Fire and Steel

by Anita Mills

  “’Tis too late for this! God’s bones, but why did you not speak up when they sought to annul the marriage then?” he demanded, his own voice rising. “Aye, I even expected it!”

  “Because they would have wed me to Robert of Caen!” she shouted back.

  “That was years ago—he has Gloucester’s heiress now,” he reminded her. “You could have said something once he’d wed.”

  “Nay, but I could not! Jesu, but you are a man and cannot understand! When they asked at first, I swore I’d lain with you—how could I have recanted later? Do you know what proof they’d have—do you? They would have looked!” Reddening even as she said it, she nodded. “Aye, I would have been stripped and examined before witnesses, my lord, and I am no whore to be seen like that!”

  “So you lay with Brian FitzHenry until your shame reached King Henry’s ears! Jesu, but did you think I’d have no pride? That I’d take you back without question? Nay, Cat, but I am not such a fool.” He moved closer as she watched in stunned disbelief. “I swear to you that if you are delivered of a babe too early, I will kill Brian FitzHenry.”

  “Afore God, ’tis too much!” she spat out when she found her voice.

  Before he realized her intent, she reached out and slapped him with such force that she feared she’d broken the bones in her hand. He stood like a rock in the face of the blow, too surprised to react. Slowly he reached to rub the reddened palm print on his cheek. “I suppose I should be grateful you had no weapon, else you would have marked me again,” he spoke finally, his anger strangely gone.

  “You have no right to come back after five years and accuse me of such baseness, my lord. Five years it has been—five years when I have sat here as neither wife nor maid! But I have never dishonored myself or you, Guy of Rivaux!” Her voice had dropped to a near-whisper, but her words hung between them as if she’d still shouted. “Aye, I know not why you are come home, but I know ’tis not because of me.”

  “You swear to me that you have lain with no man?”

  “Swear to you? Swear to you? Nay, I’ll not swear it! Not when I have already said it! Sweet Mary, but ’tis I who should have you swear to me! For all I know of you, my lord, you have had a dozen lemans since last you left me. Aye, but then, you are a man, are you not? And ’tis expected of a man,” she added bitterly.

  He wanted to believe her, but the pain he’d carried since Tinchebrai would not go away—not when he’d seen them this day on the Condes’ wall. “There is but one way to prove the truth, is there not?” His flecked eyes took in her naked body and then her face, watching the blood rise in her cheeks. “Come here.”

  “Nay.”

  “You are old enough now, I think.”

  “Nay.” She wet her lips nervously and backed away.

  “’Tis my right, Cat.” Following her as one would a skittish animal, he waited until he’d backed her almost against the wall. Then, leaning forward to rest a hand on either side of her, he closed in. “Prove your honor to me, Cat,” he murmured, lowering his mouth to hers.

  Her eyes widened as his grew closer, and then closed when his face blurred before hers. Her protest died under the pressure of his lips as they moved on hers, and his tongue teased, tasting the salty tears and bathwater that mingled there. An instant heat sprang between them, nearly blotting out rational thought. His hands came up to twine in her wet hair, imprisoning her, and her hands, which had sought to push him away, slid around his waist instead. It was as though all the pent-up anger and bitterness turned into a different fire that warmed their still-wet bodies and ignited a need of such intensity that Cat neither cared nor wanted to fight anymore. Telling herself that he was her given husband, she clung to him, savoring what she’d been too long denied.

  He’d expected her to fight, to claw and scratch at him, so much so that he was unprepared for her response to him. His mind urged him to go slowly with her, but every fiber of his body demanded hers to slake his need and release the terrible tension he felt. His hands slid from her hair to her back and then down to her hips, his palms moving over her wet skin with such urgency that he could feel her body tremble beneath them.

  Her rational mind was under siege from her senses—she knew he meant to take her and that her pride ought to make her resist him, but his very touch sent a thrill of anticipation through her. “Sweet Mary!” she breathed in wonder when his lips left hers to trace their fire down her neck. His touch was light as it moved, but her flesh came alive beneath his mouth and his hands. Her head arched back to give access to the sensitive hollows of her throat. A low moan rose from deep within her as his palms cupped her hips, pressing her against his aroused body.

  When he lifted his head to whisper, “I would have you, Cat—I’d wait no longer,” his hot, ragged breath rushed against her ear and sent shivers of excitement down her spine. And when he lifted her suddenly, she clasped her arms around his neck and turned her head into his shoulder to hide the eagerness she felt as he carried her across the room to her bed.

  Still holding her, balancing her weight against him with one arm, he leaned to pull back the embroidered coverlet, twitching it off to one side, and then lowered her among the banked pillows. Her hair spilled onto the silk cushions in tangled confusion, spotting them with wetness, and her pale body glistened damply as she half-rolled to make room for him. For a moment he stood above her, mesmerized by the dark pools of her eyes as they stared upward at him. Her chest rose and fell, her breasts rising with each rapid breath, and his heart pounded until he could scarce breathe from the sight of her. She was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen, and she was his.

  Her gaze traveled from his face downward until it reached his aroused manhood, and she felt a stab of fear. Her breath caught sharply and she wondered what she’d done. She closed her eyes tightly, bracing herself against the pillows, and felt the bed give with his weight as he stretched his long body beside hers.

  He’d seen her sudden fear and knew he ought to go slowly, but for once his steel will failed him. The feel of her, the heat that rose between them as he took her in his arms, touched off as intense a need as he’d ever felt, and blotted out all else. He’d thought to take the time to caress, to wait until she was ready for him.

  Instead, he explored her breasts eagerly, drawing his palms over the rose-tipped mounds until the nipples hardened beneath them, eliciting a soft moan from her as she sought to move closer. He brushed lower with one hand, feeling the rapid beating of her heart beneath her rib cage and the tautness of her stomach, until he reached the silky down below. She gasped and drew back momentarily as his fingers explored the wetness there, but he could wait no longer.

  He rolled her onto her back and eased his body over hers, separating her legs with his knee, forcing them outward, pinning her down with his weight. Her eyes flew open and her hands pushed at his shoulders. Her hips thrashed against his, drawing away as his body sought entrance to hers. With one hand he cradled her head for his kiss, and with the other he grasped her hip, holding it steady. She tensed as his tongue teased, and then gave a cry that faded to a moan as he took possession of her mouth and her body at the same time. He felt the resistance and then the tear, and somewhere in the recesses of his mind, he knew she’d spoken the truth.

  Despite her own desire, she’d been unprepared for the final culmination of his. Her body had been alive and, as though it had a mind of its own, it had sought eagerly the release of the tension he’d created within her, but at the last moment, her reason and fear had reasserted themselves, and she’d tried to draw back. She felt speared and torn asunder by him when he entered her, but then the heat returned as he moved within her, slowly at first and then deeper and harder, setting her on fire again and erasing her pain with her own need. Her hands left his shoulders to move restlessly, stroking the hard muscles of his back as he strained against her and drove himself rhythmically toward release. She twisted and writhed beneath him, striving ceaselessly to reach an unknown ecstasy, until she hea
rd him cry out and she felt the warm flood of his seed. He collapsed above her, his breath coming in great rasps by her ear, and lay quietly, his weight resting on his elbows. She closed her arms around him and held him tightly, still savoring the feel of him.

  “Cat, you are fire itself,” he managed when he finally caught his breath and rolled away. “Jesu, but I’ve not known your like before.” Twisting his head to look at her, he could see the beads of perspiration that dampened her face, and he reached to brush back the dark tangles from her forehead. Her eyes were still closed and she was swallowing to master her own breath. “I did not mean to hurt you,” he added softly.

  “Nay—the fault was mine also,” she murmured beside him. “Brian always told me to tempt not where I would not.” The instant the words were spoken, she could feel him tense beside her, and she cursed herself for a fool, wishing for all the world that she could call them back. Dismayed, she turned to watch him, hoping he would somehow understand. He lay on his back, staring upward almost bleakly, and his strange eyes, gold with passion moments before, were now heavily flecked with green. Impulsively she reached to touch him, her fingers lightly stroking the hairs on his chest.

  “Nay.” He spoke abruptly, brushing her hand away. “There is no need for that.” Rolling to sit with his back to her, he leaned to brace his elbows on his knees. It seemed an eternity before he could bring himself to speak further. “I know I am not what you would have, Catherine, but I am what you are given. If ’tis I and no other who lies with you, I will try not to fault you for wanting Brian FitzHenry.”

  “Guy…” She pushed herself up and would have touched him again, but he ducked away from her hand.

  “Nay—there is no need to say what you believe I would hear.”

  Before she could think of what else she could do, he rose from the bed without looking at her again, and she was conscious that the chasm between them was as wide as it had been earlier. Dropping her hands in defeat, she rolled out on the other side and padded to a cupboard to get a cloth to clean herself.

  “I ask your pardon for one thing, Cat—I know now you were true in body if not in heart,” he added in a strained voice as he bent to pick up the clothes that Alan had laid out for him.

  She opened her mouth to speak and then closed it. At this moment she knew not what was in her heart, and she knew that nothing either of them would say could ease the terrible confusion she felt.

  18

  “Your food grows cold, Cat.”

  “Hmmmm? Oh, aye, I suppose it does,” Catherine answered her sister absently. Drawn back from her still-disordered thoughts, she picked up her knife and speared a piece of meat.

  “And if Guy of Rivaux came for me, I’d be staring at him rather than the wall,” Aislinn whispered. “Sweet Mary, but what ails you, Cat? King Henry gives you back a handsome husband, and you do naught but ignore him.”

  “Eat your own food and leave me be,” Cat retorted, unreasonably cross at the way Linn and Pippa flirted with Guy, smiling at him and listening raptly to every word he chose to utter to them.

  “If ’tis Brian, you are yet the fool,” Aislinn hissed furtively, keeping her eye on Guy’s back. “Aye, were Rivaux mine, I’d think I had the better man.”

  Cat halted her knife in midair and turned furiously on her sister. “Well, he is not—and ’tis not your concern anyway,” she snapped. Then, realizing how jealous she must sound, she added. “But I wish he were yours—then you’d know of what you speak.”

  Linn leaned forward until her head nearly touched her trencher, to gain a better view of Guy of Rivaux. He still faced away from her, but she could hear snatches of the polite conversation between him and her father. His black hair shone beneath the torchlight, and the flickering yellow flame played on the rich gold embroidery that decorated his red silk tunic. “God’s blood, Cat,” she murmured under her breath, “but he is far bigger than either Geoffrey or Brian.”

  Catherine mentally compared him to them and grudgingly conceded the truth of that. In size at least, Guy of Rivaux was of taller and stronger build than most men—aye, he was bigger than her father now, and mayhap he was even as tall as she remembered Robert of Belesme, the tallest lord of her memory. She felt a stab of disloyalty at the thought, as though she should find Brian to be the best of everything.

  “And I’ve seen none comelier, sister—art fortunate, I think,” Aislinn persisted.

  “And one would think you wanted to lie with him, the way you speak, Linn,” Catherine muttered dryly.

  “Cat!” In her shock, Aislinn forgot to whisper, and to her horror, Guy of Rivaux turned around. Her face reddened as she hastily bent her attention to the food before her.

  Catherine looked up, realized that he was watching her instead of Linn, and wondered what he’d heard. It did not matter, she told herself, for he’d been as cold to her as she had been to him, preferring to discuss the fighting in Wales with her father rather than seeking speech with her. It was as though he were a stranger—that he’d forgotten what had happened between them but hours earlier.

  But she could not forget. Even now, she could not meet his gaze for the shame she felt. She’d let him take her—nay, she had given herself to him, responding to his touch like a wanton whore, thrashing and bucking beneath him, moaning and panting for his seed. He reached to cut a bite of venison from the chunk on the trencher they shared, and the stiff samite of his sleeve brushed against her arm, sending a shiver of remembered passion deep within her. She drew back as though from a fire, and her face flamed from the thoughts that came to mind.

  To him, it was as though she recoiled in disgust from him, and he felt again the resentment he harbored for Brian FitzHenry. Had it not been for King Henry’s bastard son, Guy was certain he could have won Cat’s heart as well as her body. But he had something that Brian did not—he had Catherine of the Condes in his bed and he meant to keep her there. He stared, seeing again the way she’d looked lying beneath him, and he felt anew the warming of his blood. She might think she preferred the other man, but afore God, Guy meant to make her forget him. Then, barely half aware of her father’s polite attempts at conversation, he tried to will himself to listen. His ears heard Roger de Brione speak of the need for more stone castles in the Welsh marches, and his head nodded in appropriate agreement, but his mind lingered on Catherine. Stealing a look at her from beneath lazy lids, he studied her proud profile and thought her the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. And over and over he told himself that she was his—whether she wanted him for husband or not, she was his wife.

  “What thought you of Chepstow?”

  “Chepstow?” Reluctantly drawing his thoughts from Catherine again, Guy forced himself to consider the keep FitzOsbern had built after the Conqueror’s victory before answering. “It is well-defined by nature, with that steep gully on one side and that deep drop to the river on the other,” he mused. “Aye—and it sits on solid rock right in the bend of the Wye. I doubt ’twill ever fall to the Welsh or to any others, but if it does, ’twill have to be because of treachery from within.” His flecked eyes met Roger’s warily. “Why do you ask?”

  “To hear you say what I have thought. If there were many Chepstows, we’d have control of Wales now.”

  “Nay, but there is more to it than that,” Guy disputed. “The Welsh are too warlike to bow for long.

  ’Twill take a strong leader, one with the courage and ability to fight them into the mountains, one with the will to do what must be done. When Belesme had Shrewsbury—”

  “Belesme ruled through violence and treachery,” Roger cut in curtly. “Aye, and there’s naught to say that he could hold what he won for long.” Then, realizing how he must sound, he added in a more conciliatory tone, “But I know of what you would say—there’s none to compare with Robert on the field. ’Tis an advantage to have a name that strikes fear in all but fools.”

  “You bested him.”

  “Once.” Roger’s expression grew distant, as
though he saw again the day he’d dared to meet Robert of Belesme in single combat. “Aye,” he sighed finally, “I did it but once—never before or since—and I’d not want to try again.”

  “Men still sing the tale,” Guy reminded him.

  “It sounds better in verse than it was. We were both overtired in the end, so much so that I doubt either of us had the strength left for the kill. But there have been times that I regretted I did not strike him the fatal blow—many times,” Roger admitted. “Now I look on the ruin and death he metes out in Normandy when he raids, and I think I should have killed him nineteen years ago.” His blue eyes met Guy’s soberly. “Had I the chance again, I would do it.”

  “He is mine enemy also.”

  “Then you’d best pray you are well-fortified, for unless I mistake the matter, he will raid again into Normandy. Every year since Tinchebrai, he has come with the French king’s backing, raiding and burning, wreaking vengeance on all who stood against him, and then returning to hide in France ere the snow falls.”

  “So I have heard. I pray that King Henry leaves me enough at Rivaux to defend myself. My keep had but a timber wall and one stone tower finished ere I left it—I had thought to raise it again in stone, my lord, but the work was scarce begun.” Guy’s gaze swept the great hall around him and he shook his head. “I fear Cat will think it poor when compared to this.”

  “I’d always heard you were a wealthy man,” Roger countered.

  “Aye—in land and vassals, I was, but what Curthose did not levy from me, King Henry took,” Guy answered, his bitterness betrayed in his voice. His eyes, more green than gold now, met Roger’s steadily. “I inherited of my father at sixteen, my lord, and my duke nearly beggared me with my father’s death dues, and then de Mortain thought to take Rivaux from me, burning my unfinished wall to the ground and slaying my men in their beds. Had it not been for William”—he nodded toward where de Comminges sat among Roger’s men—”I should have perished also. But, as it was, I escaped to fight again—and again, and again—with no aid from my duke, until ’twas all mine once more. And when the tallies were all collected and counted, I was said to be a wealthy man, but then my gold was needed to buy Curthose more men to field against his brother. The battle between them lasted but an hour, and when ’twas done, I was but one of the vanquished. My lands were taken and I was banished—for my treason, King Henry said. For my treason,” he repeated for emphasis. “I fought for my liege lord against one to whom I had not sworn, but ’twas the excuse given for my banishment from this land.”