By Royal Command

by Laura Navarre

  But she dared not even warn him. He was hard and cold and delicate as Spanish steel. He was deadly to trust, yet he beguiled her.

  “I know you loved another man.” His gaze hooded. “But I intend to win you. I’ve decided you’re a prize worth the risk, worth casting aside caution with both hands to possess.”

  His fingers curled behind her neck. With the subtlest pressure, he eased her toward him. “Closer, Katrin…”

  Her heart turned cartwheels as she leaned forward. When his lips brushed hers, all the breath shuddered out of her. She sensed the iron restraint that held him back, guarding him against her even as he splayed his palm against her head and pulled her closer. With seeking heat, his mouth opened hers. Nay, this was nothing of duty or religion. She voiced a desperate sound as, tasting of fresh mint, his tongue twined around hers.

  Thrown off balance by the torrent of emotions, shock and guilt and dizzying pleasure, she gripped the tub to anchor herself against the rushing tide.

  Sensing her resistance, he eased back but lingered, their lips just touching—giving her every chance to retreat. Yet she remained, eyes closed, her breath coming too quickly.

  At last, he released her. Flaming with embarrassment, she glanced up to find him smiling, a bemused twist to his lips.

  “Aye, madame, you’re worth risking a kingdom for, if I had one to risk. I trust you’ll content yourself with this shire, and my heart to cut to ribbons against the knife of your deceptions.”

  Breathless, she laughed. “I don’t intend to deceive you.”

  “Madame,” he said dryly, “deceit comes as naturally to you as breathing. In that, we’re cut from the same cloth.”

  His gaze darkened. “You should be aware, I suppose, that you’re marrying a would-be bishop who numbers such mortal sins as murder and kinslaying among his tally of lesser evils.”

  An unexpected caution prickled through her, dissolving the haze of enchantment that lingered from his kiss. “Murder, you say?” She hesitated. “Well, I’m…I’m certain you must have acted honorably. Marry, who was the poor fellow?”

  She was suddenly aware they were alone in this chamber—just as they’d be alone in his bed three nights hence.

  Meeting her wary gaze, he smiled wryly. “Are you having second thoughts about the wisdom of this match? I can assure you I’ve never harmed a woman, at least, no matter what the offense. The rest I may tell you someday, if you insist upon knowing.”

  But someday may be too late. Still, what could he say that would alter her dilemma? Saint or sinner, she must wed him for England and Eomond’s sake.

  “Very well, monseigneur,” she murmured. “I’ll wait a little longer to win your trust, rather than ferreting out your secrets as you lie in your cooling bath.”

  His eyes widened, curious as a child. “Are you certain? For it wants but three days to the wedding.”

  He asked as if she had a choice.

  “Are you certain yourself, Rafael le Senay?”

  His gaze lowered to her mouth, making her dizzy. Gently he slid one finger beneath the modest kirtle and traced her collarbone, an intimacy that made her shiver.

  “You’re exquisite, and I’m no more than a man, encumbered with all the weakness of a man’s flesh. I’m certain enough—”

  The thunder of a fist against the door jerked them apart. A heartbeat later, the earl strode in, a pair of hunting mastiffs bounding at his heels.

  He halted on the threshold, disconcerted, as Katrin jumped guiltily to her feet, while Rafael sank back in the tub with annoyance fleeting across his features. In a frenzy of barking, the dogs surged across the floor and milled around the tub.

  “Am I never to be allowed the courtesy,” Rafael sighed, “of bidding my callers to enter before they come bursting in?”

  “I beg your pardon, brother.” Borovic’s eyes flickered from Rafael to Katrin’s crimson face.

  Now the hounds, high as her waist, came galloping to nose her skirts. Borovic whistled them down. Whining with disappointment, they subsided.

  The earl cleared his throat. “Ah…did you collect the tithes?”

  Rafael raised his eyes and addressed the ceiling. “If ever I possessed any delusions regarding my value to this household, I’m now relieved of them. Aye, brother, I collected the tithes. Do you wish to count them?”

  “Count them? Nay.” Borovic cast him a startled look. “I’m no bailiff. I trust you for that.”

  Absently, the earl reached behind him to close the door. His hazel eyes searched them in turn. Katrin realized he was trying to discern what she’d told Rafael about his indiscretion.

  Recalling her anger and guilt, she gave him her back and stared into the fire. Heedless of the crackling tension, the hounds flopped down on the hearth and panted.

  “Well, that is something,” Rafael said wryly. “As it appears I’m not to be allowed to complete my ablutions, brother, will you pass me my clothing?”

  Cheeks burning, Katrin kept her back to the room while this was accomplished.

  A minute later, Rafael said, “Now that I’ve preserved my virtue, madame, come and join us over this pitcher of mead.”

  The very last thing she wanted was to sit cozily between the brothers over a pitcher of mead, but she couldn’t see how to avoid it. Biting her lip, she curled in the window seat and tucked her legs beneath her.

  Rafael passed her a drinking horn, which she accepted with a smile. Borovic shot Katrin a glance beneath his bushy brows. “So, brother, how were the roads?”

  “Muddy but open, and men moving in the land.” Rafael toweled his damp curls. “Already the Forkbeard has been seen in Devon, looting and burning in his usual fashion.”

  “Damn.” Borovic scowled. “When will our king give those bastards the trouncing they deserve? They’ll put half of England to the torch before they’re done.”

  “Your king can do nothing to dismay them.” Rafael shrugged, indifferent. “He set the foolish precedent of paying them to leave, and now every year they return, demanding more and more. Even when paid the Danegeld, the Forkbeard merely finds some other undefended stretch of shore and raids there.”

  “So long as he comes not here,” the earl grunted. His signet ring flashed in a spear of sunlight: bear over crossed spears, covering his finger to the knuckle. “We’re lucky to be so far inland. His longboats can’t reach us here.”

  “No shire in England is out of reach—not when they hold the Hebrides, the Shetlands, the Orkneys and the Irish isle. If I’m not mistaken, they still inhabit half this isle, from Hadrian’s wall to land’s end?”

  “They covet our fertile soil and prosperity,” Borovic muttered. “I hear tell their own lands are overcrowded, and the soil poor. Still, the marcher lords contain them above the wall. With God’s blessing, they’ll continue to shield us.”

  Katrin stirred. “The marcher lords can’t continue to bear this burden alone. ’Tis why we look to Argent to restore my Courtenay keep, and regarrison the northern road.”

  “Aye, then, we’ll find you a castellan,” Borovic said, indulgent. “I’ve few men to spare, but I’ll consider the matter.”

  “I pray you’ll consider it soon. It’s one of your obligations under the marriage contract.”

  “It shall be done,” he consoled her. “It’s no matter to trouble a woman’s head. There are enough second sons hungry for glory at this court. I’ll appoint some likely lad.”

  She struggled to rein in her concern. What good is this vaunted alliance if this is how he honors it? “I think perhaps a seasoned older captain—”

  “Your lands are far from here.” Borovic frowned. “But that’s Ethelred’s concern—and yours, brother, since you acquire the jointure with your marriage.”

  “It’s precisely such thinking, brother, which is defeating you
r king. For every lord thinks only of his own small holding, and damns his neighbor’s. Your people won’t unite beneath a single chieftain long enough to cast the Vikings out.” Rafael paced, his trained voice gaining resonance. “You’ll never drive the Danes from these shores unless you can unify. Englishmen fighting alongside Scots and Welsh for the common defense.”

  “Impossible.” Borovic snorted. “That day will never come.”

  “In that case I fear for England.” Rafael peered through the window, as though already barbarian hordes poured through the gates. “Believe me, I know whereof I speak. On the mainland, petty greed divides the French into minor principalities, though once the great Charlemagne had all of Europe on its knees. The authority of King Robert the Pious—”

  He paused over the French king, infamous for his bloody persecution of heresy and an incestuous relationship with his own cousin, “—is in shambles, crushed between the Count of Anjou on one side and the Duke of Normandy on the other. King Robert rules little more than Paris these days. Ask him, brother, about the value of unity.

  “For your enemies are coming, in ever greater numbers. Your people are scattered and their fighting techniques outdated. Why, the Normans—”

  “Ah, not the Normans again. I’ve heard you sing that song before. The Normans and their mounted knights will stay on their own side of the Channel if they know what’s good for them.” Borovic paused. “Your skill at rhetoric is impressive, brother. You should thank the monks for it. But what does a bishop know of warfare?”

  Rafael laughed shortly. “Why, nothing at all, brother, save what any child knows when his kin are slaughtered to a man by brigands while he cowers in a ditch. Thank God you know less of the Normans than I do.”

  Borovic shifted uneasily in his chair. Katrin remained still as a hunted rabbit, knowing her presence was forgotten.

  “You discount the Normans at your peril.” Rafael’s tone made her shiver. Absently, without looking from the window, he curled one hand around her nape and kneaded the taut column. A frisson of response rippled through her.

  She lifted her eyes to find Borovic staring straight at her, envy and desire written like a proclamation across his bearded features. When she shuddered again, Rafael glanced down. Slowly his glittering eyes moved to his brother, and for a bare instant the baron was pure predator—one of his fierce-beaked raptors, keen eyes watching for betrayal.

  But the earl had returned to his mead, and Rafael’s hand slid away.

  “So,” Borovic said, with forced cheer, “Easter is upon us. Do we celebrate a wedding in three days’ time?”

  “I believe I’ve persuaded the lady to accept my suit.” Rafael folded himself into the window seat beside her. Although he was no longer touching her, his heat licked her thigh, as though her woolen skirts were made of cobwebs.

  Glancing sidelong, she saw him in profile, pale and lethal as a knife when he smiled. The earl bared his white teeth in response. Challenge crackled in the air between them.

  “Indeed,” Katrin said brightly, “your cook has been planning for a month. I vow the king himself shall feast no better.”

  “Aye, we’ll feast and make merry.” Amiable, Borovic hoisted his drinking horn in salute. “I’ll make certain it’s perfect.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Katrin married the baron of Belmaine at Easter. For all her devious tactics, her determination to avoid the marriage trap, in the end she’d tamely yielded.

  Still, this marriage would be vastly different from the last. She was no longer the untried girl who’d married Maldred of Courtenay under duress and hoped for the best. And Rafael le Senay was no dour marcher lord to glower in mute resentment at a wife he couldn’t manage.

  Indeed, the careful terms of their alliance made her his equal, and this unusual arrangement didn’t seem to trouble him. With the scrawl of a quill, she became a lady of political and dynastic importance—owning her own lands and controlling their substantial revenues. She was forced to concede that her uncle had kept his promise. Ethelred had raised her high above the threadbare widow who’d struggled to keep food on her table. She wondered how Eomond was enjoying his new estates.

  Once he’d been her shining beacon of honor, a beam that pierced the clouded darkness like a burning lamp. These days, she scarcely thought of him. Softened by time and distance, the stern-faced theyn had begun to recede like a dissolving dream.

  Now Katrin knelt in the echoing nave with her back straight, strangers crowded elbow to elbow in the pews behind her, all who’d come to keep Easter with their lord. Her new husband knelt beside her, dark head bowed as he murmured the responses in impeccable Latin, profile pure as a saint in alabaster. He was glorious in the shattering colors of Argent: a blaze of cobalt burning like blue fire, his saber an elegant menace as it lay between them. Sable swept from his shoulders to pool on the flagstones behind him. She yearned to slide her fingers through those lush furs and run her palms along his body—an admission that made her warm.

  And now she was bound to him, and the fateful deed was done—or nearly so. For no marriage was binding until it was consummated. A hot tide of anticipation flooded through her.

  When the Mass ended, the congregation spilled into the courtyard. Above them, the castle’s spires soared beneath an upside-down bowl of blue sky. Katrin found herself buffeted by a bewildering crush of people: wealthy merchants from London, minor vassals from the hides and tithings, splendid gallants mantled in dissipation and ennui—all rubbed shoulders with the common folk of the shire, with their honest well-scrubbed faces. High or low, all were eager to end the Lenten fast with a banquet.

  She should be proud as a princess in her gown of cream and silver, stitched with butterflies in sparkling gold. A silver fillet banded her brow, holding back the burnished hair that spilled down her back. She’d never in her life worn a garment so costly—nor was likely to again. As an aetheling and the king’s emissary at this distant court, she was meant to impress. Yet she struggled against a lingering sense of unease, nape prickling as a sea of strange faces swirled around her.

  As she moved dutifully in the dowager’s formidable tow, Katrin tried to pinpoint the source of her discomfort. Aelfwydd was still abed, half-dead from her hideous ordeal, all hope lost of bearing the earl his heir now. Yet Borovic was boisterous, shouting out jests, surrounded by those who vied for his attention—a cordial and generous host.

  These days, she was scrupulous never to be alone with him. Whatever brief attraction had flared within him, no doubt it was ended now. Her marriage would discourage him, even if her unequivocal rejection hadn’t.

  But every time she chanced to look in his direction, she found his gaze tracking her progress or sliding away, so he wouldn’t be caught staring at his brother’s bride.

  Her eyes locked with Rafael’s as he stood near the church, letting the crowd come to him: an azure flame sparkling with silver. A secret warmth lingered in his smile, hinting at what lay between them, and what was yet to come.

  After the extravagant wedding breakfast, Argent hosted a tourney—an opportunity for Borovic to parade his skills before an admiring crowd, knowing his brother wouldn’t compete.

  From the viewing stand, Katrin applauded bouts of spear-hurling and swordplay. Sweet wine circled among the crowd, and the spectators grew happily soused as the morning wore on.

  While an armed melee surge back and forth on the trampled ground, she thought dryly that her uncle would appreciate this expensive display, all ostensibly on her account. Borovic was in his element, storming through the battle in his blinding mail astride his white charger. His bannerman struggled to keep pace, the bear and spears waving valiantly above the fray.

  Watching him whelm left and right with his great sword, nerves fluttered in Katrin’s belly. His bearing shouted command and power; he was the undisputed champion of the fie
ld. How had she dared risk his displeasure?

  The melee had dissolved into clumps of fighting men trying not to trip over the groaning casualties that littered the field. Now a ripple of interest rolled through the boisterous crowd, gathering momentum until it foamed over her.

  Nearby, Cate stopped fanning herself and sat up. “Marry, I believe ’tis your Black Fox.”

  Katrin’s heart quickened. From nowhere he’d materialized, mounted on the dappled gray he called Bucephalus, for Alexander of Macedon’s fabled steed. Concealed behind his helm with its crafty muzzle, Rafael swallowed up the light, supple black leathers gleaming like ink. As his stallion thundered onto the field, a glittering wedge of Anjou knights on horseback arrowed through the melee in his wake.

  Standing in his stirrups, the Black Fox wielded his saber in the scything sweep called the moulinet, knocking men from their feet. Like the Red Sea before Moses, waves of startled fighters parted before him.

  Caught up in the excitement, Katrin leaned over the viewing stand and cheered him, pale scarf trailing from her fingers. Peeling away from his mounted phalanx, the Fox galloped along the viewing stand beneath a stampede of applause and snared her scarf as he swept past.

  Reaching open ground, he reined in and wound the scarf around his throat. Staring across the field at Katrin, he lifted the silk to his face-plate, as though scenting it. Across the field on his white charger, Borovic watched as the Black Fox stole his thunder. Suddenly the earl stood in his stirrups and whirled his sword overhead. From the cavernous depths of his helm, his racketing battle-cry rang out.

  Starting slowly but building momentum like a battering ram, Borovic surged into a gallop and bore down on the black knight. The earl’s trumpeters lifted their horns to sound the charge. A battalion of Borovic’s mounted knights closed at his heels, their hooves shaking the ground like an earthquake.

  In response, the Black Fox swept his saber in glittering salute. Light-footed beneath his slender weight, the dappled gray leaped into motion and seemed to fly across the field, wings of Anjou knights spreading wide on either side.