Lords of Conquest Boxed Set

by Patricia Ryan

  “Hèloïse let Abelard talk her into marrying him, but in secret, which only further enraged Fulbert. He had Abelard...” She glanced uncomfortably at Hugh, who was watching her with that merciless intensity of his. “He had him...castrated. Abelard became a monk, Hèloïse a nun—but she was never a bride of Christ, not really. She belonged, heart and soul, to Peter Abelard, until the day she died.”

  “You can’t possibly know that.”

  “But I do. I met her when I was fourteen, three years before her death. My uncle Lotulf took me to the convent of the Paraclete, where she was abbess. I thought her the most remarkable person I’d ever met. She crackled with intelligence, yet she was also so witty, so warm-hearted—and still so deeply in love with Abelard, even though he’d been gone for twenty years and she’d not seen him for many years before that. All I could think was that I wanted to be just like her—except, of course, for taking the veil. All that spirit, all that radiance, cloistered away in a convent for a lifetime. The tragedy of it...”

  “You realize, of course, that this idol of yours, this Hèloïse, was destroyed by the very same romantic passion that you find so inexplicably intriguing—as was Abelard.”

  “They were destroyed by the notion that their passion was shameful unless it existed within the bonds of holy matrimony,” she corrected archly. “Abelard doomed them both when he coerced her into becoming his wife.”

  “Are you saying they should have lived openly in sin? I can’t think Fulbert would have tolerated that for very long.”

  “They could have left Paris, run away together—perhaps to Oxford, where there aren’t so many rigid expectations.”

  Hugh took his time shoving the cork back in the wineskin, his expression thoughtful. “Lord Richard tells me you had your share of suitors in Paris, young noblemen studying at the university, but not so many since you came to Oxford.”

  A little groan of exasperation rose in her throat. “Is there anything you don’t know about me?”

  “There are things I don’t know for sure.” Before she could ask him what he meant by that, he said, “I assume you’ve avoided matrimony because of what happened to Hèloïse.”

  “‘Twould have been shamefully naive of me—especially after meeting Hèloïse—to think that I could have the life of the mind and the life of a wife and mother.” She turned away from him, chafing her arms as the ribbons of sunlight faded and twilight cloaked the orchard in a cool purplish veil.

  She hadn’t thought of them in some time, those misguided young men with their earnest proposals. She’d never encouraged them—indeed, she’d actively avoided them—yet still they’d sought her out, and once they latched on to her, they were damnably difficult to shake. All of them expected her to cheerfully give up her studies—and, of course her freedom—once she was wed, or at least once she started producing heirs for them.

  Then a curious thing happened shortly after she’d settled in Oxford. Her first unsolicited suitor there, Walter Colrede, on learning of her adulation for Hèloïse, concluded—erroneously but conveniently—that Phillipa was as unfettered as her idol in regard to matters of the flesh.

  In fact, Phillipa had never so much as kissed a man, much less bedded one. It was one thing, she’d found, to admire and even espouse the free expression of physical passion, but quite another to practice it. The act of copulation struck her as grossly undignified and fraught with risk. Perhaps if she’d ever been in love, as Hèloïse had been...but even the most ardent of her suitors had inspired no feelings in her stronger than sisterly affection.

  Walter had informed Phillipa that marriage was now impossible. A member of the so-called “secular clergy”—excluding any man who had taken major orders through ordination as a deacon or priest—might marry if he was willing to sacrifice certain clerical privileges, but he was strictly forbidden to marry more than once, and his bride must be a maiden. And so was born the solution to the problem of Phillipa’s troublesome suitors—all of whom, being scholars, were in minor orders. When Walter had chivalrously promised her that he would reveal her licentiousness to no one, she assured him that such discretion was unnecessary. She cared not if the unenlightened judged her harshly; she was unashamed of her convictions and, like Hèloïse, disdainful of marriage. In the years since then, this subterfuge had served its purpose in keeping her from being hounded by marriage-minded young men.

  From behind her, Hugh asked quietly, “What is it like, this life of the mind for which you’ve sacrificed so much? What do you do with your days?”

  Reaching up, she snapped a twig off the tree nearest her. “I study.”

  A moment passed. When he spoke again, he was right behind her, although she hadn’t heard his footsteps. “That’s all?”

  She shrugged and stepped away from him, turning to lean against the trunk of the tree. “There are monks and nuns who do naught but pray all day.”

  Through the gathering darkness, she saw him smile. “You’ve already established what you think of cloistered life. I take it you’re not particularly devout.”

  “Not unthinkingly so,” she said, sliding the twig’s smooth little leaves one by one between her fingers. “Abelard said, ‘By doubting we come to inquiry. By inquiry, we come to truth.’ As for dedicating my life to study, by doing so I’m at the very least improving my mind. The same cannot be said of those monks and nuns who spend their days in incessant prayer behind convent walls.”

  He stalked lazily toward her, prompting her to instinctively flatten her back against the tree. “Perhaps they’re improving the world.”

  “Perhaps they’re simply hiding from the world.”

  “Are you not doing much the same thing?” he asked, suddenly right in front of her, very close. “You hide away in your comfortable little scholastic refuge, never thinking to get out in the world and apply that formidable brain of yours to any real purpose. You’ve learned much, but what good does that knowledge do if it just stays locked up in here?” He stroked her forehead, very softly, his coarse fingertips sending a breathless tickle down deep into her chest. The twig slipped from her fingers and fell silently to the ground.

  She wanted to answer his accusation with some clever rebuttal, but the air seemed to have left her lungs.

  “You really are just hiding away in a cocoon,” he said, his voice dropping almost to a whisper as he lightly caressed her face.

  Her chest ached. She closed her eyes, stunned that such a storm of sensation could be provoked by something as simple as callused fingertips grazing her temple, her cheek, the curve of her jaw. She breathed in the warmth of Hugh’s skin mingled with a trace of Castile soap and the grassy scent of his clean linen shirt, and felt strangely lightheaded.

  “I wonder,” he murmured, turning his hand to trail his knuckles down her throat, skimming his fingers along the neck of her tunic, “what will become of you.”

  She opened her eyes and met his gaze, luminous in the dusky half-light. There was something almost tender in his expression, or perhaps she was merely seeing what she wanted to see.

  “Caterpillars do turn into butterflies,” he said, “but first they have to want to. They have to break free of that nice, familiar little cocoon. They must give up the only sanctuary they’ve ever known before they can be part of the greater world.”

  He gently cupped her chin, tilted it up.

  She sucked in a breath, dissolving the spell he’d woven around her. Wresting her head to the side, she said, “Why are you doing this?”

  There came a pause, and then he said, “Must I have a reason?”

  “Everything that happens has a reason.” She sidestepped him and backed away, wrapping her arms tightly around herself.

  He regarded her in silence for a moment, a speculative glint in his eyes, as if he were trying to puzzle something out. “Does it bother you when I touch you?”

  Bother her? It roused her blood, stole the breath from her lungs. What would she do, she wondered, if she were a different kind o
f woman, the kind everyone in Oxford thought she was. How would she respond to Hugh’s mesmerizing touch if she really were like Hèloïse, and not just pretending?

  “It...doesn’t bother me,” she lied. “I just don’t quite see the point of...of...”

  “Point?” he chuckled. Propping a shoulder against the same tree trunk she’d just abandoned, Hugh folded his arms. “Do the beasts of the forest have a point when they nuzzle and lick each other just for the simple pleasure of it, or when they curl up together at night...or when they mate?”

  Was he deliberately trying to disconcert her? “We aren’t animals,” she pointed out, hating how prim she sounded.

  “People crave each other’s touch just as animals do, whether it’s simple comfort they seek, or warmth, or carnal release.” He seemed to be watching her closely...for her reaction? “The mistake is in complicating an elemental human drive, such as that for sex, by wrapping it up in this spurious notion of romantic love.”

  “Well, then,” she began, hoping she didn’t sound as rattled as she felt; surely it wouldn’t have troubled Hèloïse to hear a man speak of “carnal release” and “sex.” “Do you believe in marriage?”

  He ran a hand absently over his jaw. “Marriage is useful for legitimizing children and ensuring that property passes down properly, but that’s the extent of it.”

  “Then I take it you do plan to marry once you’re lord of Wexford.”

  With a bemused laugh, he said, “What on earth makes you think I’ll be lord of Wexford?”

  “I know there’s a chance your father’s overlord won’t grant it to you—”

  “And if he does, I’ll turn it down.”

  Phillipa was dumbfounded that he would reject his birthright so summarily. “You would turn down one of the finest holdings in England?”

  Even in this dim light, she could see the muscles of his jaw clench. “The most miserable years of my life were spent at Wexford. I’ve no desire to ever set foot there again.”

  “But you’re the firstborn son—the only son. Isn’t it your duty to keep Wexford in the family? And as for marriage, don’t you feel you have an obligation to perpetuate the—”

  “Obligation!” He pushed abruptly away from the tree. “Who the hell are you to lecture me on my obligations?”

  “I only meant—”

  “For your information, my lady—not that it’s any of your concern, but that’s unlikely to stop you from your ceaseless interrogations—my obligations begin and end—” he slammed a fist on his chest “—with me. Wexford Castle can crumble to ruins as far as I care. That being the case, I need never face the unsavory prospect of binding myself in matrimony to one woman for the rest of my life, thank the saints.”

  “So, you’ve as little use for marriage as for romance.” Not wanting him to think his candid references to sex had shocked her, she said, “I take it, then, that you...couple like an animal, for simple physical pleasure.”

  He shrugged. “You profess to have no use for marriage either, and I seem to recall you saying you’d never been in love. So isn’t that why you couple? For pleasure?”

  Isn’t that why you couple...? So...he had heard all there was to hear, and he believed what he’d been told. Either that, or...yes, she could see it in his eyes. He didn’t believe it, or rather, he didn’t know what to believe, because the whispers about her contradicted his image of her as a bookish prude. He was testing her—goading her to see whether she’d blush and stammer and frantically defend her reputation. Resolving not to give him that satisfaction, she said, “I asked you first, Sir Hugh. Why do you couple? Is it simply for physical pleasure?”

  Silence descended between them as he digested what she’d said—or rather, hadn’t said, the denials she hadn’t offered. She wished she could see his expression a little better, but it was almost completely dark now.

  Presently he said, “If you think there’s something simple about physical pleasure, my lady, then I think you’ve been seeking it with the wrong men.”

  “Indeed,” she said through a ripple of nervous laughter.

  “Indeed.” He closed the distance between them before she could think what to say next. “Even something as simple as a kiss need not feel simple...” He wrapped his big hands around her head, raising her face to his. “Not if it’s done right.”

  No sooner had she drawn in a breath to object than he closed his mouth over hers, firmly, gripping her head to still it, ignoring the involuntary little whimper that rose in her throat.

  His lips felt warm and slightly damp, and much softer than she’d imagined a man’s lips might feel against hers. She pushed against his shoulders, feeling hard, unyielding muscles through the thin linen of his shirt, but he paid her no heed.

  His mouth moved over hers, possessively, hungrily, but slowly, so slowly, as if he were savoring the taste and feel of her, despite her futile struggles. As he lingered over the kiss, Phillipa felt as if she were caught up in a dream...a fever dream, delirious and intoxicating.

  He cupped the back of her head with one hand, his other arm banding around her, drawing her close, nearly lifting her off her feet as he prolonged the kiss, coaxing her into returning it. She clutched handfuls of his shirt, her heart thundering in her ears.

  Heat flooded her, like a thousand tiny flames licking her from within, kindling a strange, drunken pleasure she’d never felt before. I’m mad, she thought giddily. He’s stolen my senses with one kiss.

  His hands roamed over her, warm and bewitchingly insistent through her woolen tunic. He caressed her arms, the slope of her back, the curve of her waist, his touch growing ever more purposeful as he molded her to him.

  There was a sense of desperation, in the way he seized her hips, pulling her toward him. Something dug into her lower belly, making her gasp—that strange dagger of his, she thought, but then she remembered he wasn’t wearing it. He rubbed against her, pressing the solid ridge between her legs, stroking her with it, and she felt its shape and heat through their clothes and realized what it must be.

  Jesu! She broke the kiss, jolted out of her sensual reverie. “Sir Hugh...”

  “Don’t worry,” he said breathlessly, gathering up her skirt with unsteady hands. “No one can see us here.”

  “‘Tisn’t that.” She grabbed his wrists, but her strength was no match for his, and her skirt continued to rise. “Stop, Hugh. Please...”

  “I’ll lay my shirt on the ground for you to lie upon so your tunic won’t get—”

  “I said stop!”

  “Or perhaps I can bring you back to my chamber without anyone seeing.” He slid a hand beneath her bunched-up skirt and over her bare bottom.

  “Stop!” Hauling back, she struck his face as hard as she could.

  His head whipped back.

  Her hand stung.

  He released her skirt. She scrambled away from him, reflexively yanking her dagger out of its sheath, her gaze trained on his shadowy form.

  For several long moments, he just stared at her, his eyes half-hidden by strands of damp hair that quivered with every breath he took. His gaze lit on the dagger in her trembling hand. Over her own harsh breathing, she heard his grim little huff of laughter. “Don’t forget to aim for the throat.”

  He turned his back to her, taking his weight carelessly on one hip as he combed his hair off his face with his fingers. Only a long, tremulous exhalation betrayed his true state of mind.

  “If I were the kind of man to take a woman by force,” he said, his voice low and raw, “that thing wouldn’t help you. I should think our little adventure in that alley in Oxford would have taught you that much.”

  She slid the dagger back into its sheath and willed steadiness into her voice. “I did tell you to stop.”

  “Yes, well...” Still facing away from her, he kneaded the side of his face where she had slapped him. “I thought you were trying to protect your tunic. ‘Twas my understanding your virtue is past redeeming.”

  Her cheeks
stung furiously; the contemptible dog! “That’s the only reason you...mauled me that way—because of what you’ve heard about me. It didn’t have anything to do with me, just...physical gratification.”

  “The gratification would have been mutual, I assure you.” He popped the cork out of his wineskin. “What happened to those exalted notions of sexual freedom you’re reputed to embrace?”

  “Free doesn’t mean undiscriminating.”

  There came a moment’s frigid silence as he absorbed that, the wineskin halfway to his mouth. He replaced the cork without taking a drink, and turned to face her, his expression black.

  “Forgive me, my lady,” he said icily, offering one of those taunting little bows of his. “I should have known better than to think you’d grant your favors to the likes of me when you could have your pick of all those worthy Oxford scholars with their cultivated minds and soft white hands.”

  Phillipa bit back the urge to tell him that wasn’t what she’d meant, not quite, that she’d been speaking generally and had intended no insult to him personally. After all, she should be trying to discourage him, not mollify him. Experience had taught her to use any means at her disposal to defuse the amorous attentions of men—and never had she felt more threatened by those attentions than she did right now.

  Because you’re in his thrall. Because you feel it, too, the heat, the longing...

  Hugh was unworthy of her, she told herself. He was a charming libertine, accustomed to effortless seductions. He only wanted to use her; he’d admitted as much, with no shame or hesitation. That she embraced, theoretically, the free expression of sexual desire, was irrelevant. To give herself to such a man would demean her utterly; it made her cringe inside to think that she’d succumbed to his kiss even momentarily.

  “As long as we understand each other,” she said thinly.

  Did he smile? It was dark; perhaps it was a grimace. “I wouldn’t say I understand you, my lady.” Crossing to his satchel, he scooped it off the ground and slung it over his back. “But at least now I won’t waste any more time trying to.”