But though she prayed long and hard, to every saint that might heed her plea, she feared her prayers would receive no answer. And she would receive no relief.
16
Time flew by too quickly. But in other ways it crawled by at a snail’s pace.
The stillroom and storerooms progressed very well. The shelves were purged and cleaned, then only the worthwhile contents stocked, and in logical order according to regular usage. In the buttery the various wines in their butts were tasted and either sealed or drained, as Rosalynde’s delicate palate dictated. The alehouse, like the kitchen, took a little longer. Too many years of baked-on dirt and grease had resulted in thick leavings that were most difficult to remove. By each day’s end the scraped-off goo had transferred itself to the aprons and headcloths of poor Maud and Edith until they both looked veritable frights. But bit by bit progress was made.
Rosalynde’s greatest satisfaction came from the improvements in the great hall. Clean walls and floors plus fresh rushes sprinkled liberally with lavender and mint made a marked difference in both the appearance and odor of the place. The first evening her father had even commented favorably upon her efforts and given her a fond pat on her hand. Since then she had prodded the unwilling group of serving lads into dragging the tables outside and scrubbing them with strong soap, then leaving the boards to dry in the ever-strengthening afternoon sun. Benches received the same treatment. Eventually she planned to purchase adequate linen for tablecloths. Only then would the tables be completely presentable to her sensibilities.
By far the most difficult task the boys undertook in the great hall was cleaning the torch bases and candlesticks. Endless layers of wax and burned-on tallow raised all sorts of muttered oaths from the reluctant fellows, but she ignored them completely. They could mutter to their hearts’ content so long as their curses were not too loud and their work proceeded apace. And proceed it did, day by day, until even the grumpy boys began to exhibit a certain pride in their accomplishments.
The garden, however, was another matter entirely. Cleve had abandoned her completely, embracing his new duties as squire with enthusiasm and vigor. To her carefully worded requests of her father for an additional laborer from the fields, she received a huffy no. He could spare not a single man, he told her quite adamantly. For not only must the serfs plant their own strips of land, they must also put in their prescribed days of labor on Sir Edward’s lands. While the weather was fair he absolutely refused to relinquish even one man.
That left her with only Aric.
It aggravated her to no end that neither her father nor Cleve seemed worried that such a rogue outlaw was working for her without further supervision. But Cleve had seemed to sum it up the last time she’d tried to coerce him into helping her.
“It does me good to see such a haughty one as him brought so low as to labor at what is rightfully women’s work,” he had said, giving her a self-important look. “And should he object, there’s not a man in the guard who would not slice him down at once. Besides, ’twas you who wished him spared, was it not?”
To that she had no argument. And she dared not go to her father with any further concerns about Blacksword’s constant presence, for she feared that might lead to questions and revelations of things she wished kept secret. At times she thought her father actually wanted Aric to revolt against his menial duty, for on more than one occasion she had caught him observing the man at his labor in the garden. But he did his work well and the garden improved daily, so neither she nor her father had an honest cause for complaint. Only to herself would she admit that it was not the threat of physical harm that she feared from Blacksword. The watchmen on the ramparts and the numerous castlefolk protected her from any such danger.
No, the menace Aric presented was far more subtle, and far more pervasive. Something in him drew her. She might curse it as a madness on her part, and pray endlessly for relief, but it was nevertheless always with her. Whether they spoke or not, whether she labored nearby him or sought respite as far from him as she could, the pull was ever-present and seemed perversely to be growing greater still.
Even in her sleep he haunted her, for more than once or twice she was awakened by dreams of him. And even if they were not distinct dreams, the early-morning hours invariably found her filled with a great lassitude and a sultry awareness of her own body that she’d never known before.
It was only that she was no longer a maiden, she would tell herself sternly. But her body said it was more. Her nipples would tighten, a warmth would creep up from her belly, and a restlessness that was completely foreign would steal over her. It was then, as she lay in her plain bed, waiting for dawn to bring light to the world, that she admitted the depths of her depravity.
She wanted him just as he clearly wanted her. Lust was a beast with its own mind and heart, and it tortured her unmercifully.
One warm morning Rosalynde awoke with that now-familiar coil of heat deep inside her. For a few disturbing moments she simply lay there, resigned to her disquieting feelings, resentful that Aric could affect her even in her own chamber but, above all, dismayed by the intense curiosity and unresolved questions building in her. Every morning it was worse. She felt as if she were waiting for something, and not just for Blacksword’s reaction when he learned she had not yet obtained his reward for him. It was a physical thing, something her body wanted, but she did not know what.
Or more precisely, she did not know why. Why did she want his touch? His caress? Why did she relive the exquisite feel of his lips pressed to hers, of his tongue stroking into her mouth and igniting a wondrous panic in her?
She twisted restlessly on the mattress, then flung the covers from her in frustration. Why must she ever be tormented by the wicked remembrance of his final possession of her? Over and over in her mind it played, and every time it left her more wrought up than before. With a muttered oath not at all becoming to a lady, she rose from the bed and padded on bare feet to the pan of water that she’d brought inside the night before. With trembling hands she splashed her face, then soaked a cloth in the water and pressed it to her warm cheeks. Yet that did no more to cool her overheated body than did the cold floor beneath her feet. She doubted that even a bath in an icy spring could put out the fire that burned inside her.
She tossed down the cloth, unmindful of the water that sprang in drops from the shallow pan. A pox on that man, she fumed as she found a clean kirtle and tugged it over her head. He was a devil, she decided as she thrust first one arm and then the other into the sleeves. Lucifer himself, she vowed as she yanked the fabric down. The only way to rid herself of such sinful feelings would be to rid herself of him. And the sooner the better. But how was she ever to do that?
It was this worry that beset her through the early breaking of the night’s fast. By now Aric was taking his meals in the great hall with the rest of the castlefolk, sitting at the last table, nearest to the entry doors. But Rosalynde knew he was there, and despite her best intentions her eyes crept repeatedly to watch him.
He ate neatly, not like so many others of the servants. He had no knife so he ate only with a spoon and his fingers, yet still he was cleaner and more fastidious than the others at his table. Bread and cheese was the fare, along with a small bowl of gruel and a mug of ale. Rosalynde watched surreptitiously until he finished and rose to leave. Only then did she hurriedly finish her own meal.
It did not take long to dispense with the day’s instructions to the castle servants. They were finally becoming resigned to the fact that life at Stanwood was never again to be as it was. Cleanliness, orderliness. These were what the new chatelaine required, and she—and they, as a result—would not have their rest until it was so.
By the time Rosalynde left them to their work and made her way to the garden, Aric had already begun to dig up the last of the unwanted willows. With a heavy garden fork he loosened the earth. Then with a curved length of hammered metal attached to a stout length of oak, he began to scoop the ear
th away. Bend, dig, scoop, and straighten. Again and again he moved as he slowly circled the sturdy sapling; and she, like one stupefied, stood and watched. One of the mongrel pups circled her, stepping on her toes and whacking her legs with his tail as he sought her attention. But although Rosalynde stooped to scratch the mutt amiably behind his ears, her gaze remained on Aric.
Once he had circled the tree, he put his spade aside and leaned his weight hard against the trunk. It was then that he spied her and straightened up.
“Good morrow, Rose,” he said in a tone far too familiar for a servant to use with a lady. But Rosalynde knew it was useless to protest. It wouldn’t change his manner at all, and she was certain he took perverse pleasure in baiting her thus. Instead she gave him a perfunctory smile and moved toward the bed of perennial herbs she had been weeding and transplanting.
“Did you sleep well?” he persisted as he watched her approach. “Perchance did you have any dreams of me?”
“Hardly,” she snapped, but color rose in her face to think how close to the truth he was.
“I dreamed of you,” he murmured as she sidled past him on the cleared path. “I dreamed you were there beside me … beneath me …”
“Oh! You are truly vile!” she hissed in horror, even as a spark somewhere inside her leapt into sudden flame. “You court disaster by such unseemly speech!”
“ ’Tis not unseemly for a husband to desire his wife in his bed,” he countered. “And, Rose, make no doubt, I do desire you in my bed.”
“Your bed! Your bed! Why, ’tis less than a pallet is your bed! A pile of hay! You dare much—”
“Yes, I know,” he bit out, pinning her with his dark gaze. “My bed is a mean one indeed. No bed at all, in fact. And yes, I dare much to want what is mine. I court disaster to speak the truth. That’s where we differ, sweet wife. I’ll dare much for the truth, while you run from it. Cringe from it!” At that he drew her beneath the branches of the doomed willow, hiding them from view. Then he pulled her closer until the entire lengths of their bodies were but inches apart.
Rosalynde was sure he meant to kiss her. His grasp was tight, his eyes burned into hers with a fierce light, and his lips poised just above her own. She did not consciously halt her struggle, yet as his face drew nearer her own, something inside her seemed to melt. Her heart pounded in her ears as she waited for his kiss.
But the kiss she received was not at all what she expected. His lips touched her brow once, then again, before moving to caress her temple.
“Sweet Rose,” he murmured against her cheek. “My thorny little Rose,” he whispered heatedly against her sensitive ear.
In sudden discontent, she leaned her weight slightly against him, even as she turned her face up to him. Something in her burned for him. Like hunger. Like her very need for air. Logic deemed this food a poison. To breathe deeply would surely be her undoing. Yet still she wanted it, no matter the risk. Nothing in her young and sheltered existence had prepared her for this onslaught of new and forbidden emotions. Nothing could have.
She breathed in the scent of sweat and earth that clung to him and without even being aware edged a little nearer, wanting the taste of his mouth on hers. Their eyes met in fiery collision and she knew she was completely transparent to him. But once more he surprised her. He bent down as if to kiss her, then halted before their lips met.
“You are mine, and soon the whole world shall know.”
“No!” The word was out before she could stop it.
“Yes,” he countered, holding her head still when, in her panic, she would have pulled back. “I’ve allowed you enough delay. It’s time to confront your father.”
At this broaching of the subject she had hoped to avoid, Rosalynde’s emotional elation came to a crashing halt. She tried to twist out of his rigid grasp, but his hold on her was adamant. In his steady gaze she recognized determination and a reckless daring that frightened her. “He will kill you! It’s too soon!”
“It will always be too soon,” he retorted darkly. “You’ll put me off and put me off until a year and a day is done.”
“No. No, that’s not it. It’s just that … that …” Rosalynde could not formulate a reply, at least not an honest one. It was true she sought desperately to escape the year-and-a-day constraints set on her by the handfasting ritual. But her primary fear was for her father’s furious reaction. She had only to recall the horrors of the flogging to know her father would deal most harshly with the man who had ruined his daughter. Even though Blacksword seemed ready to risk her father’s fury, she was not.
“He will kill you,” she whispered quietly, staring into his slate-gray eyes. “I know you don’t believe that, but it’s true.”
His hands tightened but something in his eyes flickered. “Your concern is flattering, sweet. But I’m willing to take my chances with him. This yoke of slavery weighs too heavily on me.”
“But it’s not so bad,” she argued, seeking some way to convince him. “Truly. The work is hard, but you have enough to eat and a safe place to sleep. You are well treated here.”
“You still do not understand. A man needs more than a full belly and a warm place to sleep. It is the freedom to go—or stay—that I want. And my woman.” He pulled her up against him so that she was pressed close against the entire length of his male form. It was a shock of heat and hardness, and although her body would have rested willingly against him, her mind pushed her away.
“You are a madman! You want too much!”
“I want only what every man wants. I’ll not rest until I have it. Come, wife.” He stared deeply into her wide eyes. “ ’Tis time we spoke to your father.”
“No!” Rosalynde squeaked as he made to leave the willow’s protective embrace. “Wait!”
“There’s no use in waiting any longer.”
“Another week. Just one more week!” she pleaded in desperation.
He halted and stared at her keenly. “Why wait? Why?”
“Because …” She faltered. “Just because.”
In the filtered light he stood before her, his hair a dark gold, his face burned brown by his outdoor labors. He was so completely male, so unbelievably virile. A part of her responded innately to him, and it was a wonder to her that he seemed to desire her as well. It was that thought which prompted her next rash words.
“If you will just wait, just not do anything or say anything …”
His eyes glinted with silvery light. “If I will wait, what?” he pressed her.
“I will kiss you,” she pronounced very gravely.
For a moment their eyes held. “You would have kissed me anyway,” he mocked. “Kissed me and more.”
Her serious stare dissolved into a glare. “You think overmuch of yourself,” she snapped, even though she knew he had the truth of it. But her need to buy his silence overrode her need to prick his pride.
His smile faded. “You dare much to place yourself above he who is your legal husband. Lady you may be. Wedded to a mere slave. But that changes nothing of the facts.” Then his curt tone relented. “But there are forms of slavery not so objectionable.” His hands slid up her arms. “Make me a slave to your kisses, my Rose. Make me your slave and I will make you mine.”
For an endless trembling moment he held her within his gaze, within his grasp. Forgotten was her anger; forgotten the bribe she’d offered him. As she stared like one mesmerized into the smoky depths of his potent stare, Rosalynde felt every defense against him ebb away. Like the taut string of a longbow her emotions stretched to the point of breaking, until she was forced to admit to herself that she wanted his kiss. She needed his kiss with a desperation that made her want to weep.
“Kiss me,” he murmured softly. “Buy my silence with your lips. With your tongue,” he coaxed in a voice grown low and husky.
In unquestioning response Rosalynde leaned into him, lifting up on her toes to reach his lips. When he bent down to meet her kiss, when he shifted to fit her against him, she presse
d herself freely to him, never thinking of payment or bribes or the silence she bought. In that moment her thoughts reeled and logic disappeared. She knew only the warmth of his nearness, the magic of his touch, and the exquisite sweetness of his kiss.
He did not demand anything of her in that kiss. Indeed, there was almost a caution, a reserve in the intimate pressure of his firm mouth against hers. But his very reticence seemed to goad her on, and without thinking she parted her lips and ran the tip of her tongue along the seam of his lips.
At once everything changed.
His hold on her tightened even as he opened to her hesitant approach. He took her tongue into his mouth and met it with his own, and before she could protest she was overcome with unnameable delight. She had initiated the kiss, yet even in her passionate haze she knew it had been at his command. And now as desire exploded inside her, she knew that in every way he held her in his thrall. She was a slave to her desire for him. He had made her thus, and willingly did she now succumb.
One of his hands moved down to cup her derriere, and she groaned against his mouth. His hand moved possessively, stroking against the place where the heat that consumed her began, and she gasped in both fear and yearning. At that, his mouth moved to her neck, kissing, nipping, stroking the sensitive skin with his tongue. In small wet circles his tongue traced patterns of pure delight even as his palm circled her bottom, pressing and exciting her with daring promise.
“Blacksword,” she murmured on a short intake of breath. “Aric.” She felt the full strength of his arousal press demandingly against her belly.
He lifted his head and stared into the melting amber of her eyes. “Whether you be Rosalynde to my Aric,” he whispered, “or Rose to my Blacksword, I will have you yet. I will have you yet.” Then to her complete bewilderment, he put her from him.
The Rose of Blacksword (Loveswept) Page 23