by Lisa Hendrix
When they didn’t move quickly enough, he nodded to Brand, who strode through the room, bellowing and yanking blankets off stragglers. One man came up off his pallet with fists swinging; Brand swept his legs out from under him with one foot and moved on without breaking stride. Oswald followed in his wake, urging the Alnwick men to some order. By the time they reached the low dais at the front of the hall, even Alaida’s would-be suitors were awake, their eyes red-rimmed and bleary from drink. They reached for their weapons and started forward.
Ivo left Alaida by the door and swept across the path Brand had cleared. One of the leeches met him at the edge of the dais, his sword half out of the scabbard.
The flash of Ivo’s blade at his throat stopped the man cold, and his friends with him. Some of their men in the hall started forward. Brand rounded on them, defending Ivo’s back. Several Alnwick men rushed to his aid, and there was a brief tussle as they confiscated weapons.
“You dare to draw your sword against your host?” demanded Ivo hotly.
“What the devil? Who are you to speak to me so?”
“Ivo de Vassy,” he pronounced the name very clearly, so they would be sure to remember it. “Baron of Alnwick. You are in my hall, and you will stand down.”
“Baron of … ?” The man struggled to wrap his wine-soaked brain around the words, but when he managed at last, the color drained from his face. “It cannot be so.”
“And yet it is. I have seen the letter patent myself,” said Alaida clearly from her place near the door, undoubtedly as much for the benefit of her own men as for these louts. “Now sheath your weapons, messires, before I ask the baron to make me a gift of your ears. I am sure I would find them in fine condition, seeing how little they have been used in the past month.”
The knights’ faces went scarlet as laughter echoed through the hall, but they yielded, slowly returning their swords to their scabbards.
“My actions were unwise, my lord … Ivo, is it?” The man held his palms out and spread wide in surrender, but his oily tone still challenged. “Forgive me. I was asleep and dreaming of war. Being awakened so, I thought the dream was real.”
“Perhaps you would have gentler dreams if you slept elsewhere,” said Ivo. “Tonight.”
The knight’s lips thinned and he drew himself up. “Come, friends. We are no longer welcome here.”
“Ye never were,” muttered Oswald.
“You would have us leave now?” asked the shortest of the three, his eyes wide with the thought. “At night?”
“I just traveled the road from Morpeth and found it safe enough,” said Ivo. He tipped his blade slightly toward Brand, who stood there with his sword in his fist, looking every bit as though he would still enjoy gutting someone. “However, my friend here is not afraid of the dark. He would be happy to escort you.”
“We need no escort,” growled their leader. He stalked toward the door, his companions on his heels and their men trailing after. He slowed only long enough to spit an insult in Alaida’s direction. “Well done, m’lady. You found a champion as ill mannered as yourself.”
“But not half so rude as you, sir,” she snapped back, then went to the open door to call after them, “Be warned, if I hear of so much as a single egg cracked in the village, I will ask for your ears after all.”
Ivo laughed. The maid had a quick wit and a tongue to go with it. He was going to have to watch her, lest he find himself married to a shrew.
She turned back to the hall, flush with victory, her eyes flashing, and her red hair blazing in the torchlight. The wind lifted loose strands and whipped them around her brow like tongues of flame. Eisa, goddess of the hearth. The ancient image leapt into Ivo’s mind. She was fire itself. He suddenly very much wanted this woman, and it had nothing to do with land or king or anything beyond a desire to see how all that heat might warm him.
“I will see they don’t get lost between the hall and the gate,” said Brand, fetching him back to the business at hand. A grinning Oswald signaled his small troop of Alnwick men to bring the weapons they had taken, and they followed him out.
The door had barely shut behind them when the hall erupted. Ivo’s new men crowded forward to kneel and offer their loyalty. Like that, he had them, and Alnwick was no longer in Tyson hands. Alaida’s high spirits faded as the fact of it struck her.
“He’s done it, my lady,” said Bôte, excited. “He’s sent them packing.”
“But who will send him packing?” Alaida wondered aloud.
No one. He looked too right standing there in what used to be her grandfather’s spot, accepting his due—powerful and commanding. Noble, from the angular cut of his features to how he held himself. Even his clothes singled him out from the others. In the crowd of shapeless browns and blues, his were a rich, dark gray, the cloth barely distinguishable from his mail shirt except by the latter’s dull gleam. With his white-gold hair capping his head like a halo, he looked like some sort of warrior saint—Saint George, perhaps—except no saint ever looked at a woman the way Lord Ivo looked at her over the heads of his men, like he would possess her right there. Her cheeks burned, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of looking away.
“He will make a good lord,” prattled Bôte. “I can see it in his eyes. He’s strong, but he knows how to wield his strength.”
“I hope you are correct,” said Alaida quietly. “Ask Geoffrey to come to me.”
When Geoffrey came along, she gave her last orders as the lady of Alnwick: to clear the bedding from the floor and send for the women to come down to greet their new lord; to bring out the lord’s great chair and a bowl and ewer for him to wash; and to see that he was offered bread, meat, and wine. Finished, she waited until Lord Ivo was at last distracted, and then slipped off to the solar, unwilling to watch any longer and anxious to pack what she intended to carry away with her to the convent.
IVO WASN’T SURE when she had disappeared, just that he looked up from the line of men kneeling to pledge their loyalty to find her gone. He frowned, and the eyes of the man before him grew round with concern.
“Have I offended, my lord?”
“What? No, no, it’s not you. Go. We will finish this another time.” He turned to Brand. “Where is she?”
“Upstairs. I saw her go as I was coming in. From the look on her face, I thought you had told her.”
“Not yet, but she surely knows. I had better get it over with.”
“Shall I go up and take that little blade of hers first? She might not be able to kill you, but it would hurt—although in truth, her tongue might cut more deeply. Those knights we routed may never swagger again.”
Ivo grinned. “She did take their balls off, didn’t she? What confounds me is why she didn’t do it before and send them on their way.”
“That sort only listens to steel.” Brand’s smile faded. “A bride so quick could make this venture very short, my friend.”
“Then it will be short. However, if I do not take her to wife as William commands, it will never begin at all.”
“Then go and talk to your lady. I will stay here and enjoy your fire and make sure our raven friend stays out of the wine.”
“You remind me.” Ivo motioned Oswald and the steward, Geoffrey, over. “I will ride out before dawn to survey my lands.”
“I’ll have a guard ready to ride with you, my lord,” said Oswald.
“No!” said Ivo, too quickly. He took a deep breath and spoke more carefully. “No. Brand is all the guard I need. We will cover more ground that way. While I’m gone, another of my men will arrive, by the name of Sir Ari. He is my left hand, as Sir Brand is my right, and will be seneschal and steward over the castle to be built, while you, Geoffrey, will remain steward of the manor. Know this: he and Sir Brand both speak with my voice in all things. Obey them and grant them each the respect due to me, and see that every man and woman on this manor does the same.”
“Yes, my lord.” They both bobbed their heads at him and at Brand, and w
ere gone.
Ivo stood, stretched, and shook out the kinks. He had a final sip of wine. He stretched again.
“You delay like those stairs lead to the gallows,” laughed Brand. “Are you truly ready for this?”
Ivo closed his eyes, picturing her as she’d looked there by the door, her color high and her red hair blazing in the torchlight. Brand was right. She was too quick by half for comfort. But she was also fair beyond pretty, and more to the point, she was his. He blew out a long sigh. “I may never be ready for her, but by the gods, I do want her.”
He took the stairs two at a time. Below him, he heard Brand, still chuckling.
CHAPTER 3
SHE WOULD TAKE nothing that was not her own.
Alaida ignored the silk chainse that was part of her grandfather’s court dress and dug to the bottom of the big chest to find her own best sindon chemise. There would be no use for it at the abbey, of course, but the holy sisters could sell it as part of her dower. Her best gowns plus her jewels would surely be enough to buy her a place in one of the wealthier chapters. She would go to Durham … or farther south, perhaps. She’d heard of an abbey at Helenstowe in Oxfordshire. He would never find her there.
“Where are you going, my lady?”
She whirled, startled, clutching the soft linen to her breast. Behind her, the lid to the chest crashed down and she jumped. “Oh.”
“I do not bite. At least, not after a good meal.” The amusement in Ivo’s voice made her blood roil. Twice already he had laughed at her, and he had not yet been here one night.
“You startled me, monseigneur, that is all. I did not hear you enter.”
“You had your head deep in that chest.”
Presenting a charming view from the door, no doubt. She released her death grip on the chemise and draped it more loosely over her arm in an attempt to look less embarrassed. Or guilty. “Do you want something, my lord?”
“Yes, you … to answer my question. Where are you going?”
“Nowhere,” she lied.
“Odd.” He picked his way past the women’s bedding and over to the foot of the great bed, where a stack of neatly folded clothing lay next to a small wooden casket. He picked up the corner of a gown and fingered the embroidered hem, then tipped open the lid of the casket and lifted up the silver girdle that lay on top. “You appear to be packing for a journey.”
“I only thought to remove my things.” Her heart was pounding so loudly, surely he must hear. “The chamber is yours now, like the rest of Alnwick.” She failed to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
“There is no need.” He dropped the girdle back in with the other things. “I will rest in the hall tonight.”
“Tomorrow, then, I will—”
“Tomorrow, you will not need to remove your things. Tomorrow, we will be married. That is what I came to discuss.”
“There is nothing to discuss.”
“You must know the king has gifted you to me along with the land.”
“The king! The king is …” She could not summon words to describe what she thought of William. “I am not a chair to be given away so some knight can sit more comfortably in my grandfather’s hall.”
“The marriage will strengthen my claim,” he admitted, running his hand down the heavy green linen that curtained the bed. “But that is not the only reason I wish to wed.”
His meaning was clear, as he intended. She felt the heat crawling up her neck and turned away so he would not see.
Or at least, she tried to turn away.
Her gown was caught on something, so firmly she could move only inches. With his gaze still fixed on her and the color creeping into her cheeks, she reached behind herself, trying to trace the source of the snag.
“Well, I do not wish it,” she said, groping about, flustered. “Find some other woman who will have you willingly. You will gain even more land.”
“I have land enough for now.”
“And you have it with or without me, so what difference if I g—” She stopped herself too late.
He jumped on her error. “So you were planning to run. Where?”
“Nowhere.”
Glowering, he started toward her. “Do not lie to me, woman. Where were you going?”
Alaida tugged at the yards of wool. “I will not …”
The sentence went unfinished as he reached for her and she jerked away. Her skirts pulled her off balance, and he caught her as she started to fall, one arm around her waist, and pulled her hard against his chest.
She froze, and a long moment of silence stretched, in which she could see the anger in him fading, only to be replaced by something far more dangerous. She wanted to look away, but she found herself trapped by the dark blue flint of his eyes, by the tangy smell of sweat and steel, and most of all, by the warmth of his body, even through all the layers of cloth and mail between them. Or was it her own heat? She was suddenly unsure.
“You are caught,” he said softly.
He threaded his other arm behind her and lowered his head. He was going to kiss her, she thought, and her breath hung in her throat on a soft ah.
But no, he kept going, leaning past her shoulder as he reached behind her. There was a groan of metal, and she was free—but not from Ivo. He kept his hold as he straightened.
“The lid had closed on your gown,” he explained.
“M—” She had to swallow to find her voice. “My thanks, my lord.”
“I ask again, where were you going?”
“Nowh—” His arm tightened slightly, just enough to warn her she would not win this battle. “To a convent.”
“I can think of few women less suited to life as a nun.”
“You know nothing of me and what I am suited to.” She tried to push free, but she might as well have been shoving against a wall. “You know nothing of me at all. Release me.”
“You are going nowhere, Alaida. Resign yourself to that fact.” He adjusted his hold slightly, but kept her caught there, so she was forced to look up at his stern face, just inches away. “And as for what I know … I already know you have a tongue that can be sharper than a carter’s whip. I know you have a spirit that would fester in a nunnery. And I know that, even though you would deny it, you wonder why I didn’t kiss you a moment ago and what it would have been like if I had.”
“Bah. You are as full of yourself as Sir Neville.”
“Is that his name? Did he kiss you?”
She shuddered, just thinking of it. “No.”
“Good,” said Ivo. And then he did, briefly, but enough to send sparks flying through her blood. She tried to keep from showing its effect, but she could tell by his smile that he knew he’d proved his point.
“No convent,” he said.
She didn’t answer, and his smile faded.
“By all that …” His jaw clamped as he visibly worked to tamp his temper down. When he spoke, his voice was clipped with the effort. “I would be within my rights to make you wife within the hour, and you sorely tempt me to do so.” He ran a callused thumb across the apple of her cheek as though smudging away some mark. “But I vowed before I arrived that I would give you a day to reconcile yourself to this marriage. Do not make me regret the courtesy. I do not wish to spend the next fortnight tearing down an abbey stone by stone.”
“You would not dare.”
“I would, and not for the first time,” he said darkly, and Alaida knew in her heart he told the truth. He said again, “No convent. Swear it.”
What kind of man was he, to attack an abbey? The answer was too clear: William’s man. William, who ravaged entire shires simply to prove his power. What would this de Vassy do to prove his? What if he took his wrath out on the village? Suddenly frightened, she gave in—but still she hedged.
“No convent.” There were places other than convents for a woman to find refuge. There must be.
“Good,” he said, and satisfied, settled her firmly on her feet. “Come. I want the men to see you a
t my side before they sleep tonight.”
It was the last thing she wanted, but resistance would serve little purpose. “Yes, my lord.”
“No argument?” His brow furrowed in suspicion.
“First you demand resignation, and then you question it,” she snapped. “Truly, my lord, you must make up your mind.”
“Ah, there we go.” Chuckling, he took her hand and led her toward the hall.
There he kept her until well past midnight, taking homage from the rest of the household with her at his right, so every man would know she acknowledged his position. Then, as the women drifted back to the solar and the men retrieved their bedding and settled in for the night, he had the accounts brought out, and he and Brand pored over them, asking her and Geoffrey and Oswald countless questions. By the time he finally released them to bed, she was so exhausted that she fell asleep as her head touched the pillow.
Even then he harried her, though, filling her dreams with kisses and her nightmares with visions of burning abbeys and ransacked villages. By the time she woke, well past midday, she knew she could not run—even if she somehow did manage to think of a place to hide besides a convent.
So she summoned Bôte and Geoffrey and told them to prepare for a wedding.
“We already prepare, my lady,” said Bôte, beaming.
Geoffrey confirmed this. “Lord Ivo said we are to be ready for your wedding feast when he returns.”
“Returns? From where?”
“He rode out before dawn with Sir Brand, my lady. He said to expect him late, likely after sunset.”
“And you are to be married then,” added Bôte. “Though I’ve never heard of a wedding at night. In the morning it should be, with the feast to begin at a proper hour. Odd, it is.”
More than odd, but nothing about this situation was usual. “He’s gone? For the entire day?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Up all night and still riding out today to see his lands,” said Bôte. “I tell you, he will make a good lord, if we must have a new one, and a good husband, too.”