Once a Bride (16 page)

He would take whatever favor Edward granted, be grateful for it, then strive to add to his wealth.

And wasn’t that the way of the world? Some men were born to inherit, others had to earn their way or marry well.

Roland had chosen to earn what came his way, and she couldn’t fault him for his ambition, a trait that ran strong in the males in her family. She just wished he’d been given some other task to perform to prove his worthiness.

“Do you intend to read the writ?”

His question brought her back to her purpose.

“Nay. There is no need. I recognize the king’s seal. I trust the document gives you authority over Lelleford, as you said it does.” She put the scroll down next to the chess pieces. “I will put it with my father’s documents, of course. He will want to see it … someday.”

“Well, well. The lady relents. I had thought I would not live to see the day.”

“I am sure I do not know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do. You had hoped I could not produce the writ, thus giving you an excuse to demand I leave. Admit it, Eloise. You must now finally accept what you cannot change.”

She took a long breath. Admittance came hard, not liking that he’d seen through her scheme. Not only was he braw and nicely mannered, but intelligent as well. A lethal combination.

“Had the earl marched into your home to arrest your father and put a stranger in charge of all of the St. Marten’s holdings, how would you have felt?”

“No doubt the same as you.” He ran a hand through his raven hair, a flash of ire lit his hazel eyes. “I would be livid, disbelieving, and rebellious, defending my father with my last breath and with my sword if need be.”

“Would that I could wield a sword!”

He smiled at her heartfelt wish. Unfortunately, not only couldn’t she heft a blade, she’d been ordered to allow the earl to breech the gates without a fight.

“You would make a fierce opponent, Eloise Hamelin.”

“A compliment, Sir Roland?”

He held out his hand in the style men used to seal bargains.

“A truce, my lady?”

She stared at his hand. “You ask much.”

“I do not ask for your surrender, only that you no longer fight me at every turn. Truly, Eloise, I mean you and yours no harm.”

Except he’d already wrought havoc. With her nicely patterned life. With her beliefs about duty. With her senses.

Mostly with her senses. She hadn’t touched him yet and already she felt tingly all over from the prospect.

Unable to resist, she placed her hand in his firm grasp, and withstood the heat that shimmered through her whole being.

“Mon Dieu.”

Several heartbeats later, he admitted in a low whisper, “I know, I feel it, too.”

She looked up into hazel eyes darkened with desire. Did he truly feel the same sensations, as if her blood turned hot and sluggish?

“This should not be.”

“The attraction between us is there, whether we will it so or not.”

“But you do not like me.”

He looked genuinely confused. “I never said so.”

“You told Hugh I was too brazen, unfit for …”

What she couldn’t utter aloud, he did.

“Unfit as Hugh’s wife. Though I regret the way I told him, and that you were hurt by my words, I still believe so. You may have been a poor match for Hugh, but for another man …” He took a step forward, narrowing the space between them, and gently brushed a finger along her chin. “For another, less meek man, you might be … perfect.”

She closed her eyes and swallowed hard, gripping his hand tighter in a vain attempt to keep her mind balanced—and it wasn’t working.

“A man like you?” “I would never presume.”

One of them should pull away, end this most improper encounter. So her common sense told her. Her body, however, leaned toward his, remembering the last time she’d been sure he wanted to kiss her and found the will to withdraw.

“But you want to presume.”

“What I want is of no import. I was sent here to ensure the well-being of Lelleford and its people, including you.”

His duty be damned!

“I am not fragile, Roland. I assure you I am most capable of taking care of myself.”

For that she earned another stroke under her chin, a light touch that nearly melted her knees.

“Not fragile, but vulnerable. ’Twould be knavish of me to take advantage.”

“Then what do we do, Roland? You said yourself the attraction is there. Do we pretend it does not exist? Seems to me we have tried and failed.”

His hand cupped her cheek, a battle playing out on his rugged features. “You tempt me beyond reason, woman.”

“No more than you tempt me.”

His wry smile returned before his forehead pressed against hers, his breath warm on her face. “Have you ever been kissed, Eloise?”

“A time or two.”

“By Hugh?”

“Nay.”

Then his mouth slid over hers, gentle and moist, making her head go light and her nether regions burn. With eyes closed, she rushed headlong into unfamiliar territory and reveled in the sensations that both frightened and thrilled her.

She’d lied to him. She’d never been
kissed,
not like this.

He tasted of ale, smelled of wool and hearth smoke, and the scent that was uniquely Roland’s.

She felt him pull back, ending the too-short but stunning kiss.

“Ah, Eloise, what have I done?”

His remorse was almost more than she could bear. Hadn’t he been swept into a dreamland, too? Perhaps she needed more practice at the art. Another kiss, maybe two, and she could take him with her.

“You did very well, by my measure. Apparently I did not. Shall we try it again?”

“Nay.” He took a long breath, glanced up at the overhead beams. “Oh, my lady, nay.”

“Why ever not? I know I lack skill, but I can learn.”

He shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe what she asked of him. “Is that what you think, that you lack skill? Sweet mercy, Eloise. One more kiss like the last and I would forget who we are and …”

Abruptly, he stepped back, kissed the back of her hand that he’d held all the while, then released it. “I have to go.”

“But, Roland—”

“
One
of us has to be sensible.”

He backed up without looking, bumped into the partially open door and sent it crashing fully open. With a vile curse he spun on his heel and fled.

Shaken, Eloise lowered onto one of the nearby chairs, her hands trembling and her heart fluttering. After a moment, her muddled thoughts cleared, envisioning those last few moments in a new light.

Roland hadn’t left because she displeased him, but because he’d liked the kiss as much if not more than she. He’d been so rattled that the graceful, surefooted warrior had actually bumped into a door.

She put her fingertips to her lips, felt the soft smile on her still warm mouth.

By the saints, she shouldn’t feel smug about his imbalance. ’Twas a loathsome thing to take pleasure in his misery.

She glanced at her brothers’ beds, wondering which one Roland slept in. Probably Julius’s, under which he kept his belongings.

Roland’s thoughts must have wandered far beyond a simple kiss, to what seemed to come naturally after—if the talk she’d heard among the female servants was to be believed.

To coupling. Joining bodies. Becoming lovers.

What kind of lover would Roland be?

According to gossip, some lovers were tender and slow, others rough and quick. Some women declared the act messy, others thought it wondrous.

’Twas utterly wicked of her that she desperately wanted Roland to return, throw the latch on the door, and take her to even more unfamiliar territories.

She waited, willing her thoughts to stop dwelling on the forbidden. Chagrined that she truly waited for Roland to come back through the door, she picked up the scroll and rose, her legs still unsteady.

When she reached the door, her steps froze at the sound of voices, low and urgent, from near the servants’ stairway.

“We should not have come up here. We were nearly seen,” a young male voice complained, distraught.

“But we were not.”

Isolde?

“I will not have you suffer shame. Perhaps we should—”

Timothy?

Isolde laughed lightly. “You worry overmuch. Come. I know where we can go where no one will find us.”

“Are you sure, sweetling?”

“I am.”

The rustle of fabric. A shift of boots. “You need not carry me, Tim. I can walk down the stairs.”

Silence. Two heartbeats’ worth.

“Do you truly want me to put you down? I swear I will not drop you.”

A long sigh. A kiss?

“Aye, and are you not a big, strong lad who wields a lance with such ease? I have no fears.”

“I will not hurt you, Isolde. Not ever.”

“I know, Tim. I know.”

Eloise closed her eyes and bowed her head, hearing Tim’s boots echo off the stairs. Should she chase after the pair or let them be?

Sweet Jesu, they were so young, and Isolde so vulnerable.

Or perhaps not. Eloise remembered being ten and four, moonstruck over a knight who didn’t dare approach her because she was the lord’s daughter. Chagrined, she’d envied the other maids their secret liaisons and stolen kisses.

Neither would thank her for interfering, just as she would have been irate had anyone dared to interrupt Roland’s kiss.

Except Tim and Isolde were about to do more than kiss. And even knowing that, did she have the right to try to protect Isolde from what the maid obviously desired from Tim?

From what Eloise desired from Roland?

She closed the chamber door behind her, very aware she envied Isolde for the ease with which she took a lover, for the obvious care Tim intended to bestow.

With the king’s writ in hand, she couldn’t help thinking all the way to her father’s accounting room that Tim was indeed his knight’s squire. She was utterly sure his master would also take great pains to please his lover.

Could it be so simple, so straightforward for master and mistress? Could she take Roland by the hand and lead him off to a private place where no one would find them, where no one would know but the two of them?

Roland thought he’d made it to the battlements without anyone noticing his befuddlement or arousal. But then, he was in no shape to have done much noticing on his own. Everyone in the place might have marked his progress, noted his agitation and the bulge in his breeches, and guessed why he sought privacy.

He pressed up against the cold stone wall and turned his face to the chill of the wind.

Ye, gods.

He’d been seduced into a kiss, by Eloise, and for the life of him he couldn’t understand why he’d lowered his guard so far to allow it to happen.

Oh, Eloise was truly brazen!

He’d resisted. God knew he’d tried. But her willingness had been too apparent, the temptation too strong.

The moment she confessed that Hugh hadn’t kissed her, releasing him from the horrible feeling she might be comparing them, he’d given in.

He should have gone up to the chamber, fetched the writ, and delivered it to her down in the hall. Then he wouldn’t now know how her lips tasted, wouldn’t be suffering the demons of hell he suspected would torment him well into the night.

He’d been entrusted with Lelleford, and that meant protecting its residents, especially the lord’s daughter. Who would have thought he’d have to protect her from himself?

Wasn’t Eloise the same woman he’d warned his half brother against, who he’d thought coldhearted for her lack of tears at Hugh’s death?

No, she wasn’t, and that was part of his hell. Willful, yes, but warm and giving, too. A regal lioness, who could be made to purr.

Sweet mercy, he wanted her. How he’d managed to leave Eloise, in a chamber with a stout lock on the door and two soft beds readily available, he didn’t know.

But he had, and that was for the best, no matter how much he suffered.

She wasn’t for him, would never be.

“Then what do we do, Roland? You said yourself the attraction is there. Do we pretend it does not exist? Seems to me we have tried and failed.”

Aye, he’d failed. Miserably. Dishonorably.

And if she tempted him again, entrapped him in her sapphire gaze, tilted her chin up to an angle that showed her lips to perfection, he’d probably give in again. And again.

She wasn’t the first woman he’d kissed, far from it. But not one of his former lovers, from an endearing dairymaid on his father’s estate to a noblewoman in the king’s court, had reduced him to soft pudding, singed his soul with a mere kiss.

If he didn’t have Eloise, he’d go mad.

But he’d be mad to have Eloise.

Roland shoved away from the wall. As he saw it, he had only two choices. Leave Lelleford, which he couldn’t do, or take Eloise as his lover.

He laughed at his arrogance. As if it were his decision alone. He’d never taken a female by force, and wasn’t about to start now, especially with a woman who had no qualms about making her wishes very clear to all and sundry.

Perhaps he’d read too much in her kiss. Perhaps his own yearnings led him astray. Just perhaps, she’d bargained for no more than a simple kiss.

Except his instincts, which hadn’t failed him yet, told him he could have led Eloise over to one of the beds and she’d have let him, lain with him.

Verily, as she’d said, she wasn’t fragile. No woman he knew could speak her mind as well as Eloise. None other had her force of will. And if it was her will that they should be lovers, he’d be daft to deny her.

They would need to be discreet. Both her reputation and his position as overseer of Lelleford could be jeopardized if they were discovered. But if they were careful—

So be it. He’d not resist, but neither would he be the one to initiate an affair. If she wanted him, she’d let him know. He would let Eloise be the one to lure him into her bed so he couldn’t be accused of taking advantage of her.

Lord knew, she wouldn’t need to use much bait at all.

Chapter Ten

W
ITH THE fabric cut and stored away—stacked in the order in which she wished the garments completed—Eloise began to worry about Isolde’s whereabouts.