The Protector

by Madeline Hunter

  He sucked in his breath and stopped in mid-stride. “Thank you,” he said, tightly. His right hand swung into view and then landed hard on her bottom.

  Shock took her breath away. He continued walking. Rage and humiliation clouded her mind. Gritting her teeth, she tried to kick her legs free. He swung again. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Louis step toward them and Carlos throw out an arm to block him.

  Morvan kicked open the door of the farmhouse. “Out,” he ordered. With a scurry of feet the other guard flew past them. Morvan dropped her onto a bench by the hearth. She started to rise.

  He pressed her back down. “Do not move. Do not speak.”

  She seethed silently beneath his restraining hand. He stood in front of her like some threat out of hell.

  “Do not move,” he said again. “Do not, or I may well do you violence.”

  She let him know that she wouldn't challenge him. He released his hold. He didn't move for several long, tense minutes. She looked only at the floor, but knew the exact moment that he regained control.

  “You go too far, Anna. You said that you would not undermine my authority.”

  “I meant with the others. I never accepted these rights you use. I cannot break rules that don't exist.” She almost said “stupid rules,” but caught herself.

  “I am in no mood to argue with you now. We will talk of that later.”

  He walked over to the table. The guard had been breaking his fast when they arrived, and Morvan picked up some bread and stood by the fire eating it.

  She shifted uncomfortably. It hurt a bit where she sat. She thought resentfully about Carlos and Louis's seeing him humiliate her that way. On the other hand, she had hurt him first with her fist.

  Morvan sank onto one of the stools at the table, his back against the table's edge, his legs extended. His anger had only partly abated.

  “What are we doing here?” she asked.

  “Waiting for enough time to pass.”

  That made no sense. She began to get up.

  “Do not move,” he said quietly. Too quietly.

  “Enough time for what?” she asked, exasperated.

  “For me to punish you. Right now Carlos and the others assume that I am either beating you or taking you with violence. Probably the latter, since you are not screaming.”

  Rebellious anger burned again. He was right. And the guards would talk about it, and by tomorrow the whole estate would know that the lord had lessoned his lady.

  She wouldn't give him such an easy victory. She stood abruptly and walked to the door.

  His voice followed her to the threshold. “Do not force me to a public punishment, Anna. My hold on the people here is too new and partly unwelcome. I cannot let any challenge of my authority pass, especially one coming from you. Go out that door and I will do what I am expected to do.”

  “Do you really think that will change anything?”

  “Nay. But Carlos and Louis will try to help you, and then there will be hell to pay for your willfulness, won't there?”

  Her hand fell from the door, and she returned to the bench.

  A long while later he brought her outside. Carlos led the horses over. He gave Morvan an unfriendly look. The ruse had succeeded magnificently.

  “You will ride back on my horse, in front of me,” Morvan said.

  “I have not ridden thus since I was a child. I will not—”

  “You will do it, either seated like a lady, or slung face-down with my hand on your back.”

  He meant it. Swallowing her insulted pride, she mounted his horse.

  He did not speak to her as they rode, but his black mood draped them both like a coarse wool cloak. It reminded her uncomfortably of that day when he had ridden to Reading like a relentless threat beside her. The same aura of unfinished business hung in the air between them now, and the same predatory sensuality.

  He stopped his horse outside the gate. “When we go in, I want you to look subdued. Do not raise your eyes. The slightest smile and it will go badly for you. Go up to your chamber and wait for me there.”

  He was repairing his authority at no real cost to her, she realized. Most other lords would just whip their wives in the hall for all to see. Pretending a docility that she hardly felt, she followed his instructions.

  She was deciding that the morning had been a draw at worst when she opened the door to her chamber.

  His chests were back. Boots and shoes stood lined up beside them, and several of his weapons rested in the corner.

  Her own sword was gone.

  He must have given orders for this as soon as he woke, probably before he knew that she had left.

  She looked to where her sword should be. She lifted the lid of one of her own chests and saw the void where once her tunics had lain.

  “You don't need them anymore,” Morvan said from behind her. “You told me yourself that you only wore them because you did men's work. That is over.”

  Over. “Who will train the horses?”

  “Carlos will teach one of the grooms to help him. Or I will hire someone.”

  “My sword?”

  “It is in my solar. No more men's garments, Anna, or men's weapons. You can use your bow when you join a hunt.”

  He was stripping her of everything. She had known that the cost of this morning would be high, but not this high.

  “Why don't you just lock me in here and be done with it.”

  “It has occurred to me.”

  “This is because of last night, isn't it?”

  “This is for your protection. Last night and this morning just make it easier.”

  Morvan unfastened the brooch on his cloak and let the long garment fall to the floor. He walked over to the bed and sat on its edge. “You say that you didn't agree to my rights. Well, I didn't concede them, and anything that I didn't concede belongs to me. Aside from my responsibility to protect you, and aside from the fact that you belong to me and will do as I bid, there is another reason why I can't have you living thus.”

  He bent down and pulled off one boot and then the other. “Soon, new knights will be arriving here. They will have never known you as the lord or the devoted nurse or the abbey-bound saint. They will know you only as my lady. Some of them will desire you. Some may truly love you. It is not a bad thing in itself. A knight's chivalrous love for a lady can bind him closer to a lord. But if it appears that you are independent of me and that I don't control you, very soon one of those knights will misunderstand. I won't be killing men because you are too ignorant to realize the encouragement that your freedom is sending to them.”

  She wanted to tell him that she didn't care. She almost explained that she intended to have nothing to do with his knights. But he had removed his belt and was unlacing the front of his pourpoint, and along with the anger she saw a flame in his eyes that she knew too well. That damned, dazed breathlessness descended on her. “So I am to be kept in close confinement, with you here watching my every move?”

  He slid off the pourpoint. “I did not move back to keep a watch on you. You are my wife and I will share your bed.”

  He pulled off his shirt and came toward her. Black leather hugged the hard muscles of his hips and legs. The planes of his torso created a pattern of shadows in the morning light. She closed her eyes to him.

  He would share her bed. Their bargain gave her the right to deny him her body, but not her bed. He had carefully chosen the words of his concession to create this gaping trap. It was one thing to refuse him outside his solar door. It would be another to turn away from his touch during the night.

  “So. You refused me last night and I permitted it,” he said quietly. “Are you content now? Are you satisfied that I will honor my word?”

  His hand cupped her breast and caressed her through the layers of fabric. Her teeth bared at the pleasure. She opened her eyes.

  There was still anger in his face, but it began lifting like a slowly rising veil. He pulled her into his arms and kissed
her furiously. The pulsing excitement instantly began its commanding beat.

  He unstrapped her belt and threw it to the ground. He grabbed at the shoulder of her tunic and tore the garment off.

  He looked down at the silk scarf binding her breasts, tantalizing her by playing at its folds and creases. “I may actually miss this.” His hand found the knot and loosened it, then stripped it away.

  Lifting her up, he bent her into his body as he sought her throat and breasts with his mouth. He drew on her, taking her erect nipples between his teeth. His breath flowed hotly on her skin.

  He was deliberately showing her how helpless she was to the pleasure, but she didn't care now. She gasped at the welcome pressure as his hand moved up between her thighs and cupped the damp heat already torturing her.

  “Our bargain still stands,” he said. “You have only to say nay.”

  She had become incapable of saying anything at all, least of all that.

  Reality slowly lifted her from the sensual dream.

  This lovemaking had begun as a display of power, but it had not ended that way. His anger was gone by the time they reached the bed, and it had been as if last night and this morning had never happened. But the lesson had been learned anyway. It was hopeless to fight him on this. Unless she proved barren, La Roche de Roald would eventually have a Fitzwaryn heir.

  It was not taking Morvan long to make their bargain meaningless.

  “So,” she said, breaking the beautiful stillness. “If I am no longer to work with the horses, and I can no longer leave the castle, what am I supposed to do?”

  “I did not say you couldn't leave the castle.”

  “Nay. I need your permission, though.”

  “Until Gurwant is dead.”

  Gurwant gone and Gurwant dead were two different things. “That could take years.”

  “It will be soon, I think.”

  She didn't want to think about what he meant. “In the meantime, what am I to do? I can't just pace about. I need to do something.”

  He shifted to his side and looked at her while his fingers played with her hair. “Do whatever it is women do.”

  “Weave? Embroider?”

  “Whatever.”

  “Perhaps you are right. I think that I will take charge of your garments. I will do all of the repairs and embroidery.”

  “That would be fine. And you have the whole household to manage.”

  “Catherine does that.”

  “She won't be here forever, Anna, and even now grows heavy with child. It is your place, and you should claim it.”

  “You don't think she will resent my displacing her?”

  “Catherine is very sensible. She will understand.”

  “So you will take my place and I will take Catherine's,” she mused. “I can keep myself busy administering the household.”

  “Exactly.”

  Small lights of triumph flickered in his eyes. He appeared well contented with the evidence that he had won the war.

  She smiled at him. Sweetly.

  CHAPTER 21

  AWEEK LATER THE THREE KNIGHTS whom Morvan had recruited in Brest before the wedding arrived at La Roche de Roald. He had chosen them because they impressed him as both skilled and honorable. Their decision to take service proved the last point. They could have gotten rich if they had joined one of the free companies that floated through Brittany, pillaging with abandon.

  Two were English. That did not sit well with some on the estate. Resentments still simmered about his marriage to Anna. No challenge came, nothing was said, but Morvan could feel the mood. An English alliance was one thing, but an English lord another. There were also those who believed their saint had been corrupted by taking any husband at all. It would be a long time before he held this land and these people securely.

  Any more rebellions by Anna would only delay that hold. None came. Morvan was relieved to see her take up her new duties and busy herself with the household. He decided that he had handled that last episode very well, and that she had accepted the reasoning behind the changes. She even began addressing him as “My lord,” something he had never demanded. True, she said it in a peculiar way, as if on two low drumbeats, but she always smiled very sweetly when she said it, and he concluded she did not intend to sound quite as sarcastic as she did on occasion.

  The day after the new men arrived, a messenger came from Gurwant's cousin, Robert de Beaumanoir, to say that the ransom would be delivered the week after Easter. The news meant that Gurwant would remain confined for another month at least.

  Then, unexpectedly, young Louis disappeared. On the last day of one of his rotations at the horse farm, Carlos sent him home early, giving him one of their best palfreys to bring back to the castle. The next morning it was discovered that he had never arrived. Morvan rode out with five men to search, but no sign of Louis or the two horses could be found.

  “He has run away, Anna. And taken two horses with him,” he said that evening in bed.

  “Louis is not a thief.”

  “It appears that he is. If he had been hurt, we would have found the horses. Or his body. It is clear what has happened.”

  “It is not clear to me. Why would he leave? He had a place here.”

  “He was no longer contented.”

  “He would have eventually accepted an English lord.”

  “Aye. But he could not accept your marriage. He was in love with you.”

  She gaped at him, and laughed. “That is preposterous.”

  “He worshiped you.”

  She laughed again. “You flatter me too much, Morvan, and sound like a suspicious, jealous husband. Next you will tell me that Carlos, Ascanio, and Gregory are in love with me.” She gave him a playful nudge.

  He pulled her more tightly into his embrace. Still ignorant. Still oblivious. It amazed him that she had not realized the truth. Perhaps she assumed that his own desire was just a result of that deathwatch.

  He had finally given her a mirror, after debating if he really wanted her to know. He needn't have worried. Even gazing at herself, she had not seen. The image reflected back to her was still that of an awkward twelve-year-old girl.

  The next day he began a circuit of the estate. He did this frequently so he would become a familiar presence, but it also provided an opportunity to orient the recent arrivals to the properties. During the next six days he rode out early and returned late and saw little of the daily workings of the castle.

  They toured the closest properties last, and on the final day they arrived back at the castle several hours before nightfall. Morvan led the men into the hall and called for some ale, and they stood around one of the tables talking.

  His gaze caught the sight of several white veils poking out of the weaving room. Suddenly ten women emerged from the chamber and formed a phalanx.

  They marched toward him with a grim determination. The woman in front was stout and middle-aged. He remembered that she had worked on the wedding garments and that her name was Eva.

  “My lord, we would speak with you,” she said.

  He gestured for the men to leave. They strolled out of the hall slowly, sorry to miss what promised to be a small spectacle.

  “What is it?”

  “It regards Lady Anna, my lord. She has taken charge of the household. On your orders, she says.”

  “It is her right.” He let his voice get stern.

  Eva licked her lips and faltered. A young woman behind her piped up. “She is changing things, my lord.”

  Eva regained her valor. “Aye. Changing things what don't need changing. She has moved all of the looms into rows so we can't talk to each other. Says we will produce more that way.”

  “And she has all of the embroidery threads in one place, sorted by color,” another woman offered. “We used to have our own baskets, arranged as we liked.”

  “And she's been working alongside us,” a third voice threw in. “Working on your clothes, my lord.” Several pairs of eyes rolled
at that. They all looked at him meaningfully, as if this point obviously deserved attention.

  “Show me.”

  The cluster opened to admit him. He was carried along in a sea of bobbing veils to the weaving room. Indeed, all of the looms had been set up in rows, one behind the other. The stools for the sewers and embroiderers had been arranged the same way. Private gossip would be nigh impossible. On the corner wall the threads hung in neat precision from wooden pegs.

  In theory it would be more productive, but the women would not produce if they were unhappy. Only a stupid person would change the work routine thus, he thought.

  Anna wasn't stupid. A breeze of wariness wafted through him.

  “Look at this, my lord,” Eva said. She handed him one of his pourpoints. Someone had worked an embroidery pattern up the sleeves. It was a brown garment that he didn't favor too much. Good thing. The embroidery skewed unevenly off line. The stitching was frankly horrible.

  “All week she has worked on this. Twice I've had to spend hours pulling it all out. The garment will be ruined soon if we keep this up.”

  “It is well known that she is the worst needlewoman in Brittany,” another woman said. “We were shocked to learn that she intended to take care of your garments, my lord.”

  “What says Lady Catherine to this?”

  “She refuses to hear us. She says Lady Anna is mistress now and must be obeyed.”

  It was a conspiracy.

  “I will speak with them.” With a smile that he hoped looked reassuring, he backed out of the room to a chorus of additional complaints.

  Escaping into the hall, he found a scullery maid standing by the table that held his ale cup. “My lord, the cook noticed that you are back early today,” she said.

  “Aye. We were not expected. Will that cause a problem?”

  “Nay, my lord. But the cooks would like to speak with you.”

  He followed the maid out of the keep and across the yard to the kitchens.

  Steam and heat and pandemonium greeted him as he entered. When he was noticed an eerie silence descended as all activity ceased. Out of the dark corners three figures floated toward him like ghosts. Two men and a woman lined up in front of him and literally dug in their heels.