by Tamara Leigh
It was she who ended the kiss. Dropping from her toes he had not realized he had dragged her onto, she breathed, “I like that, Lord Soames. But now I must prove Lady Maude has made a lady of me.”
“This is good,” he said as if he but tested her. If only he did! How many hours must he spend praying for forgiveness?
“My lord?”
“My lady?”
She was smiling again, though more demurely, and her cheeks were softly flushed. “Methinks you ought to release me.”
He lurched back, and had only a moment to miss the press of her body before what sounded like a large insect passed between their faces and skittered across the pond.
He snapped his head around, considered the rippled surface. “What was that?”
“Simon?” she called, question and rebuke in that one’s name.
Lothaire followed her gaze to the trees between the pond and castle. “You think ’twas him?”
“I…” She looked sidelong at Lothaire, pressed white, even teeth into her lower lip.
“He is gone from Owen,” he reminded her, then wondered if he erred when he recalled the slingshot looped over the young man’s belt—of note since Lothaire was also fond of that childhood weapon. Though these past years of training at arms were mostly spent mastering the sword, he was certain he could still make his mark.
“You are right, it cannot have been him,” she said firmly, as if to convince herself. “Do you think ’twas a dragonfly?”
He studied the trees again. No movement. No sound that did not belong there.
Might it have been only a dragonfly? Possible. Regardless, it would have struck him in the temple had he not released his betrothed.
“We ought to return,” he said and stepped past her. And halted.
We are going to wed, he assured himself. She will be my wife. We will swim together. Mayhap even bathe together.
He peered over his shoulder and met her wary gaze. Longing to see the sparkle returned to it, he reached to her.
There. So much light shone from her he felt its rays pass through him. And as she slid her hand over his palm and worked her fingers through his, he was so warmed he discovered places within him he had not known were cold.
It was a beautiful day to fall in love. Mayhap he would.
As they walked side by side, skirts brushing chausses, brown hair caressing muscled forearm, neither saw the one who pressed his back hard to the bark of an ancient oak. Neither saw the calloused fingers gripping straps of leather whose missile should have turned Lord Soames’s dark blond hair red…knocked him to his knees…made him cry like a boy…
Neither heard him rasp, “She is mine. Shall ever be mine! She promised.”
CHAPTER ONE
Barony of Owen, England
April, 1163
Awaken, Laura. It is time.
She shook her head, felt the lingering caress of hair across her cheeks, nose, and throat.
Open your eyes, the voice persisted.
She squeezed her lids tighter, ignored the ache of lungs that had expelled their last breath.
Do not do it for you. Never you. For Clarice.
She sprang open her lids, peered at the clouded, candle-lit ceiling. It was time. Past time. But she was not yet clean.
That made her laugh, causing a bubble to burst from her lips and further distort the ceiling.
Her lungs lied. She had breath—in the deepest of her.
And she lied. Never would she be truly clean, no matter how hard she scraped at her scalp or urged her maid to scrub her flesh until it was so abraded pricks of blood surfaced.
A moment later, that woman appeared above—wide-eyed and disapproving.
Pushing her feet against the tub’s bottom, Laura slid up its side with a great slop of water.
Tina jumped back. “Oh milady! Ye got me skirts. Again!”
Water streaming her face and shoulders and over breasts she knew more by weight than sight, Laura managed one of the few smiles of which she was capable—that of apology. “I was in need of air.”
“Then ye shoulda come up sooner.” Tina snorted. “Sometimes ye worry me no end.”
Laura flicked water from her fingers, dragged a hand across her eyes. “I come up when I must.”
“As Lady Maude said, ye are a creature of the water.”
Maude. Gone six months now. And every day of those months felt.
It was true. She must awaken. For Clarice, who needed her mother now that the woman she had not known was her grandmother had died. But there was something else Clarice needed more—a father. Rather, a provider.
And so I shall sell this used body to the highest bidder, she silently vowed. It mattered not if he was young or old, only that he had sufficient income to support a wife and child and could be trusted to treat Clarice well.
It seemed easily attainable, as if she would have many to choose from, but she would be fortunate to find one, and only then were she given aid. Would Queen Eleanor help her distant cousin who had borne a child out of wedlock, so shaming her family they disavowed her?
No chance if the truth of Clarice was withheld, but now that Maude was gone…
“Come, milady, give me your back.”
Laura scooted forward and lowered her chin in preparation for the stiffly bristled brush.
Tina gathered her lady’s wet tresses, piled them atop the back of her head, and began working the brush over a shoulder blade.
But that voice reminded Laura it was time.
She peered over her shoulder. “Not the brush, Tina. A washcloth.”
The maid’s eyes grew so round, Laura knew that in her first life—before Clarice—she would have laughed. “I do not know I heard right, milady. Did ye say washcloth?”
“I did.”
“Huh!” She dropped the brush to the floor and snatched up the cloth she had earlier worked over her lady’s face and hands.
It was so lightly felt that twice Laura looked around lest she imagined the soft fibers.
“Are ye comin’ into sickness, milady?”
Laura lowered her chin again, caught her reflection in water so clouded with soap she could see no more than the outline of her torso and limbs—just as she preferred.
“I am not.” She stared into eyes one would never know had once shone with happiness. “’Tis just that…” She nearly said it was time, but that would make as little sense to Tina as the washcloth. “I am clean enough.”
Rather, she could get no cleaner. She was sullied. Would ever be. More, were she able to capture a husband, he would expect soft skin, not raw. And well after vows were spoken, for the sake of Clarice’s future, she would have to keep him content. Especially in bed.
Bile shot into her mouth, and she convulsed.
“Ye are ill, milady!”
Laura swallowed hard, grimaced as the acid burned its way down. “’Tis only something I ate.”
After a long moment, Tina said, “Or something ye did not eat. I saw ye nibble all ’round your bread, and did you even taste the soup? Methinks not!”
Though Laura’s appetite was often lacking, it had been absent this eve after the incident with Clarice and the son of the lady of the castle had shoved her in a direction she had not yet accepted she must travel.
Laura sat back. “I am done with my bath. Pray, bring a towel near.”
Tina rose, shook out the large cloth, and stretched it between her hands to all the sooner enfold her lady.
Gripping the tub on either side, Laura put her chin up and stood. Another thing she must overcome—distaste for an unclothed body. As difficult as it was to look upon her own, how was she to look upon that of a husband?
More bile, but she was prepared, and Tina did not notice her lady’s discomfort as she wrapped her in the towel.
“I shall get ye into your chemise and braid yer hair, then to bed with ye.”
“Clarice—”
“Oh tsk, milady. Worry not, I shall go for her and see her
upon her pallet.”
The one alongside Laura’s bed, which her daughter had rarely used before Maude’s passing. Most nights the girl had slept in her grandmother’s chamber. Though Laura told herself it was because of her own restlessness once sleep clasped her close, that was a lie. Clarice had loved her grandmother more. And still did, with good cause.
But I am awake now, she assured herself.
Yet another lie. But she was awakening. Would do right by her daughter as had not seemed necessary until now. Maude had made it too easy for her to live inside herself—to be more a creature of the water than the air.
Guilt had done that to the lady. And love for Clarice.
I am sorry, Laura sent her thoughts in search of the dead. I did not say it often enough, but you were too good to me. I should have been stronger for Clarice. Should have been a mother not a… What was I? What am I? Not even a sister.
She returned to the present when Tina pressed her onto the stool before her dressing table. And in a moment of unguardedness, she caught her reflection in the mirror.
Forcing her awakening self to confront the stranger there, she wondered how she was to capture a husband. Though with Maude’s guidance and encouragement she had maintained the facade and carriage of a refined lady, these past months had been less kind to her appearance than all the years before. She was thin and pale, eyes shadowed, lips low, shoulders bent.
Awaken, Laura. That voice again. For Clarice.
She opened her eyes wider, lifted her chin higher, raised her slumped shoulders, and watched as Lady Laura’s hair was gently combed and worked into braids.
A quarter hour later, Tina swept the covers atop her, fussed over the placement of the braids upon the pillow to ensure the crimps lay right when she uncrossed them in the morn, then snuffed all but one candle.
“Sleep in God’s arms, milady,” she said and pulled the door closed.
Laura stared at the ceiling, thought how much more she liked it seen through water. “God’s arms,” she whispered. “Ever too full to hold me. Lest I drop Clarice, I shall have to hold myself.”
CHAPTER TWO
Barony of Lexeter, England
Mid-May, 1163
King Henry was returned, and with him his Eleanor. For four years, he had occupied his French lands, not once setting foot in his kingdom. But now he was everywhere, traveling across England at a furious pace, setting aright wrongs, and—it was said—increasingly disillusioned with his old friend, Thomas Becket.
The archbishop, a favorite to whom the king had entrusted the education of his heir, was not behaving. At least, not how Henry wished Thomas to behave.
As for Eleanor, she was also making her presence felt. In this moment. Inside these walls.
“What does that harlot want?”
Lothaire stiffened. He had heard footsteps, but as they had not scraped or landed heavily as they were wont to do, he thought they belonged to a servant come to prepare the hall for the nooning meal. When his mother wished to be stealthy, she made the effort to lift her feet and softly place them.
Setting his teeth, he turned.
She stood before the dais upon which the lord’s table was raised. Wisps of silver hair visible beneath her veil, face loose and heavily lined, she arched thin eyebrows above eyes so lightly lidded they seemed unusually large.
Having wed a man six years younger than she and birthed Lothaire just past the age of thirty, Raisa Soames could more easily be his grandmother. Though fifty and nine, she looked older. But then, she had always appeared aged beyond her years. For that and her severe temperament, it was told her husband time and again strayed from the marriage bed.
“My son,” she said with an imperious lift of her chin, “I asked a question.”
And he would answer when he answered. They were years beyond her ability to intimidate and dominate him, but ever she tried to take back ground lost ten years past after his first betrothal was broken.
Resenting that even a glancing thought for that lady could yet feel like a blade between the ribs, he rolled the missive and slid it beneath his belt.
His mother stared at what he denied her greedy eyes and grasping hands, the color blooming in her cheeks proving blood yet coursed beneath her skin.
“I am summoned to court, Mother.”
She drew a sharp breath. “For?”
“What we knew would call me to Eleanor’s side if I failed to find a bride with a sizable enough dowry to make Lexeter whole.”
She lunged onto the dais and would have dropped to her knees had he not caught her arm and pulled her up beside him.
Gripping his tunic, she said, “You have not searched far enough.” Her saliva sprayed his face. “Now see, our future is in the hands of that French harlot!”
She was not entirely wrong. Since the annulment of his unfortunate marriage to Lady Beata Fauvel a year past, he could have searched harder, but the thought of awakening beside a woman he wanted only for the wealth she brought her husband had put him off the hunt. Too, when he himself was not working the land to turn it profitable, he pursued his only other passion—becoming a warrior worthy of donning a Wulfrith dagger.
Of that his mother remained unaware, though not for lack of trying to discover where twice now he had gone for three and four weeks, where he suffered humiliation after humiliation and sometimes at the hands of mere squires, where he was to have gone a sennight hence—Wulfen Castle.
Much to Abel Wulfrith’s displeasure, Lothaire had slammed his pride to the ground and accepted the man’s offer to train him into a formidable knight. He had known it was but a taunt, but he had dared, and Sir Abel’s brother, Everard, had sighed and said if the offer was made, it must be fulfilled.
Despite all the pain and humiliation visited upon him, Lothaire had discovered a liking for the two brothers, and even the eldest, Baron Wulfrith. More surprising, Sir Abel had become easier in his pupil’s company during the second visit. They could never be friends, Lothaire having no use for such, but there was something appealing about spending time with men his own age with similar interests.
Now he would have to send word he would not avail himself of Wulfrith training this next month. More unfortunate, even if he returned from court with a wife, it would be months before he could resume training since he would have to wait until next Sir Abel relieved one of his brothers of the task of training up England’s worthiest knights.
“I shall accompany you,” his mother broke into his thoughts. “King Henry’s harlot will know exactly what you require in a wife—a sizable dowry, pretty, but not too pretty—”
“I go alone.” Lothaire unhooked his mother’s hands from the material of his tunic.
“But my son—”
“Nay, you shall remain here.” Ensuring she had her balance, he stepped back. “And if the queen provides a wife, you will relinquish the title of Lady of Lexeter without protest else I will see you removed to your dower property.” Which he would have done years ago if not for her poor health.
Light leapt in her eyes, but naught resembling the sparkle of stars on a moonless night. This was fire—so hot it would disfigure any who drew near. And here came the threat that was the greatest control she wielded over him.
“Becca will go with me. You know she will.”
His older, unwed sister had only her mother to live for, though twice Lothaire could have secured a husband for her had Raisa Soames not deemed a lowly knight beneath her daughter.
“For years that has worked, Mother, most notably when you defied me and risked all of Lexeter by sending men to murder Lady Beata and her husband last year. It will be different if you threaten my wife.”
“Foolish, foolish boy!” she hissed. “You do not see the Delilah who would make of you a Samson, stealing your strength and leaving you weak as a woman.”
He had heard this many times before. Indeed, one of his first acts of rebellion against her tyranny had been to grow his hair. She had hated it, though it had been
only long enough to catch back at the nape when he was first betrothed to Laura. After that lady’s betrayal, he had meant to cut it to more easily forget their hands in each other’s hair, but that would have pleased his mother. Upon learning the cause for the broken betrothal and seeing her son’s misery, over and again she had cursed Laura for cutting her Samson’s hair.
“And the Jezebel!” She jabbed a finger toward him. “You do not see she who would make of you an Ahab, provoking the Lord and bringing ill upon your house. But I see them and would not have you suffer again as that wicked—”
“Enough!” Lothaire stepped from the dais and tossed over his shoulder, “You may wish me to be a boy, but I have not been since—”
“Since that harlot made a cuckold of you, just as over and again your father made a mockery of our wedding vows.”
He did not break stride.
“You still think on her,” she scorned. “I know you do.”
He halted. Though she spoke of Laura, neither had the woman he wed after her been pure.
Do I hate my own mother? he wondered. Certes, she gave little cause to love her.
He turned. “That would please you, hmm? For me to regret more not heeding your advice than that she lay with another.”
“You should have listened to me! How many times did I warn—?”
“I did listen. You said she was a fitting wife.”
“Until time and again she called you back to her, like a siren seeking to drag you down into the dark. Into sin!”
It was as his mother wished to believe, though he knew her objections thereafter were rooted in jealousy. She had never fully recovered from the wasting sickness that prevented her from accompanying him to Owen for his second visit with his betrothed. Hence, four more times he had visited Laura unchaperoned, and each time was sweeter than the last.
Nay, not the last. That was when he learned the truth of her. Even now, ten years gone, he could see her standing before the pond. Alone, though not entirely alone.
“Leave it be, Mother,” he said and strode to the stairs.
