by Tamara Leigh
He merely smiled. “Some women are not worth holding onto. Indeed, had your fool uncle realized that, he would yet possess his sword arm.”
Uncle Magnus? What—?
Nay, it was Thomasin’s uncle, Serle, of whom he spoke—the man who had dared to reclaim the woman lost to Bayard Boursier. Though a betrothal had been made between Griffin de Arell’s younger brother and Constance Verdun while they were children, Bayard Boursier’s offer for El’s aunt had presented too much temptation. Magnus and Constance’s father, Rand Verdun, had broken his word and wed his daughter to the Baron of Godsmere whose rank outdistanced the landless Serle, thereby condemning Constance to marriage to a man she had not loved and who had made her suffer.
If not for the burn of El’s thigh that reminded her of the aid this man had given her, she would have retorted that were he not so fool, he would yet possess the eye lost to Serle de Arell’s sword. But she had already pushed him too far.
Boursier yanked the sheet from the mattress and glanced at her blood upon it. “And I had thought I would have to bleed myself,” he murmured.
Her frown fled when she realized it was consummation to which he referred. And, as Murdoch had done after that brutal night following their wedding when he had displayed her virginal blood, this man would display what would pass as such. It was custom, but still it offended.
She thrust her shoulders back. “Virginal blood when I have had lovers?”
His brow lowered. “Lovers you shall have no more.” He dropped the sheet over his arm, said, “I have preparations to make,” and turned away.
He meant to ride on Castle Mathe? Meaning the snow had let up?
He flung open the door, looked around. “Do not grieve my men-at-arms.”
Then he would again post them outside her door. The lady of Castle Adderstone—false or otherwise—remained a prisoner.
The door closed.
As the sound of Boursier’s booted feet faded, El pulled up her skirts and considered her inflamed thigh, then touched where he had touched, splayed her hand where his had splayed, felt again feelings never before felt.
“Dear Lord,” she entreated, “what have I done?”
CHAPTER TEN
The day could not have drawn itself out any longer. No matter how often El tossed back the shutters, the snow did not cease. The morning meal was delivered, next the nooning meal, and before long there would be supper.
After the first hour of searching for something to aid in her escape, all that was left to her was to peer out at the snow and worry over Agatha and Magnus. Certain the older woman faired reasonably well, having been imprisoned only a night and a day, Magnus worried her the most. Hopefully, the snow would keep him from searching her out. If not, he would likely journey to the abbey. And then?
Turning the ring on her finger, she moved her gaze from the torch-lit snow beyond the shutters to the tapestry behind which lay the door that would not give. Next, she considered the door across the solar beyond which stood Boursier’s men-at-arms. Hopeless. But it could not be thus forever. There had to be a way around Boursier. Or through him.
She cringed in remembrance of when she had set aside defiance to gain from Murdoch something otherwise unattainable—mercy for her maid when the woman trod upon the chausses he had left amid the rushes, permission to stroll the garden where Agatha passed powders to her like those used to imprison The Boursier. How she had hated bending to Murdoch, but she had been given no choice. Just as it appeared she was given none now.
You can do it again, she told herself. And, God willing, Boursier would prove as susceptible as Murdoch and she would not be made to suffer his attentions as she had suffered her husband’s. Not that she had freely given herself to Murdoch. Merely, when she had needed something badly, she had not fought him.
“Lord,” she prayed, “let not Boursier lay me down.”
Of course, that was the stuff of naiveté.
She turned back to the window, considered the red and gold banners flown on either side of the portcullis set in the inner wall, then lowered her gaze to where false testament of her lost chastity flapped in the swirling snow. The sheet had been set above the entrance to the great hall, thereby proclaiming Boursier was—and would remain—Baron of Godsmere. Just as it was meant to ensure that when he was gone from this world, all would pass to a child sown of his loins.
El touched her belly, sent up a prayer of thanks that no babe had ever taken hold. Once she had dreamed of little ones about her skirts, of loving them and watching them grow, but she had been grateful that with each violation of her body, she had given Murdoch no heir. Of course, he had blamed her and she had been punished accordingly.
She bowed her head, clasped her hands beneath her chin. “If I cannot escape Boursier, let me be no more fruitful than I was with Murdoch.”
She opened her eyes, parted her hands, and looked upon slim fingers tipped with nails just long enough to rake a man’s flesh. She curled them into her palms. For whatever gain there might be toward escape, she would keep them to herself, hold her caustic tongue, and defer to Boursier as much as she could bear.
She laid a palm to the place beneath her skirts around which she had wound the linen bandage that had earlier been delivered with salve. She grimaced. Boursier’s squire had spoken no word, and she had known he knew she was responsible for his loss of consciousness the night she and Agatha had breached the solar. No ally there. Yet.
A fair face God had given her, surely that it would be of some use. Of course, guile was not likely what the Lord intended.
When a knock sounded, she smoothed a hand over her hair, pushed it behind her ears, and swept her tongue over her lips to make them glisten. “Enter!”
A tray in hand, the young man stepped through the doorway.
She smiled. “Once more, you deliver me from hunger, Squire.”
Silent still, he set the tray on the table near the hearth where, this morn, the tub had sat. Neither had the maids who had removed the tub spoken to her. Not that she had given them reason to converse, but from this moment forward, all must change.
She crossed the solar and placed herself in the squire’s path as he turned to leave. Smiling wide to summon the groove in her cheek that made her face more becoming, she said, “You are most kind, Squire…?”
She glimpsed a spark of interest, but he stuffed it behind a glower. “Squire Lucas, and it is not out of kindness I bring your supper. ’Tis by order.”
“Nevertheless, I am grateful. Will my lord husband be joining me?”
“Baron Boursier takes his meal in the hall with his men, my lady.”
“Oh, I had hoped…” She sighed, stepped to the platter of viands, and touched the rim. But though she waited for the young man’s sympathetic response, he gave none.
She turned and saw he appeared unmoved. Worrisome, for if she was unable to pluck a chord of sympathy from him, what hope had she of Boursier believing her acquiescence?
She pressed her shoulders back. “Would you carry word to my husband that I would be pleased to share my meal with him?”
His eyebrows gathered. “You would?”
“I would.”
His lips pursed, then stretched to a mocking smile. “I shall carry word.” He gave a curt bow and departed.
El groaned as the door fit into its frame. All did not progress well.
She schemed.
Once more granted an opportunity to observe his conniving wife while she slept in the chair opposite, Bayard rubbed a palm across his jaw that Lucas had scraped clean earlier this eve—rather, yestereve, for it was now two hours into the dark of a new day. His squire’s recounting of what had occurred when he had delivered Thomasin her meal had tempted Bayard abovestairs to determine what game she played. Instead, he had kept her waiting the same as he kept Father Crispin waiting, though the latter could not be more obvious that he wished an audience.
Bayard grunted. This one sought to corner him to work further deceit up
on him. That one sought to corner him to offer counsel and prayer that, at the moment, was unwelcome. Though he knew the priest would speak truth in attempting to bring his lord back to the place from which Thomasin’s offense had caused him to stray, Bayard was not ready and did not know when he would be. Indeed, if he lost his home and lands and the ability to provide for his family and people, he might never be ready. Thus, it was best that Father Crispin not waste his breath until more was known of what this woman had wrought.
He moved his gaze from her softly seamed lips to lashes that fluttered with the movement of eyes that followed the images of dreams. What did she see? Of what did a commoner turned noblewoman turned abductor dream?
A small sound escaped her and her eyebrows gathered. “Do not,” she whispered, then spoke something else that came apart before it made it across the space between them.
She grabbed a breath. “I shall…”
Bayard stepped around the chair he had leaned against these past minutes.
“Certes, I shall,” she hissed.
He strode forward, settled his hands on the chair arms on either side of her, and leaned in. “Shall what?” he asked in a voice yet hoarse from the abuse to which he had subjected it while imprisoned.
As if noting the intrusion upon her dream, she frowned, but her lined brow did not mar her loveliness. In fact, she was more comely up close, unlike many women who looked best from a distance. Her skin was unblemished, cheekbones brushed with warm color, lips flushed and full as if recently tasted and found to be to a man’s liking.
Bayard growled. For what had the Lord set such beguiling creatures in men’s paths? To undo them? For certain, Constance Verdun had undone him. To test them? That, too. To curse them? Especially so, as evidenced by his singular gaze and facial scarring that had swept asunder that which had once found adequate favor with women.
“I shall!” Thomasin spat.
“What?” Bayard asked again.
“Kill you.”
He leaned nearer. “You think so?”
“I know so!” Her eyes opened, and for a moment it seemed she looked through him. But the hatred darkening her green gaze receded, and she said with what sounded like relief, “The Boursier.”
As he was known—as had been his father. Though he was accustomed to the impersonal title, he resented her use of it. “Bayard,” he bit, “your husband. Now tell, how do you intend to kill me?”
From the rapidly fading dream, Murdoch’s face lunged at El, and she realized she had been talking in her sleep as she sometimes did according to her maid. Determinedly, she let the rest of the dream—which had once been terribly real—slide away so that all she saw was Boursier’s freshly shaved face above hers.
“Tell,” he said on a breath entwined with wine.
Reminding herself of the deception she must work, she said, “Ease your worry, Lord Husband, for you are not the man of my dream. That one is dead.” As soon as she spoke that last, she wished she had not, resented that he was too close and sleep was yet too near for her to think clearly.
“By your hand?” His eyebrow arched above the patch.
At least a dozen times she had killed Murdoch, though only in her heart. If not for Agatha’s powders, how much nearer might she have come to the deed?
She shook her head. “I am no murderer.”
“Are you not?” Blessedly, he straightened. “Yestereve, you wished me to believe you were capable of such. This eve not?”
She had forgotten about that—when Agatha had bemoaned that she should have been allowed to kill him and El had retorted she had not done so in order to ensure he suffered.
“I know what you want, Thomasin,” he said, “but you shall not have it.”
El sat straighter. “What do I want?”
His lips curved, though they did not much resemble a smile. “Abandon hope. For as long as King Edward requires it, you shall remain Thomasin Boursier.” He turned and strode to the hearth.
She might have abandoned civility along with hope were it not all she had. She pushed up out of the chair. “Think as you will,” she said and started toward the pallet. She halted. Was it still her place, or would he prove himself a liar this night?
She turned toward his broad-shouldered back.
Dear Lord, let him be too weary.
“Tale is told,” he said without looking around, “De Arell’s daughter knows well how to turn servants to her cause. That she readily becomes one of them to work her guile. That with ease, she steals from the castle and hies to the villages to distribute her ill-gotten gain.”
El had heard as much and envied the young woman who defied her father to ease the lives of those she yet considered her people. For this, it was said, she always returned to Castle Mathe. Did Griffin de Arell beat her? Likely, for he was nearly as great a fiend as Bayard Boursier.
“What else is told of me?” El asked, thinking there might be something she had not heard that she ought to know as long as she claimed that woman’s name as her own.
He turned, and his gaze pierced her. “That you spit and curse, and with great purpose chafe your father with rustic speech though much effort he expends to make of you a noblewoman.”
She nearly balked. Not that she was unaware of those tales. Rather, she was appalled she had not thought to use them to better behave as one whose roots had unfurled in the soil of the peasantry.
“Aye, I know who you are and what you want,” he said, mistaking her silence. “Be assured that those who serve me also know and shall not succumb to your schemes. No aid will they give you in escaping me.” He strode forward and placed himself over her as he seemed fond of doing. “You are at my mercy.”
Though she strove to hide her reaction to words with which Murdoch had often threatened—and acted upon—she felt the emotions jump off her face. Worse, she staggered back a step, earning herself Boursier’s frowning regard.
Weakness! all of her cried at allowing him to see into her. She settled her face, forced her breath deeper, and searched for a distraction. She found it in the question that remained unanswered. “Why did you choose me over the Verdun woman when your hate is greater for my family?” She narrowed her gaze on his eyepatch and decided to see how much farther he could be pushed. “After all, ’twas my uncle, Serle, who took your eye.”
His lips thinned and his glare was so keen it slashed. “As I took his arm.”
Something the Boursiers seemed fond of doing, his father having taken the arm of El’s grandfather during that long ago siege upon Castle Adderstone. “Then for revenge you chose me, Thomasin de Arell?”
Bayard stared at the woman who dared where others did not. None spoke of the eye he had lost, and certainly none drugged him and imprisoned him in his own home. And yet, when he had warned she was at his mercy, she had reacted as she had on the night past with far more fear than was warranted for one who so greatly dared.
“Was it for revenge?” she asked again.
“Certes, I shall have satisfaction for the ill you worked upon me and any that befalls my sister, but it was not revenge that made me choose you.”
“What, then?”
He was tempted to refuse her an answer, but he said, “Having been wed to a Verdun, I determined one beautiful harlot of deceitful bent was enough to last me a lifetime. Thus, I chose you as I was told you were plain of face, which you certainly are not, that you were ten and seven and a maiden, which you tell you are not, that you might provide me an heir, which Elianor of Emberly did not provide her now departed husband, and I did not think you could be as deceitful as my first wife, which you have proved false.”
Thomasin averted her gaze, but when she returned it to him, her eyes glittered. “Mayhap you give women good reason to deceive you,” she said, her pretense of civility boiled down to anger. “You assuredly gave Constance Verdun little choice.”
Certain she referred to Agatha’s tale that not only had he beaten his wife but fouled the marriage bed with other women,
Bayard curled his fingers into fists.
“As for your first wife being a harlot,” she continued, “that is a matter of opinion.”
Struggling to keep his hands at his sides, he said, “The opinion of a man cuckolded.”
She snorted. “I would not brag on that, Husband, lest it reflect upon your prowess in bed and put me in the same mind as your first wife.”
Bayard was acquainted with the color of anger, though he had only experienced such crimson, fiery flashes during life-threatening hostilities and combat, as when he had awakened to find himself chained to a wall…as when he had come upon Serle de Arell with Constance. But though he told himself that no moment of this was life-threatening, he was moved to react as Bayard Boursier did not react.
He grasped Thomasin’s shoulders and pulled her toward him. When she yelped and landed against his chest, he nearly came back to himself. But the gaze she tossed up at him brimmed with challenge, taunting him just as her words had done.
He pulled her up to her toes, felt his hot breath deflect off her brow. “’Tis time you took your place at Castle Adderstone, the only place you shall have whilst you darken my home.”
When he lifted her into his arms, she bucked, kicked, and tried to rake his face, but no flesh did he give as he carried her to bed.
“Pig!” she cried. “Miscreant! Poltroon!”
He dropped her onto the feather-filled coverlet.
Immediately, she sprang opposite, but he caught her back and dropped atop her.
When she once more came at him with hooked fingers, he pinned her arms to her sides.
“Ignoble beast! You gave your word!”
He met her wide-eyed gaze. “As told, the word I give is the word I keep. ’Twill not be by ravishment our marriage is consummated.” Now to seduce his wife…
He lowered his head.
She jerked hers aside.
It suited him, for it was not her lips he sought. He wanted to taste her, but not there. Not yet. He put his mouth to the smooth flesh between neck and shoulder, tasted the sweetest salt touched with rose water.