Entreat Me

  She flinched out of Ballard’s arms, eyes wide. “Cinnia,” she whispered.

  “Rosemary,” he replied just as softly.

  Louvaen gawked at him. “What?”

  Ballard touched his lip. “Rosemary. Hardly something to slay the pretty dragon headed for your door right now.”

  She growled and pointed an accusing finger at him. “This is your fault! You’ve made me an addle-pated wanton.” She slapped his hand away when he reached for her. “No you don’t.” Her chance to sneak him out of her chamber before Cinnia arrived had come and gone. Her sister was beautiful, not stupid. She’d grow suspicious at Louvaen’s uncharacteristic nervousness and refusal to let her in her room.

  She flung the door open and marched into the hall. Cinnia held up her hands filled with ribbons, a small pot of lip balm and a brush. “I have everything. I’ll even braid your hair for you.”

  Louvaen looped her arm through Cinnia’s and offered what she hoped was an easy smile. “You’ll likely kill me for this, but can I have what’s in your ewer? I used mine to rinse my mouth out. Hideous potion the sorcerer gave me. And Clarimond piled the bed with so many blankets to keep me warm, I baked under them. I need a wash—and more water.”

  She didn’t give Cinnia time to answer, pushing her back toward her room. The urge to glance over her shoulder and see if Ballard managed to sneak away almost overwhelmed her, but she resisted. If she looked, so would Cinnia.

  They made it to Cinnia’s room without mishap. Louvaen delayed them with small talk and repeated assurances that she was thawed out and perfectly fine after her plunge into the icy pond. Ballard was gone by the time they returned. He’d made the bed and left the blankets they’d worn as coverings folded neatly in one of the chairs. Louvaen sighed. She saw no trace of him, yet she fancied his presence lingered. The blood in her veins still ran hot from the memory of his caresses, the feel of his body against hers, inside her.

  “Lou, are you sure you’re recovered?” Cinnia eyed her, gripping the hair brush like a cudgel.

  Lou hugged her. “Stop worrying, and help me. I need to bathe and dress before Magda marches up here threatening murder if we’re late for supper.”

  They made it to the kitchens as Magda was setting out the various platters of food. Gavin and Ambrose were already seated, as was Ballard. He watched Louvaen with an intensity that should have set fire to her frock as she took her customary place at the table. Ambrose smiled into his goblet, his gaze flicking back and forth between her and Ballard. Supper was an easy, chatty affair, despite the scare Louvaen had given them earlier in the day. They discussed final plans for Modrnicht, and Louvaen did her best not to gaze moon-eyed at Ballard as he made no effort to disguise the fact he undressed her with his eyes.

  She hoped they wouldn’t spend much time in the solar. Between the long hours of sleep and Ambrose’s restorative, she was wide awake, restless and eager to accept Ballard’s offer to share his bed. He’d warned her she’d get no sleep. She made note to ask him later if that was a threat or a promise. But all her daydreaming and machinations were soon dashed. Cinnia held her hand between both of hers. Her brown eyes carried the same haunted expression Louvaen had seen earlier, and her lower lip quivered.

  “Lou, would you sleep in my room tonight?”

  Louvaen stared at her sister as if she’d sprouted two more heads. “Your room?”

  A low choking noise drifted from the head of the table. Ballard had his goblet to his mouth. The dark eyes watching her over the cup’s brim blazed.

  Cinnia gripped her hands harder. “Yes. My bed is big and has plenty of room for the both of us. I’d sleep better if you...” She paused and gnawed at her lip, her eyes filling with tears.

  Gut twisting at the idea she’d frightened Cinnia so badly, Louvaen brushed the girl’s cheek. “Of course, love. I’ll stay with you tonight.” She glanced a second time at Ballard. He’d returned his goblet to the table and stared at his charger with such a black scowl, the food on it should have shriveled into lumps of charcoal.

  Cinnia beamed and hugged her. “I promise not to kick too much.”

  Louvaen pulled away from her with a scowl. “If you plant your foot in my back as you tend to do, I will shove you straight out of the bed, and you can sleep on the floor.”

  The girl held up her hands. “No kicking or stealing covers. Promise.”

  Their evening gathering in the solar was abbreviated. Ballard sat in his chair, thin-lipped and grim as Louvaen read aloud from a book of poetry and avoided his gaze. She knew her face reflected the same disappointment she saw in his eyes, the same need, the same want. Ambrose had excused himself from the gathering, citing a wish to spend the evening with Magda. That only made Ballard’s visage darken even more. Gavin watched his father with a contemplative stare. Cinnia spun wool rovings on the great wheel until a series of yawns made her give up.

  The girl stood and stretched her back. “I can’t stay awake.” She bowed to Ballard. “We ask your pardon to retire, dominus.”

  “Granted,” he said abruptly and frowned at the fire in the hearth.

  Louvaen abandoned her book on the nearby table. Gavin had taken Cinnia’s hand to wish her good night by kissing her fingers. Louvaen cleared her throat. “De Lovet, why don’t you escort my sister to her room.” Two sets of eyebrows shot up. “Just to the threshold, mind. I’ll be there in a moment. I have something to discuss with his lordship.” The words had barely left her mouth before the two bolted.

  “If anyone was standing in the way outside, they’re trampled now.” Ballard’s dour expression had lightened, a hint of amusement playing about his lips.

  Louvaen came to stand in front of him, pushing with her knees until he opened his, and she stood between his legs. “One day fortune shall favor me, and it will be your sorcerer in the path.” She took one of his hands. “I couldn’t refuse her, Ballard. Were our places reversed, and she’d been the one you rescued, Gavin would have to chain me to the wall to keep me from her, and I’d practically be laced into her bodice for days to make sure she was recovered. What she asks of me is far less than what I’d demand of her.”

  He sighed and brought her hand to his mouth. His lips drifted gently over her wrist. “Your devotion to your sister is an admirable thing. And a torment for me.”

  She smiled. “You’ll not be alone in your suffering, nor are you released from your offer. I intend to make myself comfortable in your big bed and expect you to keep me warm as promised.”

  Ballard’s eyes gleamed obsidian in the firelight. He tugged until she hovered over him, close enough that he burrowed his nose into her shallow cleavage. Louvaen teased the waves in his hair, sighing as his tongue flickered over the swell of one breast. “How long?” he murmured. “How long do I wait?”

  She ran a finger over one of the raised scars that rutted his cheek. “Just tonight I think. We shared a bed as children. It was a constant battle over the blankets, the pillows and space on the mattress.” She smiled at his hopeful expression. “She’ll be as weary of me as I will be of her by morning.”

  “Then I look forward to morning.”

  Louvaen chuckled and eased out of his embrace. “I must go. I suspect Gavin’s interpretation of the threshold is much further into her chamber than mine is. And Cinnia will only encourage him.”

  Ballard captured a fold of her skirt. “Kiss me before you go.”

  She twitched the skirt out of his grasp and shook her head. “No.”

  His face hardened into the severe lines she was used to seeing. “Why not?” They softened when she kissed one of her fingertips and touched it to his lip.

  “If I do, I won’t stop at one, and the next thing you know, it will be Gavin and Cinnia come to find me and discovering me naked in your lap.”

  Ballard groaned and tilted his head back against the chair. He stared at the ceiling for a moment. “What man wouldn’t tent his breeches on hearing a woman say she’d happily strip naked for him after a few kiss
es?”

  Louvaen shrugged. “I only speak the truth.”

  “And that forthright manner is its own great allure.” He arched an eyebrow. “You’ll dream of me as you sleep in your sister’s virginal bed?”

  “No,” she teased. “Dreaming of you will give me no peace; I need my rest in preparation for tomorrow night. I’ve been promised I won’t sleep then, so I best do it now.” She offered him a short bow. “I’m holding you to that promise, de Sauveterre.” She winked and strode out of the room, his low laughter following her as she closed the door behind her.

  She stopped at her chamber to gather her night rail and shooed Gavin away from Cinnia’s door. He’d been as good as his word and not crossed the threshold. By the time she crawled into Cinnia’s bed and wished her sister goodnight, the effects of Ambrose’s potion had worn off, and she yawned as hard as Cinnia had earlier. Outside, snow flurries beat against the paned windows like butterfly wings. Louvaen watched their chaotic dances, Cinnia already asleep and curled warm against her back. A whisper of sound drifted in from the other side of the door. A heavy step, a pause, and then the steps moved on. She recognized the tread and sighed. Morning couldn’t come soon enough.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “So you live another day.” Isabeau’s gaze remained on her needle as she embroidered by the window. Sunlight spilled through the glass, outlining her elegant profile and the swell of her belly in a golden corona. Two of her women sat nearby, bent to their needlework as if the discourse between their lord and lady didn’t interest them.

  Ballard knew better. Expecting a raging diatribe, death threats and copious tears, he stood just inside the solar, wary of his wife’s unnerving calm. “Are you well, my lady?”

  A smile, sharp as a knife’s edge, curved her mouth. “Well as can be with this parasite tumbling about inside me.” He flinched and her smile widened. She might not be looking at him directly, but she watched him. “You have foresworn our bargain, Margrave.”

  He came to stand near her chair, admiring the way the sun gilded her hair. Her beauty didn’t move him—had never moved him—though he understood why others had been beguiled by it. He did pity her. Bound to one man, pursued by and lied to by another, she’d been exploited, manipulated and extorted for the one thing of value greater than any single person: land. She hated him, and with reason, but she’d kept to their bargain, believing she’d have her freedom and her lover. He’d robbed her of the second.

  “I’m sorry, Isabeau. He left me no choice.”

  The needle paused in its breaching. Isabeau turned on her stool and met his gaze. He almost recoiled. Even in battle, when his enemies fought him across fields made muddy with blood, he’d never beheld such rancor. “Don’t say my name. My mother gave me my name, and you foul it by speaking it.” She resumed her stitching; only now her hand shook, belying her flat tone. “I prayed Cederic would be the one to cross the bridge at Ketach Tor.”

  “I know you did.”

  She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “I prayed he would split you open and spill your innards out for the king to see; that he’d feed them to the pigs afterwards. I prayed he would take your head for good measure and present it to me as a wedding gift.” Her women hunched on their stools and turned their faces away. Isabeau paused in her needlework once more, and this time when she stared at him, her blue eyes had emptied of all emotion. That emptiness spun a cold spot inside him that settled at the base of his spine. “I think I would have kissed you then.”

  Ballard looked past his wife to the green pastures beyond her window. Had Cederic been a better fighter, the gods might have answered her prayers. Instead, they’d favored him over his challenger that day, and Ballard had walked away from the field of combat doused in the blood that had fountained from the fatal wound he’d hacked into Cederic’s neck. He’d been more relieved than triumphant. As Isabeau said, he lived another day, and the contested properties which had brought so much strife to his household remained his.

  “What now?” She sounded tired, defeated.

  He sighed. “Granthing died without an heir. His demesne borders mine. The king has granted all Granthing lands to me in the interest of securing kingdom borders. As Margrave, I’m responsible for defending them anyway.”

  Her sharp bark of laughter made her grasp her belly and bend over the embroidery frame. She held up a hand to hold him off when he stepped closer. Perspiration beaded her brow and upper lip as she straightened. Her mouth turned up in a sneer. “Always the land for you. You imprisoned me for it, killed my lover for it. Is there anything you won’t do for a parcel of dirt?”

  If he were to answer honestly, he’d say no. Land was power. Possessing it raised soldiers to knights, knights to noblemen, and in some cases noblemen to kings. Isabeau had no interest in the ambitions of the family into which she’d married, no love for her husband or the heir she carried. Their future meant nothing to her. As such, Ballard didn’t answer her question directly. “I won’t keep you at Ketach Tor beyond the birth of the child if that’s your wish. I’ve not foresworn all of our bargain, my lady. You are still free to live elsewhere. Any place you choose, and I’ll support you. Neither of us can remarry, but should you find another to love, I won’t begrudge him your favors.”

  Isabeau rose slowly from her seat and closed the distance between them. Even heavily pregnant, with the babe almost resting on her knees, she moved with a grace to be envied. “But you’d begrudge this future paramour my lands.”

  “My lands,” he corrected. “They ceased to be yours when you married me. And I will deny any child you may bear of a later union.” He motioned to her gravid shape. “Ketach Tor belongs to this child and only this child.”

  Sunlight winked off metal as Isabeau’s hand shot up before arcing toward Ballard’s face. Already leery of her willingness to come so close, he dodged the sharp scissors she held, almost losing an eye to her aim. Isabeau missed his face but found her mark in his shoulder. Steel points sank deep into muscle, and Ballard hissed as hot pain bolted down his arm to his fingers. He pushed her away from him. Her handmaidens screamed, echoing Isabeau’s shrieks as the unnatural calm fractured beneath her rage.

  “I wish you were dead!” she shouted and bodily launched herself at him.

  Scissors still buried in his shoulder, Ballard caught her with his uninjured arm and clenched his jaw when she sank her teeth into his bicep. He was hamstrung, unable to defend himself for fear of hurting the baby. She bit him hard enough to draw blood, letting go only when her women pulled her off him.

  Isabeau sank to her knees, panting, face flushed red, mouth smeared with Ballard’s blood. “Gods, I hate you.” She gasped, clutched her belly and clawed at one of her women. The rosy color drained from her skin, leaving her ashen.

  Alarmed, Ballard crouched in front of her. “Isabeau?”

  “Get away from me,” she whispered. She wrapped her arms around her middle. “Baby. Hurts.”

  Ballard lurched to his feet. “Get Magda and find the midwife,” he ordered the handmaidens. They stared at him, openmouthed and unmoving. “Now!” he bellowed.

  One fled the room while the other stroked Isabeau’s hair back from her sweating face. Ballard wrapped a hand around the scissors, took a breath and yanked. The pain cascading down his arm spread to his back and down his side, trailed by a crimson stream. He tossed the scissors aside. Isabeau slapped at him as he lifted her in his arms and carried her to her bed. He laid her down gently and stepped back so the remaining servant could make her comfortable.

  Pale as bleached linen, Isabeau glared at him from the bed. “I hope it dies,” she said. “And that I die too. Then I’ll be free, and you will have nothing.” She turned her face to the wall, fingers clenched in the sheets.

  The handmaiden spoke gently. “Her labor is upon her, dominus. You have no place here now.”

  He nodded and left the chamber. The corridor was dark and cool and served to clear his mind. The scent of copper curled in h
is nostrils as blood from his wound struck the floor in a patter of steady drips. He prayed as Isabeau once prayed, not for death but for life.

  ----------*****------------

  Ambrose eyed Ballard and Gavin, disapproval etched in every line of his weathered face. He balanced a shimmering orb of violet light on the tips of his fingers. It twirled and bounced, shooting blue sparks from its center. “The last time you two fought for one of these, Magda had to stitch Gavin’s arm and you broke your wrist.” He surveyed the great hall, noting the table and benches had been moved against the walls and the rushes swept aside to reveal the stone floor. “Don’t forget the furniture you had to repair afterward. Are you certain you want to do this?”

  Ballard shrugged. “Gavin broke my wrist, not me.”

  Gavin batted at the orb. It whipped around Ambrose’s back before darting in front of Gavin to float just out of reach. “We’re sure. Unlike Father here, I haven’t enjoyed a good brawl or tussle in a long time.”

  “When did you last see me brawling with anyone but you?” Ballard’s eyes narrowed at his son’s sly grin.

  “You bedded the Widow Duenda. Tell me that wasn’t a brawl. Half drowned and half dead, that’s a woman who’d run you ‘til you dropped.”

  Ballard stretched his muscles in preparation for the upcoming match and ignored Gavin’s commentary. The boy had no business knowing the goings-on in his bedchamber, and Ballard had no intention of enlightening him. “Don’t count on that to win this game, son.” He signaled to Ambrose who slung the sparking orb across the great hall. He leapt nimbly aside as Ketach Tor’s master and heir practically threw themselves after it.