“Have what?”
“My virginity.”
“Your what?”
She started to smile. He, however, saw nothing amusing at all about the fact that his ears had already started to fail him. Deaf at a score and five. It was a tragedy.
“You heard me. My virginity. My virtue. Call out the mounted knights and let us breach this maidenhead.”
He took a step away from her. Then he took a few more steps backward until he found himself with a sturdy chair beneath his backside. He knew he was gaping at her, but he couldn’t stop himself.
“Surely you aren’t serious.”
“Then you don’t want me?” She took off John’s cloak and dropped it onto the floor. “I apologize that I have no gown, but it seemed a bit imprudent under the circumstances, and I also apologize for my hair, but you know how that tale came about.”
And as she continued to describe and apologize for her failings, all Rhys could think was, The woman I dreamed about for almost half my life has just come and offered herself to me. And if she’d had any idea just how appealing hose and a tunic were on her, she wouldn’t be speaking at all.
“Ah,” he managed, “I couldn’t. Unchivalrous, I think.”
“Don’t you want me?”
He crossed his legs in self-defense. “That isn’t the point.”
“Do my ears trouble you then?” she asked, pulling her hair over what she deemed to be the offending features.
“Of course not.”
She considered. “Perhaps, then, a game of dice might soften you to the idea.”
“Dice?” he echoed.
“I understand you’re an excellent teacher.”
He could only stare at her, uncomprehending. And then the light began to dawn. He’d been exposed, and by the most unlikely of sources.
“Damn those Fitzgeralds,” he grumbled.
“A talkative pair, indeed.”
He scowled at her. The saints only knew what else they had told her. It was obvious he had no more secrets.
“Think of tonight as a chivalric duty,” she coaxed.
He groaned and dropped his face into his hands. He was so bewildered he groaned again for good measure.
And then he felt a soft hand against his hair and heard a knee pop as she knelt before him and took his hands.
“Rhys,” she began, and there was no light of jest in her eye, “this is not how I would have it.”
Nor I, he wanted to say, but no words would come.
“But ’tis the only choice I can make. I cannot escape my fate. And I will not ask you to give up what you have worked your whole life for.”
“But you are asking me to give her up.”
She blinked very rapidly. “Cease with that romantic foolishness, lest I lose my resolve.”
“Gwen, the land means nothing to me.”
“Well, it should, for the price is very dear.”
“But it would be you to pay the price for it,” he argued. “And that I cannot have.”
“You haven’t asked me to pay anything,” she said. “Our course is laid out before us, Rhys. We are both bound to Ayre, and the time for flight is well past. I can make no choice there. But I can choose to whom I will give my virtue. And if doing so means I must spend the rest of my life with Alain of Ayre, then ’tis a price I will gladly pay.”
“But, Gwen—”
“Please, Rhys,” she said, and for the first time he heard fear in her voice.
And that frightened him.
“He will not be gentle,” Gwen added. “I have provoked him one time too many. I can only pray that he will use me quickly and be off to other matters.”
He swallowed with great difficulty.
“I would truly prefer it if I had some pleasant memory of what it should be like to concentrate on while enduring the other.”
“Oh, Gwen,” he said miserably.
She smiled, but it was done too brightly to be believed. “So, let us be about our work while the night lasts. The morrow will take care of itself soon enough, I’ll warrant.”
He drew her up onto his lap and cradled her against him. He thought he might have managed a solid front until he felt her hot tears on his neck. His own eyes burned and his cheeks were soon wet with his own grief.
Saints, but this wasn’t how he had planned things.
And so he rocked the woman in his arms, as much to soothe himself as to soothe her, and wished with all his might that he might somehow bend time to his will and place them both back outside Ayre’s gates with her manfully struggling to lift her blade to do him in. He would have caught her hand, hauled her into his arms, and kissed the breath from her, then fled with her to France. Their mutual deflowering would have taken place in the most expensive inn he could have found, preceded by a fine meal, rare wine, and as many chansons d’amour as a minstrel could have racked his brains for.
It certainly wouldn’t have happened in a filthy guardroom on the night before she was set to marry someone else.
She pulled away, took his face in her hands, and kissed both his cheeks softly. Then she smiled at him.
“Come, my gallant knight, and let no other soul come between us tonight.”
“But how can I have you,” he asked, “and then never have you again? Live in the same keep with you and know you are forever out of my reach?”
“Perhaps Alain will put you to cleaning the cesspits, and we will see little of each other.”
He considered. “There is that.”
“I will likely be confined to my tapestry frame in the solar.” She brushed his hair back out of his eyes. “We will see each other now and again and know in our hearts that we shared what no one can ever steal from us.”
“It isn’t enough.”
“It will have to be. ’Tis all we are allowed.”
“If we are allowed even that.”
“If it is a sin, then I will bear the burden of it. Surely I will be forgiven this desire for such a small comfort.”
He couldn’t help but agree, though he suspected the comfort would certainly not ease either of them over the next pair of years.
And that didn’t begin to embrace the rest of his sorry life.
To have Gwennelyn of Segrave, and then to lose her?
“Chivalric duty,” she reminded him.
“How you can possibly make that out of what we intend to do this night, I do not know.”
“I use my imagination more than you do.”
He sighed and dragged a hand through his hair. “Very well, then,” he said, feeling somewhat at a loss. “We should begin, I suppose.”
“Aye.”
But where? Saints, it wasn’t as if he had any experience in those matters. He fished about in his almost empty purse, sparing Hugh of Leyburn one last hearty curse for its lightness, then pulled forth a pair of dice. He fingered them nervously.
“Perhaps a brief game,” he conceded.
“Time is of the essence,” she agreed.
“A very brief game, then,” he said.
And as he began to teach her all he knew of dicing, he marveled at the absolute improbability of the situation in which he found himself. Wooing the love of his heart by divulging to her the finer points of a game of chance. His most recent encounter with her had come while she was posing as a mercenary, lying and stealing as enthusiastically as if she’d been doing it all her life. That they were now playing not only with dice but also with their lives shouldn’t have surprised him.
And he studiously avoided thinking about the very real possibility of someone, Rollan for instance, stumbling in upon them.
“I’d best bolt the door,” he said.
He returned from his errand to find Gwen studying the dice intently. Would that she would study him with like concentration.
And then she looked up at him and smiled.
The sight of it almost felled him where he stood.
“One final game?” he croaked.
She nodded happily
, and he knelt down next to her. His hands were shaking, and he wondered if she would respect him less if he indulged in something of a swoon before he indulged in her. He later remembered nothing of their game except the sight of her hands, the warmth of her body next to his, and the sound of her laughter in his ears.
He thought he might just perish from it all.
“I won,” she said suddenly, smiling smugly at him. “Didn’t I?”
“Aye,” he managed, dazed by the sight of her.
“And my prize?”
He felt very self-conscious as he held out his hand to her. “Will I do?”
She put her hand in his. He looked down and remembered the last time he’d reached for her hand. It had been on the roof of her father’s keep when she had chosen him for her champion. Champion, husband, ’twas all the same to her. Rhys looked at his lady and wondered if it was sweat running down his cheeks. They were very wet.
“I don’t think I can—” he croaked.
She put her finger to his lips and shook her head. Then she brushed the damp from his cheeks, leaned forward, and very gently kissed him on the mouth. And this time her sire was not standing at the end of the passageway to stop her.
At least his nose was in no peril.
He thought, however, that his heart would be much worse for the wear.
“This moment is ours, my love,” she whispered against his lips.
He wanted to argue, but her mouth distracted him from his thinking. He wanted to flee, but her hands touched him and left him caring nothing for anything outside their chamber. He wanted more than what they would have that one night, but her arms went around his neck, and he found himself pulling her so closely against him that clothes were stifling.
And so they shed their clothes, layer by layer, with nervous hands and embarrassed smiles, until they had made a nest of them in the corner. Rhys lifted Gwen into his arms, then laid her down carefully on their poor bed. He followed, drawing her tightly against him, praying that the night might last far into eternity.
And then there was no more time for thinking, no more room for arguing, and no more will for fleeing.
They were alone, and no other would intrude upon their bliss.
14
Rollan of Ayre stood behind his brother’s chair on the morn of his brother’s wedding and observed the two standing next to each other in the midst of Alain’s solar. They had been slow to answer Alain’s summons and both looked exceedingly weary. Even with their drawn and spent expressions, Rollan had to admit that they made a fitting pair. De Piaget, damn him anyway, with his commanding height and muscular build made even Gwen look slight and fragile. Not that Rollan cared how mannishly tall she was. He would have taken her against whatever surface was handy at any time, any number of times, and not regretted it once.
And now she was on the verge of becoming his brother’s wife.
It had been enough to sour his stomach that morn.
He suspected the only satisfaction he would have out of the day would be watching de Piaget’s reaction to what his new duties would be. Rollan had come up with the idea himself, based on a nagging suspicion he’d had for years. He could hardly wait to see if his instincts ran true. Alain hadn’t been happy about cutting short his hunting that morn, but Rollan had managed to convince him that getting Rhys settled was best done that day, preferably before the wedding.
“I’ve come to a decision on your duties,” Alain announced.
“Then why am I here?” Gwen demanded.
“Because, you wasp-tongued wench,” Alain growled at her, “you’re involved as well.”
Rollan could have sworn he heard her mutter something about a cesspit, but he could have been imagining it. He watched Rhys raptly, waiting for the reaction he fully intended to savor for many months to come.
Rhys, however, made no move and spoke no word. His face wore a mask of impassivity even Rollan had to admire.
“She’s been left to run wild too long,” Alain said, pointing at Gwen. “She’ll embarrass me at some important moment. Or so Rollan says, and I believe him.”
Alain paused. Rollan realized that only he himself seemed to be enjoying the drama of it. Gwen looked as if she might lose the contents of her stomach. Rhys was as still as stone.
Interesting.
“She needs a guard,” Alain ground out, “and you are to be its captain.”
Rollan could have wished for a much better delivery, but the crack in Rhys’s armor was all he could have hoped for. The man flinched as if he’d been struck. Rollan spared Gwen a quick look to find her as pale as an altarcloth.
So, he had been right. There was something between them.
Could it possibly become any more entertaining than this?
“Everywhere she goes, you’ll follow. Everything she does, you’ll remember and report on. Everything she says, you’ll repeat to me when I demand it. Understood?”
Rhys was, to all appearances, speechless.
Gwen looked as if she would faint.
“Excitement over the wedding?” Rollan asked her, unable to resist the question.
She only looked at him with eyes as bleak as a winter sky. In spite of himself, Rollan felt a twinge of regret for her. It wasn’t as if he would have looked forward to marriage to his brother, either. The man was a rutting boar, and a stupid one at that.
But, Rollan consoled himself, it would only make her appreciate him all the more when the time came.
“De Piaget, your duties begin immediately,” Alain said. “See her safely to the chapel. Then you’ll stand guard outside the bedchamber door tonight as well. Don’t want to be disturbed in my labors.”
Gwen turned and walked from the chamber. Alain pointed a finger at Rhys.
“And see that she stops that. I hate it when she leaves before I can tell her to go!”
Rhys bowed his head. “My lord, if I may?”
“Aye,” Alain said, waving his hand dismissively, “go. Two years, de Piaget.”
“As you will, my lord.”
Rollan watched him leave and leaned against the back of Alain’s chair, full well satisfied with the morning’s events. Gwen’s hell would begin in a few hours. Rollan rubbed his belly with a frown. She would deserve every second of pain.
And Rhys’s hell had already begun.
Truly, it was a fine morning’s work.
15
The child crept up to the top of the steps, then hastily hid herself at the end of the passageway. It wasn’t as if she needed to be there to observe the events, but compassion drew her. The knight and his lady suffered. If only she could have done something to ease it.
Earlier that day she had watched the lady go to the chapel, pale and drawn. As evening shadows fell, the lady had gone to her marriage bed.
The knight had stood guard outside the bedchamber door, his face pale and drawn.
Even the child had paled at the muffled sounds of discomfort.
And then the two Vikings had appeared and led the knight away.
“I must stay,” he had protested.
“You’ve been there long enough,” one of the blond ones had growled.
“Aye, and now you can hear him snoring from here,” the other had snarled. “He’ll not know you’ve gone.”
“But she will.”
“’Tis better that way, lad.”
“There’s wine aplenty downstairs,” the other stated.
“I don’t want any.”
“Best to have some, young one.”
“Aye, it will ease you.”
The knight seemed not to agree, but the child could see that he was in little position to argue. Never mind the fierceness of the men who escorted him down the steps. His heart was broken and his will bent under the load he carried. He had no strength left for arguing.
She wondered if she could have eased his burden, but she suspected even the touch she had inherited from her mother would have been too small and mean a thing to aid him. All she could d
o was stare into the glass stones in her hand and watch.
And then even her tears blinded her to that.
16
Gwen stood at the door of her solar with her hand on the bolt and fought with herself. She wanted to leave the chamber. She also wanted to repair immediately to her bed and never emerge again from beneath the coverings.
It was the morn after her wedding, and she suspected that she had passed better nights.
She couldn’t hide forever. She would have to face the keep, Alain, and his filthy living conditions. She would also have to face Rhys.
She drew in a deep breath and opened the door. The Fitzgerald brothers stood in their accustomed places. They parted without comment. She stepped between them, then looked up at them. Connor, and she could tell it was he by the intense scowliness he seemed to wear like a fine cloak, would not meet her eyes. She turned to look at Jared. He seemed determined not to look at her, either, but she had come to suspect that he was less resolute about his gruffness than his brother. His lips pursed, tried to form a scowl, and failed. He unbent enough to let his gaze dip down to meet hers. She smiled up at him as best she could, but it was a less than happy smile. He unfolded his arms from across his chest and briefly rested his hand on her shoulder. Connor growled at him, and he hastily reassumed his tree-like pose.
So much for sympathy from the Fitzgeralds.
Gwen started down the passageway only to find them grumbling along behind her after only a few paces. In spite of herself, she felt comforted. At least she would have some sort of companionship.
And then she looked up.
There, standing in the dim light coming in through an arrowloop, was the very person she had hoped with all her heart she could avoid. He leaned negligently against the wall, resting one shoulder on the stone, his arms folded over his chest. The ruby in the hilt of his sword was dull and lifeless in the gloom. His face was cast in shadows.
All hail, captain of my guard, Gwen thought to herself without humor. She should have been flattered. Any number of women would have been overjoyed to be looked after by a man of such a reputation.
But not her. She wanted to weep.
He didn’t move. Indeed, he seemed to be waiting for her to come to him.