By Design (24 page)

S
HE APPROACHED
the lord's chair in the hall. The wrong man sat in it, a man too young and too complex. He appraised her with the kind of interest that the last lord had never shown
.

Grief had killed her fear of him. The last days' horrors had turned her numb. She knew what he wanted, but she had already decided that she would kill herself first
.

He looked her over possessively. It had been thus since he first saw her. She had assumed that first day that he would violate her, but he had not
.

“
You will sit here and eat, Joan. I will not have you pine
.”

She took the place beside him. His solicitous tone made her bitterness spill out. Its heat felt like boiling water thrown on the ice of her heart. “You did not have to kill Piers.”

“He challenged me. It was ungrateful of him. I spared him when the keep fell, because we had once fought for the same lord. He repaid me by threatening my person.”

“You forced him to the challenge. You have been too familiar with me. He is … he was my betrothed, my husband in God's eyes. His honor and mine left him no choice but to challenge you, despite his wounds, and you knew it.”

He smiled mildly. A charming smile, but deadly in its brittle line. “Aye, your husband. Now he no longer stands between us, as fate would have it.”

She understood suddenly. She saw the horrible truth. Piers had been lured into that challenge. It had all been deliberate, decided once Guy learned what Piers was to her. It had been a game to this knight, with her both the bait and the prize
.

“You are a madman if you think his death makes me more willing. I only hate you the more.”

He sipped his wine too calmly. His eyes glinted with triumph. “You will be mine, and you will be willing. You may bring me only your hatred at first, but that will change. Your safety depends on my favor.”

“Do you think that I care about my safety? I hope that someday you know defeat, and learn how death can be a gift when all you love has been destroyed.”

He looked her over again. The lust glowing in his eyes made her stomach turn
.

He turned his head, and stared at something in the hall. “Not all that you love has been destroyed. I have been generous.”

Her gaze followed his. She saw what absorbed his attention. Her brother Mark sat with the servants. A chill prickled her neck and shivered down her back
.

His hand covered hers. “It is not mere lust, Joan. I can satisfy that without cost, and we both know it. But your beauty and manner entrance me, and I am besotted enough to want you to accept me of your own choice.”

Rebellion surged for an instant, but she forced it into submission. She gave up all hope at that moment, and tasted the bitter bile of surrender
.

The nightmare faded away, and she knew it had been a dream even as she lived its last moments.

She drifted out of sleep peacefully. No drowning panic. No desperate entrapment. The silver light of dawn barely gave form to the man whose arm and hand rested possessively across her hips, but she did not need to see him to know who it was. Care and kindness could be felt in the weight of his touch.

She should wake him. He would be late to the palace. But the sweet protection of his embrace made the reemer-gence of the world gradual and manageable. The light of reality intruded into the chamber slowly, illuminating the scene of last night's intimacy.

The dreamy memories of their lovemaking summoned a flush of embarrassment and confusion.

If she had known how far it would go, she might not have let it start. She had never guessed that pleasure could consume one's whole being. She had not suspected that the right man's caress could soothe both physical and spiritual needs.

For a while. Up to a point. The memory of her failure embarrassed her anew.

She had probably made a mistake last night. In her need for his warmth and strength she had started something that she could not complete, but did not know how to stop.

His hand pressed her nakedness more firmly, and eased her nearer. She turned her head and his perceptive eyes looked back. Not sleeping. He had stayed to wait for her to wake. He had known that the new day would bring misgivings.

He kissed her breast, only in affection, but it aroused her anyway. He had discovered a part of her that would never be able to hide from him again, and he knew it.

“You will be very late,” she said.

“I answer to no one there.” He stretched and swung up.

He went to the door and opened it, and came back with a bucket of water. “Do you want me to speak with your brother, or will you?”

She stared at the bucket. Of course Mark would be awake by now. When he had brought the water up, the empty solar had confirmed where she had spent the night.

“I will,” she said, not looking forward to that at all.

While Rhys washed and dressed, she found her shift and pulled it on. His reference to Mark spoke of his assumptions about how things had changed between them, and his expectations for the future.

She had not considered that. She had not weighed anything last night. It had just happened, and her raw emotions had not wanted to contemplate the consequences.

Her happiness took on a flavor of nostalgia. She could not stay in this house, yet deny what had occurred. Nor could she pretend that there would be more. That would be heartless and insulting.

She began to get up. “I will get some food ready.”

He came over and stood by the bed's edge so she could not leave. “I will find something.”

“I should … we should …” His gaze did not let her finish. He knew what she was thinking:
We should find a way to put this spilt wine back in its barrel
.

“You do not run away anymore, Joan. I will not let you. I warned you that I am not selfless in this.” He bent and kissed her. “Nor will you leave anytime soon. What you have to do can wait a while.”

At least he spoke as if he understood this could not continue very long. Her tangled emotions found vague relief in that.

“When you talk to Mark, tell him that there is no need for two pallets in the kitchen anymore. You will sleep here with me.”

He left, and she got up and straightened the bed. She
washed slowly, wanting to delay facing her brother. She did not even have clothes here. She would have to go down as she had come up, dressed only in her shift.

She heard no shouting. Mark had not confronted Rhys. When she descended the stairs and entered the kitchen, she knew why.

Mark sat by the window, staring out to the garden. At her sound he turned to her. Her heart thudded at the sight of him. It was not a boy who pierced her with fiery eyes. A young man, face chiseled by anger, raked her with his gaze.

Nay, he had not said a word to Rhys. He had saved it all for her.

He reached for the rose gown piled on the bench beside him and threw it at her. “Get dressed.”

She put it on, feeling childish and flustered under his watch. Their ages might have been reversed this morning, with him seven years older than she instead of the other way around.

“So he expects you to whore for him now?”

She could not explain what had happened last night, but it had not been that, and not only because it had been incomplete.

“He has wanted you from the start, but I thought that he would leave the decision to you.”

“The choice was mine.”

“Oh, aye, but a devil's choice. He gave us a decent home and decent food, and waited until we grew accustomed to it before making his bed part of the bargain. That is what happened yesterday, isn't it? The last move in his game. He said that you had to go to him or leave, didn't he? That is why you were so distraught when you returned.” His jaw clenched and he glanced away. “I will not let you sell yourself to feed me. I will see us both dead first.”

“It was not like that. He is not like that.”

“He is a man, sister, and in this we are all the same.”

“He is not.”

He suddenly comprehended. His eyes burned hotter. “You have affection for this mason?”

His incredulous tone rankled her. “Aye,” she said sharply.

The storm that had been building in him for three years broke. The last few weeks had seen that tempest calm, but now it swirled out of him. “Eager for it or not, you were not born to be a leman to a craftsman.”

“I was not born to work clay, either. Or live in a shack. Or wear rags.”

“Do you see this as an improvement? Have you found contentment suddenly in this man's house? Have you found happiness in his bed? Will you forget everything because he shows you a little pleasure and feeds you meat?”

“I did not say that.”

“A good thing that you did not, because our fates are tied together. I will never forget what that fate should be, even if you can be wooed into accepting what has happened by a few cast-off gowns and a dry feather bed. I am your blood, your male kin, and I remind you that you can give yourself to no man without my say.”

Black resentment filled her mind. Not just his tone raised her temper, but also the way he spoke of Rhys. “How dare you tell me of your rights over my person. How dare you accuse me of being bought. I have been humbled as much as you. If I choose to forget it briefly while I know some kindness and affection, you will not stop me or interfere.”

“It is not the brief forgetting that I worry about, sister. It is the lure to forget forever. The poverty of the tile yard could not break you, but the peace and ease of this life might.” He rose. “I have left it all to you too long. I am
thinking that it is time that I lead this battle, rather than let myself depend on a woman's inconstant will.”

“Inconstant! I have never wavered. For three years I have slaved to make it right, and to preserve your pride.”

“It is not my pride that concerns me, but yours. He is making you lose sight of who you are, and where you belong. You were brought so low that this looks like salvation.”

“That is not true!”

“It is written all over you.” He stomped into the hall, and his footsteps sounded on the stairs. Moments later he returned, the longbow and quiver in his hands.

He went to the stable for the butt. For the next two hours, while she mixed and kneaded bread and began the evening soup, he let arrow after arrow fly. The whistles formed a sickly melody that sang of his anger.

She paused and watched him through the open door. He looked so tall now, and broad in ways she had not much noticed before. He stood like a man, and not an awkward youth. The repeated pull of the string did not tire him.

How long had it been happening? Some time, she guessed, only he had not confided to her the decisions he debated in his heart, and the memories that tormented his soul. He had run away from them, much as she had, but last night, for some reason, he had no longer been able to do so. He had turned away from his childhood and embraced his manhood in those dark hours, and she had not been there to console him.

Finally, the deadly whistles stopped. He put the butt away, and carried the longbow into the kitchen. He stood behind her while she stirred.

“How much coin do you have?” he asked.

“Not enough.”

“How much?” A demand this time.

“A little over two pounds.”

“Give me one of them.”

She turned, hands on hips. “Nay. I earned it, and I will keep it, and I will deal with this as I have always planned to.”

“Not soon enough.”

She could not argue with that. The years had proven him right. “What do you want with the coin?”

“I am going to buy a sword. I should be able to get an old one for that.”

“You do not know—”

“I know the basics, and can practice them, at least. I can build my strength, and look to learn more. Give me the money, Joan. It is time. In fact, it is past time.”

She wanted to argue with him, but she could see too plainly that her advice had become meaningless. A boy might obey his sister, but a man does not.

She felt behind the stack of fuel for the small purse that she had hidden there. She thumbed out the precious coins. She tried to keep her heart-gripping worry out of her voice. “Promise me that you will not do anything rash. Promise me that you will give yourself the time to learn—”

“Does Rhys know about us?” He took the coins and tucked them away.

“Nay.”

“I did not think so. His attention flattered you, and you knew his interest would cool if he knew.”

“That is not why.”

“Then why? Do you not trust him? Did you spend the night in the bed of a man whom you doubt?”

Did she? She looked to her heart and knew that she did not doubt Rhys anymore. He would not betray or hurt her for his own gain or safety.

But that only meant that now she endangered him, instead of the other way around.

“Do not tell him,” Mark said. “If he does not know, he will let us stay a while longer. That will give me the time to learn.”

“It will take years for you to gain the skill to meet Guy.”