The Maiden Bride

by Linda Needham

  He stood in the utter darkness, unmoving, inhaling her scent even from there; feeling her hair as it swept across his face in the wind and through his fingers, her heat still caught up in the wool of his chanson, in his chest and at his groin, where her lithe hips had so softly opposed his as he held her trapped on the battlements. He'd only vaguely noticed the fine shape of her at the time, the sleekness of her thighs against his, her belly, the smoothness of her cheek, the stubborn line of her jaw in the bowl of his hands.

  So abundantly alive, and so late in coming. He stilled his ragged breathing, ignored the delinquent racing of his pulse at the memory of her searing softness, denied the head-spinning scent of her, and that utterly unanswerable quickening in his groin for this bountifully beautiful wife—whom he could never touch or taste or embrace because of the promises he'd made in his son's name. He dropped more deeply into shadows.

  But she knew, this prying wife of his. Or thought she knew. Suspicion and that deft self-possession raised her chin higher and brightened the flush across her brow, her mouth contracting impatiently into a glistening, unfurled, untasted rose.

  Then she looked away from him, and the gallery grew chilled, emptied of the light.

  "We've plenty of work to keep us busy toward the harvest, Dickon. We'll take stock of the castle stores in the morning, room by room, from undercroft to attic. Then we'll go to work on the keep to make it livable enough, and then the bailey, and the village."

  An endless inventory of pointless labors: scrubbing, sweeping, laying cobbles, thatching roofs, restoring stone walls. The woman must have brought along an army of skilled craftsmen: masons, carpenters, a cadre of blacksmiths. Though the devil only knew where she'd encamped them.

  They weren't anywhere in the castle. He'd have sensed the altered sounds: a change in the icy whispering of the wind in the corridors as it mourned through the towers: an echo of the living who still haunted him.

  Not that it mattered anymore. There was righteousness in that, and relief.

  The young girl coughed and then sneezed as she shook out another well-used blanket. "But we're only four of us, my lady. We'll be stretched as thin as a spittle of milk, don't you think?"

  A cold, sharp stone dropped into his chest. What madness was this? Just a child, a young girl, a beardless boy, and a lunatic woman with a taste for the impossible?

  Hell and damnation.

  "We may be only four right now, Lisabet." His guileless wife stuck one of his spoons into one of his kettles and stirred blithely. "But we've got room enough for a whole castleful if they come."

  Only four.

  Christ—there it was, blinding in its brilliance: his final obligation. A test of his endurance, of his resolve.

  There would be no leaving his wife here to find her way alone—to starve, to freeze in the winter in his ruin of a castle. She and her misfit band would perish within the week, and he'd have four more demon souls to battle him on his way into hell.

  Damnation. Why did you come, madam? Why now? Another month and he would have been safely gone from here, would never have known that she still lived, or that he was so damnably obligated to her.

  But she was as alive as the sun, breathing fire and fury. And that changed everything.

  As surely as it changed nothing at all.

  Nicholas slipped away from the dancing lights into the familiar closeness of the undercrofts, grateful for the secret dark passages that led from under the castle, up his private staircase, and into the hush of the scaffolded chapel perched on the edge of the sea.

  The moon had dodged the storm and shone through the open rafters to shadow the stone floor of the sanctuary with sharp-edged chevrons of pale blue and midnight. Why he'd come here, where the ghosts were so plentiful and his damnation so vivid, he couldn't fathom. Habit, perhaps.

  He'd started to rebuild the long-neglected chapel when he'd first returned from the endless bloodletting on endless battlefields. He'd been damned arrogant to have believed he could so easily make amends for the hundreds of churches he'd sacked, for the lives he'd claimed with his insatiable blade.

  For that beggarly boy he'd nearly run his sword through in the nave of St. Justin's, when the full meaning of his life had come crashing down on him.

  And in the end, for the most selfish motives of all: to finally claim his bastard son and shore up his darkened soul with good works.

  But God had devised a more pointed penance for his lifetime of brutal sinning, a retribution that had laid waste to all who'd had the misfortune to come near him, innocents and devils alike. Though he'd tried to protect them with his life, they'd all been struck down—by plague and famine and a sunless winter—until he was left finally, utterly alone.

  Until now. Until Eleanor—wild-haired and unbending in her impossible dreams. And he feared her most of all.

  Separation was the only way.

  And so you are annulled, wife. Dismissed by me, here and now, witnessed by the sea and the hissing rocks. If not in the eyes of the law, then surely in the stark impossibility of a marriage between them. He would see the matter closed in secret: one last indulgence purchased with his plunder. After all, a marriage never begun was no marriage at all. It was—

  Impossible.

  The sterile coolness of distance had always served him well in the past, had muted the metallic stench of blood on his sword and armor, had deafened him to the shriek of steel through living bone, had allowed him to see past the carnage to the numbness.

  Yet that distance had failed him completely when he needed it most of all.

  I'm so cold, Papa. Hold me.

  He would keep his distance from the lady of the castle. It was for the best. He would set immovable boundaries around their dealings and look upon her merely as another charge against him, a penance to be quickly done with forever.

  The Lord of Faulkhurst was no more.

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  « ^ »

  After dinner, Dickon had stationed himself in the portico with all the pomp and pride of the king's own bodyguard. "Not beast, nor thief, nor anyone else shall pass me and live, my lady."

  But he was fortunately fast asleep in his threadbare blanket now, which was far safer than having the quick-tempered lad meet up with the prowling night shadow named Graystone.

  Possessive beast! This is my great hall, not yours.

  Eleanor had sensed him in the gallery earlier, had felt an unsettling sense of being studied from afar, of her eyelashes ruffled, her nape sniffed and blown hot.

  Graystone. Her gargoyle.

  Or her husband's wicked, restive ghost.

  Trouble in either case—and unfinished business, for no amount of bellowing or chest beating was going to evict her.

  Or keep her from her bath.

  Though the kitchen was dusty and dark and nearly empty of pots and utensils, it contained one true blessing: a hot spring that bubbled and steamed unchecked through a pipe that jutted out of the wall near the outside door. The water swirled merrily around inside a long limestone trough and then drained out through another pipe into the kitchen garden.

  She'd thought of little else through supper: a steaming, skin-pinkening soak and blissfully scented solitude.

  When all was finally quiet, with Pippa and Lisabet snoozing on pallets in front of the hearth, Eleanor filled the half barrel in the pantry with water from the spring, barred the door from the inside, then stole a quietly magnificent half hour to wash her hair and soak herself to wrinkles, steaming away the memory of too many baths taken in near-freezing streams, wondering all the while how a gargoyle-infested, tumble-down old castle way out here on a forgotten spit of land had so quickly become a part of her breathing.

  "Because it's mine."

  There. She'd said it. Felt it all the way through to the marrow, as thickly hot as the lavender-scented steam rising off the water.

  "My home. My castle." Where she needn't ask permission of anyone to plant what she pleased in
her fields, or to endow a village school for girls and boys, or to one day marry a man she actually liked—

  Or loved. Because marriage was a good and holy undertaking, if entered into with an honorable intent—with an honorable man.

  Aye, marriage had to be a partnership, a fact she'd never fully realized until a few hours ago on the ramparts, while her gargoyle was testing her, making her defend her marriage to Bayard.

  Her marriage, indeed. She hadn't been his partner, by any measure. Neither in sickness, nor in health, nor anytime at all—because he'd never given her the chance. He'd never even come to claim her as any husband would. Hadn't sent for her, or bothered to dispatch a message or an edict, or even a simple query as to her welfare, let alone her dearest wishes. He'd used her—as her father had always done—for his inscrutable purposes, and then he'd set her aside, forgotten her entirely while all hell was breaking loose upon his lands.

  While she was turned out of her home and away from the people who needed her most, by her own uncle.

  And by a king who made bargains with devils like William Bayard.

  Mother Mary, what sort of union it would have been? A wife ought at least to respect her husband, the father of her children. It was difficult to find anything to respect about a man who lived only to loot and plunder and kill.

  The misbegotten blackguard.

  But here was her chance. She'd show him exactly what sort of life he'd missed out on: a wife with brains enough to resurrect his castle and his village with her bare hands, to plant his fields and cart his goods to market. To swell his stores and defend his house.

  And God knows she'd have been an excellent lover to the man, given the chance. A willing one, because she had a wickedly passionate imagination, which had been working just fine in the close presence of her gargoyle—working overtime, in fact. She could smell him still, the heat of him, that electrifying connection.

  God only knew what sort of wantonness she'd have heaped upon a husband that she loved.

  The poor man.

  The ruthless bastard.

  She might have lounged in the steaming water until morning, if she didn't have hours of work yet to do. A map to make of the fields, strategies to devise against those who would try to steal Faulkhurst from her because they might think her lacking.

  She dried and dressed in her only clean night shift, and stepped from the pantry with her cresset lamp into the pooling dimness of the deserted kitchen.

  She was just setting the lamp on the table when a shiver crept across her shoulders and prickled down her chest like fingers. Knowing exactly what—nay, who—she'd find there, she blinked at the shadows directly across the table, though she couldn't quite see him.

  Her gargoyle. The shifting, smoke-scented image of him coalesced into dark robes and brooding shoulders. And as he stepped closer, a face that would remain in her dreams forever. His cheeks were cleanly shaved to his moustache and the edge of his jaw, his hair blown wildly and long, making him look larger and more wrathful than ever.

  And completely untamable.

  "Were you born in shadows, sir, or do you just find them pleasant company?"

  The man had a devilish way with his silence, letting it spool out until she thought he hadn't heard, his gaze wavering from hers only to track the length of her gown to her knees, then to linger indulgently at her breasts, at their very tips, until he raised his eyes to her mouth and made her knees weak.

  "My name is Nicholas Langridge, madam. Not Graystone." He leaned forward into the lamplight and said, without the slightest hint of deference, "And as of this moment, I am your steward."

  * * *

  Chapter 4

  « ^ »

  The woman laughed merrily. Fearlessly, in fact, leaning against the pantry door, crossing her arms perilously beneath her breasts, uplifting them to him, like a gift of sweetly warm, just-risen bread.

  "After all you said to me, Master Nicholas? I'd sooner trust a starving wolf at a lambing than trust you as my steward."

  Trust? Bloody hell, he'd just granted her full reign over his entire estate, from cellar to roof. She could hardly ask for more than that.

  Yet here she was in her insolence, standing unabashedly barefooted, with her coppery hair still damply curling from the bath she'd just taken in his pantry.

  The soft flame of her cresset lamp lit that lovely face and the sultry length of her, sporting all kinds of curves and shadings that he could see through her night shift—a thready linen thing that was too big for her and had seen too many bouts with the laundress.

  And she couldn't trust him?

  A woman of great wisdom, for this was monumental restraint on his part. 'Twould be the simplest thing he'd ever done to banish his good intentions and let his hands wander where they might, to let his mouth take hers and find her hidden softness.

  And why not? He was already damned to the hellfires of eternity; he might as well just confess all and let their doomed marriage begin here.

  For he wanted her deeply, wanted to claim her fully, selfishly, and damn the consequences. He'd thought of little else since she'd come.

  You are my wife. Whether you like it or not, madam.

  His chest ached like fire from not breathing; his too-long-celibate tarse throbbed as it hadn't in years, standing in full and rigid agreement that his wife was the most magnificently provocative woman that God had ever created.

  She would be the rarest of heavens to hold, to kiss, to lose himself inside.

  But at this moment she was glaring daggers at him in this cramped, lavender-scented kitchen, bristling with her innocent pride, her pointedly accurate opinions of him.

  It was on his tongue to tell her everything, to take back what was and had always been his. But she was purity of the flesh—his eternal torment. He would only sully her if he dared touch her. He couldn't. Not ever. He could only hope to save her—from herself and from him.

  She needed a steward, a keeper—not a husband. At least not this one.

  So he damped his anger and his untoward lust for his wife's soft and sultry places and said, damned pleasantly, "Whether you trust me or not, madam, you'll have me as your steward."

  "Why?"

  "Why?" He'd spat the word, and realized his error when she set her chin firmly and narrowed her eyes at him. He'd never had the patience for negotiation, hated sitting out a siege on his backside while stubborn, otherwise prudent citizens patiently starved to death. But he said evenly, "It should be clear to you, Lady Eleanor, that you need a steward to save you from your own follies."

  "My follies?" She snorted through a sumptuously smug grin and went to a plate chest near the pantry door, then lifted the slope-lidded box sitting on top. "And you believe that your particular stewardship is just what I need."

  His jaw ached from holding in the bellow that thundered around inside his chest. "I am your only chance in the world if you mean to survive the week, let alone prosper here."

  She studied him with a good deal of heat. "Not a half dozen hours ago you were threatening to roast and eat me if I didn't leave. Now you're offering your assistance? Hardly the sort of behavior I should trust in a steward. The moment I step out of the castle, you'll shut the gate on me."

  He couldn't now if he tried. Though he could lean down a few inches and taste her mouth. "Madam, I didn't realize who you were at the time."

  That made her laugh, bringing a pair of dimples to her cheeks. "Well, Master Nicholas, that soothes me tremendously. Because when you finally did realize that I was Lady Eleanor, you dangled me over a cliff and threatened to feed my bones to the crabs. How am I to reconcile your helpful intentions with your deeds?"

  "You were nowhere near the cliffs, madam. And never at risk from me. Nor will you ever be." He'd never in his life harmed a woman. Condemn him for greed and vengeance and blasphemy, but never for that sin. "Instead of doubting my intentions, you'd best heed my warnings."

  "And cede my castle to you?"

  "I don't
want your castle."

  "But you want to be my steward?"

  "Yes." He was failing miserably here—because she made no bloody sense. It wasn't like talking to a man in the same position. He'd have simply run the bastard through with his sword and sent his head back to his family in a wooden coffer. Faulkhurst was his, by God. As it would remain, until he left it legally behind. But he could hardly wrestle her to the ground to gain his title. He yanked the bench out from beneath the trestle table and stomped his booted foot down on the seat.

  Yes. Casual. Pleasant.

  "What did this cataclysm of a castle cost you?" He'd been sharper than he'd meant to be, caused her to narrow those light brown eyes and sniff at him.

  "Only my pride and my dignity. Beyond that, Faulkhurst cost me nothing at all. It had belonged to my husband before he died."

  Her pride? This suddenly stank of Edward Plantagenet.

  "Your husband must have had other estates than this—ones in far better shape than Faulkhurst." The woman was indisputably discriminating, not in the least stupid or acquiescent, and he had plenty of more profitable manors, other castles, that she could have chosen instead of this one. He'd purposely neglected his estate in the last year, not caring what Edward did with it—not until now.

  "Faulkhurst suited me perfectly." She unlatched the lid of the small box. Writing works, all tumbled together from her travels. "King Edward granted it to me quite happily."

  "I'll wager he did. It cost him little enough: a broken fortress, an uninhabitable village, the fields grown wild. You haven't even a chicken to lay you an egg, or a cow to milk. Did this generous-hearted king grant you a household staff that hasn't arrived yet?"

  She ignored him, though her brow flushed as she dug around in the box.

  Nicholas rounded the corner of the table. "You have no livestock, no game. Have you masons to rebuild the bakehouse?" A step closer gained him a distracting view of the lamplight threading its fire through the silky strands of her hair, and the altogether disastrous need to bring an overflowing handful of it to his nose and sniff there while she still rummaged. "Carpenters? A brewer?"