Winning the Mail-order Bride & Pursued for the Viscount's Vengeance & Redeeming the Rogue Knight (9781488021725)

by Robinson, Lauri; Mallory, Sarah; Hobbes, Elisabeth

  Lucy stared at him with the serious grey eyes that bored into the depths of Roger’s soul. He did not want to tell her about the dark day in Yorkshire, where the determination to prove himself had ended with irreparable tragedy, but he had gone too far in his story to stop now. When she knew what he had done she would look on him with contempt, but the need to spill out his tale to the woman who had proven to be so understanding compelled him on.

  ‘When I was first knighted I did drive myself hard and others with me, sparring with any man I could challenge, until…’

  His throat constricted as he remembered what his ambition had led to. A young knight full of jealousy towards the brother his father had loved best, determined to prove himself worthy of regard. A shadow crossed the sun, stealing the heat and light from Roger’s heart. He bowed his head.

  ‘It was November, almost a decade ago. I’d been riding for hours and was angry at failing. My father told me to give up. The light was fading and the weather was closing in so he spoke sense, but I saw him as judging me to be lacking. I was furious and determined to prove him wrong so I insisted we rode again.’

  He blinked to clear his eyes and felt Lucy’s hand slip into his. Admitting what had happened to the quiet woman at his side, in this moment of stillness, was suddenly not so terrible.

  ‘My lance hit him full in the face. He was blinded by a shard and lost the use of his arm when he fell.’

  Roger bent his right arm at the elbow, raising it in front of his face, feeling the muscles in his forearm flex and tighten. ‘Some might say this is retribution at work. Perhaps it is.’

  ‘Would your father think that?’

  Lucy’s voice was soft. Her fingers laced their way between his. When he craved sympathy she gave him a tongue-lashing, but when he expected scorn she astounded him with her understanding.

  ‘When I was insensible in your inn, I thought he had come to tell me that, but it was only my dreams. While others were angry, he accepted it was an accident. He has never blamed me. Perhaps he expected nothing more of me.’ He gave a curt laugh. ‘That makes my failures all the harder to bear. If I could vanish into the night and leave Hal to take my place, perhaps everyone would be happier, me included.’

  ‘Do you mean that?’

  ‘Baseborn or not, Hal is a better man than I ever could be. He even married the girl I had dallied with—and she’s happier with him than I would ever have made her.’

  Roger sighed, remembering his last, angry quarrel with Joanna and how he had not been able to resist hurting her with spiteful words and casting doubt on his brother’s love for her. ‘I behaved badly towards her and what little I did to make amends was poor in comparison to the hurt I caused.

  ‘Doesn’t it appeal to you, to begin again without past reckonings hanging over you?’ he asked. ‘Just because it didn’t work last time does that mean it never can?’

  Lucy pushed herself from her seat. The hardness filled her eyes again.

  ‘Where would I go? I’ve lived with my mistakes. I’ve weathered the gossip and the condemnation. I have my path to tread and I will walk it however much I hate what I have become. To run is the coward’s way.’

  ‘Do you call me a coward?’ Roger sprang to his feet.

  Lucy faced him down. ‘Do you give the title to yourself?’

  ‘I’ve faced and defeated men in battle. I’m no coward.’

  His blood raced, expecting more argument, but Lucy’s answering smile was sweet, with only a hint of triumph in it. ‘Then go home without a fortune and without a bride and see if your father accepts you as you are.’

  Roger closed his eyes. To return home a failure…

  Perhaps Lucy was right and he was a coward after all. He’d stayed at the inn longer than he had expected—or intended. He gazed towards the hills that were visible in the distance. Somewhere out there Thomas was travelling or hiding. Somewhere were the men who had made an attempt on Roger’s life. There were men to be recruited to the Northern Company and King Edward’s message to deliver. The walk to Mattonfield had put no strain on him and Lord de Legh’s home was now within easy reach. He had nothing at the inn to collect. He need not even return there.

  But Lucy was here and Roger found himself reluctant to leave her. All the excuses he had made had been just that, a pretext to stay close to this woman who fascinated him so.

  ‘Maybe when I return to Yorkshire I’ll take the recipes for your ale with me and make my name as a brewer,’ he jested.

  ‘You’d never brew it so well!’ She was indignant, but beneath there was a teasing note in her voice and her eyes shone with humour, not outrage.

  ‘Maybe I’ll take you with me to teach me.’ Roger laughed. He stopped abruptly as the idea hit him like a punch to the gut and slid Lucy a glance. ‘Would you come if I asked?’

  She snorted and looked away, but hadn’t been quick enough to disguise the brief look of yearning that had flashed across her face. Yearning to escape, or yearning for Roger himself? He burned to find out.

  ‘Once I have completed my commission and dealt with the men who did this to me I’ll go there. Now I’m going back to the games. I want to try again.’

  Lucy’s eyes flickered with approval.

  ‘Will you watch?’ Roger asked.

  Lucy glanced at the ale barrel and a change came over her face, anxiety creasing her brow. ‘I can’t. I have one more matter I must attend to.’

  She looked so careworn it twisted Roger’s heart to see. He put his hands on her shoulders and tugged her closer. When she came with no resistance he slipped his arms around her back.

  ‘Can I help?’

  Her mouth twisted into a wry smile and Roger was left with the distinct impression he was missing something significant.

  ‘Not with this. It’s only business.’

  She dropped her head on to his shoulder with a small sigh. Roger tightened his arms, feeling the movement of her slender frame beneath his hands. He glanced back towards the marketplace, the shouts from the tournament pulling his heart in one direction, the desire to discover the cause of Lucy’s distress tugging it another. She raised her head and prodded him gently in the chest with a finger.

  ‘Go! You don’t want to miss your chance.’

  ‘Will you give me a favour to wear, my lady?’

  Lucy raised her brows. She reached behind her head, pulled the green ribbon from her hair and pressed it into his hand. Before he could thank her, Lucy reached on her tiptoes and brushed her lips against his, pressing so lightly Roger half-believed he was imagining it, and so quickly that he did not have the presence of mind to reach out and hold her there to prolong the experience.

  ‘For luck.’

  Lucy ducked her head away and slipped free of his hold. Roger walked away with his heart singing, fingers pressed to the spot she had touched. He’d received favours of silk tippets and gold-threaded ribbons from titled ladies and daughters of wealthy merchants, but nothing had made his heart sing as loudly as Lucy’s kiss.

  ‘Back again!’ The guildsman looked down his beaked nose at Roger as if inspecting a weevil-filled loaf.

  Roger indicated the rings. He needed to spear each one. The knots would come loose and each ring would slide down the shaft of the lance. It required a better eye, but less force than the quintain.

  ‘Every one to win?’

  This time Roger was anticipating the pain. He braced his feet, bending his knees to take the weight of the lance and drawing deep breaths as it was placed into his arm. He wriggled his fist against the guard and ignored the way streaks of heat flickered through his shoulder until he was satisfied he had found the balancing point. He stepped forward, one foot at a time, and began a march. It would be slower and prolong his discomfort, but would result in a more accurate strike.

  He approached t
he first ring and grunted as he shifted his torso to adjust the aim. The tip slipped through and the ring was caught. The second, too, then the third. Dimly Roger could hear the bubbling of astonishment through the crowd and this spurred him on. When he speared the fourth the noise surged and he blinked before refocusing on the final ring. Eight more steps and he was there. With one great roar, Roger pulled his shoulder round, centring the lance and spearing the centre of the ring with an aim that was true.

  Applause thundered in his ears, something he hadn’t heard in far too long. He barely noticed as he handed the lance to the squire and the small purse was pressed into his hand. The one face he craved to see wasn’t there. Brushing off the congratulations of the guild master, he left the square and made his way back to where he had left Lucy. He pictured the look on her face when he returned bearing hands full of coins. She would have a new ribbon, Robbie one of the jointed wooden dolls and they would all eat honey cake. He would pay her what he owed, too, and then…

  A grin spread across his face. The idea that had been forming at the back of his mind since his earlier jest about taking Lucy to Wharram with him now seemed less outlandish. When he had spoken of Joanna he had not been entirely truthful. He had not loved her at first, but by the time the feeling had come over him it had been too late. He recognised that same feeling when he thought of Lucy and was determined not to make the same error.

  What if she did go with him? He would be happy with her in his life. Whether he could be content if she was not was something he didn’t want to consider. There was no inn in Wharram Danby, only a house or two where the alewives served from their doors and served the folk of the village. Roger’s father would be overjoyed at the idea of good ale and would surely provide a dwelling.

  If he didn’t, Roger himself would build an inn where Lucy and Robbie could live and he could visit. He pictured Lucy welcoming him with a kiss and taking him in her arms. Evenings sitting with her beside the hearth while Robbie played, such as those they had shared, and not a mean fire with each log eked out, but a great one with enough warmth to fill the house. After that, long nights in bed, limbs entwined, bodies cleaving together. Somewhere he could come home to.

  A home. He stopped walking and ran his fingers through his hair, a wide smile spreading across his face. He was starting to think like his brother, something Roger had long scorned, but which now burrowed into his brain enticingly.

  The corner where Lucy had stationed herself was empty and her cart was gone. ‘Do you know where Mistress Carew is?’ he called to the goose man.

  The man hacked up a mouthful of spittle. He pointed towards the river. ‘Try Risby’s mill. They were talking earlier.’

  Lucy had not said she needed bread or malt, but her cart stood beside a door at the mill. The door was closed, but Roger lifted the latch and went in.

  What he saw stopped him short, nailing him to the spot in disgust and dismay.

  Two figures occupied the dimly lit, dusty room. The man stood with legs spread and half-closed eyes. Roger recognised him as the miller. It took Roger a moment to fully understand that the woman with her back to the door, one hand on the miller’s waist, was Lucy.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  A knife stabbed Roger’s chest, knocking the wind from him harder than if the blow had been real. He gripped the door frame. He must have made a sound because the miller’s eyes focused on him.

  ‘Wait your turn,’ the miller barked. ‘She hasn’t yet started on me.’

  Lucy whipped her head round. Her face twisted with horror. She pointed a trembling hand at the door.

  ‘Get out!’

  The miller jerked Lucy round to face him once more.

  ‘You’ve not even begun yet,’ he said harshly, putting his hands on her shoulders and attempting to force her to her knees.

  Lucy looked over her shoulder at Roger.

  ‘I told you to leave.’ Her words turned to a sob.

  Roger stepped forward and tugged her hand from the miller’s belt.

  ‘You’re leaving with me.’

  She wrenched free and ran from the room with her head down.

  ‘Where are you going?’ demanded the miller.

  Roger bared his teeth in a warning growl to silence the man, then followed. Lucy was running at full tilt towards the river and the road skirting round the town. She ignored Roger’s cry. He broke into a run and seized her by the arm. She fought him, but Roger was not to be deterred.

  He took her by the waist and held her tight, hands spread in the hollow of her spine. She wriggled in his arms like a dove trying to escape a hawk. He’d dreamed of holding her this close, the tantalising moments when they had come close to kissing had driven him wild, but this was not what he had imagined.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Lucy asked through gritted teeth. ‘How did you find me?’

  ‘I won the game and the purse. I wanted to tell you, but you weren’t where I had left you,’ Roger said. Remembering the plans he had been making on his way there, he felt his temper surge.

  ‘Is that Robbie’s father?’

  ‘No!’ She stiffened in his arms.

  ‘Is he your lover?’

  Was this the reason she had refused him? The miller already had a claim on her affections. Roger’s pride revolted at the idea that she would give herself to a repellent figure like Risby while refusing Roger. She refused to meet his eye, twisting her torso away from him. Roger took his hands from her waist and stepped back, his heart splitting in two.

  ‘I take it that means he is.’

  Lucy made a sound of disgust. She fixed him with eyes full of contempt.

  ‘Is that what you think love looks like? That says more about you than it does about me! Do you really think I could love a man like him? Don’t you know anything of me?’ Her lip trembled and her voice dropped to a whisper. Her eyes filled with tears that made Roger’s heart break. ‘I owe him money I haven’t got. He suggested another way I could pay the debt.’

  Understanding flashed through Roger, followed by revulsion. Lucy was not doing this through love, or even desire. It was a cold-hearted transaction. Roger wasn’t sure if this was worse or better than believing her in love.

  ‘You were going to give yourself to him?’

  ‘Not completely,’ Lucy protested. ‘There are other ways to satisfy a man, as I’m sure you know!’ She covered her face with her hands.

  ‘All the time I’ve lived under your roof I believed you a virtuous woman. Now I discover I could have bought an hour’s tumble if I’d had the money.’

  ‘The commodity is mine to do with as I please.’ Lucy’s eyes were now free of the tears he had seen threatening to spill and were full of icy fury.

  ‘Is that how you view your body?’ Roger asked in disgust.

  ‘Isn’t it how men see it?’ She drew herself up to her full height, shoulders back, causing her breasts to jut forward in a way that Roger could not ignore.

  ‘You’d have paid if you thought that might allow you to wet your staff, you just admitted it. How many women like me have you swived in your time? How many do you think wanted to be doing it? Did you ever stop to wonder why they took your money?’

  ‘I rarely had to pay them.’

  ‘Not in coins, perhaps,’ Lucy muttered.

  Roger thought of the women in his past. Kitty, the maid at Lord Harpur’s house, even Joanna who he had never persuaded to do more than kiss and fumble, to say nothing of the handful of women he could barely even remember. A pang of loneliness shot through Roger.

  ‘Are you suggesting they only accepted my attentions for what I gave them? I always assumed they had loved me.’

  ‘That’s my point!’ Lucy shouted. ‘Perhaps they cared for you, perhaps they felt forced, but you never asked. It never occurred to you that you had t
o. At least I’m honest enough not to pretend I care for Risby and I know he cares nothing for me. Tell me, what should I have done instead? How should I survive with no money and no one to help me?’ Lucy flung an arm out violently towards the miller’s house. ‘It doesn’t matter who you are, poor men like him…rich men like you…like Robbie’s father…’

  She swept closer to him, trembling with anger, her cheeks scarlet.

  ‘You use women like me until you’ve had enough, then you leave us to mend our lives and reputations as best we can.’ She wrapped her arms around herself, trembling violently. ‘You have no idea what it costs me to do this. How I die inside each time, wishing it would be over. You dare to sit in judgement over me? How dare you!’

  In the face of her bile, Roger recoiled. How had this changed from his abhorrence at what she had done to her attacking him?

  ‘If the woman you fathered a bastard on hadn’t died in childbirth, would she be doing anything different to me now? How many of those others did she lie with willingly and how many so she didn’t starve?’

  Her words knocked the strength from Roger. He shook his head, unable to defend himself against her accusations.

  ‘You have nothing to say? From the moment you met me you did your best to talk me into your bed.’

  ‘I tried to get you into bed, but I wanted you to come willingly,’ Roger protested. ‘I wanted it to mean something.’

  ‘Mean something? To you or to me?’ She laughed. She actually laughed, loud and shrill, until Roger understood it was no laugh at all, but pain escaping in an alarming flood of emotion. ‘I know you want me and you know I want you, too. I’ve resisted you and tried to ignore the feelings and desires I know will only lead to misery but it hasn’t been easy.’

  She reached out and put her hands on Roger’s face, fingers spreading to caress his cheeks. The gesture was so unexpected after her venomous outburst that Roger accepted her touch without thinking. She looked into his eyes, piercing his soul with her intensity.