by Sara Bennett
Rose would never tell him that. Why should she? He would probably agree with Radulf.
The color was hot now in her face but she refused to look away from those piercing blue eyes. Anger began to uncoil inside her. How dared he question her like this? As if she were his servant rather than the other way around.
“That is not your business.”
He smiled, and the beauty of it quite simply took away her breath. Several women standing nearby gasped and stopped what they were doing, admiring him. Rose shot them a glare and they returned hastily to their business.
“I am being paid to protect you, lady,” Gunnar said. “I was but trying to earn my money.”
“You are being paid to do as you are told, Captain, and to keep your tongue still.”
Arno would have stalked away if spoken to like that. Edric would have shaken his head sadly at her lack of manners. Rose shuddered to think what her father or brother would have done.
Gunnar Olafson laughed.
Shocked, Rose stared as he threw back his head in genuine amusement, and then looked down at her with such blazing warmth in his eyes that it was difficult for her to breathe. There was silence in the hall, but Rose could not take her gaze from his.
“My tongue is a matter of interest to you, lady?” His murmur was soft, seductive.
“Of course not!” But she was breathless again, her cheeks hot, her hands trembling.
“No?” He gave her his smile, and now there was no doubting the predatory gleam in his eyes, the desire to have her. Rose felt the overwhelming urge to take that one step forward and press her body to his, lift her mouth to his. Give herself over completely to him.
Stop it! Stop it now!
“I…there are things I must do. I…forgive me, Captain, I…”
His mouth twitched as he bowed his head, but she spun around and was gone. Halfway up the stairs to the solar, she became aware of Constance tugging at her sleeve. The old woman was particularly persistent tonight.
“Have done, old woman,” she begged. “What is it now?”
But Constance had no intention of “having done.” “He is a fine man.”
“Who is a fine man?” Rose retorted and kept climbing, hoping to outpace Constance. “Surely you have not followed me to tell me that!”
“The mercenary,” Constance panted. “Captain Olafson. He is a fine man. He will make you a fine lover.”
Rose blinked at her incredulously. “You speak of fine men and lovers at a time like this? He is a mercenary, a soulless creature who would kill for a coin. I have other worries—”
“Maybe, but that does not alter the fact that he is very handsome and you enjoy looking. I saw you just now, lady, and last night. He kissed you and you were not loath to kiss him back.”
“You saw us?” Rose choked, and then slumped against the cold stone of the stairwell. “Of course you did! You would never miss such a thing.”
Constance stopped in front of her, chest heaving, and her expression became sly. “Why do you not take him to your bed, Rose? Have him while he is here? Enjoy him and yourself. He is yours to command, and no one would blame you for commanding him into your bedchamber.”
“You are wanting in your wits, old woman!” Rose cried, but to her horror her voice lacked conviction.
“If you do not take him then another will,” Constance went on blithely.
“Then they are welcome to him.”
“Huh! We shall see how you stare when Eartha is clinging to his arm, rubbing her big chest up against him. You will be cross then, lady, and I will know why. You should take him now. Why not? If you were a man, a lord, you would not hesitate to pick the best bedfellow for yourself. Why should a woman’s lot be any different?”
“Because it is! Now go, Constance, and take your nonsense with you. I cannot listen to any more!”
Constance muttered her way slowly back down the stairs. Rose stared after her, breathing quickly. Harold the miller was to come before her manor court to be charged with the murder of a mystery Norman, and probably, to appease her Norman overlord and her king, she would have to sentence him to be hanged; the village was half destroyed and must be rebuilt before the harvest; the merefolk were on the rampage and might attack again at any time; and now Constance had run mad with lust.
And not even lust for herself, but proxy lust on Rose’s behalf!
Why was it then that a tiny voice at the back of her mind was whispering to her that Constance was right?
What the old woman had said was in part truth. If Rose were a man she would be free to take any woman she desired and no one would say her nay, or even raise an eyebrow. It was accepted that that was the way of things. Gunnar Olafson desired her. She saw it in his eyes. Felt it in his kisses. If she commanded him, it would not be as if she were forcing him to do something he did not wish to do. And God help her but she was in desperate need of a pair of strong, warm arms about her in these troubled times! Perhaps for one night, just one, and then all would return to normal?
“And mayhap I have run mad, too!” Rose gasped, shaking her head, and turning wearily to climb the remaining stairs.
The solar was warm and she was past tired. Swiftly Rose undressed and climbed into her bed, drawing the curtains to shield her from drafts and—she hoped—bad dreams. In another moment she was asleep.
The dream started as usual, with her approach on foot to Burrow Mump and then the warriors springing forth from the earth. Only this time, as she turned to run, she realized that one of the horses was known to her. A gray stallion, fine and strong. With a cry she tried to lengthen her strides, her heart pounding, but it was already too late. A muscular arm folded about her waist and lifted her up. Hard flesh, surrounding her, safe and yet very dangerous.
“Mine.” His whisper brushed her cheek, warm and scented with cloves.
Chapter 8
Rose awoke, bleary-eyed, to begin her day. As she dressed and allowed Constance to brush the tangles from her hair, she listed in her mind the many duties she had to perform. It was something she did every morning, and yet today, with every task she listed, her spirits sank a little lower. She glanced toward the shuttered window, where the sun was leaking through the gaps. It seemed to beckon to her.
“Where are the mercenaries, Constance?”
The old woman didn’t pause. “They have ridden out, lady. I know not where.”
So Gunnar Olafson was hunting again.
“I shall go to the village this morning,” Rose announced, and braced herself.
As expected, Constance began to splutter like an overfull pot. “But lady, it is not safe! You cannot go into danger!”
“I am not going ‘into danger.’ I want to see the damage that has been done in my village. If I were Edric you would not be making feeble excuses to prevent me from going.”
“You are not Edric.”
“Well then! Send an order to have my mare saddled. I will set out immediately.” Her voice was firm and authorative—her lady-of-the-manor voice.
Constance knew better than to argue with her when she was in this autocratic mood. But she didn’t have to like it.
“Aye, my lady-stubborn,” the old woman muttered, and stomped off unwillingly to do her bidding.
Rose settled her veil firmly on her hair, straightening the metal circlet that held it in place. She was looking forward to escaping the confines of the keep. Of course, her work was important, but what was the point of making candles and sorting through their limited stock of food when a man’s life rested in her hands? Harold the miller was locked up for killing a man, and if she did not find a way to save him, he would be hanged.
How could Gunnar Olafson care about a man he did not know? And Arno would not show sympathy for an Englishman accused of murdering a Norman. Who else was there to do it but Rose? She wanted to see the setting of Harold’s crime with her own eyes.
Aye, thought Rose smugly, she would cast her eye over the scene, and offer her people what consol
ation she could on the destruction of their village, and be back in the keep by midday.
It was not that simple.
Arno was horrified by the very idea. “My lady, you cannot go to the village! You will be placing yourself in danger.”
Rose stood her ground. “I have made up my mind, Sir Arno. I will ride this morning.”
He narrowed his eyes at her, but Arno, like Constance, had learned when she could be turned from her course and when she could not. “Very well, lady,” he said through thinned lips. “But I will accompany you.”
Rose opened her mouth.
“Whether you wish it or not!”
Rose sighed and managed a resigned smile. “Then I wish it, Sir Arno, and thank you.”
They set out, clattering across the bridge. Rose lifted her face to the sun and wished her journey was one of pleasure. It seemed a very long time since she had done anything for pleasure. Beside her, Arno was looking from side to side, his hand firm on the hilt of his sword, obviously ready to do battle for her if the need arose. Here was loyalty, whatever Constance might say and think.
Rose recalled the scene at Edric’s deathbed a year past. Edric had been determined to speak to Arno, no matter his own weakness. When Arno had come to his bedside, Edric had grasped his hand, pulling him nearer as his eyesight failed. The old man had seemed shrunken with illness, diminished, yet oddly determined.
In contrast, Arno had appeared reluctant, uneasy, as if he would rather have been anywhere other than by Edric’s deathbed.
“Swear your allegiance to my wife, Sir Arno,” Edric had croaked insistently. And, when Arno was still hesitant, perhaps unbelieving that Edric was really dying: “On your knees, sir, and swear!”
Arno had dropped down immediately, and his voice had shaken with emotion as he had sworn his allegiance to Rose. When it was done, Edric had fallen back, satisfied, and slept. He had never awakened.
Remembering the moment now, Rose was certain Arno would never betray her. He might have his faults, but he was loyal. Rose refused to believe otherwise.
The burned village was a grim place beneath the blue summer sky. Rose rode slowly through stark reminders of the tragedy. Despite their predicament, her people gave her a ragged cheer, followed by respectful bows or curtsies. So much lost, she thought hollowly.
“What will we do, Sir Arno?” She spoke without really expecting an answer. “How will we rebuild all this before the harvest is due to be brought in?”
“It is time to look to your friends for help, lady,” he said soberly, an unfamiliar gleam in his eye.
“I don’t know if I would call Lord Radulf my friend,” she replied slowly. “Lady Lily has always been my patron, but she is unwell, Sir Arno, and I cannot turn to her. And you know I don’t want Lord Radulf to believe I am weak. He will take Somerford from me.”
Arno pulled a face, his fingers clenching and unclenching his reins in an oddly nervous manner. “Maybe there are others who would listen more favorably to your cry for help, Rose. Lord Radulf is not the only powerful man here in the southwest of England.”
Surprised, Rose turned in her saddle to face him. “Arno? Are you counseling me to treason?” She managed a shaken laugh. “You are jesting me! We will manage somehow.”
Arno looked away from her searching gaze, his hands suddenly still, and then, as if coming to a decision, nodded to himself. “Lady, you and I have been together much this past year, since Edric died. I have been patient. But now, I want you to consider—”
A commotion at the farther end of the village brought Rose’s head around, and she stopped listening. A big man on a gray horse was galloping swiftly toward them. Rose felt her surroundings tilt momentarily as her dream world and the real world collided, and then she tightened her grip on herself.
Beside her, Arno swore under his breath. “’Tis our brave mercenary captain,” he said, with such bitterness that Rose recoiled.
She had no time to reply; Gunnar Olafson was already upon them. He drew up, charred earth scattering, his horse tossing its head as he restrained it. The round shield hung in its customary place over his shoulder. He was wearing his helmet, and now he took it off, tucking it under his arm. His face was streaked with sweat, his copper hair hanging in long damp tendrils. His eyes were sharp as blue spears, and Rose read his anger before he said a word.
“Lady, you should not be here.”
Rose pushed her intense reaction to him from her mind, noting instead the hard set of his jaw, the grim line of his mouth. Gunnar was seriously displeased with her, but she refused to allow that to intimidate her. “These are my people and this is my village, Captain,” she said evenly.
“’Tis not safe,” he growled.
For once, Rose thought in surprise, she was the calm one.
“You forget, Captain, Sir Arno is with me.”
Gunnar gave the knight a cursory glance, insulting in its brevity. Arno hissed in a breath, his hand going once more to his sword.
“And you are here, Captain Olafson,” Rose added, as if she had not noticed what had passed between the two men. “You will protect me, won’t you?”
His wide chest heaved as he drew a deep breath, held it, and let it go. “Aye, lady, I will.”
She leaned toward him, dizzy suddenly with her own power. “And you will obey me, Captain? You swore to do that, too.”
Gunnar Olafson had been very angry with her, but now as he stared into her eyes, the anger seemed to peel from him, leaving his face as still as a mere pond. “I did swear that, Lady Rose, and I do not make such promises lightly.”
What did he mean? There was a message there in his eyes. A glow. It spread through her body, rippling across her own calm and threatening a serious disturbance. He saw it; his mouth quirked. He leaned back in his saddle, and his anger was gone.
“Have you seen what you came to see, lady?” he inquired.
Rose nodded, and with an effort said, “And now I wish to see where it was that the merefolk escaped into the Mere, after they attacked my village.”
Arno made a further protest, but Rose did not take her eyes from the mercenary. He was the real power here, not the knight. It was Gunnar who would make any decisions concerning her movements and her safety. Rose understood that now for the first time, and she was all the more determined to have her way. To assert her rightful authority.
Abruptly Gunnar nodded his head. Calling out to two of his men—the two fairheads—who had been sitting upon their horses at a distance, waiting, he wheeled about and led the way.
“Come.” Rose glanced to Arno, and only then saw how flushed and angry he appeared. His own authority had been usurped, she realized with an inner sigh. Later on she would have to soothe Arno’s ruffled feathers—she had always done so before, and she was confident she could do it now.
They rode by the ruins of the miller’s cottage and the mill, empty and silent but thankfully untouched. Once the harvest was in they would need Harold to grind the grain. Where would they find another like him, so particular in his work and yet so reliable? What a waste it would be, if he were to die.
The woods covered the slopes to the west, but to the north the land fell away, flattening into meadows of green grass and yellow cowslips, and then sinking into the wetlands. Reeds and saltgrass poked from the mud and water, and wild duck and snipe hunted in the deeper pools.
“There, where the land dips low.” Gunnar Olafson had drawn up his gray horse and, lifting his arm, pointed out across the Mere. “We followed their footprints as far as that low island and then the water grew too deep. They must have had a boat.”
Rose scanned the horizon, frowning against the hazy glare of sun and sky. The wetlands, the Levels seemed to go on forever—flat, marshy, endless. The islands rose up out of them, the knoll of the dark and mysterious Burrow Mump looming like an ill omen against the summer sky. The home of her ghostly warrior. Her gaze skittered away before the doubts and fears could return to plague her. Instead she turned her
mind to the attack of two nights ago, those shadowy, faceless men who had run from the burning village. Anger shook her.
“Will they come again?” she wondered aloud.
Gunnar glanced sideways, and Rose could feel him reading her. The temptation to meet his eyes was great, but she held back.
“Maybe we have frightened them away,” he said, with nothing in his voice to tell her whether he believed his own words.
It was then she heard it, the thud of many horses approaching.
Gunnar turned first, his hand going to his sword. It slid silently from its scabbard, the lethal black metal gleaming like ebony. Arno tugged at his own sword and forced his horse around, cursing and digging in his spurs when it refused him. Several horsemen came up over the rise. They were strangers, grim-faced, armored. Rose was instantly aware that this was no friendly visit.
“Ride back to the keep, Rose!” Arno commanded, finally managing to turn his horse and place it between her and the approaching men.
Rose threw off her numb shock, gathering herself to obey, when suddenly Gunnar Olafson’s powerful arm curved around her waist and she was lifted onto his horse.
“No!” It was a gasp. Whether she was rejecting his presumption, or the sensation of hard male flesh all about her, Rose wasn’t sure. She began to struggle.
Gunnar had no time for doubts. “Keep still, lady,” he ordered through gritted teeth, and tightened his arm. “They are Fitzmorton’s men.”
Rose froze, her eyes widening. He was right! The flapping banner was blue and yellow—Fitzmorton’s colors. A cold, numbing fear spread through her. Why would Fitzmorton send his men here, now?
Mayhap he had found a use for her at last?
Fitzmorton hated Radulf, and she was Radulf’s vassal. Was she now to be the pawn in this game between two powerful men? No, Rose determined, she would fight to the death before being taken captive by Fitzmorton…and besides, Gunnar Olafson would protect her.
In that moment, and for no reason she could properly understand, Rose was certain of it.