A large strong hand closed over Eloise’s wrist as she drew back the string, making her frown with annoyance as her chance was ruined. The archer let her arrow fly and, while all eyes were on the target, Eloise was pulled firmly away, her resistance making not the slightest difference to Sir Owain’s unrelenting force.
‘Let go of me!’ she muttered as sidelong glances noted their progress towards the space behind the contestants. ‘Sir Owain…let me go!’
He stopped and faced her, keeping hold of her wrist. ‘Now, you can tell me what’s going on,’ he said. ‘What has that young loudmouth done to deserve an arrow through him?’
‘I was not going to—you saw?’
‘Well, of course I saw, lass. You were watching him like a hawk. My, but you’re a fierce one to cross, aren’t you? Would you really have used an occasion like this to wing somebody you don’t like?’
For the first time since her impulsive intentions, she realised how it would seem to Jolita’s guests, how it would ruin the contest, draw attention to herself and her anger, upset Jolita and Henry. ‘No,’ she whispered, shamefaced. ‘I shall have to find another way.’
‘Another way to what? Kill him? What’s he done to offend you? Has he insulted you?’ His keen eyes darted across the crowd to the young man, then back to her. ‘One of your brother’s lads. Almost as indisciplined sober as he is drunk. I’d flog him oftener if he were mine, but not before a crowd this size, I think. Does he have something to do with our truce?’
When she made no reply, he slid a hand beneath her arm and propelled her gently towards a door in the adjoining garden wall. ‘In here, I think,’ he said, ushering her through into the green and secluded vegetable plot. ‘If he does,’ he continued, ‘I think I ought to be told. Don’t I? As part of the agreement?’
‘There was no agreement,’ she ventured, imprudently.
He smiled at that. ‘Lady, there is always an agreement or there’d be no truce. I can see I shall have to introduce you to some rules of war, one of these days. Or should it be rules of peace?’ He removed the bow and arrows from her hand and eased her back against the high wall, imprisoning her.
‘Sir Owain,’ she said, ‘can we forget all about this truce business? It’s giving everyone the idea that there’s something between us, and you know as well as I that that is very far from the truth. It’s foolish.’
‘It’s not nearly as foolish, my lady,’ he whispered, bending his head to her, ‘as pretending that there isn’t. And who is everyone? That lad you were about to punish?’
Again, she was silent. How could she expect him to understand her dilemma? He was a man who would do what all such men did when faced with a woman’s problems. He would argue, try to change her mind, talk her round in circles, persuade her that there was no foundation to her concerns. He would put aside all her objections as if they were fantasy. He would show her the advantages of forgetting them while he was there, after which they would reappear and leave her racked with guilt. And that was something she could do without.
Brutal directness was the only course. ‘All right, I’ll tell you, since that’s the only way to make you understand. They said—’
‘They? Who?’
‘That crowd. That lad was amongst them. I heard them as they passed me in the passageway. They were tipsy.’
‘Ah!’
‘Yes, sir. They were tipsy enough to speak their minds on the subject of your intentions towards me.’
‘Which are?’
‘They said someone ought to warn you. Well, I’m warning you myself that no man who shows an interest in me lasts more than three months. They know that, and I’ve already mentioned it. It’s true. And they said that…no…I cannot say the rest.’ She turned her head away, suddenly afraid of the words and of his reaction to them. It was too personal.
‘Said what? That I should take you to bed? That I could do that without any further commitment? That you’d be as easy as all the others? Is that it?’
A wave of heat flooded into her face and neck as if a brazier had been set before her, bringing back the shame of last evening when such opinions had been accompanied by lewd laughter. Except that Sir Owain was not smiling. Eloise held the cool palms of her hands to her cheeks, nodding her agreement of his guesswork. ‘If you must know, yes,’ she whispered. ‘And that, sir, is not the kind of thing any woman wishes to have said about her, especially when there are but a few months to her wedding. I was shamed, sir, and angry. And if you had not interfered just now I would have taught him how to keep his mouth shut. I could, you know.’
‘I don’t doubt it, my lady. Your scores showed me that. And you have every right to be angry. But there’s a better way than that to silence such gossip, you know.’
On the verge of losing her temper, she believed she could read his mind and, pushing herself out of the enclosure of his arms, rounded on him in fury. ‘Yes, a man’s way! Don’t take me for an idiot, Sir Owain. I know well enough how you would silence the gossip, but it’s not the way I would choose. I have a reputation, and so do you.’
‘I do?’
‘You know you do. As a womaniser. And God forbid that my name should be linked with yours in that department.’
‘I thought it already had.’ Mentally, he kicked himself for a fool. ‘I mean….’
‘I know exactly what you mean,’ she snarled. ‘And that is as far as it goes, sir. I want nothing to do with your sort. I cannot afford to have my name tarnished with the name of Whitecliffe, nor can you be so short of women that you must seek me out for your attentions. Now, leave me alone, Sir Owain.’
Blinded by fury and unable to see that she was heading towards a compost heap, she turned away from him, only to be caught before she reached it. His handsome face was set hard in an anger more dangerously under control than hers. His hand linked with her upper arm, slewing her round in midstep and bringing her body hard into his restraint.
‘Not so fast, my lady.’ He held her punishingly hard against him. ‘Now, just remind me of something, will you? I kissed you last night, remember?’
‘No,’ she snapped. ‘I forget things that do not interest me.’
‘I see. Then you will not recall how you responded. How you softened.’
‘No. Let me go!’
‘Or how you would have given yourself to me.’
‘I would never give myself to a White—’ She stopped in mid-word, knowing that she had gone too far into perjury, that she would have given herself to him whatever his name had been. As she would now, despite her resentment of him.
His arms were like bands of steel pinning hers down in an embrace far from loving: his eyes challenged hers as they had done before. ‘Yes, my lady,’ he whispered. ‘That was well done, for if you had used my name as target practice a second time I would have taken that as a declaration that our truce was indeed at an end. You’ve not seen a Whitecliffe defend his honour against a lady, yet. Let us hope you don’t. Guard your tongue more closely, woman, for your safety’s sake.’
It is not my tongue that needs most guarding. ‘There is an easier solution to that problem, Sir Owain. You remove yourself from my line of fire. A mile or so should be adequate.’
‘I seem to recall that that kind of solution makes you even angrier. Perhaps the opposite would work better.’ He gave her no time to query his intentions but, as he had done in the lists, moved so swiftly that the opponent was given no chance to evade him. It was the same for Eloise, the kiss that followed being meant to show how close to her he intended to stay and how ineffectual was her advice to one as accomplished as he. As it was, it did far more than that for both of them.
This time, there was no interruption from Saskia or the herald to call them to supper, and whereas Eloise’s exhaustion of last evening had made her compliant, this time her anger was channeled dexterously by Sir Owain into a response that took her so far beyond her objections that they might never have existed. Understanding more about her complex emotions t
han he had previously, he purposely goaded her into releasing them, taking her fierceness in his stride and fuelling it with ever deepening kisses that gave her no time to recover. This time, he used his hands deftly over the green bronze of her surcoat, slipping them into the open sides to feel the smooth curves of her back, the oval roundness of her buttocks.
Starved of the loving she had craved for so long, of the loving she had stored and damped down in the deepest vaults of her heart, Eloise found that the ensuing release was immediately beyond her control, sweeping her away into an inferno that blazed white-hot with sensations. His mouth, his hands, the hard warmth of his body, his unnerving male aroma and the texture of his skin and hair under her fingers filled her mind and took it over, closing it to everything outside. No thoughts. No reservations. She would have done anything he asked of her.
Far more experienced than she, Sir Owain sensed her capitulation and slowed, having proved the point both to himself and to her. Holding her closely against him, he cradled her head and felt the trembling, the ragged shaking of her lungs, the aimless wandering of her hands whose shameless curiosity had now been exposed. He took one of them in his own and kissed the knuckles, noting the long delicate fingers and the plain gold wedding ring. Thankfully, he said nothing.
‘Why?’ she whispered, breathlessly, watching the kiss.
‘Why what?’
‘You know you cannot do this. You cannot simply walk back into my life and take things up from where you left off. It’s too late. I’ve moved on now.’
‘Have you?’ he said, touching her lips with his warm forefinger. ‘Well then, perhaps you’ve moved on in a direction you didn’t know you were taking. Perhaps what you believed was the end is actually the beginning. Perhaps…just perhaps…I’ve made you confront something you’ve been keeping hidden all this time. Eh? Would you dare to admit that, even to yourself?’
‘If I did, what would it matter to you? There’s no shortage of potential wives or mistresses for a man of your standing. You have no need to turn your attention to widows, Sir Owain.’
‘You said as much before. Is that what rankles? That you think I might be dallying with you? Just for something to pass the time?’
‘Such an assumption would be understandable, sir. It’s what you’re known for as much as for your jousting skills.’
‘So you’re fond of telling me. Thank heaven men usually place my skills in the reverse order, but no matter, I still have to tell you that you are mistaken in your assumptions, understandable or not. You obviously have an opinion of me that makes it impossible for you to take me seriously. But believe me, my lady, when I say that I do not yet have a reputation for seducing unwilling women or those whose hands are promised to others.’
‘Yet.’
‘This is the one and only occasion when my good record may suffer, but I have two excuses, you see. First, I offered for you before Gerrard did. Second, I refuse to recognise your relationship with Master atte Welle, your loyal steward. And I have told you, and so has your father, that the king won’t recognise it, either.’
‘That doesn’t make it any less valid, sir. I mean to go ahead with it.’
‘Then until you are stopped there is no point in my telling you how you fit into my plans, is there? I can wait. Meanwhile, it is futile for you to continue to fight me as if we were sworn enemies.’
Disengaging herself from his arms, Eloise stood before him with her hands flat on the red velvet of his shoulder-cape, reminding herself of the insurmountable barrier between them. ‘Then what fancy name would you prefer to give it, Sir Owain, if not enmity? Am I suddenly expected to disregard your making a widow of me? Have you given any thought to how it might appear for me to give my friendship freely to the one whose best friend killed my husband? It was a year ago, sir. One year. Scarce time for the memory to fade, I’d have thought.’ Her voice was dark with passion as she spoke.
Without warning, he pulled her back into his arms, closing his mouth over hers with a ruthlessness that she had no time to prepare for. Each time was different, this being more like retaliation for a wound just delivered than persuasion. His voice was husky with an emotion Eloise could not identify but which, she thought, came perilously close to hatred. ‘Memories!’ he growled, his lips close above her. ‘Tell me not of your sweet memories of him, woman, or I’ll have to brand you a liar. You are loyal but he did nothing to deserve it, and you well know it. Yes, I can say that even though you cannot. But don’t tell me how you swooned in his arms as you just did in mine. Don’t tell me how you enjoyed his loving, how you longed for his embrace, his—’
‘Stop! Please…stop!’
‘I will stop because it does no good to continue, but don’t pretend to miss that whore-begotten fleshmonger, my lady. Not with me. I knew him, remember.’
‘Fleshmonger? You mean he—?’
‘Enough. I’ve said too much. God, woman, I’ve never known anyone stir me as much as you do. Have you slipped me a love potion?’
‘No, sir. I have not.’ She hid her smile well. Was there love, then? ‘But I have one for a man who has lost his reason. Daisy, sage and southernwood in wine. It works quite well, as a rule.’
‘You believe I need that, do you?’ His arms released her. ‘Well, that may be so, but I still have enough reason to see that you cannot plead time and association as an excuse to keep me away while telling me in the same breath how little you care for convention.’
‘It was not in the same breath.’
‘Trust a woman.’ He smiled. ‘All right, but my argument stands, lady. You cannot have it both ways. And if you cared about convention you’d not be here but on your knees on the cold stone floor of a chapel.’ He caught her as she turned sharply to walk away. ‘Now, shall we forgo the pretence and allow some honesty between us? At least give me some credit for knowing the difference.’
‘Sir Owain, I’m sure you do, but you are not a woman, nor were you there to hear the base talk I heard last night. A man could have laid the lot of them out cold; a woman cannot do that. She has to pretend it doesn’t matter, but it does. Especially when they cannot be the only ones—’
‘To think as they do? You’re talking about your three-month terms again, I can tell. Well, all I can say is that any man who allows himself to be put off by such a set of coincidences, my lady, was not so keen in the first place, in spite of what I said the other night. Forget it. It means nothing. It means less than nothing to me.’
She looked into his eyes, daring herself to ask, ‘Then what is it you want, Sir Owain? A taste of what you thought you’d missed? Revenge?’
He shook his head, letting his eyes roam over her face and hair. ‘So beautiful, and yet so cynical. There’s going to be a lot of gentling needed here, my beauty, isn’t there, before the harm is undone? Eh?’ He smiled, holding her arms. ‘No, nothing of revenge or of tasting either. If I wanted revenge, his death was that, but I didn’t. Nothing so ordinary. What do I want? Your friendship will do nicely for today. Could we re-negotiate the truce, d’ye think?’ His hands caressed her shoulders, softly, tenderly.
What more was there for her to say? She looked along the gravelled pathway towards the orchard where yesterday they had stood ankle-deep in blossom, he with his hand protectively resting on her shoulder. She recalled the euphoria of being safe at his side last night, being released from continuous explanations concerning her past, present and future. It had been a short-lived bliss, well worth the concessions.
‘Yes,’ she said on a sigh. ‘Yes, I suppose so. Temporarily.’
‘Temporarily, of course.’ He smiled. ‘Twenty-four hours, this time?’
She nodded, accepting. That was safe enough, for by this time tomorrow she and her father would be well on their way to London.
He reached down to her waist and hauled up the end of her plait, calmly removing the ribbon and the bunch of green feathers that bound the end. These he placed in the leather pouch at his belt. ‘Thank you,’ he said,
grinning.
Bemused, Eloise did nothing to stop him, nor did she protest when he combed his fingers through the loosened hair, undoing half of her plait, carefully placing it behind her to make sure that it hung well. No man had ever done so much for her, and she wondered how many times he had done it before and how many maids had watched him.
Her wariness must have showed, for he took her chin in his hand and held it, watchfully. ‘You’re like a badly broken filly, lass,’ he whispered. ‘Distrustful. And no wonder. You’re ready for a kinder master now, I think.’ Before she could find a reply, he swept his hand slowly downwards over her throat and the wide neckline, continuing over her surcoat and on to the proud swell of one breast. Briefly he held it, weighing it with a cupped hand before moving down to her waist, all the while watching her eyes change from green pools to dark mossy depths, heavy-lidded with desire.
‘Come,’ he said, ‘before I do some damage of my own.’
Kneeling on the window-seat, Jolita craned her head as far as she dared to breathe in the cool night air that still vibrated with sounds of activity below, men preparing carts, the muffled yelp of a hound. She left the window ajar to accommodate a bewildered moth and turned to watch her lovely sister whose half-nakedness still fascinated her, even after years of familiarity. Clasping her hands behind her head, she glowed with happiness. ‘Oh, Ellie! Did you ever know such a day?’
The rhetorical question did not disturb Eloise, whose reply came with a smile. ‘No, love. I never did. I doubt anyone could have packed more into it, and you were the loveliest Queen of Hearts I’ve ever seen. Or anyone else, for that matter. Did you see Mother’s face?’
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