“Having a Norman lord is difficult for you,” Dominic said evenly, “for your father was killed by Normans.”
“Aye, lord,” she whispered. “My brothers and husband, too.”
Eadith’s fingers played with the gold brooch Dominic had given her.
“That war is over,” Dominic said flatly. “If you wish to continue fighting it, you will have to go to another keep.”
With a stricken cry, Eadith went to her knees and grabbed his hand.
“Nay, I beg you. Let me but stay until—” Her voice broke off.
“Until?” Dominic inquired.
“I know no other home. I want no other home. Please, lord. Let me stay. I will prove my worth to you in any way you ask.”
Dominic’s first impulse was to free his hand from the kisses Eadith was bestowing, for their intent was seductive rather than conciliatory. Even so, Dominic didn’t withdraw, because he had learned that impulse was a poor way to order his life.
“In any way?” he repeated softly.
“Aye,” she said without looking at him.
“Then stand and tell me where my wife’s favorite places are.”
Eadith remained kneeling, pressing Dominic’s hand against her full breasts.
“The garden,” she said, “the mews, the—”
“Inside the keep,” Dominic interrupted, freeing his hand with barely concealed distaste.
“The herbal, the chapel, and the bath,” Eadith said. Then she added, “Duncan and she used to enjoy the bath most particularly. ’Tis a very private place, and the lady’s soap is as soft as swansdown.”
Then Eadith saw the look on Dominic’s face and knew she wasn’t endearing herself to her new lord.
“Sorry, lord,” she said hurriedly. “It was all quite innocent, I’m sure.”
“Go to the chapel,” Dominic said through his teeth to Simon. “Take Eadith with you.”
Before either one of them could argue, Dominic spun on his heel and left the garrison. The stairs to the herbal were dark and cold, for it lay at the back of the keep, where the building itself merged with the stony hilltop. He snatched up a torch and held it to the candle that always was kept burning at the entrance to the lower reaches of the keep. The torch caught and burned with a sullen, orange glow that spoke of slovenly construction.
The air was cold, damp, and rich with smells of larder and herbal. Dominic walked quickly down the aisle, trying to control his rage at the thought of Meg and Duncan playing sensual games in the bath. He told himself it didn’t matter what she had done before she became his wife.
He didn’t believe it.
The realization shocked Dominic out of his anger. Meg had been betrothed to Duncan. The king had refused the marriage and all others that John had proposed. Given that, it was only natural she would seek what pleasure she could find with the man for whom she had “affection.”
Dominic was not such a saint that he could fault his wife for following her sensual nature. Yet the thought of Meg lying abandoned across Duncan’s lap while he plundered the feminine riches that lay open to him made a killing rage leap in Dominic.
To control it, he forced himself to note the state of the rooms that opened on either side of the aisle. These rooms were neatly kept, and had been even before his edict.
Meg’s doing, I’ll warrant, Dominic admitted silently. She is as clean as a cat. Pity she’s as independent as one, too. The most simple command is beyond her ability to obey.
Dominic ducked beneath the low lintel of the herbal. No sooner had he straightened than Meg’s voice came to him. Her back was turned as she worked over a mortar and pestle on a long stone table that looked as though it grew from the earth beneath her feet.
“Whoever it is,” Meg said without turning around, “leave the torch outside. It fouls the air in the herbal. How many times must I remind the keep’s people of that?”
“As many times as I must tell you to stay in your rooms, perhaps?” retorted Dominic.
Meg spun around. In the leaping torchlight her eyes were wide, startled. The light made her skin as golden as the jewelry Dominic had thrown in disgust on her bed upstairs.
“You!” she said. “What are you doing here? This is my place!”
“Nay, madam. The keep and everything in it is mine,” Dominic said curtly. “It is a fact you would do well to remember.”
Cloth swirled as Meg went back to working over the mortar. She cast a quick eye at the water keeper and picked up the pace of her strokes.
“I am speaking to you,” Dominic said, holding on to his temper with an effort that thinned his lips.
“I am hearing you.”
“Did you hear me when I said you were to remain in your quarters unless I was with you?”
Silence.
“Answer me,” Dominic snapped.
“Yes, I heard you.”
“Then why are you here?”
“The herbal is part of my quarters,” Meg retorted.
“Don’t try my patience.”
“How could I?” she muttered. “You have none.”
Dominic, who prided himself on his patience, discovered he was out of it. He crossed the room in three long strides and grabbed Meg’s arm with one hand.
“Enough of this foolishness,” he said curtly. “You stood before God and promised to obey your husband. And by God, you shall. To your room, madam.”
“Soon,” she said, “but the leaves must be worked for a little time yet.”
Dominic didn’t argue. He just turned to go, pulling Meg in his wake.
When Meg felt herself being dragged away from the table, she didn’t try to argue, either. She didn’t even think. The fear that had driven her since she had awakened exploded in a mindless black rush. She jerked her arm and twisted wildly from side to side in an attempt to break Dominic’s hold.
“What in God’s name…” he muttered.
Meg dropped the pestle and clawed at Dominic’s hand, trying to force him to free her. His fingers didn’t loosen at all, so she tried to pry them off one by one.
It was futile. He was far stronger than she was.
“Stop this thrashing about before you hurt yourself,” Dominic said curtly.
“Let go of me!”
“Not until you’re in your quarters.”
“No,” Meg said hoarsely. “I must finish what I started!”
Dominic shifted his grip with lightning speed. Between one instant and the next, Meg found herself hauled up off the ground, her feet flailing, as helpless as a bird in a net. Thinking only of the irreplaceable leaves that must be prepared immediately or ruined beyond use, she fought back with a fury that was all the more startling for its silence.
The torch dipped and arced frantically as Dominic sought to subdue Meg one-handed. The sullen flames came breathtakingly close to her eyes, her hair, her cheek. She didn’t notice. Her head cloth and circlet came off, sending her hair cascading wildly about.
“God’s teeth,” Dominic hissed. “You little idiot, you’ll burn yourself!”
Meg didn’t seem to hear. The torch’s flame careened against her unprotected wrist as she made a frantic grab for Dominic’s face. With a savage oath, he dropped the torch and ground it out underfoot.
Once both hands were free, Dominic quickly finished the struggle. Before Meg knew what had happened, he had her flat against the wall, her wrists locked over her head in one of his hands, her chin in the other, and her knees clamped between his. No matter how hard she fought, she could do little more than breathe.
Dominic looked at the frantic face of his wife and wondered what had possessed her to attack him. He had expected Meg to argue or to plead, or perhaps to drag her feet and sulk the length of the keep when he insisted that she obey him. He hadn’t expected her to turn on him like a cornered wildcat.
Slowly Meg’s thrashing abated. She watched him with feral eyes as she fought to draw breath into her lungs despite the weight of his body pressing her into the wall.
“Are you finished?” Dominic asked with sardonic politeness.
Meg nodded her head.
“Then we will go to your rooms and—”
Dominic’s words broke off as he felt the tension in Meg’s body return.
“If I let go of you, you’ll fight me again, won’t you?” he asked.
Meg said nothing. She didn’t have to. The fierce tautness of her body told its own story.
Perplexed, Dominic regarded his wife in the light of the sweetly scented, cleanly burning candles of the herbal. Meg was clearly defeated in this contest of strength, and she knew it as well as he. Just as clearly, she would continue to fight if he relaxed his grip.
There was a long, seething silence while Dominic considered Meg’s watchful green eyes. Abruptly he remembered the initial cause of the problem.
“Are you, by chance, working with the leaves you gathered this morning?” Dominic asked curiously.
“Aye,” she whispered. Then, in a tumble of hopeful words, “Please, let me finish. It’s more important than you know. I must prepare them before they lose their potency.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” Meg admitted. “I just know that I must do it or something fearful will happen to Blackthorne Keep.”
Dominic cocked his head as though listening to an inner voice. What he heard was the faint slow dripping of water somewhere nearby. He turned and saw a silver bowl suspended above an ebony bowl. Water dripped down with measured speed.
“Is it a Glendruid matter?” he asked, turning back to the wife who was more an enigma to him with every hour.
“Aye.”
“Old Gwyn mentioned danger this morning. Something she sensed. She said you had probably sensed it, too.”
Meg nodded eagerly.
“What danger?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
Dominic grunted. “It seems you know little, Glendruid witch. Or is it that you simply won’t tell me?”
“I—I dreamed,” she said in a low voice. “There was a danger I couldn’t name. Then I saw the leaves of this plant. I knew I must gather them to avert disaster. Please, Lord Dominic. Allow me to finish what I began. I can’t replace these leaves for at least one fortnight, perhaps two. Please.”
Anxiously Meg watched Dominic, knowing that her well-being—and the future of Blackthorne Keep—depended on his being reasonable after she had tested him far beyond the limits of most men’s patience.
Before Dominic spoke, Meg sensed his answer. The feel of his body changed subtly as it relaxed against her without freeing her in the least. His caging of her became sensual rather than enraged. Suddenly she became aware of the very masculine contours of his body pressed against the length of hers.
“Shall we bargain, then?” Dominic asked huskily. “What will you give me if I let you finish preparing your Glendruid potion?”
“All you want from me is a son,” Meg said, trying to keep the bitterness of defeat from her voice. “That is beyond my power to give you.”
His eyes narrowed in a mixture of anger, rueful humor, and speculation.
“There is more to man and maid than simply making babes,” Dominic pointed out.
“Is there? You’ve not spoken of it to me.”
“Aye,” he said slowly. “I’ve erred in that.”
“Lord?” Meg asked.
“My name is Dominic,” he said as he brushed his lips across hers. “Let me hear you say it.”
“Dominic…”
He absorbed the whispering warmth of the word against his lips.
“You do that very well, sweet witch.”
Slowly, reluctantly, Dominic eased the pressure of his body from Meg.
“You owe me a favor of my choice at a time of my choice,” he said thickly. “Agreed?”
“Aye.”
“So quick? Aren’t you worried what I might want?”
“Nay,” Meg said anxiously, looking toward the table, where water dripped relentlessly into the keeper bowl. “I’m worried only about the leaves. If I don’t finish the preparation soon, all will be for naught.”
“A kiss to seal our bargain, then.”
“Now?” she asked, dismayed.
“Why not?”
Meg explained in a rush, not knowing how much time she had. “By the time we finish kissing it will be too late and my mind will be a muddle and my fingers will be all thumbs. You kiss in a most distracting way.”
When Dominic understood the meaning of the tumbled words, he smiled sensually. His thumb traced the faint trembling of Meg’s lower lip.
“Does Duncan?” he murmured.
“Duncan?” Meg blinked, perplexed. “What in heaven does he have to do with kissing? He has never muddled my mind one bit.”
“Do I?”
“You know you do,” she said, exasperated. “I just told you so. And if you don’t stop running your thumb over my lip I shall bite you!”
“Where? Here?”
As Dominic spoke, he drew one of Meg’s captive hands to his mouth, bit the base of her thumb with great care, and was rewarded by the swift, sensual breaking of her breath.
“Oh, stop,” she begged. “I must have steady hands.”
Dominic tried not to show his pleasure at her response to him, but found it impossible. He freed Meg and laughed to make the stones ring.
“Finish your work, sweet witch. Then we’ll go to your rooms and discuss the nature of your captivity.”
Before Dominic finished speaking, Simon ducked beneath the lintel and stepped into the herbal.
“Is she here?” he asked.
“Aye,” Dominic answered, his voice still rich with laughter. “Come, we’ll wait outside. The torch you’re carrying fouls the air of Meg’s herbal.”
Outside, Simon gave Dominic a curious look. “The maid must indeed be a witch.”
Dominic made a questioning sound that was rather like a satisfied purr.
“I left you angry enough to flay her alive,” Simon said, “and a short time later I find you laughing like a boy.”
The smile Dominic gave Simon made him uneasy.
“It’s a serious matter,” Simon said.
“Why? Can’t I laugh like other men?”
“She has bewitched you,” Simon said bluntly, “just as Eadith said she would.”
“’Tis a sweet enchantment,” Dominic said, smiling.
“God’s blood, you are bewitched. Look to your soul, brother, or soon Duncan of Maxwell will have by treachery what he couldn’t take by force!”
15
MEG CARRIED THE TIGHTLY STOPPERED bottle in both hands through the keep and up to her own rooms. Normally she would have left the potion to ripen in a dark area of the herbal, but she was afraid to let the bottle out of her sight.
With a mixture of irritation and amusement, Dominic watched Meg open a concealed panel in the wooden partition that divided her quarters into a bedchamber and a sitting room. She put the bottle in the secret niche, closed the panel, and let out a long sigh of relief.
“You won’t tell anyone where the bottle is?” she asked anxiously, turning toward the silent man who had followed her every step of the way from the herbal.
Dominic shrugged and shut the door behind him. “Does it matter that much?”
“If anything happens to that bottle, I can’t replace the medicine for at least a fortnight. By then, it might be too late.”
“Why? What is it for?”
Meg thought quickly, wondering how much she could tell Dominic without breaking her word to Old Gwyn. After a brief hesitation, Meg spoke, choosing her truths carefully, for she disliked lying.
“Some of my medicines are quite strong. If given wrongly, they can kill. That,” Meg gestured toward the hidden bottle, “is an antidote to one of my most powerful pain medicines. After John died, I made a new batch of the pain medicine, so it is only prudent to make the antidote as well.”
“For whom?”
“I d
on’t understand.”
“John is dead. For whom are you preparing such risky medicines?”
The blunt question made Meg wince. Again, she chose her truths with great care.
“I’ve seen that your knights train most strenuously. Soon or late, your men will hurt one another. Now I will be prepared to help them.”
For a long count of three, Dominic looked into the Glendruid eyes that were watching him with barely concealed anxiety. He suspected he wasn’t being told the whole truth, and he knew there was no way to be certain.
“I’ll tell no one except Simon,” Dominic said finally, “and he already knows that you took the bottle to your rooms.”
“See that he tells no one.”
Dominic nodded. Then he smiled rather darkly.
“That is two boons you owe me, wife.”
Meg’s cheeks colored at the combination of sensuality and triumph in Dominic’s smile.
“Aye.”
Nervously, Meg turned to tend the fire. Dominic watched as she bent to the hearth to stir up the embers. The more he was with his wife, the more impatient he became for her monthly flux to come and go so that he could plant the seeds of dynasty within her soft body. The grace of her movements aroused him to the point of pain.
And the quick skill of her hands told him that tending the fire was a task she performed often.
“Eadith barely earns her keep,” he said in a disgusted voice.
“What?”
“Your handmaiden seems to spend little time doing her tasks.”
“’Tis easier to do some things than to send word for one of the servants. In any case, Eadith wouldn’t have been a handmaiden if her father or husband had lived. She would have been a lady with a handmaiden of her own. I spare her pride where it is possible.”
“What happened to her family’s lands?” Dominic asked.
“The same thing that happened to all of England—William or his sons took the land and divided it among their Norman knights.”
Dominic listened carefully, but discovered none of the hatred he had sensed in Eadith’s voice when she talked of the Normans—a hatred more than a few of Blackthorne Keep’s servants bore despite their love of Meg. Nor did Dominic hear the refusal to accept his position that had been obvious in Duncan’s voice. Meg was as matter-of-fact as though she were describing the number of sheep in a fold. She didn’t even look up from her rummaging in the beaten brass container that held wood for the fire.
Untamed Page 16
