The Rose of Blacksword (Loveswept)

by Becnel, Rexanne

  Another area lacking, she thought as she gave them a wan smile and hurried past. Stanwood was sorely lacking in any of the amenities of life. Last night’s meal had been mediocre at best. The housekeeping was deplorable. The castle children had no manners. And where, she wondered with a frown, were the women servants? She’d seen only the two in the great hall this morning, and a few more last night. There was the dairymaid as well, she recalled sourly. But she quickly dismissed that hussy from her mind. The women of the castle were few and far between, and those she’d seen were ragged, poorly trained, and clearly overworked. Stanwood had obviously become a man’s domain in the years since her mother’s death. But all that was about to change.

  Rosalynde lifted the end of her girdle and felt the reassuring weight of the keys that hung there. She was mistress now and she would see things put to right, one way or another. And the first thing she would do was buy Blacksword’s silence.

  The storerooms yielded a suitable beginning to her plan—one well-mended but clean chainse of soft linen and a supple tunic of deep-green kendal. With that in hand plus clean wash rags, and more of the balm she’d prepared, she was ready to face him. But when she reached the stable, she was taken with a terrible case of nerves.

  What if he kissed her again? Her logical self knew that a kiss was the very least she should be worried about. What really mattered was what he might say—or even worse, what he might do. But as in every other instance, she was not at all logical where Blacksword was concerned.

  She halted at the stable door and pressed one hand to her fluttering stomach. Do not think of him in that way, she ordered herself sternly. He was only another of her father’s many servants, and in need of her healing skills. No more, no less. But despite such sensible reasoning, her heart thundered furiously and her mouth was as dry as carded wool. As she forced one foot forward and then the other, she consoled herself with the thought that he might not be there at all.

  But he was there. She heard his low voice and then his grunt of pain, followed by a heavy thud. Fearing the worst, she flew around a low wall only to stop short at the scene that greeted her. Blacksword squatted next to a heavy granite block. The thick-bellied stable marshal was staring at him with undisguised awe, a foolish grin of pleasure on his brown-seamed face.

  “I’d ne’er ha’ thought it possible if I ha’n’t seen it with me own eyes!” The man patted the block proudly, then lifted a short steel mallet and brought it down once sharply on the solid stone. “Now I can work easier without them fool boys gettin’ in me way.” He glanced at Blacksword again and screwed up one side of his mouth. “Ye’ve got the brawn, boy. Now it remains to see if ye got the brains.” Once more he patted the stone before he turned and then spotted Rosalynde.

  “Milady!” He looked at her with wide, disbelieving eyes, as if the thought of the lady of the castle setting foot in the stables was quite beyond him. He bobbed his head respectfully. “Is there … is there somethin’ I can be helpin’ you with, milady?” He bobbed his head again.

  Rosalynde’s eyes strayed from him to Blacksword and then quickly back to the tongue-tied marshal. It was far easier to look at him than at the hard-eyed man whose gaze even now was causing her skin to heat.

  “You … you may go now. I only came to tend this … this man’s wounds.” She thrust out the vial with the ointment in it as if to verify that she spoke the truth. “He will not work so well if … if his wounds should fester.”

  But the stableman seemed unlikely to argue with her no matter what reason she gave. He was clearly uncomfortable around a noblewoman and was only too happy to leave her to her task.

  “I’ve harness to mend. And two shields.” He shuffled around, giving her a cautious sidelong glance. “Just send him back to me when ye’ve finished with him, if ye please, milady.”

  With no further excuse to avoid it, Rosalynde finally looked back at Blacksword. He had remained as he was, squatting beside the great stone he’d obviously moved for the older stable marshal. But when her eyes met his he slowly stood up. Once again she was struck by the sheer animal beauty of the man. He exuded a raw power, tempered by the shrewd light of intelligence in his clear gray eyes. There was a pride evident in him. It was there in the way he squared his shoulders, the way he held his head. The way his gaze never faltered. In that moment she was sure that he was more than what he seemed. He was no common servant, no serf born to an existence of toil and labor. He’d known more than that in his life. And yet she could not get around the fact that he was still a common criminal.

  Rosalynde bit her lower lip as she stared at him, all but forgetting her original purpose in seeking him out. It was only when he glanced briefly at the stable marshal who was busy ferrying the tools of his trade nearer the relocated stone, then returned his gaze to her that she forced herself back to the task at hand.

  “If … if you’ll remove your clothes. Your shirt,” she hastened to clarify in a strained voice.

  “Yes, milady,” he murmured politely. But he let his eyes travel over her in a leisurely fashion before he gave her a faint mocking grin, then pulled the torn, soiled shirt over his head. He tossed it unceremoniously aside and stared boldly at her.

  “Turn around,” she croaked out as she blushed scarlet from his impudent gaze. He was a wretched beast, purely a devil, she seethed, until the sight of his mutilated back chased every other thought aside. She stared at it sickly. Scabs had formed in the night, but his efforts in moving the stone had clearly broken the wounds open. Fresh blood trickled across the crusted remnants of the ointment. That, combined with the many raised welts gave his wide back a horribly scarred appearance. Even though she was confident of her ointment’s ability to heal the wounds without serious scarring, if he continued to break the wounds open, no amount of her skill could help.

  “Why was this man put to such heavy work? Look at his back!” she demanded of the silent stableman. Once given vent, her anger would not abate. “Can’t you see what your thoughtlessness had caused?”

  “ ’Tweren’t me, milady. ’Tweren’t me,” the man vowed earnestly as he faced her furious scowl. “ ’Twas Sir Roger as said he was to be worked dawn to dusk, and hard too. I’m only doin’ as I was told. Truly, I am!”

  “Sir Roger?” She glared at the older man. “And who does Sir Roger get his orders from?”

  The man did not answer. He did not have to. Rosalynde guessed at once from his suddenly pale face that Sir Roger must answer only to her father. And that brought things right back around to the original problem that had driven her here to the stables: Blacksword and her father. A vein throbbed in her temple and quickly grew to an aching rhythm. Her father and Blacksword. Between the two of them and their unreasonable stubbornness she was stretched like a taut rope. It was awful enough when they both tugged with equal pressure, but the two of them were pulling at her in erratic bursts and always from unpredictable directions. How long could she balance between them?

  Seeing the stable marshal’s nervous shifting from one foot to the other, she let out a weary sigh. “I’ll speak to my father. You need not worry on that score.”

  The man needed no more than that to consider himself dismissed. With a final bob of his head he backed to the door, then eased himself through and disappeared. But though he was relieved to escape an awkward confrontation, Rosalynde was granted no such favor. Alone in the stable once more with Blacksword, she felt her righteous anger at his mistreatment give way to near resignation. He was going to be difficult, that was clear. She’d been a fool to hope otherwise.

  “So,” he said as his clear gray eyes locked with hers. “You shall speak to your father. And on my behalf. But just how much shall you say?” His brow arched skeptically. “I await your answer, sweet wife.”

  “Don’t call me that!” she hissed, casting an alarmed glance about them.

  “Do you deny it yet?”

  Of course she did. She must. Yet Rosalynde knew that she had to take a different tack with
him. She bit down on her lower lip and took the stopper from the vial. “I came here to see to your wounds. Can I not attend that without quarreling with you?”

  There was a brief silence. Then she made the mistake of raising her eyes back up to his. He was staring at her with an unfathomable expression on his face. Not angry, for a change. She could detect little discernible emotion at all. But her stomach nonetheless tightened in complete awareness of him.

  “It’s hardly quarreling I have in mind,” he said in a slow, husky tone.

  It was enough to send all thought of ointments and wounds flying right out of her head, to be immediately replaced by other thoughts far too wicked to be proper. But she refused to respond to his innuendo and instead addressed the real topic that rested so uneasily between them.

  “I have thought long on what you said last night,” she began, lowering her eyes from his unsettling gaze.

  “And have you come to a conclusion?” he asked lightly, although she detected an edge of tension in his voice.

  Rosalynde took a slow breath and deliberately moved to his side. Her hands trembled slightly as she poured a palmful of the ointment, then began intently to apply it to his back. She was relieved that he did not stop her but only twisted his head slightly to keep his eyes on her face. Still, she knew she could not avoid answering his question.

  “I need time,” she finally whispered. “Just a little time,” she hastened to add before he could reply. “If you knew how dangerous your position is—”

  “You apply your medicine to my back even now. Do you think I do not know how dangerous it is for me here?” he snapped back.

  Her hands fell away from him and he turned to face her. Only inches separated them. “I am your father’s newest slave.” He said the word as if it tasted foul upon his tongue. “You promised me a reward. You took the handfast vow with me. But once here you deny it all.” His angry eyes bored into hers. “You are my wife. I’ll take only that as my reward.”

  “But he will never have you as husband to his only daughter! Don’t you see?” she pleaded. “You have no title … no lands.”

  “And if I did? Would he have me then? Would you?”

  The words that had risen in her throat died suddenly at such a strange comment from him. It was beyond comprehension for a noblewoman and a commoner to wed. It was simply unheard of. Yet in the long moment that they stared at one another she thought once more how unlike any common man he was, even from the first time she had laid eyes on him. His bearing was too noble. His pride too apparent. Then her brow creased suspiciously even as unreasonable hope welled in her breast.

  “Who are you?” she murmured. She stared at him as if he were someone she’d never seen before. “Who are you and how did you come to be on the gallows of Dunmow?”

  He stared back at her too, and for a moment she thought he might reveal some startling story to her. Perhaps he was a prince bewitched, as in the tale of the two sisters and the bear. Or else a nobleman tormented by a jealous and vengeful sprite. Yet just as her rational self knew that there were no sprites and no bewitchings except in stories and legends, she also knew that for all her hopes to the contrary, he was unlikely to be any more than he appeared: a blackguard and a rogue. Charming at times. With a rare streak of compassion, even. But he was a rogue nonetheless, and her father would never see him as suitable.

  He shrugged and his eyes seemed to become harder, as if he deliberately wished to shut out the past.

  “I am Aric. From Wycliffe. I told you that before.”

  “Who was your father?” she pressed. She was suddenly angry at his apparent evasiveness and his threat that still hung over her.

  “My father was a man of no great note,” he replied after only a moment’s pause. “I was the last of my mother’s children. Wycliffe held naught for me, so …” He shrugged as if that should explain the rest. But it explained nothing, and Rosalynde became even more angry.

  “Wycliffe held naught for you? Probably because you’d already stolen everything of value that there was. Then you moved on until finally they caught you in Dunmow.” She grabbed the stopper and slapped it back into the mouth of the vial. “Yes, I promised you reward! Yes, I wedded you, knowing you were already condemned to die! But I never thought you would … you were …” She stumbled over the words, for even to her they sounded exceedingly foolish. She’d not expected him really to be a thief or a murderer? It was only the secret wishes of a child, she realized.

  But not only of a child, the unwelcome thought came to her. She had played the woman to his man. The wife to his husband. And the very intensity of that joining—the never-suspected pleasure of it—had blinded her anew. She wanted him to be more than he was because … because it somehow made what they’d done together seem a little less wrong.

  “You never thought I would be around to demand that I be paid?” He finished her sentence with his own conclusion. “Can this be true?” He grabbed both of her arms and gave her a hard shake. “What a truly heartless wench you are, Lady Rosalynde. So tell me, why do you hesitate to tell all to your father? If you are so certain he will punish me with death, why not tell him all and be finished with it?”

  “I do not want you dead!” Rosalynde cried in answer to the last of his questions. “But if you hold fast to this mad course of yours—”

  His grip changed at her stammered-out words. His hand tightened, but now he only pulled her a little nearer. “If not dead, then alive? But I have to question why. Why, Rose? What will you gain by my presence at Stanwood?” His eyes swept her pale, frightened face. One of his hands moved to pluck a bit of straw from her hair. Then he ran his knuckle lightly along the curve of her cheek. “Could it be that my thorny little Rose wants both the sun and the storm?” He smiled at her look of bewilderment, but there was no warmth in his eyes.

  “I am not acceptable to you as a husband,” he explained mockingly. “But as a lover …” He pulled her up against him then, and the heat of his body and hers together sent a fiery shiver through her. As much as Rosalynde wished to deny his insulting pronouncement, the flare of desire that curled up from her belly would not allow it. The sin of lust. Once more it was upon her, surprising her when she least expected it, catching her fast in its unrelenting grasp. Dear God, she prayed frantically. She had not known it could be so strong. Never could she have known.…

  With a jerk she pulled herself away from him, shaking from the terrible turmoil of emotions he had stirred in her. “You are a conceited oaf!” she cried in self-defense. “A disgusting … a disgusting bastard—”

  “Yes, a bastard, but also your rightful husband,” he ended her frustrated litany before it had properly begun. “When shall you admit as much to your father?” He tormented her with a mocking half smile.

  For an instant Rosalynde was tempted to do just that: tell her father the whole truth and let him do what he would with Blacksword. The heartless brute deserved whatever sentence he received. But just as quickly the image of him bound beneath the cruel bite of the whip chased away her vengeful thoughts. He was arrogant and presumptuous and a knave of the first rank, but something in her simply could not bear to see him suffer further. With a supreme effort she choked back her angry words and instead tried to recall why she had originally come out to speak to him.

  “I’ve a proposition for you,” she stated as calmly as she could. When he only gave her a skeptical glance, however, her tone became more shrill. “If you will just hold your tongue. For a little longer,” she added quickly before he could interrupt. “I promise you, I will manage to find you a suitable reward.”

  There was a breathless silence. A horse shifted in its stall a little beyond them, but all else was still.

  “You know the reward I want.”

  “I’ll get you a horse. And gold too. I promise. I can’t be sure about any weapons, however.” She stared up at him, hoping against hope that for once he might be reasonable. But her hopes were dashed by his next few words.

>   “That’s not enough.”

  “Then what, by all that is holy, will be enough?” she exploded, forgetting to keep her words quiet.

  The answer he gave was clear, though he did not speak a word. But his eyes spoke volumes as they slipped over her slender figure, lingering at her breasts before raising to her lips. To her dismay, however, the emotion that sent her pulse racing at such an unwarranted perusal was neither insult nor shock. Instead a shameful wave of desire radiated up from her nether regions and she felt an insane stab of longing for him. She was mad to feel so, and he was a devil to inspire such lust in her. Yet she could not will such powerful feelings away.

  “You are mad,” she whispered. “Truly mad.”

  “Perhaps I am,” he said, advancing on her slowly. “But I don’t think so. There’s very little that a man needs, my wild Rose. As a woman it behooves you to understand this. A full belly.” He rubbed his own flat stomach languorously. “Shelter from the cold.” He cast a wry expression around him at the snug stable. “A woman to ease himself upon.” His grin lost its sardonic edge as his eyes bored into hers. “And the chance to choose his own path.”

  She backed away from his predatory approach. Her voice was barely above a whisper. “I notice you make no mention of honor.”

  He shrugged, then stopped. “Honor is not something a man needs. Rather it is something he either has or does not have.”

  “And you have none!” she accused, though her lips trembled as she spoke.

  “I have enough,” he countered. “Certainly far more than you.”

  At that she grew angry once more. “I came to you today to honor my promise. To assure you that you shall get your reward—your rightful reward.”

  He gave her a keen look and started to speak, but then stopped. For a moment longer he studied her. Then in some vague, hardly discernible manner he seemed to relax. “How long is a ‘little longer’?” he asked noncommittally.