“Have you considered what it means to give this girl the benefit of your name?” asked Rhys.
Sebastian looked at him levelly.
“It means anyone who slanders her will answer to me.”
Rhys took another sip from his goblet and considered him.
They had known each other for years, even fostered with the same household, and Sebastian knew what kind of thoughts raced through his friend’s mind. Impetuous was the last thing any man called him. His even temper and considered actions were thought a de la Croix trait, for his sister was of the same disposition. Sebastian knew a hasty decision to wed did not match the man Rhys knew, but he kept his lands well and his people prospered, so who could complain?
When he had arrived, Tyrswick was little more than a sad collection of dilapidated cottages surrounding a Saxon long-house, with villagers living a hardscrabble existence. The baron worked hard to earn their trust and fulfill the potential of the land. And he hadn’t even begun to explore the possibility of added wealth in the long-abandoned mines left by the Romans.
No, the people of Tyrswick were unlikely candidates for rebellion.
Anyway, Sebastian had his own reasons for rolling the dice and gambling his future and was disinclined to share them with Rhys. Fortunately, his friend seemed equally disinclined to pursue the matter tonight.
Both men sat in companionable silence by the fire for quite some time before the sound of a pop from the fireplace brought Rhys out of a comfortable half doze with a start. He pushed himself to his feet, clasping Sebastian on the shoulder to bid him good night.
* * *
Frey remained in the shadows of the solar, a cloak and hood thrown over her nightgown against the chill of the night, its dark color permitting her to remain unseen in the shadows.
Sleep would not claim her, not when Drefan lurked like a specter outside, and, with the arrival of Rhys Villiers, this was her only opportunity to speak with Sebastian alone.
She overheard the low indistinct murmurs of conversation through the thick timber wall separating this room from the baron’s bedchamber. She knew Sebastian talked late with Rosalind’s husband, so she huddled in the dark corner, hugging her knees, and waited.
After a period of time, Baron Villiers left and Frey listened intently for the sound of his own chamber door opening then closing, to echo up the stairs from the floor below, before she edged across to the entrance and glanced through the crack left between the door and the jamb.
Perhaps Sebastian slept, which was why Lord Rhys left. If that were so, Frey would have reconsidered her plans. By the light of the fire she could see the abandoned chair. To see the second chair meant she must peer around the door.
It too was empty.
Frey frowned. Did she doze and Sebastian slipped past her unseen? She took a further step or two into the room and looked.
The bed was…
Before Frey could complete the thought, she was grabbed roughly from behind and held firmly against a man's broad chest. A large hand covered her mouth and suppressed an involuntary scream.
The man recognized her and relaxed but did not remove his hand.
“You picked the wrong night to slit my throat while I slept, princess.”
Sebastian’s whispered voice filled her ear. He held her still for long moments before speaking.
“Are you recovered? You will not scream?”
Frey nodded and shook her head in answer to each question, and she was released, her heart pumping furiously.
“Do you suggest I pick some other night then?” she said, wiping her mouth to remove the sensation of his hand.
Sebastian ignored her barb and poured a small measure of spiced wine into his goblet. He handed it to her and watched as she drank.
“Why do you assume the worst of me?” she asked.
“Habit,” he answered, arms folded across his chest. “Now tell me what you’re doing in my chambers while others sleep.”
“I have to speak to you.”
Sebastian’s eyebrows rose in surprise. It might have been skepticism, but Frey couldn’t be sure.
“And it couldn’t wait until morning?”
All of a sudden Frey’s courage left her, and she wondered if her senses had taken leave of her too.
She was an unmarried woman, alone, late at night in the bed chamber of a man whose mere presence made her feel powerful sensations she struggled to understand. What on earth was she doing?
She shook her head softly.
“This was a mistake.”
As she turned to leave, Sebastian grabbed her wrist.
“It’s a mistake to not finish what you start.”
Frey tugged, but Sebastian held firm, looking at her with a mistrust she hadn’t seen since the aftermath of the battle with the wolves.
“Sit down,” he ordered. “It seems your past returns to haunt us, princess.”
Frey gave him her most implacable stare and defied him for long seconds before slowly and deliberately lowering herself onto the chair left by Lord Rhys. Despite her show of external bravado, her chest tightened as she watched Sebastian slowly reclaim his seat.
“Drefan,” she stated.
The word dropped like a lead weight between them.
“You’ve been less than forthcoming about what this man is to you, and I’ve run out of patience,” he told her.
“You want to know what he is to me?” she echoed bitterly.
The banked coals of emotion long suppressed glowed and burst into flame with this breeze of change; they heated Frey’s temper and stoked her courage.
“I hate that man more than I hated the Normans,” she told him.
“He kept my father angry and drunk while he drained his purse and fed him fantasies of reclaiming our home. He promised great and mighty armies to march victoriously into England. He wormed his way into my brother’s affections and pretended he was a friend.”
Frey paused and chanced a glance at Sebastian. A single slow blink was the only reaction he showed.
“That doesn’t tell me who he is to you,” he prompted.
“He’s nothing to me. He’s a dog,” she sneered.
The warmth of Sebastian’s chambers receded as memories of Drefan’s flattery and his cold-hearted deception played out in her mind’s eye.
“Drefan claimed to have contracted marriage with me, and my father was rarely sober enough to ask, but that didn’t stop Drefan from taking—”
Frey’s voice caught and long-suppressed tears of bitterness, shame, and anger breached the embankments of her lids and fell in rivulets down her face.
“He used me, he used all of us, and now he’s back.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Sebastian stood and hauled an unresisting Frey into his arms. He held her silently, allowing her rage to play itself out. Anger thrummed through him, but he mastered his emotions and kept his mouth shut.
A desire to erase every heartache, every hurt, tugged at his core, but the past was an enemy he couldn’t slay for her. He knew that well enough on his own account, but he dealt with it, pressing forward until the wounds healed and left nothing but the scars. She would have to learn to do the same.
Soon Frey stilled. She laid her cheek on his chest and snaked her arms around his back. It felt right.
The only sound now was the comforting crackle of the fire in the grate and, from outside, the occasional sound of an owl and other night creatures who called the night their domain.
Sebastian could feel her breathing slow and steady against him and he wondered if she dozed on her feet until she spoke.
“Drefan is here,” Frey said, her voice a little above a whisper. “That’s why I came here tonight. He sent me a message.”
Sebastian pulled away and immediately missed her warmth against him. Frey obviously felt it too. She pulled the cloak around her and edged closer to the fireplace, staring at it as though it held the cure to her misery.
An odd pang pierced his chest a
nd he considered the origin of it. To his dismay, Sebastian discovered it was jealousy. Despite the anger building within him, he was proud that he listened calmly nonetheless, while Frey related the arrival and content of Drefan’s message.
He would send a patrol out on the morrow to see if he could flush the fox from its lair. He meant it when he told her he would not have rebellion foment on his land.
She turned around and her pretty blue eyes watched him, as usual, trying to second-guess what he might do. He determined to use her full attention to his advantage.
“Now you have a decision to make, don’t you, Lady Alfreya?”
* * *
Frey’s eyes narrowed at the bitter tone in Sebastian’s voice. She saw him clench and unclench his fists and wondered how hands that held her so gently just moments before were now so hard and unyielding.
He picked up a scroll from the bench and held it upright like a torch. His eyes glittered as they watched her.
“Villiers brought this from London,” he told her. “It names your husband.”
Frey’s eyes flicked to the document and back to him, and she licked her lips in nervous anticipation.
“Who is it to be?”
Sebastian shook his head and Frey’s heart sank like a stone in her belly. Despite his fine words about her being home, the Crown evidently decreed differently.
She cursed herself for a fool. It had been months since she tried to press Sebastian for an answer to his cryptic promise. It suited her not to question, if truth be told. She liked being back at Tyrswick, and since returning, she'd allowed herself to believe a minor baron in a far-flung corner of England would have the influence to make good on his promise.
Sebastian’s face was taut; his mouth was now sober and grim.
Frey shook her head to clear it.
“You make no sense at all. What choice? I have no choice. Either I wed the man in that decree or”—she shrugged—”what…?”
“I’m giving you a choice, Alfreya.”
Her confusion must have spoken plainly on her face because Sebastian sighed and continued.
“Wed me.”
The low, calmly spoken words sent a frisson of alarm tracing up her spine and, if she were honest, a measure of desire too.
“How prettily you make the suggestion, my lord,” she said scornfully. “Many a maiden must swoon at the quality of your lovemaking.”
Anger flashed across his face and settled in his eyes, where the flickering glow of the fireplace and the lamps made it seem lightning inhabited them.
He turned and stalked a few paces to put more distance between them, then spun to face her.
“Then go to this Drefan if that is your wish. Your angry words still speak of a great passion for him. But be warned, your memory will be dead here, buried along with Diera in that crypt, never, ever to return. And if I find you and that man on my lands, I will kill you both.”
Frey shook her head, hoping to shake loose some sense.
“What about him?” She pointed to the scroll, abandoned on the table, that contained the name of the man chosen for her by the Crown.
Sebastian’s response was to look at her even more dangerously.
“They are your only choices, princess.”
“Show me the parchment!”
Sebastian tossed her the document and she perused it to find the congratulations and felicitations of one of the chief justiciars of England.
As she read each line, anger brewed like a North Sea storm and broke when she came to the conclusion.
“You lied! You offer me no choice!”
She flung the letter back at him. It struck his chest and fell to the floor, where it rolled itself up and rocked from side to side until it stilled.
“Either turn me out with the devil himself or marry a…a…”
“Spit it out, Frey! You’ve never been shy about your Saxon insults before,” he sneered. “Can you lower yourself to marry a Norman dog?”
Frey felt as though she had been slapped. Heat and cold alternated in waves and for one horrible moment, she felt she would faint. At length she dragged in a lungful of air. She fell back into a seat, her head sagging.
Baron Sebastian de la Croix was a good and kind man; she knew that. He deserved a good Norman wife with a marriage that offered political and strategic advantages, not a penniless Saxon cast-off with a dubious temper who claimed too much on his good humor and forbearance.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered into her lap. And she was, too—for the whole sorry mess.
Frey was hauled to her feet, her hands trapped in both of Sebastian’s.
“Are you telling me ‘no’?”
She couldn’t look at him but shook her head and was answered with a long-suffering sigh.
“Then speak plainly,” he said. “The night grows late and I’m tired.”
“You’ll regret it.”
“What?”
“Marrying me.”
Frey ventured a look up at him and was surprised to see tenderness lingering in his expression. It frightened her more than his anger. If he felt more than pity for her he might mistake it for love, and she was certain to the core of her being that love was an emotion she was no longer capable of giving to any man.
“Please don’t look at me that way,” she begged.
“What way?”
“As though there could be more between us than…kindness. It would be a mistake to believe so. Please don’t ask me for more.”
“Kindness?” Sebastian wore an expression of distaste, as though he had swallowed something bitter. “You think I marry you out of kindness, out of charity? Please spare your pity and mine, Frey.”
Sebastian was now mercurial, his expression changing from disgust, anger, hurt, resignation to something that, to Frey, seemed predatory.
“As my wife there is something else you are obliged to offer me,” he said, taking one step toward her and no more.
“Yes, well, I shall be prepared to suffer through it,” Frey replied primly, not liking the direction of this conversation.
“Suffer, you call it?” He took another step forward and stopped.
Frey held her ground. She didn’t fear him, no matter what mood he was in.
“I’m no sheltered virgin you can intimidate, Baron.”
Her bravado elicited a grin as he took another step forward. She was aware he was now so close he could reach out and grab her. Part of her longed for him to do so. If he did, she would be blameless and he wholly responsible for the wellspring of wantonness he unearthed in her.
Arousal throbbed with each beat of her heart. But he stood still and parts of her body stretched toward him of their own volition. Her nipples, puckered and erect, strained toward him, her fingertips yearned to breach the divide, to touch his firmly muscled arms and pull herself nearer.
Sebastian leaned in to whisper in her ear.
“Kiss me.”
Moisture flooded her sex and a sigh of longing escaped her lips.
“On my word, I will not touch you,” he said, making a show of locking his fingers behind his back. “Kiss me.”
Frey pulled back quizzically, uncertain of the game he played. The answer to her question was a grin with a touch of merriment in his eyes.
“Unless, you’re afraid…”
Frey straightened, knowing she was being shamelessly maneuvered but unable to resist a challenge.
She stepped forward and stretched up to him—the wretch stood to his full height—placing her hands on his shoulders for balance while she stood on her toes. Frey gave him a quick peck on the cheek and stood down on the flats of her feet. He watched her keenly, but gave no indication he was moved.
Frey was dissatisfied; she had been staring at his lips all evening and now wanted to remember how they felt. She returned to her toes and pressed her lips and her body slowly to his, feeling him shift slightly on his feet. He was not as immune to her as he pretended.
Good.
He
r lips coaxed his apart and she allowed herself a moan of satisfaction as she felt the nether part of him stir into life and grow firm. As their tongues played and mated, the feeling against her belly increased her own desire.
Breathless, Frey forced her mouth from his and trailed kisses along his darkly stubbled cheek until her lips and tongue discovered an earlobe, which she sampled with abandon.
She knew she was playing a risky game, but, oh, it felt good! Aroused almost beyond breaking point, she wondered at his self-possession. More, more, more…her body craved his. She waited for him to abandon his restraint and take her.
Frey felt the movement through his shoulders first and she knew he unclasped his hands. She felt a surge of triumph.
“Yes,” she whispered to him as those powerful arms moved around her. She leaned in farther, her weight taken by his arms as she pressed her breasts against him.
“Yes, yes,” she whispered.
Then Sebastian pulled away. Frey, to her embarrassment, squeaked in protest.
“In your bed alone tonight, remember how you must suffer me,” he told her, his voice hoarse and cracked.
She looked down along his body, his erection magnificently outlined in his hose, then up to his face, unmasked in its need and desire.
She permitted herself a rueful half smile. “Then it seems we suffer together.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Frey woke with a start, the glow of the morning sun and the shadows of the leaves from the tree above shifting in the mild breeze, playing a game of chase along her arm. Blinking against the light, Frey sat up and looked around a large meadow, treeless but for the yew she slept under.
“Frey! You’re awake!”
She turned and found a visitor beside her where there had been no one before.
“What are you doing here? You’re dead.”
“Oh.” Diera frowned, confused, and brushed a hand down her long yellow braid before settling her hands in her lap. Her hands were stark white against the deep blue of her kirtle.
“Not everything is as it seems, Frey,” she said.
Warrior's Surrender Page 15
