Then there was Rhys’s when he caught sight of not only his son in his naked glory, but Anne peeking from within the bed curtains.
And if Rhys’s gasp had been loud, Geoffrey of Fenwyck’s was deafening. He strode into the chamber, ripped open the bed curtains the rest of the way, and glared at her. Anne clutched the blankets to her throat. She half wondered if her father would take a mind to beat her.
But apparently he had other prey in mind,
“You whoreson!” he bellowed, turning and launching himself at Robin.
Anne fell out of bed, then struggled to her feet, pulling the blanket out and wrapping it around her.
“Father!” she shouted, praying her father wouldn’t throttle Robin. He had his hands around Robin’s throat and had slammed him back up against the wall. “Cease! He’s done nothing—”
“Nothing?” her sire bellowed. “Nothing?” He released Robin and whirled on Rhys. “Artane, I vow I’ll kill him if it’s the last thing I do!”
Rhys said nothing. He didn’t have to say anything. He looked first at her and she saw him absolve her of any part in the current situation. Then his steely gray eyes slid to his son. Anne had to admire Robin’s calm in the face of what would surely be a wrath he had never seen from his father before. Rhys’s eyes missed no detail. Robin stood panting against the wall with his hands by his side, not attempting to shield his nakedness. Anne watched his father look down. Robin flushed and rubbed his throat.
“Think you I would be in this condition had I just bedded her?” he asked defensively.
“Think you it makes one wit of difference if she is a virgin or not?” Fenwyck bellowed. “You fool, what possessed you to do this thing!”
“I had a very good reason—”
Anne’s father roared. Anne clapped her hands over her ears, praying her sire wouldn’t do anything she would regret, such as kill Robin.
“My lord,” Robin began.
“Silence!” Geoffrey drew his sword, but Rhys put his hand out.
“My friend, kill him and you kill your daughter’s husband.”
“Husband!” Geoffrey gasped. “How can you possibly entertain the notion that I would give my child to this bold, honorless whoreson!”
“Because he could very well be the father of your grandchild,” Rhys said calmly.
Anne stole a look at Robin, then wished she hadn’t. His expression was grimmer, if possible, than his father’s. She didn’t want to speculate on his thoughts.
“Geoffrey, come with me to my solar,” Rhys said. “We’ll reason together there.”
“I’ll go nowhere—”
“My solar,” Rhys bellowed suddenly. “It serves us nothing to stand here arguing.”
Anne found herself in her father’s sights once more before he cursed his way from the chamber and slammed the door behind him. She hoisted the blanket up a bit higher and turned her sights to Robin’s sire.
And then she wished she hadn’t.
She had never seen him look so grim before. If it had been possible, she would have given anything to have disappeared before him rather than see the censure in his eyes.
“I would suggest you two retreat to separate chambers to dress,” he said evenly, “but I can see ’tis too late for that. Robin, I will expect you in my solar immediately. Do not keep me waiting. Unreasonable delays will not soothe my temper and I assure you, you do not wish to increase my ire this night.” He turned, then paused. He looked back over his shoulder at Robin. “I expected more from you than this.”
With that, Rhys left the chamber, closing the door softly behind him. Anne looked at Robin, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“Robin,” she began.
He shook his head, once, then walked over to his trunk. He pulled on his clothes silently. Anne limped over to the fire, heavily favoring her right leg, and pulled her dress over her head. By the saints, this was a disaster.
“Robin. . .”
He didn’t look at her, or acknowledge that he’d heard her. He simply pulled on his boots, belted his tunic, and left.
Anne stood in the middle of the chamber and wrapped her arms around herself. She had done nothing wrong. There was no reason for the shame that coursed through her. Robin had just been protecting her, though she had to admit that sleeping in the same bed with him had been very ill-advised. Her generosity had certainly been unwise, though she had hardly expected her sire and his to return home and assume they’d lain together.
Though what else were they to think?
Anne sighed and considered her next action. She could remain where she was and wait for her fate to come to her, or she could go to meet it. She hadn’t been invited to Rhys’s solar, but there was no reason she couldn’t eavesdrop and find out what was going to happen.
And possibly keep her father from killing the man she loved.
She opened the chamber door and saw Robin’s guards still there. They looked at her with expressionless faces and she could only speculate on what they were thinking. She lifted her chin and pushed her way past them. They fell into step behind her and she stopped and looked at them.
“I’m out for an intrigue,” she said, “and do not need a cluster of knights clomping along behind me.”
One of the men made her a low, creaking bow. “My lady, we are bid guard you by my lord. We cannot fail him.”
“And my sire is liable to kill him unless I make exceedingly great and silent haste,” she returned.
They did look at each other then, and a pair of them shifted uncomfortably.
“One man,” she said, looking at their apparent leader. “You. But come silently.”
It was only after she was creeping along the passageway that she realized how bold she had been in ordering Robin’s men about. She shook her head. A pity she had found her tongue when it likely wouldn’t serve her.
She paused before Rhys’s solar door and motioned Robin’s man behind her. The door was shut, but that was remedied easily enough. The growling going on inside would likely cover whatever sound she might make disturbing the sanctuary. She pushed the door open only far enough to hear what was being said.
“I overlooked your indiscretions in the past,” Rhys was saying, in a voice so cold that it sent chills down Anne’s spine, “but this is no common slut you’ve bedded.”
“I didn’t bed her!”
“You’ve kept her a virtual prisoner in your chamber for how long? A fortnight—”
“I had to!” Robin exclaimed. “She’s fair lost her life four times. Did you not see my guard outside? Did you not think to wonder why they were there?”
“Likely to protect you from prying eyes!” Fenwyck bellowed. “Enough of this, Rhys. I’ll have him in the lists!”
Robin’s snort almost made Anne smile, if she could have managed it given the circumstances. At least Robin had no lack of respect for his own skill, and her father’s lack of it in his eyes.
“Would you have done aught differently?” Robin demanded. “Would you not have done whatever you could to keep her safe?”
“My actions are not under discussion; yours are.”
“I had no choice!”
“You were naked in her bed!” Rhys thundered. “A fortnight in my chamber, Robin. Think you any sane man would believe you haven’t touched her?”
“Believe what you will,” Robin snapped. “I’m no liar.”
“And I say you’re a bloody wretch who deserves to be hanged!” Fenwyck bellowed. “Rhys, I demand retribution!”
“You’ll have it,” Rhys replied, in that same, cold voice he’d used at first. “The wedding will take place immediately.”
“You cannot force me to wed,” Robin growled.
“I can and I will.”
“I will make the choice myself!”
There was silence and Anne felt coldness steal over her heart.
Apparently that choice would not be her.
“To say I am disappointed in you, Robin,” Rhys said quietly,
“does not come close to describing the feelings that plague me at the moment. You will wed with the woman I choose for you and you will do it when I say you will. Or you will forfeit your inheritance.”
Anne clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle her gasp. Surely Rhys could not be in earnest. What would Robin do without land?
And then Robin laughed. It was the most humorless laugh she had ever heard.
“That would please you well enough, wouldn’t it?” he said, laughing again. “Give it all to Miles, Father. Give him the title, your lands, your gold. Give it to your son of the flesh. Give him Anne while you’re at it, for I bloody well won’t be told what to do by you or by anyone else!”
“Aye,” Rhys said hotly, “you will. You will wed Anne as soon as the priest can be roused.”
“I will wed when and where I choose,” Robin snarled. “If you would but listen—”
“To what?” Rhys demanded. “What pitiful excuse can you make for your actions? By the bloody saints, Robin, she was in your bed! Hell, it wasn’t your bed, it was my bed. I should beat you for that alone!”
“There was nowhere else!” Robin shouted.
“Enough,” Rhys said curtly. “You’ll wed within the hour. Go to the chapel and give yourself over to prayer—”
“You take your pious demands and go to hell!” Booted feet crossed the chamber with heavy stomps.
“Robin—”
“And why are you home so early?” Robin demanded, apparently stopping just short of the doorway.
“We met Hardwiche on the road,” Rhys said shortly.
“And how did you know Anne was in my chamber?”
“A servant told us as we came into the hall,” Rhys said impatiently. “Now, as for you—”
Anne pulled back into the shadows of an alcove a heartbeat before Robin jerked the door open, then slammed it shut behind him. She was too stunned by the events of the middle of the night to do aught but watch as Rhys left the solar hard on Robin’s heels, or her own sire who followed right behind.
She was still as stone, wondering if she would ever again breathe a normal breath.
So, Robin didn’t love her. What else was she to divine from his words? If he’d wanted her, he would have taken her no matter the means.
And then she gasped as her father suddenly reappeared before her. She had never seen him angrier. It took every ounce of courage she had to face him and not cower, but she did it.
“Did he force you?” Fenwyck demanded.
What would it serve her to explain anything to him? In his present mood, he likely wouldn’t believe her anyway.
“Nay,” she said simply.
He clapped his hand to his head. “Then you went to his bed willingly? You foolish girl, what were you thinking?” He grasped her by the arm and jerked her down the passageway.
“My lord!” Robin’s guardsman said in alarm.
Geoffrey snarled a curse at him and continued to pull Anne along. “I suppose the only thing good to come of this is you will be wed after all. To Artane’s get, since he’s ruined you for anyone else.” He grunted in disgust. “I suppose I can trust him with my lands, though I daresay I shouldn’t. I couldn’t trust him with my daughter. Perhaps he has more sense with soil than he does with women.”
Anne listened to her father cite a listing of both Robin’s flaws and good points, but she couldn’t agree with any of them. She knew one thing and one thing alone:
Robin of Artane did not wish to wed her.
But she suspected he would have to.
Her sire opened the door to Rhys’s chamber and pushed her inside. “Stay here,” he grumbled. “I don’t like this, but obviously ’tis the only thing to be done. Do whatever it is you have to to make yourself presentable. And do it quickly. I don’t want the bastard changing his mind before we get to the chapel.”
And with that, he shut the door, leaving Anne to her thoughts.
And they were not pleasant ones. She had wanted to stay at Artane. She had prayed she would stay at Artane. She had hardly dared hope that she might remain there as Robin’s bride.
She had never envisioned having all of it come about because of a sword in Robin’s back.
The humiliation of it was almost more than she could bear. Anne found herself envisioning the day that would stretch before her and she almost sat down on the floor and wept. If Robin appeared at the altar, he would do so by means of his father’s guard forcing him there. How would Rhys wring any acceptance of the marriage from his son without bloodshed? Even if they could get him to the chapel, Robin would likely cut down half his sire’s garrison to be free of the place.
Free of her.
Had he felt any affection for her over the past fortnight, had there been anything tender growing in his breast, it was gone now. By the saints, the thought of him repudiating her at the altar was almost more than she could take.
But that was hardly her fault.
Anne felt her chin lift the slightest bit. No one had asked her opinion on the matter. Never mind that inquiring about such a thing never would have crossed her father’s thoughts even had he been drowning in his cups. No one had asked if she wanted to wed Robin, if she had any affection for him, if she thought she could stomach the rest of her life spent in his company.
If she was going to wed anyone, she would at least wed someone who wanted her—for her dowry if nothing else.
She turned and headed toward the bedchamber door. She wasn’t powerless to decide her fate. She would leave the keep, hopefully unnoticed in the confusion. Perhaps there was a place for her at court until her sire’s temper cooled. Then she would have another look at his choices for her mate and she would wed one of them based on his lust for her lands. Lust was lust, perhaps, where a husband was concerned. She threw open the door, fully prepared to escape.
And she came face-to-face with her sire leaning against the far wall with his arms folded over his chest. Robin’s guards were conspicuously absent.
There would be no escape.
But before she could say anything, the lady Gwennelyn came down the passageway and swept her back inside the bedchamber. The next thing Anne knew, she was ensconced in her foster mother’s tender embrace.
“Sweet Anne,” Gwen said, pulling back and smiling ruefully, “what folly has Robin pulled you into?”
“What folly?” Anne asked, feeling suddenly very near to tears. “This farce of a marriage?”
Gwen shook her head with a gentle smile. “Love, ’tis no farce. Things will settle themselves in time, I daresay.”
“He is unhappy—”
“As are you, I imagine,” Gwen said. “I doubt this is how you would have wished your wedding day to go.”
“It wasn’t as it seemed,” Anne said.
“Aye, I know,” Gwen said. “Nicholas gave me the entire tale and I don’t fault either you or Robin for your actions. Indeed, he could have done nothing else with his most precious of treasures.”
“His horse was safely in the stables at all times,” Anne said grimly.
Gwen laughed softly. “Ah, my Anne, you know I speak of you. Robin has his father’s stubbornness and ‘twill likely take him a goodly amount of time to come to his senses. If you’re patient, you’ll no doubt be rewarded.”
Anne didn’t want to tell Gwen that she had lost all her wits when it came to Gwen’s firstborn son, so she remained silent. And she said nothing when Gwen combed out her hair and found a simple circlet to place over a sheer veil. She supposed she looked bridal. She knew herself that she was certainly virginal.
But she suspected no one else would believe it.
She couldn’t find anything to say as Gwen walked with her to the chapel a goodly while later. She wasn’t looking forward to seeing Robin, for she could only imagine what had transpired in his sorry life over the past pair of hours.
She hoped it hadn’t included bloodshed.
Of any but his, of course.
26
Edith woke
to the sound of screeching. Actually, she’d been awake for longer than she would have liked, as there had seemingly been a great deal of shouting. She had been almost certain she had dreamed the like.
“Oof,” she said, as she felt something collapse onto her sleeping pallet. She sat up and pushed the offender off.
“Oh, Lady Edith,” Maude gasped. “You must awake!”
“I already am,” Edith said curtly, not daring to hope that the other two women in the chamber hadn’t been awakened too. It could have been worse. The entire community of Gwen’s castle ladies could have been sleeping in their accustomed chamber. The ones who had been left behind were either too deaf to hear Maude’s squeals, or too stupid to understand what they meant. She looked at the girl in the faint light of dawn and was unsurprised to see a look of complete panic.
She sighed. “What is it now, Maude?”
“Lord Rhys has returned!”
“How lovely, but you needn’t alert the entire keep to the fact.”
“He’s found them in his bed together!”
Edith paused. Now, that was a tidbit she couldn’t have hoped for. “How interesting. How did he happen upon that?”
“I told him, but that isn’t the worst of it!”
Edith could scarce wait to hear more. She yawned. “Go on, Maude. And hurry so I can return to my slumber.”
“They’re set to wed!”
Edith smothered her yawn abruptly. “Robin and Anne? How do you know?”
“I heard it myself!” Maude wailed. “I’ll never have him now.”
“Well, men take lovers—”
“I’ll not be his mistress!”
Edith refrained from pointing out to the twit that his mistress was what she had already been, though perhaps that was giving a single night of lust too lofty a title.
“I fear, little one,” Edith said sympathetically, “that there is nothing you can do.”
“I’ll stop the wedding!”
“How?”
“I’ll kill the priest!”
Edith sighed.
“Kill her then.”
Edith felt a tingle of alarm go through her. Not yet. That wasn’t her plan. Torment Anne, aye. Make her life a misery and thereby torment Robin, aye. But kill her?