by Anton, Shari
Except, perhaps, dealing with Gerard. He obviously didn’t want to talk about Lucinda. He’d barely glanced at her when Richard brought her into the castle. He hadn’t objected when Ardith whisked an obviously travel-weary Lucinda off to the solar for a bath and change of clothing. Nor had he stopped Daymon from taking Philip to meet the falconer and view the mews’ many hunting birds. But he hadn’t liked it, either.
“Henry can do what he wishes with George. I truly do not give a damn if the vermin lives or dies, so long as he goes back to Normandy.”
Gerard chuckled. “And sends all of those wonderful tributes due. The wine you sent with Stephen is long gone. Could I talk you out of a barrel or two?”
“I have my doubts. ‘Tis really too good to share.”
Gerard leaned forward. “Mayhap, then I could win one. What say you, Richard, to a bout in the practice yard? Winner gets the wine.”
Ardith was busy with Lucinda, and might be for some time yet. And getting Gerard into the best possible mood seemed a good idea.
Richard got up. “Last one to sweat gets the wine.”
They went out the massive oak doors, and down the steps into the bailey. So many times he’d walked this path with Gerard to take part in their favorite pastime. Would today be the last? Richard hoped not. All depended on Gerard, on whether or not he could accept Richard’s marriage to Lucinda.
“Stephen tells me you intend to build a stone keep at Collinwood,” Gerard commented.
“Aye, I have the means now.” And good reason. He would soon have a family to protect. Lucinda, and Philip, and any other children they might be blessed with. “I assume Stephen has gone to see the Lady Carolyn.”
“Hah! More like flew off. I wish him well in his pursuit. I hear tell she is a strong-minded woman. Mayhap she can tame him.”
“Tame Stephen? ‘Twould be like harnessing the wind.”
They stepped into the armory, and as was their custom, stripped down to breeches and boots. Both preferred to shun the weight of hauberks—a great annoyance of Ardith’s. Gerard took his broadsword from its scabbard. Richard drew his, too, from right where he’d left it nearly an hour ago.
As always, whenever they took these familiar steps, word spread of the impending swordplay and a crowd gathered. ‘Twas no different today.
“However, marriage to the right woman can do odd things to a man, make him do things he would not have before, just to please her,” Gerard remarked.
“Like you do for Ardith. That woman has you tied around her little finger,” Richard taunted, because ‘twas what Gerard expected, and to emphasize the point.
Gerard chuckled, setting his stance, feet slightly apart, knees bent. Richard did the same.
“I try not to let her take full advantage. But, hellfire, pleasing her pleases me.” Gerard’s laughter faded. He turned serious. “I would wish the same for you, one day, that you would find contentment.”
Richard kept the point of his sword lowered. “I already have, Gerard. With Lucinda.”
Gerard’s face turned stormy, but the lightning Richard expected to strike didn’t flash. “So Stephen warned me. I wish you to reconsider.”
“You ask me to do that which I cannot. As you love Ardith, so I love Lucinda. She will be my wife, Gerard, with or without your blessing.”
“Damn it, Richard! Taking her as a lover is bad enough, but to wed her! Have you forgotten who she is?”
“I have forgotten nothing! Do you remember, when Ardith was in Basil’s hands, what she suffered? Lucinda has suffered tenfold, and survived, and came out the stronger. I love Lucinda for the woman she is now, not for who she might have been. I will marry her, and would prefer to have Father Dominic perform the ceremony here at Wilmont. If you say nay, we will go elsewhere. But by God, Gerard, I will marry the woman.”
Gerard grasped the pommel of his sword in both hands. From his mouth came the familiar roar of Gerard’s battle cry. He brought the sword up and around in a mighty swing. Richard ignored the horrified screams and gasps of the crowd, his attention fixed on the sharp point of his brother’s whirring, oncoming sword.
Richard didn’t move a muscle, simply smiled an inward smile. Everything was going to be all right.
Lucinda lounged in the wooden tub, even though the bathwater had cooled. She hated the thought of getting out and possibly rippling the tranquillity of the solar, thus disturbing the budding friendship she’d formed with Ardith.
As if by mutual agreement, they hadn’t talked about either the past or the future—the former being too painful, the latter as yet unsettled until after Richard spoke with Gerard. But over the past hour or so she and Ardith had discussed housekeeping methods, traded recipes for roasted boar, and compared the joys and miseries of mothering six-year-old boys.
Lucinda had found ease in Ardith’s gracious welcome into her home and solar, and hope in her warm smile.
A loud, bloodcurdling roar invaded the solar through the unshuttered window.
“Merciful heavens,” Lucinda exclaimed, turning in the tub to stare at the window. “What was that!”
“Oh, dear,” Ardith said, waddling over, a towel in her outstretched hand. “We left them alone overlong. They must have finished talking and decided to play. The roar was Gerard. He and Richard must be in the practice yard.”
Lucinda stood up, took the towel, and stepped out of the tub. “They fight?” she asked, her heart nearly stopping at the thought of what they might be fighting about.
“They practice their swordplay,” Ardith said. “’Tis truly a spectacle, if you care to watch.”
Play? Nay, not this time. The sound of steel striking steel in fast, punishing strokes, reverberated down her spine.
“Can you stop them?” Lucinda asked, praying Ardith could before one of the brothers killed the other. If Richard lost, she would be lost. If Gerard lost, Richard would be bereft, and may never forgive himself.
“Aye, but I see no reason…”
Lucinda strove to make Ardith understand. “They do not play, Ardith, they fight. Richard…Richard was going to tell Gerard that…that he asked me to marry him. I fear Gerard did not take the news well.”
“Truly?” Ardith asked, surprised. “Richard simply told you? How odd for Richard.”
“Ardith, please stop them before one of them is hurt!”
“Set your mind at ease. Neither of them would ever take up a sword against the other in anger. Come, dress. We will go down and you will see.”
Lucinda hurriedly donned the filmy white chemise and midnight black linen gown that Ardith had insisted she wear, laughing that she would have no use for it until after her baby’s birth. Lucinda didn’t bother with a veil.
Merciful heaven, in all of her wildest imaginings of how the brothers’ talk would end, she hadn’t envisioned that they would come to blows.
Ardith led the way down the stairs and into the great hall, walking far too slowly. She stopped midhall. “Thomas, come,” she called to a young man.
“Aw, my lady, must I?” Thomas asked, reluctantly following her order.
Ardith smiled. “Aye, you must. Lucinda, meet Thomas. He has the shrillest whistle in all the kingdom.” Ardith took his arm for support and began walking again.
Lucinda’s patience nearly snapped, but she kept still. Ardith simply didn’t understand that the brothers were out in the yard to settle a dispute. Over Lucinda.
They crossed the bailey as fast as Ardith could walk, heading for a large crowd.
“You must not be too concerned at what you see,” Ardith said. “In truth, they drive me to distraction, but all is well.”
All was not well. Couldn’t Ardith hear the heaviness of the blows? The anger in their voices? The crowd parted for Ardith, Lucinda following close behind.
When she stopped, Lucinda nearly fainted.
In the center of the yard, Richard and Gerard snarled and circled each other like dogs fighting over a bone. Both hefted large, gleaming sharp swords. Ne
ither wore a hauberk, or even a tunic.
Magnificent specimens of virile male warrior, both.
“Come, Gerard,” Richard taunted. “Do your worst.”
“I will have you without breaking a sweat.”
“Hah! Such arrogance! I keep what is mine. Try to deprive me and I will have your guts for nooning!”
She’d seen Richard fight, but not like this. His bout with George had been short-lived and one-sided. Richard and his brother, however, were equally matched.
Gerard brought his sword up, and around.
Ardith put a hand on Lucinda’s arm. “Steady, Lucinda.”
Richard spun away and came back at Gerard with a punishing blow.
“They will kill each other,” Lucinda said, her heart pounding so fast it threatened to burst.
“’Tis what I keep telling them. They never listen. The worst is, they never even come close. If you are to marry Richard, then you had best get used to this.” Ardith’s hand tightened on Lucinda’s arm. “’Tis how they play, and express their affection and respect for each other.”
Lucinda saw no affection in the flurry of Gerard’s attack.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, and swayed.
“Thomas, now, before she faints,” Ardith said.
Thomas gave a long, shrill whistle.
Richard ducked away and under the swing that Gerard struggled to check. He dropped his sword point to the dirt and turned to where the shrill signal had come from.
Ardith stood there, arms crossed on her big belly, scowling. Lucinda stood next to her, pale and frightened nearly witless.
“Hellfire. Caught,” Gerard mumbled.
“Damn,” Richard mumbled back. “Why do they become overwrought?”
“Only the Lord knows, and I imagine He wonders. Come on.”
They started across the yard. Philip and Daymon came running up. Daymon stopped before Gerard and held his arms out for his father’s sword.
Philip stared up at Richard, awed. Richard felt his chest swell at the pure adoration. He ruffled Philip’s hair.
“I suppose now you wish to be a soldier again.”
“Oh, aye, my lord!”
Richard laid his sword across Philip’s arms. “You can begin by going with Daymon and learn how to care for a sword.”
The two boys walked off, proudly bearing the swords.
Ardith cleared her throat, a call to task.
“You sweat, Richard. I win,” Gerard said, putting an arm around his wife.
He was sweating. Damn. “Aye. You get a barrel of wine,” Richard said, gathering Lucinda in his arms. She trembled, but didn’t faint. “Mayhap I will send for several barrels, for the wedding.”
Gerard’s arm tightened around Ardith.
Ardith elbowed Gerard’s ribs. “Be gracious, darling.”
Gerard sighed. “For the wedding. Come, wife. You should be off your feet.”
The two of them headed for the keep. The crowd began to disperse, the excitement over.
“You are alive,” Lucinda whispered.
“Of course I am alive.”
“When Gerard came at you I thought…Oh, merciful heaven, I thought…”
He wrapped her in a hug. “Gerard would never harm me, though he may curse me to hell and back.”
“You told him?”
“He is not terribly pleased, but resigned. I knew so the moment he lifted his sword. ‘Tis more than I hoped for.”
Lucinda’s head came up. “Then what were the two of you arguing over out there?”
“Wine.”
“Wine. You fought bare chested with sharp swords over wine?”
He didn’t miss the edge in her voice.
“We did not fight. We played.”
Lucinda looked at him in the very same way that Ardith looked at Gerard when they argued over the very same subject—one of exasperation filled with love. Lucinda truly loved him. He was one fortunate man.
She sighed and rested her cheek against his shoulder. “The next time you play, please don a hauberk.”
Richard smiled and leaned down to place a light kiss on her forehead. He couldn’t promise that he would mend his ways, but he would think about it.
“You smell good,” he said, caught by the scent of the soap she’d used to wash her hair. Fresh and womanly. Arousing.
She laughed lightly. “You smell.”
“Any water left in that tub?”
“’Tis cold.”
“’Twill do.”
He nudged Lucinda toward the keep, intending to dunk himself in the tub then whisk her off to a bedchamber, with an entirely different kind of play in mind. Gerard already had his stone keep, his goose-feather mattress, and two sons with possibly a third on the way. ‘Twas time to catch up.
SHARI ANTON
Shari Anton is delighted to help usher in Harlequin Historicals’ next decade of bringing readers stirring love stories set in long-ago places.
The mother of two grown children, and grandmother of an adorable toddler grandson, Shari loves doing historical research. Her husband of twenty-seven years is convinced that she plans vacations to include every Civil War reenactment, medieval fair and pioneer cemetery she can find. Shari graciously concedes that he might be right.
Shari lives in southeastern Wisconsin, is a member of Wisconsin Romance Writers of America and loves to hear from readers. You can write to her at P.O. Box 510611, New Berlin, WI 53151-0611.
eISBN: 978-145926-137-2
LORD OF THE MANOR
Copyright © 1998 by Sharon Antoniewicz
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