by Anne O'Brien
‘You look out of sorts,’ she informed her daughter. ‘I shall be quite well by the morrow, you know. I just feel—empty—and light-headed. Not surprising in the circumstances. I hear it was a cat. I never did like cats.’ She glared at the grey kitten that persisted in curling at the end of her bed, then peered suspiciously into the bowl of chicken broth that Rosamund had placed in her lap. ‘I don’t wish to drink this, but I suppose you’ll sit and glare at me until I at least sample it.’
Rosamund smiled at the improvement and the return of her mother’s wry humour, before stating bluntly, ‘He accused me of poisoning his men.’
‘I expect he did. What did you expect, Rose? I warned you you’d go too far. You tried to freeze him out, you served up burnt or cold food. What did you expect?’
It was as close to a maternal slap that her mother would make, and so effective. Rosamund lifted her shoulders uncomfortably under the fine wool of her over-gown.
Petronilla abandoned her spoon without making use of it with a sigh. ‘Did Lord Hugh eat the mutton?’
‘No.’ Rosamund angled her a sly glance. ‘Your mind can be at ease. He’s as healthy as an ox. And asks after you with astonishing frequency. I’ve had to bar your door to him—or even now he’d be standing here to watch your recovery. I didn’t think you’d want that.’
‘No. But I’m glad he’s as healthy as an ox.’ Weary, Petronilla still managed a curve of her lips. ‘Now go away, my dear girl. I shall sleep.’
So Rosamund was left to her own devices to worry over her conscience. Fitz Osbern had been civilised enough to apologise. It seemed that she too must be willing to make amends if she did not wish him to fix her with that cold stare. Although why it should matter to her, why it should rob her of sleep, she could not fathom.
Although it was late enough that the tables had been cleared in the Great Hall, supper long over for those of a mind to eat, Rosamund made her way once again to the room in the west tower. If she wished to sleep with a clear conscience, this could not wait. Nerves swam through her blood.
‘I need to speak with you, my lord. It is important.’ She would be scrupulously polite. Composed and dignified, whatever the provocation. She would mend matters between them so that they could exist on equable terms until…well, until she could devise another means of preserving her independence. It was unfortunate that Hugh de Mortimer was engaged with him over a parcel of documents and a pottery jug of wine.
Hugh rose to his feet. Gervase did too, slowly, and it was he who spoke.
‘How is Lady Petronilla? Is she recovered?’
It unnerved her that he should think to ask, that he should care enough when matters between them were still so unresolved. How was it that he could so easily unsettle her? ‘Much improved, my lord. She swears she’ll never eat mutton again.’
It was Hugh de Mortimer who filled in the little silence. Walking softly to her, he took her hand, his usually laughing eyes solemn. ‘Give the lady my regards. I shall hope to see her tomorrow.’ He moved to the door. ‘And now I’ll leave you to your important business. Good night, Lady Rosamund…Ger.’
Hardly had the door closed behind him than Rosamund launched into her prepared speech. Simple, straightforward, unemotional. This was how it must be. ‘I have come to ask your forgiveness, my lord. I admit I deserve your lack of trust. I have not been…thoughtful. Or…or trustworthy.’
Leisurely, as if contemplating how much value he could put in her words, which in itself hurt her, Gervase chose not to answer immediately, but walked to the chest, to pour a cup of wine and hold it out to her. ‘So we have room for compromise between us?’ he remarked at last.
What could she say to that? An apology could so easily lead to a promise to leave Clifford in his hands. And that she could not do. She sought carefully for appropriate words, for a promise that she could keep, as she took the cup. For whatever drove Rosamund de Longspey, she would keep her promises.
‘Yes. A compromise, my lord, as you say. I will not make your life within Clifford uncomfortable again. I will not interfere with the smooth running of the household.’
For a long moment his eyes held hers. She could not look away, felt the power of them. He nodded, then broke the connection. ‘Then let us drink to it.’
Well, he had not accepted her apology with any warmth, but at least he had not ordered her from the room. At his bland acceptance, hiding her amazement, she raised the cup and sipped as he too drank, but shook her head as he indicated that she should sit. Now that she had done the deed she would not stay. ‘I should go…’
‘We can’t leave it like this.’ She saw quick intolerance sweep his face as he came to stand between her and the door, felt her anxieties return fourfold. ‘Look, lady. You must see the sense of my arguments,’ he stated forcefully. ‘This is no place for you. Can I not persuade you to leave? Your mother at least would be far more comfortable away from here, but she’ll not desert you. And I can’t believe that, after Salisbury, you enjoy it here either. A border fortress is no place for either of you. You can have no affection for it.’
It struck an immediate chord. ‘I hate this place.’ Only the strains of the day could have made her so unguarded as to admit to it, could have made her so conscious of his overbearing nearness. She found herself flushing at how foolishly immature she sounded.
He seemed not to notice. ‘So leave. And Lady Petronilla will thank God for it.’
‘I can’t. I just can’t.’
‘I know why you think you can’t go back to Earl Gilbert,’ he stated bluntly. ‘But still—’
Rosamund stiffened instantly. ‘What?’
‘I know why you will not go back to Earl Gilbert,’ he repeated, clearly unaware of her humiliation. ‘He has promised you to Ralph de Morgan.’
Her blood trickled cold in her veins. ‘How do you know about that?’
‘Your mother. She told Hugh.’
Rosamund prayed now for tolerance. ‘I might have guessed.’
‘You have my sympathy.’
‘I don’t want your sympathy,’ she retaliated, denying his concern. That would be too much. Why had her mother found it necessary to speak of her deplorable marriage? She felt the shame of it, as if the deficiencies of her bridegroom were of her own doing, as if she were incapable of attracting a more appealing offer. Rejection was a sharp wound to bear and pity was the last thing she wanted from this man. All she wanted was to escape from his room, his dominant presence. Putting down the cup, turning her face away because it was becoming increasingly difficult to hide her distress, she would have brushed past him. ‘My marriage is not your affair, my lord.’
He moved smartly, seizing her hands. ‘No, it is not,’ he admitted, his calm words at odds with the sudden clasp to hold her still. ‘But why are you not married already? Well bred, presentable, well connected as you are. Why do you need to consider Ralph de Morgan? Surely there are better offers.’
‘Easy enough to explain, my lord.’ By some miracle she kept her face still, emotionless, although she felt the skin tight across her cheekbones. Nor did she pull her hands away. If she refused pity from him, she would never, never, allow herself to be accused of self-pity. ‘I have not been without offers. One died with a knife in the gut in a drunken brawl in Salisbury. One was killed in a chance skirmish over a strip of woodland on the edge of his estate. One just died—rumour said of the pox. A fortunate escape for me, many would say. And there were others.’ She listed them as if they were a tally of household supplies.
‘Unfortunate,’ he observed laconically.
‘Yes. As you say. Now if you will release me, my lord…’ Against her intentions, she braced herself against his hold. When it failed to move him, she risked a glance, and wished she had not. There was an expression in his face that she could not interpret, but it had the effect of heating the cold in her blood to molten fire.
‘I thought it might be that you were unwed,’ he murmured, drawing her closer, inexorably, almost
as if he had no choice but to do so, ‘because no man could tolerate your temper. When you scowl at me like that, I could well believe it.’
Rosamund’s careful control evaporated, quick as a candle snuffed at dawn. ‘My unmarried state is no concern of yours!’
‘Well, you’re not comfortable for a man to live with. As you have proved all too effectively.’
Temper built. ‘I apologised for my unwise actions. Is that not enough?’
‘Yes, you did. But I’m still not sure I can trust you.’
‘Well, I don’t trust you,’ she heard herself retaliating when she had meant to deal with him with all dignity. ‘Showing me kind sympathy and soft words, to persuade me to leave for my mother’s health…You’ll never persuade me that you’re any better than the robber I first thought you to be.’
‘Soft words?’ There was a hint of anger now. It should have sown fear in her but instead the fire leapt into flame. ‘I’ll show you no soft words, lady!’
If she had expected him to release her, for her to go her own way, she had misjudged him entirely. It was her undoing. Taking advantage as she relaxed her guard, he pounced, tightening his hold, so that she must lose her balance. Rosamund discovered that she could only regain it as his arms closed around her, pulling her firmly against him. As her hands found purchase on his shoulders, she looked up at him in shock to see his eyes narrow as they raked her face, the cold grey of them glittering in the light from the candles. Then all sight was blotted out at he bent his head and took her mouth with his.
The speed of it took her breath away. Suddenly for her there was no past and no future, only that firm insistent pressure of mouth and tongue that forced her lips to part against his. The hot force of his body against hers, the ridge of his erection against her belly. Then as fast as he had swooped, he lifted his head.
‘Speechless at last?’ She found herself dragged even closer. With one hand he captured her chin and tilted her face up. ‘You are really very beautiful, my delectable Rose, especially when you are angry.’
She stared at him in amazement, in utter disbelief that he should treat her in such a manner when she had thought his primary emotion to be one of dislike.
‘Perhaps my kisses are more acceptable than my soft words.’
‘They’re despicable. To force them on an unprotected woman…’
‘It seems to me that you can quite well protect yourself, Lady Rosamund. Let’s see.’
He promptly forced another, and not, she discovered, to her displeasure. As the other was brief and hard, this was a kiss to overwhelm her utterly, to claim her breath. A fierce kiss, as much anger, she thought in her total inexperience, as any emotion of a softer nature as his lips scorched hers, until it segued into something far hotter of which she had no experience whatsoever.
For a long moment her thoughts scattered, leaving her aware only of the strength of his arms that encircled her, the hard power of muscle in his chest and loins against which she was held firm and unable to move. And his mouth. Hot, searching, possessive, discovering responses within her that rippled across her skin. His mouth methodically took her lips, then the edge of her jaw to the tender place beneath her ear, then traced a scalding path down her neck to where her blood beat at the base of her throat where he finally lingered, his lips soft at last.
She could not fight. Had no desire to fight. Her blood raged as a bracken fire on the hills in high summer, yet with unutterable delight sparkling through it as rain would glitter in long grass. Her whole body quivered so that she had to hold on to him. And wish for more. Breathless, Rosamund felt herself to be stranded in unknown territory. Never having been kissed in this manner before, she had no point of comparison. Was this what it was like to desire a man? She had no idea, but the effect was beyond all her dreams. Such intense pleasure, that she could neither control it as it rioted through her blood, nor fight it. It robbed her of all sense, left only a need to stay within the heat and fire. A need to respond and return his kisses.
‘Rose…’
When he murmured her name against her lips, instead of pushing him away she tightened her fingers in the sleeves of his tunic, shivered as he pressed the lightest of kisses to the softness at her temple. She could never have believed the depth of longing a man’s touch could bring. She angled her head when he drew his fingers down the length of her throat in one rippling caress. His name came to her lips a whispered caress in itself.
‘Gervase.’
The falling of a log in the fireplace and the resulting shower of sparks brought her back to her senses, her surroundings, the implacable cunning of the man who held her, now so gently. Warnings began to trickle through her brain.
No, don’t give in. He is my enemy. He has taken what is mine. He would drive me out without compunction.
Of course this was his plan. He knew exactly what he was doing, following his own dictates. She must not allow herself to be intimidated, as much by his skilful kisses as by a show of force. Rosamund struggled to be free, and, after an initial resistance, he allowed it. When she searched his face it was to find that his eyes were no longer filled with the glitter of basalt fire, but were as flat and grey as newly hewn slate. There was no softness there. Had this assault on her merely been a punishment? To stir her into desire and then to abandon her? She could believe anything of a robber lord. How could she have allowed herself to let down her guard before him? And yet at the end his lips had been so tender. She could still imagine the soft whisper of them against her hair, on her eyelids, spreading spangles of light through her blood, like rain drops on a spider’s web…
The magnificent pleasure burst, to fall and shatter at her feet.
Rosamund felt the hot flush rise in her cheeks, the moisture of tears long held back. She must escape, with pride intact, before he could do more damage.
‘If you will allow me to go…’
It seemed that he might not. Trepidation fluttered as wings of a caged bird. Then Gervase’s hands fell from her arms and he moved away. He walked to the door and opened it for her with a curt inclination of his head.
‘My lady.’
Without another word, without looking at him, Rosamund stepped past him. Head held high, she made her way, slowly, gracefully down the stairs, but conscious that he watched her all the way.
In her heart she fled from him.
Chapter Seven
P etronilla rose from her bed feeling fragile, but restored to something like good health as long as she did not think about food. But her spirits were low. For some reason the past weighed heavily on her today. Probably to do with increasing years, she decided. How could a lady feel optimistic when approaching her fortieth year? Fresh air would do the thing, she decided. And she needed to air her concerns—some of them at least—with someone who would give her counsel.
Whilst Edith braided her hair into its habitual coronet with solicitous murmurings, she looked in the polished silver disk given to her by Earl William on the occasion of their marriage, and wished she had not. Her mood descended to the region of her soft leather shoes until she took herself to task. The hint of lines beside her eyes could not be denied—surely there were more than yesterday? Nor could the slight roughening of her skin from winter winds. At least her hair was so fair that any sprinkling of grey was indecipherable—yet. But she was so pale, as if that appalling mutton had finished her off and she were indeed a corpse!
This would not do! It resulted in Edith being sent to rummage for a precious jar of cosmetics. Applied to lips and cheeks, it made a vast improvement. She looked far less like a death’s head, she decided with a pout of her newly reddened lips. Earl William would not have approved, but then he did not have to. She had no one to please but herself.
So she did. She found Hugh de Mortimer just finishing breaking his fast in the Great Hall. Keeping her eyes from the remains of the meal with a shudder, she took a stool at his side.
‘Dear lady.’ He immediately put down his knife and gave her
his whole attention. ‘I think you are on the road to recovery.’
‘And I shall be better yet as long as you don’t eat that roast venison in front of me.’ He pushed it aside with an apologetic grimace. ‘I need some information, my lord. I think you can provide it. What happened between my daughter and Fitz Osbern?’
‘Never mind Fitz Osbern!’
She was quite taken aback. ‘But…’
He took her hands, holding them palm to palm within his own. Momentarily she blinked at them, thinking that she had never felt so safe, so cared for. Then as she lifted her eyes to Hugh’s, seeing there the sympathy, the calm wisdom, she wished, not for the first time in her life, for a complexion that did not herald her every emotion.
Meanwhile the Marcher lord who had forsworn any thought of marriage found the beat of his heart to be not as steady as he would want it. Petronilla looked a little worn, not surprising in the circumstances. The hands held fast within his were cold. There was a subdued quality about her, a dullness in the sharp morning light that was more than the effect of her days without nourishment. Hugh could readily imagine her face alight with laughter, her soft grey eyes shining, more green than grey when she smiled, but laughter seemed far away from her today. She was sad.
‘What is it?’ he asked gently, not really expecting an answer. She was a very private woman who kept her own counsel. Yet he felt a need to offer comfort. ‘It’s not just the ongoing feud between Rosamund and Fitz Osbern, is it?’
‘No. But it’s nothing of importance.’ She dredged up a smile. ‘Forgive me. I’m poor company.’
‘I can’t believe you’re ever poor company.’ He would try a little light dalliance to woo her in to a lightness of spirit, and to pass the time.
But the lady looked askance. ‘My experience would suggest otherwise.’
His gut twisted at the stark admission, at the flat misery in her eyes. He persisted. ‘My experience suggests you need someone to entertain you. Perhaps you will choose to wed again and go to London, to Henry’s court.’
