Lords of Conquest Boxed Set

by Patricia Ryan

  “Nay?” Estrude seemed perplexed.

  From the corner of her eye, Martine saw Sir Thorne watching her closely as he reached for his tankard.

  “I know your father is dead,” Estrude said, “but your mother is still alive, is she not?”

  “My—my mother?”

  “I understood there was a baroness,” Estrude persisted. “Lord Jourdain’s second wife. Isn’t she your mother?”

  Martine looked again toward the corner doorway. When she turned back, she saw the eyes of every person at the table fixed on her, waiting for her answer.

  Chapter 4

  Thorne rose and walked around the table toward her. “My lady,” he said, straddling the bench next to her, in the spot vacated by Rainulf, “I’ve been wondering. Does your cat have a name?” Loki hissed, and Estrude looked as if she wanted to.

  “Loki.”

  “Loki!” He grinned in delight. “That’s perfect. Loki that trickster, the sly one, the shape-changer.”

  “You know the legends of the North?”

  “My mother used to tell them to me.” He allowed Loki to sniff the back of his hand. To Martine’s surprise, the cat began licking him.

  She said, “My mother did, too.” Thorne seemed to make no effort to keep his distance from her. His left knee pressed her thigh, and when he leaned toward Loki and his arm brushed hers, she flinched at the feel of hard muscle beneath the soft woolen sleeve.

  “We’re cousins, then, you and I—both descended from the Northmen. They call me a Saxon, but there are none of pure blood left in England or North France.” His gaze traveled from her eyes to her lips, and then he leaned toward her. Martine gasped, thinking, My God, he’s going to kiss me!

  He paused, his face very close to hers. “What scent is that?”

  Martine realized she had stopped breathing. Swallowing hard, she said, “‘Tis a perfume I make from sweet woodruff and oil of lavender.”

  “It’s different,” he murmured, backing away slowly. “Lovely.”

  “I’m surprised you think so,” Estrude said. “I’ve always found those herbal concoctions a bit too tiresomely subtle. Rose oil is my scent of choice. No other flower is quite so sweet.”

  “Nor quite so cloying,” Thorne observed, “especially once it’s a bit past its prime.”

  Estrude stiffened, her face a mask of indignation. Thorne merely nodded toward Loki, who was still purposefully licking his fingers. “Is this animal’s tongue supposed to feel this way?”

  “‘Tis rather rough, I’ll grant you.”

  He grinned. “Lord Olivier could put Loki and some salt water to good use.”

  Gradually, so as not to alarm the cat, he moved his hand, trailing his fingers around to the animal’s back. Loki tensed as this stranger began gently stroking him, then settled happily into Martine’s lap, purring and nesting with his paws. Thorne caressed him firmly from head to tail. His purr deepened; his eyes closed. Martine could feel every caress through the cat’s warm, vibrating body. It felt exactly as if Thorne were caressing her.

  His hands were large, but well shaped, not the coarse, meaty hands of the villein. He wore a ring on his right hand, a cabochon ruby surrounded on all sides by golden talons that gripped it as a falcon grips its prey.

  “‘Tis a handsome ring,” Martine said.

  “I’m fond of it. Lord Godfrey gave it to me when he made me his master falconer. ‘Tis the thing I prize most in the world. Or it was until tonight.” He looked at Martin, and his blue eyes took her breath away. “A white gyrfalcon is an extraordinary gift, and a valuable one. Your brother is very good to his friends.”

  He held her gaze for a brief, searching moment, and then, almost shyly, looked back down at Loki. “I’ll need a name for my bird. Can you think of any goddess from the North who might like to be a falcon?”

  That was easy. “Freya.”

  “Of course!” His warm smile relaxed Martine. “Freya!”

  “She had that magic falcon skin, remember? So she could fly to the underworld and see the future.”

  “That’s right. Loki used to borrow it, in fact.”

  “She was the goddess of beauty and love,” Martine said.

  “And of death,” said Thorne. “Beauty, love, and death. Quite like a falcon.”

  Martine said, “I heard you say you were going to ‘wake’ Freya tonight. What does that mean?”

  “‘Tis how you get a new bird used to you. You stay awake with her all night, until she thinks of you as almost a part of her.”

  “I’ve never tried to stay awake that long,” Martine said. “Isn’t it difficult?”

  Estrude interrupted. “Our Thorne is reputed to be a man of unusual endurance. ‘Tis well known he prides himself on his self-control.” She leveled a peculiar, knowing look at him. “How nice for young Lady Martine to have made a friend so quickly. Edmond will be sure to appreciate your kindness.”

  Thorne bit back the urge to answer Estrude’s sly innuendo with some clever barb. ‘Twas best to let the matter lie, for, as usual, she had paired insolence with keen perception. In truth, he did find the lady Martine desirable, although he shouldn’t. She was ill humored and aristocratic, both characteristics he normally abhorred in women. She was also obliged by contract—a contract that Thorne himself had arranged, and upon which his future depended—to marry young Edmond.

  Then why was he so drawn to her? Why did he ache to touch her? Why did her scent stir him as it did? The answer, of course, was that it had been weeks since he had shared his bed, and his body craved the touch of a woman, any woman, without regard for good judgment or common sense. Chastity might be all right for men like Rainulf, men of the spirit, but it made him restless; worse, it made him susceptible to the charms of the wrong women.

  When Rainulf reentered the hall, Thorne quickly rose and returned his friend’s place to him. The serving girls came back with dessert, and Thorne smiled at the plump redheaded woman in charge. “How goes it, Felda?”

  “Same as always, Sir Thorne.” She set before him a bowl of fragrant candied orange peel and one of sugar. “How was Hastings?”

  “Same as always.”

  Guy said, “Felda! What’s the new girl’s name?” Thorne followed the gaze of the others to a beautiful woman moving down the table, replacing pitchers of wine and ale with new ones of brandy and spiced beer. Felda grinned at Guy while the new girl acted as if she hadn’t heard.

  “Her name’s Zelma,” Felda said. “But she only speaks English, so save your breath.”

  “I don’t need words to tell her how I feel,” said Guy. “Zelma!” When the wench glanced in his direction, he blew her a kiss, whereupon she wheeled around and sauntered away from him, looking vaguely bored. She had dark, heavy-lidded eyes and arched black eyebrows, but her most striking feature was her great mass of thick, blue-black hair, which she wore in a linen snood. The loose hair that spilled from it in unruly tendrils gave her a disheveled air, enhanced by the fact that the cord lacing up the front of her low-cut brown kirtle had come loose. Her generous bosom swelled precariously above the gaping fabric. Should she stretch just so or lean over too far, her breasts would surely be revealed in their entirety.

  Thorne watched her discreetly over the top of his tankard as he took a drink, grinning to himself when he noticed Rainulf doing the same. Albin, Peter, and Guy, on the other hand, gaped at her much as the dogs gaped at Loki.

  Lady Martine looked from Zelma to Thorne and back again, then dropped her gaze to her lap and proceeded to pet her cat with studied—and almost certainly pretended—indifference. Could it be that she was jealous? Perhaps Estrude had been right when she hinted that Martine seemed to be under some spell of enchantment.

  It was a spell, then, that had been cast upon them both. Luckily, however, it was a spell with a simple cure, at least as it affected him. If abstinence made him lust unwisely, then all he really needed to set him straight was a friendly tumble—but not, God knew, with Estrude of Flanders. H
er kind demanded tedious affairs, for which Thorne had little patience. Complicating matters in this case would be Estrude’s husband, Bernard, quite possibly the most dangerous man Thorne knew.

  Father Simon broke Thorne’s reverie by rising and delivering a stream of long-winded good-byes. A group of adolescent boys in the corner watched in silence as he exited the hall. The moment he disappeared, they brought out their dice, kicked aside the rushes, and squatted down, commencing animated play.

  Estrude said, “Lady Martine, have you no one to serve you? No lady’s maid traveling with you?”

  “Nay, my lady. I had no such person in Paris.”

  “We shall have to find one for you.” She turned to her maid. “Clare, do you known of anyone? One of your sisters, perhaps? The fat one. She’s got nothing better to do.”

  “She has fits, my lady,” Clare said.

  “Yes, but in between the fits, she’d be fine, I’m sure.” Estrude nodded happily. “I shall send word to your father tomorrow that we’d like her to—”

  Thorne said, “Perhaps Lady Martine would prefer to choose a maid herself from among the house servants.”

  “The house servants?” Estrude said in disbelief. “But surely the daughter of a baron would prefer a girl of breeding to one of these—”

  “Why don’t we let Lady Martine decide?” Thorne turned to Martine. “My recommendation, if it’s of any interest to my lady, would be Felda.” Estrude gasped. “I’ve known her for many years. She’s reliable, has a good heart, and will serve you as well as any girl of noble birth.”

  Felda displayed as much astonishment at this referral as Estrude. Martine looked at Rainulf as if for guidance, but he smiled and spread his hands as if to say, This is up to you.

  “Felda,” she said, “would you be at all interested in this position?”

  “In being a lady’s maid?” Felda said, grinning. “I should think so!”

  Estrude shook her head. “This is preposterous.”

  Martine said, “Then it would please me greatly to have you.”

  Felda yelped with delight. Then she leaned over, took Thorne’s face between her fleshy hands, and kissed him on the lips.

  Thorne grinned. “Don’t make me sorry for suggesting you.”

  “Nay! I’ll be wonderful. Oh, milady, thank you. Can I start now?”

  Martine shrugged. “I suppose so.”

  Felda called to the boys playing dice in the corner. “Pitt! Sully! Brad! You and them others go heat up some kettles of water and bring them upstairs to milady’s chamber, then fetch the big tub. Hurry, now!” Groaning, they pocketed their dice and left the room.

  “A bath!” said Lady Martine. “I haven’t had one since leaving Paris. ‘Twill be heaven.”

  Felda grabbed two of the serving girls. “Beda, you come help me unpack milady’s things. Carol, go out to the cookhouse and bring back one of them fresh squire’s loaves and a hunk of that ripe Brie. Milady didn’t touch her supper. Also some of that buttermilk, and some brandy. Put them next to her bed.”

  As the guests rose from the table, dozens of house servants settled down in the rushes and prepared to sleep. The torches were extinguished one by one. Soon there would be only candlelight, and then the candles would be blown out, and darkness would consume the great hall.

  Thorne bid the assembled company a collective good night, then turned to stare after the new serving girl as she entered the stairwell, carrying two pitchers. Just before she disappeared from view, she turned and caught Thorne’s eye, holding his gaze for a brief but meaningful moment.

  Smiling to himself, Thorne jogged after her.

  “Zelma!”

  The kitchen girl paused on the stairs just below the landing, a pitcher in each hand, and looked up at him. When she saw who it was, she smiled, turned, and leaned back against the curved stone wall.

  “You’re coming undone,” he said in English, and began smoothing stray hairs off her face and tucking them into her snood. She watched him calmly. Even when his hands lowered to her breasts, she didn’t move.

  Two wolfhounds trotted down the stairs, but otherwise Thorne and Zelma were still alone. He lifted the two ends of the cord that had come unlaced and tugged hard, pulling the kirtle once more snugly around her chest. With slow deliberation, he tied the cords into a bow.

  “You’re the Saxon knight,” she said. “The falconer.” He liked her raspy voice. It reminded him of the cat’s tongue.

  He tied the ends of the cord and arranged the bow just so, then rested his fingertips on her breasts, gauging her reaction out of the corner of his eye. There was none except perhaps a lowering of her eyelids and a slight smile.

  He allowed his fingers to move slowly, tracing feathery patterns over the taut brown wool. He heard her sigh, felt the warmth of her breasts beneath his trailing fingertips. Soon his aching need would be satisfied. Lust was but a demand of the body, like thirst. He had a raw thirst that needed quenching, and it didn’t matter whose cup he drank from. Tonight it would be Zelma’s.

  He encircled her with his arms. “Come outside with me.”

  “I’m married,” she said.

  All the better. Married women tended to be realistic, not expecting his heart to worship them as his body did. “Where’s your husband?”

  “Hastings.”

  Thorne smiled, then leaned down and closed his mouth over hers. She yielded to the kiss, allowing him to explore the warmth of her lips and tongue with his own. He closed his eyes and Zelma’s face transformed into another, pale and mysterious, shrouded in saffron veils. The veils shifted, and he found himself gazing into the deep blue eyes of Martine of Rouen. His heart drummed in his chest; desire overwhelmed him. When he took her full lower lip between his teeth, a moan rose in her throat.

  Voices from below made him open his eyes. Three of the boys who had been playing dice were coming up the stairwell, each carrying two huge buckets of steaming water. Thorne broke the kiss, but they had seen and heard enough. They snickered as they passed, the first one mumbling, “Sir.”

  “Boys.”

  Zelma said, “You’re taking a chance, kissing me like that. My husband’s Ulf Stonecutter. Do you know him?”

  “Nay.”

  “Well, he’s quite a big man.”

  He lowered his hands to her hips and pulled her against him so she could feel his desire—desire for another, but desire nonetheless. “How do you know I’m not bigger?”

  She smiled, but not, he sensed, in amusement at his reply. She looked like someone who had an idea she wanted to test. Nodding toward her pitchers of spiced beer, she said, “Would you hold these for me?”

  He took one in each hand, finding them full and quite heavy. She must be a strong woman. Then, as casually as she might lift a tablecloth, she pulled up his tunics, loosened the waist-cord of his chausses, and reached into them with both hands. Thorne gasped as they closed around his erection, feeling him with liberal familiarity.

  “Bless me,” she said. “So you are.”

  “Zelma!” With the two heavy pitchers and no place to put them, he might as well have had his hands tied. His only option would be to drop them and let them crash on the stairs, spilling their contents in a waterfall all the way into the bailey. It did not seem like a good plan.

  Thorne heard voices on landing above—Peter and Guy. Zelma must have heard them as well, but made no move to let him go. Thorne shook his head, amused at her audacity despite his embarrassment.

  The men found his predicament hilarious, laughing as they squeezed past with their full tankards. Guy said, “Careful, now. A fall down these stairs would be a nasty thing.”

  Zelma stroked him with tantalizing expertise. “You’re a regular stallion, that’s what you are. I daresay you could do me some damage with this.”

  The serving girl named Carol came running down the stairs on her way to the cookhouse, calling out as she passed, “That one’s married, Sir Falconer. Her husband’s enormous!”

&nbs
p; “Your Ulf is quite a legend,” Thorne said.

  “He’s a wonderful man, and I love him very much. It’s just that I’ve got a real weakness for big, tall Saxons. ‘Tis quite a burden, really. I try to be strong.”

  “Of course you do.”

  More footsteps from above. With a sigh of irritation, Thorne looked up... and beheld the lady Martine, gazing down on him from the landing.

  Shock kept him rooted to the spot, robbed his tongue of the power of speech. At first she frowned slightly in obvious puzzlement. Then, with a strange and horrible detachment, Thorne saw her gaze travel slowly from his face to Zelma’s, and finally to Zelma’s hands where they disappeared beneath the hem of his tunic. Her eyes widened, and she took a step back.

  With her nunlike dress and her hands clasped primly before her, she looked like a saint who had just stumbled upon some sinners and didn’t quite know what to make of them. Despite her coolness and her intellect, she was, he reminded himself, a convent girl, unused to the ways of the world. He would have understood if she had gasped in horror, had turned and fled. But she merely returned her gaze to his, and he lacked the power to look away. His eyes were riveted on hers as the kitchen wench, oblivious to everything but her little game, continued to fondle him.

  To look upon Martine’s face as those skilled hands worked their magic both aroused and disturbed him. He wondered what Martine was thinking. Did she know that he had imagined her in Zelma’s place, had seen her eyes behind the shifting veils, felt the warmth of her lips on his? Did she know?

  He saw something in her eyes... a secret knowledge, an understanding.

  His heart pounded; he could barely breathe. He closed his eyes, willing Martine gone. She mustn’t be here. She mustn’t know.

  “Are you all right?” Zelma asked, her hands stilling.

  He opened his eyes. The landing was empty.

  Zelma said, “You looked dizzy for a moment.”

  A moment. Yes, a moment. It had just been a moment. Martine had appeared and left in the space of two heartbeats, but it had seemed much, much longer.