of the link. Unnatural. Witches.

  “If we are near to each other, aye. When Corwin was at Wilmont, he took bruises and cuts I could not feel, but when he was at Lenvil…”

  Gerard cupped her face with his hands, tilted her chin upward. She sensed
his question before he asked and tears welled her eyes again. Blast, she’d cried more this past hour than in the past year.

  “Then Corwin could be right? You could be…whole?”

  Green eyes, filled with hope, begged the answer he wanted to hear and Ardith longed to bestow. But she had to be honest.

  “I know not,” she said. “Males and females are made differently. We do not speak of an arm or leg. I want so very badly to believe, but I would lie if I said I had no doubts.”

  The hope left his eyes, but not the softness. “Then tell me this—if given the choice, would you wed another or return to Lenvil?”

  “No nunnery?” Ardith choked.

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “I would not subject those good ladies to your sharp tongue and willfulness.”

  “Then I would return to Lenvil, if Father will allow.”

  Ardith melted against him as he pulled her close, enfolding her in a warm, tight embrace.

  “Given a choice, would you marry me or return to Lenvil?”

  How could he doubt? “I would be proud and honored to be your wife.”

  After an answering squeeze, he said, “Your father poses a problem. I may not send you to a nunnery, but I believe Harold is angry enough to spirit you away before we can resolve this dilemma.”

  Ardith frowned into Gerard’s chest. “Father may be a bit forgetful, Gerard, but he is not senseless. If you order him to desist, he would not dare disobey.”

  “I will not take the chance,” he said, loosening his hold but keeping her within the circle of his arms. “Thomas!” he called. The lad immediately rounded the arch. “Give my greetings to Lady Bronwyn. Tell her to pack Ardith’s clothing and have the trunk sent here.”

  Ardith bit her bottom lip as she watched Thomas leave.

  “Are you about to argue with me?” Gerard asked.

  Ardith shook her head.

  Thomas returned, followed by two men carrying a large trunk, followed by Kester, Bronwyn and Elva.

  “If you think to plead for Ardith’s release—” Gerard began, but Kester held up a stopping hand.

  “Nay, Baron Gerard. Given Harold’s anger, removing Ardith from his reach is wise. Bronwyn and Elva are here to help Ardith settle.”