Lords of Conquest Boxed Set

by Patricia Ryan

  “Yes,” said Corliss miserably. “Perhaps Rainulf should have written ahead of time...”

  “Nonsense.” Martine held out her hand, and Corliss bounded up the stairs to take it. “I’m very pleased to have you. Just a bit” —her gaze sought out her brother, and she raised her eyebrows teasingly— “unaccustomed to Rainulf’s having a... female companion.”

  “It’s not what it looks like,” Rainulf said.

  Martine’s amused gaze swept Corliss from top to bottom. “I’m not quite sure what it does look like.”

  “I mean, we’re not...” Rainulf began. “Corliss lives with me, that’s all.”

  Thorne and Martine exchanged a look. The Saxon grinned knowingly and reached behind his wife to slap Rainulf on the back. Corliss rolled her eyes.

  “This isn’t coming out right,” said Rainulf.

  Martine chuckled. “There will be plenty of time to explain it over supper. Meanwhile, you and Corliss can rest up a bit from your journey. I’ll show you to your chambers.”

  * * *

  Once alone, Rainulf stripped completely, then lay on the too large bed they’d given him and threw an arm over his face. An image of Corliss materialized before him—Corliss as she had looked last night while she listened to the monks chant, her eyes closed, her mouth slightly parted, her head back. She’d looked transported. He imagined her looking like that as she lay beneath him, and his body reacted instantly. Growling, he leaped from the bed and poured a basinful of cold water, then lathered up a bar of soap, and vigorously washed off the dust of the road.

  As he dried himself off, he became aware of muffled voices—not from the hallway, but from another door, one that he had assumed to be a dressing alcove or closet. Silently turning the handle, he opened the door a crack and peeked through.

  “Which one?” Through the narrow opening, he saw a flash of purple silk, and another of green, as Martine held up two shimmering, jewel-toned kirtles.

  He heard water splashing and eased the door open just a fraction more, then stilled, his heart quickening. A pale, curved ribbon of flesh—Corliss’s flesh—was just visible. She stood in a bathtub as someone poured steaming water over her. He saw her arm rise as she lifted her damp hair off the back of her neck, saw the delicate contour of a breast, the slope of a hip...

  Another woman spoke. He recognized the voice of his sister’s personal maid, Felda. “Take the purple gown, Lady Corliss. It suits you. I’ll hem it, and we can lace it up so it fits like it was made for you.”

  Lady Corliss?

  Rainulf closed the door with a silent, careful movement, then leaned his forehead against the cool, polished wood and let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

  They’d given Corliss a chamber adjoining his. That was surely no accident. They—Martine and Thorne—assumed she was his mistress. They’d thought to please him with this discreet arrangement—separate chambers that connected, a winking nod in the direction of respectability.

  He heard Martine’s gentle laughter, and the louder laughter of Felda, and knew that they harbored no doubts whatsoever that he and Corliss were lovers. Closing his eyes, he pictured again that fleeting, partial view of Corliss in her bath... the sliver of creamy flesh, steam rising from her smooth, wet body... and wished, with sudden, staggering force, that it were so.

  Fool!

  Pushing away from the door, he dressed quickly and bolted from the room. He’d go to the stables and choose a horse—one of Thorne’s giant, half-mad stallions—and ride until his bones were too weary and his mind too numb to think of anything but supper and bed.

  * * *

  Pigot knew something was wrong. He’d seen neither Rainulf Fairfax nor his young housemate for two days, and that made him nervous.

  The housekeeper still cooked and cleaned in the big house on St. John Street. And those two scholars who hung on his cappa still treated their magister’s home as their own, although they had long ago stopped entertaining their whores there; Fairfax must have discovered the practice and put an end to it. But he and Corliss were nowhere to be seen.

  Had Fairfax caught on, discovered that he’d been watching, waiting? Was his quarry even now being stowed aboard a ship bound for Normandy, or escorted north into the Scottish Highlands?

  He’d never failed to bring back his prey, and he’d be damned if he’d fail this time.

  You’ll be damned anyway, he thought with a humorless smile as he watched the front door of the magister’s house open and the old housekeeper emerge. He retrieved his leper’s mask—a sack of coarse linen with a hole for one eye and another for his mouth—and drew it down over his head. Next came ragged gloves, a pair of shabby, oversize boots, and a tin cup. Shrugging his satchel onto his back, he shuffled out of the alley and followed the housekeeper down St. John Street, catching up to her at the corner of Shidyerd.

  He shaped his throat so that his voice would emerge as a gravelly rasp. “Mistress?”

  She turned around and started, then pressed a fleshy hand to her bosom. “Aye?”

  He held the cup out, his head lowered. “Alms for a cursed soul?”

  Grimacing, she fumbled in her purse for a penny and dropped the coin with a metallic clatter into his cup. He peered inside and said, “Master Fairfax gives me tuppence.”

  She frowned. “Father gives you money?”

  Father? “Every day.”

  Planting her hands on her hips, she said, “Then how is it I’ve never seen you before today?”

  “I’m usually outside St. Mary’s. That’s where I see Father Rainulf. I came here looking for him.” He shook the cup; the coin rattled around inside. “He gives me tuppence.”

  “Aye, well, Father’s far too generous for his own good. ‘Twill serve him ill someday. Be off with you.”

  She turned to leave. Pigot grabbed her arm, and she shrieked as she wheeled around. She stared at the spot he’d touched, her expression a mixture of fear and fury. “You’ve got no business touching me. Now I’ll have to burn this kirtle.”

  “Father Rainulf always gives me tuppence,” he repeated, jiggling the cup.

  She backed away, her eyes on him as he slowly advanced. “Well, Father Rainulf’s not here. I am, and I give beggars a penny, if I give anything. Now, off with you!”

  “I need my tuppence. I’ll wait here for Father Rainulf.”

  “You’ll have a long wait. He’s visiting family in Sussex and won’t be back for a fortnight.”

  “Where in Sussex?”

  She laughed shortly. “And what business is that of yours?” She spun around. “Be off before I put the sheriff on you.”

  He let her go, and returned to his hiding place in the alley across from the big stone house to take off his disguise.

  Visiting family, eh? He might be. Or he might be hiding Constance of Cuxham. There was no way for Pigot to know unless he found out where these Sussex relations lived and followed him there. If, indeed, Fairfax was just visiting family, the journey would have been for naught, and he’d have risked exposing himself. If Fairfax wasn’t there—if he was spiriting the priest’s whore out of the country—the trip would still be a waste of time, and he’d be no closer to apprehending her.

  Traveling to Sussex was pointless. The prudent move now was to wait for the magister’s return. If the whore was with him, he’d make his move the instant she was alone. If she wasn’t with him, he’d damn well find out where she was. This endless watching and waiting was a waste of his valuable time.

  He took the coin from the cup and tossed it in the air. At least this afternoon had proved fruitful, if only to a small degree. He’d saved himself two weeks of worthless surveillance... and earned a penny in the process. He’d keep it, he decided, slipping it into his boot. Perhaps it would bring him luck.

  Chapter 10

  Peter stared at Rainulf as if he were mad. “You went riding?”

  “You’ve just spent two days on a horse,” Guy pointed out.

  Rai
nulf shrugged distractedly and drained his pre-supper brandy in one burning gulp as the two knights—sitting across from him at the high table in the great hall—exchanged raised eyebrows. In appearance, they were the antithesis of each other. Peter was tall and Nordic, with kinky blond locks that tumbled halfway down his back; his shorter, burly companion wore his dark hair cut close to his scalp in the Norman style. Where it mattered, however, they were much the same. They shared a consummate mastery of soldiering skills and an unwavering dedication to their friend and overlord, Thorne Falconer. Thorne insisted that they—along with all of his vassals and villeins—speak English, a tongue they pronounced with thick Norman accents.

  Thorne, sitting to Rainulf’s right, beckoned to the page with the jug and asked him to pour them each a refill. Rainulf thought about refusing it, as he had an empty stomach, but he let the boy fill the little cup to the brim.

  “Rainulf is a creature of the intellect,” Thorne laughingly told his men. “He doesn’t get saddle sore like the rest of us. ‘Tis some arcane philosophical problem that’s making him squirm on his bench, not a bruised ass.”

  Peter and Guy got a chuckle out of this. Rainulf smiled to be polite and swiftly tossed the brandy down his throat.

  Guy nudged Peter and both stared fixedly at something beyond Rainulf’s shoulder. Thorne followed their line of sight, and after a moment he looked pointedly at Rainulf, his expression an odd blend of amusement and respect. “Well, Magister. You’ve got excellent taste, after all. What I’d thought to be a common pebble has polished up into quite a gem.”

  Rainulf turned to find Martine standing with another luxuriously gowned woman at the sink near the stairwell. When he realized the second woman was Corliss, the empty brandy cup slipped from his fingers and rolled onto the floor. He leaned over to pick it up, never taking his eyes off the young woman in the gleaming purple kirtle.

  Her raven hair was caught up in a snood of glittering golden mesh, effectively disguising its short length; a circlet of gold filigree held the snood in place. The purple gown was laced tightly up the back in the Parisian style. It conformed mercilessly to her graceful curves, curves he rarely had had the opportunity to admire. The kirtle’s snug, low-cut bodice revealed much of her pale shoulders and upper chest, and accentuated her high, firm breasts. From there his gaze was drawn to the jeweled sash looped low around hips that flared from an exquisitely narrow waist.

  She was so thoroughly and unquestionably feminine. Not for the first time, he found himself awed at her ability to pass so well for a male.

  Martine washed her hands first. Because Rainulf’s gaze was trained on Corliss, he saw her intent observation of everything his sister did—the way she flipped the long sleeves of her tunic over her arms to get them out of the way, accepted the soap from a waiting page, and turned the brass spigot. For just a moment there, when water began to run from the faucet, Corliss lost her composure. Her eyes widened and a grin of delight broke out on her face. Indoor plumbing, courtesy of a rooftop cistern, was one of the more extraordinary innovations in this immense, newly built castle.

  Corliss wrapped her own trailing sleeves around her arms, took the soap from Martine, and turned on the water, as casually as if she’d done it a hundred times. As she leaned over the sink, her bosom strained against its silken confinement, the milky upper slopes of her breasts swelling above the heavy gold braid that edged the gown’s neckline. Rainulf’s hand tightened reflexively around the little brandy cup; his loins stirred. Perhaps bringing Corliss to Blackburn hadn’t been such a good idea after all.

  “Who is she?” Peter asked quietly.

  Not a good idea at all. Without wresting his gaze from Corliss, Rainulf opened his mouth to answer, but Thorne beat him to it. “She’s Corliss of Oxford. She arrived with Rainulf.”

  Guy turned to Peter. “She looks exactly like Lady Magdalen.”

  A stricken expression crossed Peter’s face. “I’ve asked you not to speak of her,” he said.

  Thorne leaned toward Rainulf and said quietly, “‘Twas a great tragedy. They were betrothed since infancy, and he loved her to distraction. In March she died of smallpox.”

  “Oh, God.” It seemed Cuxham hadn’t been the only place in England affected by that cursed disease last spring. Rainulf recalled his grief on hearing of Corliss’s death, yet he’d barely known her. How much more devastated must Peter have been—must still be—to have lost the woman he’d loved all his life.

  Thorne shook his head. “He hasn’t been the same since.”

  Peter had seemed preoccupied... Nay, not preoccupied, Rainulf decided, regarding him thoughtfully. Haunted. Peter’s jaw clenched, and he quickly swallowed the contents of his cup. But then he returned his attention to Corliss, and the pain left his eyes.

  Rainulf’s gaze sought out the young woman who had so captivated the grief-stricken knight. Corliss accepted a towel from a second page. As she dried her hands, she discreetly inspected her surroundings. Rainulf tore his eyes from her to follow her line of sight, trying to see the great hall of Castle Blackburn as if for the first time. It was a magnificent hall, round like the keep that surrounded it, handsomely plastered and wainscotted, and with a high, vaulted ceiling. A gallery, onto which many of the upstairs chambers opened, completely encircled the massive room. The floors were covered not with rushes, but with a scattering of colorful Saracen carpets, gifts from Queen Eleanor when she made Thorne a baron.

  But the most remarkable aspect of the hall was its many tall, arched windows. It wasn’t their number or size that made Corliss’s mouth fall open, he was sure, but the fact that they were glazed—something she had undoubtedly never seen outside of a cathedral. Each one was fitted with a panel composed of dozens of panes of sea-green glass set into lead. The panels could be opened, and in fact, they all were, revealing a brilliant orange-gold sunset and allowing the summer evening’s warm breezes to circulate through the hall.

  The table at which Rainulf and his companions sat was situated before a massive fireplace, larger even than that in his Oxford town house; the servants’ tables were arranged around the edge of the hall. Corliss’s attention was drawn first to the enormous hearth, in which a low fire flickered, and then to Rainulf. She met his gaze, her expression one of both amazement and amusement. With ingenuous deliberation, she made her laughing brown eyes go wide, just for the briefest moment, before Martine spoke to her and she turned away. Rainulf smiled, pleased by her disclosure of her amazement to him and him alone, warmed by the intimacy of it.

  “She came with you, Rainulf?”

  He turned to face Peter, sensing an undercurrent of disappointment beneath the civil question. “Aye.” He wished he didn’t know where this was leading.

  Peter leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Is she your mis—”

  “Nay!” Rainulf said, a bit too sharply. “I’m offering her protection from someone who would do her harm. She’s naught to me but... a friend.”

  “A friend,” said Thorne, with a glimmer in those blue Saxon eyes. “Of course.”

  Rainulf had taken Thorne and Martine aside when he returned from his ride and explained the situation, but asked them not to discuss the details with others. For this reason, only his sister and brother by marriage knew of Corliss’s humble origins and their living arrangement. But despite his protestations to the contrary, they both apparently still thought of her as his lover.

  Rainulf looked back at Corliss chatting with his sister and the squires and ladies’ maids gathering around the sink. He heard her throaty laughter as she made conversation with those highborn attendants, and felt both pride and a certain measure of vague discomfort at the ease with which she handled herself.

  “Is she marriageable?” Peter asked.

  Marriageable! Rainulf stared at the handsome young knight who, judging from his sincere expression, was completely serious. “She has no property,” Rainulf said.

  “I have no need of property. Thorne’s granted me a choice ho
lding. Has she a husband somewhere?”

  Rainulf heard himself say, “She’s widowed.”

  “And not promised to anyone?”

  Waving over the boy with the jug, Rainulf mumbled, “Nay. She’s...” He grimaced and shook his head as the page filled his cup with brandy. “Nay.”

  Martine and Corliss and the rest of the ladies approached the table, the squires behind. Peter smiled and tossed back his sandy mane as he rose, his gaze fixed on Corliss. The men all stood as the ladies took their seats.

  Martine introduced “Lady Corliss” to the knights and motioned for her to sit next to Rainulf. He saw the relief in Corliss’s smile as she walked over to him, and felt gratified that she viewed his nearness as a source of comfort in this strange place.

  Her silken gown rustled as she settled down beside him, keeping her back straight and her chin raised, just as he had shown her. A warm, evocative scent rose from her and enveloped him like an enchanted mist. There was something darkly exotic about the scent, something compelling and enigmatic that reminded him of the East—of fragrant blossoms that opened only at night, of aromatic spice markets, and hot, swirling windstorms.

  Martine, seated across the table from him, met his gaze and smiled in a self-satisfied way, then cocked her eyebrows as if to say, Well? What do you think of my handiwork? She’d dressed and adorned Corliss just for him, he realized. The intoxicating perfume rising from Corliss’s warm skin was one of Martine’s obscure herbal concoctions. The sapphires encircling her slender throat, the tiny gold rings flashing on her tapered fingers, catching his eye again and again, were all part of Martine’s vision.

  Smiling politely, Rainulf nodded and raised his cup toward his sister, acknowledging the skill with which she had transformed his—how had Thorne put it?— smooth little pebble into a precious gem.

  Peter cleared his throat. “My lady?”

  Corliss, seemingly oblivious to the knight, thanked the page who poured her wine and took a sip.