“I hate being made a fool,” he said at last. He grabbed the edge of the trestle table, and pushed himself out of his chair.
Rowena glanced up at the sound of his movement and watched him warily.
“You of all people know of this yet you make a game of it. The entire fiefdom — from the servants to my vassals — they are all laughing at me for my inability to control you. You are no longer a child however you act like one — unruly, defiant — why?”
But Philip already knew the answer to that question. He moved away from the trestle table, and walked to the window, wanting to put distance between them. He gazed out the window as if he was seeing his beloved Rosalid and not the rolling green field that surrounded the fortress.
The anger he felt suddenly disintegrated into a cloud of sorrow that had followed him ever since his wife had died. “I have failed your mother,” he said. “Instead of raising a young noblewoman, I’ve raised a hellion. She would have died a second death if she witnessed your disgraceful behavior, your disobedience.”
“My mother is dead,” Rowena said flatly. Philip turned to face her, and cocked a disbelieving eyebrow at her. But Rowena looked at him, her gaze as unwavering as if she was facing an enemy on the battlefield. “You do not have to fear that she will die again.”
“I do not care for your insolence!” he said, his voice turning icy, the anger surging into this chest once again. “Your actions are an embarrassment to me,” he continued, his voice reverberating across the room. He felt his face getting hotter, the vein throbbing hard at his neck, as if it was ready to burst from the pressure. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
Rowena flinched as if Philip’s words served her a physical blow but her back remained as straight as a rod. “I had no ill intent,” she said at last.
“Then I demand to know why you were so thoughtless as to run away from the safety of your home.”
She bowed her head, avoiding his gaze.
Philip could almost taste his fury. “Tell me why!” he shouted.
Rowena’s face was flushed and she continued to study the hem of her dress as if inspecting the intricate stitching. After what seemed like a long moment, she said in a barely audible voice, “If you must know, I did not want you to remarry.” Her voice began to shake and she was unable to keep the pain out of her voice. “I had a mother once and she was the dearest, most beautiful woman in the world. Any woman you marry cannot replace her.”
Philip rubbed at his temples, a headache starting to build. “Rowena,” he said with irritation. “Your mother has been dead for many years now. My decision to marry again does not concern you.”
A defiant look crossed Rowena’s face, a look that was so similar to her mother’s. “You are mistaken, Father,” she said, her tone filled with anguish. “You could have spared me the humiliation of your decision before it was announced at supper last night. I know so little of this new woman you plan to marry. Who is she? What is her name?” She paused, a pained look crossing her face. “And is she as kind, as gentle as my mother once was?” Then her voice dropped to almost a whisper. “I need to know these things as she will be the new mistress of the castle.”
Philip’s hands fell to his side. Massaging his head wasn’t helping to make his headache disappear. “‘Tis Lady Lorena of Airndale that I am marrying. You already know her.”
Rowena was about to speak and then closed her mouth again. Lady Lorena owned the neighboring land to the north east of Ravenhearth. She had been a widow for the past five years. “Why did you not tell me of her?”
“There was no time,” he said, clenching his teeth. He gazed over Rowena’s shoulder as if he saw the image of an old enemy. “My sources told me that Sir Robert de Clait was planning to obtain Airndale through marriage. And I, thinking to thwart his plan, petitioned King Edward to allow me to marry Lady Lorena first. I couldn’t allow the bastard to acquire Airndale and then have his greedy eyes look west toward Ravenhearth.”
“Surely there is another way to protect Ravenhearth. This demesne is profitable enough — could we not hire additional men-at-arms? Then there will not be a need to add Lady Lorena or anyone else to the fold.”
Philip shook his head and began to pace. “If Sir Robert gets his hands on Airndale, he will be a more powerful foe.”
“Will he not march against us even if Airndale comes under our protection?”
“If he does then we will be forced to wage war against him,” he said.
“In either case there is no avoiding war,” she concluded bitterly. “This is no surprise. You have always loved going to war. Even when mother and I had taken ill, you were —”
He stopped mid-stride and silenced her with a look. “You survived, but neither Ava nor the physician was able to help your mother. And when I returned home…”
His voice trailed off, and a heavy silence hung in the air.
“I should have been the one who died,” she said, swallowing a lump in her throat.
Philip looked away. “I did not summon you here to speak of the past,” he said, finally. “I summoned you here to speak to you about your future.” He cleared his throat. “I have done you and your mother a great disservice for not providing a husband for you sooner. Whether or not you find love, I believe ‘tis time that you wed.”
Rowena’s mouth dropped open as if he had just told her that he was locking her up in her chamber again. “You cannot be serious,” she protested. She hurried over to him, and grabbed the sleeve of his tunic. “You promised mother that I would be able to choose my husband. You also promised her that you would allow me to marry for love.”
He firmly removed her hands from his sleeve. “I have made up my mind. Despite the delay, you have always known that the time will come for you to marry. And that time is now. I am making arrangements as we speak. In the meantime, I have asked Ava to get rid all of the romantic books of poetry that your mother has given you, and that damn minstrel will no longer sing of courtly love. It will not help your circumstance. Indeed all this talk about love has softened your brain and everyone else who lives in this castle. I have decided to marry for practical reasons, and so must you.”
He stepped away from her, and started to head back to the trestle table.
“But what if I am not ready to wed?” she cried to his back, desperation and panic in her voice.
Philip stopped, and turned to face her again. He steeled his heart at the sight of her stricken face. “Do not look at me like that. You need to be provided for. The reality of it is, few people marry for love and many people marry even though they despise each other. I was lucky of course to have found your mother, and believe Lady Lorena is someone I can like and respect. But in your case, I cannot leave things to chance.”
“But why?” Rowena cried.
“You have become uncontrollable and I grow weary of your antics. When you are married, your husband can deal appropriately with your wild ways.”
The tears welled up in her eyes, and Rowena dashed them away. “Do you care so little for me?” she whispered achingly.
Despite his best efforts, he felt the steel barrier he put around his heart begin to soften. And there was anger too, but this anger was directed at himself, at his weakness. “I could have left you to the robbers, outlaws and other scavengers of this earth,” he said, his voice growing louder as if to drown out the sympathy that was starting to emerge. “Yet I cared enough about you to have you dragged back home. You have caused me and my men great pain and trouble.”
“But —”
“But,” his said, interrupting her, even as he was cursing his weakness. “In honor of your mother I will grant you one thing. I give you three months. In three months you must choose a man to wed. If you have not found a man that you desire by then, I will choose a husband for you.”
CHAPTER 9
A hush settled in the great hall as soon as Rowena walked in. She wanted to turn back and march right out of there, but she didn’t dare, not w
ith so many people present. She forced her legs to continue walking.
Ever since she ran away, everyone seemed to be waiting in suspense, as if they expected her to create another spectacle. It was humiliating. In fact, her entire life was humiliating, she thought gloomily.
“Do not worry about them, child,” Ava said at her side, guessing at her discomfort. “Just put a smile on your face and none would be the wiser.”
She gave her nursemaid a shaky smile. “If only it were that simple,” she said. Still, she was thankful for Ava’s presence. She knew that of anyone, her nursemaid would swoop in to protect her if she felt that Rowena was in any kind of danger.
Not that she was in any real danger.
Rowena watched her father and the woman he was about to marry with a strange sense of unreality. Her emotions were jumbled and if anyone asked her, she wouldn’t have been able to adequately tell them how she felt.
The woman was beside her father, beaming up at him. She wore a coronet at the crown of her head, allowing her long blond hair to flow down her back. The deep blue gown she wore was simple and cut to fit her petite frame. She was pretty in an unassuming way and Rowena was surprised to see that she looked a lot younger than she remembered. The last time Rowena saw her was when her previous husband was still alive. The Lorena she saw now no longer had a grey cast of misery surrounding her.
When she and Sir Gordon du Veaux had visited Ravenhearth years ago, Rowena had accidentally come across them on her way to meet Ava in the gardens. Lorena had a red welt across her face that was just starting to fade.
Rowena stopped in her tracks, and put her hands on her mouth. “Oh, I — I am sorry to have interrupted,” she burst out. In reality she wasn’t sorry at all for interrupting, because at twelve, even she could recognize cruelty. She lowered her eyes. “Ava asked me to fetch Lady Lorena to help with one of her herbal potions. She is needed quite urgently.”
Gordon straightened his tunic before pushing his wife in Rowena’s direction. “Go,” he said. “And make sure that you remember what I told you.”
Rowena led her away, and when they were out of Gordon’s earshot, she confessed. “I lied about Ava needing your help,” she said. “Your husband looked angry, and I thought to stop him from hurting you further.”
Lorena looked at her, surprised as if she didn’t expect anyone to intervene on her behalf. “You lied for me?”
“Aye,” Rowena nodded, feeling embarrassed. “I hope you do not mind my interference. I know that when Father gets angry, he says terrible things…” She glanced quickly at Lorena’s cheek, and then looked away. The only difference was that her father had never laid a hand on her even in his most terrible rages.
Lorena touched her bruised face. “I am grateful for your interference, my lady,” she said, looking at Rowena with hollow eyes, eyes that looked as if she had been defeated long before anyone intervened on her behalf.
“‘Twas nothing,” Rowena said, feeling uncertain that she had helped at all.
“Thank you — I shall not forget this,” Lorena said, and walked off in a different direction.
It wasn’t surprising when the next day Rowena learned that the lady and her husband had left Ravenhearth. She never knew what happened that day. But she supposed that it no longer mattered. Gordon was dead and Lorena was now back at Ravenhearth, marrying her father, all traces of sorrow and defeat gone.
Rowena saw her father reach over and put his arm around Lorena’s waist, his touch intimate, possessive. She looked away, her eyes blurring. She blinked rapidly to clear her eyes from the tears. Given another time and another situation, she would have enjoyed conversing with Lorena once again. But today wasn’t the day.
Her mind understood the logic behind her father’s decision to marry, but her heart knew otherwise. She managed to get over her mother’s death, but seeing her father with another woman made her feel more lonely and miss her mother more than ever.
She felt a cold band of ice surrounding her heart. Ever since she learned about her father’s plans to marry, she felt nothing but misery. Wandering around in the gardens helped little because when she returned to her bed chamber, she was once again reminded of her dire situation. And she cried. She must have cried enough to fill the moat that surrounded the castle.
But she had enough of crying and doing more wasn’t going to change a thing. She was torn with the loyalty she had for her mother and the fact that Lorena was quite likeable.
She was almost halfway across the hall when she noticed the unfamiliar man standing on the other side of Lorena. He seemed to tower above the rest of her father’s guards.
“Who is that man, Ava?” she said in a low voice, glad for something to distract her from her dreary thoughts. “I have never seen him before.”
The man turned his head toward her as if he knew she was talking about him, and Rowena stared back.
He wasn’t exactly handsome, she noted, but there was a certain masculine allure to him. From this distance, she couldn’t tell the color of his eyes, although she saw that he had wide cheekbones and his face was shaven. His wavy, dark mahogany hair reached his broad shoulders, and he had a muscular build that boasted of warrior strength. He was a man that was used to power and unafraid of wielding it, that much was clear.
Ava followed Rowena’s gaze, and lowered her voice. “‘Tis Sir Jonathan d’Abelard, Lady Lorena’s cousin,” she said.
As Rowena got closer, she noticed that the man’s eyes were the color of caramelized sugar, and when their eyes met, she felt a strange heat building up inside her. Her gaze dropped down to a thick scar that started just beneath his cheekbone and ran all the way down his square jaw.
She frowned when the knight curved his lips into a smile. She was sure she’d seen that smile before, and that scar…
Rowena let out a small gasp as realization hit her.
Ava gave her a sharp look. “You are quite pale, child. Are you unwell?”
Rowena shook her head impatiently. “Are you certain that is Lady Lorena’s cousin?” she asked.
Ava squinted. “Aye, ‘tis he,” she said. “I am sure of it.”
Then there was no mistake — Lorena’s cousin and the stranger in town were one and the same. If she didn’t have enough reason to run back to her chamber, then this was it.
With great difficulty, as if her feet were weighed down by iron chains, she kept her feet moving. And with each step, the memory of the enchanting kiss became stronger, and her body remembered how heavenly it felt being molded against his hard body, evoking the vibrant heat that rushed through her, pooling at her woman’s core.
He was looking at her as if he knew what she was thinking. And when her traitorous face flushed, one thick eyebrow shot up.
“Rowena,” her father’s voice boomed across the hall, interrupting her exchange with the stranger. “What has taken you so long? Come,” he said and taking Lorena’s arm, he made his way out of the hall and onto the courtyard where the chapel was located, and where the priest was waiting to perform the marriage ceremony.
Rowena and Ava hurried to catch up to them. But Jonathan lingered behind, and when she was several paces away, he stepped forward and bowed. “My lady,” he said with a smile. “‘Tis refreshing to witness such beauty so early in the morning.”
She glanced warily up at him when she heard his deep baritone voice. But he wasn’t looking at her. She drew her eyebrows in puzzlement when she saw him reaching out to take Ava’s hand, ignoring Rowena as if she were a wayward child.
“You are too kind, sire,” Ava said, giggling and allowed him to kiss her hand. “But you may call me Ava.” At Rowena’s slight frown, her hand fluttered at her throat, and she looked at Rowena with uncertainty, unused to the attention that she was receiving.
Rowena wiped the frown from her face and stared dispassionately at the rude knight. Who was this man who dared to snub her? But the bigger question was why was she bothered by it?
Ava continued to smil
e up at the dark knight as if she was dazzled by the wit and charm that he had yet to display. She acted as if she was a young maiden receiving her first compliment. Rowena’s heart relented a little at seeing her nursemaid’s happy expression, and she allowed a small smile to break through her guarded expression. “I must add that she has a heart of gold,” she said.
Ava’s face turned to Rowena with a bright, affectionate smile, while Jonathan stared at Rowena, his dark brown eyes sharp and assessing, as if he didn’t know what to make of her or her words.
And Rowena stared back, a challenging gleam in her eye.
When she met him in town, she didn’t have long to study him. All she remembered was how large he was and how even on her toes, she had to reach up and pull his head down to kiss him. At that time his dark beard had hidden his features. But now that he shaved off the hair on his face, he appeared younger, perhaps in his twenty eighth year. And there again was that disfigurement that ran down the side of his rugged face. For some reason she had to fight the urge to run her finger lightly along the scar.
Jonathan stood close enough for her to smell the herb scented soap that he used in his bath. Gone was the tattered tunic that he wore in town and in its place was a rich scarlet tunic that stretched across his sizeable chest. A deep green mantle drew attention to his broad shoulders, and the black leggings he wore hugged his muscular thighs like a second skin.
His lips curved into a sensual smile. “I hope you like what you see, my lady.”
“I have seen better,” she said, pursing her lips. “And all those knights that I have seen are much more chivalrous than you.”
“Lady Rowena!” Ava cried in astonishment. She turned to Jonathan and said, “My apologies, sire. She was not raised to be so disrespectful.”
Jonathan held up his hand to stop Ava from continuing. “I might have deserved that cutting remark,” he said. He let out a deep chuckle that rattled Rowena even further.
Rowena narrowed her eyes at him. She wanted to say something further, to cut through his arrogance, but Ava was looking at her as if she had suddenly sprung two heads on her shoulders.
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