He smiled. Dear lord, what a smile. “A very small advantage, considering your vulnerability. I could not help myself. Just as you could not help that you enjoyed it.”
He stepped closer. Do not do this, she cried. It is cruel and dishonorable of you. But her trembling mouth would not speak. Stop him, fight him, her mind urged desperately. For your sake and your pride. For Robert. But his closeness and gentle touch summoned that irrational yearning so long denied, so overpowering, and she could only hold her breath and watch the face bending down to hers.
Warm lips on hers, gentle, soothing, luring. Kisses brushing her cheek, shocking her ear. A dangerous swell in that sensual power streaking out of him, into her, and arms pulling her into a tight embrace.
Her mind clouded with a confusion of horror and denial and desire and relief. For a moment she became rigid. But his hands moved over her back, and the comforting touch defeated her. Her mind lost its battle against her senses. Duty succumbed to need.
She knew that he knew, but suddenly she didn't care. He raised his head and looked down at her before claiming her with a more demanding kiss. She lost all thought, and let herself submerge beneath the aching desire.
His kiss grew more intimate, probing slowly inside her mouth, and shivering sensations spilled through her limbs and body, finding a destination deep and low inside her. Her arms rose of their own accord and embraced him, bringing her closer yet. Her breasts hardened at the pressure of his chest, and she gasped at the pleasure the contact gave. She turned her head to accept the hot, impatient kisses exploring her neck. She was lost now, utterly lost.
Tight, thrilling pleasure spun through her, building quickly to something excruciating and insistent. He leashed whatever drove him but she could not do the same. More calmly, he caressed the length of her body, and she sighed at this intimacy that both brought relief and made it worse. His firm touch rose and cupped her breast and the sensation, more wonderful than the memories of her dreams, made her cry out. He swallowed the sound with his kiss. His arm arched her up to his seductive hand and he circled and stroked the nipple, driving her to delirium.
He half carried, half guided her over to the bed. He sat on its edge and pulled her between his thighs.
She gazed down at those smoldering eyes and tight jaw and parted straight lips. She had never known that a man could look so beautiful and strong in his passion. She could have looked at him forever. His hands stroked down her hair, following its path over breasts and stomach and hips. His fingers found the lacing on the side of her gown and untied it.
She couldn't move. She could barely stand. Without his embrace she felt vulnerable and bereft and hungry for contact. She closed her eyes in relief at the faint touch when he slid the gown and shift off her shoulders and arms. The garments fell down low on her hips.
Through lowered lids she watched him look at her nakedness and push her hair aside and trace her breasts with a light touch. He gently caressed and rubbed the hard, begging peaks, and looked up with hot, knowing eyes. She tensed her body for some vague control and pressed her thighs together to relieve that lower, throbbing awareness.
He had driven her mad even before he pulled her closer and teased with his tongue, first at one nipple, then the other. She stroked her hands into his hair and leaned into his tantalizing torture. Her hips squirmed in a shocking way, and he embraced them and took her breast in his mouth. She held his head to her and gave herself over to wonderful, mindless bliss.
He pulled her further, easing back, making to recline. “Come and lie with me, Reyna.”
She looked down at his beautiful face and felt the dream crack. A strange sorrow flooded her. Better for him to have never spoken. Words were rational things and encouraged rational thought. His summoned back her mind, her awareness, her restrictive sense of duty and virtue.
She pressed lightly, stopping him. “I can not. Must not.”
Anger flashed as he realized that she meant it, that she would go no further. Anger and amazement. He pulled her down on his knee and took her face in his hand. “Is this a challenge, my lady? To see if I spoke the truth when I said there would be no rapes here?”
“Nay,” she said, knowing she was very vulnerable and that no one would ever call it rape now.
He pushed her off his lap onto the bed. She almost fell to the floor. Feeling very ashamed, she scrambled to cover herself with the gown.
He rose. “You have certainly taught this English whoreson a lesson.” He strode to the door. “Do not think to do it again.”
Reyna sat forlornly on the bed after he left, trying to subject what had just occurred to some logic. Her mind felt too scrambled. She only knew that she had betrayed herself in a disgraceful way, and almost betrayed Robert as well.
She wanted to blame Sir Ian, but knew it was pointless to do so. What did it matter to him that old loyalties and hard needs battled inside her? She doubted that this was a man who reflected much on consequences, or thought twice about his women after he left them. He was a brigand who laid siege to her castle, and once she yielded he would exact his tribute and move on.
Aye, his actions had been understandable and predictable.
The real blame lay with her.
She went to one of the windows and climbed into its deep niche, sitting near the slit, letting the air flow over her face to cool her humiliation. Her chamber faced east, and from here she could look out over the final mile of moss to the abrupt rising of the waste and the subsequent mounds of the Cheviot Hills.
Her gaze fell on the old motte-and-bailey castle that had stood sentinel for centuries by the first crag of the waste, near the source of the Black Lyne river. It was an ancient fortress, used before Black Lyne Keep had been built. It was no more than a jumble of rocks falling over cavernous foundations now.
Something flickered amidst the ruins, like a yellow star glittering at the base of the distant structure. She squinted and saw it again.
Reginald's signal. He had found some horses.
I an felt almost in control by the time he reentered the torchlit hall. Forcing himself not to think about the woman who had just made a fool of him, biting back the fury that she had found the strength to deny him in a way few women ever had, he scanned the large chamber until he found Gregory.
Striding over, he pulled the man aside. “Tomorrow morning, take ten men and go to Harclow. Tell Morvan that Maccus Armstrong is within the fortress.”
Gregory whistled lowly. “A shrewd move, their hiding that fact even during the parlays. No wonder Maccus has led no force down from his stronghold at Clivedale.”
“Aye. The seneschal at Clivedale would not risk it, but Thomas Armstrong will be there now, and perhaps he will. Tell Morvan that we will increase the patrols and keep watch on the north, but that he should be alert too.”
Gregory left the hall to choose the men whom he would bring. Still fuming about the woman upstairs, Ian threw himself into the lord's chair at the high table. Had she planned it? Deliberately enticed him toward the garden so that she could close the gate at the most effective moment? Had she resorted to fighting this war with a woman's weapon, when the daggers and swords had failed her? Had her soft yielding been no more than another ploy by the actress who had first posed as a whore?
He didn't believe it. He had known women highly adept at deception but had been taken in only once, when he was little more than a youth. He had learned his lesson well, and his instincts in these things had become well honed over the years. It would take more skill than she possessed to fool him.
He considered the other possibilities and finally forced himself to face the most obvious. She had claimed to be faithful to her old husband. A virtuous woman, then, and by his own code he should be leaving her alone.
So, why hadn't he walked out of that chamber as he had intended?
He resisted the reflection that the question demanded. She was in his head, that was certain, and he wanted her, that was more certain. Wanted her more tha
n he had wanted a woman in a very long time. Not since Elizabeth, but this was different from that too. He had gone to Elizabeth a scarred, vengeful boy, and left as a man. It was the man who wanted Reyna now.
He glanced down the table's length from his dominating position in the lord's chair. It was the closest he would ever get, but it was still better than most younger sons saw. Tonight, however, that thought gave him little comfort. He was, in the end, only a paid sword, and had been little more than a thief these last years. At least one person in this conquered tower would always see him so, no matter where he sat.
What role had that played in her denial? Why should he give a damn?
He shouldn't give a damn but, unaccountably, he found that he did.
At the end of the hall, a servant girl scrubbed the tables, her long dark hair draping from beneath her kerchief. She glanced at him and continued her work. He watched her move to her labors, her breasts and buttocks swelling against the fabric of her homespun gown.
She noticed his attention, and approached. He recognized her. She had sought his eye several times during the last two days and given him warm, shy smiles. She smiled less shyly now. “My name is Eva. Would you like me to fetch you some ale, my lord?”
My lord. Not really accurate, but a minor point to the servants under the circumstances. One person in this keep would never call him that, even if it were accurate, even at the point of a sword. Despicable whoreson, dishonorable bastard, aye, but never my lord.
Ian looked across the table at Eva. He smiled.
Chapter SIX
Throughout the next day, Reyna made very sure to avoid Sir Ian. If she heard his step coming up one stairway, she darted down the other.
In the late afternoon, a commotion in the passageway drew her out of her chamber to see Margery and the other ladies conversing with excitement.
Margery's gaze raked over the simple gown that Reyna had put on after dinner. “Go and make yourself presentable,” she ordered. “We are expecting a visitor. The rider just came announcing him. It is a French noble, the Comte de Senlis.”
“Why would a French comte visit here? This keep is held by an English army, and the French are their enemies.”
“Whatever his reasons, we must greet him properly. I have instructed Alice to do her best for the evening meal. We don't want this man to think he is amongst barbarians. Make yourself decent or hide in the kitchen. He arrives soon.”
Reyna returned to her chamber, slipped on her blue cote-hardie, and descended to the yard, where the women waited to greet this luminary from France. Ian was there, and he hadn't done anything to avoid looking like a barbarian.
He was completing a pulley that he had devised to bring water to the upper levels of the tower. A large beam jutted out from the top-level garderobe, and ropes dangled down from its wheel.
Alice's grandsons, Adam and Peter, hung in the shadows. Ian noticed and called them over. Grinning with delight, they helped him run a test of the pulley. They fitted a water-filled bucket into the sling at the bottom of the rope, and Ian began hauling it upward.
He wore a sleeveless tunic and the cut chausses, and his body stretched against the fabric. The taut muscles of his arms made powerful lines as he reached hand over hand. Reyna realized that this was the first time she had seen him in full daylight. The sun picked up red lights in his dark brown hair. The feather-edged pools of his eyes looked deeper and more compelling out here.
He finished his test and stood back with a satisfied expression. She walked over and studied the mechanism. “If you fit a crank to the rope, even women could do it,” she said.
“A good idea. Of course, in time of war the pulley makes the keep vulnerable. Whoever commands here will have to destroy it then.” He finally noticed the line of women in their finery standing by the tower stairs. “What is this? Are we expecting the pope?”
“Margery said that a visitor is on his way here.”
“All of this is for David? He should find that amusing.”
“David?”
“David de Abyndon, Morvan's brother through marriage.”
“Margery misunderstood. She thinks the Comte de Senlis arrives.”
“David is the Comte de Senlis. But before he received Senlis he was a London merchant, and I knew him as such. In England he is still known as Master David the mercer. He never renounced his citizenship, and keeps his place in the trading company. He and Christiana, Morvan's sister, spend some of their time in London.”
“An unusual story.”
“An unusual man.” He turned his attention to the rising portcullis and the sounds of approaching horses.
Six riders trotted into the yard. Reyna identified the comte immediately. He was a very handsome man with golden-brown hair. He swung off his horse and walked toward the keep with a vague smile on his lips and intelligent scrutiny in his deep blue eyes.
Ian strode forward and the two men greeted warmly. They spoke only a few words before David turned to the women. Margery stood forward in the position of prominence, and the comte accepted her proffered hand in a courtly gesture of greeting. “Lady Reyna, I assume.”
Margery flustered.
“Nay, this is Lady Margery, Thomas Armstrong's wife,” Ian explained. “That woman there is Robert Kelso's widow.” He crooked his finger at Reyna.
She walked over, knowing that she looked very poor compared to Margery and the others. She wore no jewels and had refused to don heavy velvets. She wondered if this comte was the sort of man to be insulted by her lack of effort.
Beautiful hands took her own graciously. Intense blue eyes ignored her gown and looked only at her face. She experienced the uncomfortable feeling that another mind had just invaded her own and instantly learned all that it needed to know.
She was struck by the unaccountable fear that her situation had just become much more precarious.
What are these other chambers?” David asked as Ian led him to the solar door.
“Lady Margery has one, and the other ladies have moved up here for seclusion. Lady Reyna's nun's cell is down there.”
“Nun's cell? And here I thought that you had created a harem for yourself. Protected by and accessible only to the sultan.”
David walked around the solar, and his attention quickly lit on the shelves with their books. He became absorbed, handling them carefully while he examined bindings and flipped pages. “This is an excellent library, better than most bishops own. Aquinas and Augustine. Penitential tracts, but also part of the Roman de la Rose. An Ovid.” He opened a cover. “Several of these came from the same source. They bear a device with the initials of a previous owner. J.M.”
Ian lifted a tattered quarter folio from the shelf. “You should find this interesting. Bernard of Clairveaux, with a gloss commentary in the margins in French.”
Ian watched David peruse the volumes and considered what he knew about this merchant-turned-comte. David had been one of the first English merchants to travel south and east and establish a trading network. That network had made him wealthy before he turned twenty-five. An enigmatic man, easy to know superficially but almost impossible to know well.
“What brings you here?” Ian finally asked.
David turned his attention away from the books. “I was at Carlisle awaiting the ship from London, but it has been delayed and I grew bored. I went to Harclow, and Morvan asked me to come here before I returned to the port.”
Morvan had asked him to come and check on Ian of Guilford, was what Ian knew he meant. Morvan owed Ian the debt of his life, and had agreed to repay it with this chance of redemption, but Fitzwaryn was not entirely comfortable using a free company in his private war.
“As you can see, all is in order and the people are well cared for. This tower would have fallen sooner if Morvan had told me about the postern tunnel.”
“He did not know about it. It wasn't here when he was a youth, or at least his father never mentioned it to him. Most likely Sir Robert built it. Morva
n is very pleased with your success here.”
“How goes the siege at Harclow?”
“The hunger finally forced them to send out the nonessential people. The women, children, and some servants. Morvan was waiting for it. Now he will attack. The machines are built and ready. Once the ship arrives with the men King Edward promised, it will be done.” He paused. “It will be bloody.”
“Does he want me there? Anyone could hold this tower now.”
“When it is time, he may call for you. Now, however, he wants you here, keeping an eye on the roads down from the Armstrong manor at Clivedale. We expect Thomas Armstrong to attempt a relief action. Your news that Maccus is inside Harclow explained much, by the way. How did you learn that?”
“Lady Reyna let it slip.”
“We learned from the men whom you sent that she led you to the tunnel. Did you seduce her into it?”
“Is that what the men said? Aye, I did, but not in the way that they mean.” Ian described the events of that day.
“Shrewd of you to see through her plan. A vainer man might have decided she had fallen in love watching from the tower, and used the ruse to fulfill her desire.”
“No such good fortune. She came to kill me.”
“A brave woman. Quite lovely. When I first saw her, she reminded me of Elizabeth at first. Much younger, of course.”
Ian flinched at this casual mention of the widow with whom he had spent two years of his life.
“She sends you her affection,” David added. “She was wounded that you did not visit her when you passed near London.”
Aye, she had sent her affection. But she had sent Morvan Fitzwaryn her love. One of the old tensions between them.
“Tell me about Lady Reyna,” David said.
“She is bold and willful and nothing but trouble. A little hellcat. She has caused the well to go dry, I am sure, and never speaks to me without cursing me.”
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