by Tamara Leigh
His hands on her eased. “I know.”
“Do you?”
His lids lowered, and when they lifted, it was her mouth he looked upon—as if he was tempted to it.
Was it desire he felt? Mere lust for not having had a woman recently? Or something more? And what of her own emotions, this longing in her breast? Was it—?
It could not be. Still, she lifted her hands between them and laid her palms to his chest. “Why did you twice kiss me?”
Slowly, he raised his gaze to hers. “I wished to.”
“Do you wish to again?”
Without hesitation, he lowered his head and Annyn felt the pleasure of his mouth on hers, his hands on her back, and his arms sweeping her against his chest.
When he trailed his mouth to her ear, she turned her face to his neck and breathed in the male scent of him, then kissed him there and tasted the salt of his perspiration. It was strange that what had offended her on the training field should now cause such a stir within her.
“Annyn,” he rasped, returning to her mouth. His lips teased and hands pushed through her hair.
In that moment, she knew what she wanted from him and what she would give him in return. It was wrong—more wrong than she dared think upon—but she wanted this memory to take with her when she left. Just this one thing and she would be as content as it was possible for one whose fate portended ill. No matter what Lavonne did to her, she would always have this.
“Feel how my heart beats.” Garr drew her hand to his chest.
She thrilled to the knocking there. “I feel it. Now teach me how ’tis between a man and woman, Garr.”
He stilled and, when she looked up, she saw regret on his face where there had been passion.
He released her and moved away. “Forgive me.”
Heart aching, she said, “Why did you stop? Because I am not beautiful?”
He turned back. “I stop because ’tis a mistake I make in touching you so. Though women are not unknown to me, I do not lie with ladies, especially those promised to another.”
She gasped. “Promised? Do you not mean enslaved?”
His face darkened. “It is what it is, Annyn. It can be no other way.”
She took a step toward him. “But it can, even if only for this day.”
“Nay. As you say that I am not Lavonne, neither am I Rowan or your uncle, pleasuring myself with a woman who belongs to another, making a harlot of her.”
His words were like a slap, and Annyn looked away so he would not know how hard he struck. Regardless of her mother’s sins, she did not wish to think of Elena in that way.
The silence stretched until Annyn found her old, bitter self. “How honorable of you, Lord Wulfrith,” she said. “Would that I had words to express my gratitude that my esteemed betrothed shall find me intact.”
He closed the distance between them and cupped her chin. “It is honorable, Annyn, and I will not be made to feel ashamed for it.”
As the child in her wished him to feel. Struck with shame of her own that, for all her seeking of God these many days, she would have committed a sin she could never cast off for memory of this man, she pulled free of his touch. “You are right,” she murmured. “What a pity more are not like you.”
Silence descended again, and Annyn felt it straight through to her soul.
This time, Garr was the one to sweep it aside. “Come,” he said, striding to the door, “you must have cloth to fashion a gown that fits.”
She could hardly breathe for the sudden turn. After all that had happened between the training field and this chamber, he wished to take her to market? “But I do not require a fitted gown.”
He looked over his shoulder. “Aye, you do—a bliaut worthy to receive the one you would have be king.”
Henry, who would be here in a sennight. Though Annyn longed to decline, she knew Garr was right. If there was any chance of saving Rowan, she must gain the duke’s favor, and that would be easier done in a gown that fit well and proclaimed her to be a lady.
She had returned, and appeared no worse for Wulfrith’s anger.
Rowan closed his eyes on the sight of Annyn following Wulfrith across the outer bailey. The clamor of half an hour earlier had drawn him to the window of his prison. Unfortunately, the din had arisen from somewhere outside the castle walls, and not until he saw Wulfrith dragging Annyn over the drawbridge into the outer bailey had he known the cause of it. Had she tried to escape?
Fearing for her as a father would a daughter, though he certainly was not and did not deserve to be, he had pounded on the door and called to the guard. His jailer came, but no matter how Rowan raged, the accursed man refused to open the door. With naught left but prayer, which he had attempted, he had returned to the window, the width of which might allow a child through but never a man.
Not that it mattered now. Annyn was well, furthering her case that Wulfrith was not one to murder an innocent young man.
The relief over her well-being threatened by the never-ending ache of Jonas’s death, Rowan watched the two step beneath the portcullis. A moment later, they were lost to sight, and he returned to pondering the conversation overheard between his jailer and a man who had brought Rowan’s dinner a few days past. Duke Henry was coming, not only to garner Wulfrith’s allegiance, but to be delivered Annyn and the one who had aided in her escape.
Though his own fate did not matter, he agonized over Annyn’s. What would Henry’s punishment be? Worse than wedding her to the one who had struck her so hard as to leave a bruise? If only there was some way for him to aid her.
There was not. Somehow, she must do it herself. But how, with Wulfrith always at her back?
Rowan almost wished the renowned trainer of knights might come to feel something for her that would cause him to help her, but lust was not enough to risk the wrath of the man who would be king. As for love, Wulfrith was not so fool. It would take a miracle to see Annyn delivered free of Henry. And from Rowan’s experience, there were no miracles laying about.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
It was not as he would have it, but that was the way of things. Nor would he have had himself be the one to stroll among the stalls with Annyn in search of cloth, especially as they did so beneath the curious regard of those who had witnessed their contest on the training field. But he would see to the task and know it was done.
“This.” He reached past the eager merchant who smelled of chewed parsley. From beneath a fold of red and white striped cloth, Garr pulled forth a vivid blue.
“Silk of Almeria,” the merchant crooned. “The finest, my lord, befitting a lady.”
Garr looked to Annyn and saw her attention was on the woods bordering Stern. As if deep in thought, she twisted the ring on her thumb. Perhaps the cloth would not be necessary. “Lady Annyn,” he clipped.
She looked around. “My lord?”
Resenting the awkward task, he held out the cloth. “What do you think?”
“It is lovely.” She turned away.
Lord, why am I, a warrior, coaxing a woman to appraise cloth?
“How many ells?” a voice came from behind.
Garr looked around at his mother. What was she doing at market, she who shunned such frivolity? For the items required in her household, she always sent another. Of course, her curiosity must have been piqued when he came belowstairs with Annyn. She had asked if all was well, and he had told her it soon would be, then left the donjon with Annyn in tow.
“Five ells in that piece, my lady,” the merchant answered. “Far enough to cut a fine bliaut.”
She snorted. “Providing it is sleeveless and shows her legs.”
Annyn turned, blinked as if only then realizing Isobel had joined them. “My lady.”
Isobel scanned the selection on the table. “Surely you can do better than this, merchant.”
“I’ve some Imperial.” He bent behind the table. When he straightened, a fold of rich purple silk was over one arm, red over the other, both interwo
ven with gold thread. “Seven ells this.” He raised the purple. “Eight ells this.”
“Let us see which best suits her color.”
The merchant came around the table and held the red against Annyn’s cheek.
“Nay,” Isobel said, “it does not go with her skin.” She eyed Annyn. “And you will not take flour to your face?”
“I do not like it, my lady.”
Garr was not surprised, nor would he care to see her pasty and pale. He liked her unmade face that made for a look fresh as rain. Doubtless, when she was an old woman she would still possess that simple radiance. He almost wished he might be there to see it.
“Let us try the purple, then,” Lady Isobel said.
The color contrasted nicely with Annyn’s fair skin and black hair, the gold thread lending a sparkle to her despondent eyes.
“The purple it shall be.” Isobel leveled her gaze on the merchant. “And do not think to price it too high, for there are others who would as soon take our coin.”
“I would not think to, my lady!”
She looked to Garr. “Now all is well?”
Hardly, but she need not know of his struggle over Annyn. “Well enough.” He pivoted. Though he had not intended to return to the training field, he needed to cut down a pel.
“I would speak to you,” Isobel stopped him, then turned back to the merchant. A few minutes later, the man laid the cloth over Annyn’s arms.
“Return to the donjon, Lady Annyn,” Isobel said, “and tell Josse she is to assist you in fashioning a bliaut befitting a noblewoman.”
Garr stared after Annyn as she started for the drawbridge and could not help but sympathize, nor think that if she stole away from Stern—
His mother’s arm slid through his. “Walk with me.”
He was not accustomed to such a request, content as she was with her self-imposed confinement within the donjon. Nor was he comfortable with her arm joined to his as if they were close as they had not been since he had left Stern at the age of four.
She drew him away from the merchants and the castle. “A bath you shall require this eve,” she said as they neared an ancient oak beyond the training field.
He did smell like an animal. It was hard to believe Annyn had allowed him so near, that she would have taken him to her if her plea that he teach her had not reminded him she was untouched. It had been wrong, and he had felt God’s displeasure.
“When you pulled her abovestairs,” Isobel said, “I feared...”
“You had good reason to, Mother.”
She did not speak again until they reached the shade of the oak tree. Pulling her arm from his, she tilted her head back to stare up through the leaves. “The tree has grown much.” She crossed to the trunk and leaned back against it.
Garr was surprised at how young she looked standing there, but when he closed the distance between them, the deepening lines around her eyes, nose, and mouth were more visible.
“You do not understand it, do you?” she said.
“Mother?”
“It makes no sense, but then perhaps, ’tis not meant to.”
Riddles! Why so many words when fewer sufficed? “I do not know of what you speak.”
“I speak of your feelings for her.” As though something of import might be had in his reaction, she peered closely at him.
Garr longed to feign ignorance, but he knew it was Annyn to whom she referred, and it made him long to walk away. If not for the appearance of tears in his mother’s eyes, he would have.
“’Twas the same for me,” she said. “With Robert.”
“Who?”
“The man I loved. The one I could not have.”
Though Garr had never heard the man’s name spoken, he had known there was one who had tried to steal his mother from Drogo—just as he had nearly stolen Annyn from Lavonne a half hour earlier.
“Not that I knew it was love that first day.” Her voice lowered. “Indeed, it was not, but something in me knew it would become love. And it did, though it was a love not meant to be.”
“Not meant to be because you were betrothed to my father?” he pressed too harshly.
Her wet gaze met his. “Not meant to be because your father killed him.”
“What?”
“The day I was to wed Drogo, I stole from Stern and hid on the other side of this tree.” She laid a palm to the gnarly bark. “It was here that Robert came for me, but ere we were a league gone, Drogo overtook us.”
Garr could imagine his father’s anger—carefully controlled, though its hot breath fanned all.
“He and Robert met at swords, and Robert fell. None could match Drogo.”
The man she had loved killed by the man she had loathed, and from that a marriage made. It explained much.
His mother pressed a hand to her mouth.
Fearing she might crumple, Garr put a hand to her shoulder and urged her to sit.
She eased down the tree trunk to its base.
Garr waited. For some reason, he longed to know what had passed between his parents to make them such bitter partners. What had caused Drogo to take his four-year-old son far from his mother and put him to training intended for those twice his age?
Isobel clasped her hands in her lap. “Afterward, your father returned me to Stern and we were wed—that day.”
Regardless of what fell to Drogo’s path, he had always pressed on.
Isobel touched Garr’s hand. “I was not a good wife. Pray though I did to get past my hatred, every time I looked at your father I saw the one who had murdered Robert. Had Drogo loved me, mayhap I could have healed, but he did not. I was young, pretty, of good size for breeding, and had all my teeth. That is what he bought, so I determined that was all he would have.”
She shook her head. “And now I grow old with regret. Regret that Robert was lost to me, regret that I did not move past that loss, regret that my hatred for your father caused him to take you from me young, regret that I refused his offers of peace. Now all that is left to me are daughters, and too soon they will also wed men they do not love.”
A tear rolled down her cheek. “But you, Garr, have been gifted with the rare opportunity to wed a woman unlike your mother. Lady Annyn—”
“Wed!” Garr stepped back so suddenly the birds in the tree took flight. “Has your mind gone astray, Mother?”
She rose. “She feels for you, and if you are truthful, you feel for her.” As he opened his mouth to deny it, she shook her head. “Wasted words. Lies.”
“You are wrong. Though I may want Annyn Bretanne in my bed, that is all.”
“Then, it seems, my mind has gone astray. But tell, what of when Henry comes to Stern? Do you think you can give Lady Annyn to be wed to that man—the same that Abel said was responsible for her bruised face?”
Garr forced himself to stand firm. “You heard what Henry requires of the Wulfriths, and one of his demands is that I deliver Annyn Bretanne. If I must choose between a woman whose deceit nearly cost me my life and endangered my family, the latter shall prevail.”
Isobel stepped near and brushed back the hair fallen over his brow, reminding him of the small boy who had known that touch. “Garr Wulfrith, son of Drogo, trainer of England’s worthiest knights, feared and respected warrior, do not let your distrust of women make you less than what you are.” She smiled. “There is only one weapon you must needs wield against Henry—your allegiance. And it should not be without cost to him.”
She dropped her hand to her side. “Now I must return to the donjon and set to the task of overseeing Lady Annyn’s gown.” She stepped from beneath the tree but, once returned to sunlight, looked around. “You will not give her to Lavonne.” She said it with the certainty of one who spoke of death as the only absolute in life, then she left him.
Garr stared after her. Annyn Bretanne’s vengeful foray into his life had opened too many graves. But though the man his father had made him longed to put aside his mother’s suffering tale, he could not.
He had accepted that marriages were best made of alliances, love reserved for those foolish and weak of heart, but here before him was the pitiful result of such matches. And his mother was not alone in her folly, for Annyn’s mother had also gone the way of her heart and left casualties in her wake.
Garr growled. Had he been wrong? Had his father? And his father’s father? Was all the world wrong for impelling its children to make families with those for whom they did not care? But then, what would be the state of mankind ruled by the heart?
He shook his head. He would think on it no more. As he looked to the castle, he drew a breath that assailed him with the harsh scent of his labor. In one thing his mother was right. He needed a bath.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
A foul wind blew in the messenger, causing him to stumble as he entered the great hall behind two men-at-arms.
From the high table, Garr stared at Sir Drake—one of two men sent by Henry eleven days past to tell of the duke’s impending arrival. Why did he come again when there were yet three days before Henry was due? Three days in which Annyn might still make good her escape?
He glanced at where she sat with his mother and sisters before the hearth, the last of the day’s clouded light slanting through the upper windows to pool around her where she held the sleeve of her purple bliaut as she stared at the messenger.
Garr returned his attention to the villagers seated on benches before the dais. Their dispute, for which they sought intervention, would have to wait. “We shall return to this matter.” He swept a dismissing hand toward the doors.
The men murmured their agreement and rose.
Garr also stood, vaguely aware of Squire Warren stepping from behind the chair to draw nearer.
“Sir Drake,” Garr greeted, “What brings you once more to Stern?”
The man turned from the hearth where he had surely noted Annyn’s presence. “Tidings from Duke Henry.” He mounted the dais and pushed his mantle off one shoulder, then the other so that the garment draped down his back to show his full complement of weaponry.