Secret Thunder

by Patricia Ryan

  As Luke watched, Lady Faithe braced her hands on either side of Alex's head, leaned down, and kissed him on the forehead.

  Shock vanquished Luke's ardor, reheating his blood to a furious boil. She'd kissed his brother—kissed him! He'd seen it with his own eyes.

  He stalked toward her like a beast after its prey, crushing rushes and flowers underfoot, his hands curled in soldierly readiness at his sides. Heat pulsed behind his eyes. She'd kissed his brother. She'd kissed Alex!

  She looked up as he approached, startled at first, and then wary. His face must have reflected his simmering rage. He saw a flash of fear in her eyes, and then the light of realization as she glanced first at Alex and then back at Luke.

  Schooling her features, she stood, chin valiantly raised, hands clutching her linen wrapper. Its sash had come loose, exposing the shift beneath. Between the cushions of her breasts hung the long golden chain with its cluster of keys, a symbol of her authority, which she evidently never took off.

  He stopped inches from her, glowering down; she had to crane her neck to look at him. Before he could speak, she said, quietly, in her own tongue, "I was gauging his fever with my lips."

  Luke narrowed his gaze, seeking the truth in her eyes. She accepted this scrutiny with unblinking equanimity.

  Turning away from her, he squatted down and laid the back of his hand on his brother's forehead, finding it cool. "He has no fever." He spoke in French, a deliberate reminder of his dominion over her and her estate. For years he'd longed to settle down to a life of farming, a good life, a life without bloodshed. Now he had his chance. Hauekleah was his, or soon would be. She was his. Her world was his. Her body was his. Her land and villeins and livestock all belonged to him. They would live by his rules, now and forever. And as a mark of their fealty, they would speak his language, at least in his presence.

  She squared her shoulders, but answered him calmly, in her remarkably good French. "He did have a fever. I gave him some balm tea to lower it." She handed Luke a cup. "We'd best not discuss this here. Your brother will wake up."

  "Nothing wakes up Alex." Luke sniffed the dark liquid cooling in the bottom of the cup, as if that might allay his suspicions. He smelled lemon balm and honey and something else he couldn't identify.

  He stood with his back to her, staring into the cup. "I never heard of measuring a fever that way."

  Rushes rustled as she took a step toward him. "'Tis a trick I learned in the convent where I grew up."

  "You were raised in a convent?" That would account for her learning.

  "My mother died giving birth to me, my father when I was six. Orrik convinced my overlord that it was best for the nuns to raise me. There was one, Sister Beatrix. She used to nurse me in the infirmary when I was ill. If I felt hot, she'd press her lips to my forehead to determine how bad the fever was."

  She came around to face him, lifting the cup from his hand. Her fingers brushed his, sending hot chills up his arm and into his chest. "And then she'd give me balm tea." Burying her nose in the cup, she closed her eyes and inhaled. A smile of pure, transfixed delight spread across her face. "How I loved it. It always brought my fever down, and then I'd sleep. And sometimes, in the middle of the night, I'd feel a kind of soft tickle on my forehead, and I'd half awaken and know Sister Beatrix was checking up on me. And then I'd fall back asleep again, content that I was being cared for and all was well with the world."

  Luke wondered what she'd looked like as a child. His mind formed a picture of a delicate girl with flushed cheeks, asleep in bed. Unexpectedly, he felt a wild, nearly overpowering urge to gather her up and hold her close. Instead, he took a step back. God knew what he'd do once he had her in his arms.

  He felt very much the fool for having assumed the worst. His reaction had been automatic, unthinking, fueled by what he'd seen in the woods and possibly by jealousy over watching her minister so tenderly to his brother. Absurdly, he wished he could be in Alex's place. He'd gladly trade those hideous wounds for the chance to feel her solicitous hands on his body, her lips on his brow.

  You'll feel those things and more, soon enough. Patience.

  She smiled up at him, a mischievous light dancing in her eyes. "This afternoon you accused me of trying to kill your brother. Just now you thought I wanted to kiss him. Is it so hard to believe that I merely want to help him?"

  "Why would you want to help a Norman soldier?"

  Her smiled faded. "He's to be my brother by marriage." She examined the cup in her hand with a thoughtful expression, and then looked up guardedly. "And you're to be my husband. I've little affection for your kind. How could it be otherwise, after—" She bit her lip, cutting off what undoubtedly would have been a litany of Norman sins against her and her people. "But I've no illusions about soldiering. You and Alex have merely served your sovereign as my husband served his. My quarrel is with William of Normandy, not the brothers de Périgueux."

  "Graciously spoken. Yet I'm sure it won't be easy for you and your people, accommodating yourselves to a Norman master."

  That devilish little smile of hers returned. "'Twill be harder by far for you, my lord, getting used to our Saxon ways."

  The scenes Luke had encountered in the woods bombarded his mind's eye—a mosaic of carnal images. "After what I saw out there tonight, I can't help but agree with you."

  Spots of pink bloomed on her cheeks. "I should have explained that to you earlier."

  "How could one explain such a thing?" One image took focus in Luke's mind—the first couple he'd come upon, clearly visible in the light of the full moon. The man had the woman against a tree, her legs around his waist, his braies at his ankles, groaning as he pounding into her. She wore white night clothes, such as the Lady Faithe had on, and clawed at her lover's shirt, gasping in the time to his thrusts, her head thrown back.

  The memory—and Lady Faithe's closeness, her warmth and sweetly mysterious scent—stirred his loins. He quickly backed away from her, turning and raking his hands through his unbound hair, which made the knot on his upper arm pulse with pain. "This is a savage country," he said, "with savage customs."

  Again he heard her approach from behind. Folks normally kept their distance from him, but Faithe of Hauekleah appeared to be the exception. "We're not savage," she said, "just different from what you're used to."

  "We?" He spun around. "Have you ever..." His imagination substituted her face for that of the woman in the white nightgown, getting tupped against that tree, and he felt a rush of desire mingled with revulsion.

  "Nay. I spent my youth in a convent and was married at sixteen. Caedmon thought it unseemly for us to—"

  "Caedmon?"

  "My husband. He'd been brought up in Worcester, and the custom struck him as..."

  "Barbaric?"

  She stiffened her back. "These are people of the land, celebrating a time of rebirth. Their lives revolve around the seasons. They've survived another winter, and they want to celebrate it with an act of release—an act of procreation."

  A thoughtful rationale, he had to concede. Every culture had its customs, and all people harbored an animal side that strained for release; who knew this better than he? And he couldn't deny the primitive appeal of a night of unleashed passions. Still... "Where I come from, such acts are conducted in private."

  "We're a rustic people, my lord," she said gravely, "a simple people. But we share the same values as the rest of Christendom. We know right from wrong, and we try to be good. I hope, in time, you can come to accept us for what we are."

  She spoke with such heartfelt sincerity that Luke was disposed to reassure her, at least to some extent. "I did not come here thinking to transform your people into something they're not," he said. "All I ask is their fidelity, and in return I'll make every attempt to tolerate their ways."

  Her entire being seemed to light up from within. "I'm gratified to hear that, my lord."

  "I do demand their allegiance, though," he felt compelled to add. "I want that understo
od. They don't have to like me, and undoubtedly many will despise me, but I won't tolerate disloyalty."

  "They won't despise you," she said, "unless you do despicable things. My people hate Normans in general because they've stolen our kingdom from us, but it's difficult to hate a person who treats you well and fairly. Be good to them. Spend the days between now and the wedding showing them what a just and fair master you'll be, and by the time you're lord of Hauekleah—"

  "We're to be married tomorrow," he said.

  She stared at him.

  "I'd assumed you knew. Didn't Lord Alberic tell you—"

  "Lord Alberic has told me very little," she said flatly.

  Luke rejected the notion of offering to postpone the wedding, anxious as he was to claim Hauekleah, and its mistress, as his own. "His lordship wants an expedient wedding, since I'm already living under your roof. Frankly, so do I. He'll arrive tomorrow morning, along with his wife, the Lady Bertrada, and his personal chaplain, who will solemnize the union. The preliminaries are being dispensed with."

  "I have my own priest. I don't see why—"

  "His lordship," Luke said carefully, "is a man who likes things done his way. I understand that you have preferences, but I wouldn't waste my time quarreling with him over the details if I were you."

  "Quarreling with him," she said tightly, "or with you, is that correct?"

  Luke sighed, wishing she could accept matters with a bit more grace. He didn't relish having to limit her power, for she exercised it uncommonly well, but it was imperative that he take some of it for himself. "You will need to learn to acquiesce to me, yes."

  She yanked at the sash of her wrapper, tying it into a tight knot. "Thank you for the advice, my lord. I'm sure it's presumptuous of me to want to have any say in the particulars of my marriage—or my life."

  "My lady—"

  "You and Lord Alberic are in a much better position, I daresay, to attend to the details and make the decisions. I'll refrain from involving myself in them any further."

  She set the cup on a bench, stalked to the open corner stairway, and climbed it. Opening the door to her private chamber, she looked down at him and said, "Might I inquire when and where the nuptials are to take place?"

  "Nones, at the chapel door, followed by a Mass. My lady—"

  "I'll be there," she said and closed the door behind her.

  Chapter 4

  Faithe twisted her wedding ring around and around on her finger as she glanced surreptitiously at her new husband, sitting next to her at dinner. He'd been subdued during the ceremony and Mass, and quiet all through the afternoon meal. Leola came up behind him with a jug of spiced wine, but he waved her away.

  "More for you, my lady?"

  "Aye." Faithe intended to be as relaxed as possible when she retired to her marriage bed that night.

  While Leola refilled the large goblet, Faithe watched her sister, Lynette, working her way down the opposite side of the table with a bowl of hazelnut crumble. The only way she could tell the twins apart was that Lynette wore her hair in two braids, Leola in one. When Lynette got to Alex, propped up with pillows directly across from Faithe in Hauekleah Hall's most comfortable chair, his head still bandaged, she leaned in close and purred, "Something sweet, Sir Alex?"

  Alex caught Lynette's gaze and held it, smiling. "I'll have whatever you've got." To Leola he said, "I wouldn't mind some of yours, too, just for balance."

  The twins graced him with slyly sweet smiles and continued down the table.

  Dinner had been a relatively modest affair. If Lord Alberic and his wife had expected a lavish bride-ale under the circumstances, they'd been sorely mistaken. Faithe had resolved, after her testy exchange with Sir Luke the night before, to leave all the day's arrangements to her betrothed and his overlord. Let them prepare a proper wedding feast, if they were so determined to manage all the details and make all the decisions. Of course, they hadn't, and so it was dinner as usual, shared with her demesne staff and those villeins doing week work for her, at a row of trestle tables in the great hall.

  Alberic had sputtered quietly upon entering the hall after the nuptial Mass and discovering no formal celebration—no musicians, no decorations, no high table. Sir Luke, on the other hand, hadn't seemed to mind. In fact, given the glint in his eye as he led her by the arm to her seat, he might even have been amused—just one hint among many that he and his overlord were not on the best of terms.

  In truth, the house staff, in honor of the wedding, had prepared a more extravagant meal than usual—several courses, including her favorite carp in nettle broth—but it had undoubtedly been meager by Lord Alberic's standards. He sat through the meal with a pinched expression, picking uninterestedly at his food. By contrast, his wife, the pink and fleshy Lady Bertrada, had talked nonstop during the entire meal, and eaten multiple servings of everything with gusto. Several times she had begged Faithe to visit her at Foxhyrst Castle, claiming to be starved for feminine companionship. It must be lonely, Faithe realized, to be the wife of an invader—particularly one as cold and foul-tempered as Lord Alberic.

  Bored by the humble fare and lack of entertainment, the sheriff had insisted on departing early, to his wife's disappointment and Faithe's immense relief. She could tolerate Bertrada fairly well—mostly she felt sorry for her—but she couldn't bear the lady's husband; with any luck, he'd found her hospitality so lacking that he would avoid further visits.

  Faithe sipped her wine, careful not to let any drip on her lap. Her one concession to the occasion had been to bathe and dress in her best kirtle, an elegantly simple gown of plum-colored silk ornamented by a golden sash draped low over her hips. A veil, secured by a floral chaplet, drifted over her two long braids, and garnets dangled from her earlobes.

  She smiled inwardly, remembering her bridegroom's expression—surprise followed by appreciation—when she had joined him at the chapel door at nones. Sometimes when she glanced his way, she found him looking at her with those dark, penetrating eyes. He always quickly looked away, which she found most interesting.

  I'm doing it again... twisting and twisting that ring. Flattening her hand on her lap, she ran her thumb over the emeralds embedded in the thick gold band. It was an extraordinary piece of jewelry, the finest thing she'd ever worn. Where had he come by a ring like this on such short notice, she wondered.

  "'Twas my mother's."

  She started at the sound of Sir Luke's voice, deep but soft, like distant thunder. He leaned toward her slightly, his gaze on the ring. She breathed in his scent, warm and clean. Moira told her he'd been seen bathing in the river early that morning; he'd even washed his hair.

  "How come you to have your mother's ring?" she asked.

  "They gave it to me when she died."

  "And... you've been carrying it with you?"

  His response was a half shrug, half nod. He reached toward her lap, lightly rubbing the encrusted stones, as if trying to polish them with his fingertips. The gesture struck her as unexpectedly tender, and strangely sensual.

  "It's beautiful," she said.

  "You should wear beautiful things. You're..." Clearly discomfited, he withdrew his hand and lifted his goblet, frowning to find it empty. "You're the mistress of a great farmstead. You should wear silks and jewels every day."

  You're a beautiful woman. That's what she'd thought he was going to say. She wondered whether he'd intended to say that and changed his mind. Soothing her nerves with a sip from her own goblet, she said, "I need to wear clothes I can work in."

  "Why must you work so hard?" he asked. "You have villeins for that."

  She chuckled. "And what, pray, would you propose I do to keep busy?"

  "My stepmother and sisters do needlework."

  A huff of laughter escaped from her before she could stop it. "I'm sorry." She pressed on her lips in a futile attempt to dampen her smile. "I mean no disrespect to your stepmother and sisters. It's just that I'd go mad passing a needle in and out of cloth all day. I could
n't bear it."

  She thought he'd be miffed with her, for in essence she was belittling what seemed to be the primary occupation of the de Périgueux women. Instead, that half-amused little glint ignited in his eyes again. "So be it." He lapsed into taciturn silence again.

  Faithe stole another look at her husband as he gazed in an unfocused way across the great hall. He'd shaved for the occasion and pulled his hair back into a neat queue, making him look much less savage than he had the day before. His pitch black ceremonial tunic, snug across his broad shoulders, hung nearly to the floor, giving him an ascetic air. He might almost have passed for a man of God, were it not for his bearing—remote, guarded, and tightly coiled. Luke de Périgueux carried himself like a creature bred to shed blood.

  Faithe made a little sound of disgust with herself when she realized she was twisting the ring again. With an uneven sigh, she picked up her goblet and took a generous swallow of wine. Tonight she would take the Black Dragon to her bed, and then she supposed she would find out how savage a beast he really was.

  She drained the goblet in one tilt and gestured for more, but before Leola could pour it, the front door opened. Dunstan walked into the hall, spotted her, and opened his mouth to speak, but paused. His nonplussed gaze took in her luxurious dress, then shifted to Sir Luke and back again.

  Faithe addressed him in their own language. "I'm sorry you had to miss my wedding, Dunstan."

  The young reeve's mouth formed a solemn line. "All for a good cause, my lady," he said tonelessly. "We've caught Vance. He was hiding out in a cotter's shack in Upwood."

  Dunstan nodded to someone outside, and two men—Nyle Plowman and Firdolf—escorted Vance, his hands bound in back of him, into the hall. A collective murmur rose from the assembled villeins as the men half dragged the ragged bandit toward her table. His eyes darted wildly around the great hall, and for a moment Faithe almost felt sorry for him.

  She was about to ask him about Hengist, but Sir Luke rose slowly to his feet, stilling her tongue. The murmuring tapered off as Hauekleah's new lord regarded Vance in grim silence.