The Maiden Bride

by Linda Needham

  "You know that I haven't. Nor have I a blacksmith, or plow horse, or baker. But I do pray for them, regularly." She stopped and clapped her hands together firmly, then squeezed her eyes shut. "Please God, send me a baker—and if you don't mind, I'd prefer that he be riding a horse for plowing."

  Her eyes were bright when they found his again, her cheeks tinted rose. "As simple as that, sir—they will find us. It takes a bit of faith. I'm sorry if you can't see it."

  But he could, and felt quite suddenly and fiercely embraced in her imaginings, against his better judgment and all possible logic. He couldn't let that happen, any more than he could allow himself to revel in the scent of her, in the pounding of his heart. She needed to see the danger in her situation, and he needed to practice his distance.

  "So, madam, in lieu of a skilled household and suitable allotment of chattels, the king granted you vast sums of money to aid in the rebuilding."

  Her jaw tightened before she turned sharply from him, sat down on the bench, and went to work trimming a quill nib.

  "King Edward did apologize to me—repeatedly, almost charmingly in fact—but he had nothing to give of his treasury. And my husband's was empty by the time it came to me."

  "It bloody well was—" not, he'd nearly said. The Bayard holdings included three enviable titles, four rich, black-bottomed estates in Brittany and two others in England, which by rights ought to have been completely uncontested in his premature death. They should have gone directly to his widow. But Edward and his thieving barons had passed off this wreck of a castle to his wife without a sou, and expected her to survive the winter.

  Blackguards. Aye, here was his penance: to instruct and protect her, no matter the cost to his own causes or his pride.

  "It bloody well was what, sir?" She was blinking at him, waiting for him to finish his outburst.

  "You were cozened, madam." He straddled the bench, rocking it as he sat down beside her, leaned over her shoulder, and came up sharply against her deeply pouting frown, those engulfing eyes, the delicious scent of her recent bath. Lavender, liltingly sweet.

  That quickly, he was fully roused again, his pulse thrumming hard enough to be heard by her.

  "Cozened of what?"

  His mouth went dry, his brain dull-edged. He'd made a grand mistake, sitting so close to her in the way of his old, libertine habits: one thigh aligned against hers, the other across her backside, there to keep her in place. But she wasn't a tavern wench or a coy-eyed milkmaid—and he was a monk-to-be.

  And just now he was noticing spriggy curls at her temple, her honey-golden skin, and a light spray of freckles that wandered off between her breasts to some exotically scented land. Of sandalwood and ginger.

  He came off the bench like the seat was afire and strode toward the garden door, hoping she couldn't identify a man in rut, for he was fully charged.

  And she bloody well shouldn't know of such things—she was a virgin.

  His virgin at the moment. No other man's.

  "You were cozened of a fortune, madam," he bellowed, unreasoningly jealous of some future husband who would know her secret places, her sated sighs, as he never would. "Cheated of a decent home, at the least. William Bayard was a wealthy man."

  "How do you know this?" She turned fully on the bench to scan the length of him, suddenly very interested, it seemed. Then she cocked her head. "Did you know him? My husband?" The quiet, painfully naked question made her sound suddenly vulnerable.

  Christ, what to do now? This was an opportunity for the truth to trip him up. A test.

  "I knew him somewhat." Faithless warrior, then a joyously reformed heretic. A father too late. An unredeemable sinner. And now an unsuitable husband.

  Husband, still.

  "How did you know him? Are you a soldier?" He could see the bedeviling questions in her eyes, and the caution that he'd put there long before he'd met her. "Were you one of his household knights?"

  He rolled bitterness around inside his cheek. "No. I was with your husband at Crécy."

  "I see." She hesitated, as unsure of herself as he'd ever seen her. "Did you ever hear him speak of—"

  Me, she'd been about to say. He could see it in those doe-soft eyes as they blazed briefly, hot curiosity dissolving into cold contempt. He felt looked through, to the image of the man he had once been, distorted in age-rippled glass and her questing imagination.

  Then she shook her head. At herself, it seemed, and the absurdity of their marriage and all that had brought her here to him. His widow. His wife.

  She gathered her dignity once more, and her determination. "Then, Master Nicholas, if you knew my husband somewhat, you knew him far better than I ever did. I never met him."

  Distance, Nicholas, or you'll compound your many wrongs against her.

  "Then William Bayard must have been the grandest fool of all."

  Surprise lit her eyes, and the corners of her mouth turned up slightly. "I believe that with all my heart, Nicholas. That he missed out on many things."

  Her candor would surely kill him, if his guilt and shame didn't first, or his craving for her.

  "But to answer your question, sir: I knew nothing about my husband's estates when the marriage began." She turned away to unstop a horn of powdered ink. "I didn't care, because my opinion didn't matter. The venture had been made between my father and my husband. I assumed that I would learn of Bayard's holdings after he sent for me to join him in Normandy or wherever he might be warring." Though she was intent upon tapping a small measure of the black powder into a bowl, her mouth was set firmly against the memory of him. "But that never happened."

  How could he let her know that his callousness had been for the best in the long run? She'd have found only heartbreak in his house, would have been caught in the same retribution as all the others.

  "I knew enough of your husband's reputation, my lady, and of the laws of inheritance to know that you were entitled to much more than this pile of rubble in your widow's grant."

  "I don't want anything more from my husband. I'm delighted with Faulkhurst as it is, with all of its flaws. And with no help from Edward's royal treasury. I knew very well that Faulkhurst was abandoned and in terrible shape, so I let Edward and his council think me a simpleton—for the less I involve the king, the more easily I can evade his influence."

  He suddenly felt vastly proud that she was so wise for a woman with so little experience in the world. He sat on the edge of the table, enchanted all over again. "Where did you learn your politics, madam?"

  She smiled up at him. "At the hands of my late father and the king and my unlamented husband."

  The little jabs hurt most of all. They would keep him in his place, and aching. "Ah, yes."

  "My life has been ill served by the politicking of men, but only because I was innocent of its power and its vanity. I am wiser now, and use my guile to my own advantage." She drew her fingers along the rib of the quill. "As you say, why would the king be interested in a tattered old castle on the verge of tumbling into the sea?"

  "But guile alone can't guard you against your enemies. How will you defend yourself? With sticks and flaming arrows?"

  She laughed with a brightness that caught him round the heart. "Look around you, Master Nicholas. There's nothing to defend at the moment."

  Preposterous! "There is yourself, madam." She cast him another wry and worldly glance, as though she knew great secrets and kept them proudly. "You and your little brood are as lambs staked out for a pack of hungry wolves."

  "Believe me, sir, we are far more secure here than we've been for many months." She wielded a small pestle against the crumbled ink, pressing it into a finer powder.

  "Safer here? What do you mean?"

  "We're quite used to bedding down in the open, under a tree, a bridge, or in a cave—whenever we were lucky enough to find one."

  Hell and damn, he'd left her to wander the countryside like a vagrant. Well, no longer, by God. He would give her this damned castle,
even if it killed him.

  "Faulkhurst isn't a cave; it's a fortress that needs defending, constantly."

  She raised a brow at him and pursed her lips. "Of course it does."

  "That's another reason you need me as your steward, madam: to see that the postern door in the main gate isn't left propped open by some fool as an invitation to every thief for miles around."

  She stopped grinding and met his gaze directly. "I am that fool. I left it open purposely."

  "The postern door?"

  "Aye, sir. For anyone to come through at anytime, God willing. How else can they get inside with no one to open the gate when they knock?"

  He hoped to hell she was jesting. "Thieves don't bother to knock, neither do raiding Marcher lords."

  She stood, looking fierce with her fists planted against her hips. "Please tell me that you left the door standing wide."

  "Are you mad? Of course I didn't." He shook his head, disbelieving the course of this entire conversation. "I closed and barred it."

  "Blast it all," she huffed as she left the table, frowning at him as though he had just unloaded the full weight of the world onto her shoulders. "Master Nicholas, you're not recommending yourself very well to the position of steward." She lifted her cloak from the back of a chair and stepped into her boots at the same time.

  "Where are you going?"

  She picked up the cresset lamp. "To prop open the gate, just as I left it."

  "Absolutely not! You're not doing anything of the kind." But he'd bellowed his command to the hem of her shabby cloak as it swung round the corner of the kitchen doorway and out into the great hall.

  Utterly, wholly mad. "Madam!"

  The woman frowned a quieting finger at him as she made a detour to the guttering hearth and the two girls sleeping there, tucking a threadbare blanket around a stray foot and landing a fond kiss on a chin before she was off again, stepping around the angular boy sprawled and snoring across the entrance to the portico.

  Nicholas followed her, chewing on his silence until they reached the wide stairs in the dark bailey, unable to think of a single thing to say or do—beyond tackling her—that would stop her bullheaded progress.

  "I'll only close and bar it again, madam."

  But she tromped on, her lamp a bobbling outrider to her bracing strides, which seemed overlong for a woman whose head barely reached his shoulder. That bespoke long legs—fine, curving legs, if this chastening God had construed his dreams correctly.

  And never to be seen by you, Brother Nicholas. He would spend his eternity in hell, burning with desire for her.

  "You will not prop the gate open, madam." He easily met her stride, increased it by the length of a step, and took the lamp from her so that he could stare down at her. "Are you listening to me?"

  "Convince me that I should do that, sir, that I should trust you as my steward—the man who will be charged with my daily accounts, with the running of my castle and fields. The one who will do my bidding without question. Why should I choose you?"

  "Because, madam," he said between his teeth, "I am your only bloody choice."

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  « ^ »

  Eleanor wanted to cry, to stomp her foot—though she had to keep a level head and a steady heart. The man was right, of course. He might be quick-tempered and opinionated and highly possessive of her castle, but that's exactly the kind of man she needed in a steward.

  But how the devil was she going to contain his fierceness within the smallness of the title? He seemed so much more than that, larger than life. Larger than her will—which terrified her.

  He needed gentling, needed to know that she was the master here, not him. Despite his prior claim, despite the fact that he knew William Bayard, however marginally, despite the very puzzling matter of his being here at all.

  "How long have you been living at Faulkhurst?"

  He caught her elbow and turned her as they reached the low wall of the kitchen garden, and peered down at her with a midnight scowl. "Long enough to know the castle better than any man living."

  "How long?"

  "I don't know." He circled his hand in the air as though to pluck an answer from the darkness. "Months, I suppose. Which makes me the logical choice for steward."

  Good God, he was handsome; impossible to look at without her mind wandering into places it had never wandered before. That was surely a strike against him, this ability to muddle her thoughts.

  "Why do you want to stay here, Nicholas? You despise Faulkhurst to its foundations."

  "I—" he seemed to gather his temper before he continued "—don't despise it."

  Liar. "Perhaps not, but you do believe me a silly fool—"

  "Hardly that—"

  "You just said as much."

  "When did I, madam?" He seemed truly indignant, initially matching her pace when she started across the bailey, then increasing it until she was nearly running to keep up with him. She finally slowed to her own stride.

  "Do you truly believe, Master Nicholas, that I ought to welcome you as my steward when I know right well that you would subvert my plans? You are trying to at this very moment."

  "Not if your plans are sound."

  Aye, he would think that way in his vast male arrogance. She stopped by an empty wagon and swung her lamp toward him to better see how he played the truth.

  "How do you plan to measure that soundness, sir? By whose standard? A tyrannical, condescending soldier's … or mine?"

  His eyes became shards of indigo, hot in the lamp's flame as he mulled her question carefully. His mouth was so perfectly crafted—even in his thwarted scowl—that she wanted to follow the curving lines of it and its dampness with her finger. He smelled cleanly of leather and smoky thyme in the cocoon of the night.

  "Try me—" he leaned down and whispered, so warmly, so near to her brow that he ruffled her lashes and the hair at her temple, and made her tilt her mouth up to catch the rest of his intoxicating words, "—my lady Eleanor."

  Try him. His mouth on hers. Oh, yes; she'd like to. But oh, my, he was large. And wholly distracting. Her heart pounded so loudly she couldn't hear herself think, let alone recall the subject, though she knew it was of grave importance to her future.

  "Try you, sir?"

  "Aye, madam." He caught her chin with his thumb, then brushed her lips with it, watching them as though gauging her answer. "Tell me your reasons for keeping the damned gate open."

  Oh, yes, that. She stepped safely away from the man, to a place where she could regain her thoughts. Because no matter how she explained them, her reasons wouldn't satisfy him; they only made sense to her because she had risked everything already and had little left to lose.

  Except hope, and she refused to allow him to steal that from her, nor to shake it in any way. No man would ever do that to her again.

  "Whatever your low opinion of me, sir, I am not an unsuspecting innocent—"

  "My opinion of you isn't low in the least." He took hold of her sleeve, wrapped his fingers in the loose linen, and tugged her into his delicious heat.

  "I am deeply, dreadfully familiar with what it takes to manage a castle, in good times and in times of unthinkable evil. Like the years just past." The horrors nudged at her as they did so often, wanting airing, but she shook her head and they vanished.

  "Then you know that you'll need three hundred people at the very least." He was nodding impatiently, that black mane of hair emphasizing just how tall he was and how well he favored his own opinions over hers.

  "I need people of every sort if I'm to vanquish my husband's memory and redress his uncaring policies. Tenants and crafters and villeins. That's the very reason I can't afford to let a single person pass us by because they think Faulkhurst unoccupied and unwelcoming."

  He snorted and sat back on the open wagongate, his arms crossed defiantly over his broad chest, those tremendously long, knee-booted legs spread out on either side of hers. "My dear lady, only thieve
s and highwaymen travel about in the dead of night. And they look only to take advantage—"

  "Which makes them an enterprising group of people, don't you think?" Of course he wouldn't. Couldn't possibly.

  He went still. "Enterprising? Is that what you just said?"

  "Aye, enterprising. Terrifically skilled at making a profitable something out of absolutely nothing. Have you ever watched a mountebank at work at a fake?"

  "Hell and damnation, I believe I am watching one right now. Are you mad, woman?" He was up again, pacing away from her into the blurring shadows and back again into their shallow pool of light, making her hope suddenly that he wouldn't give up on her, because that would feel too much like defeat.

  "I'm not mad, sir. I've only done in my life what needed to be done. And on that course I've become acquainted with dozens of outlaws in these past few years—"

  "You have? With outlaws? How?" He took hold of her forearm and turned her, fully horrified by her confession, as though her welfare in the past meant something personal to him, a private outrage. "What the bloody hell have you been doing since your husband died? Making covenants with brigands?"

  "And kings, sir. And priests, and merchants. Whoever would listen to me, whoever would talk freely. And I learned that every man and woman who managed to live through the horrors of the last few years wishes a better life for himself—and a far better one for his children."

  Nicholas tried to unscramble the woman's logic, but it was impossible. No matter how many ways he twisted it, not if he tried for the next hundred years—and he hadn't nearly that much time, else he might well enjoy the task. He sat down again on the back of the cart, its creak a bitter echo of the way his bones felt just now—aged and hollow.

  And utterly confused. "What the devil are you talking about?"

  "Opportunity, Master Nicholas." She gave a sharp, satisfied nod and threw out her hands, as though that clarified everything for him.