Awaken My Fire (5 page)

"Give me things? Give me—" She suffered an incredulous moment of disbelief, at once forgetting the curse and the whole disastrous situation as her entire fury greeted the idea that he thought her a simple maid willing to spread her thighs for a trinket or a coin!

With an open hand, she raised her arm to land a well-aimed slap to his face. He caught her hand midway but she twisted free, her strength catching him by surprise, and with this surprising force, she landed a hard blow to his face. His gaze went glassy; he suffered a brief moment's dizziness before he realized he was staring at the satisfied smirk brought by a job well done. "Why, you little vixen!"

He recaptured her arms, then her hands. Pain made her cry out as he forced them high against her back, suppressing her struggle with the weight of his body. Then, to her horror, he laughed.

Sweet Madonna, how she made his blood race!

“
I 've seen your claws, milady, now let me hear a purr.''

"Purr! You are an arse! Purr! Methinks I shall be ill before too long—" She stopped as-he laughed and, ignoring her words, held her with one hand.

She cried out, squirming violently as his free hand brushed the full circle of her breast beneath the worn green gown, then cupped its soft weight in his hand. Through

the voluptuous flesh he felt the frantic pounding of her heart, but pleasure made him weak. He reached behind her to grasp a handful of hair. He tugged once, bringing

her head up for his kiss. "One taste of these lips, Roshelle, one—"

Lips pressed lightly over her mouth, muting her frantic "Nooo-"

Her entire being recoiled from the kiss as fear and fury surged. She opened her mouth, and just as he thought no woman was ever more ripe for seduction, he felt the sharp, merciless bite of her small white teeth on his tongue. He leaped back, clasping his hand over his mouth. "Blood! I am bleeding!"

She took in the result of her violence and with a regal tilt of her head, she said slowly, and with venom, "I, as all my people, have endured unspeakable brutality at the hands of our English oppressors, and until we rid our land of the English pestilence, I shall no doubt have to suffer more. Be forewarned, though." Her blue eyes narrowed dangerously. "A raping shall not be one of them! 'Twould bring your death, I say!"

With a lift of her skirts, she turned to flee. Red-faced with fury and humiliation, desire turned to a blinding rage that transformed the handsome features of his face into something dangerous and deadly, he stumbled once before righting himself and giving chase. Roshelle glanced around just in time to see this. She screamed for her guards and, stumbling forward, reached under her skirts for the anlace gartered at her thigh. A small hand clasped the dagger. Unmindful of the obscenities Edward shouted after her as he chased her, she fled down the hall. For a drunken man, he was quick, and before she reached the corner, his strong hands snaked around her waist. She screamed as he lifted her off the ground. "Why, you little tangemont! I'll teach you a measure of French humility! A raping you loathe and a raping you shall get!"

Roshelle screamed again as he tossed her like so much baggage over his shoulder. With dagger clasped firmly in hand, she raised her arm and struck his flesh with surprising force. Edward cried out with shock more than with pain, dropping her to the ground. She fell bottom-first, her backside hitting the cold stone floor.

Edward never understood the rage she put into his blood. No woman in his life had dared, and, cursed or no, she would pay for this. Seeing his fury, she ignored the jarring pain shooting through her backside to scramble to all fours just as she heard his terrifying chuckle. "Now you have had it, my lovely little princess." Reaching behind him, he pulled the dagger from the hard muscle of his buttock before tossing it unceremoniously against the wall. "Judgment Day has arrived and I, milady, am your judge."

Looking up from her position on all fours, Roshelle slowly shook her head in absolute denial of the devil's own amusement in his eyes. He could not be doing this, he just couldn't! Dear Mother in Heaven, 'twas suicide!

Roshelle wasted no time in jumping up to run, only to scream again as his arms came around her, and once again, he threw her over his shoulder. Her fists pummeled against his back and she kicked for all she was worth, but he was an unusually strong man, a knight hardened to the lances and halberts of war, hardly deterred by a woman's weight, much less by her fists on his back.

Still, she would not stop. Fueled by a mounting terror, she furiously hit his back while twisting off his shoulder with a frantic denial of "NOOO!" He dropped her with another vicious curse. She fell again on her backside. Before she could jump to her feet, his arms swooped under her and, tightly clasping her hands beneath her, he lifted her up and continued quickly down the dark hall.

She tried desperately to twist free. "Loose me! Loose me! You do not understand! You will never get away with this! Never!"

Yet he was. Fear choked her and she panicked, unmindful of the devastating consequences of what was happening. "Potiers, Potiers!" She screamed her faithful servant's name, begging for help. Help that would cost so much, since her men would die defending her. Edward carried her swiftly down the halls to the spiral staircase that led to the floor below, where his chambers lay. He took the stairs two at a time, reaching the second landing before the guards answered her screams. A group of armed men rushed up the staircase, each wearing the hated English colors, blue and white. Edward's guards.

"Milord!" The captain held his arm back to move the men against the wall, allowing Edward passage as if he were a grand king in his very own palace, and he was. Dear God, he was. A grin spread across the harsh features of the captain, Sir Miles Hartman, as he accurately guessed the situation and mocked, "If 'tisn't the heralded Lady Roshelle! Out for a little midnight splaying, milady?"

The men laughed. "Aye!" Edward answered as he started past. "Tis about time I lay to rest this curse and taste this precious piece, think ye not, Miles?"

He nodded, smiling, until she, more desperate to stop this than anyone could know, spat at his face.

“
Why, you little hellcat!'' Edward dropped her legs but held her arms, forcing her slender back into a near painful arch. "Apologize!"

"Apologize! You are mad, you are all stark raving mad! Why would I apologize to the wretched beasts who stand there mocking my terror and condoning unholy abuse! Apologize? I rather curse the bastards and you to the devil! I half hope you do just so I can watch your death!''

"I have had enough of this! You are mine, girl! Mine! You are little more than the as-yet-untouched spoils of a war hard fought and won. This ill-conceived curse of yours will no longer save you!" His pale eyes blazed with emotion as he stared down at the girl, and for all her talk of terror, only fury brightened her blue eyes. With a harsh hand he turned her to face the interested stares of the men, while his other strong hand slipped down the bodice of her gown.

Roshelle squeezed her eyes shut against the humiliation of it.

"I can do what I want with you. Anything, milady," he whispered in her ear, "anything. Now would you like an audience or the privacy of my chambers for this lesson in French subjugation?"

There was no choice to make. Both options revolted her. With tightly shut eyes and feeling more desperate than a man could know, she shook her head fiercely before she felt a sudden heat as if a bolt from the heavens had struck her. Edward felt only a sudden blinding dizziness. Roshelle pulled away from his body, turning to see his arms circling frantically like a hummingbird's wings before falling back. There came a brief aborted cry before his skull cracked against the stone steps, the noise resounding in the tight space.

"Merciful heavens, no!"

Roshelle's cry sounded as his legs flew over his head, his limp and lifeless body somersaulting to land in a still heap below.

There came a brief moment of stunned silence before sudden chaos broke out. Just as the captain and guards rushed to see to their lord, Potiers and three of the twenty-five or so French men of arms left at Reales crowded into the staircase, their swords drawn. "Milady!"

Roshelle threw herself against the older, gray-haired man she loved, who held her to him with his free hand. "What goes here? What is this?"

"He was trying to rape me! He was—"

"May God have mercy, he is dead!"

All gazes lifted to the girl as the captain genuflected over his lord's unmoving body before slowly rising. His eyes seemed to widen, as if to take in the scope of this deed she had done; then suddenly his sword was freed of its sheath. "The lady hath murdered the Lord of Suffolk!"

The terrible words echoed dizzily in her mind. The curse, the curse, the wretched curse! "No," she cried. It was a weak denial against the hard reality of the still and lifeless body.

With raised sword, the captain lunged at her, and Roshelle screamed as she pressed back against the cold stone wall. Just what the man intended, nobody ever knew, for Potiers answered the attack with the hard clang of his own steel. One step behind Potiers, another loyal Frenchman Sansone leaped in front to meet the English guards and open a passage for Roshelle's escape. With a lift of her skirts, Roshelle fled, chased by the terrible sounds of clanging swords and battle cries.

She ran down the hall, turned the corner and flew to the

opposite staircase on the other side of the solar chambers. She leaped down the stairs, into the great hall and out the door. Castle Reales was a moated, centuries-old keep, four stories high at each of the four towers and surrounded by the foul waters of a deep moat. A lowered plank made a bridge across the dark waters to the gatehouse, which looked like a miniature castle in the center of the water, this manned by a French guard. She sped out the entrance hall, into the outer bailey, past the wide double wooden doors, the raised iron bars and onto the plank, calling for help. Two guards rushed out upon hearing her cries, meeting the girl halfway across. "The Lord of Suffolk has fallen dead! The wretches have attacked my guards on the north spiral staircase! All haste! All haste!"

The captain of the Reales guards took in her words in an instant. The Duke of Burgundy retained twenty-five French guards at Castle Reales, and while these twenty-five men of arms were commanded by the Lord of Suffolk, commander of the English garrison at Reales, only a handful of Englishmen were actually positioned inside the castle; the garrison of one hundred men was spread over the countryside. Like all Frenchmen, the captain had no fondness for the English conquerors, yet a great deal for Lady Roshelle. He did not hesitate to choose sides.

"Draw the bridge! Secure the walls!" It was a fateful order. By drawing the bridge and manning the walls, Castle Reales could keep out the English army in Brittany for a month, maybe two, and with luck, longer. Four other men rushed forward to join the captain. Within two hours the twenty-five Reales guards soundly beat the handful of English left in the keep, manned the wall walk and held off the outraged English captain at the gate.

Castle Reales was under siege.

The reflection of the Duke of Suffolk, Vincent de la Eresman, appeared in the small gilt-framed looking glass that hung above a finely carved chest of drawers in his apartment at the Castle Gregory. The glass itself was kept for the parade of women who passed through the doors to his solar chambers. The reflection showed a strangely compelling face, but one few people found handsome; his dark features were rather too prominent for that word. Dark brows accented dark, widely spaced and intelligent eyes, eyes often filled with an amused cynicism at the sheer folly of his fellow beings. Like the beak of a bird of prey, his nose appeared hooked and far too large, as if it had met too many fists—though thankfully by the time he reached eighteen, few fists ever landed anymore. Women loved best his mouth—the way, despite his sophistication and strong, decisive voice, he could not stop the curve of an endearing, boyish kind of grin when greeting anything that pleased him. Yet this was countered by a smooth, clean-shaven skin covering his square chin, marked by a perfect cleft.

He had just brushed and tied his dark hair neatly at the nape of his neck when a soft knock sounded at the door. "Aye," bade his husky whisper as he picked up a richly embroidered cloth and dipped it in the fresh dressing water to bathe.

Bogo le Wyse, the Abbot of Suffolk and the duke's steward, opened the door and stepped inside the spacious wealth of his lord's chambers. The older man looked to the enormous feather bed, where a lovely woman slept wearing naught but a she-cat's smile, one he had seen on a hundred or more women sleeping in that bed. Saints alive, but the duke's bedroom agility was becoming as famous as the wield of his sword. Ever since the death of his second wife in childbirth, these very doors seemed open to an endless stream of women. Bogo half expected to see a line outside his master's solar every time he approached.