‘Come, lass,’ Alfwold said, very gently. ‘I’ll take you to the castle.’
Rosamund felt him take her by the hand and pull her towards the turn in the road. She must be in shock, she couldn’t believe this was happening.
‘There must be a way out, what if I refuse to go?’
He gave her a straight look. ‘They’ll probably hang me for breaking my oath to Sir Geoffrey.’
‘Oh.’
She believed him. It wasn’t fair, but Rosamund knew that an ordinary man like Alfwold could do nothing against the might of a lord. It was the way of the world. There was a short silence while they walked through the violet evening light. Overhead, a house martin arched through the darkening skies.
‘Alfwold, whose idea was it?’
‘Not mine, you can be certain of that.’
‘Aye, but whose? Was it Aeffe?’
He shook his head. ‘This had nothing to do with Aeffe. Osric and I went to the castle alone. Sir Geoffrey was in the hall at the head of the table. His chair had a back on it like a throne. We went up to him and he asked us our business. Osric told him. The baron asked your name and Osric told him. Baron Geoffrey asked if you are comely.’
Rosamund almost tripped. ‘What?’
‘You heard. I told him you are very comely and he gave a little smile. Seemed to think it amusing.’
‘Amusing!’
Alfwold’s chest heaved. ‘Then Sir Geoffrey told us that he’d let your father off paying the merchet if we brought you straight to the castle after the ceremony. He said that he’d never claimed the right of the first night before, but that he was going to do it today.’
‘The right of the first night?’ She stared. ‘Isn’t that a myth?’
‘Not according to Sir Geoffrey.’
‘And you accepted it,’ Rosamund said, bitterly. ‘Without a word.’
Alfwold swung round to face her. ‘Not at first I didn’t. You must know me better than that. But Baron Geoffrey was dead set on having you...er...on you going up to the castle. Rosamund, lass, I had no choice. You’re not the first person in the world to have things foisted on you.’
She put her head in her hands. ‘I wish you’d warned me...’
He pulled her hands from her face and steered her inexorably on. Towards the castle.
‘Rosamund, I know this must grieve you, especially with that vow you have made.’
‘Vow?’ Her brows knotted, and then she remembered the lie she had fabricated and laughed aloud. ‘Oh, aye. My vow.’
‘I wanted to marry you, lass. I won’t hold it against you that you do not come a virgin to our marriage bed.’
‘How kind.’
Her sarcasm was lost on him. ‘Well, my lass,’ he said reasonably, ‘I don’t see how I can blame you. It’s not your fault. The baron will only have tonight. We’ll have the rest of our lives.’
Already, they had reached the castle footbridge. In another moment or two they would have passed the sentries and she’d be inside. At the mercy of Baron Geoffrey of Ingerthorpe whose whim it was that she should spend the first night of her marriage with him and not with her husband. He even thought it funny.
God save her.
***
Rosamund lay quaking in bed. Waiting.
She was so full of anger and fear that she was oblivious to the luxury of her surroundings. She could hear, floating up from the hall below, gales of drunken laughter. What kind of a monster was Baron Geoffrey that he should decide to take, sight unseen, an unwilling girl to his bed?
She hadn’t had to face the devils carousing in his great hall. The porter at the castle entrance had dismissed Alfwold and summoned an elderly woman. The woman’s face, if Rosamund been able to see past her fury, had been kind and full of sympathy. She had been led up a wide, twisting stairway past the hall, and higher still. She had been taken along a cold, dank and badly-lit corridor between the castle walls. To this bedchamber.
She had been bathed and scrubbed white in a large wooden tub. They’d brought hot water. And as if that were not extravagance enough, the water had been fragrant with the scent of the wild roses which would soon be blooming in the hedgerows. A fragrance she would normally have favoured.
Rosamund had barely noticed. She had withdrawn into herself, away from a grim reality where a girl could be taken against her will and put in a man’s room and no-one, not even her husband, would lift a finger to help her.
Her limbs had felt stiff. She had allowed the woman to dry her. She had allowed her to comb out and dry her long, honey-brown hair, and tie it loosely with a white silk ribbon. She had allowed herself to be dressed in a soft blue gown which had gold threads running through it. She hadn’t lifted a finger to help.
And now she lay waiting, numb in mind and body, with her eyes fixed on a flickering candle in the wall sconce. A burst of crude laughter drew her gaze to the door – it was solid oak, and studded with nails. There was no key.
Was it her imagination or were there voices approaching? As sounds ebbed and flowed, she tried to force her muscles to ease. Her nails were ploughing furrows in her palms. Deliberately she unclenched her fingers and willed herself to relax.
What was she going to do? Fight her liege lord?
Then she heard it again – another wave of sound. Footsteps were surging up the steps. Towards this chamber. She shrank under the fine linen and dragged the furs over her head to muffle the shouting. It didn’t work. Someone roared with laughter, a deep belly laugh which rumbled through the air and brought into her anguished mind the image of a bear of a man with a large paunch. She thought she heard a shout of anger. Then her mind went blank and she could not for a moment recall what Sir Geoffrey Fitz Neal looked like.
She burrowed deep under the coverings and curled into a ball like a hedgehog. She had never felt such dread. She knew she was a coward for she couldn’t bring herself to peer out and look at her would-be seducer.
Rigid with apprehension, she heard the door slam. A key grated in the lock. There were more shouts of mocking laughter from the drunks in the corridor. And another of those curt, angry responses which Rosamund had half-heard a moment ago.
Terror-struck though she was, the anger was a puzzle. It jarred with the hooting and merriment outside the chamber. She heard a deafening thud – as though someone was striking his fist against an unyielding door. It was followed by a torrent of swearing.
How strange. Merriment outside the bed-chamber, and anger within? Had Sir Geoffrey changed his mind? Did he no longer want her? Hope and curiosity warred with fear. Carefully, making as little movement and sound as she could, she pushed back the bedcovers.
He was tall. With the build of a warrior. He had his broad back to the bed, and he was striking the door with such force that the wooden planks bowed with each blow. Someone outside struck up a lewd song and other sozzled, off-key voices joined in. It was enough to drive the devil to flight.
The tall warrior swore and shoved his hand through his hair – unlike Sir Geoffrey’s, it was as black as night. He turned and their eyes met.
‘Oliver!’ Rosamund sat up, her fear was gone.
Oliver stared. ‘Rosamund.’ He said her name very slowly, then he bowed. ‘Welcome to my humble abode.’ His grey eyes were cold as ice. Hard, like the lines of anger etched into his face.
‘You don’t look very welcoming.’
‘To tell the truth, ma demoiselle...’ he stressed the last words so she would have no doubt he was insulting her ‘...I don’t feel very welcoming at the moment. My apologies if that distresses you. I wouldn’t want to cause you any distress, would I? Not after this.’
‘What do you mean?’ Rosamund swung her legs over the edge of the bed and got up. He might be angry, but she was safe. This was Oliver.
Wintry grey eyes were narrowed on the door. The caterwauling sound was fading. Bored with their diversion, their tormentors were doubtless stumbling down the spiral stairs, the lure of the wine kegs was strong.
/> ‘Couldn’t resist, could you?’ Oliver sneered.
‘I...I’m sorry?’
‘It’s fruitless playing the innocent with me, I fell for that game before and I’m rarely caught in the same trap twice. You would do best to remember that, my sweet. Never the same trap twice.’
He closed the distance between them and steely fingers clamped round her wrist. He found the white ribbon, jerked it free, and her hair tumbled about her. Tears sprang into her eyes.
‘Oliver,’ she saw him through a haze. ‘None of this was my doing.’
‘You’re quite the noble lady tonight.’
His hand was running down her newly-washed hair. He was looking her body up and down. His gaze lingered for a moment on the swell of her breasts.
‘I hope they paid you well, for I promise you, by the time I’ve finished with you, you’ll have earned every last farthing. Got everything you wanted have you? And what about Oliver? Is he to have what he wants? Or are you to take on the wiles of fine ladies along with their clothes? Are you going to purse those pretty lips of yours and look down your nose at me. A squire. A poor, bastard squire of little account.’
‘Oliver,’ she whispered, ‘please don’t.’
‘Please don’t.’ His tone mocked hers. He pulled her up against him and his eyes narrowed. ‘What? No shrinking from me in horror? No twisting away to escape?’
His mouth came down hard and his kiss was bruising. She tasted wine on him but she knew instinctively that he wasn’t drunk. He’d been maddened by the wretches who had locked them in this chamber. He believed she was their conspirator.
She had to get through to him, to reach the Oliver she’d met on the beach. The man who was holding her as if in a vice was not the man she knew. She must reach that other Oliver. She didn’t struggle – what was the point? – that hard, well-muscled body was too strong to resist. So she stood immobile in his hold, a deep feminine wisdom telling her that she could best reach him by not responding. He wasn’t one to want a puppet, he would want a real woman, and at the moment he was being ruled by his fury.
It was shaming to realise that even though he was kissing her in anger, he was reaching her. She felt a slow, warm glow in her belly. She couldn’t understand it, her body was responding to him despite his lack of gentleness. Alfwold, with all his careful consideration had never kindled the tiniest spark of a response. She stood stone-still – she’d be lost if Oliver realised the power he had over her.
He lifted his head, eyes glittering in the candlelight. When she raised a hand to her mouth – she could taste blood – his dark eyebrows snapped together. He swore, loudly and fluently in the foreign tongue she knew that the nobles used and flung her away from him. She fell onto the bed.
‘Jesu, Rosamund, I’m sorry.’
Shoving back her hair, she eyed him warily. ‘I swear this wasn’t of my doing, I was brought here against my will.’
‘Aye?’ His face was black as thunder.
The candle sputtered on an impurity in the wax, the wick was smoking. Taking his dagger from his belt, he went to trim it.
‘You didn’t use that on them,’ Rosamund said. ‘You could have done.’
He glanced at the dagger. ‘You would have me stab my lord and cousin?’ Unexpectedly, he laughed.
This was more like the man she had met on May Day. She tucked her feet beneath her, but she was not yet entirely relaxed with him, and when he came up to the bed, she edged back.
‘So,’ he tipped his head to one side. ‘You are not party to this trap my cousin has set me?’
‘I am a victim of this as much as you,’ she said. ‘I take it they locked us in?’
‘They did, my angel.’
Rosamund swallowed. She still did not quite like his voice. ‘You sound as though you’re angry with me.’
‘If you say you’re innocent in this, I will try and believe you, however much my instincts warn me otherwise.’ He rubbed his face and let his breath out in a long sigh. ‘I’m not angry with you. And since we are, as you so correctly point out, locked in for the night, I suggest we make the most of it, and get some sleep. They’ll release us in the morning. There’ll be no harm done and you can go home again.’
‘Back to Alfwold,’ she mumbled, bending her head so her hair hid her expression.
‘Alfwold? Who’s he? I seem to recall you telling me you had no lover.’
Oliver’s voice was warmer. He sat on the edge of the bed and the mattress shifted. Reaching out, he looped her hair round her ears, seeking to meet her eyes. When she continued staring at her lap, warm fingers took her by the chin and tilted her head up.
‘Rosamund, who’s Alfwold?’
Oliver felt the shudder that passed through Rosamund’s slender frame and checked.
Did she find his touch repellent? Her eyes had held such innocence on the beach. Her openness had been so refreshing. It seemed to have vanished. ‘Rosamund?’
Silently, she lifted a hand, holding it in front of him as if she wanted him to take it. As he did so, he squeezed it in reassurance. It was then that he felt the ring. At first he didn’t appreciate its significance and gave it no more than a glance. Then he stilled. There was a thin brass band on her wedding finger, it winked in the flickering light.
‘That wasn’t there before,’ he said, carefully.
‘No.’
‘Who put it there? This Alfwold?’
‘Yes. He...he’s my husband.
‘Your husband!’ Oliver’s stomach fell away and he dropped her hand. ‘No lover, eh? It seems all the world must play me for a fool. First you on the beach, and now Geoffrey.’
She made a dismissive movement. ‘Alfwold is not my lover, he never has been. Oliver, I didn’t lie to you. That day we spent together was the most beautiful thing that has ever happened to me. But it was a...a...moment out of time. When we parted, I had to walk back to reality, and for me, marriage to Alfwold was reality.’ She touched his arm. ‘Oliver, I didn’t marry him because I wanted to, it wasn’t because I chose him, but because the alternative was far, far worse.’
‘Do you love him?’ His voice was cool. Distant.
‘I wish I did. Alfwold is a kind man, kinder than my father. I hoped he would care for me. I thought marriage to him would mean I might have some rights at last.’ She stared at the hem of Oliver’s sleeve, it was neatly stitched with gold thread. Gold thread. Her chest heaved and her pent up anger finally found expression in a flood of words. ‘And wasn’t that the greatest folly? To think that I, a mere peasant girl, would have any rights. I’ve only been wed a few hours and already I’ve been carted off to the castle, an unwilling pawn in a game of my lord’s choosing.’ She gripped his gold-edged sleeve. ‘I would have fought your cousin off, tooth and nail. I would have resisted.’
‘Poor Rosamund,’ Oliver said, covering her hand with his. ‘You are as much a victim as I in this. Neither of us has been consulted.’
Rosamund took a steadying breath. ‘No.’ She smiled. ‘You might think I would be used to it, I have never been given a choice.’
‘Except the day we met on the beach,’ he said, softly.
She noticed his chipped tooth, she had forgotten all about it. Their gazes locked and she couldn’t look away. He was so handsome, his presence filled the bedchamber. Oliver’s skin was clear – not black, not pock-marked with dirty scars. The only fault she could find was that broken tooth, and she liked to see it, for it was only visible when he smiled...
She swallowed, it wouldn’t be easy to be shut in this chamber all night with him...and she married to another...
He broke the silence. ‘What are you thinking?’
Her cheeks scorched. ‘I was thinking how grateful I am that it is you who is with me, and not your cousin.’
His eyes gleamed. ‘You were scared witless, weren’t you? I didn’t see you when they first threw me in. Were you hiding under the bedclothes?’
‘Beast.’ She put her nose in the air and he grin
ned. ‘I was a little scared.’
‘But now you see it’s only harmless Oliver, you are relieved,’ he said, rising from the bed and stretching like a cat.
‘Hardly harmless,’ she murmured, studying him. Oliver had the well-honed frame of a warrior and the careless grace of a man who was completely at ease in his body.
‘Hmm?’ He yawned.
Rosamund hid a smile. ‘I admit I was pleased to find I was to share this chamber with you, and not your cousin,’ she said, vaguely.
He wasn’t listening. Turning his back on her, he unbuckled his belt and dropped it onto a much-battered chest sitting under the wall light. He pulled off his over-tunic, folded it and then that too was set neatly next to the belt. Her mouth had gone dry. She watched, transfixed as Oliver removed his leather boots and his fine linen undershirt. Then, clad only in tightly fitting hose, he padded over to the washbowl. His ablutions complete, he came back to the bed.
‘In you get,’ he commanded, flicking back the bedcovers.
‘I...I...no, we can’t,’ she stammered, suddenly shy. She averted her gaze from his well-muscled torso, from his strong arms.
‘Still afraid, Rosamund?’
‘No!’
‘Get in, for pity’s sake. I’m not about to hurt you.’
‘No.’ She retreated to the bottom of the bed and glared at him. ‘You can’t expect us to share the bed?’
‘That was the general idea,’ he said, dryly. ‘Unless you have a better one?’
‘Oliver, we can’t share the bed!’
He shrugged and got into bed. Stretching out, he lay back against the pillows and watched her. There was a definite glint in his grey eyes.
‘The bed isn’t big enough for two,’ she said.
He clasped his hands behind his head and grinned. ‘It’s more than I expected when I arrived here. It’s fit for a king, and I’d be happy to wager that you’ve not seen the like of it before.’
‘That’s beside the point. Where’s your chivalry? You should give the bed to me and sleep on the floor.’
‘Why, Rosamund,’ he said, all innocence. ‘I do believe you’re angry – your accent is showing.’
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