“By God, he must be a fitting handful for Eduard.”
“He is a true wolf’s cub,” Alaric agreed lightly. “I see more of you growing in him each day.”
“Whereas I see more of his mother.” The gesture that accompanied another robust roll of laughter sent Lord Randwulf swaying off balance again and both Alaric and Robert reached out hastily to offer assistance. “Bah! Heave off, the pair of you; I am not ready to meet the floor just yet. Come with me while I hobble and limp my way into a corner where, Deo volente, we shall be left in peace with a tankard or two of good, strong ale. Where the devil is Eduard? Surely, by St. Anthony’s longest whisker, he has not been away so long as to forget his way to the cellars?”
CHAPTER FOUR
Eduard could have found his way to the huge cellars blindfolded. The descent into the bowels of the keep took him down a winding corkscrew staircase, the passage lit at intervals by torches propped in iron cressets bolted to the stone walls. Where there was a torch, there was usually a landing or passageway marking the entrances to the rooms used for storing grain and vegetables, bolts of precious cloth, oaken bins of recently harvested apples and turnips. In this vaulted underbelly of the castle there were also chambers originally designed for confining prisoners, and, in a salle one had to pass before reaching the deep, cool core where the casks of wine and ale were kept, there was a complete armoury that could be used in times of siege to repair and replace expended weaponry.
Neither the donjons nor the armoury had been used in recent years, although both were lit and cleaned regularly to discourage rats and other rodents from increasing their families. The armoury was also used to store the castle’s private stock of weaponry, with racks of swords, lances, crossbows, and precious hoards of raw iron. Here, with its heady smell of well-oiled metal and leather, Eduard had often come to admire the Wolf’s cache of deadly trophies won in tournaments and battles he had fought from one end of the Continent to the other. The walls of the great hall were hung with crossed swords and lances, decorated with the pennants and prizes won from his foes … hundreds of each, to be gazed upon with proud remembrances, each with its own story of victory, of meeting and overcoming impossible or improbable odds. But here, in the darkest heart of his castle, was where Lord Randwulf kept his private victories. Here were kept the stories he would not boast of before a roomful of boisterous knights.
There was the sword King Richard had given him on the redoubt outside Jerusalem—the same sword he had not used to obey the command to aid in the slaughter of a thousand unarmed prisoners Richard had had no further use for. There was the armour, black and gleaming, he had worn the day he had met his brother Etienne in mortal combat at Bloodmoor Keep … and never worn again. There was the sword—oddly shaped and fitted with iron sleeves that could add or decrease the weight and balance of the weapon—the Wolf had used this long ago to strengthen an arm so ravaged by hideous wounding the physician had predicted he would never use it again.
Eduard’s footsteps slowed, as they often did when he passed the armoury. The door to the chamber was partially open and a light glowed from inside—nothing unusual in itself, and he might not have stopped, might not even have taken a second glance had the faint but unmistakable rasp of a sword leaving its sheath not set the fine hairs across the back of his neck prickling an alert.
FitzRandwulf’s hand dropped instinctively to the hilt of his own sword and he stepped quickly to one side of the door, his back pressed to the wall and his body immersed in the darkness.
A shadow cut across the path of the light where it spilled out into the corridor and Eduard’s gaze flicked to the wall on the far side of the chamber. A silhouette bloomed larger than life on the rough stone, thrown there by whoever was cutting and capering in front of the torch. It was the silhouette of a woman, identifiable by the unbroken sweep of her skirt. She was holding a sword, testing its weight and balance, and as she spun to parry the thrust from an imaginary opponent, the long, unbound waves of her hair lifted around her shoulders.
Eduard’s hand relaxed from his sword and he let out his breath in a slow, steady stream. Whoever the girl was, she had a deal of gall to be in there touching things she had no business touching. He took an angry step toward the door, but was brought to a dead halt again as the intensity of light was broken a second time, not by a shadow, but by the flesh and blood outline of the guilty culprit herself.
The woman’s shape was blurred by the loose-fitting tunic she wore; more so by the incredible abundance of fiery red hair that tumbled and swirled about her shoulders in a sleek, shining mass of curls. Her movements—twisting, dodging, pivoting on her heels—caused the gleaming red waves to dance like live flames in the torchlight, fanning out in a bright coppery swirl when she spun, and crushing to her shoulders in a froth of red and gold and amber when she stopped or suddenly changed directions.
“Hah! Foiled, Sir Knight,” she muttered in smug triumph. “And such a pity to have to bleed all over your fine new tunic.”
Intrigued, Eduard folded his arms over his chest and watched. The girl was not familiar to him, but then he had been absent three months and would have no way of knowing any new servants on sight. Although he should have known her. He should have been able to spy the unusual colour of her hair from across the widest part of the bailey.
Eduard’s train of thought, along with his breath, was interrupted abruptly as the girl turned fully into the light and used an impatient hand to push the mist of curls away from her face. It was a face designed to turn a strong man’s knees to water, for it was heart-shaped and presented on a slender, arching throat. Her skin was fair and flawless. Inordinately large, thickly lashed green eyes were set above an exquisitely delicate nose, complimented by a mouth as full and lush and perfectly shaped as any sent to torment a lusty man’s dreams, and Eduard was forced to modify his original assumption that she was a common maid who worked in the castle. Nothing about her was common. Not the colour of her hair, not the colour of her eyes, or the tilt of her chin. Even the wool in her tunic was of the finest weave and the hose he had glimpsed molded around a trim ankle was of sheer, unblemished silk.
She was no stranger to the feel of a sword either. Her grip was firm, her wrist steady. Granted, the weapon she wielded with such gleeful bloodlust was a woman’s shortsword, but it was maneuvered with a confidence and expertise gained only through much practice. Even as he watched, she carefully lifted the blade and sighted along the length of the steel, turning it slightly this way and that to gauge its character against the telling flare of the torchlight.
Midway through her inspection, something beyond Eduard’s line of sight caught her attention and she slowly lowered the sword again. She moved out of the light and Eduard heard the clink of metal as one weapon was set aside and exchanged for another. When she moved again into the centre of the room, she was holding a heavy longsword, the blade a full three feet long and fashioned from twice-tempered Toledo steel. Eduard recognized the sword. He was familiar with its weight and balance and his first thought was that she must possess an excellent eye to have picked it out from among so many others. His second thought was that the notion was preposterous. A woman knowing one blade from another? Doubtless he would have to step in soon to prevent her from slicing off her own foot.
In the meantime, the girl traced a fine, delicate hand along the edge of the sword, her fingertips skimming over the shallow blood gutter that ran the length of the blade. Using both hands, she lifted the weapon so that the light flared and skipped along the surface of the polished steel, then she swung it in a slow, graceful arc, moving her body side to side, setting her feet in an attack stance.
Her first lunge was executed without fault; her second ended in a clumsy attempt to counter the momentum of the sword after her legs had become entangled in the folds of her skirt.
Eduard, still shielded by the gloom of the outer corridor, allowed a grin to steal across his face, somehow managing to stifle the guffaw of laug
hter that teased his throat.
The girl frowned and set the blade to one side. She reached up beneath her chin and, after a brief tussle with laces, dropped the cumbersome weight of her overtunic onto the floor. Dressed only in a knee-length pelisson, she swept the Castilian sword like a scythe, attacking the discarded pile of wool and sending it whirling away into the shadows.
Oblivious to the eyes following her every move, she lunged and parried, smote and hacked at her enemy with a two-handed vengeance that lured Eduard closer and closer to the open doorway. He could feel a dampening of his skin between his shoulder blades just as he could see a similar fine sheen gleaming at the girl’s temples and across her brow. His heart was thudding loud in his chest. So loud, he reasoned afterwards, it must have been the noise of it that caused the girl to stop mid-stroke and stare out into the passageway.
The sight of two glowing eyes set in a disembodied head caused her to gasp and sent the sword flying out of her hands. It clattered into a nearby rack, unseating a brace of other swords as well as various pieces of armour plating. The metal clanged and banged, the sound echoing off the damp stone walls and bouncing out into the corridor.
Eduard bent to catch a steel disc as it rolled unerringly through the gap in the door, and the movement startled another choked gasp from the girl’s throat.
“Who are you?” she cried. “What are you doing out there? How long have you been standing there spying on me?”
Eduard had his attention momentarily distracted by the sight of the long, willowy legs clad in silk to the knees. The pelisson would normally have allowed a gap of only a few inches above the garters, but part of the hem had become caught up under her arm with the happy result that a portion of her thigh was bared from her waist to the tops of her hose. His gaze, understandably reluctant to abandon such a comely sight for the blazing fury of her eyes, took its time making the ascent, lingering on the trim little waist and the agitated rise and fall of firm, round breasts.
“I asked you a question, Churl! Come forward at once and offer your answer!”
Eduard straightened to his full height and met her hot stare.
“Forgive me, demoiselle,” he murmured. “I should have made my presence known.”
“Indeed, you most certainly should have,” she retorted. “I ask you again: Who are you and how long have you been standing out there spying on me?”
Eduard laid the flat of his hand on the door and pushed it wider, letting the light from the torch attach his head to his shoulders and cast a partial glow over his features.
“It was not my intention to spy on you,” he assured her.
“Or to frighten you. As it happens, I had to pass this room on the way to the wine stores and—”
“And you thought you might as well stop and amuse yourself at my expense?” The look she gave him was one of utter and complete contempt—a look usually reserved for a creature of low birth who would dare lift his gaze to the level of his betters. Eduard remembered then that he had dressed in worn clothing that morning, intending to spend a sweaty afternoon in the practice yards. His shirt was of the same coarse linen worn by tillers of the soil; his hose were wrinkled and dusty. Because of this, she thought him a common, ignorant lout and, despite being half-naked in an isolated room with a man easily twice her size and strength, showed not a shred of hesitation in challenging him.
“In truth, I was more curious than amused,” he said. The smile he was having difficulty concealing tugged at his mouth as he strove not to look down at the enticingly exposed hip. “You hold a battle sword as if you were no stranger to it. An unusual accomplishment for someone of such youth and … bearing.”
The blaze of green eyes narrowed, reducing the intensity, but not the impact. “There is no mystery in knowing how to defend oneself. Most especially from lechers and voyeurs who have the look and manners of gawping apes about them.”
Eduard’s smile won out. “An ape? Surely you misjudge me.”
The ravishing beauty took a long, hard look at the man who stood before her. His smile was pure insolence, his stance bespoke an easy arrogance that came to one unaccustomed to answering too many questions. He was imposing in a rough-hewn sort of way. Long-limbed, with a fine spread of shoulders, muscled heavily no doubt from lugging full casks of wine to and fro the cellars all day. His jaw was square and capable of framing any expression save for humility; his mouth was a stern slash of cynicism. His eyes were the colour of slate after a thorough soaking—dark, yet flecked with sparks of some other hue … blue, perhaps … that would need the harsher revelation of sunlight to identify. Handsome. Swaggering. Besotted with himself. King of the scullery wenches and milch-maids, she surmised, with a directness in his gaze that was far too bold for his own good. For anyone’s good.
She was very much aware of the musky, animal scent about him, an incense that made her draw upon all her defenses in order to keep from imagining the heat and texture of the flesh so carelessly exposed through the loosened vee of his tunic. She was not altogether successful in smothering her curiosity, for she found herself wondering, for one irreverent and irrational moment, if she were but a humble maid, unconstrained by birthright or propriety, if she would be so outraged by the obvious gleam of interest in his eyes.
She moistened her lips with care. “Misjudge you, knave? I think not. More’s the like you misjudge yourself and your effect on women of unimpaired senses and sensibilities.”
Eduard’s mouth curved up at the corner and his gaze slid with shocking deliberation to where the outline of her breasts betrayed just how unsensible an effect he was having on her. The weave of the cloth was fine enough to echo the nervous tremors that were racing through her flesh. Fine enough to leave no doubt as to the sensations flowing through her body, making her breasts hard and full and exquisitely defined.
Ariel de Clare did not have to follow his stare to know what had drawn his lewd attentions. Partly to cover her own embarrassment and partly to put an end to any further liberties he might endeavor to take, she stepped forward, swinging her hand upward with a swift savagery that would have left bleeding scratch marks on his face had Eduard’s reflexes not been a hair quicker to react. He leaned slightly back and twisted to the side, exposing his entire face to the torchlight as he did so. The shock of seeing the gnarled weal of scarred flesh that had, until then, been camouflaged by shadow, caused Ariel a split second’s worth of hesitation—more than enough time for Eduard to catch her wrist and twist it around into the small of her back.
The action brought her crushing against his chest, whereupon he snatched up her other wrist and pinned it with the first for good measure.
“A spirited little dabchick,” he commented wryly, averting his face to avoid the sudden thrashing of wild red hair.
“Unhand me, you ugly, cowardly brute! Unhand me at once!”
“Tsk tsk tsk … two insults in as many minutes. I would have a man’s tongue plucked out of his head for less.”
“Brute! Churl! Lech! Let me go, I tell you! Let me go”
“I might consider doing so, my lady vixen, if you would but pay a small price for my leniency.”
“Pay a price?” Ariel stopped struggling and glared upward, the fury sparking in her eyes like flashes of green fire. “Me?”
Eduard glanced casually around the armoury. “I see no other trespassers here.”
Ariel huffed her breath free—a difficult task with her arms pinned at her back and her breasts crushed against a solid wall of granite. “Ahh. And because we are alone, this price you would ask, I warrant, would be a kiss or two, freely given?”
Eduard’s intentions had been more inclined toward a name, or an explanation of her presence in the armoury, but her suggestion was not without certain appeal. Up close, the light from the torch threaded her hair with gold and showed her mouth to favour the shape of a sulky, moist pout. Her squirmings were emphasizing just how long and lithe her limbs were, and, because he saw no reason not to, he let a han
d slip down to caress her bottom, pulling her even closer.
“I might be persuaded to accept such an offering,” he murmured.
Ariel’s anger took her almost beyond speech. It certainly took her beyond rational thought as she looked deliberately at the molten mass of scar tissue and hissed her opinion through her teeth. “A maid would have to be blind, drunk, and addle-witted to offer to kiss such a beast as you, sirrah. Now, unhand me at once or my uncle will have your ballocks for trophies, your eyes for archery targets, and your hands for tavern signs.”
The muscle in Eduard’s jaw flexed. His grip turned to iron and there was no longer any mocking gentleness in the way he held her against his body. “I tremble with trepidation, my lady. Dare I inquire after the name of this bloodthirsty fellow that I might bolt my door at night and crouch beneath my bed in terror?”
“Well you should hide and crouch,” she spat, “for when my uncle, the Earl of Pembroke, Marshal of England, Lion of the Lists, finishes flaying you alive, there will not be enough of you left for the crows to feed upon!”
Eduard’s arms sprang open as if he had been burned, and he stepped back so suddenly Ariel’s struggles sent her in a full spinning circle before she realized she was free. She stood swaying in the centre of the room, her lungs heaving for air, her fists clenched by her sides, her hair a froth of shiny curls around her shoulders.
“The Earl of Pembroke … is your uncle?” Eduard asked, horrified.
“My loving, adoring, devoted uncle,” she boasted. “And he will lovingly tear your heart out with his teeth for daring to touch me!”
“My lady … I had no idea—”“With his teeth!”
Ignoring his further, futile attempts at an apology, Ariel snatched her tunic off the floor and stormed out of the chamber without another word or glance back. Eduard could hear her brisk, angry steps tapping hollowly along the stone floor and clipping up the stairwell, and, because it would indeed be a miracle if the earl did not take personal offence at the insult to his flesh and blood, he debated chasing after her and forcing an apology upon her.
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