Chosen for the Marriage Bed (13 page)

Chapter Eleven

‘R
ichard. I miss David.’

Richard had just returned home after accompanying Robert and Anne along the March on part of their journey back to Moccas. He had been away almost two weeks. Elizabeth refused to admit either to him or to herself how much she had missed him. The days of Richard’s absence had hung heavily. Hardly waiting for him to dismount from his horse, she had followed him to his bedchamber.

Richard seemed not to have heard her, so she tried again. ‘I wish David was here.’

‘I know.’ Richard eased his thick leather jerkin from his shoulders, un buck led his sword with a sigh of relief. ‘And I see no remedy for it as long as David is under your uncle’s authority. Perhaps when he’s older he’ll make a bid for freedom.’

Elizabeth pursed her lips. Increasingly estranged from her family, there had been no letters, no communication of any nature. Not that she had expected any, but she missed David and, when Richard was absent in the March and she was alone at night, she wept and dreamed of Lewis.

‘Perhaps. But I wish I knew…’

‘You wish you knew whose hand was on the blade, or whose gold bought the deed. You wish you knew whether it was mine.’

Uncomfortable, embarrassed, Elizabeth frowned down at her clenched fingers, astonished at how intuitively Richard could follow her train of thought.

‘And I can do nothing to help you,’ he continued as he stretched his hand to turn her face to his. ‘Except perhaps this…’

Surprising her, he leaned forwards, his hand sliding around the nape of her neck to draw her close, then rested his lips against hers. A light caress of mouth against mouth, until the soft pressure hesitated, withdrew until a breath separated them, then returned, warmed, deepened. The kiss lasted longer than either expected. Nor did Richard release her when he lifted his lips, but continued to cradle her face in his palms. His eyes searched her face as he clearly followed a thought.

It had surprised him, and still did. A lot of things had surprised him recently. Like how much he had missed his wife over the previous days. How he had found his thoughts re turning again and again to what she might be doing, his over whelming concern being whether she was safe in his absence, whether she was content. Did she perhaps miss him? He dared not think along those lines, yet was forced to admit that he missed her. No, he had not expected this, and was uncomfortable with it. He frowned at her upturned face, held softly between his palms. The distrust was still there, however much he might try to deny it, and not much he could do about it, as he had just acknowledged. But the kiss had stirred his blood, his loins. He would like nothing better than to push her back on to the bed, strip her of that heavy woollen gown, no matter how elegant it might be, and re discover the slender length of firm pale skin beneath. Nothing better than to stretch over her, flesh sliding against flesh, and bury himself in her to assuage the imperative demand that must be as obvious to her as to him. He could do all of that immediately…

He was brought back to the present, reminded that he was frowning at her, when Elizabeth touched her fingers to his face, in an attempt to reassure him. ‘I don’t mean to blame you, you know.’

‘No. I don’t suppose you do, but the wound doesn’t heal, does it?’ She winced at the bleakness, but Richard shook his head to clear his mind of sheer rampant desire and deal with Elizabeth’s anxieties. He found it was becoming a need in him to do so. ‘Well, my troubled wife, it’s as quiet in the March as it will ever be. I could take you to Talgarth, I suppose, to visit your brother.’

‘You could.’ She discovered that she was holding her breath, not just from the kiss, but willing him to make the decision, to take the risk.

‘I’ll not willingly put your life in any jeopardy,’ Richard said, weighing up the dangers. ‘But Sir John can, I presume, be trusted to deal with us in a civilised manner on his territory. He would not choose to soil his own lair. And you are of his own blood after all. Lady Ellen would be more than pleased to welcome you.’ He smiled at her, suddenly, devastatingly, warming her blood. ‘I’ll send a messenger to tell him we’ll come. Then he can have no excuse that he was taken by surprise,’ he added, drily cynical. ‘I’d not wish to be repulsed as an invading force.’

‘It’s David’s birthday within two weeks.’

‘Well, then. What better time for a loving sister to visit her brother?’

Elizabeth returned his smile, and on impulse leaned forwards to press a fleeting brush of her lips to the corner of his mouth. An impromptu gesture that surprised her as much as it surprised him.

‘We seem to be very much in agreement suddenly, my wife!’

‘Do we not.’

‘If you can arrange for some hot water, perhaps you would care to help me scrub the dust and debris of the roads from my suffering skin? Then I might be in a fit state to kiss you properly. As well as other gestures of my esteem…’ His glance speculative, he brushed the pad of his thumb along the line of her jaw. ‘And you can welcome me home in a manner completely suitable for a wife to show her appreciation of her lord.’

Swiftly Richard drew her close, hard against him, regardless of the dust and sweat, and captured her mouth with his. His hand smoothed slowly down her side, along the length of her from breast to hip. Came to a stop. He lifted his head. His hand moved again, to stroke over the fullness of hip, the dip of waist, back to the undeniable swell of breast.

She looked up quizzically, but with a glint of mischief.

‘Curves, are they? Now when did you get these?’

Pleasure rippled through her, from her own sat is faction and Richard’s awareness. Her reply was for Elizabeth positively arch. ‘When you were not looking, it seems.’

‘Perhaps I should look more closely.’ Richard again framed her face with his hands, now aware of the flattering fullness that overlay her cheek bones, drawing attention to her magnificent eyes, the delicate arch of dark brows. The renewed demand in his loins, the force of his erection, thundered in his head. And this time his mouth held a heated promise that tingled through her blood, into her bones. ‘Can we manage the hot water soon?’ he whispered against the curve of her throat.

‘It can be arranged, my lord,’ she gasped, now as aware as he. ‘Immediately.’

Elizabeth turned away to hide the sudden rush of heat to her face, the pleasure that sang in her heart. Yes, she had missed him, whatever her doubts and uncertain ties, and she would welcome him home.

‘So, what would you wager, lady? Will they open the gates? Or will Sir John drive us off in a hail of arrows?’ Richard shifted in his saddle as his substantial armed escort drew rein on a slight rise, allowing them to look down on the principal source of power of the de Lacy family. Before them rose the brooding grey walls, the raised draw bridge and lowered portcullis of Talgarth.

Elizabeth did not know. Solid in her chest was a knot of fore boding and she under stood Richard’s reluctance. ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t have come.’

‘It was not my choice, if you recall,’ he responded sardonically.

Elizabeth glanced across at the compressed lips, the heavily engraved line between his brows. ‘I’m sorry. But you did agree.’

There was no softening in him, instead the brutal truth. ‘I had to bring you to prove to you I have David’s interests at heart, did I not, after you and your family would accuse me of murdering Lewis!’

Which made Elizabeth bite her tongue. Such residual bitterness still between them when Richard let down his guard. The accusations of Sir John, and her own ambivalent acceptance of his oath to her that he was innocent, still rankled. The edgy silence between them stretched uneasily.

‘There’s a magpie on the branch to our left.’ Behind them Jane Bringsty muttered with a hunch of her shoulders, apropos of nothing at all. ‘It’s looking at us. It’s not a good omen.’

No one replied to that. Elizabeth cast a glance at the iridescent magnificence of the bird. No, it was not a good omen, but they had come this far. She shortened her reins and kicked her mount on to Talgarth.

The Malinders were to spend only two days at Talgarth. They were not turned away at the gates of the massive barbican, but it was made clear that they were accepted within the walls under sufferance. As their horses and escort were led away to their accommodations, the Malinders were bowed into the Great Hall with all the chilly hauteur that Sir John would have accorded an enemy whose presence he must tolerate. There on the dais stood Sir John himself with cold eyes, Lady Ellen smiling bravely at his side, risking her lord’s disfavour with any show of warmth. Behind them Master Capel, black and brooding as one of the crows that gave their harsh cries over the battlements. Or perhaps more likely a bird of prey, Elizabeth decided, as she felt the power of the hooded eyes rest on them. And then there was David, who responded immediately as his heart prompted. Despite the warning lift of Sir John’s hand, he leapt from the dais to hug his sister with obvious pleasure.

‘Elizabeth! And Richard. I have so much to tell you. It is an age since…well, since I saw you last.’ Elizabeth felt relief flood her body at his obvious well-being. But the relief was short-lived. For the bright welcome in his face was suddenly quenched, as a candle-flame under a snuffer, his lips folded in a straight line, giving his face an edgy maturity. There was trouble here, if she were not mistaken. But she could hardly broach that until they were alone.

‘I think you have grown,’ she merely stated instead. ‘You are almost as tall as I.’

David would have replied, but was called to order by Sir John, who brusquely acknowledged the presence of the visitors in his home. Richard replied with equal composure and a curt inclination of his head. Ellen expressed her quiet pleasure. Master Capel preserved his habitual silence. Then the Malinders were shepherded away to the guest chambers.

‘Do you know the sign against the evil eye?’ Richard murmured to Elizabeth as they climbed the stair behind Sir John’s uncommunicative steward.

Elizabeth, brows climbing at such an unexpected request, glanced around to Jane, who followed close behind. Jane looked away. ‘Yes,’ she admitted.

‘Then I suggest you use it. For all our sakes.’

‘Master Capel?’ Elizabeth too had picked up the strange implacability behind the calm stare that had flickered over the guests. It had been almost impossible to overlook it. The fervour, almost antagonism, the eyes that would search out every secret, every weakness. Elizabeth shivered at the memory.

Richard waited until the steward had gone, the door closed. ‘Master Capel indeed. I wonder what his role might be in this house hold? What can possess Sir John to keep such a man at his side?’

‘They say he is a necromancer,’ Jane Bringsty interjected with flat certainty.

Elizabeth sighed. ‘So I think. I don’t like to think of David being here.’

‘No. Nor I.’ Richard cast an eye around the rooms assigned to them. ‘Capel makes me think of bats and toads.’ He grimaced at his fanciful thoughts as he strode to look out of the window to the mist-shrouded hills of Brecon that hemmed them in. ‘I shall be glad to be gone from this place. It encourages me to sleep with my sword beneath my pillow.’

They had brought David a gift. A dark grey falcon with heavily barred wings and tail, complete with decorative jesses and bells and tasselled hood. A handsome bird from Richard’s own mews, a bird that would fly true and give David much enjoyment. But the lad was neither to see nor to appreciate the gift. Not an hour after their arrival it was announced that the young lord had fallen foul of a fever that would keep him to his bed. When Elizabeth, in sudden panic, insisted on seeing him, she was allowed to do so, to discover her brother propped against banked pillows, only semi-conscious, hot and uncomfortable, his face flushed and his skin dusted with a light rash. He tossed and turned under her hand on his forehead, neither recognising her nor responding to her voice. Master Capel stood in close at ten dance beside the bed, hands folded over his black robes.

‘What’s wrong with him?’ Elizabeth demanded, anxiety not quite replacing her dislike of the man.

‘Nothing untoward, my lady.’

‘The pestilence?’ She could hardly swallow as she spoke the dread word. ‘I don’t think it is, but—’

‘No. It’s not the pestilence. There’s nothing to fear, my lady.’ Master Capel’s voice was deep and surprisingly gentle. Much as she imagined the velvety tones of the snake to be when it tempted Eve to bite into the apple. ‘One of those sudden fevers to which young men often fall prey when they outgrow their strength. He’ll recover soon enough with rest and sleep.’

‘What are you doing for him?’ She closed her hand over one of David’s restless, unquiet ones. ‘I have some knowledge of fevers. I could—’

‘There’s no need, my lady. I have my own methods.’ He advanced to lift her to her feet from the stool beside the bed, one hand firmly beneath her arm so that she found that she had no choice. ‘I advise you to leave now. Your brother should be left in peace. And if the fever
should
prove to be contagious, I would not wish your ladyship to suffer for your kind visit here.’

‘You think I am in danger?’

‘No.’ His eyes fixed on her face, full of inner knowledge, full of kind understanding. She could almost believe him to be sincere. ‘But your well-being is of our utmost concern. You must carry an heir for Ledenshall. A son who will one day claim the Malinder lands.’

‘Well…’ She hesitated at this unexpected turn in the conversation. ‘Of course, it is my hope.’

‘Your uncle has a concern for you that his brusque manner might some times disguise.’

‘And,’ as Elizabeth informed Richard later, ‘I was then swept out of the room as if I were a servant who was in the way. And what’s more, I am for bid den to return there, for the sake of my own health.’

‘Is David in danger?’ Richard watched as his wife prowled their chamber, as tense as a hunting vixen.

‘He says not.’ She lifted her shoulders infrustration. ‘I do not know. But the fever attacked very suddenly, and Master Capel holds the keys to David’s room. How can I not worry?’