For Her Honour (Swords of Passion)

by DeLand, Cerise

  Stop looking at her! Your remaining good eye will fall out of your head.

  But he’d been startled by her veracity and marvelled at her courage this afternoon.

  He downed another taste of the mellow beer for which she and her estate were renowned. He licked the froth from his upper lip and glanced up to see the good lady Blanche fascinated by his tongue. He paused, enjoying the thrill of her ravenous desire.

  Ah. So we see one thing clearly, do we not, my lady Bergeron?

  You admire me and I, fool that I am, cannot get enough of watching you.

  So much for things which are never meant to be.

  She vibrated in a small frisson and snapped her gaze away from him. Denying the attraction.

  Just as well. Will sighed, took another bite of roast pig from his trencher and went back to his musings of her as she commanded her table in the grand hall.

  Here tonight, as on her dais this afternoon, she was a woman easy in her skin. Filled with the power of her station. Assured but poised. Free with her laughter. Too forthright in her speech, too bold in her manner to fit the fragile mould of femininity cast by authors of popular romances. She sought to please no one. Nor did she have to—until John had decided her lands were ones he needed more tightly bound to him and proposed a bridegroom who was not worthy to kiss her slippers.

  Marriage, be damned! Will twirled his goblet and scowled. As a tool of state, the device cut cruelly into men and women. Will had had his own proof of that—and his own sorrows. Enough brooding, man! You are here to effect the lady’s match, not rant against it.

  Better to drink Blanche’s exceedingly tasty beer. He hoisted his goblet and tipped it towards her in compliment. She caught his act from the corner of her eye and, as he filled with delight that she might still assess his every act, she smiled at him sweetly and drank her own. As she swallowed, Will’s gaze descended to memorise the workings of her exquisite throat. Her elegant neck was long as a damn swan’s. Her lily white chest was full and heaving as he sought her eyes and locked. Her lashes fluttered. Blushing, she turned aside to summon her maid.

  “More meat for our guest, Hilda.” Blanche indicated Will’s nearly empty trencher. “More beer, too.”

  “Nay, Madame.” He put up a hand. “I am most satisfied with both. Your cook is a master and I am stuffed as a goose on Christmas Day.”

  Blanche inclined her head politely. “I must tell him.”

  “Do. Such talents in these climes I would think are rare.”

  “They are. I have trained him myself.” She picked up a chunk of roast pig between her fingers and popped it in her mouth.

  Will watched her chew and wondered how her plush red lips would feel wrapped around his cock. Good God! He hadn’t had such thoughts in years. His sexual exploits these days were practiced more often in his head than in his bed. A widower for nine years, he was a man of nearly forty years, ancient and—judging by his friends—soon set for death, not fucking a beautiful woman. Especially an honourable one bound for marriage to another by a royal decree that he had the dubious honour to impose. Of all the rotten ideas John conjured, this was the worst in years.

  “I say, milord,” Blanche seemed to be continuing a conversation he had left for ruminations, “do you have a worthwhile cook at your home? Where is it? On the Thames?”

  “West of London, true.” He leant back and allowed the servant Hilda to ladle more stew into his trencher. “Greystone sits fifty leagues away. And as for my cook? She is young and cannot dress a pig, let alone fire it as well as this.”

  “She needs a good teacher,” Blanche suggested. “Have you not an older woman in the village who can tutor her?”

  “We did have one, but she died last year.” He lifted another piece to his mouth, recalling the kind old woman who had been taught by his mother. “But I am not much at home and so her lack of expertise is not noticed.”

  “Aye, we hear that you are at John’s side most of the year.”

  “I am. He needs me.” Too badly.

  “I agree. He needs someone for whom diplomacy is a natural trait.”

  “You honour me too much, Madame.” Will took the compliment with humility. “My king is born to his role.”

  “But not to his rule, is he?” she blurted. But then looked up at the rafters. “Forgive me, my lord. My tongue gets in the way of my brains.”

  He chuckled. “Believe me when I say, my lady, that you are not the first to give me a negative opinion of my liege lord and master.”

  She turned to give Will the full view of her perfectly oval face. “Yet you serve him.”

  “I do. It is my family’s role. I served Richard and now his brother, John.”

  “How can you?” She sounded shocked and bitter. “He cannot be worth the sacrifice.”

  Will traced the wide arc of her brows, the deep green-blue of her almond–shaped eyes and the lush bow of her upper lip. What a sacrifice you are to his ends. “He is, my lady. A man with so many subjects needs help.”

  “From someone wise.”

  “Ah. I’d say from someone honest,” Will corrected, his fingers drawing patterns on the base of his goblet.

  “The finest diplomat in the realm,” she added.

  He tipped his head in consideration of her compliment. “Diplomacy is not so rare or mysterious.”

  “No? Pray tell, my lord, who holds a candle to your talents?”

  Was she trying to flatter him to prejudice him towards her case? He knew she was adamant about remaining in her home—and unwed, too. But was this a new tactic to waylay him from his mission here? “Diplomacy is the art of the possible.”

  “Really? Two years ago, you did the impossible. Was freeing Simon de la Poer from his imprisonment for murder merely an art?”

  “Aye,” Will agreed, remembering how his fellow Crusader had been caught in a terrible trap after he was sent by John to secure the northern marches from a greedy bunch of outlaws. “That was an easy case to prove. Two other men colluded to kill the Earl of Atherton in his own bed.”

  “But to free the Countess of Atherton to wed de la Poer? A man beneath her station? That surely was more than art.”

  “My friend de la Poer and the countess were innocent. I had only to find the proof and show it to John. He listens to reason.”

  Blanche clamped her hand to Will’s wrist. “Let him listen to my reason.”

  Her grip gave him pause. Her warmth and strength touched his heart. He covered her hand with his own. “Listen to me, Blanche.” He used her given name against protocol but he knew he had to nip her desire to be free and do so dramatically. She sucked in air at his familiarity as their gazes met and mingled. “John has problems with the Welsh. You know this so well. Your lands sit nearly on those borders. His alliance with the Prince of Wales is not so strong, despite the fact that Llywelyn is married to John’s daughter, Joan. John cannot look lightly on anyone in these climes who shows an independent streak.”

  “I cannot pay his new tax from last year. It would empty my coffers!”

  Will nodded, knowing this had been the burr that pricked John’s skin. “Your refusal to pay the assize on your beer was the impetus to this marriage. I see you have the means to entertain well. Know this though, if you had been more frugal and paid the tax, I would not be sitting here, dining and drinking, then carting you off to a wedding you do not want.”

  She stiffened and tried to retreat.

  He jerked her closer. The aroma of soap and some fragrant herb drifted to his nostrils. Had she bathed before she came to supper? Should he be so honoured? Should he be fool enough to care? Unbidden, his cock stirred to life. “You have not paid to your lord and master the tax that allows him to pay for border guards.”

  “They are too exorbitant!”

  “High or nay, the price is not yours to determine,” he corrected her.

  “Llewellyn’s men harry my serfs on the western borders, tax or not from John.”

  “You should have p
aid the tax. ‘Tis best, you see, when a ruler is high tempered, to pick your battles carefully. You had the money for the tax.”

  “I did not! Not then! We had a flood and I had to pay for men from Berwick to help us rebuild a dam before the rains.”

  This was the first time he had heard this. The explanation endeared him to her more—to no avail. “I wish you had sent us word of that. I might have been able to help. But now all you have is no stomach for a wedding that is the punishment for your failure to pay.”

  She yanked away her arm. Tears glistened in her lashes.

  Christ in a cesspool. “Do you not see the wisdom and the logic behind the marriage?” he seethed, marvelling that he refrained from shouting at her. “Hugh de Morency has men at arms. Men whom John will post here.”

  “At my expense,” she bit off.

  “Aye. For your protection!”

  Fast as an arrow from a bow, she rose from her chair. Her chair clattered back and forth on its legs.

  At their mistress’s show of ire, the assembly hushed and stared.

  “Come with me,” Blanche ordered him. “We will talk in private.” She swished her skirts to one side and proceeded to the side of the hall and the stairs to the upper keep. His own rooms were in the opposite tower, so this invitation to her bower was intimate. Risqué.

  Appealing. He forced back raw desire.

  Then ground his teeth. And necessary.

  * * * *

  She shooed her maid away. “Shut the door.”

  Then she spun on him where he stood just inside her cosy chamber lined with thick Anjou tapestries hanging from the walls and sumptuous marten furs piled upon the bed.

  “How dare you tell me in my hall, where all may hear, how I failed to protect my people!”

  He inclined his head. “Madame, I did no such thing.”

  “Do not mince words with me.”

  “As I just heard it, you accused me of the opposite. Am I too bold or too retiring?”

  She fisted her hands. “I cannot marry this man, Greystone.”

  “William,” he suggested.

  “What?” she asked him, her brows knitting at his digression.

  “We are to be together for the next few weeks, Blanche, so I invite you to call me William. Or Will, as you wish.”

  “I don’t wish! I wish to stay here.”

  “That is no longer in your power to decide, Blanche.”

  She came to him then and gathered up his tunic into her hands. So close now, he inhaled the lavender that pervaded her flawless skin. He adored the perfection of her large turquoise eyes, the wisps of red gold tresses that escaped her hair netting. My god, this Hugh has not the sense to savour such a prize in his bed.

  “I will give you anything, Will. But do not make me wed this man.”

  “There is nothing I need, Blanche.” Except a night or two with you. And that I may never dare to take.

  “Not money?”

  “Nay.”

  “Not land?”

  He shook his head. “I have more land than I can administer well. I am a man for court, not the country.” The pleading look in her eyes so roiled him that he took her hands in his and lifted them to his mouth. He kissed her fingertips. “I wish I could help you. But your stubbornness caused John anguish. And loss of money. You must now pay his price.”

  “And this Hugh?” she asked on a slight breath. “Is he kind or wise or learned?”

  He noted she had not asked if he were handsome. “Not to my knowledge.”

  She winced. “Is there anything about him I might respect?”

  Will stared into her lovely eyes and told her the one truth he knew. “He is loyal to John.”

  She sagged, her eyes closing and leaving her heavy dark lashes resting on cheeks pink with despair. “I cannot believe I survived years with one lacklustre husband only to be handed to another.” A second thought had her searching Will’s expression. “I suppose he needs an heir.”

  Will understood her question beneath the statement. “He does.”

  She curled her shoulders together in a pose of pain. “I do not wish another childbirth.”

  “I understand,” he said, but knew a man’s sympathy for that trial was moot.

  “It’s not the pain I mind so much.” She looked at him wistfully. “That ends. It’s that once you birth them and hold them, suckle them and love them…they die.”

  He circled his arms around her then and crushed her close. “I know,” he gruffed, awash in memories of his own two sons who had died before they reached the age of one. “That is the ripest agony.” He kissed her hair. Fragrant, too, with the floral lavender. Soft as eiderdown, twining through his fingers. “You must not think of those things. Expect the best.” He cupped her cheeks and drew her face back so that he could look down into her tear–stained beauty. “Think that you may be blessed in this union with another child who will live and thrive. That then will make all of this worthwhile, eh?”

  She verged on sobs, her throat working back the sounds. “I do not want to try. I do not want to hope. I am thirty years of age. Much too far gone to have a babe. I could die in the trying.”

  “You?” Will smiled at her, his mock reproach a gentle barb. “Nay, my dear Blanche. You are the healthiest woman I have ever seen! You will survive a birthing. You could survive anything!” He cradled her close again and rocked her like a child, all the while petting the wealth of her hair with reverent hands. “You can survive Hugh. And even John.”

  “Help me,” she pleaded.

  “I will,” he assured her. “I will do whatever I can to make this amenable to all three of you.” He knew not what that meant at the moment, but he would think on it as they made their way towards London these next few weeks.

  She straightened, wiped her tears and attempted a small smile. “Thank you.” Her chin quivered. She straightened, her fingers on his chest a warm caress as she stood back from him. “May I offer you another draught of my good beer to send you on your way to bed?”

  He admired her for a long moment. Her skin rosy, her eyes brightened by the drying tears, her resilience reawakening in the face of a hideous future. He preferred wine to beer, but hers had been the best he’d ever sampled. “You may,” he said in his most courteous mode. They had come to an understanding, hadn’t they?

  * * * *

  They had. They did. A very good one, too, he thought.

  Until the next morning when he awoke with a violent headache. Until he stumbled to the garderobe, ill as a wet cat on a sea-tossed galley. Until he dragged himself back to his bed, opened his burning eyes hours later and spied the sunlight streaming through the tiny oriel in his wall.

  That’s when he tore open his door and took the winding staircase at a run. When he bounded into the great hall seeking to break his fast and brought up his gorge at the knowledge that he was in time for mid-day porridge and he had been duped.

  Drugged.

  By the lady of the manor and her beer.

  By the lady of the manor and her wily performance filled with forced tears and feigned fears.

  By the lady of the manor whom he was told by her maid Hilda was not in attendance. Could not be summoned.

  Could not be found, declared his four retainers after a frantic search of the keep and the grounds.

  “Where has she gone?” Will demanded of Hilda and Alfred, the elderly steward.

  “I do not know, milord,” Hilda replied.

  “Milady does not tell me,” the trembling old man offered.

  Will cursed, yelled at his men and headed for the stables. “Blanche,” he muttered, “you know me so little.” He, on the other hand, knew her so well. He knew who her friends were. And who were his.

  Before he’d journeyed out here to the fringes of John’s kingdom, he had studied all he could about the noble Lady Blanche Bergeron. After all, to win one must understand one’s opponent. Their lives, their aspirations, their needs. He thought he had understood hers. Thirty, widowe
d, childless, landed, comely, learned and revered by her serfs for her devotion to their prosperity, she seemed a paragon. Meeting her had added to that veneer the knowledge that she was lovely, witty, and to him more desirable than any woman he had met in years. On that, she had played. On that now, he would play her game.

  Wherever she went, he would follow.

  And she would submit to his every command.

  Chapter Three

  Four long days later, he found her as he knew he eventually would. Not with her cousin who lived southwest of her and had a husband more interested in currying favour with Llewellyn than John. Thank god. That negotiation would have been more hairy. Nay. Will found her at her brother’s home, northwest of her own.

  “I do thank you, sir, for your kindness to me in this matter,” he told Robert Geiss as they stood in his main hall. “Your sister is most precious to our king and for keeping her in good health while here, I know John will be very grateful to you.”

  Geiss inclined his head towards Will with courtly deference. This tall auburn–haired noble resembled his sister not only in colouring and height, but also in good manners, made even better than hers by his common sense. “Blanche is most precious to me, my lord Greystone. You will see to it that John hears that her journey to me was only so that she might bid me farewell.”

  So you do not give her to me for your own protection but because you love her. “I will see to it such virtues are rewarded, my lord. Yours and hers.” Such devotion in the face of John’s demands had become increasingly rare among John’s subjects. Will applauded this man’s effort. “I would see her now, if you please.”

  Geiss hailed his steward who turned on his heel at once to do his bidding. “I leave her to you, Greystone. May I make preparations to have you and your men remain for the night?”