Once a Bride (7 page)

Her bottom lip trembled. Her eyes misted, and damn if he didn’t feel a responding tremor in his innards, which he quickly squelched. She indulged in self-pity, ’twas all, an emotion he couldn’t abide.

“Perhaps you become overset because you remind yourself of your plight so forcefully.”

“I am
not
overset!”

With that she spun around and strode over to close the window shutters. One stuck open, and after she struggled with it to no avail, he reluctantly went to her aid.

A mistake. He’d forgotten how he’d battled throughout supper to ignore the tang of Eloise’s scent. How much willpower he expended to keep from drifting toward her in an effort to identify what spice or pungent flower emitted so keen yet pleasing a fragrance.

With a sharp, effective rap the shutter closed.

He should move away, except his feet refused to move.

Eloise looked up at him with moist eyes, reflecting her own befuddlement. She didn’t move either, simply stood still and silent in his shadow, too close and far too vibrant and tempting.

Eloise’s appeal drew male reaction as if iron to lode-stone, and Roland cursed the part of his body that swelled in perfectly understandable male response to an enticing female. The response might be natural, but succumbing wasn’t permissible. Not when he had to make her understand she must submit to his authority. Not when the vision of Eloise entwined with Hugh remained too fresh in his vivid imagination.

He stepped back. “Perhaps you will find the situation more easily tolerated on the morn.”

“Will you still be here? And the earl?”

“Aye.”

“Then the situation will still be intolerable. Pray send Isolde in when you leave.”

A regal dismissal. He should take umbrage, but couldn’t think of a good reason to argue, and hated that she was probably right about tomorrow, especially if Sir John continued to elude capture.

“Do you think they found a dry place in which to shelter, milady?”

From her cross-legged position in the middle of her bed, Eloise glanced over at where Isolde was tucked into her pallet. The only light in the room came from glowing coals in the elegant brass brazier they’d lit against the chill of a stormy night.

“Likely.” The weak assurance didn’t ease her worry over her father and undoubtedly wouldn’t satisfy Isolde’s concern for her brother.

“Sir John did right to take Edgar with him,” Isolde stated. “My brother knows these lands and the castle nigh as well as his lordship.”

Eloise heard both fear and pride. Whatever fate awaited Sir John, Edgar would share in it. When this was over, the squire would either be rewarded handsomely or hang beside the lord he served.

She shivered, blaming the thinness of her white linen nightrail, and glanced down at the parchment in her lap. Somehow, she’d concluded, Edgar must have snuck into Lelleford and placed the message on her bed. How, she didn’t know, but ’twas the only reasonable explanation.

“Both Father and Edgar are resourceful. I just wish I knew how to alert them to what goes on here.”

Especially to Roland St. Marten’s role in the affair. Even if, as her father seemed to believe, Kenworth would leave soon, Father shouldn’t return only to be caught unaware of Roland’s presence.

She’d certainly been caught unaware earlier.

After managing to ignore him all through supper, she’d been forced to deal with Roland in her chamber, a place she never dreamed to encounter him. She might have successfully hidden the message from him, but not her unruly emotions.

Eloise couldn’t remember when she’d last allowed her tears to surface in anyone’s presence. Always, if tears threatened too hard, she sought privacy. Too, crying inevitably left her weak and drained, and she so detested losing control she’d learned how to ruthlessly maintain her composure.

She had
not
been overset. The tears had surfaced, but not flowed. But it had been damn hard to withhold them when Roland’s deeply timbered voice rumbled through her with a surprising offer of comfort.

Damn the man. She neither wanted nor appreciated his attempt at courtesy. He was the enemy, the invader. The despicable toad who’d tried to convince his half brother not to marry her.

One brief and oddly tender encounter didn’t absolve him of his sins against her. Nor did the few happier moments they’d shared before he’d proved false count in his favor.

She’d been so sure of his good opinion. On one occasion in particular. Roland had come into the stable while she was there, and at the time she fancied he’d sought her out apurpose. They’d spent a long time companionably admiring each other’s horses.

He’d appreciated the grace and heart of her elderly mare; she’d admired the elegance and power of his stallion. He’d impressed her with his charm and wit, and she’d basked in his gallantry. ’Twas a shame, she’d thought then, that Roland was the youngest of his bevy of siblings, still a squire with hardly a copper to his name, and not the immediate heir to his father’s barony.

Her disloyalty to Hugh had caused her a twinge of guilt, which worsened when she overheard how little Roland thought of her, then nearly became unbearable with Hugh’s death.

In her head she knew her unwise preference for Roland hadn’t brought on Hugh’s death, but her heart whispered of divine punishment.

Isolde sat up on her pallet. “Milady, ye do not think to try to warn them, do ye? ’Twould be foolhardy and dangerous.”

Jarred out of her musings, Eloise glanced down at her father’s note. Since finding it, several plans had presented themselves, each as daring as the next, and probably as doomed to failure. Even if she could find a way to sneak out of Lelleford, she doubted she’d locate her father easily, then be able to sneak back in.

As she saw it, her duty was here, with Lelleford’s people, and her father wouldn’t appreciate her putting the holding at further risk.

Roland believed himself in charge of her home. He needed to be watched closely, prevented from abusing his power. Besides, the better time to warn her father might be after Kenworth and his forces left, when the gates were no longer guarded so heavily and her father might be easier to find.

“Nay, I doubt I could leave the castle without anyone noticing. And if the patrols are not able to find him, I doubt I would have better luck. Best I trust my father to do what he feels right.”

As she must do what she felt right. Which was why she’d allowed Isolde to see the message, knowing the maid would keep the secret because of her brother’s involvement. On the morn she would tell Simon about her father’s plan and seek his counsel on what course of action to take, if any.

No one else must be allowed to see or hear of the message. Already she’d been careless with it, almost allowed it to fall into enemy hands.

Eloise slid out of bed and padded across the room. She picked up the pair of tongs from the circular brass plate on which the brazier’s lion-paw feet stood. With the thick parchment firmly clasped in the tongs, she touched a corner to red-hot coals. The edge browned and curled, smoldered and smoked, but didn’t flare.

Isolde coughed and waved a hand before her face.

“ ’Tis a most wicked stench, milady.”

That it was, and would get worse as the substantial sheet made from animal hide burned.

“Open the shutters.”

Thunder yet rumbled in the distance, but the worst of the storm had passed, the heavy rain of earlier diminishing to a light shower. A gentle breeze blew a few raindrops into the chamber, and would carry both smoke and stench back out with it.

Determined to hurriedly destroy the message, Eloise again touched parchment to coals. Again the edge browned and curled. Then the breeze fanned the edge and a tiny flame sparked.

Fascinated, Eloise watched the fire creep ever closer to her father’s written words, waving smoke away from her face, hearing Isolde’s cough.

From the passageway came the bellow of “Fire!” The door crashed open, startling her into spinning around. Roland stood in the doorway, his eyes wide with panic.

Isolde screeched. “Milady, the rush mat!”

Eloise jerked her attention back to the burning parchment. A piece had broken off, landing on the mat at her bare feet. Before she could collect her thoughts, Roland sped across the room, grabbing the washbasin on his way.

She backed up and gasped as water hit her chest and arm. The dregs he tossed at her feet.

One would think an army pounded up the stairway from the noise in the passageway. Simon rounded the doorway. He carried a bucket, as did several others.

Eloise felt her embarrassment rise clear from her toes. She’d meant to reduce one piece of parchment to ashes. Roland’s intensely disapproving expression accused her of trying to burn down the entire castle.

Isolde’s hands covered her face. Simon pursed his lips and shook his head. As Eloise wished she could fly out the window to escape, from down the passageway came a roar.

“What the devil goes on here?”

The earl. Ye gods.

Roland’s chest heaved, then he blew out a long breath and tossed the basin onto the bed. “Simon, waylay Kenworth if you can. The danger is past. Everyone can return to their pallets or duties.”

With a nod, Simon herded her would-be rescuers from the room. Eloise hoped Roland would simply follow the others, a futile wish. The door closed with too loud a bang.

He tilted his head, his brows arching—a demand for an explanation.

Eloise raised her chin. “You should be ashamed of yourself. There was no call to raise an alarm.”

Roland couldn’t believe her temerity. From the moment he’d smelled smoke his heart thudded hard against his ribs. He’d envisioned horrors. The room in flames. The women trapped, or worse. He’d seen and smelled charred flesh during the war with the Scots, and didn’t care to repeat the experience. He could still smell the stench, made worse by the pungent smoke that would linger into the night, perhaps for days.

He flung a hand toward the door. “Had you been standing guard without and smelled biting smoke, would you not have raised the alarm?”

She frowned. “You guard my door?”

“My cursed luck to lose the toss of the dice.”

“To whom did you lose?”

“Simon, whose sleep we just interrupted. He takes on the duty later.”

“Oh. Well, then, perhaps you should have taken a moment to fully assess the danger first so as not to disturb Simon.”

“One does not take chances with fire.” He glanced at the now wet parchment still clamped in the tongs, assumed it the same parchment she’d picked up off the bed earlier.

He’d dismissed it as unimportant, too busy noticing the coziness of the chamber, envisioning Hugh curled up with Eloise on the bed.

“What is that you tried to burn?”

She eased the tongs behind her. “ ’Tis none of your concern.”

“Everything that happens at Lelleford is now my concern. Give over.”

Eloise’s stubborn, beautifully carved chin rose higher. “ ’Tis private. ’Tis also unseemly for you to remain in my bedchamber, where you intrude without my leave.”

“Perhaps you should have bolted your door!”

“I have never had the need! No one has ever before dared enter without being invited!”

He had no intention of begging her pardon. He took an intentionally menacing step toward her, casting her a scowl that had been known to set soldiers to quivering. “Either hand the scroll over or I shall take it from you.”

“Cur!”

Was a cur better or worse than a despicable toad? He decided not to ask, just held out his hand and wiggled his fingers. “Now, Eloise.”

“You have no right!”

He wasn’t about to wrestle her for it before a witness. To salvage some of his pride and spare Eloise shame, he issued an order. “Isolde, out.”

“Again?” the maid mumbled.

The maid must have caught her cursed insolence from her mistress. “ ’Twill not be for long, I assure you.”

Eloise’s brow scrunched at that. Perhaps she finally realized he was serious. Surely she didn’t believe he’d issue an order, whether to a maid or a knight’s daughter, and not demand obedience.

Isolde shuffled toward the door. “Ye mark her, milord, and there’ll be the devil to pay.”

“Any marks she may suffer will be of her own doing.” Blast, why was he assuring a maid of her mistress’s safety? He didn’t have to explain himself to anyone!

With the door closed, he found himself alone with an obstinate, glorious female whose wetted nightrail merely veiled her finely shaped, beautifully hued attributes. Dark, hardened nipples poked at gauzy linen, an erotic invitation to a man’s hands. His palm fairly itched to answer.

Could he seduce her to his will? A tempting thought, and one he dismissed immediately. His mission to protect Lelleford included its inhabitants, most especially the lord’s daughter.

He truly didn’t want to do battle with her, either mentally or physically. Unfortunately, Eloise utterly refused to accept his authority.

His hand extended, he walked toward her. For each of his steps forward, she took one back until she bumped into the wall.

“You have no more room to retreat, my lady. Give over.”

She gracefully slid down the wall, her white nightrail puddling around her like a cloud. She sat on the parchment, crossed her arms under her pert breasts. “Begone, villain, or I swear, you shall regret this night’s devilry.”

Roland inwardly sighed, giving in to the inevitable, already regretting what he must do. “You give me no choice, my lady.”

“You would not dare touch me. A proper, chivalrous knight would—”

The challenge proved all the provocation he could stand. He grasped her arms and hauled her up, her attempt to protest lost in a grunt and whoosh of breath when she landed stomach down on his shoulder.

He placed a steadying hand on the sweetly rounded buttocks pressed against his cheek. His nostrils flared at her scent, his body stirred at the feel of firm flesh beneath his fingers.

Her fist struck the small of his back, ending an exquisite fantasy of turning his head enough to nuzzle her softness.

“Put me down, beast!”

He patted her rump, firmly enough to serve as warning but not hard enough to sting. “You would do well to court my favor right now. I could leave a mark here where no one could see.”