by Ruth Kaufman
Blanche turned, tray of cheese and fresh white bread in one hand, cup in the other, to find Richard sitting on the bench opposite her. She sat so close that her skirts covered his thigh. “Here.”
She leaned against him, making sure her breast brushed his arm as she placed the tray on the low table next to the bench.
He ate some cheese and drank a few sips, ones she hoped were flavorful enough to cover any lingering taste of the love potion she’d added before he arrived.
She sliced more cheese. He quickly ate another piece.
“Well, what do you want?”
How long before the drug started working? Would it work? The crone who’d sold Blanche the costly remedia amoris swore on her saints’ bones that her secret mixture of powdered animal horns, mandrake and sparrow eggs would induce even the most resistant man to desire. Blanche hoped the strange stuff wouldn’t harm Richard. But she knew he wouldn’t tell her what he knew about the Philosopher’s Stone on his own.
And if he wanted her again, perhaps he’d wed her instead of going through with the tournament. All her problems would be solved.
“Thank you for the cheese and wine.” He sat back. “Now talk.”
“I’ve been thinking about your father. About his experiments.”
“What so interests you in alchemy of a sudden?”
“What interests so many. The possibilities. The ability to turn mere metals into something, into gold. The hope of resurrection.” Blanche rested her hand next to his thigh. “You never said what you’ve seen of your father’s writings.”
“Why would I tell you?”
His unpleasant tone wouldn’t sway her. “I know how highly the old king, Henry, valued his work. The new king will as well,” she said.
“All know Edward likes to study the meaning of genealogies and history. What of it?”
“’Tis far more than that. I wondered what your father wrote about and what discoveries he made. Which made me miss you and what we once shared.” Blanche used a fingernail to trace a meandering pattern on his thigh. Years ago he’d loved that. Her hand brushed lightly between his legs.
He stood. “Not this again.”
“We were so good together. We can be still.”
“You endeavor, as you so rightly put it, to make something of nothing. You willingly destroyed what we might have had in your hunger for money and position.” He glared at her, his eyes piercing. “What do you really want? Has Lady FitzWalter threatened to evict you? Or did Hugh put you up to this?”
She tried to keep her face calm.
“That’s it, then. Do he and his mother hope to use another’s work to gain favor and power by giving it to Edward?”
She busied herself pouring wine lest he read more truth in her eyes.
“I must tell Eleanor,” he said. “And have you removed from the tournament. I shouldn’t have let it go this far.”
Her ploy wasn’t working. The drug, and she, had failed. If she didn’t come up with a new plan, she’d be homeless. And penniless.
Richard had been a fool to meet with Blanche. But she no longer had the ability to entrap him in her webs of deceit.
“Don’t try this again. Any notes you send will go unheeded. I shouldn’t have acted on this one.” His skin prickled from his scalp to his toes. His blood raged as if he’d been enticed for hours. Where had this strange need come from?
His highly arousing encounters with Eleanor must’ve accumulated into extraordinary lust. His flesh burned, his unexpected erection throbbed. He had to find release. Not with Blanche, despite her practiced efforts. He wanted his wife. He’d go to her, and have her.
Now.
Of a sudden he was tired. So tired. Tired of the search for a “better” bride. He sank back onto the unforgiving wood bench, limbs listless and weak. Why should he have to work so hard to get his wife’s attention? Why was he with Blanche, and not her?
“Tell me, Richard.” Blanche’s hand roamed from his thigh to his erection, cupping him. “Tell me you want me to touch you. You know I can please you.”
This was wrong. Yet lust and lethargy urged him to yield to pleasure. She squeezed him through his clothing, gently, then harder. An enticing rhythm.
He closed his eyes. In his befuddled mind, Eleanor caressed him. Eleanor, who knew just the way to arouse him. He moaned, glad she wanted to touch him at last.
Then he opened his eyes. The woman with her hands on his cock was Blanche, not his wife. Blanche looked gleeful. She wanted something. He fought to remember. His father’s alchemical knowledge.
Eleanor. He’d go to her.
His head spun, his legs and arms felt heavy. As if he’d been drugged.
As if he’d been drugged.
He shook his head and struggled to stand. “I can’t believe you’d go this far.” Willing his mind to overpower his body, he jerked her to her feet. “What did you put in my wine? Why? What is it about my father’s work that’s so important to you?”
Shock. Disgust. Misery. The only words fitting Eleanor’s feelings about the scene before her.
After a late conference with Alyce about tournament details, she’d taken a wrong turn. She’d been retracing her steps through Windsor’s myriad corridors when a familiar moan caught her attention. The moan of a man who sounded like Richard had when she’d touched his erection for the first time. Such a passionate, unforgettable sound.
She turned the corner.
There was her husband, eyes closed. With another woman touching him. Blanche stared at Richard as though her life’s goal was to please him.
“Richard, tell me. Tell me what I need to hear,” Blanche said.
Hot fury flooded Eleanor. She couldn’t watch another second or she’d be violently ill. Not only was she appalled, she was jealous. Exceedingly, achingly jealous.
Look what her plans had wrought.
She ran, away from the sights and sounds of her husband’s intimacies with another woman. At last she reached her chamber. She slammed the door and collapsed in a heap on the floor. Powerful sobs burst forth, nearly choking her.
Hearts didn’t break, they shattered.
To think she’d begun to feel something for Richard and wondered what remaining married to him would be like. She’d had doubts about going forward with the bridal tournament.
The worst of it was when he kissed her, she’d thought she was the only woman for him. He’d focused on her with such intensity she felt special and cared for. Yet clearly he thought nothing of maintaining his relationship with his erstwhile love. Thought nothing of flirting and dancing with the potential brides.
Then again, why should he remain faithful when she’d rejected him? And offered him other women she’d chosen specifically to please him?
She hadn’t intended the tournament to be a test of Richard’s fidelity. But that’s what her heart was turning it into. More foolishness. Like wanting to choose her own spouse. Like wanting to love him and be loved in return.
All her life her parents had told her marriage was a means to an end, financial or political, or both. Eleanor had refused to listen. Refused to share her mother’s fate.
Eleanor pushed herself to her feet and stumbled to the bed. She threw herself face down, pounding the pillows again and again, not certain if they represented Richard or herself and her stupidity in caring for him. A bolster burst open in a swirl of feathers. She sat up amidst the floating fluff, sobbing and sneezing. Feathers clung to her damp cheeks.
“Eleanor, what’s going on?”
Richard stood in the open doorway, handsome as always if slightly pale. He hurried, rather unsteadily, to her side. Was he drunk?
Disgusting. He’d come straight to her from Blanche. His hands had just touched another woman. The taste of her would still be on his lips, the cloying scent of her on his clothes, his flesh still warmed by her hands. Eleanor swallowed against a surge of bile. How she wished she had a bucket of bleach to throw at him, as if the harsh liquid could erase her mem
ory of Blanche fondling him.
“Were you in a fight?” Richard picked up a clump of feathers.
“I saw you with her. The door was open. Anyone could have seen you.”
He froze.
She held her breath. This was Richard’s chance to explain. His chance to make things right.
His expression didn’t change. His silence told her more than words ever could. The closeness they’d achieved, which had seemed so real, evaporated like mist in the sun.
“Have you nothing to say?”
“Would you believe me?” he countered. “And why do you care? You invited Blanche to join the tournament. Isn’t this what you want, for me to find happiness with another woman?”
Yes. No. One thing was certain. He’d never know how much his being alone with Blanche upset her. Never would she give him such power over her. Still, she used her fury to the fullest. “You’ve made it quite obvious that you desire another.” She peeled feathers from her face. “Perhaps Fortune will smile on you, and Blanche will win. Then you can be together always.” Her throat caught, despite her resolve.
Richard sighed heavily. He seemed weary, at a loss for words. “I don’t want Blanche to win. Or any of the others. I need to stay wed to you.”
Interesting choice of words. “But you haven’t spoken a word against the tournament,” Eleanor noted.
“’Twas to humor you. I thought you’d come to your senses and give it up.”
Her heart soared. She should throw her arms around him and cancel the tournament. But her traitorous head wouldn’t follow her heart. “Why do you need to stay with me?”
“Because I am the king’s man and must do as he commands. Edward hasn’t yet agreed that I can take a different bride,” Richard said.
Well, then. She’d get the king’s permission somehow.
This conversation was going all wrong. Tell me you care for me. Tell me I’m the only woman for you. He needed to say the words on his own.
Richard sank onto the bed, holding his head as if it pained him. “I wouldn’t be an earl if not for Edward. I can’t go against him in this.”
She couldn’t take the swift rise and fall of her emotions. One minute Richard said something to make her happy, the next, drop her into despair. She climbed off the bed in a fluff of feathers. How could she sleep in the same room with him ever again? Tears gathered. How could she not?
He didn’t want her. He wanted a new bride. And it was her fault. She’d waited too long to know her own mind and find the courage to confess her feelings.
She’d go to Alyce. Eleanor paused, her hand on the latch. “I won’t be back.”
Richard groaned as she slammed the door. Eleanor had left him.
For now.
His head pounded and his legs still felt wobbly. He’d barely made it to their room, tripping several times over his own feet. He couldn’t summon the words to explain, couldn’t go after her until he recovered.
Richard shuddered. He was in serious trouble on several counts. First and most important, he’d wounded Eleanor. She’d acted as if the incident but angered her, but he could see the hurt in her eyes, hear it in her voice. She must care for him a great deal to be this upset. Unless her concern was possessiveness, defending what was yet hers.
He knew all too well the pain of witnessing one’s spouse with another. Even his bemused mind appreciated the ultimate irony of the evening’s events.
Second, he wished he could be the one to console her, but didn’t know how to repair the damage. How could he explain why he’d been alone with Blanche? He knew how Eleanor hated alchemy and didn’t want her involved in anything related to it. Yet they’d vowed to be honest with each other.
Third, Eleanor was right. Anyone could have seen him with Blanche. How could he tell her he’d made sure the door remained open to prove his meeting with her was innocent, unaware he’d soon be under the influence of some strange drug? The tale didn’t sound believable even to his ears.
Never had he felt as though quicksand sucked him under no matter which way he turned. The ground he’d painstakingly gained with Eleanor was lost, possibly forever.
By the saints, he was a warrior, not a sage.
He couldn’t lose Eleanor. Not just because he needed to stay wed to her. Because he wanted to. He wouldn’t let her go. Even at the risk of his own heart.
For certes she’d use her anger at him, her disappointment, to fuel her decision to go ahead with the tournament. He could refuse to go along, but then she’d feel trapped. The only way for their marriage to succeed on a personal level was to make her choose him.
How could he regain Eleanor’s favor?
Eleanor held out her candle against the deserted corridors. Which way was Alyce’s room? She was lost, as in so many areas of her life.
Self-pity would get her nowhere. Never give up, she vowed. Eleanor tried to get her bearings. A few turns later, she found Alyce’s room.
She knocked softly, praying only her sister would awaken and not the two women with whom she shared her chamber. But she already knew Fortune was not with her.
From behind the door, an unfamiliar voice asked, “Who’s there?”
“’Tis Eleanor,” she hissed. “Countess of Glasmere. I need to speak with my sister, Alyce.”
The door opened. A yawning young woman walked back to the huge bed and shook Alyce awake. She’d always been a heavy sleeper.
“Your sister’s here.”
As a bleary-eyed Alyce hurried out of bed, the woman climbed in. Her sister put on her robe, then joined Eleanor in the hall.
“Whatever is the matter?” Alyce wrapped her robe tightly about her and crossed her arms. “Couldn’t it wait until morn? ’Tis freezing out here.”
“No, it can’t. I saw Richard alone with Blanche. She was…fondling him. And he knows I saw.”
“Well, what of it? And why does it upset you?” Alyce asked, keeping her voice low. “Perhaps she’ll win the tournament. You’ll have succeeded in finding Richard a bride he prefers to you. A better bride, exactly as you wanted.”
“Anyone could have seen them. The door was open.”
“Oh. So you fear others will know that your husband, whom all know you want to be rid of, might be unfaithful.”
“My concern is that the other women might find out. I doubt they’d agree to compete for a groom, despite his fine form, wealth and position, if they knew Blanche had, well, a head start.”
“Why are you crying? You should be happy. Soon you’ll be free. Of course, Arthur is wed now. But you may still have the chance to choose your own groom.”
Eleanor knew why her success was making her miserable. Because she did care. Truly cared. She wanted Richard to desire her, only her. And though she might seem successful to everyone else, she knew she’d failed. Once again her best efforts had produced an unintended result. She’d forfeited control to Richard by coming to care for him.
Did she love him? She gasped. Please, not that. Or did she just want him now because the chances of keeping him were so slim? Is that why she’d fought for Arthur?
“You haven’t cried as much in your life as you have since you met Richard. And I know why. Because you finally truly care about someone, and caring can hurt.”
Her sister was right again. “What’s the point of caring if it gives that person the power to destroy you?” If he doesn’t want you as much as you want him? Eleanor closed her eyes. “Well then, I shall stop caring for him. Right now.”
If only it were that easy.
Perhaps this was why many people accepted arranged marriages. Marriages made for love could yield far more pain than those between strangers. How sad to think she’d spent most of her life wanting a marriage that probably wouldn’t have made her happy anyway.
Eleanor hadn’t heard a word Alyce had been saying.
“…’twas quite late. And the room, as you said, was not in a well-traveled corridor. It’s unlikely anyone else saw them.”
“A
ll right, then. The real problem is he is still wed to me,” she hissed.
“In name only,” Alyce shot back as she hopped from foot to foot on the stone floor. “Eleanor, admit the truth. The reason finding Blanche and Richard together bothers you so is this: You have fallen in love with Richard and want him to love you in return.”
Eleanor recoiled. “No. That can’t be.”
“Are you sure?”
No. Her heart thudded heavily. She wasn’t sure at all. Or was she, but too scared to admit it?
Chapter 14
“Owen!” Richard hammered his brother’s door. “Open the door. Now.”
Owen stood in his tiny chamber with tousled hair and half-shut eyes.
“Let me in. Do you have ale?” He needed to wash away the bitter taste of Blanche’s drugs and his meeting with her.
“I am, um, occupied at the moment.” Owen tilted his head toward the bed, where Richard saw the outline of a body under the covers.
“Ah. Get rid of her,” he said as he shoved the door open and strode into the room. “I have need of your counsel.”
“What of my needs? Cherie, you must go now,” Owen grumbled as he lit a candle. He picked up the gown on his wood chest and held it out. A woman with curly red hair appeared from beneath the sheets. With a petulant frown, she took the garment. As she lifted her arms to slip it over her head, she caught sight of Richard.
Her pretty face brightened. “Oooh, there’s two of you. Hard to say which is the handsomer.” She dropped the gown and drew back the sheets, exposing her ample breasts. “The more the merrier, I always say.”
Richard sighed. Women offered themselves everywhere except in his own bed. The only woman he wanted, and feared he’d ever want, was his reluctant wife.
Owen laughed. “I heartily agree. Perhaps another time.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” she said with a sultry smile. She retrieved the gown and put it on. After giving Owen a brief kiss, she flounced out, closing the door behind her.