Margaret Moore - [Warrior 13] (6 page)

Piers stared at his boots.

Seeking to lessen his dismay, Anne reached out and chucked his chin in a playful, maternal gesture. “Now you must away and pack your baggage, for the wedding is to be at the noon tomorrow, followed by a wedding feast that the king is providing. We shall be leaving for Bridgeford Wells, where Sir Reece lives, at dawn the next day.”

Piers raised his eyes to her, and her heart ached at the hunger she saw there. “Damon agreed to let me go?”

Damon was no fit man for Piers to look up to, but Piers was still too young to see it, and he was blinded with admiration for an older sibling who, it could not be denied, usually won his fights.

Fighting was the one thing at which her half brothers did excel. In all else that made a chivalrous knight, they were woefully deficient. Yet she would not hurt Piers by revealing just how little thought they gave to his fate.

“We are all subject to the king’s commands,” she said, not lying, but leaving him free to interpret her words as he would.

Piers got to his feet. “When I am a knight, Anne, I will look after you, and I promise that you will not have to do anything you do not wish to.”

Her heart full of love for him, she rose and briefly embraced him. “Cheer up, Piers. It could be worse, as we both know. Damon could be making me marry that fat sot Lord Renfrew.”

Her brother’s eyes narrowed. “You sound pleased to be marrying Fitzroy.”

“I am making the best of it, Piers,” she replied, “as you must make the best of going to Bridgeford Wells. Plenty of young nobles your age would sell their armor for this chance.”

“I suppose.”

She recalled something else. “You said you noticed that Trevelyan Fitzroy was not in the melee. Were you looking for him in particular?”

He turned away. “As you say, Anne, I have things to do—”

She put her hand on his shoulder to hold him back, then circled so that she could see his face as she questioned him. “What were you planning on doing, Piers, if you found him?”

Her brother’s face flushed and he did not meet her gaze.

“Damon and Benedict have already meted out punishment, and more than Sir Reece deserved,” she said sternly. “Henry threatened to charge them with attempted murder if they refused to allow the marriage. There was—and is—no need for you to involve yourself with the Fitzroys, beyond learning everything Sir Urien can teach you. Do you hear me, Piers?”

He nodded, looking very much like the little boy she had mothered for so long, his bright blue eyes full of love and devotion—an ample reward for any sacrifice she made for him.

Later than night, Damon marched into a tavern in the town of Winchester, grabbed Benedict by the neck of his wine-stained tunic and hauled him to his feet. The table rocked, sending coins wagered on the dice game sliding into the ale-soaked rushes on the floor.

“Wha’ the devil?” Benedict cried as the other men seated at the battered table scrambled for the coins. “Let me go! I’m winning!”

Damon ignored Benedict as he all but dragged him from the smoky, stuffy building that stank of spilled ale and beef gravy.

Damon shoved his brother against the wall outside so hard, Benedict nearly fell. Righting himself, the brawny man glared at his thinner older brother with bloodshot eyes. “What’s the matter with you?” he snarled, his words slurred with drink.

Damon glared at him, arms akimbo. “How much did you lose this time, fool?”

“I told you, I was winning!”

“How much have you lost today?”

Benedict didn’t answer.

“All I gave you?”

Benedict shrugged.

His face full of rage, Damon raised his hand to strike, but instead shoved his brother along the street. “If I catch you gambling again, I swear I’ll take what you owe me out of your hide!”

“The estate income is my money, too,” Benedict whined. “You treat me like a child.”

“Because you damn well act like one!” They
reached another tavern, one Damon favored, and he pushed Benedict through the door.

When Benedict realized where they were, he stopped sulking and grinned. “I’ll have an ale.”

“The hell you will. You’ve had enough.” Damon sat on a bench in the corner and pulled his brother down beside him. Ignoring the rough-looking customers, he gestured for the broad-hipped serving wench, a middle-aged woman with few teeth and as tough as any seaman on the docks at Dover.

“Wine for me, Mary,” he ordered, “and none of that watered-down vinegar you try to pass off as wine.” He glanced at his brother. “Nothing for him.”

Benedict scowled and reached for his nearly empty leather pouch tucked inside his tunic. “I can pay—”

“Shut your mouth and listen,” Damon snapped, waving Mary away. When she was out of earshot, he leaned forward, speaking just loud enough for Benedict to hear. “And listen well, you sot! It’s about Fitzroy.”

“That piece of—”

“That son of a man with important friends, you dolt.”

Benedict’s mouth fell open as he regarded his wiser older brother.

“Yes, we were wrong to be angered by Henry’s decision. Our illustrious sovereign has done something that may prove very helpful.”

Benedict blinked, his duller wits obviously trying to comprehend.

Damon sighed with frustration, then explained. “Anne’s going to be married to the son of a man with important, influential friends at court. She can find out who they are, and what they’re up to. We can use that information, either to their detriment or our advantage. We’ll know who to watch, who to avoid, who to be friendly to, that sort of thing.”

Benedict’s bleary eyes narrowed. “You hate Reece Fitzroy. His father was nothing but a lowborn bastard.”

Damon made a false smile. “Well, no matter now. It’s much better to have Anne married into a household where she can provide us with all sorts of information—and not only that, we are rid of her without having to pay a dowry.”

Mary returned with the wine. Damon tossed a coin in her direction, a fiendish little smile on his face when she had to bend and retrieve it from the rushes.

Benedict eyed the wine hungrily and licked his lips as Damon gulped from the clay cup.

When he realized Damon did not intend to share, as he knew he wouldn’t but hoped nonetheless, Benedict shifted conspiratorially closer. “What of Anne? Is she agreeable?”

“Would it matter if she wasn’t?”

Benedict chuckled, a low, cruel sound. “’Spose not.”

“Exactly.” Damon set down his wine and wiped his thin lips with the back of his hand. “So here is
your part in this. You are to follow Anne to Bridgeford Wells, where she will tell you what she learns.”

“Bridgeford Wells?”

Damon grimaced as his brother’s question. “Where the Fitzroys live. You know, in Castle Gervais?”

“Oh, aye, right.”

“Oh, aye, right, indeed! Nobody must know you are her brother. Tell people you are a soldier headed home. She will find you there when she comes to the market, or a fair. She will tell you what she learns, then you will come back to court and tell me.”

Benedict grinned.

“Yes, you get to travel and stay at inns and flirt with the wenches,” Damon said sarcastically. “But if you gamble away the money I’m giving you for the journey, you’ll be on your own.”

“Why don’t
you
go, then?” Benedict asked, sulking again.

“Because I must stay at court.”

“What the hell for?”

“Because I have plans, brother, that require me to do so.”

“What plans?”

“
My
plans.” Damon’s eyes took on a superior gleam. “No need for you to concern yourself with them yet. You do think you can do as I ask, don’t you? You can remember what Anne tells you—or do I have to hire somebody else?”

“I can do it!”

Damon smiled. “I thought so. I would keep this in
the family, if I could.” He held out his wine. “Here. Finish it.”

Benedict snatched the cup from his brother and gulped it down. When he was finished and slammed the cup down on the table, he saw Damon regarding him with cold, hard eyes.

“But if you fail me in this, Benedict,” Damon said in a stern whisper, “if you are caught or cannot remember what she tells you, I will cut you adrift. No more money, no more help when you get yourself in trouble.” He leaned close again. “No more dumping bodies of the men you’ve beaten to death in the river for you, or paying off women you’ve raped so you’re not hauled off to prison like a common outlaw. Do you understand me?”

Benedict paled, for he knew that tone of voice and gleam of eye well. Damon meant these words and he would be absolutely ruthless if he decided to act upon them. “Aye, brother, I understand.”

D
ressed in her finest gown, a deep blue velvet overtunic with long sleeve slits that revealed a lighter, pale blue silken gown beneath, her blond hair enclosed in a netted cloth called a crispinette, Anne stood beside Sir Reece in front of the royal chapel while the priest—an ancient fellow who wheezed—blessed their union. She stared straight ahead, all her attention seemingly upon the elderly man. In reality, she was very aware of Sir Reece and his lean, hard muscular body but a hand’s breadth away.

The tall, broad-shouldered groom was likewise well dressed in a black tunic embroidered with gold, dark breeches and black boots. She could smell the highly polished leather of his boots and the sword belt slung low around his narrow hips. His eye was still a bloody scarlet and his bruise a mottled purple, red and yellow.

The king, queen and the entire court, the Fitzroys, Piers and her half brothers were all in attendance. She wondered what everyone was thinking, although that
concern was soon subverted. In another few moments, when the priest stopped muttering in Latin and ended the ceremony, Sir Reece would have to kiss her to seal their vows.

The priest fell silent, and she held her breath in anticipation. Sir Reece reached for her left hand. The ring, of course. That would come before the kiss.

She couldn’t help trembling, any more than she could stop herself from looking up at his bruised face and red eye as he put a plain gold ring on her finger. She watched as his long, slender and yet strong fingers caressed the ring into place while the priest intoned the final blessing that would make them husband and wife.

It was done. They were wed, at least in name. And now it was time for the kiss.

Sir Reece took her by the shoulders and her body quivered at the contact. She tilted her head back and looked up into his eyes to see…what?

Calm acceptance of a duty done? A knight’s obedience to his sovereign? The fire of desire, banked yet present nonetheless?

She honestly couldn’t tell what emotion lay behind those intriguing light-gray eyes.

And then his lips brushed gently over hers, as soft and gentle as a spring mist.

At first. For an instant.

Then his hold tightened and his lips returned, more urgent this time. His mouth covered hers firmly, kissing her properly.

Completely. Wonderfully—so wonderfully, her whole body seemed alive from the touch.

Closer he held her, and the kiss deepened, taking her to different awareness of his body against hers, the strength of him, the power. The desire coursing through her, a feeling totally new to her. A carnal pleasure such as she had never known or imagined.

Suddenly, for the first time, she understood why a woman would break the laws of God and society to be with a man.

Reece ended the kiss abruptly and stepped back. His chest rose and fell as rapidly as hers, making her wonder if he felt as overwhelmed by that kiss as she did.

She could still read nothing in his enigmatic expression.

The king, however, seemed very well pleased, for he applauded. “Let us adjourn to the wedding feast,” he cried, taking his wife’s arm to lead the way.

Anne did not think she could eat a morsel.

“Shall we, Anne?” Reece said as he tucked her arm in his to lead her to the wedding feast, his hard muscle beneath her hand while they followed the royal couple into the hall.

Anne. He called her Anne. Her name sounded wonderful when spoken in his rich deep voice.

Oh, would that Damon had not come up with his disgusting plan! If only he did not control Piers’s life the way he did hers! If only she could be truly married to this man and both she and Piers free of Damon forever!

Yet they were not free, and until that day, she must do as Damon commanded.

She forced herself to act as if all were well, or at least as if she were not distraught and angry. She would display nothing of her feelings, just like Reece.

So she tried to concentrate on the fine feast, even though she knew the bountiful largesse was more to appease the king’s need for display than generosity toward the couple he was forcing into matrimony.

Mercifully Damon and Benedict were not at the high table, nor were any of Sir Reece’s relatives and friends. Piers was seated between Damon and Benedict, but for once, that did not disturb her. Soon, he would be away from them, and in better company.

Despite the magnificent array of dishes—had there ever been so many sauces or roasted fowl at a meal?—she really could not eat.

Instead she surreptitiously watched the groom. His long, slender fingers curled around his goblet and lifted it to his incredible lips. There was a fluidity to his every movement that she found fascinating. He did not wolf down his food like Benedict, or pick at it like Damon.

When Reece reached for a small loaf of fine white bread set before him, he slowly began to tear it into smaller pieces, every action deliberate, and with a sort of masculine grace.

She began to imagine those hands on her body. Touching. Caressing. Exploring. Arousing…

“Anne!”

She started and found Reece giving her a puzzled look. “The queen is talking to you, Anne,” he said quietly.

“Oh.”

Very good, Anne,
she inwardly chided. She sounded like a fool. And once she had dared to imagine herself the queen of clever banter!

Eleanor regarded her with an indulgent expression, as if Anne were a child. “I was saying, my dear, that you must take Lisette with you to your new home.”

Anne forgot her annoyance. “Majesty?”

“She is quite attached to you. I think it would be a great pity not to take her with you. You have no objections, I trust, Sir Reece?”

Her husband’s face was stoic in the extreme as he shook his head. “Of course not, Your Majesty.”

Eleanor leaned back. “I thought not.”

Anne glanced at Reece uneasily. Forced to marry, forced to accept her brother into his household, now forced to have a servant he probably didn’t need. What was the queen doing? Trying to enrage him? To make their married life even more difficult? Or did she think she was doing Anne a favor? To be sure, she liked Lisette, and could find no fault with the girl’s work, and yet Anne found it easy to think Eleanor had an ulterior motive. She had seen the way the queen seemed to dominate Henry.

Perhaps she enjoyed exerting control over people’s lives. Perhaps it suited Eleanor to see an English noble miserably wed. Perhaps it even amused her.

Anne bristled anew at that thought. It was one thing to be made to do something by an overpowering brother or a king for political reasons; it was quite another to be forced to do something for another person’s amusement.

She waited until the queen was talking to the king, then she leaned closer to Reece. “I like Lisette,” she whispered, “but if you do not wish to have her in your household—”

He regarded her steadily with his cool gray eyes. “I have no more choice in this than I do in my bride. As the queen commands, so will Henry, and so I must obey.”

He did not sound angry, and she took some comfort from that. Indeed, the prospect of having the cheerful Lisette for a companion was growing more appealing by the moment, now she knew that didn’t upset Reece.

The servants arrived to clear away what remained of the food, and the minstrels struck up a louder, brighter tune for dancing.

“Sir Reece, you and your bride must join us in a dance,” the king declared as he got to his feet and held out his hand to Eleanor.

Reece clenched his jaw, then forced a companionable smile onto his face. As the king commanded in this, so, too, they must do, yet he would truly rather face a screaming horde of Saracens than touch Anne again.

When they were formally joined in matrimony and he had merely brushed his lips across hers to seal the
joining, he had felt a jolt of raw desire so strong, he had nearly lost himself, powerless to stop.

Indeed, the moment his lips met hers, if was as if his mind and body were taken over by the very spirit of desire and need. He forgot that she was a Delasaine and their marriage forced; he forgot about the necessary annulment and his vow not to make love with her.

But only for an instant, before his resolve reasserted itself. He must be free of her, for she was a Delasaine, when all was said and done, and no passionate, incredible kiss was going to change that.

With grim determination to do what he must and be done, he rose and held out his hand to escort her to the center of the hall, where the tables were rapidly being taken down to clear a space for dancing. Her face expressionless, Anne silently and obediently let him lead her forth and he forced himself to pay no heed to the pleasurable feeling of her warm, slender hand in his.

He was no green youth, after all. When his marriage was ended, he would hold other hands. None might be as graceful, or so fascinating. None might be so easy to imagine brushing over his aroused body—

He must stop this!

As those who were to dance formed a circle, he became acutely conscious of the scrutiny of everyone else in the hall, especially that of the Delasaines and his own companions. Clenching his jaw, he ignored them as his beautiful, serene wife glided around the
circle as if she always danced and never walked like mere mortals.

He could and would restrain this wayward, foolish, impossible excitement singing through his body, encouraging him to seek a different, more primitive dance as old as mankind itself.

He would disregard the throbbing drumbeat of the tabor that seemed to set his own heart pounding with passion. He would pay as little heed as possible to Anne.

As the dance required, he clapped and turned, and found the queen his partner for the next few steps. He gave her his very best smile and wondered how she felt when she was betrothed to Henry. Did she know she was not Henry’s first choice?

In his youth the king had fallen in love with the sister of the king of the Scots, but that match had been deemed politically unsuitable. Did Eleanor care, since she had gotten him at last? Either way, it was very clear to him that she was determined to rule Henry, if not the entire kingdom. As recent events had so forcefully demonstrated, she had already succeeded to a certain extent.

The barons of the kingdom would not be pleased. They had achieved much because of the weakness of Henry’s father, John, and then during Henry’s subsequent minority. They would not be anxious to give up their influence, especially to a French woman.

Another hand clap and turn, and he was once more facing Anne—a much pleasanter prospect, although
perhaps one no less fraught with political consequences, at least until he could get the annulment.

The dance required them to touch, palms together, as they circled. He couldn’t avoid watching her profile as they moved. The straight nose. The full and sensual lips. Her shapely, delicately arched brows that seemed to be always asking a question of him. The curve of her jaw. Her slender neck and the pulse beating there.

This beautiful woman was his wife, to look at but not love.

He realized he was perspiring like a youth dancing with a pretty girl for the first time and like a youth, he hoped she didn’t notice.

Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous.

At last, the music ended. With a relieved sigh, he bowed stiffly to Anne, then turned to bow to the queen.

When he faced Anne again, he discovered Blaidd Morgan standing beside his wife.

“Sit down, boy,” Blaidd genially commanded. “You look like you’re about to swoon. The side aching, is it?”

“No, my side is not aching.”
Much.
Genial or not, Blaidd Morgan had no right to order him about and certainly no right to call him “boy,” as if he were ten years old. “I’m fine,
lad.
”

Blaidd grinned and ran a skeptical gaze over him. “Are you, indeed? Well, well, then I shall simply have to confess that I want to dance with the most beautiful
woman at court—saving the queen, of course,” he added as Eleanor and the king strolled past.

Short of ordering his friend not to dance with his wife, there wasn’t much Reece could do.

He looked at Anne. Her expression was…well, there wasn’t much of an expression on her face at all. There wasn’t pleasure, anyway and so, he decided, subduing his completely unnecessary and foolish jealousy, he would go and sit down.

As for what Blaidd was up to, he could guess. It was as he had said. He wanted to dance with the most beautiful woman at court.

He was surprised that Blaidd hadn’t already noticed her and tried for more, like following Anne into a secluded corridor. He wondered how Anne would have reacted if Blaidd the merry and charming had followed her instead.

He doubted the Delasaines would have behaved any differently, for Blaidd Morgan’s father had been a shepherd before the Welsh-Norman lord Reece was named after had taken him under his wing. While Baron Emryss DeLanyea was well liked and respected, the Delasaines would only care that Hu Morgan was but his foster son, and therefore had no noble blood in his veins. Like his own father, Hu Morgan had achieved his rank by merit, not by birth.

These were the sort of excellent men Reece intended to represent at court, once he rid himself of his unsuitable wife, and this was what should be foremost in his thoughts.

As a disgruntled Reece neared Gervais and the others, they motioned him to join them. He did not want to sit at the high table with the king and queen any more than he had to, and they were talking with other nobility anyway, so he did.

“How do you like
our
plan?” Kynan demanded in a conspiratorial whisper the moment Reece sat on the bench between Gervais and the Welshman.

“What plan is that?” Reece replied, his voice likewise hushed.

“Why, to keep her away from you this evening,” Kynan replied. “Or, despite what you said, you away from her.”

“Yes,” Gervais grimly agreed. “I thought you wanted an annulment.”

“I do.”

“Didn’t look like it to us. You could hardly keep from staring at her during the feast and the dancing.”

“I only looked at her once or twice,” Reece protested, certain that was so.