by Tamara Leigh
For hours, the young lady who was to bring a generous dowry to her marriage had sat quietly with hands folded and slippered feet tight against each other, speaking only when spoken to. She had seemed shy, and only twice had he caught her looking at him. What had happened these past months that she thought it appropriate to behave in this manner? And speak of love!
She ceased whirling, released a long breath. “I will make you talk to me, Lord Soames. I vow I shall! And you will laugh, as I know you wish to do.”
“My lady!”
She held up a hand. “If we are to wed, you must accept that though I shall be the gracious noblewoman in the company of others, when ’tis only you and me, I shall be… Well, I shall be me, as I would have you be you. Now the question is”—she stepped nearer, tilted her head—“who are you?”
He could hardly breathe for how close she stood. More, for how much he wanted to put his arms around her and match his mouth to hers.
She raised an eyebrow. “I wait.”
He swallowed loudly, said tightly, “I am your betrothed, the man for whom you will bear children and keep a good household.”
She groaned. “That is not who you are. Lady Maude assured me ’tis not.”
“Lady Maude?”
“She said once you are away from your mother, you will not be dull as I told her I feared—”
“I am not dull!”
She wrinkled her nose. “I believe what I see and feel, not merely what is told me. So show me, Lord Soames, the life we share will be blessed with far more laughter than tears.”
Again, he stared. Again, his body stirred.
She swung away. “Chase me!”
“What?”
“I wish to be chased, Lothaire,” she called over her shoulder. “And caught.” Hitching up her skirts, she ran, unbound hair flying out behind her, sunlight gliding over strands of red amid warm brown.
“This is unseemly, Lady Laura!”
More laughter, but not mocking. It called to the boy in him he had thought shut away. Still, he held his feet to the beaten path that led to the pond she assured him was just beyond the castle walls.
That had been his first mistake, allowing her to persuade him to leave the garden. And his second mistake he would make if he gave chase. But she grew so distant soon she would go from sight.
A lady alone in the wood. His lady.
He gripped his sword hilt and ran.
Though swift, his legs long and muscled, she made it even easier for him to overtake her, staying just enough ahead to reach the bank of the promised pond.
She spun, propped her hands on her hips, and past an open-mouthed smile, said, “Methinks Lady Maude is right. You are not dull.”
He should have drawn up far short, but his feet carried him to within arm’s reach of her. “Lady, we must return to the castle.”
“We shall, but first…” She stepped near, laced slender fingers with his that had never seemed so large and clumsy. But before he could correct her for being wantonly familiar, she turned and settled her shoulder against his. “Look, Lothaire. Is it not lovely?”
She was lovely. Not simply pretty as was required.
“I am fond of this place,” she said as he followed her gaze across and around the pond. “When I was little, Lady Maude brought her son and me here on the hottest of days and we swam and played in the water.”
“You speak of Simon?” he said to distract himself from the soft hand he should not be holding. He knew it was Simon, Lady Maude and her departed husband’s only child. Though Lothaire liked the lady’s stepson, who was now Lord of Owen, there was something about the half-brother that bothered—something beyond the feeling Simon D’Arci did not like him. Their one encounter this day was brief since the young man was preparing to return to the lord from whom he received knighthood training, but it disturbed. And Lothaire was relieved when Simon departed two hours past.
He frowned. “Surely you do not still swim here with Lady Maude’s son?”
His betrothed looked up. “I do not. ’Twould be improper now we are no longer children.”
His mother would not like that Simon and she had ever frolicked here, and neither did he, but though that could cause Raisa Soames to reject this young woman, Lothaire was now a man. He would determine what was acceptable.
“But once you and I are wed…” she made a song of her words and angled her head toward the pond. “…methinks it permissible for husband and wife to swim together.”
The thought of going into the water with her once more making him overly aware of their bodies, he told himself to release her hand and put distance between them.
Told himself.
Her sparkling eyes returned to his. “Perhaps even bathe together, hmm?”
He caught his breath, heard his mother’s words again—Beware the Delilah, my son. Beware the Jezebel.
He cast off her hand. “You should not speak thus, Lady. ’Tis sinful!”
She blinked as if slapped, and as the light in her eyes fell to earth alongside her smile, whispered, “Forgive me.” She sidestepped. “Oh, Lady Maude shall be disappointed. I am a lady. Truly, I am. I just…” She peeked at him from beneath her lashes. “I am pleased you wish to take me to wife, Lord Soames. You are young and handsome, and I am certain you are kind. I but wish to make you as happy with me as I am with you.”
Still, his mother would not overlook her behavior, but the man he was decided she could be forgiven. She was very young and would mature before they wed—especially once Lady Maude was made aware of her ward’s deficiencies and set about correcting them.
Lady Laura lifted her chin, and he saw her eyes sparkled again, but not with joy or mischief. “You are not pleased with me, are you?”
Struggling against the impulse to pull her close and brush away her tears, he clenched his hands at his sides. “I make allowances for your age, confident a year hence you will be nearer a woman than a girl.”
His words offended, as told by a different sort of light in those dark eyes, but it scattered and she said, “Much can happen in a year. Be patient, and I shall not disappoint you or Lady Maude who has been so good to me.”
The lady had been generous, fostering Laura Middleton since the age of five following her mother’s passing that had left her husband with one female child to raise among six males.
“You…” She moistened her lips, and he saw they trembled. “…will not be too harsh in telling Lady Maude of my failings, will you? She will count herself responsible, and she is not. Ever I have been excitable.” A tear spilled over, and she clapped a hand to her cheek as if to hide it. But another fell. “Oh, how the fluff upon the air irritates my eyes!”
Dear Lord, Lothaire silently appealed, she should not so captivate.
But she did, and he had only himself to blame when he breached the space between them and set his mouth on hers. He had kissed a few chambermaids—the extent of his carnal sin—but he was familiar enough with the intimacy to know this was different. The taste of Laura was more than pleasant. It was sweet, like the honey milk of his childhood.
It was she who ended the kiss. Dropping from her toes he had not realized he had dragged her onto, she breathed, “I like that, Lord Soames. But now I must prove Lady Maude has made a lady of me.”
“This is good,” he said as if he but tested her. If only he did! How many hours must he spend praying for forgiveness?
“My lord?”
“My lady?”
She was smiling again, though more demurely, and her cheeks were softly flushed. “Methinks you ought to release me.”
He lurched back, and had only a moment to miss the press of her body before what sounded like a large insect passed between their faces and skittered across the pond.
He snapped his head around, considered the rippled surface. “What was that?”
“Simon?” she called, question and rebuke in that one’s name.
Lothaire followed her gaze to the trees between th
e pond and castle. “You think ’twas him?”
“I…” She looked sidelong at Lothaire, pressed white teeth into her lower lip.
“He is gone from Owen,” he reminded her, then wondered if he erred when he recalled the slingshot looped over the young man’s belt—of note since Lothaire was also fond of that childhood weapon. Though these past years of training at arms were mostly spent mastering the sword, he was certain he could still make his mark.
“You are right, it cannot have been him,” she said firmly, as if to convince herself. “Do you think ’twas a dragonfly?”
He studied the trees again. No movement. No sound that did not belong there.
Might it have been a dragonfly? Possible. Regardless, it would have struck him in the temple had he not released her.
“We ought to return,” he said and stepped past his betrothed. And halted.
We are going to wed, he assured himself. She will be my wife. We will swim together. Mayhap even bathe together.
He peered over his shoulder and met her wary gaze. Longing to see the sparkle return to it, he reached to her.
There. So much light shone from her he felt its rays enter him. And as she slid her hand over his palm and worked her fingers through his, he was so warmed he discovered places within him he had not known were cold.
It was a beautiful day to fall in love. Mayhap he would.
As they walked side by side, skirts brushing chausses, brown hair caressing muscled forearm, neither saw the one who pressed his back to the bark of an ancient oak. Neither saw the calloused fingers gripping straps of leather whose missile should have turned Lord Soames’s dark blond hair red…knocked him to his knees…made him cry like a boy…
Neither heard him rasp, “She is mine. Shall ever be mine. She promised!”
CHAPTER ONE
Barony of Owen, England
April, 1163
Awaken, Laura. It is time.
She shook her head, felt the lingering caress of hair across her cheeks, nose, and throat.
Open your eyes, the voice persisted.
She squeezed her lids tighter, ignored the ache of lungs that had expelled their last breath.
Do not do it for you. Never you. For Clarice.
She sprang open her lids, peered at the clouded, candle-lit ceiling. It was time. Past time. But she was not yet clean.
That made her laugh, causing a bubble to burst from her lips and further distort the ceiling.
Her lungs lied. She had breath—in the deepest of her.
And she lied. Never would she be truly clean, no matter how hard she scraped at her scalp or urged her maid to scrub her flesh until it was so abraded pricks of blood surfaced.
A moment later, that woman appeared above—wide-eyed and disapproving.
Pushing her feet against the tub’s bottom, Laura slid up its side with a great slop of water.
Tina jumped back. “Oh milady! Ye got me skirts. Again!”
Water streaming her face and shoulders and over breasts she knew more by weight than sight, Laura managed one of the few smiles of which she was capable—that of apology. “I was in need of air.”
“Then ye shoulda come up sooner.” Tina snorted. “Sometimes ye worry me no end.”
Laura flicked water from her fingers, dragged a hand across her eyes. “I come up when I must.”
“As Lady Maude said, ye are a creature of the water.”
Maude. Gone six months now. And every day her absence felt.
It was true. She must awaken. For Clarice, who needed her mother now that the woman she had not known was her grandmother had died. But there was something else Clarice needed more—a father. Rather, a provider.
And so I shall sell this used body to the highest bidder, she silently vowed. It mattered not were he young or old, only that he had sufficient income to support a wife and child and could be trusted to treat Clarice well.
It seemed easily attainable, as if she would have many to choose from, but she would be fortunate to find one, and only then were she given aid. Would Queen Eleanor help her distant cousin who had borne a child out of wedlock, so shaming her family they disavowed her?
No chance if the truth of Clarice was withheld, but now that Maude was gone…
“Come, milady, give me your back.”
Laura scooted forward and lowered her chin in preparation for the stiffly bristled brush.
Tina gathered her lady’s wet tresses, piled them atop the back of her head, and began working the brush over a shoulder blade.
But that voice reminded Laura it was time.
She peered over her shoulder. “Not the brush. A washcloth.”
The maid’s eyes grew so round, Laura knew that in her first life—before Clarice—she would have laughed. “I do not know I heard right, milady. Did ye say washcloth?”
“I did.”
“Huh!” She dropped the brush to the floor and snatched up the cloth she had earlier worked over her lady’s face and hands.
It was so lightly felt that twice Laura looked around lest she imagined the soft fibers.
“Are ye comin’ into sickness, milady?”
Laura lowered her chin again, caught her reflection in water so clouded with soap she could see no more than the outline of her torso and limbs—just as she preferred.
“I am not.” She stared into eyes one would never know had once shone with happiness. “’Tis just that…” She nearly said it was time, but that would make as little sense to Tina as the washcloth. “I am clean enough.”
Rather, she could get no cleaner. She was sullied. Would ever be. More, were she able to capture a husband, he would expect soft skin, not raw. And well after vows were spoken, for the sake of Clarice’s future, she would have to keep him content. Especially in bed.
Bile shot into her mouth, and she convulsed.
“Ye are ill, milady!”
Laura swallowed hard, grimaced as the acid burned its way down. “’Tis only something I ate.”
After a long moment, Tina said, “Or something ye did not eat. I saw ye nibble all ’round your bread, and did you even taste the soup? Methinks not!”
Though Laura’s appetite was often lacking, it had been absent this eve after the incident with Clarice and the son of the lady of the castle had shoved her in a direction she had yet to accept she must travel.
Laura sat back. “I am done with my bath. Pray, bring a towel near.”
Tina rose, shook out the large cloth, and stretched it between her hands to all the sooner enfold her lady.
Gripping the tub’s rim, Laura put her chin up and stood. Another thing she must overcome—distaste for an unclothed body. As difficult as it was to look at her own, how was she to look upon that of a husband?
More bile, but she was prepared, and Tina did not notice her lady’s discomfort as she wrapped her in the towel.
“I shall get ye into your chemise and braid yer hair, then to bed with ye.”
“Clarice—”
“Oh tsk, milady. Worry not, I shall go for her and see her upon her pallet.”
The one alongside Laura’s bed, which her daughter had rarely used before Maude’s passing. Most nights the girl had slept in her grandmother’s chamber. Though Laura told herself it was because of her own restlessness once sleep clasped her close, that was a lie. Clarice had loved her grandmother more—still did and with good cause.
But I am awake now, she assured herself.
Yet another lie, though she was awakening. Would do right by her daughter as had not seemed necessary until now. Maude had made it too easy for her to live inside herself—to be more a creature of the water than the air.
Guilt had done that to the lady. And love for Clarice.
I am sorry, Laura sent her thoughts in search of the dead. I did not say it often enough, but you were so good to me. I should have been stronger for Clarice. Should have been a mother not a… What was I? What am I? Not even a sister.
She returned to the present whe
n Tina pressed her onto the stool before her dressing table. And in a moment of unguardedness, she caught her reflection in the mirror.
Forcing her awakening self to confront the stranger there, she wondered how she was to capture a husband. Though with Maude’s guidance and encouragement she had maintained the facade and carriage of a refined lady, these past months had been less kind to her appearance than all the years before. She was thin and pale, eyes shadowed, lips low, shoulders bent.
Awaken, Laura. That voice again. For Clarice.
She opened her eyes wider, lifted her chin higher, raised her slumped shoulders, and watched as Lady Laura’s hair was gently combed and worked into braids.
A quarter hour later, Tina swept the covers atop her, fussed over the placement of the braids on the pillow to ensure the crimps lay right when she uncrossed them in the morn, then snuffed all but one candle.
“Sleep in God’s arms, milady,” she said and pulled the door closed.
Laura stared at the ceiling, thought how much more she liked it seen through water. “God’s arms,” she whispered. “Ever too full to hold me. Lest I drop Clarice, I shall have to hold myself.”
CHAPTER TWO
Barony of Lexeter, England
Mid-May, 1163
King Henry was returned, and with him his Eleanor. For four years, he had occupied his French lands, not once setting foot in his island kingdom. But now he was everywhere, traveling across England at a furious pace, setting aright wrongs, and—it was said—increasingly disillusioned with his old friend, Thomas Becket.
The archbishop, a favorite to whom the king had entrusted the education of his heir, was not behaving. At least, not how Henry wished Thomas to behave.
As for Queen Eleanor, she was also making her presence felt. In this moment. Inside these walls.
“What does that harlot want?”
Lothaire stiffened. He had heard footsteps, but as they had not scraped or landed heavily as they were wont to do, he thought they belonged to a servant come to prepare the hall for the nooning meal. When his mother wished to be stealthy, she made the effort to lift her feet and softly place them.
