by Lisa Hendrix
Oh, sweet Mother of God, what was she thinking? Her father’s archers still lurked about waiting for Gunnar to show his face. If he even so much as tried to catch a glimpse of her …
She couldn’t go outside. She couldn’t stay here at all. She jumped to her feet.
“My lady,” the dark knight began. “I have—”
“Your pardon, monsire. I feel a sick headache coming on.” She grabbed Lucy’s arm and dragged her toward the door. “Come help me to bed. I will be going nowhere today.”
SINCE THE DAY she’d been brought to serve Lady Eleanor at the age of seven, Lucy’s afternoons had belonged to her noble cousin. There was always sewing and embroidery to do or the lady’s wardrobe to attend to, or she might be called on to run errands in the village or simply to pass time with Eleanor herself, reading or singing. Her duties were never unpleasant or difficult, they were just always there to be done, and they always had been.
But now, banished by Lady Eleanor’s demand for darkness and silence because of her sick headache, and with no service owing elsewhere because they were away from home, Lucy found herself free, her only obligation to herself.
She wandered the village the first day of her lady’s illness, and the mill and tannery the next, but on the third day, when threshing began and tawny clouds of chaff and dust rose over everything, she kept to the castle grounds, where the air was a little cleaner. She didn’t expect to find much of note; in the years of trailing around from place to place after Eleanor, she’d learned that a castle was a castle, and that much the same thing went on in every one. But at nearly five acres all told, Alnwick’s baileys were larger than most. Perhaps there was something new to see.
She visited the stables and smithy, where she watched the men bend the iron for a window grate, then found her way to the herb garden, where she broke off a stem of mint to suck on and spent a pleasant while sitting on a stone bench watching the bees as they hurried to gather the last of the summer nectar. The sun was warm and the gentle buzzing lulled her, and after a time she found her head nodding. After a quick glance around to confirm she was alone, she leaned back against the wall, closed her eyes, and let herself drift, balanced on the edge of sleep, only vaguely aware of the odd noises that strayed over the garden wall.
“Tread carefully, Stephen.” The male voice was almost on top of Lucy. Startled, she shot to her feet—and right into a pair of strong arms that caught her up. “You never know what fearsome creatures you may find amongstst the Mary-golds. You can see how they spring upon a man without warning.”
Lucy found herself looking into Henry Percy’s grinning face. “Sir Henry! I didn’t know you were at Alnwick.”
“I only just arrived.” Keeping his hold on Lucy, Henry gave a nod to the page at his heel. “Stephen, go and tell His Grace that I have been attacked and will see him when I have escaped.”
“I have my balance now,” said Lucy as the boy hurried off. “You can let me go.”
“Why would I want to do that, when I can hold the sweetest maid in the castle?” He pressed a kiss to her temple. Flustered, she closed her eyes and he added a trail of kisses over her eyelids. “And the warmest, I vow. It is like holding the sun in my arms, if the sun smelled of mint. Were you sleeping?”
“Nearly. I did not expect an invasion from Scotland.”
“Invasions most often come when you least expect them.” He demonstrated by kissing her, his tongue plunging in to take her mouth in a full-on assault that sent ten hundred sparks skittering through her body like so many warriors, intent on breaching her defenses.
And they very nearly did. Would have, if Henry hadn’t broken off the kiss on his own. Lucy opened her eyes to find him looking at her with an odd expression that made the breath catch in her throat.
A moment passed, then another when anything might have happened, and then he cocked his head toward the clash of practice weapons that echoed across the bailey. “I believe I hear the men of Alnwick drilling against just such an invasion. Have you watched them?”
“A little.”
“Are they any good? No, never mind, I shall see for myself. Come. Walk with me.” He grabbed her hand and tugged her along before she had a chance to say yea or nay, leading her across the bailey to the foot of a stone stairway.
“We’re going up on the wall?” Her voice came out with a squeak.
“Yes, my little mousekin. It is the only way to truly see so many men at once,” said Henry as he motioned for her to start up before him. “You sound like you have never been up on a wall before.”
“Only once. Lord Ralph doesn’t like women on the wall. And at York, we were kept too busy to go up.”
“Um. Busy,” mumbled Henry. Lucy glanced over her shoulder, and found that he lagged a few steps behind her, just far enough to put his eyes on the same level as her bottom. A sudden awkwardness made her stumble, and Henry quickly reached out to steady her. His hand landed on her bum, cupping it as though he’d intended this all along—a notion reinforced by the way he winked up at her. “How is Lady Eleanor? I heard she is ill.”
Lucy reached behind and removed his hand. “You can only have been here less than an hour. How can you possibly know … ?”
“Spies. Is she ill?”
Lucy nodded. “She has been abed with a sick headache for three days now. She wants no noise and no light.”
“Ah, that is why you are free to nap in the garden.”
“You knew I was there before you found me, didn’t you?”
“Aye. I told you, I have spies.” They reached the top, and he took her hand and led her off to the east, toward the round tower, a structure that perched on the edge of the ravine that provided a portion of Alnwick’s defenses. As they passed the guards who walked the wall, many greeted him by name, enough calling him Lord Henry to remind Lucy of the chasm between them.
“You were right, my lord, there is an excellent view of the men from up here.” She tugged her hand away. “But I have neglected my lady too long. By your leave.”
“Leave not given.” He caught her around the wrist with just enough force that she would’ve looked foolish trying to wrest herself free. “You just said your lady wants quiet.”
“She may need something.”
“If she does, there are a dozen servants within reach of her voice.” He turned her hand over and studied it as though he’d never seen a hand before, then traced a line down her palm and first finger with one fingertip. “No, this is not about Eleanor.” Without looking up, he started a second line, shifting so it trailed the length of her middle finger. “This is about me. You are trying to escape me.”
“You’re right. I am,” she admitted. She tugged again, but might as well have been shackled, for all the good it did.
Her whole hand tingled as he started another line. He stopped on her third finger right where a ring would go. “Why? Did you not enjoy my kiss?”
“It is not that,” she said with a sigh.
“Then what?”
“You know.”
“You must tell me.”
He started off toward the tower again with her in tow, just as the man on watch on top spied them. The fellow leaned over the edge. “Welcome home, Lord Henry!”
“That,” said Lucy under her breath.
“James. I take it your eyes are still good. Best watchman in Northumberland,” he explained to Lucy.
“No longer mere watchman, my lord. I am now sarjeant of the day watch.”
“Well done.” Henry tipped his head toward the door of the tower. “Anyone in there?”
“There shouldn’t be, my lord. The men always stay off Hotspur’s seat in case you should come. ’Tis ready for you.” He glanced at Lucy and nodded. “That is, for you and your lady.”
Laughing, Henry led her inside. The tower room was surprisingly bright, its interior lit by both arrow shafts and a wide, unglazed window on the interior wall. Suddenly solemn, Henry dropped Lucy’s hand and went to the window niche, n
ot looking down at the men in the bailey below, but staring instead at a stone seat cut into the wall beside the window. He bent and ran his hand over it, tracing the outline of an area that was worn slightly smoother than the rest.
“This was my father’s favorite place,” he said as Lucy came up behind him. “Every day, he would sit here and watch the men drill and call down orders.”
She stepped around him to look down into the wide bailey below, where both knights and men-at-arms fought with blunted weapons. “Look. There is Lord Burghersh.”
Henry wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his head on her shoulder. He studied the fighters for a moment. “Does Lady Eleanor have a great many headaches?”
“No, never. Why?”
“I was just thinking that, were I a woman and married to Richard le Despenser, I would find cause to have a headache every night.”
And so the lady would, if only she could, thought Lucy—but that was not something to discuss with Percy. “You are too familiar, sir.”
“Come now, Lucy-fair, you cannot tell me that your lady is happy with that wisp of straw. I remember him as a nose-picker.”
“He is her husband,” she said firmly and changed the subject. “Did you often come up here with your father?”
“Hmm. Yes. I used to sit right there.” He took her hand and swung it to point just to the right of his father’s place, then drew it up to press kisses to her fingertips.
“You should try your father’s seat.”
He looked at the seat and slowly shook his head. “Not till it is mine by right. But when I do have Alnwick back, it is the first place I will sit.”
When, not if. He had a cockiness to him, that was certain, but he was a Percy, after all. They were born to cockiness and to the trouble it bred. If there was one of them in the whole history of the family that hadn’t rebelled against his king at some point, she’d certainly never heard of it.
“Lucy?”
As she twisted to look up at him, he spun her within his arms and pulled her away from the window, into the shadows where they couldn’t be seen from below. Pressing her back against the curved stone wall, his hands shifted to her waist to better hold her.
“My lord …”
He stopped her protest with a long slow kiss, his invasion unhurried this time, the lazy explorations of his tongue keeping time with the leisurely wandering of his hands. She clutched at his shirt, knowing she should push him away but wanting so much to pull him closer, and he lifted his head and looked down at her, as though he knew the conflict in her soul.
“Kiss me, Lucy-fair,” he whispered. “Hold me.” And she did, not simply because he commanded it, but because she wanted to, because he made her want to, simply by being there.
Hesitantly, she ran her hands over his shoulders and back. Beneath his doublet, his body was all angles and lean muscles, the body of a well-trained warrior. Dangerous.
And especially dangerous to her, because of the thoughts those muscles inspired.
“We cannot do this,” she said, then traced down the length of his strong arms anyway.
“And yet we both of us must.” His hands slid up her ribs, his thumbs traced the lower curve of her breasts. The peaks swelled and hardened, preparing for his touch, but he moved no farther, only stroking, back and forth, back and forth. It was all she could do not to scream at him to touch her, for God’s sake, touch her.
“We should stop.”
Another kiss, as his thumbs arced back and forth, taunting. “You don’t really want me to.”
No. But she found her good sense anyway and locked her fingers around his wrists. “I have told you, monsire—”
“Shh. Let me complete my argument.” He let her push his hands away from her breasts, but started a line of kisses down the side of her throat, nudging her veil and braid aside so he could find the curve where neck met shoulder. He raked his teeth across her skin and sucked, setting off another round of those distracting sparks.
She closed her eyes, trying to concentrate, trying not to sigh and melt against him. “That is hardly a fair argument.”
“I am no more unfair to you than you have been to me these last three years. You have left me thinking of no woman but you.”
“That is”—wonderful—“not my fault.”
“So you have thought of others?”
“Yes,” she lied.
He blew across the spot he’d made tender, sending shivers down her back. “And yet I can make you tremble in my arms, even so.”
“You give me a chill, monsire. That is all.”
His chuckle teased the hairs along her neck. “Have you dreamed of me, the way I’ve dreamed of you?”
Every night. “No.”
He found an even more sensitive place just beneath her ear and traced a circle over it with his tongue. “Have you pleasured yourself in the night, imagining it was me?”
Lucy blushed to the roots of her hair. “My lord! We have not seen each other for over two years. Why would you even think to speak to me so?”
“Because I have. I have imagined your hands on me. Everywhere,” he whispered, and she understood what he meant and felt heat rush to the place between her legs where he would soon complete his invasion if she let him.
“You have enchanted me, Lucy. Bewitched me with those misty gray eyes of yours.” He drew his hands up the length of her body from hip to breast in one smooth, possessive attack that ended with him finally, finally capturing her breasts.
“Tell me you do not feel the same desire,” he challenged. He flicked his thumbs over the peaks, tearing a moan from her lips that was half surrender, half unwilling helplessness. “Convince me you don’t want me, and I shall leave you alone. But if you cannot, I intend to make you mine.”
He shifted toward her mouth again. If she didn’t stop this, he’d have her on her back right here in the tower.
She twisted away. “You are still Percy of Northumberland. I am still a bastard. Nothing has changed.”
“Not yet. But our new king loves me far better than the old. He summoned me back here, to meet with York and Bedford. I think I am to have some of what is mine back again. Perhaps Alnwick itself.”
She gaped at him, appalled. “You have kept two dukes waiting while you seduce me?”
“Am I seducing you?” he asked, ignoring the rest of her words.
“Go, before they change their minds.” She shoved at him. He barely budged. “Oh, you’re mad!”
“Mad with love. I knew the moment I saw you sleeping there in the garden. Marry me, Lucy-fair.”
She flapped her hands in his face, trying to get him to move. “Don’t be a fool. Go! Get your title back.”
“I will. But come with me to the chapel now, before I become beholden to the fickle will of dukes and kings once more. Marry me, and when I bed you tonight, you will be lady of Alnwick.”
“And the king will know you for a fool.”
“Then give me a scepter and a belled cap for your wedding gift, for I will make a grand one.”
“Don’t be an ass, Percy.”
They both froze.
The Duke of York stood in the doorway, his hand still on the door, his face grim in the shadows. “You should listen to the maid. She has far more sense than you do.”
He stared at them until they broke apart and each did courtesy, then stepped into the chamber. “Leave us, Lucy.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“No.” Henry grabbed her by the sleeve and pulled her out of her courtesy. “I want her for my wife.”
“She’s the bastard daughter of a second son.” York barely glanced at Lucy as he paced over to stand in front of Henry. “If she were Westmorland’s own bastard, it might be different, but she is not. Bed her if you must and if she’ll have you, but do not think to marry her. We have grander plans for you than that.”
“But Your Grace …”
“Or shall I tell the king you prefer Scotland after all?” York’s col
or darkened, and Lucy was suddenly afraid for Henry, even if he was too foolish to be afraid for himself.
“I am the king’s loyal friend and subject and have always been so,” said Henry. “But Lucy—”
“Lucy knows her place, even if you do not.” Lucy jerked out of Henry’s grasp and backed away. “It is not at your side, my lord. It never has been, and I have always known it even if you forget. My thanks to you, Your Grace. By your leave.”
She did another courtesy and ran, pelting along the wall to the nearest stairs as though Henry were after her. But of course he wasn’t. He couldn’t be.
It was only when she reached the privacy of the garderobe that she let herself cry, and only when the tears were done a good while later that she slipped back into Lady Eleanor’s chamber. She sat in the dark, hiding, and by the time Eleanor chased her out again the next morning, Henry Percy was gone, sent off to do homage to the king as Baron of Alnwick, someday soon to be remade Earl of Northumberland.
And she was still a bastard maid, her virtue intact, even if her heart was not.
BY THE FOURTH day, Eleanor’s headache had become real, a combination of apprehension, sadness, and the gloom that came rolling in as the days shortened. Good husband that he was, Richard visited her every evening, standing just inside the doorway in order to disturb her as little as possible. He grew more worried day by day, until finally he came to sit on the edge of the bed.
“I should like to help you, if you will let me,” he said. “Just tell me how.”
Finally. “Take me home, Richard. I want to go home.”
“To Raby?”
“No. That is no longer home. I want to go back to Burwash. I cannot bear it here. The autumn is too raw, the hall too smoky. I cannot spend a winter here. Your duty to the Crown is met for this year. Ask York to release you and take me home to Sussex before the weather changes. Please.”
He sat for a moment, chewing on his lip as he absorbed her request. “Eleanor, are you breeding?”
“What makes you ask that?”
“The castellan suggested that might be what bedevils you. His wife grows restless and ill each time she is with child.” He took her hands in his. “Are you?”
