Prisoner of My Desire (15 page)

With the thorough cleaning done yesterday, Rowena and Enid finished early in the solar, so it was well before noon when Rowena climbed the stairs to the weaving room. But she nearly jumped out of her skin when one of the doors she had to pass to get there opened and she was yanked inside.

“’Tis about time you came along,” a voice grumbled, though with unmistakable affection.

“Mildred!”

“Aye, and spending my whole morn up here just waiting for you to leave the weaving room. How did I miss you that you are coming from below?”

Rowena was too busy hugging the older woman to say anything for a moment, but then the words flowed out of her. “How do you come to be at Fulkhurst? Has Warrick sought revenge
against you, too? I am so
glad
you are here, Mildred, but not if you are being abused by that monster. But I thought never to see you again and—”

“Shush, my sweet one,” Mildred soothed, and led Rowena to sit on a stool amidst baskets of sewing materials. “How can I answer if you do not pause for breath so I can? And why did you not answer my own question? I was told you would be sleeping in the weaving room.”

Mildred took the stool next to her, but Rowena did not look at her when she said, “I slept below yestereve.”

From the bright pink tingeing Rowena’s cheeks, Mildred was wise enough not to ask where. All she said was, “I am not surprised.”

Rowena’s head snapped up. “You are not?
Why
are you not? It shocked me that he would want to—to…He had already had his revenge in that way.”

“Did he?”

“Aye, exactly like for like. All that was done to him he did to me—and now more.”

“Then it has been so terrible?”

“Worse than terrible.”

“All of it?”

Rowena frowned at that particular question. “What do you fish for?”

Mildred shrugged. “Like for like, my lamb, means you would experience the same pleasure he had at your hands. Did you?” Rowena’s cheeks got pinker. “I see that you did. But ’tis to be expected when you have such a fine-looking—”

“
Cruel
-looking—”

“—man who knows what he is about.”

“The
only
thing Warrick de Chaville is about, Mildred, is making me pay for Gilbert’s greed. Now what do you here? I feared you would be left in Kirkburough’s ruins, with no way to return even to Tures.”

“No one was left in the ruins. Lord Warrick did not burn the town except for the inn where he was captured, but even so, he offered all at the keep new homes on his own properties did they want them. For myself, he felt he owed me for his release, even though I had told him I did only your bidding.”

“I know how he does not like to hear excuses,
will
not hear them.”

“Aye, I thought he would kill me did I say another word about it, so angry was he at the mere mention of your innocence. But he offered me a home here at Fulkhurst if I would give him my loyalty henceforth—forsaking you. ’Twas the only way I could follow you here, so I accepted gladly. Only he has forbidden me to speak to you.”

Rowena sighed. “So I guessed. He would not want me to have comfort in your presence, though just knowing you are near is a comfort to me.”

Mildred squeezed her hand. “Do not despair, my lamb. I do not think he is as mean-spirited as he would like us to think. I have heard much about the events that have shaped him into the man he is today, and I hesitate to admit this to you, but I find myself feeling sorry for him.”

“Sorry for him?” Rowena said incredulously. “Did he bash you on the head, Mildred, ere he brought you here?”

Mildred chuckled. “Nay, he dragged me about the countryside with his army in search of his missing betrothed, but I swear he thought little of Lady Isabella the while he looked for her. Never did he seem disappointed when each place he inquired at turned out to have no word of her passing. But you should have seen him when the messenger who came from Fulkhurst each day was even a little late in arriving. Lord Warrick would send out dozens of men to find him, and when the newsbearer did arrive, woe betide him if he had no word from John Giffard.”

Rowena stiffened upon hearing that name. “John? But I thought he was only the jailer here. What news could Warrick want from him?”

Mildred gave her a look that said plainly, Do not play dense. “What else?”

“But Warrick did not know John had the care of me in the dungeon.”

“How could he not know when he ordered it?”

“
He
did? But I thought Sir Robert…”

Rowena paused as the implications of what Mildred had said occurred to her. Warrick had put her in his dungeon not to suffer, then—other than with her own imaginings? Those imaginings had been terrible, true, but her cell had been like a palace compared to what it would have been like without John as her keeper. Could Warrick not know how kindhearted John was? Nay, John’s goodness was writ all over him, sensed
at a glance. To know him was to know he would never hurt a soul.

Suddenly she cried out almost painfully, “I do not understand! Why would he assure I was well cared for
before
he knew I carried his child?”

Mildred’s brown eyes flared wide. “So it happened, and in only those few days of trying? Are you ailing with it? I have some fine remedies for that, and for the swelling that might come later.”

Rowena dismissed Mildred’s offer impatiently. “Nay, no symptoms other than the most obvious of missing my monthly time.”

“Aye, so it was with your mother, going blithely about her duties as if she were not—”

“Mildred, I do not want to discuss babies when Warrick means to take mine from me.”

Mildred frowned thoughtfully before asking, “Did he say he would?”

“Would I say it had he not? He claims he will take the babe from me when it is born, as I—as I took it from him. Like for like.”

“Do you want it?”

“Of
course
I want it. ’Tis mine!”

“And his,” Mildred pointed out calmly.

“But he did not want the making of it.”

“Neither did you.”

“But he wants it now only to hurt me. That is no reason to keep a child.”

“Aye, and mayhap he will realize that ere long. ’Tis much too soon to worry about what he plans eight months from now. Like as not you will be gone from here before then. Or have you not thought of escape yet?”

Rowena snorted. “Certainly I have. Do you
tell me how I might accomplish it when both baileys have gate guards on constant duty, then I will leave this very day.”

Mildred grinned. “’Twill not be
that
easy. But mayhap Lord Gilbert will help when he learns where you are. Surely he must know by now that ’twas the Lord of Fulkhurst who destroyed Kirkburough keep. I am surprised he has not brought his army here already.”

Rowena gasped. “Do not even think it! I would rather stay here and suffer Warrick’s every little cruelty than be back in Gilbert’s control.”

“Now
that
I find interesting. Your stepbrother would merely marry you off again, while—”

“One decrepit old husband was enough for me, Mildred. And Gilbert…before he left Kirkburough, he kissed me, and ’twas in no way brotherly.”

“Ah, so he finally showed his craving, did he? And there would be more of that if he had you back, for there is naught to stop him now from taking you to his bed, particularly while you carry the heir he wanted for Kirkburough. But then, he is a very handsome man. Mayhap you would not mind.”

“Mildred!”

“So you would mind? Well, then, ’tis fortunate that you find yourself unable to leave here for the while. ’Tis the safest place you could be to keep Lord Gilbert from getting you back again.”

That was possibly true, but Rowena wished Mildred did not make it sound as if she ought to thank Warrick for making her his prisoner
and
his unwilling leman. Mildred was not giving this
subject the gravity it deserved. In fact, she seemed not the least bit concerned over Rowena’s plight.

“Why do I sense you are not worried about any of this, Mildred? Think you Warrick is finished having his revenge against me? I assure you he is not. To him I am a thief, and although he did not cut off my hands for it, he means to inflict his little cruelties on me each day I am under his roof.”

“Ah, but I wonder how long his animosity would last did you develop a fondness for him and let him know it. Not long, I warrant.”

“Now I know he bashed your head, and so hard you do not even remember it.”

Mildred laughed. “Nay, my lamb. Merely have I had more opportunity to observe him unawares than you, and I do not think him so very cruel. A cruel man would have had you tortured to death and watched every minute of it. Lord Warrick has instead given you back like for like.”

“He denies my status, has declared me a serf.”

“He was thought one by us and treated just so,” Mildred reminded her. “But do you ask me, the man is obsessed with you, and for reasons other than revenge. He wants the revenge, surely. ’Tis his nature now to have it. But mayhap it does not sit well with him in this instance. You are a woman after all, and all of his enemies thus far have been men. He
knows
how to deal with them. With you he does not.”

“These speculations do not help me, Mildred,” Rowena said irritably.

“Then you have not thought of using a wom
an’s weapons against him, have you?”

“What weapons?”

“Your beauty. His lust. Then even marriage will be an option, with the child as an added inducement.”

“He would never—!”

“Aye, he
could
be brought to it, if he wants you badly enough. And you can make him want you that much. You could even make him love you if you did but try.”

Love? What would Warrick be like with that tender emotion fixed in his heart? Would he be as fierce in love as he was in hate? Nay, what was wrong with her? To even think of it was absurd.

But Mildred had not finished. “Most ladies loathe the marriage bed, and small wonder if they are wed to rutting louts who use them only for breeding, while taking their own pleasures elsewhere. But you already know what the marriage bed would be like with this lord. And for a husband, you would be hard pressed to find one as well matched to you in estate, who is also young, a power to reckon with, virile—as you can attest—and not too ugly.”

“He is not ugly,” Rowena protested without thinking. “He is even very handsome when…he…smiles.” She glowered then to realize she had just said something in that man’s favor. “You
have
gone mad, Mildred, and these notions are pure fancy. Warrick wants naught from me but the babe I stole from him and my eternal atonement for that theft. The man despises the very sight of me.”

“More like the very sight of you stirs his lust, and
that
is what he despises just now. But you miss my point. I did not say the idea of marriage would come easily to him, only that ’tis possible to bring him ’round to thinking of it. First you must rid him of his animosity toward you, and that will take effort on your part.”

“
That
would take a miracle.”

“Nay, merely set him to thinking of other things than what was done to him. Confound him. Do not do what he expects. Deliberately entice him. If he can be made to think you want him, despite his treatment of you thus far, all the better. That would completely baffle him, and he will spend more time wondering about it than thinking up those little cruelties you mentioned. Are you willing to try?”

“I can foresee only making a fool of myself should I do so. Methinks you have deluded yourself with wishful thinking, Mildred.”

“And if I have not? Do you like the treatment you get from him now?”

Rowena recalled last night with a shudder, the shame of being made to beg—the unwanted pleasure that begging had gotten her. “Nay,” she said in a whisper.

“Then use your weapons to change it. Show him the maid you were before the d’Ambrays’ coming. Your winsome ways were nigh impossible to resist, as any man who knew you then can attest.”

“I do not think I would know how to be that carefree, happy girl again.”

Mildred leaned over to give her a brief, sym
pathetic hug. “I know, my sweet one. A pretense is all that is necessary. Can you manage that?”

“Possibly.”

“Then will you try?”

“I needs think on this first. I am not sure I want more of Warrick’s attention than I already have.”

“That is not like to change either way.”

Rowena’s chin rose stubbornly. “And I am not sure either that I want to stop hating him.”

Mildred chuckled. “Then do not. Merely keep him from being aware of your true feelings. He is the one who wears his moods on his face, not you, so that should not be hard for you. But be aware that once he changes and begins to court your favor, you may become as caught up in the game as he and find yourself other than hating him.”

The thought of Warrick de Chaville courting her was so ridiculous, Rowena did not bother to argue against the likelihood of it ever happening, or of her feeling differently than she did now. Besides, she was heartily sick of the subject, and so changed it.

“How is it we have this room to ourselves, Mildred? ’Tis the sewing room, is it not?”

“Aye, but I sent the women off to experiment with a new dye.”

Rowena laughed at Mildred’s mischievous look. “Not that awful green we made last year?”

“Exactly. But I did not tell them ’twas awful. I told them to expect a most beautiful shade, so they would be long in trying to create it. Later I will confess I forgot to mention the addition of
yellow, which brightened the shade to that leaf green we ended with.”

“Have you the direction of the sewing women, then, that you can order them?”

“Nay, but the castlefolk are wary of me in my new position as maid to both of the lord’s daughters. They know not the extent of my authority, and so do my bidding without question.”

“And how do you like serving his daughters?”

Mildred snorted. “Two more haughty, self-centered bitches you never met. ’Twas no favor Lord Warrick did me with that position, but to be fair, I doubt he knows how truly spoiled his daughters are. They brag readily enough that he is never here to correct them, and you and I know why that is so.”