He grated his teeth. If not for Gwyneth, he might not be content, but he might know the fringes of happiness. He had believed that Elise was at least reconciled to their marriage—until Gwyneth had come with the announcement that she was enceinte.
He hadn’t been entirely certain that the child wasn’t his until Gwyneth had come to London. Now he was certain that the child wasn’t his, but he was equally certain that Elise would believe even more fully that the child was his.
When Elise hadn’t arrived, Bryan had been too angry to pay much attention to anything else. But then Gwyneth had cornered him in his rooms at the town house, throwing herself into his arms and crying that her child was his: What were they to do?
He had been about to hold her, for her beautiful face had seemed wrenched with anguish when she had first entered.
But even as she leaned against his chest, he felt himself go cold. He did not know what her game was, but she was trying to take him for a fool.
He knew the exact night he had last been with her; the night before Richard’s arrival on the outskirts of London. And had she conceived that night, she would have to boast a certain largeness of girth that was obviously missing. Did she think that men were incapable of calculation?
“Touch me, Bryan,” she had pleaded, groping to bring his fingers to her belly. “Feel our child. Our child, while that grasping little slut who set her claws into you proves to be nothing but barren.”
“Percy is your husband, Gwyneth. And that ‘grasping little slut,’ as you call her, is my wife.”
“Wife! She despises you still! She refuses to come to your side! What loyalty can you owe her? Oh, Bryan, we were meant for each other! She wanted Percy, and I know that he lusts for her still. Let them have each other.”
Gwyneth was as beautiful as ever. As sweet when she spoke her accusations to him. As soft in his arms. He was tempted for a moment to throw her down hard on the bed and relieve himself of all his pent-up hunger and fury.
He could not. She was, but she also wasn’t, the woman he had once wanted.
“Bryan, I love you so!” she whispered brokenly.
“When we met here this summer, you seemed quite pleased with your marriage.”
“You were lost to me. I thought I would have to bear it. I cannot.”
“Gwyneth, your child is not mine,” he said stiffly.
“But it is, Bryan. I know it . . . and Elise knows it.”
“Elise!”
“I’ve been to see her, Bryan. I was so frightened. I want your baby born well, and beneath your roof.”
“Gwyneth!” Suddenly he was shaking her fiercely. She didn’t seem to care as her head fell back and her dark eyes met his in a vixen’s gloat. “What did you say to Elise?”
“Nothing . . . she simply knows.”
Gwyneth did not have her victory, for Bryan shoved her aside and quit his own chambers.
The next day they had ridden from London. There had been no time for detours into the Cornish countryside.
But now . . . now it was February. And Richard’s champions awaited him, day after day. He and Philip could come to an agreement on nothing, they distrusted one another so. The Crusade had not even begun, and already it dragged on and on.
Bryan stood up. He looked out the slim arrow slit of the old Norman castle. To the north lay the English Channel. Past the Channel, an eternity away, lay home.
Home, yes, it was his home. She was his wife. She must accept that, must accept him, must wait, for him alone . . .
The queen had told him Elise had never received his summons. He didn’t believe it. Not when Elise had run the night of Richard’s coronation. Not when she had threatened him with infidelity to match what she assumed to be his . . .
A sheen of sweat broke out across his shoulders again. He could not rouse the king now, but in the morning . . .
* * *
“God’s blood, Bryan! Nay, you haven’t my leave to return home! I tell you, I need you when I go to council with that sly French fox Philip—”
“Your Grace, William Marshal is at your side—”
“And good there he is, but I need your wits with me also, Bryan Stede. In three days’ time we call upon my Norman barons to give support to the cause and you must rouse the knights.”
“Then give me three days’ time, my liege!”
“For what? That will give you travel time, no more. Perhaps a few hours at your home—”
“I’ll take it,” Bryan said quietly.
Richard threw up his well-muscled arms in a blustery display of exasperation. “Three days, Bryan.”
Bryan bowed low and left Richard.
He set out by himself, leaving Wat, who had proven to be a fine squire, to serve Will Marshal in his absence. Will scratched his head as he watched Bryan mount his destrier.
“You’re half mad,” Will told him. “You’ll reach Cornwall, and have to turn back.”
“I know,” Bryan said grimly, looping his reins into his hand as he swung his horse about. He grinned then. “I am half mad, Will. I’m hoping that an hour or two will give me back a little sanity.”
Will frowned. “Bryan . . . perhaps what Eleanor said was true. Perhaps the messenger never reached her. Don’t go off . . .” He cleared his throat. “Don’t go riding off like that in a rage of anger. You’d not gain anything by . . . beating her for this disobedience. It would just—”
Bryan laughed bitterly, wondering at the power Elise possessed to drag him across land and sea just for a few brief hours of her company.
“Will, I assure you, the last thing I have in mind is beating my wife!”
He was to reach the Channel and cross it in record time. And then he was Cornwall bound.
* * *
By late the next night, the guard atop the southern turret saw a single rider coming toward the manor at a breakneck speed.
The guard hurried to rouse Alaric.
Alaric watched the horseman approach the manor.
“Shall we awaken Lady Elise?” the guard asked nervously.
Alaric continued to stare at the dark rider, coming closer and closer. His brow knit in consternation.
Then he laughed. “Nay, we needn’t awaken Lady Elise. Lord Bryan will be here ’fore we could properly do so!”
* * *
Elise had been deep in an exhausted sleep. The day had been bitterly cold; she had spent endless hours boiling forest moss, packed beneath the snow, into a medicament for the winter cough that so often plagued those weakened by the harsh cold
She, Maddie, and Jeanne had worked late into the night. When she climbed upstairs to her chamber, she had been touched to find that Michael had seen that her hearth fire burned brightly, and had thoughtfully ordered that the braziers beneath the bath also be lit. She had almost drifted off to sleep in the tub, absurdly grateful to be so tired that she dozed so easily, but frightened that she should solve her problems with the simplicity of drowning.
Climbing from the tub, she had deeply and appreciatively breathed in the clean scent of her bath oil, so much more pleasant than the lingering musk of boiling mold! She had dried herself, briefly untangled her hair with her fingers, and fallen into bed, dragging the sheets and heavy fur coverlet over her. Even before her head had touched the down pillow, she had fallen asleep.
Now, it was hours since. Her dreams had wrapped about her like the soft clouds of spring, beautiful dreams in which she loved, and was loved.
She awoke with a start, jolted from sleep, and yet not at all certain that she had ever awakened.
Because Bryan was standing before her.
Delicate, intricate flakes of snow still dotted his dark woolen mantle and dazzled against the midnight black of his tousled hair. For long moments he stood there, those flakes of snow melting against him, one hand still upon the door he had just opened, the other upon his hip. Elise was unable to believe that he could really be there. She had known he was in Normandy.
At the bang of the do
or she had half risen, the sheets clutched to her, her eyes wide with the sudden alarm. Now she stared, feeling as if time were as frozen as the ice that captured the winter branches of the trees. She had never seen him look . . . so fierce and formidable, yet never had seen such a wistful yearning in his blue-black eyes. It was a trick of the fire, she told herself, a winter’s dream. The look he cast her, both tender and hungry, and the tall warrior himself. . .
She was, he thought, as wild and as sweet, as innocent and sultry, as all his haunted dreams. At his entrance she had started to her knees, defensively clutching the bedclothes. Stunned by his appearance, she had dropped the sheets. Gold and copper tendrils of wispy silk curled in dishevelment over her breasts and fell about the sinuous beauty of her form. The dusky-rose crests of her ivory breasts peaked firm and proud beneath the gold and fire of that tangling hair, and, had he ridden a full week solid, desire would have streaked through him like the onslaught of a summer sun. Her eyes were wide, blue and green crystals upon him, her lips were parted and moist with surprise, and as he had so often dreamed, her arms slowly lifted . . .
Not to another. To him.
With a hoarse cry he came to her, slamming the door closed with a foot. His clothing escaped him with the same simple quality of the dream, and he was beside her, meeting her, melding with her. He could not hold her tightly enough, tenderly enough. His body trembled violently as she met his lips in a passionate kiss, her tongue probing his mouth sweetly, hotly, her nails raking through his hair, over his shoulders, his back, his buttocks. She was warm and vibrant, sweetly, sinuously moving, Whispering inarticulate but ardent words. His hands moved over her, his lips thirsted for her. Their mouths met in fiery splendor again, and moans that were like sobs caught and then tore from her throat. He rose above her, then lost himself within her, shaking violently with the intensity of that sweet, embracing ecstasy. The fire in the grate seemed to build around them, burning ever higher, defying even the winter winds.
How many times he had held her so! Yet still he felt that he traveled anew. He climbed through uncharted paths of splendor, and his soul flew with the summer sun while his body learned a peak of pleasure that crested anything he had known before. She quaked beneath him when splendor erupted like the burst of a falling star; summer slowly came to be winter again, but a beautiful winter, swept with the fragile delight of wafting, delicate snowflakes.
He did not speak; he held her. When she would have spoken, he brought his fingers to his lips. She curled sweetly against him, the sultry vixen innocent again, the wild wanton a creature of infinite sweetness. For a time he was content, and he began to doze.
Time was his enemy. He awoke with a start, and kissed his dream sprite, arousing her with the slow play of his fingers upon her flesh. Winter winds blew outside the chamber; neither knew nor cared. The sun blazed within.
When they again lay in the glow of sated contentment, she made no effort to speak, but rested contentedly within the crook of his shoulder.
He let her doze, and then fall deeply into the drugged sleep of her contentment. Her lips, even in that deep sleep, curved into a winsome smile, and he knew then that he loved her. More than any title granted him, more than land, more than life.
He rose and began to dress. His tunic and mantle felt wet, and very, very cold. He gazed upon her, so loath to leave. Her hand was curled to her cheek. The sapphire glared up at him, caught by firelight, and he sighed.
He was the fool. He had lost his soul—and she was determined never to give her own. Never to forgive him. And he must ride by the side of his king . . .
Bryan stopped allowing himself to think. The night was a dream, a spun fairy-tale web of a soaring summer sun against the white-flaked, ice beauty of winter.
He would not have that crystal glory shattered.
The naked face of his love stared upon her then, and her heart would have flown with joy had she but seen it.
With a groan of tearing agony that grew not from his throat, but from his soul, Bryan turned and left.
Dawn was almost upon him.
Alaric awaited him downstairs. He conversed quickly with his steward while he consumed a hastily prepared meal of bread and cold meat. Alaric had heated wine, which warmed him for his journey.
Then he was riding away again, a dark knight upon a midnight destrier, racing over the snow.
XXI
Had not Alaric assured her that, aye, the duke had indeed come home, Elise might have believed that the magical night had been a dream. She had wanted him so desperately that he had appeared.
By the end of March, however, with or without Alaric’s assurances, she would have known that her Bryan had come to her in flesh and blood and not illusion. She was going to have a child, and she was delighted. The night that Bryan had returned to Cornwall had changed everything for her for a very simple reason. She was able to admit to herself that she loved him.
The admission did not give her perfect happiness; she did not know when she would see him again. She did not know where the path of battle would take him: to death, or to another woman’s arms. But when he did return, she wanted to lay the olive branch of peace before him. Whatever had been before did not matter now.
Because he had come to her. Through frigid waters and fields of ice and snow, he had ridden hard just to come to her.
Elise even felt her anger against Gwyneth fade. Gwyneth, she believed, was lying. Clinging to any bond with Bryan that she could. Gwyneth could cast out insinuations all she liked, and Elise knew that she would only smile, secure for the time in the depth of her feeling. She might well be a fool, but she did love Bryan Stede. He was her husband, and she meant to keep him—if God ever allowed her to have him again.
The baby meant everything to her. Bryan’s heir, the child he so dearly wanted. It seemed that she would have to wait forever, but even the thought of motherhood seemed to change her, and she mused that her sex—herself included—was a strange lot. She felt as if she had gentled and matured, and she loved the fragile life inside her with the free intensity with which she now allowed herself to love her husband. She took great pains to eat well, to drink warm goat’s milk, and when she went to bed at night she slept easily, with a smile curving her lips, for she could now give Bryan something that would be very precious to them both. Sometimes at night, in the solitude of her chamber, she would touch her still-flat belly and whisper to the child. It would be a boy, she decided, for didn’t all men want sons? And so she told him that he would be the son of the greatest knight in Christendom, and that the blood of kings ran in his veins.
She waited until the beginning of April to be certain of her news, then sent a messenger across the Channel to find Richard’s troops, wherever they were.
Winter refused to relinquish her hold upon the land. The March winds had barely died before they rose again to meet April. Another snowstorm blanketed the country, and in the midst of that storm, Elise was awakened from a sound sleep by Jeanne, who bade her eagerly to come speak with Alaric.
The steward awaited her by the hearth in the hall, and she learned that Alaric was concerned because a small party was approaching the manor, yet seemed to be staggering along.
“We must go out and aid whoever is in travail!” Elise told Alaric.
“But milady,” Alaric protested, “it might be a trick! Thieves and robbers are thick in such a winter, for those freemen and runaway serfs who live in the forests often find their children starving and their own bellies empty.”
“I will go to the tower myself,” Elise insisted. “If it is a party of starving beggars, then they must be fed. And if a friend or messenger labors to reach me, then he must be helped.”
“The wind is bitter—” Alaric protested.
But Elise cut him off with, “I will cloak myself warmly.”
From the northern tower Elise narrowed her eyes and stared out across the distant fields of snow. A tiny band struggled along, three people only, on foot. Alaric watched Elise
stare out with a frown etched into her forehead. Then she suddenly cried out, “Alaric! Call five men—and have my mare saddled!”
“Milady—”
“Oh, Alaric! Do hurry along! Can’t you see? It is Lady Gwyneth, and it appears that she has been tricked by robbers! She comes across this snow on foot, with her child due at any time . . .”
Elise rushed back to her chamber to further cloak herself against the cold and snow, somewhat amazed that she could be so truly concerned for Gwyneth. But she was; her newfound love had opened her heart to all kinds of tenderness. But Gwyneth! How foolishly she had behaved, starting out in such weather . . .
Alaric was still against Elise’s going; he continued to scowl his disapproval as she mounted her horse. “Alaric!” Elise assured him. “I am almost disgraced to say that I have the strength of a young bull! I will be fine. But I am most concerned for Lady Gwyneth. See that Jeanne keeps fires burning, and water boiling.”
The snow blinded them once they started riding; Elise’s escort of five tried to form a shield about her with their horses, but there was little to be done. She was strong, strong and healthy, and despite the ravages of the cold, she would have enjoyed the ride were it not for the fact that she was so puzzled and worried. Without the advantage of the tower, they lost the position of the three struggling to reach the manor.
Elise’s guards began to urge that she head back. She began at last to believe that it had been foolhardy for her to come; her own child was too precious to risk. But to head back, she would have to split the party of guards, and she was suddenly afraid to do that. And if those on foot were not quickly found, they would soon perish in the snow.
“We continue together!” Elise ordered.
They traveled another ten minutes, cresting around a small clump of naked trees in the strange, snow-swept night, when suddenly the howl of the wind was interrupted by bloodthirsty cries. Elise started, whirling her horse about, to see that they were being set upon by a small band of mounted men. Men with their swords raised, leaping from their saddles to attack her guards.
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