"What an impatient nature you have!" she replied sternly, completely undaunted by his tone.
Her words were accompanied by such a wellbred, reproving look that Royce chuckled in spite of himself. "You're right," he admitted, grinning at the outrageous child-woman who dared to lecture him on his shortcomings. "Now, tell me why old Balder withdrew."
"Very well, but it's most unchivalrous of you to badger me so about matters which are of a most private nature—not to mention excruciatingly embarrassing."
"Embarrassing for whom?" Royce asked, ignoring her jibe. "For you, or for Balder?"
"I was embarrassed. Lord Balder was indignant. You see," she clarified with smiling candor, "I'd never seen him until the night he came to Merrick to sign the betrothal contract. 'Twas an awful experience," she said, her expression as amused as it was horrified.
"What happened?" he prodded.
"If I tell you, you must promise to remember that I was much like any other girl of fourteen—filled with dreams of the wondrous young knight whose wife I would become. I knew in my mind just how he would look," she added, smiling ruefully as she thought back on it. "He would be fair-haired, and young, of course, his face wonderful to look upon. His eyes would be blue, and his bearing would be princely. He would be strong, too, strong enough to protect our holdings for the children we would someday have." She glanced at Royce, her expression wry. "Such was my secret hope, and in my own behalf, it must be said that neither my father nor my half-brothers said aught to make me think Lord Balder would be otherwise."
Royce frowned, a picture of the foppish, elderly Balder flashing across his mind.
"And so there I was, strolling into the great hall at Merrick after spending hours practicing my walking in my bedchamber."
"You'd practiced walking?" Royce uttered, his tone filled with a mixture of amusement and disbelief.
"But of course," Jennifer said gaily. "You see, I desired to present a perfect picture of myself for my future lord's benefit. And so, it would not do that I bolt into the hall and seem too eager, nor that I walk too slowly and thus give the impression that I was reluctant. It was an enormous dilemma—deciding just how to walk, not to mention what to wear. I was so desperate that I "actually consulted my two stepbrothers, Alexander and Malcolm, to get their male opinion. William, who is a darling, was away from home for the day with my stepmother."
"Surely they must have forewarned you about Balder." The look in her eyes told him otherwise, but even so he was not prepared for the sharp stab of pity he felt as she shook her head.
"Quite the opposite. Alexander said he feared the gown my stepmother had chosen was not nearly fine enough. He urged me to wear the green one instead and dress it up with my mother's pearls. Which I did. Malcolm suggested I wear a jeweled dagger at my side so I'd not be overshadowed by my future husband's illustrious presence. Alex said my hair looked too common and carroty and must needs be caught up under a golden veil and laced with a rope of sapphires. Then, after I was attired to their satisfaction, they helped me practice walking…" As if loyalty prevented her from painting an unflattering image of her stepbrothers, she smiled brightly and said in a determinedly reassuring voice, "They were funning me, of course, as brothers will fun their sisters, but I was too filled with dreams to notice."
Royce saw beyond her words to the truth and recognized the heartless malice in their trick. He felt a sudden, overpowering desire to smash his fist into her brothers' faces—just for "fun."
"I was so concerned about every detail being just right," she was saying, her face perfectly cheerful now as if she were laughing at herself, "that I was quite late coming down to the hall to meet my betrothed. When I finally arrived I paraded across the hall at just the right speed, on legs that trembled not only with nervousness but with the weight of the pearls, rubies, sapphires, and gold chains at my throat and wrists and waist. You should have seen the look on my poor stepmother's face when she saw the way I was attired. It was quite a garish display, I can tell you," Jenny laughed, blithely unaware of the pent-up anger building in Royce as she continued.
"My stepmother later said I looked like a coffer of jewels with legs," she chuckled. "She did not say it unkindly." Jennifer hastily added when she saw the black scowl on her captor's face. "She was quite sympathetic, actually."
When she fell silent, Royce prodded. "And your sister, Brenna? What had she to say?"
Jennifer's eyes lit with fondness. "Brenna will always find something good to say about me, no matter how shocking my mistakes or outrageous my conduct. She said I 'sparkled like the sun and moon and stars.' " A bubble of laughter escaped Jenny and she regarded Royce with eyes aglow with merriment. "Which of course I did—sparkle, I mean."
His voice harsh with feelings he could neither understand nor contain, Royce looked at her and said tightly, "Some women need no jewels to make them sparkle. You are one of them."
Jennifer's mouth dropped open in shock and she gaped at him. "Was that a compliment?"
Thoroughly annoyed that she'd actually reduced him to uttering gallantries, Royce shrugged curtly and said, "I'm a soldier, not a poet, Jennifer. It was merely a statement of fact. Go on with your story."
Abashed and confused, Jennifer hesitated and then dismissed his unaccountable mood change with a mental shrug. Helping herself to another bite of apple, she said cheerfully, "In any case, Lord Balder does not share your disinterest in jewels. In truth," she said, laughing, "his eyes nearly popped right out of his head—so entranced was he with my glitter. In fact, he was so bedazzled by my vulgar display that he passed only a cursory glance over my face before turning to my father and saying, 'I'll have her.' "
"And, just like that, you were betrothed?" Royce asked, frowning.
"No, 'just like that' I nearly fell into a dead swoon —so shocked was I by my first glimpse of my 'beloved's' countenance. William caught me before I fell to the floor and helped me onto the bench at the table, but even once I was seated and beginning to regain my senses, I could not tear my gaze from Lord Balder's features! Besides being older than my father, he was thin as a stick, and he was wearing—er—" Her voice trailed off and she hesitated uncertainly. "I ought not to tell you the rest."
"Tell me all of it," Royce commanded.
"All?" Jennifer echoed uncomfortably.
"Everything."
"Very well," she sighed, "but 'tis not a pretty story."
"What was Balder wearing?" Royce prodded, beginning to grin.
"Well, he was wearing…"—her shoulders rocked with mirth as she gasped—"he was wearing someone else's hair!"
Laughter, rich and deep echoed from Royce's chest, joining the lilting music of Jennifer's.
"I'd scarce recovered my senses from that when I next noted that he was eating the most peculiar-looking food I'd ever seen. Earlier, while my brothers had been helping me decide what to wear, I'd heard them joking between themselves about Lord Balder's desire to have artichokes at every meal. I realized at a glance that the peculiar-looking fried objects heaped upon Lord Balder's platter must be the food called the artichoke, and that was what led to my being banished from the hall and Balder crying off."
Royce, who already guessed why Balder had been eating the food which was purported to increase male potency, fought to keep his expression grave. "What happened?"
"Well, I was very nervous—stricken actually—at the prospect of wedding such a dreadful man. In truth he was a maiden's nightmare, not a maiden's dream, and as I studied him at table, I felt a most unladylike urge to shove my fists into my eyes and howl like a babe."
"But you didn't, of course," Royce guessed, smiling as he recalled her indomitable spirit.
"No, but 'twould have been better if I had," she admitted with a smile accompanied by a sigh. "What I did was much worse. I couldn't bear to look at him, so I concentrated upon the artichokes which I'd never seen before. I was watching him gobble the things up, wondering what they were and why he ate them. Malcolm noticed
what I was looking at and so he told me why Lord Balder was eating them. And that was what made me begin to giggle…"
Her wide blue eyes swimming with mirth and her shoulders shaking helplessly, she said, "At first I managed to hide it, and then I snatched a handkerchief and pressed it to my lips, but I was so overwrought the giggles became a laugh. I laughed and I laughed and 'twas so contagious even poor Brenna began to laugh. We laughed ourselves into fits, until my father sent Brenna and me from the hall."
Raising her mirthful eyes to Royce's she gasped gaily, "Artichokes! Have you ever heard anything so absurd?"
With a supreme effort, Royce managed to look puzzled. "You don't believe artichokes are beneficial to a man's prowess?"
"I—er—" Jennifer blushed as she finally realized how inappropriate the topic was, but it was too late to turn back, and besides she was curious. "Do you believe it?"
"Certainly not," Royce said straight-faced. "Everyone knows 'tis leeks and walnuts that are beneficial in such matters."
"Leeks and —!" Jenny burst out in confusion, and then she saw the slight movement of his broad shoulders that betrayed his own laughter, and she shook her head in smiling reproof. "In any case, Lord Balder decided—quite rightly—that there weren't enough jewels on earth worth having me as his wife. Several months later, I committed another unforgivable folly," she said, looking more seriously at Royce, "and my father decided I was in want of a stronger guiding hand than my stepmother's."
"What 'unforgivable folly' did you commit that time?"
She sobered. "I openly challenged Alexander to either take back the things he was saying about me or else meet me on the field of honor—in a local tournament we had each year near Merrick."
"And he refused," Royce said with somber tenderness.
"Of course. 'Twould have been disgraceful for him to do otherwise. Besides my being a girl, I was only fourteen and he was twenty. I cared naught for his pride, however, for he was—not very nice," she finished mildly, but there was a wealth of pain in those three words.
"Did you ever avenge your honor?" Royce asked, an unfamiliar ache in his chest.
She nodded, a hint of a rueful smile touching her lips. "Despite Father's command that I not go near the tournament, I persuaded our armorer to lend me Malcolm's armor, and on the day of the joust, without anyone knowing who I was, I rode out onto the field and faced Alexander, who had distinguished himself often in the lists."
Royce felt his blood turn cold at the thought of her galloping down the field, charging toward a grown man wielding a lance. "You're lucky you were only unseated and not killed."
She chuckled. " 'Twas Alexander who was unseated."
Royce stared at her in blank confusion. "You unseated him?"
"In a way," she grinned. "You see, just as he raised his lance to strike at me, I threw up my visor and stuck out my tongue."
In the shocked moment of silence that preceded Royce's explosion of laughter she added, "He slid off his horse."
Outside the little clearing, knights and squires, mercenaries and archers stopped what they were doing and stared at the woods where the earl of Claymore's laughter rose above the trees.
When at last he'd caught his breath, Royce regarded her with a tender smile filled with admiration. "Your strategy was brilliant. I'd have knighted you right there on the field."
"My father was not quite so enthusiastic," she said without rancor. "Alex's skill at the joust was the pride of our clan—something I'd failed to consider. Instead of knighting me on the field, my father gave me the thrashing I probably deserved. And then he sent me off to the abbey."
"Where he kept you for two full years," Royce summarized, his voice filled with gruff gentleness.
Jenny stared at him across the short distance separating them, while a startling discovery slowly revealed itself to her. The man who people called a ruthless, brutal barbarian was something quite different: he was, instead, a man who was capable of feeling acute sympathy for a foolish young girl—it was there in the softened lines of his face. Mesmerized, she watched him stand up, her eyes imprisoned by his hypnotic silver gaze, as he walked purposefully toward her. Without realizing what she was doing, Jenny slowly stood up, too. "I think," she whispered, her face turned up to his, "that legend plays you false. All the things they say you've done—they aren't true," she whispered softly, her beautiful eyes searching his face as if she could see into his soul.
"They're true," Royce contradicted shortly, as visions of the countless bloody battles he'd fought paraded across his mind in all their lurid ugliness, complete with battlefields littered with the corpses of his own men and those of his foes.
Jenny knew naught of his bleak memories, and her gentle heart rejected his self-proclaimed guilt. She knew only that the man standing before her was a man who had gazed upon his dead horse with pain and sorrow etched on his moonlit features; a man who had just now winced with sympathy at the silly story she'd told of dressing up to meet her elderly knight. "I don't believe it," she murmured.
"Believe it!" he warned. Part of the reason Royce wanted her was that she did not cast him in the role of bestial conqueror when he touched her, but he was equally unwilling to let her deceive herself by casting him in another role—that of her knight in virtuous, shining armor. "Most of it is true," he said flatly.
Dimly, Jenny was aware that he was reaching for her, she felt his hands close around her upper arms like velvet manacles, drawing her nearer, saw his mouth slowly descending to hers. And, as she gazed into those heavy-lidded, sensual eyes, some lambent protective instinct cried a warning that she was getting in too deep. Panicked, Jenny turned her face away a scant instant before his lips touched hers, her breath coming in rapid gasps as if she was running. Undaunted, Royce kissed her temple instead, trailing his warm lips over her cheek, pulling her nearer, brushing his lips down the sensitive column of her neck, while Jenny turned liquid inside. "Don't," she breathed shakily, turning her face further aside and, without realizing what she was doing, she clutched at the fabric of his tunic, clinging to him for support as the world began to reel. "Please," she whispered, as his arms tightened around her and his tongue slid up to her ear, sensuously, leisurely exploring each curve and crevice, making her shudder with longing while his hands shifted up and down her back. "Please, stop," she said achingly.
In response, his hand slid lower, splaying against her spine to force her body into intimate, thorough contact with his rigid thighs—an eloquent statement that he couldn't, and wouldn't, stop. His other hand slid to her nape, stroking sensuously, urging her to lift her head for his kiss. Drawing a shattered breath, Jenny turned her face into his woolen tunic, refusing his tender persuasion. When she did, the hand at her nape tightened in an abrupt command. Helpless to deny either his urging or his command any longer, Jenny slowly lifted her face to receive his kiss.
His hand plunged into her thick hair, holding her captive while his mouth seized hers in a plundering, devouring kiss that sent her spiraling off into a hot darkness where nothing mattered except his seductive, urgent mouth and knowledgeable hands. Overwhelmed by her own tenderness and his raw, potent sexuality, Jenny fed his hunger, her parted lips welcoming the thrusting invasion of his tongue. She leaned into him and felt him gasp against her mouth the split second before his hands slid possessively over her back and sides and breasts, then swept down, pulling her tightly to his rigid arousal. Helplessly, Jenny melted against him, returning his endless drugging kisses, moaning in her throat as her breasts swelled to fill his palms. Fire trembled through her as his hand forced its way between the waist of her heavy hose, shoving downward, cupping her bare buttocks and moving her tighter against the thrusting hardness of his manhood, crushing her against him.
Between the wildly erotic sensation of his hand pressed against her bare skin and the bold evidence of his desire pressing insistently against her, Jenny was lost. Sliding her hands up his chest, she twined them around his neck and gave herself up to
his pleasure, stimulating it, sharing it, glorying in the groan that tore from his chest.
When he finally dragged his mouth from hers, he held her clasped against his chest, his breathing harsh and rapid. Her eyes closed, her arms still twined around his neck, her ear pressed to the heavy beating of his heart, Jenny drifted between total peace and a strange, delirious joy. Twice he had made her feel wondrous, terrifying, exciting things. But today, he had made her feel something else: he had made her feel needed and cherished and wanted, and those last three things she'd longed to feel for as long as she could remember.
Lifting her face from his hard, muscled chest she tried to raise her head. Her cheek brushed against the soft brown fabric of his tunic, and even the simple touch of his clothing against her skin made her senses reel dizzily. Finally she managed to tip her head back and look at him. Passion was still smoldering in those smoky gray eyes. Quietly and without emphasis he stated, "I want you."
This time there was no doubt about his meaning, and her answer was whispered without thought, as if it had suddenly been born in her heart and not her mind: "Badly enough to give me your word not to attack Merrick?"
"No."
He said the word dispassionately, without hesitation, without regret or even annoyance; he refused as easily as he would have refused a meal he didn't want.
The single word hit her like a dousing of ice water; Jenny drew back and his hands fell away.
In a daze of shame and shock, she bit down hard on her trembling lower lip and turned aside, trying numbly to restore order to her hair and clothing, when what she longed to do was run from the woods—from everything that had happened here—before she choked on the tears that were nearly suffocating her. It wasn't so much that he had refused what she offered. Even now in all her misery, she realized that what she'd asked of him had been foolish—impossibly mad. What hurt so unbearably was the callousness, the ease with which he'd brushed aside all she'd tried to offer—her honor, her pride, her body, at the sacrifice of everything she'd been taught to believe in, to value.