by Sara Bennett
“Fitzmorton?” Arno had repeated, frowning. Then, his brow clearing: “Aye, Fitzmorton’s men. But what do they want here, now?”
Gunnar had been looking at him curiously, as if something in Arno’s manner struck him as odd. Now he turned back to the approaching riders, and his blue eyes narrowed. “They are on your manor, Lady Rose. Did you invite them here?
He looked dangerous, she decided, peering up at him. She was breathless as she sat, pressed against his hard chest, her thighs resting upon his, his powerful arm squeezing her, and realized she had not been this close to any man, apart from Edric, in her whole life. And Edric had never felt like this.
“No, of course I did not invite them here!” she gasped, and brushed aside a swathe of dark hair. She had lost her veil and her braid was coming undone. She tried to straighten, to edge away from this unbearable closeness. “Please put me back on my horse, Captain! There is no need—”
To her dismay, but not her surprise, he ignored her. The troop with the blue and yellow banner came to a halt before them. Their leader urged his mount forward a little, and to Rose’s consternation she saw amusement in his gray eyes as they took in her rigid demeanor, and the muscular arm wrapped possessively about her middle. His thin, rather austere face relaxed, he was even handsome in a priestly sort of way, but he was not a man Rose would ever trust. Even as the thought occurred to her, the man’s gaze slid from her dishevelment to Gunnar behind her, and his face went blank with surprise.
Gunnar stiffened, his body going solid as stone. He even seemed to have stopped breathing. It was then that Rose understood: they knew each other.
“Gunnar Olafson.” There was no denying the recognition in the man’s voice, or the dislike. “What misfortune brings you here to Somerford Manor?”
Gunnar’s shock was already fading as he looked ahead to this new challenge. Miles! The last person he hoped to see, though in hindsight he should not have been surprised. It was natural that Miles should have aligned himself with someone like Fitzmorton. Gunnar was just grateful that Ivo wasn’t there—his friend had returned to the place in the woods where they had found the miller, hoping to find something, anything, to help solve the mystery of the attack on the village.
“Miles.” Gunnar sounded as if they were meeting in perfectly normal circumstances. “You are with Fitzmorton, then. Why am I not surprised?”
Miles snorted a laugh. “God rot you, Gunnar, I hoped you were dead.”
In his arms, Rose had been rigid with fear and with an equal determination not to show it. Now she went pliant, as if she might be about to faint. Or maybe his grip around her was too tight? Gunnar loosened his hold, and felt the soft weight of her breasts upon his arm. A sweet scent rose from her uncovered hair and her warm body; it filled his nostrils, threatening to divert his mind from their very real danger. Gunnar forced himself to coldness—more of a weapon and less of a man—concentrating on the enemy before him.
“Why are you here anyway?” Miles demanded, glancing suspiciously at Arno and then away again. “I had heard you were in Wales.”
“I was.”
“I have been to the north, seeing to Lord Fitzmorton’s lands there,” Miles’s gaze traveled over Rose as he spoke, taking in her dark hair and beautiful face and lush shape. He nodded at her breasts. “You always did take the most desirable wenches for yourself, Gunnar.”
Gunnar would have enjoyed striking the smirk from his mouth and watching him bleed. He held in the violence and gave a cold smile. “This is Lady Rose of Somerford, Miles.” His voice was as icy as Norse snow. “You are standing on her land.”
The smirk vanished. Miles glared a moment at Gunnar and then bowed his head to Rose in a manner far too brisk and soldierlike to be apologetic. “Lady, I am sorry.”
Gunnar had decided there was little point in making an issue of his rudeness. Matters were tense enough. But he wasn’t sure how Rose would react. Most of the Norman ladies he had known would take serious offense at Miles’s remarks…
Rose wasn’t most ladies.
She nodded coolly, accepting Miles’s apology as if it were her due. Gunnar admired her for that, although her next words startled him. “You are known to Captain Olafson, sir?”
Miles’s gray eyes flicked to Gunnar and away again. “Aye. We fought together…long ago. I am Sir Miles de Vessey.”
“And why are you here at Somerford, Sir Miles de Vessey?” she asked him in that soft, authoritative voice that could have extracted obedience from the lowest serf to the highest baron in the land.
But Miles was as cunning and slippery as the eels that lived in the Mere. “When I returned from the north it was to learn that one of Fitzmorton’s men had gone astray, lady. He was traveling across Somerford Manor with messages to Lord Radulf at Crevitch Castle, and didn’t return when he was meant to. I have come to find him.”
Gunnar had been content to allow Rose to ask the questions, but now he felt her tense. A missing messenger from Fitzmorton and a dead Norman. He did not need her warm fingers, slipping into his to press a warning—he had already drawn the same conclusions. Still, he could not help but wonder at her bored tone when again she spoke. “Then you are on your way to Crevitch Castle?”
“Aye, lady.”
“Then we will not delay you—”
“Hell and damnation!” It was Arno’s muttered imprecation that brought Miles de Vessey’s head around. Rose sighed, and Gunnar squeezed her fingers in comfort or warning, he didn’t know which. “Will no one tell him?” Arno growled, turning from one to the other. “We have a dead Norman and Sir Miles is missing a man—does that not strike anyone as odd?”
Gunnar watched Rose widen her eyes in assumed surprise. “But why would one of Lord Fitzmorton’s men set fire to the miller’s cottage and assault his daughter?” Her even voice was designed to dampen Arno’s certainty.
“If he did,” Arno retorted in disgust, not in the least dampened. “We have only the miller’s word for that, lady.”
“And that of Millisent, his daughter.”
“Exactly,” Arno said, as if she had been feeding his argument rather than her own.
“What is this?” Miles’s gray eyes were turning from Gunnar to Rose, and there was distrust in every line of him.
Arno did likewise, and when he saw the reluctance evident on both their faces, he scowled. “Come with me,” he spoke grimly to Miles de Vessey. “There is a body lying unburied in the village. You can judge for yourself whether it is your missing man.”
Arno rode away, and Miles, with another soldierlike bow to Rose, followed with his men. Gunnar nodded for Sweyn and Ethelred to accompany them. Sweyn grimaced, eyes on Miles. “Did you know he’d be here, captain?”
“No.” Briefly Gunnar wondered how he was going to extract them all from an increasingly complicated situation, and then he dismissed what-might-bes and concentrated on here and now.
“If Miles questions you, say nothing,” he commanded his men. “We have been instructed to protect Somerford Manor and its lady. The money is good. That is all you know.”
Sweyn grinned and rode off, with Ethelred following.
Rose had turned her head to look up at him, so that she could see his face properly. The turn of events had made her pale and anxious. “Why will Sir Miles ask questions?”
Gunnar hoped his eyes were blank. “It is in his nature.”
“Why should your men tell him anything but the truth; what else is there to tell?”
She was suspicious and he didn’t blame her. Did that mean she was entirely innocent of any involvement with Fitzmorton, or was she simply leading him in the direction she wanted him to go? Gunnar wished he knew.
“If the dead man is Lord Fitzmorton’s messenger…?” she murmured uncertainly.
“Do you want the sour truth, lady, or honey-coated lies?”
Rose frowned, shifting in his lap, her soft bottom pressing against his thighs. Gunnar winced. “I want the truth.”
“Then I will give it to you. The more powerful the man, the harsher the punishment. If the body in the village is Fitzmorton’s messenger, then there will be no reprieve for your miller.”
Her lips parted on a little sigh but she didn’t look away. Suddenly he wished both the foolish miller and Miles de Vessey to hell. He was holding Rose in his arms and there were more pleasurable things to do.
Rose could see a pulse beating smoothly in Gunnar’s throat. The tanned texture of his skin was broken by gold-red stubble on his cheeks and along his jaw—he hadn’t had time to shave that morning. His own gaze was roaming over her face, probing, searching, and she wondered what he could see. All her fears about Fitzmorton and the miller and the dead Norman laid out like counters for his perusal? Or her growing awareness that they were now even closer than they had been the night before last, when he had kissed her.
While Miles de Vessey and Arno had been there, Rose had maintained her calm authority—her lady-of-the-manor face. But now they were gone and suddenly she was very close to tears. Was it safe for Gunnar Olafson to know that? Women in her position should hide their weakness—she had learned that on her mother’s knee. And still, when Miles had spoken of the dead Norman and she had realized the implications, she had voluntarily placed her hand in Gunnar Olafson’s, and felt his strong, scarred fingers close firmly on hers. As if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Miles de Vessey is not to be trusted,” he said, after what seemed an age. His voice was husky.
Still, Rose stared back into his eyes, seeking…what? She only knew that they were as blue as the ocean, that they evinced everything she pretended to be but was not, and that they soothed her like a balm.
She looked away, before he could draw out her very soul, and took a deep breath for courage. He was still holding her, his body against hers, and it felt so good. Better than anything had felt for a very long time. She did not want to move, and yet in a moment he would lift her back onto her horse and she must straighten her shoulders and resume her lady-of-the-manor face and pretend she felt nothing for the mercenary captain.
“So Miles de Vessey is known to you, Captain,” she said quietly, and it was not a question.
“Aye, lady. Whatever he tells you…promises you, do not believe him.”
“I have never seen him before; why should he promise me anything?”
“Sir Arno d’Alan knows him.”
That brought her head up and around. She had planned to deny it, but as her lips opened to spill forth the words Rose realized he had spoken the truth. Arno did know him. Remembering now, Rose was suddenly conscious of the fact that Arno had not been surprised to see Miles, or if he was, it was only that he should appear abruptly over the rise like that. Aye, they were known to each other; Miles had not even asked for Arno’s name!
The realization made her very uncomfortable, and she swiftly sought an acceptable, comfortable explanation. “Mayhap Arno knows Miles from the days when my husband was alive,” she said in a stiff little voice. “There was a time when we had negotiations with Lord Fitzmorton, after he stole most of our garrison.”
Fitzmorton had found their attempts at negotiation amusing, Arno had told her.
If anything, her explanation caused the probe of his gaze to grow more intense. Rose knew then she had changed her mind. She wanted very much to be returned to her mare, she needed to escape the hold of this man who seemed to have such power over her, emotionally and physically.
“Your loyalty is misguided, Rose,” he said quietly. “Or is it more than loyalty?”
His familiarity with her name was not to be borne. Rose opened her mouth to tell him so, and instead was surprised to hear herself saying, “Arno has stood by me during hard times, Captain. You have been here but a short while—you do not know—”
The glint in his eyes startled her to a halt. He cupped her chin with his hand, lifting her face even closer to his, and his mouth swooped down until his lips brushed hers. “Ah, but I would know you, Rose. I would know every inch of you. I want to put my hands on your body, my mouth on your mouth. I want to be inside you.”
Her blood was drumming in her head. The taste of him, the feel of him, the nudge of his manhood against her hip…It was as if he had put a spell upon her, tamed her to his hand. Rose sat, frozen, knowing if she made the slightest move to acquiesce she would be lost. And this would be a very bad moment to give her senses over to desire.
She pulled away from the grip of his hand on her chin. She straightened her back and froze her expression into one of haughty indifference. “Please return me to my mount, Captain,” she commanded him coldly. She seemed to wait a long time for his response, so long that she began to be afraid he might not do as she asked, that he might run his hand over her breasts and kiss her, and then what would she do? Her breath grew ragged.
Abruptly, and with little tenderness, he gripped her about the waist and deposited her back onto her saddle. “Oh!” Her gown was twisted about her legs, exposing her stockings and the flesh of one thigh, her hair covered her eyes and hampered her movements. Flushed and cross, Rose adjusted her skirts more modestly, and then tossed her long dark hair over her shoulder. She shot him a glare. “I will not thank you, Captain.”
He glared back at her, and then, as before, the storm cleared from his features as he regained his phenomenal control. “I do not want your thanks, lady,” he replied evenly. “You know what it is I want.”
Rose pretended not to hear him. Gunnar might have regained his control, but just now, as she gazed into his handsome face, she had felt as if she were close to losing hers. And although she was afraid of the consequences, aye, terribly afraid, she did not think that would be enough to stop.
Chapter 9
Miles de Vessey had finished viewing the body by the time Rose arrived, the mercenary captain close behind her. The only glimpse she had of it was of a tightly wrapped bundle. As she drew up her mare, Arno was already striding to her side. His face was grim and serious, but his eyes shifted from hers. “Lady…’tis as I feared. The dead man was Lord Fitzmorton’s messenger.”
“Are you certain?” Even as she asked the question, Rose knew it was a forlorn hope.
Arno nodded. “Sir Miles recognized his sword scabbard.” He glanced past her, and his expression hardened still more. “You’d do better to listen to me, lady, than the Viking. He is here for his six marks, he cannot advise you on what is best for you and Somerford Manor.”
“No, Arno, he cannot,” Rose retorted coldly. “That is something I must decide on my own, without interference from him or you!”
He took a step forward, and he looked so angry, for a moment she thought he would drag her from the horse. Arno! He had never looked at her like that before. Shocked, Rose lifted her hand as if to fend him off. At the same moment Gunnar spurred his horse forward, forcing it between Rose and Arno, placing himself as her shield.
Rose gasped, and as she was struggling to bring her frightened mare back under control, she heard Gunnar’s two men draw their swords on her other side. Arno stumbled back, shock and anger fighting for supremacy on his face.
Miles de Vessey laughed. “Brawling over a woman, Gunnar?” he jeered softly.
Gunnar did not take his eyes from Arno. “Take care, d’Alan.” His voice was as cold as it was deadly. “You forget yourself.”
Arno’s face was red with his fury, and he spluttered for words to express it. Evidently he could find none, for he shook his head and stomped away to a safer distance, presenting them with his back.
Rose took a shaken breath, lifting her chin a little more. “Thank you, Captain, but I can manage now.”
Gunnar raised an eyebrow as if he doubted it, but nevertheless he moved back behind her, allowing her to resume command. The fact that he had done so was surprising in itself—Rose had found most men less than amenable when it came to being ordered about by a woman. But then Gunnar Olafson was not most men.
Miles de Vessey was sti
ll watching the exchange with interest, but now he seemed to tire of it. His voice came brisk and businesslike. “I want to take Gilbert’s body back to Lord Fitzmorton, lady. He has a wife who cherished him and will wish him buried close to her.”
Pity filled Rose for the woman. Thus far she had thought only of Harold and Millisent and Will—she had forgotten that the dead man, too, must have those who mourned him. He might have been willing to attack a young girl, but would his wife know that? Just as Rose’s mother had been willfully blind to her father’s twisted ways, so might this woman have closed her eyes to her man’s dark core.
“Of course, Sir Miles,” she said quietly. “Take his body with you, and tell her…I am sorry.”
Miles bowed his thanks, though he looked a little surprised by the promptness of her reply. Perhaps, Rose thought, he was not used to having his requests granted so easily—Lord Fitzmorton, she had heard, was a hard master. Miles turned to give his orders, and the men from his troop set about preparing for the journey.
“Sir Arno?”
Her knight still stood some feet away, sulking. At her call he stiffened his shoulders, and Rose thought he might ignore her. But Arno was too loyal for that. With obvious unwillingness he turned, eyeing her under lowered brows, his arms folded. “Aye, lady?” he asked gruffly.
“Will you stay and see these men on their way?”
He nodded, his mouth twisted in what might have been a smile. The bitterness she had noticed before still clung to him, and there was a look in his brown eyes that spoke of self-contempt. Puzzled, Rose wondered why, and tried to recall what they had been speaking of before they were interrupted. Arno had mentioned seeking help from Radulf or…Fitzmorton? He had spoken strangely, though she had been too occupied with her own troubles to pay him much mind. But now she recalled how he had mentioned their time together in this year since Edric had died, and how Arno thought they might…
Her eyes widened.
Jesu, he was going to ask to marry me!