They were clearly distraught, but they didn’t dare interfere. And here she was, fighting a losing battle, drawing them into it. Oh, God! She didn’t want them to suffer on her behalf.
“I will walk!” she repeated in a frantic whisper.
But it was too late. He ignored the audience that assembled in silence and strode up the stairs. He excused himself with an odd and distant courtesy when they started to pass Edwyna and Tamkin.
“Please!”
It was Edwyna. At first Tristan did not stop when she put her hand upon his arm; it was as if he did not even notice her touch. But she plucked at the fabric of his shirt and he halted, waiting politely for her to speak.
“Tristan, I beg you, give me leave to see her, speak to her!”
The anguish in her tone would surely reach even a heart of the hardest stone.
But not Tristan’s. He spoke kindly to Edwyna but denied her request. “Edwyna, no. In time, perhaps.”
“Tristan, even the prisoners in the Tower of London are granted some concessions!” Edwyna pleaded. And Genevieve, slung over Tristan’s back, was startled by her aunt’s tone and her familiarity. Edwyna had accepted the Lancastrian conquerors.
Tristan sighed softly. “Nay, lady, lest this wild kin of yours destroy the peace you’ve found yourself. She will embroil you in her never-ending plotting, and I’d not see that. In time, perhaps.”
“Please, Tristan—”
Edwyna was close to tears. Miserably Genevieve cried out to her. “For God’s sake, Edwyna! Don’t beg! Never plead so pathetically to one who has murdered and pillaged to steal his place above you!”
She struggled against his hold, longing to meet Edwyna’s eyes. His arms tightened, a little convulsively, and she knew that she had touched a sure chord of anger in him. Still he remained courteous to Edwyna, and Genevieve—for all that she earnestly desired mercy for her aunt—bitterly resented the ease with which Edwyna had accepted her fate.
“Milady, if I may pass . . .?”
Edwyna was left with no alternative. Genevieve managed to raise her head as Tristan’s long strides set them in motion again. She was still so pale, and pain lay written across her features. Her eyes were desperately beseeching as they met Genevieve’s. Give in! Those eyes pleaded. And yet Genevieve knew that she could not.
Tristan made a sudden turn, opening the door to her camber with a sturdy kick. A second later she was set down hard upon the bed. She scrambled quickly up on her elbows, prepared again to move if she found herself under attack.
She was not, however, under attack. He stood with his feet slightly apart, hands on his hips, staring down at her. “I’d take care in the future, lady, about false alarms. Have you never read Aesop’s fables? If ever this chamber should catch fire, you might well perish within it, for no man will be fooled by your cry again.”
“If you told your men to answer my summons,” Genevieve stormed in return, “I would not have found such subterfuge to be necessary.”
“Madam, you would have been answered in time. I was engaged, else I would have come.”
“I did not want you. I wanted one of my own servants!”
“You would not have starved,” Tristan answered blandly.
Genevieve rolled quickly from the bed and faced him across it. “Edwyna spoke the truth, oh noble lord,” she said, with all the contempt she could muster. “Even in the Tower, one is fed—and granted visitors!”
“But you’re, not in the Tower, are you Genevieve?”
“I would rather be there! I’ve the right—”
“You’ve no rights. None at all, lady. You gave them up the night you tried to kill me.”
Genevieve felt as if the chamber, large and airy, were closing in on her. He had that effect. When he was present, he filled the space with the sheer power of his will.
“I am at a loss to understand,” she said, “why you would deny me such simple things as bathing water and sustenance—”
“You’re not being denied anything,” he told her. “You are simply not the grand mademoiselle here any longer; the servants are mine, not yours. When I decide—”
Genevieve simply never had learned prudence. Never. She interrupted his speech by snatching a pillow from the bed and hurtling it across at him, swearing hoarsely and unintelligibly.
He paused, obviously straining for patience, as he caught the pillow. He arched a dark brow at her to indicate the vast stupidity of her action. Genevieve could not retract it, though, and so she stared at him, uneasily aware that she was growing more and more alarmed. Her breasts rose and fell with each breath.
He looked down suddenly, finally aware that he stood on the linens Genevieve had wrenched from the bed. He looked from the bedding to her face with a hard and curious smile forming on his lips, a smile that deepened with the acute embarrassment she betrayed, a tell-tale emotion far beyond her control.
“You do have a temper, Lady Genevieve,” he commented softly.
She turned away from him, quickly then, feeling defeated and frantic. She just wanted him to leave.
“I won’t attempt to elude your guard again,” she said. She wanted the words to be firm. They were not. They came out like a whisper, and worse, that whisper broke and faltered. “You—you can leave. Run the—your—estates.”
He laughed, hollowly. “My stolen estates?”
“You cannot deny they are stolen!” she cried, and then she wondered why in God’s name she had answered him. She could feel his eyes upon her back. Her knees grew weak even as she tried to stand strong.
“You needn’t worry, Genevieve. You saw fit to—disturb things, and so you have done. I am disturbed. You are neglected and lacking things that you desire. I am here now. We shall remedy your grievances.”
He moved to the door and called to the guard to see that food was sent to the Lady Genevieve. Then she felt his eyes on her back again. “And water, wasn’t it, my lady? A tub and hot water?”
She shook her head vehemently. She didn’t want it anymore—not while he was in the room.
“Oh, but you did request water! Actually, I believe it was a demand. You did ask for it ... ? Peter, please see that the kitchen lads bring a new tub of hot water immediately.”
He closed the door and leaned against it. Without turning around, she knew what he was doing, she knew how he would look; cold, ruthless.
A warm trembling took hold of her. Cold? Nay, not when he held her. Then he was fire. Yet the fire was a shell. The body, as she had assured herself, was nothing but a shell. And just as she swore that he would never really touch her, she realized that she had touched even less in him.
“Ah! Here we are!” He moved, opening the door at the sound of a soft tapping. Genevieve didn’t turn. She stood still as she heard the boys grunting to bring in the tub, panting slightly to carry in the heavy pails of water and remove the tub with yesterday’s bathwater. A woman spoke softly to Tristan—Addie, from the kitchen, Genevieve thought vaguely. The footsteps retreated.
The heavy door closed, the bolt fell. Was he inside with her? Or had he gone?
She spun around hopefully at last, but her hopes were dashed against the implacability of his rock-hard countenance.
His booted foot was upon a trunk and he leaned casually on an elbow, watching her. He waved an arm out to her dressing table, where a tray of food was set and then to the tub before the newly lighted hearth, sending gusts of steaming mist into the air.
“You did require a bath, milady.”
He was laughing at her, enjoying her discomfort tremendously. She managed to smile sweetly and speak with sarcastic insinuation.
“Aye. I did require it. I have never felt so polluted in my life.”
Her eyes lowered, long dusky lashes falling like mysterious shadows over her cheeks. Genevieve flinched slightly, wondering at her own madness to further aggravate him when she knew him to be unyielding.
He gazed at her, shaking his head as if in sympathy.
“Polluted?”
>
“Horrendously.”
“Then by God, lady, I did you a most serious disservice! One that we shall set to rectify immediately, with all apology!”
Genevieve’s eyes widened with alarm as she saw him move to her dressing table and look through the vials and bottles there. He quickly grasped one and turned to her with exuberance which, though feigned, restored all the dashing youth to his features.
“Roses! Attar of roses, yes, I think that quite appropriate, don’t you?”
Genevieve could not respond. She braced herself against the wall, watching him as he strode to the tub, pouring out a measure of the liquid, inhaling as he breathed in the scent of the flower.
“Hmm!” He turned to her. “I wonder, lady, if the vial contains the fragrance of the red rose or the white. Or if it even matters, once the rose is stripped down to the basics.”
Genevieve did not move or reply. She kept her eyes most warily upon him. His smile deepened, and she swallowed uneasily, for it suddenly seemed there was no maliciousness about him—just a streak of wicked mischief that was more frightening than his portent of anger and true violence.
“Can’t you go back to the counting room?” she breathed out, backing away from him. “Jon! Surely it is near the time that you promised to meet with him again!”
“Nay, lady, that remains long, long minutes away. You have chastised me so severely upon my treatment of my prisoner! Now I find that prisoner just wallowing in mud and dirt and in true distress. What kind of captor would I be, to leave her so?”
He reached for her. As his strong bronzed hands closed around her, she wished with all her heart that she had waited patiently for someone to come to her.
His grip was strong, very strong, and it was as if there was a fever about his body. A tension, crackling like thunder and lightning, as explosive as gunpowder. She stared into his flashing eyes and realized with true alarm that he was not seeing the prisoner who had vowed to fight him—but the prisoner who had proved to be a more than submissive toy.
“Nay! I’ll scream! Loudly, horribly! Everyone on the estate will know exactly what the new lord—”
His laughter interrupted her. “Aye, they will, won’t they, madam? And if those screams continue, they will know exactly what you are doing . . . and those screams and cries have a certain cadence, have you noticed? Not yet, well, you will . . .”
“Oh! I hate you! Let me be!” Genevieve watched as the mischief and the laughing, reckless desire left his features. She saw the stark planes again, caught in harshness, caught in anger, and her breath wavered. How could you hate with such vehemence, and yet know such . . .
Desire. She felt it unmistakably then: Heat and excitement and a shaking in the limbs and a weakness that was also a strength ...
No!
She cried out softly and wrenched from his hold in absolute confusion. She couldn’t escape him. She knew that. She just wanted to buy some time and convince herself that she despised his touch. That this new discovery of herself in his arms had been nothing but absurd and protective instinct—and was not a strange new wonder to be coveted . . .
He caught her arm and swung her around with grim purpose on his face. Then caught her more securely about herself, but the fabric gave way under the force of his tug.
“Don’t—”
She choked out the word, but he had lifted her, lifted her naked against him, and his long strides were bringing her to the steaming heat of the tub.
“Please, don’t . . .”
The water, hot and aromatic, met her. He leaned over her, securing her hair over the rim of the tub. Dear God, he could move swiftly. Swiftly divest himself of boots and hose and tunic and breeches and stand, magnificent, before her.
Magnificent beast . . . she thought fleetingly. Beautifully young and rugged, muscled like steel, a power like a storm, sweeping everything in its path.
He paused for the sponge, for the soap, and then joined her. Genevieve watched with the greatest alarm as water sloshed over the tub, panic driving her heart to a staccato beat. Dearest God, it was awful, it was like a spell, it was like some terrible thing that she didn’t want to see, and yet it was there. His knees drew up to hers; the tub was too small for the two of them and she felt him keenly, everywhere, and she felt again all the things that she did not want to feel . . .
Roses ... red or white ... it didn’t matter once you got down to the basics.
That the very masculinity that gave him his power was a potent drug like no other. His hands were magic, his body hard and strong and fascinating against hers. The deep, sweeping caress of his kiss was a breathtaking spell that whirled her into a dark and hypnotic realm where she had no choice, but to gasp and call his name and surrender, not to the man, but to the sensations, to the ancient throbbing of an inner fire and a primeval rhythm . . .
He faced her. The devil’s own taunt in his eyes, the mischief returned. Youth and laughter all about him, in his crooked, mocking grin. “Ah, lady! That I neglected this duty! To aid you in the cleansing of the horrible filth!”
She tried to break the spell, to stand up, but her feet and legs were entwined with his. He laughed and gripped her hands and pulled her slowly back, bringing her body, wet and sleek, to rub with his, her breasts to crush against the hard wall of his chest, vulnerable softness against hair-roughened strength.
Their eyes met. She did not blink. She was mesmerized and barely registered what she saw in the intensity of his gaze.
It was gone. The hardness, the coldness. For that timeless eon, she felt warmth, and then she saw nothing, for his eyes closed and his arms clamped around her; and his kiss, as hot and wet as the steam that swam around them, invaded her body with the flood of desire. His hands touched her, creating exquisite fire.
At some point he stood. His arms locked around her, and his eyes locked with hers one more time. Water sluiced and fell from them both, and they were heedless of it.
He stepped from the tub and bore her to the naked mattress.
There was no further play, no taunt. Nor was there pain. Just a burst of passion, like a storm, striking deep, intense. A whirlwind in which she was vaguely aware of his movements. She dug her fingers into his shoulders, and cried out at the final touch of shimmering steel.
Passion, risen swiftly, spent in thunder, spilled upon her.
He lay against her, his hands still upon her.
And now their passion cooled.
“Oh!” Genevieve cried out in a choking fury. She wrenched herself out from beneath him, leaping away in horror to snatch the remnants of her robe from the floor to throw about herself. She uttered a cry of dismay as she caught his eyes, watching her from the bed. He would laugh, she thought, because he could so easily make an awed fool of her!
But he didn’t laugh, he only gazed at her thoughtfully until she tore her eyes from his, striding to the hearth to fall before it in misery, her back to him. She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t. Even after he left. And he would leave now. Don his clothing and go back to Jon and forget her in a matter of seconds while she . . .
He did. He stood. She panicked for a moment, thinking that he was coming to her, but he did not; he returned to the water. She heard him splash it over his face and wash.
She felt him watching her, felt his movement as he grabbed a towel and watched her trembling back and tangle of hair as he dried his face.
She closed her eyes. In the silence that reigned between them, it was easy to pick out his every movement. His shirt, slipping over his head, his hose, his breeches, his tunic . . . his boots.
“Don’t forget, milady, that your sustenance rests here on a tray,” he reminded her. “You should eat before your dinner grows cold and unpalatable.”
“Get out of here!”
He did laugh then. Softly—curiously bitter.
“Ah, yes! You’re absolutely filthy all over again now. Do forgive me, milady! But then I must say, you do come closer and closer to fulfilling that promise you s
wore to me.”
His voice was angry. She braced herself, but all she heard was a loud bang as the door slammed shut, with such strength that it seemed to groan in protest.
Twelve
“ ’Tis a beautiful day,” Jon commented to Tristan, as they rode out of Edenby.
Indeed it was beautiful. A fall day, of which the poets might write in ecstasy. The sun was overhead, high and brilliant, and a soft breeze stirred over the hills and meadows and fields. Leaves offered a rainbow of colors, yellows and oranges and reds and magnificent magentas. It was the season of harvest and plenty. The horses knew it, the cows and sheep in the fields knew it, even the bees and birds flying about them knew it.
Tristan merely grunted.
Jon watched his friend. Tristan’s features were set and dark, as if a thundercloud had created the scowl that hardened his face.
“Remember, friend,” Jon said to him softly, “that we are on a mission of good will. That frown you wear like a tyrant’s mask does not speak much of peace and harmony.”
Tristan gave himself a shake, as if to rouse himself, and regarded Jon.
“Aye, Jon. It is a beautiful day. Autumn in all its glory. All about us speaks of nature’s splendor and God’s blessings to man. The land does not seem to know what momentous things befell it. That Richard was slain and Henry made King.”
There was still a trace of bitterness in Tristan’s voice. Jon did not reply immediately, but spurred his mount again and rode along beside his friend and lord.
“Now you are the one who frowns,” Tristan commented.
Jon shrugged, and eyed Tristan curiously. “I have seen you in many moods, Tristan. I have seen you in rage and in the gravest pain. I have known your wise judgment and seen your kindness and mercy in their best action. I’ve watched you stare death in the face without fear, and I have seen you harden like rock, merciless and cold.”
Tristan’s face grew rocklike then, and the darkness of a storm seemed to settle about his countenance as he stared at Jon, wary of the words yet to come.
“Yet I have never seen you like this—restless, angry, ever morose.”
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