Lords of Conquest Boxed Set

by Patricia Ryan

  She dressed in the dark so as not to disturb her husband, fast asleep with his back to her. He’d spent a restless night as well; she’d heard him stirring next to her. The bed had felt too small for the two of them. It had never felt so with Caedmon, but then Caedmon, although a good-sized man, hadn’t been as large as Sir Luke. Also, she and Caedmon had been used to sleeping together. She didn’t know if she’d ever get used to sleeping with the Black Dragon. Once during the night, her foot accidentally brushed his leg, and they both quickly moved away from each other. She’d spent most of the night huddled at the edge of the bed to avoid touching him.

  Lifting her keys off the night table slowly, so as to keep them from rattling, she looped the chain around her neck and pulled her hair out from beneath it. Faithe wished he hadn’t ordered her to take them off last night. She hated being without them. They made her feel secure and capable. She might look like an unkempt girl, but when people saw the keys, they knew she was a person of consequence, and they treated her as such. Not wearing the keys made her feel incomplete.

  She grabbed her medicine box and eased the door open, wondering if Alex had slept well, and whether his poultices had stayed on. He’d insisted that she not check up on him during the night. It was her wedding night, he’d said; she had better things to do than bother with him. And anyway, he was much improved, and would prefer to be left alone than awakened and fussed with. He’d been quite vehement on the subject. When Faithe stepped out onto the landing and looked down into the moonlit main hall, she saw why.

  Alex was not alone. Sharing his pallet, as naked as he, was Leola; Faithe knew it was she by her single disheveled braid. They were both asleep, she curled in his embrace with her back to him. The woolen blanket was drawn up only to their waists, revealing Alex’s hand cradling one of her breasts. Her clothes lay strewn in the rushes, where they’d no doubt gotten tossed during the evening’s frolics.

  Faithe couldn’t wrest her gaze from the sleeping couple as she descended the stairs and approached them. Leola, although sound asleep, looked flushed and peaceful. Alex had his face against her hair, his mouth half open. The bandage had come off his head, but at least he was sleeping on his good side. Faithe was both impressed and appalled that he’d taken on Leola in his condition. She hoped he hadn’t done himself any permanent damage.

  They looked like two of the barn kittens in their box, she thought, standing over them. Faithe missed that physical closeness, the animal comfort of curling up with another warm body. She envied those two that intimacy, regardless of its basis in simple lust.

  Despite her misgivings at being wed to Sir Luke, part of her had been excited at the prospect of his bedding her. God help her, there was something strangely seductive about his predatory nature. He provoked the same thrill in her that she’d felt, as a child, when Orrik had tethered a boar to a tree and she’d challenged herself to see how close she could get to the enraged creature without flinching. She’d gotten near enough to stare into its monstrous black eyes, to tremble at its fearsome tusks and choke on its stink. And then, without warning, it had lunged for her, sending her squealing into Orrik’s arms.

  But there was more to the Black Dragon than the beast for whom he’d been named. There was a man as well, a man who could braid hair and massage liniment into bruised wrists, his touch roughly gentle and completely bewitching. He was a creature of contradictions—a fusion of man and beast. When Luke de Périgueux finally saw fit to claim his husbandly rights, she wondered which of the two would do the deed, the man or the beast.

  Faithe uncovered and rebuilt the fire, lit a lantern, then leaned down and whispered Leola’s name until the young woman stirred, blinking. “Milady?” she muttered groggily.

  “‘Tis best you get up and get dressed before everyone else is awake.”

  Nodding, Leola stretched like a cat, her lush body quivering. Alex growled contentedly as Leola arched against him, then he stretched, too. Their resemblance to a boxful of kittens was now complete.

  Leola sat up and tried to rise, but Alex, who hadn’t yet opened his eyes, caught hold of her braid as it brushed across his face and pulled her down. Curling his arm once more around her, he tucked her into the curve of his body and pulled up the blanket. “Stay,” he murmured.

  “She can’t stay,” Faithe said. “She’s got to help Cook get breakfast ready.”

  Alex squeezed one eye open. “Faithe?”

  A smile quirked her lips.

  He glanced at Leola as she lifted his arm off her and clambered to her feet, indifferent to her rather spectacular nudity. “Awfully sorry about this,” he said, his gaze fixed wistfully on Leola.

  “No, you’re not.” Faithe plucked Leola’s undershift off the floor as she stood and handed it to the shivering wench.

  “No.” Alex grinned boyishly. “I’m not.”

  “I suppose it’s too much to ask that your poultices have survived intact.”

  “Poultices?” Alex lifted the blanket and peeked beneath it. “I can’t imagine what might have become of... ah.” He fumbled beneath him and handed her the squashed remains of one of the herbal compresses.

  “Thank you,” she said dryly as she accepted the offering.

  Leola lowered her kirtle over her head, wriggling as she smoothed it down. Alex sighed and grabbed at the hem of her skirt, but she laughingly sidestepped him. Snatching her slippers out of the rushes, she balanced first on one foot and then the other to tug them on.

  Faithe swiftly laced up the back of Leola’s kirtle. “Go bring me a bucket of water, and then see if Ardith needs you.”

  “Yes, milady.”

  Alex followed the kitchen wench with his eyes as she dashed out of the hall. “She’s got a lot of... vitality. She and her sister both.”

  Faithe unlocked her medicine box. “How did you happen to choose Leola over Lynette?”

  “I didn’t. They chose for me. Drew straws or some such. From what I could gather of their conversation—it was all in English, of course—they intend to take turns.”

  “Seems rather sporting of them.”

  “Oh, they’re very keen on sharing. Do you know, they wanted to have a go at me together?”

  “No, really?” Faithe said dryly, the memory still fresh in her mind of coming upon the twins and one of the more strapping plowmen disporting themselves in an empty stall of the barn last summer. “Seems a generous offer.”

  “Too generous. I turned it down.” He grimaced as he shifted position on the pallet. “In my present condition, I doubt I would have lived through it.”

  “A prudent decision.”

  Leola returned with the water, then departed, blowing Alex a cheery kiss. Faithe put the water on to warm and set about replacing Alex’s poultices. They chatted amiably, but Faithe’s mind was elsewhere. She kept thinking back to last night. The more she pondered it, the more perplexed she was that Sir Luke had chosen not to consummate the marriage. Several theories occurred to her, the most discomforting being that his affections lay elsewhere—that there was another woman somewhere to whom he was determined to remain faithful despite his marriage of property to Faithe.

  Faithe cleared her throat as she smoothed down the poultice on Alex’s hip. “I was wondering something about your brother.”

  “Aye?”

  “He’s... well, he’s clearly a... well, quite a virile man, and not unattractive. I was thinking that if I were a woman... well, of course I’m a woman, but... that women must find him... that he must have had many... and probably still does... have at least one...”

  “Are you asking whether he has a mistress?”

  Faithe took a deep breathe and let it out. “Yes.”

  Alex shook his head. “He never has.”

  “Never?”

  “He’s a soldier, Faithe. Or was. Soldiers don’t tend to stay in one place long enough to form alliances of that sort. Not that he’s inexperienced with women... exactly. He’s been with many women. But women of, well, a certain
sort. Women who don’t expect him to be there in the morning, if you understand my meaning.”

  “Ah.”

  Alex smiled. “Yes.”

  They spoke of other things as she treated the wound to his side, and then moved on to his head. Faithe waited for the opportunity to investigate her other theory about Sir Luke’s reluctance to bed her, and when Alex mentioned their family in Périgueux, she pounced.

  “Is your family very close?” she asked, easing into the rather awkward question at the heart of the matter.

  “Not really. Except for Luke and me. Our mother died when I was very little, and we had a sister, Alienor, who died about ten years ago. I’m the youngest, then there are two sisters—three if you count Alienor—then Luke, then our eldest brother, Christien. Christien inherited our father’s estate when he died at Christmastide.” Alex executed a perfunctory sign of the cross. “And then there’s the son of my father’s second wife.”

  “Just the one child?”

  “Aye. Lady Elise seemed to find the production of children distasteful in the extreme. No sooner did my father’s seed quicken in her belly than she moved into separate quarters. He spent quite a long time trying to woo her back. Finally, he sought diversion elsewhere, but he wasn’t happy about it. After years of lecturing his sons about fidelity in marriage, here he was with a mistress.”

  Faithe tied off the bandage, appalled at the idea that a woman would choose not to have babies, when she so longed for them. “Are all of your brothers and sisters... healthy?”

  “For the most part. Alienor had been very ill before she died. She suffered terribly. Our fool of a chaplain claimed she was possessed.”

  Faithe grew more alert. “Her mind was affected?”

  “Aye, toward the end she was”—he shook his head grimly—”quite out of her senses, and in agony. ‘Twas horrible, what she went through. The surgeon said ‘twas a fever of the brain, and he bled her every day until my sire put a stop to it. Finally, he found a Moslem physician who seemed to know what was what. He said she had a lump growing inside her head.” A knowing look narrowed his eyes. “Why are you interested in this? What are you digging for?”

  “Nothing.” She hastily packed up her things.

  He guffawed, suddenly his old, carefree self again. “You’re trying to find out whether there’s madness in the family!”

  She snapped down the lid of her medicine box. “That’s absurd.” It was also true. Father Paul had confided to her once that one reason he’d chosen a life of celibacy was to avoid passing on the lunacy that had ravaged his family. It was the only rationale Faithe could think of offhand for a landholding knight to opt for a celibate—and therefore childless—marriage. Most men in Sir Luke’s position were eager for heirs.

  “Rest assured,” Alex gasped out through his laughter, “that the de Périgueux family is remarkably free of any and all interesting specimens, including madmen. Luke has tried to claim that distinction from time to time, but in fact he’s the sanest of the whole dreary lot—which is probably why he’s so sullen and miserable.”

  “That’s reassuring,” she said flatly.

  “Aren’t you a bit late with these inquiries? You’ve already gone and married him. There’s no way to back out now—short of annulment.”

  Faithe stilled in the act of locking the medicine box. Annulment. Nonconsummation was grounds for annulment, wasn’t it? Could it be that her husband regretted this hastily arranged marriage, and was even now maneuvering for release from his vows? If he refrained from exercising his marital rights, such release should be a simple formality, and then Faithe would be shipped off to some convent, and Hauekleah...

  Hauekleah would be his. He’d simply take it from her, as he’d once threatened to. Then he could remarry if he chose. He could make some other woman mistress of Hauekleah. Some other woman would have everything she’d worked so hard to maintain, everything she’d vowed to keep from the Normans, everything she’d sacrificed herself for. She’d offered herself—her very body—to an infamously brutal Norman, and he didn’t even want her because he could have Hauekleah without her. Eight hundred years, gone in a heartbeat.

  “Faithe?” Alex was propped up on an elbow, studying her with a worried expression as she twisted the emerald ring around and around on her finger. “You’ve gone white. Are you ill?”

  “Nay,” she breathed, although she felt as if her insides had contracted into a single hot coal in her stomach.

  “Do you need anything?” he asked solicitously. “Something to drink?”

  “I need the truth,” she said grimly. “Tell me the truth.”

  “Of course.” He tried to sit up, but clenched his teeth and fell back onto the pallet. “The truth about what?”

  “Your brother’s plans. Has he spoken to you about ending this marriage? Is that why you mentioned annulment?”

  Alex’s expression sobered. “My brother is not without his faults, but he’d never enter into a marriage under false pretenses. He’s an honorable man. Surely you can sense that.”

  She could. Despite his reputation and his fierce manner, Luke de Périgueux struck her as a man with scruples, the kind of man who wouldn’t lower himself to such underhanded scheming. But why, then, was he disinclined to consummate their marriage?

  Faithe prided herself on her ability to identify a problem and implement a solution, something she did a dozen times a day as part of her management of Hauekleah. What was this but one more problem to be solved? All that was needed was to analyze the situation dispassionately and formulate a strategy to deal with it.

  She solved problems all the time. She was good at it. She could solve this one.

  Alex smiled. “How ridiculous to think Luke would want to end a marriage to someone with a smile like yours. Whatever put the thought in your head?”

  Scrambling for a response, she said, “I just thought perhaps he might choose to return to soldiering, once he’s gotten a taste of farm life. And then he might petition for an annulment, rather than be burdened with Hauekleah.”

  “I can’t see him ever considering Hauekleah a burden,” Alex said.

  Wait until he’s seen how much work goes into farming, Faithe thought with a mental smirk. Sir Luke wanted Hauekleah very much—right now. But, like Thorgeirr, he would likely change his mind once he saw what he’d gotten into.

  “Moreover,” Alex continued, “annulments can’t be had just for the asking. There have to be grounds.”

  Faithe rose and stirred the fire with a poker. From the corner of her eye she saw Alex regarding her with a speculative expression. She’d said too much; she could almost hear him adding up the pieces.

  But when he spoke, all he said was, “Luke means to make Hauekleah his home. He has no intention of returning to soldiering. I will, of course, once I’m recovered enough to handle a broadsword.”

  “That could take all summer,” she said.

  “If you’re willing to have me underfoot for that long, I think I’d rather enjoy it.”

  “I’d love to have you, but are you sure you won’t be bored here?”

  His gaze lit on something out of Faithe’s range of vision. She turned to see Lynette—she recognized her by the two braids—corning through the front door with a flask of ale and a bowl of porridge. “Leola told me you were awake,” she said as she crossed to Alex and knelt at his side with a coy smile. “Some breakfast will help you get your strength back.”

  Alex met Faithe’s gaze, anticipation sparking in his eyes. “Somehow, I don’t think boredom will be a problem.”

  * * *

  “Master Orrik’s coming up the road!” called a red-haired boy from the doorway of Hauekleah Hall. Luke looked up from the bread and watered ale with which he was breaking his fast. “He’s got a new cart!” the boy added excitedly.

  Luke stood up from the table. “Where is Lady Faithe?” he asked the boy. She’d been absent from the hall when he’d awakened.

  “In Middeltun, sire.”


  “Middeltun? Is that some town near here?”

  Alex, propped up in a chair enjoying a shave by one of his twins, chuckled indulgently. “Don’t know Hauekleah very well, do you? Middeltun is Faithe’s demesne field—as opposed to the village’s fields. It’s the one she cultivates herself.”

  “They give their fields names?”

  “So it seems.” Alex tilted his chin up so that the wench attending to him could scrape the razor over his throat. How he would have laughed if he’d seen Luke wrest that knife out of Lady Faithe’s hand two days ago.

  The buxom wench took Alex’s face between her hands and gently altered the position of his head, cooing praise for his patience. The bondman called Firdolf, breakfasting at the other end of the hall, stared at the girl with great hound-eyes and glowered at Alex. If Luke’s brother was aware of the young man’s rabid jealousy, he gave no sign of it. Most likely he knew that, even in his wounded condition, he would triumph in a fair fight. Firdolf was big and young and brawny, but he moved a little too slowly and looked a little too harmless to be counted a threat.

  “Can’t you shave yourself?” Luke asked his brother.

  Alex grinned as the wench planted a soft kiss on his forehead before proceeding with her work; Firdolf rose abruptly and stalked sluggishly from the hall. “Why would I want to?”

  Why indeed? “How come you to know so much about Hauekleah?” Luke asked.

  “She told me. We talk.” Alex laughed. “Oh, don’t look so sour, brother. I’m not trying to steal your wife out from under you.”

  “How reassuring,” Luke said wryly.

  “‘Twould be easy enough if I put my mind to it, though. Neglected brides are generally ripe for the picking.” He tilted his head; the young woman ran the razor over his soapy cheek, dipped it in a bowl of water, and repeated the process.

  “Neglected?” Luke couldn’t believe she would have spoken to his brother about last night.

  Alex shrugged elaborately. “I only meant it’s the morning after your wedding, and you seem to have lost track of her already. A newly married couple ought not to emerge from the bedchamber till nones, and then they ought to need help walking.”