LadyOfConquest:SaxonBride

by Tamara Leigh

  “I would more be Thomas’s wife than his brother’s,” Rhiannyn exclaimed, “and that I certainly did not want. I detest Maxen Pendery.”

  Lucilla shrugged. “Part of you does, but part of ye aches at the thought of him taking pleasure with another.”

  Rhiannyn nearly continued her protest, but in that moment, she acknowledged it for what it was—a lie. She sighed. “I do not understand it. How can I feel this when it mattered not that Thomas did the same?”

  “The body is a strange thing. In most matters, it serves the mind, but not so when it is taken with desire. That is when it rules.”

  What Lucilla said was true. Rhiannyn was attracted to Maxen, her insides stirring at remembrance of his kisses, but there was something more to it than desire.

  “Listen to me.” Lucilla’s voice became urgent. “Do you give yourself to Pendery without benefit of vows, ye will be lost, your destiny that of a leman, and the children you bear him misbegotten. But deny him—give a little and pull back—and methinks he will wed ye to gain your favors.”

  She, wed? What of the vow she had made to belong to none—no husband, no children, only the emptiness to which Thomas had banished her? More, what of Maxen? Never would he wed her. And if he gave her a child, it would not bear his name.

  She shook her head. “I cannot do what you suggest. I will deny him, but not so I might become his wife.”

  Lucilla dropped her hand from Rhiannyn, and the sigh she heaved became a yawn. “Then I pray ye are strong.”

  “I am.”

  Looking doubtful, Lucilla walked past her. “Good eve,” she called over her shoulder.

  If not for Rhiannyn’s rumbling belly, she would have gone to the hall as well.

  She carried a stool across the kitchen, stepped onto it, and located the key hidden atop the pantry—the same place it was kept while Thomas lived. When she was first brought to the castle, many were the nights she had ventured to the kitchens to eat. In her anger, she had refused to partake of anything put before her in the company of Normans. Eventually, that had changed, but the hiding place for the key had not.

  Trying not to think on her conversation with Lucilla, she cut a chunk of hard cheese, several pieces of dried meat, and a crust of bread. Then she locked the pantry, replaced the key, and turned with her filched viands to the table where Lucilla had slept.

  And there stood Maxen.

  She nearly dropped the platter. “You frightened me!”

  “I apologize. I thought you heard me.”

  “I did not.” When had he come? Hopefully, after Lucilla’s departure.

  He leaned against the table, jutted his chin at the platter. “Do you intend to eat or merely stand there looking as if you wish to?”

  Only then did it occur to her she had been caught sneaking food—a terrible offense for one no longer a lady.

  “I…” She glanced at the viands. Assuring herself it would be easy to forget hunger in sleep, she crossed to the table and set the platter down. “For you, my lord,” she said and started for the door.

  He stepped into her path. “I have eaten.”

  She moistened her lips. “I would like to take myself to bed.”

  “While still hungry?”

  “If needs be.”

  “It need not be.” He motioned to the tall stool. “Eat.”

  What mood was he in? she wondered. What did he want with her? Nothing he was yet willing to make known, it seemed.

  Warily, she seated herself, pulled the food before her, and asked what was heavy on her mind. “What is to become of the Saxons who refused you?”

  Once more, he leaned against the table. “They have chosen death over life.”

  “Why did you not have done with them this morn?”

  “In my time, Rhiannyn. Always my time.”

  His words more deeply unsettled her, but she pressed on. “I ask you to allow me to speak with them.” Hopefully, she would find a way to convince Aethel and the four others to stay upon Etcheverry.

  “You may not speak with them,” Maxen said. “Now eat.”

  She did so quickly, and when she finished, nearly jumped off the stool.

  “So,” he said, “another of your lies uprooted.”

  Dear Lord, which one? she wondered. Was it possible he had heard her tell Lucilla she had found the dagger on her tray, rather than on the floor as she had told him? Perhaps he had heard her admission that it mattered to her if he made love to Theta. Or was it another lie to which he referred?

  “I know not what you speak of.”

  “Why did you lie about the dagger? What gain in telling me you picked it off the floor when it was upon your tray?”

  She caught her breath. If he had overheard that, he had heard the last of her conversation with Lucilla. Everything in her groaning, she said, “I feared for Lucilla.”

  His expression hardened. “As you fear for her now?”

  “She did not do it, my lord. I give you my word she is blameless.”

  His eyebrows shot high, silently mocking what he thought of her word. “If not her, who?”

  “Methinks it may have been Sir Ancel.”

  “Why?”

  “He partook of the food upon my tray yestermorn when he and the others came to your chamber. Too, he…”

  “What?”

  “This eve, he inquired about my hand—asked if it was a dagger with which I cut myself.”

  Maxen appeared unmoved. “Mayhap you lie to put Lucilla’s punishment on a Norman.”

  She shook her head. “I speak the truth—as I know it.”

  He straightened from the table, leaned near. “As you spoke the truth when you told you killed Thomas? When you said you found the dagger on the floor? When this noon you said it mattered not who I lie with so long as it is not you? Those truths, Rhiannyn?”

  Steeped in humiliation, she said, “Believe what you will,” and started for the door.

  “Rhiannyn!”

  She looked over her shoulder.

  “If you think to play games with me, you will discover how wrong Lucilla is.”

  Of course he would not wed her, no matter how tempted he might be to bed the one he held responsible for his brother’s death. “I need none to tell me how wrong she is, especially you,” she said and hastened from the kitchen.

  Maxen momentarily closed his eyes. Then, deeply feeling the fatigue of a body yet struggling to heal itself and emotions wearing themselves thin, he dropped onto the stool and kneaded the back of his neck.

  Just as Rhiannyn believed Sir Ancel had left the dagger for her, Maxen had concluded the same long before he had followed her to the kitchen and happened upon a conversation he had felt little remorse with listening in upon. Trifling as it was to learn where the dagger was placed, he had been angered to have it confirmed Rhiannyn lied again.

  But there had been little chance for his anger to deepen, the shift in their conversation to her feelings for him a dangerous distraction. Her claim she detested him and would rather be wife to Thomas, whom she had not wanted, had made something sharp turn in him. And begin to loosen when, despite those words, she admitted to an attraction for him she seemed not to have felt for Thomas. Might she be more willing to wed the new lord of Etcheverry?

  Not that he would marry her, but it was good to know how she might attempt to bring about a union—one that should never be, that would be ill-fated. Would it not?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Rubbing his unshaven jaw, Maxen stood atop the wall-walk, scanning the donjon, stables, granary, smithy, chapel, and beyond the rising walls, land as far as the eye ventured.

  He returned his gaze to the chapel, a small whitewashed building. Not since his arrival at Etcheverry had he attended mass, nor gone down on his knees to speak prayers that for nearly two years had been more familiar to him than his own name. The closest he had come was prayers in passing, their primary purpose to douse desire for one he should not want.

  Pushing aside imaginin
gs of Rhiannyn, he once more considered all that was his. And wished Etcheverry were something he wanted. If only he could take it all in with the pride of a landed noble. If there were someone at his side with whom he could share it and father a son to pass it to. But it hung about his neck like the weight of the dead.

  A shout brought his head around and moved his hand to the dagger of Thomas’s death.

  Narrowing his eyes against the risen sun, he picked out the dust-billowed fight of two Saxons who, until a sennight past, had been loyal to Edwin Harwolfson. Now they struggled to give up the spent past and accept Norman rule. Knowing whether or not they succeeded would likely determine the fate of Pendery lands, he allowed them their quarrels, but not much more.

  By day, the Saxons toiled under the weight of stone they raised to the walls and beneath eyes that marked their every passing. By night, they slept under the close watch of men-at-arms given license to strike before asking questions. Fortunately, there had been no incidents of consequence.

  Of course, there was Rhiannyn, an incident unto herself. Ever elusive, she ran a fine chase. The closest he had come to her since that night in the kitchen was during meals when she put her pitcher to his drinking vessel. A good thing, every day bringing more responsibilities from which he needed no further distraction.

  As Etcheverry’s harvest had been paltry, there was the issue of food for the winter, the matter of wood for fires needed to ward off the cold, and clothing, blankets, and shelter for Saxons who numbered too many for their cramped quarters within the castle’s walls. And now there was Blackspur Castle.

  Maxen descended the steps, and when he set foot in the inner bailey, the clash between the Saxons had ended. Amid grunting and cursing, the task of raising the walls was resumed.

  As Maxen turned toward the stables and those preparing to ride with him, he came face to face with his brother. “Christophe.”

  The youth shifted foot to foot before bearing the greater of his weight on his lame leg. “I have not had the opportunity to thank you,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “The Saxons.”

  “Ah.” Uncomfortable himself, Maxen started to step around his brother.

  Christophe caught his arm. “It was good of you.”

  Maxen raised his eyebrows.

  As if no longer able to bear weight on his impaired leg, Christophe leaned into the solid one. “I owe you an apology for believing the worst of you.”

  For some reason, it irritated Maxen to have good thought of him.

  Weak, the resurrected warrior denounced.

  Not so, the monk-laid-to-rest countered.

  “Do not be so quick to apologize,” Maxen said gruffly. “It is yet to be seen whether the Saxons are true to their new-found loyalty.”

  Christophe inclined his head. “If you would allow it, I shall accompany you to Blackspur.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “It is long since we talked as brothers. Methinks it would be a good opportunity.”

  Then they were brothers again, Maxen reflected, and grudgingly acknowledged how much Christophe’s wariness—even rejection—bothered him. “I would like your company,” he said.

  “Then I will make ready.” Christophe hurried toward the stables.

  When he disappeared within, Maxen settled his attention on the others. Squires scurried to meet the demands of their masters—among them, Sir Ancel, whom Maxen would be a fool to leave behind. Thus, the knight had been ordered to join the party, and it was Sir Guy to whom Etcheverry was entrusted.

  As the latter was not yet among those gathered, and it would be a while before all were ready to ride, Maxen determined to seek out his friend and have final words with him in private. Though he had not intended to return to the donjon, he pivoted and strode to the causeway.

  Thinking herself fortunate in devising all manner of ways to avoid Maxen, Rhiannyn knelt on his stripped bed and grasped the far edge of the mattress that required shaking and turning. Throwing her weight backward, she pulled the mattress free, searched a foot to the floor to balance herself, and heaved again.

  When the seam beneath her fingers tore, she stumbled and tried to right herself—and failed.

  The mattress and sprung feathers followed her to the floor, and she screeched in surprise and pain as she landed on her rear. Then, darkness.

  Grateful no one was near to make her feel more the fool, she rose onto her hands and knees and crawled out from beneath the mattress. As her head emerged, she swiped at the feathers tickling her face and spat out the one in her mouth.

  Deep laughter preceded the booted legs that appeared before her.

  Dear Lord, she silently beseeched, why now? Though tempted to duck back under the mattress, she pushed it off and lurched to her feet.

  A man she hardly knew stood before her. His eyes sparkled, teeth flashed, and mouth forsook its usual downward turn for the very human smile of laughter.

  In this moment, he was younger, more handsome, and reachable. Here was the Maxen Pendery she sought, the one she had hoped to find beneath anger and vengeance.

  As she savored this glimpse of him, his laughter subsided, but the light in his eyes did not.

  “You are quite the sight, Rhiannyn of Etcheverry.”

  She peered down her figure and was dismayed by the extent of her feathering. But it was a small price to pay. Indeed, a thousand times over she would pay it to gaze upon this Maxen.

  “I thought you had gone,” she said.

  He reached forward and picked a half dozen feathers from her hair, the gesture more intimate than she would have believed possible.

  “As I also thought, but something called me back.”

  She frowned. “What?”

  “Sir Guy, but I cannot say I am disappointed I found you instead. Forsooth, I am pleased.”

  “I do not understand,” she said. But it was not exactly true.

  He trailed a feather down her jaw to the thrilling place where neck met shoulder. “Though I fear the time might be better spent plucking you, I am thinking a kiss to speed my journey would not be amiss.”

  Something warm and hopeful moved through Rhiannyn, something she named foolish. Still, she reached up and set a hand to his jaw. “I like this Maxen.”

  His eyes flickered, and like the shifting of day into night, began to darken. “As opposed to?”

  She lowered her hand. “As opposed to the one who cruelly allowed me to believe it was a hanging to which I accompanied him a sennight past.”

  Maxen could not have said what was responsible for the admission that rose to his lips, but he knew it was more than desire—a need to reassure her he was not the beast he had let her believe he was. “It was a test, Rhiannyn.”

  She frowned.

  “I thought, faced with the deaths of your people, you might finally give me what I need. Thomas’s murderer.”

  She drew a sharp breath. “What you need, I do not possess.”

  “I know this now.”

  Upon her face, he glimpsed relief a moment ahead of anger, but as he readied to intercept the hand she would let fly, relief returned.

  “It seems I owe you thanks,” she said.

  “For?”

  “The truth. More, for allowing my people to live.”

  “A decision I fear I shall regret.”

  Her lips turned into a slight smile. “I pray you do not.”

  As he considered her mouth, he remembered their last kiss. He knew better than to want another, but he did. And it was not all he wanted.

  Maxen did not believe he was of an impulsive nature, and yet he barely acknowledged his thoughts were in opposition to his determination he would not sin with her, nor provide her a means to tempt him to marriage. Instead, he spoke what he should not. “If I asked it, would you yield to me—this Maxen?”

  Her eyes widened. “I would not.”

  Raggedly spending his breath—part frustration, part relief—he touched a thumb to the corner of
her mouth. “Not even a kiss?”

  Her lips parted, and as she said barely above a whisper, “I must return to my chores,” he drew her close.

  The kiss was well explored by both, and it was Rhiannyn who ended it. Dropping her chin, she said, “I will not yield. Pray, release me.”

  He lowered his arms to his sides.

  She brushed trembling fingers across her lips, curled them into her palm, and lifted her face to his. “Why do you persist?”

  He also wished to know the answer. Or, perhaps, not. Feigning nonchalance, he said, “It was but a kiss to speed my journey. Do not make more of it.”

  Her anger rising between them, she narrowed her lids. “Then God speed it, my lord—in one direction only.”

  In that moment, he felt almost a youth again, one chastised for his foolishness. And he could not say it was not deserved.

  He inclined his head and strode opposite.

  When he arrived at the stables, his men were ready to ride and Sir Guy stood alongside the destrier that would deliver the lord of Etcheverry to Blackspur.

  “What of Rhiannyn, my lord?” Guy asked as Maxen accepted the reins from his squire. “Should she continue in her duties, or would you have me secure her in the tower whilst you are away?”

  He was tempted by the tower, but only to ensure she was here when he returned. “Nay,” he said, trying not to think on the kiss this Maxen, the one she liked, had given her. “Unless she proves difficult, allow her the reach of the castle, but keep a good watch on her.”

  The knight inclined his head.

  “I leave Etcheverry in your hands,” Maxen said, then added, “and Rhiannyn. Keep both for me.”

  A question leapt in the knight’s eyes, but it need not be answered. All that was required was for Guy to understand the importance of not disappointing his lord. Even if Maxen did not wish to understand it himself.

  Rhiannyn’s heart moved in remembrance of Maxen’s eyes and the light dancing in them, beat harder at the revelation it was not cruelty he had shown in allowing her to believe he meant to execute her people. A test, he had said. Also deserving of anger, but anger she had been unable to express against the Maxen who had stood before her.