The Wolves of Brittany Collection: A Romance Bundle Books 1-3

by Victoria Vane

  The next morning dawned bright with no hint of clouds. It was early spring, and the air was still chilled, but Mati donned her old hunting boots under her skirts and went to walk in the forest. The oaks and myrtles rose over her head like the ceiling of a great church, and she ran her hand over their bark as she walked under them. She breathed the scent of crushed leaves. Little patches of snow huddled by the roots of the trees, trying to hide from the sun that sought them.

  Mati turned at the sound of twigs snapping, and saw Roland as he emerged from the undergrowth in his hunting tunic and leggings.

  “You’ll run the deer off if you make that much noise,” Mati smiled, teasing him.

  Roland stared back at her, unsmiling and silent for a moment before he spoke. “I am not hunting deer.”

  “Laying traps for rabbits then? I wouldn’t take you for a coney catcher.” A faint smile touched his lips. “Do you still have the rabbit fur muff I made for you?”

  “I outgrew it.” Mati looked up and met his eyes, watching the play of light in their brown depths. “I gave it to one of the children in the village.”

  Roland smiled suddenly, and it seemed to Mati that the sun had come out. “Come with me. I’m going to practice my archery.”

  Mati hesitated for a moment before she spoke. “I’ll have to use your bow. Mine is in my room.”

  “Mati, you couldn’t draw my bow, much less loose an arrow from it.”

  Her eyes narrowed at the dismissal. “We’ll see.”

  They walked through the forest to the archery range at its edge. No men at arms were drilling that early in the morning. Roland swung his bow and quiver down from his shoulder, grinning at her. His bow was almost as long as she was tall.

  Mati smiled, undaunted. “That bow looks supple enough.”

  His laugh was a low growl in his throat, but he handed her the bow. She drew an arrow from his quiver and notched it. She braced herself, and drew back on the deer gut strand. She laughed then, knowing that she would have to concede defeat. She could not draw her arm back very far.

  She looked up at him, and saw that he was smothering his own amusement. She remembered when she was younger, how his mockery had made her so angry she had wanted to wring his neck. Today, she laughed with him.

  “I do not admit defeat, Roland. If this strand were looser, I could draw it back.”

  Roland laughed louder then, so hard that she thought he might fall down into the leaves at his feet. He could not speak for a long time, but gasped, trying to catch his breath.

  “Well, you don’t need to be so smug about it, Roland. Your bow is faulty, not my arm.”

  He caught his breath, and wiped his eyes. His wool tunic was dyed forest green, and Mati admired how it brought out the gold flecks in his eyes. She blinked when he caught her staring, and she looked down at the bow, running her hand over the place where the strand met the wood, trying to loosen it.

  “Don’t ruin my bow, Mati. It took me all winter to get the tightness right.”

  Roland stepped behind her, wrapping his arms around her. “Now stand still and let me show you.”

  One of his hands wrapped around the bow above one of hers, and his other hand draped itself over her small one, drawing the strand back. “Mati, your hands are too small, for one thing.”

  Mati heard him, but she had trouble forcing herself to listen to his words. His body pressed against her back, and she lost her breath, and all thought of what she was supposed to be doing. She blinked, focusing her eyes on the target in front of them.

  She tried to listen to him then, to take in the instructions he was offering, but she found that he had stopped speaking. His hand was warm over hers, and she could feel the hard calluses of his palm against her skin. She could hear a bird calling somewhere, and she tried to listen to that, but she could not take her mind off the way he felt against her. For a long moment, he said nothing, but simply breathed gently into her hair.

  “Mati.” His voice was hoarse.

  “Roland.” Her voice sounded shaky in her own ears.

  He took his hand away from hers, stepping back. He kept the bow, and she found herself unarmed, looking up at him. The morning sunlight was on his hair, and red lights glinted in the dark blond.

  He stared at her for a long time, and she found that she could do nothing but stare back. Her stomach fluttered, and she knew it was not because she had forgotten to eat.

  “I’ll make you a new one.”

  Mati forced her eyes away from the curve of his lips. “What?”

  “A bow. I’ll make you a new one, better than the one you have.”

  She nodded, and swallowed hard. “Thank you.”

  He turned and walked back towards the keep without another word. Mati found a rotting log and sat on it, mindless of the damp patch it would leave on her skirts.

  She walked back to the bailey when she could trust her knees to support her, and she made her way into the great hall. Bread was left on the table from Sir John’s breakfast, and a few rinds of cheese. Mati poured herself a cup of goat’s milk and drew a trencher toward her. She pulled her dinner dagger from her sleeve and sliced into the cheese. She was slipping the first piece into her mouth when Roland came and sat beside her.

  She looked at him from the corner of her eye, but there was no trace of heated light in his eyes, and his voice was even when he spoke. He grinned at her, brushing her hair back from her forehead.

  “Hand me some of that cheese, Mati.”

  The awkwardness of the shooting range was gone as if it had never been. Mati relaxed but found that she was a little disappointed, too. She pushed the disappointment away.

  “Where’s your friend, Gregory?” she asked.

  Roland frowned, biting into a hunk of bread. “He’s no concern of yours.”

  Mati laughed at him. “I know that. I just wondered.”

  Roland took a drink from her milk. “He’s out with his horse or some such.”

  “It’s too muddy for riding.”

  “That’s what I told him.”

  They ate in companionable silence, until he reached over and took another swig from her milk. “Roland, get your own.”

  “Why should I when yours is in reach?” He drained the cup and filled it again from the earthen jar on the table. Mati glowered, reaching for her cup. “You eat enough for three warriors, Roland.”

  “I’m the size of three warriors, Mati, that’s why.”

  She snorted at that, wiping the crumbs from her fingers with a scented handkerchief that she drew from her sleeve.

  He smiled. “You’re a fine lady now, aren’t you?”

  She could feel herself blush. “No. I just do a good job of pretending.”

  Roland looked at her for a long moment and did not smile. She met his eyes. “I’m glad you’re home, Roland. This place was not the same without you.”

  It was the only mention she had ever made of their parting. She swallowed hard, looking down at the milk in her cup. Roland shifted on the bench, uncomfortable. After a moment, he reached out and ruffled her hair the way he had when she was six and had cut it all off. He coughed a little and turned to look at her out of the corner of his eye. “You aren’t going to cry or anything, are you?”

  Mati looked up at him, her eyes flashing. He raised his hands defensively. “Well, you’re a girl now, Mati. Girls cry. And I don’t have a handkerchief about me.”

  Mati hit him hard in the upper arm with her fist. She could feel nothing but solid muscle. He did not even wince. “That’s the savage in you coming out,” he said.

  She laughed then, remembering how he had taunted her with that very phrase when they were small. She reached out and ruffled his curls, then dodged out of his reach before he could retaliate. He smiled at her, and she basked in the warmth of his approval the way she had when she was a child.

  “I’ll see you at the dance tonight then?” he asked.

  “Of course you will. I’m a fine dancer now.”


  “Well, there will be plenty of men for you to dance with.” He sounded almost disgruntled.

  She grinned. “Gregory, for one.”

  Roland’s face darkened into a scowl. “He’s not fit company for you.”

  “Oh, really?” Mati moved toward the staircase. “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  “Mati….”

  She heard a warning note in his voice, but she ignored him. She waved one hand casually as she mounted the stairs. “Good hunting, Roland.”

  He did not answer, but sat glowering after her. Mati laughed under her breath, sure that in spite of the odd heat that rose between them, they could still be friends. She pushed away all thought of the odd morning she had spent in his company and went to join her mother in the solar.

  Mati dressed carefully for the dance that night. For all she knew, her future husband might be one of the men there. She grinned at herself in the mirror. She doubted that Sir John would foist her off on one of his own friends. More likely, he’d try to sell her to a Welshman, or to a lesser lord at the Norman court in an effort to keep the fragile peace. For herself, she wished she might go home. She had had enough of Normans.

  She slipped her mother’s gold fillet onto her temples and let the heavy mass of her hair hang free down her back, still slightly damp from her bath. Ribbons held back the long sleeves of her overdress, which was made of sky blue silk. Sir John had bought the bolt of cloth for her mother, but Margaret had her women make a gown for Mati out of it. It made her green eyes look almost blue, and gave her a civilized air that washed away some of the Welsh taint. Mati smiled to herself, flicking her long hair back over one shoulder. It washed away a little of the Welsh taint, but only a very little.

  Mati was grateful that night for all the dancing lessons Arabella had given her. She danced every dance she knew and learned a few she had never seen before. Even the Normans were charming, at least as charming as such a blunt and unimaginative people could manage to be. That night everything in Sir John’s keep seemed to be touched by the fairy world, and Mati found herself laughing at jokes she would never have found funny a few days before, and drinking with Normans as if they were Welshmen.

  Before her marriage was arranged, she wanted to practice her hard won talents on a boy who would not be in the keep for longer than a fortnight. She needed to be sure that what Ara had taught her was actually useful in the practical world, and not some fairy tale of its own. All she knew with any certainty about her marriage to come was that she did not want to end up like her mother.

  Roland’s friend, Gregory, was especially attentive, and Mati narrowed the focus of her hunt to him. He watched her without moving as she danced with other men, and she danced with every man who asked her. Sir John was already quite drunk, and he sat quietly by the fire with his old comrades in arms, talking over the conquest their fathers had made of England some forty years before. Mati frowned, watching them, thinking that they were now most likely planning the fall of her own people.

  She no longer believed that the dragon under the mountain was real, and would one day rise from its sleep to consume the Norman conquerors in fire. If she was honest with herself, the rout of the Normans was not something she wished for daily anymore. Sir John was over blunt and had no understanding of women, but he had always been kind to her. That night, she remembered those years of kindness, and looked on her stepfather with something resembling fondness. Perhaps Ara’s tricks were working their wiles on her, and softening her toward her people’s enemies. Perhaps if the peace held long enough, Normans and Welsh could learn to live side by side without bloodshed.

  As she looked away from Sir John and his group, and Gregory spoke softly. “Your eyes are the most beautiful shade of blue I have ever seen.”

  Mati felt a moment of disappointment that he could not tell the true color of her eyes. It seemed to her that to any blind man, her eyes were green. Still, he seemed a nice enough, and there was intelligence in his face as well as lust. She dropped a layer of her armor, smiling a little. This boy could not help that he had been born a Norman.

  She wished for one dark moment that she felt even a touch of the fire looking into the bland blue of his eyes as she did when she stood near Roland, but that fire would only distract her. She was not about play that night, or self-indulgence, but about testing herself and her limits.

  “This hall is too warm for me,” she said. “I am short of breath from the dancing.”

  Mati looked up at him through her lashes, hoping that he would be quick enough to understand her. Saying nothing, Gregory took her arm and led her from the hall. Once they were in the bailey, they kept to the shadows, watching as other couples slipped away into the darkness. Mati smiled up at him, and could see his eyes glitter in the dim light. “Come with me,” she said.

  “I would follow you anywhere, my lady.”

  Mati bit back a laugh at his courtly language and took his hand. As a child, she had explored every nook and cranny of the keep and its out buildings, and she knew it even in the shadows cast by moonlight and the occasional torch. She did not want to be found by anyone who would recognize her, so she led Gregory between the stables and the buttery to the castle’s back gate. This gate was almost never open, even though this part of Shropshire was well subdued under Norman rule. Sir John did not approve of slackness in military discipline, and opening the back gate for any reason fell under that category.

  Tonight, though, as Mati knew he would, Sir John had made an exception. The back gate was thrown open until midnight so that the keep’s servants would not have to parade through the front gate walking between their party outside the walls and the party at the main house. Mati drew Gregory by the hand through the back gate, and he followed her down to the outer stables, where the work horses were kept for the fields near the castle.

  There was no torch lit in the stable, but the moon was full and rode high in the night sky. Gregory stood close to her, reaching out gently to touch her hair. Mati was almost disappointed, but she had never kissed a man before, and she was almost sorry that her first kiss would be with a man for whom she felt nothing.

  She looked up at him, and saw the hot light in his blue eyes, and she forced herself to smile at him. She had led him out there. She should practice kissing, at the very least. She did not think she had the stomach to actually begin love play with him.

  He did not move to touch her again, save for his hand in her hair. “My lady, I fear we should not be here.”

  She took the offering he handed her. She felt her stomach clench, and knew that no matter how many lessons in the theory of love play Arabella had given her, she did not want to explore them with him. “Perhaps you are right,” she said. “We had better go back to the dancing.”

  Gregory did not move, but looked down into her face as if he would read her thoughts. She knew he could see nothing, just as she could not see his. Of course, she did not need a witch’s sense to know what he was thinking. “We might have our own dance right here,” he said.

  Mati pushed aside her feeling for foreboding, and let him draw her close. She shored up her courage, and told herself not to be a fool. She had come this far, and she would not turn back. It was high time she learned to kiss. She cast her odd feelings of guilt aside, and pushed away the thought of Roland as it rose into the forefront of her mind. She did not know why she would think of him at such an inopportune moment. Even if she had been free, and even if Roland was, he was her friend. Whatever fire lay between them would simply have to burn itself out.

  Gregory pressed himself against her. She breathed deeply to distract herself from her rising panic, but for once the technique of breath control did her no good. The leather of his belt dug into her ribs, and his hands gripped her upper arms. “My lady–”

  “One kiss first, and then we’ll go back,” she said.

  Mati wanted it over. One kiss, and she would be gone. As the stepdaughter of the lord, surely Gregory would release her without asking for mo
re. There were plenty of serving wenches to bed for a coin. And she needed to learn how to kiss, or what were all her hard learned wiles good for?

  She tilted her head in just the way Ara had taught her was most tempting, not sure what else she might do to entice him, when Gregory’s mouth came down on hers. She marveled at how strange it felt. His mouth slanted over hers almost as if he was hungry, and she opened her lips under his and let him taste her tongue. She managed not to gag, but it was a near thing. Perhaps she was not cut out for using her feminine wiles.

  She tried to step back then, but Gregory’s mouth followed her as he pushed her down onto the clean straw at their feet.

  “I want to go back to the hall now,” she said.

  Gregory did not speak or acknowledge what she had said, his lips moving to her throat. He sucked against her skin until it hurt, and she raised one hand to push his mouth away. He simply moved his lips down to her breasts, as if he might taste them through the silk she wore. All the while, his hand slid down her waist to her skirts and began to slide them up. Mati forced herself to breathe through her nose, reminding herself not to panic. She strengthened her voice, and deepened it, thinking of Sir John’s authority and how she might call on it here.

  The prickle of hay dug into her back, urging her on. She had not come out to this barn to lose her maidenhead in the straw.

  “Release me,” she said. “I want to go back.”

  Gregory’s face had hardened along with his body, and he was no longer smiling. He drew back only a little, meeting her eyes as he raised her skirt even higher. She felt the cool night air on her bare thighs, and she started to struggle.

  “You brought me here,” he said. “You started this dance. And you’ll stay here until I finish it.”

  Mati swallowed panic as well as bile, cursing herself for a fool. She did not have the stomach to use the charm she had learned from Arabella to turn the tide of this encounter, and she was unarmed. She had left even her dinner dagger in the keep.