by Sara Bennett
In other circumstances he would have wooed her with his considerable charm, won her over, and taken her until he had rid himself of his need for her. But he was there for a reason other than to serve her, a secret reason, and rumor had it that she was sharing her favors with the knight.
So it is good that she is afraid of you? Did you enjoy persuading her you would allow children to be slaughtered in battle?
No, Gunnar told himself. It was said for d’Alan’s benefit, to further convince him of our brutality. If it drove the beautiful lady further from me, then that is good, too. Except she hadn’t fluttered her hands and turned faint. Oh, she had paled, but then she had argued the point with him.
Gunnar smiled wryly at the memory. This was no weak and feeble lady. Strong, yet—he remembered the nibbled nails on her slender hand—vulnerable. He found the combination very appealing.
And then his smile died. He had been thinking as if Lady Rose were an innocent party in all this. He knew better than that. If there was a plot at work at Somerford Manor, then Lady Rose must surely be in the thick of it. It was she who had asked for mercenaries; d’Alan was only the messenger. The letter intercepted by Radulf’s men had definitely come from her, for it was she who had sealed the incriminating missive with the Somerford seal—no one but the lord or lady of the manor could use the seal. That letter was the reason Gunnar was there. No, Rose was no innocent victim, and next time he imagined bedding her he should remember that.
“One thing.”
It was Arno speaking, and Gunnar turned his head to look down at d’Alan’s thinning pate, wondering what the knight wanted now.
“The Lady Rose,” Arno said, as if he had read Gunnar’s mind. “She is a sweet lady, but she has no head for…practical matters. She does not understand the ways of men and the world, so she leaves such things to me. It is I who give the orders, Captain Olafson, no matter what she believes. Is that clear?”
There was implacability in his stare, a cold belligerence beneath the gruff, knightly veneer. Gunnar stared back and knew Arno was lying. The woman he had just faced was unlikely to appreciate Arno’s counter instructions one little bit. But if Arno was her lover, perhaps this was his way of concealing her treason? Protecting her?
Or himself.
“I understand you,” Gunnar said quietly.
Arno moved closer, until Gunnar smelled the sharp, sour sweat beneath his fine clothes. The knight’s voice was tinged with mockery. “Of course you do. We both seek the same end, after all.”
Satisfied, Arno strode on ahead, leading the way. The mercenaries followed, playing the game, grinning at one another, pretending docility totally foreign to their natures. Sweyn said, loudly, “Women fighting wars? It will never happen.”
Ivo stepped up beside Gunnar. “What did he mean?” he asked softly, dark eyes watchful. “Which ‘end’ does he speak of?”
Gunnar shook his head. They had gone from Radulf to Fitzmorton and there played their part well. Now Fitzmorton had sent them to Somerford. No one seemed to be making matters much clearer.
Ivo shifted restlessly. “Do you think there is a plot afoot here?”
Gunnar’s voice remained calm. “Time will tell.”
Behind them Sweyn told a joke, and the others laughed. Ivo leaned closer still. “How is your sword, Gunnar?”
Puzzled, Gunnar turned to his friend and saw the sparkle of wicked laughter in his eyes.
“Back there you were so hot for the lady, I thought it might have melted in its sheath. I have never seen you so struck by a woman—usually ’tis the other way around.”
Gunnar’s smile was grim—had it been so obvious? “I would that my sword had melted, Ivo. Then my problem would be solved.”
Ivo snorted a laugh. “And disappoint so many wenches? Their wailing would be heard throughout the land.” He gave Gunnar a considering look. “It would be amusing if this one did not fall into your hand as easily as all the others.”
Amusing for you, thought Gunnar. “Women are a pleasant diversion. But I am working, Ivo; even if she is as sweet and innocent as the flower she is called after, I would have no time for the Lady Rose.”
He spoke the words so confidently, even he believed them.
Chapter 3
Rose felt rattled; she needed time by herself.
Captain Olafson had upset her in ways she did not understand—did not want to. He was a cold and dangerous savage, and on the outside she had responded to him warily. And yet, underneath, her senses were quivering like a harp’s plucked strings. As if something unseen were happening between them, deep below the surface. As if, thought Rose shakily, the raw, sensual power of the mercenary had found a willing partner in her.
She was more than rattled; Rose was afraid.
Aye, she needed time alone.
Slowly, she began to climb the stone stairs to her own private chamber—her solar. The solar was a Norman lady’s sanctuary, the place where she could be alone or with her ladies, where no one must disturb her without her permission. Edric had given her her solar.
When he and Lord Radulf had built Somerford Keep, they had built it of stone. Stone keeps were still a rarity in England, especially on the smaller manors. But Somerford was unique, standing as it did on the very edge of the vast Crevitch estates, and abutting the lands of two other very powerful barons.
Lord Radulf had felt a stone keep was as necessary as a stout wall, and Edric had been eager to please his overlord, not least because he stood in awe of him. The cost of the building had been enormous, and Radulf had supplied the stone and workmen, and asked for additional costs to be sent to him. But Edric was an elderly Saxon husband with a young, noble wife, and he had wanted to indulge her. He had insisted she have a solar in the new keep, a private room for her own use. And he had insisted that he would pay the extra expense of it—and this had turned out to be more than he had ever imagined, but he had never blamed Rose.
Edric, in his sixtieth year when he died, had been a kind and courteous man. Rose knew she had been lucky in him, luckier than her own mother.
Rose paused halfway up the stairs, her hand on the cold wall.
From early childhood she had watched her mother’s wild and destructive love for her father, watched him take pleasure in hurting her with his indifference, watched all that vitality slowly wither and die. When it came time to have a husband of her own, Rose had been terrified. Not for the usual reasons expressed by other young girls—that he might be cruel or he might be old or he might be mean. No, Rose’s real fear was that she might fall in love with the man chosen for her. It was love that ruined lives, love that could ruin her life, just as her father had ruined her mother’s life.
But Edric, a wily Saxon widower looking to please his new overlords by taking one of their own for wife, wasn’t a man to inspire passionate love. He had never made her burn for him, not even a little. He had consummated their marriage matter-of-factly with only a slight discomfort, and for that Rose had been grateful, as she was grateful for his easy kindness and consideration, and the pleasure he found in her conversation and company.
A shy and gentle girl who had grown up in a frightening and violent household, Rose had entered into her marriage well trained as a housekeeper but with few other skills. It was Edric who gave her the confidence to grow into her position as the Lady of Somerford. And as time passed, she realized that despite what her father and mother and brother had told her, it was in her power to control her own destiny. When Edric died last year, Rose discovered the courage to rule alone.
Now, once more, she felt the old fear stirring.
Not just because of the problems they were having with the merefolk, although these were certainly troublesome. Not because of the lack of money, although this kept her awake at nights. Not because Lord Radulf, as her overlord, could take Somerford Manor from her, his vassal, if she displeased or failed him. Edric had sworn fealty to Radulf, as had Rose, but that did not make Somerford Manor entirely secure—s
he tried not to think of this. And not because the mercenaries she had hired to solve their problems with the merefolk were so much more…more savage than she had imagined—Arno had been right there, they were no tame cats to stroke and pet.
No, Rose was afraid of herself.
Afraid of what was lurking in her soul.
That in some secret chamber within, a hidden room of shadows, was a deep, dark, emotional well, just waiting to be tapped. And once broached, the black waters would rush out, unstoppable, drowning her, destroying her, just as her mother had been destroyed in the same flood. Breathless, she remembered again that dizzy, heady feeling she had experienced in the bailey when she first saw Captain Olafson. The thump of her heart, the tremble of her legs, the tightening in her belly…
Such a thing had never happened to her before, and she would not allow it now. Rose straightened her back, lifted her chin, and took a deep breath of the chilly, damp air in the stairwell. It cleared her head. Mayhap this had been a momentary thing? Some problem with the phase of the moon and her monthly cycles? For how could she even contemplate making wild, passionate love with a rude…heartless…conscienceless…Viking savage?
When Rose reached the solar she found it was not empty as she had hoped. Constance sat on a stool mending a well-worn linen chemise, diligently attempting to prolong its life. New clothing was becoming an urgent necessity, but Rose did not feel she could buy for her own back when her people went without. After the harvest, she hoped for the hundredth time, there would be coin and more for all that.
Constance was staring up at her, old eyes sharp with curiosity. “Have you spoken to the mercenaries?”
“I have.” Rose wouldn’t meet her gaze. “Sir Arno is taking them to stable their horses. They will probably eat their heads off.”
Constance’s lips twitched. “The horses, do you mean? Or the mercenaries?”
“Both!”
Rose gave the old woman a suspicious glance; Constance was showing uncustomary restraint.
“Mayhap you should go and show their captain his sleeping quarters. See to his bath,” Constance went on, and now her voice trembled with the effort to keep it disinterested. “Do you think we have a tub big enough for him?”
“I doubt it,” Rose replied dryly. “Have you had your fun now? I take it you saw him? Captain Olafson?”
All pretense vanished. Constance’s eyes gleamed like pale jewels. “Indeed I did, lady! A Viking god.”
Rose shook her head, wondering as she did so whether she was trying to convince Constance or herself. “The man may be a god, but he is also a savage. An unfeeling monster. He has no heart and no soul. If you think he is the new husband you are always seeking for me, old woman, then you are very, very wrong.”
Constance had listened to the tremble in her lady’s voice with growing trepidation. Something had upset her badly. She had not seen Rose so shaken since the day Edric had had to order the lopping off of one of his serf’s hands for stealing, and that was after he had let him off with a reprimand two times.
“But he is so fine-looking!” she wailed, laying aside the once-fine linen chemise. “How can a man who looks like that be so black inside?”
“I don’t know,” Rose said grimly, “but believe me ’tis so. His soul is like a raven’s wing, and as putrid as a midden. Content yourself with looking at his face, Constance, for that is the only pretty thing about this man.”
Constance sighed and remained silent as Rose sat down.
“Six marks,” her lady muttered darkly. “And food and lodging! Well, let us pray they are worth it. But I fear they will be nothing to me…us but trouble.” Impatiently she reached up and removed the metal circlet that held her veil in place on her head, putting both aside. Her strong, dark hair was plaited into submission in one long, thick rope that tumbled down her back, while glossy raven tendrils curled about her flushed face. “I wish now I had never asked Arno to find me these mercenaries!”
“Where did he find them?”
“I know not—some knightly friend, he said. I left all such arrangements to him. Oh, I should have dealt with it myself!”
“You are in a fine temper,” Constance said dryly.
“I am weary,” Rose replied, and knew it was so. The Lady of Somerford must be hard, she must be tough. She must sit at the manor court and make judgment upon those who transgressed, who did not pay their rent or neglected their duties to the manor; she must order men to fight and mayhap die; she must rule in cases of stealing or assault or even murder. She must make the decision between life and death, and do that every day.
But Rose had been born with a gentle heart, and in such circumstances as these to have a gentle heart was the worst of all possible afflictions. And yet it was her gentle heart that had endeared her, a Norman lady, to her English people.
After Edric died, when it would have been so easy to give in and let Arno take over Somerford, when Rose teetered on the verge of saying aye, Constance had opened her eyes. Sir Arno did not love and care for the people as Rose did. He meant well, he was loyal, and he might be versed in the practical side of being lord of the manor, but he had no compassion for the English people. Would he set aside eggs for the smith’s sick child, or remember old Edward’s aching bones in the winter and order extra wood to be gathered for his fire?
Of course not! Arno would be more likely to consider a sick child a waste of eggs, and old Edward better off frozen.
Mayhap Arno was right and she was wrong, but Rose could not think so, and she could not live with her conscience if she allowed him to enforce such a regime here at Somerford. So she had gathered her courage about her and ignored the voice in her head—sounding remarkably like her father’s—that told her she could not do it. She resisted the temptation to allow Arno to take the reins, and thereafter insisted all decisions that had formerly been made by Edric were now to be made by her and her alone. Somerford Manor was now hers, and as long as she was able she would hold it and its people safe.
“We are all weary,” Constance answered, “but there will be time enough to sleep after death. If you want rid of this black-hearted mercenary, go to Lady Lily. She has always supported you. She likes you; she will listen.”
“Lady Lily has troubles of her own, Constance. She is unwell with this second child she carries, and the first still so young.”
“Radulf is a lusty husband.”
Rose frowned. “Then she should have told him nay.”
Constance smiled at her lady’s naivete. “Is that what you did with Edric? And I’ll be bound he meekly went and left you to your sleep. Oh, lady, you do not understand. If you were wed to a young, virile man whom you desired, you would not be able to say him nay, either!”
Rose shifted irritably. How dare Constance speak as though Rose were an ignorant virgin? As if she understood nothing of the relationship between a man and a woman? “’Tis none of your concern, old woman.”
“No. Right now this mending is my concern, so I will say no more, my lady.”
That deserved a reprimand, and Rose opened her mouth to give it.
The shriek was so loud it made both women start.
Younger and spryer, Rose was first to the window. She leaned out just as the shriek came again. It tore through the bailey, which had just begun to resume some normality after the arrival of the mercenaries.
Constance, close behind her, clutched her arm. “What is it, lady? Is someone being killed?”
Rose had thought so, too, but though she scanned the yard frantically, she could see no blood. Then the shriek came again, and this time she spied the child. A young boy, he was swinging by his hands from the wooden gangway that had been built around the top of the ramparts. It was there the guard would stand to keep watch, and there, in times of attack or siege, that the people of Somerford would fire down on their enemies.
The boy was young, perhaps no more than three years old, and his feet dangled over the sizable gap to the ground beneath him. If he l
et go he would be hurt, mayhap even killed! And from the sounds he was making, Rose did not believe he could cling on much longer.
“Jesu, no,” she breathed, one hand pressed hard to her quaking heart. Then, to the people standing about below, “Help him! Someone…please…help him!”
But before anyone could move, the mercenary Captain Olafson, with his men behind him, arrived in the bailey. Rose caught her breath with a squeak; behind her Constance choked audibly. He had removed his chain mail tunic, and his body was naked from the waist up. Hard muscle curved beneath bronzed skin, big powerful shoulders and arms; there was nothing soft about him. Despite the perilous situation, a memory of Edric flashed into Rose’s mind—pale, skinny legged, his once-firm body stooped and sagging with age. The half-naked mercenary beneath her window was a revelation.
I wonder what it would feel like to touch him? Would he be as hard as he looks?
The thought had barely taken shape when Rose realized that, assuming the manor to be under attack, he had drawn his sword from the scabbard at his side, and was holding it before him. The blade was made of black metal and it shimmered darkly as he turned four feet of violent death expertly in his hands. He was very frightening. Terrifying in an elemental way. And the fascination she had felt upon first meeting him returned tenfold.
Dangerous he might be, but Rose wanted him with a deep hunger she hadn’t known she possessed.
People were scattering out of his way. Geese ran honking, and a young goat skittered about on thin legs. A woman fainted, dropping her basket of eggs. They broke in a puddle about her feet, and one of the hounds gave up chasing the geese to lap greedily at the yolks.
Before Rose could do or say anything, the mercenary had grasped the situation and was again sheathing his weapon in the intricately carved scabbard at his side. The child screamed once more, stubby bare legs kicking wildly in the air. That was when, in a rush, Rose realized that everyone below her was either too afraid or too stunned by the sight of the mercenary captain to go to the little boy’s aid. She opened her mouth to startle them into action.