The Rose of Blacksword (43 page)

“Your father and I have spoken of you,” Sir Gilbert began, once they were out in the bailey.

“Spoken of me?” she echoed. Although she had no
doubt of his meaning, she was surprised that he would bring it up so boldly.

“I pray you will not toy with my heart, my Lady Rosalynde. Surely you know I have spoken to him regarding you. Surely you know I seek a union between you and me, and between the castles of Stanwood and Duxton.” Grasping her hand, which rested on his arm, he halted their walk and turned to face her. In the moonlight he appeared earnest and appealing. The cruel slant of his mouth disappeared in a sincere smile; the shadows made his eyes impossible to read. Yet the warm grasp of his hands made it clear what message he wished to convey.

Rosalynde tried very hard not to frown. Her heart raced, but not due to any emotional response to him. If anything, she was angry that he had lured her away from the great hall on the pretext of complimenting the alewife.

“My father has not discussed this matter with me,” she replied, trying to extricate her hands from his too firm clasp.

“But he
has
told you that he seeks a husband for you.”

“Yes,” Rosalynde admitted reluctantly. “He has.”

“And though it is an odd quirk on his part, he has promised you a say in the choice of a groom.”

That reminder renewed Rosalynde’s confidence. “He did. But you must understand, Sir Gilbert, that I have not yet met the other men he has approved. I am, of course, much flattered by your interest in me, and I consider it the deepest compliment. But I would do my father a disservice to rush into a decision when he has so generously granted me this choice.”

Even in the dark Rosalynde could tell that he did not like her answer. But he was also not ready to concede defeat, for in a determinedly smooth tone he pressed his suit.

“Fair Rosalynde, I only pray that you will look with favor upon my offer.” He raised her hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “Just tell me, I beg you, whether some other has caught your eye.”

Rosalynde hesitated for an instant before answering him. Someone had done far more than caught her eye. Someone had caught her heart and she would be many years in freeing herself from the devastating effects, if indeed she ever could. But that was something Sir Gilbert must never know of. No one could. Besides, Gilbert’s query was for those other noblemen who might try to win her and, thereby, Stanwood.

“I’ve met no one, Sir Gilbert. Only you. However, my father has invited a goodly number of men to a tourney. No doubt I shall be introduced to any number of acceptable nobles at that time.”

“Then I am the first,” he stated with a smile. He moved a step nearer, to her sudden alarm, and she hastily stepped back as well.

“Shall we seek out the alewife?” she reminded him nervously.

“In a moment.”

Then before she could react, he pressed a damp kiss fully on her mouth.

Rosalynde gasped in shock and then was further affronted by the surge of his tongue between her parted lips. She stumbled back repulsed, jerking her hands angrily from his.

“How dare you—” she choked out.

“Forgive me, Rosalynde. I beg you to forgive my impetuous nature. If you did but know how your nearness affects me.”

She started to reply that perhaps she should keep her distance from him, then abruptly thought better of it. If
she reacted too coldly toward him, her father would no doubt wonder why and question her on it. He had already expressed his exasperation toward her constant rejection of any reference to her eventual marriage. He would see any coldness on her part as just another aspect of her resistance, and he might not be so willing to grant her the freedom of a choice. Swallowing her distaste as best she could, she faced the expectant Sir Gilbert.

“I think it would be best if we return to the great hall.”

“But what of the alehouse?” he pressed. “I promise to be on my best behavior,” he added with what he clearly meant to be a beguiling smile.

Rosalynde averted her eyes. It seemed pointless now to turn down his request. But as she nodded, then led the way—although pointedly avoiding his proffered arm—her emotions knotted in confusion. Sir Gilbert’s wet kiss had revolted her. The thought of opening her mouth to his intimate caress quite literally turned her stomach. Yet with Aric that same act had stirred her very soul. She’d opened much more than her mouth to Aric’s bold caress, and reveled in glorious abandon as he’d commandeered all her emotions. Two men, both young and handsome. How was it that the one left her cold, while the other caused her to burn with desire?

As they made their way toward the alehouse, she did not see the rigid figure in the shadows of the tannery. Aric stood as still as stone, watching the two retreating figures, and although his eyes burned with violent emotion, he felt colder than a winter storm.

His wife and his enemy! It was more than a man could be expected to endure! And yet the logical, calculating side of him knew he must let it go. Everything was falling into place; it was not yet time to act. He knew who his enemy was—who had conspired to see him hang as a common
thief. Now the man was within reach, but it must be done right. Their conflict had begun on the field of honor. It would end there as well. At the melee he would confront Gilbert. He would reveal his identity at that time and challenge the man to a battle of honor—a battle to the death.

Aric watched Rosalynde and Gilbert enter the alehouse, then forced himself to turn away. His appetite was suddenly gone, and the late meal he’d anticipated in the great hall lost its appeal. He’d seen that vermin, Gilbert, kiss her, and it sickened him. And yet, when he could have easily stepped from the shadows and stopped them from going on into the alehouse, he had not. Had his need for revenge against his foe completely suppressed his adherence to his knightly code of honor? Would he go so far as to forsake the woman he loved—

The woman he loved!

He halted at that unexpected admission.
The woman he loved
. Had he truly succumbed so completely to her? Yet even as he sought some logic to deny that it could be so, he knew it was true. He’d neither sought nor avoided love in his many dalliances with women. The fact was, he’d never considered the emotion at all. But now this most difficult of all women had stolen unawares into his heart.

Unbidden the memory of her, naked and slick with sweat beneath him, came to mind. How sweetly she’d responded to him. How passionately she had risen to his possession of her. It had been a perfect communion of two spirits, something special that only they shared. Certainly no other woman had ever pushed him so far.

Then he was reminded of their circumstances and his wonder turned to fury. The woman he loved walked now with his vilest enemy. Was he mad to wait until the melee to confront Gilbert?

A shudder ripped through him and he had to fight back a blind need to seek out Gilbert of Duxton then and there, and beat the life out of him.

Your time for revenge will come
, he told himself over and over.
Your time will come
.

23

A strange tension seemed to grip the castle, although Rosalynde could not quite understand it. Perhaps it was only her overwrought nerves, for she was certainly pushed to distraction by her father’s unrelenting good humor and Sir Gilbert’s constant presence. Yet there was something more. She was sure of it.

Cleve, who during recent weeks had quite abandoned her in favor of his duties as a squire, now appeared more and more often at her side. Just that morning he’d joined her in the pleasaunce, digging holes for the chamomile and gromwell plants she meant to transplant from the forests. Although they’d nearly recovered the easy camaraderie they’d shared at Millwort, she still detected a strange air of watchfulness about him.

Then there was Aric of Wycliffe. She had not been alone with him since their tryst in the stable loft. A part of her was relieved he had not pursued her since then, for she knew full well that she would never have the strength of will to deny him. Yet she could not pretend that her disappointment did not far outweigh the relief she felt. He was clearly avoiding her, but she had no idea why. She knew it was linked to Cleve, and yet that still seemed completely illogical. Aric was hardly likely to bend to young Cleve’s will. But she could not shake the feeling that the two were
somehow connected. If she had not been so busy with the preparations for the coming entertainments, she would have surely gone mad with wondering. Instead, she focused her nervous energy on the tasks at hand, trying as best she could to ignore her troublesome imaginings.

Only at night when she finally fell exhausted into her own bed did she allow herself the luxury of dwelling on the enigmatic Aric. There, as the night enveloped her in its dark protection, she relived every moment they’d ever spent together. She did not bother to pretend anymore. She was in love with him, although nothing good could ever come of it. And though she compounded her sins by her shameless remembering, she consoled herself that in God’s eyes, at least, they were wed. But even that was small comfort, for eventually the year would pass, and she would no longer be able to delay the inevitable. She would have to marry someone else.

Yet as the tournament guests began to arrive—some from as far away as the border with Scotland—Rosalynde knew that though she might have to select one of them as a husband someday, she would never find love again.

“Sir Edolf is a fine man,” Sir Edward remarked to Rosalynde as he watched a solid-looking knight who practiced his skills in the lists. “He is the second son of my friend Robert Blackburn, Lord of Wigan. And a good fighter,” he added admiringly.

“I’ve no doubt that he is a noble knight,” Rosalynde murmured agreeably, although she silently deplored the man’s gluttony and his overfondness for ale, which she’d witnessed the previous evening.

“He shall be a demon to contend with in the melee,” her father went on, unaware of his daughter’s lack of interest.
Still distracted, he walked off, looking for Sir Roger while Cleve moved nearer Rosalynde’s side.

“Sir Edolf
is
a fine man,” he echoed her father’s words. “And he was much pleased upon meeting you.”

“Oh? Well, his sister Margaret was much pleased upon meeting
you
,” Rosalynde replied tartly, giving him an arch look.

“She’s only a child!” he protested hotly as a scowl replaced his teasing expression.

“She’s eleven. Certainly of an age to be betrothed. And she’s certainly comely. Why else would Sir Edolf bring her here if not to seek a titled husband for her?”

Cleve did not reply, but only gave her a probing look. “ ’Tis not my future nor hers but your own that you should concern yourself with during these festivities. You cannot pretend otherwise, milady.”

“So everyone seems most anxious to remind me,” she threw back at him. Then she sighed and her irritation fled, to be replaced instead by reluctant acceptance. “Forgive me,” she said when she spied his serious face. “I’ve no reason to be angry with you. It’s just that …” Once more she sighed, unable to explain why she was so unhappy.

“ ’Twould almost seem that you do not wish to marry at all,” Cleve said in a quiet tone. He moved nearer, keeping his brown eyes steady upon her. “But you know you must marry. ’Tis the only choice for a woman. Unless—” He faltered, as if he did not wish to say the words, or even think them. Then his jaw clenched and his eyes bored into her now-pale face. “Could it be you truly
have
given your heart to someone else—someone you can never have?”

Before she could prevent it, tears welled in her huge eyes, threatening to spill over. She averted her face, but Cleve’s hand on her arm kept her from fleeing.

“Does he yet trifle with you?” he muttered harshly.

When Rosalynde turned her face up to him, she was unable to hide the naked emotions displayed there. “No,” she whispered in a stricken voice. “He avoids me completely.” She swallowed the lump in her throat and managed a thin smile. “I don’t know how you managed it, but I know he stays away because of you. I suppose I should thank you—”

She abruptly turned and hurried away from him. But Cleve remained where he was a long time, staring after her, but thinking about the man Aric.

“Holy Mother, but where are we to put ’em all?” the stable marshal muttered as yet another string of mounts and packhorses were led into the stableyard. “An’ where in the name o’ God are we to keep all this armor? Here, lad.” He signaled to Cleve, who as a squire had been assigned the care of the private belongings of the contingent of knights from Holyfield. “Before you unpack these loads, move that pile of things in the shed farther to the left. But have a care,” he added, raising one bushy brow. “These are Sir Gilbert’s belongin’s, an’ he’s more than particular. Lord hope that
he
don’t end up marrying our sweet lass,” he added under his breath.

Cleve did not reply to the stable marshal’s unsolicited opinion. Nor was he truly surprised by it. It had not taken him long to determine that Sir Gilbert of Duxton would be difficult to deal with at any level. Cleve was quite convinced that Lady Rosalynde was too perceptive to pick a man like that to wed. But then she seemed unwilling to consider anyone at all, he thought, recalling their earlier conversation.