Outrageous

by Christina Dodd

Putting her hand against her lips, she felt them move as she spoke. Spoke yet said nothing. “I’ve never told you anything of importance.”

  Her evasion angered him further, and he crowded her deeper into the mattress. “Yet you lie with me in the most primitive sense. So where’s the truth in this?”

  “The truth is not for me to reveal. I gave you myself. Don’t ask for more.”

  “But you didn’t give me yourself. You gave me your body, and beautiful though it is, it’s not enough.” Pressing his fingers to her temples, he whispered close against her ear, “I want what’s in here. I want to know the mind, the soul, of Lady Marian Wenthaven.”

  “You can’t. You’ll be leaving soon, and I will stay here.…” He was shaking his head, and she asked, “Why do you deny it?”

  “I mean, I will stay close to you as commanded by my sovereign, good King Henry.”

  Her sweaty palms slipped when she pushed at him, but he sat up obligingly. He was openly, impressively naked: corded muscles and a light dusting of body hair sliced, here and there, by scars both old and new. He watched her as she, too, sat up, and this time he didn’t stop her when she groped for the covers.

  But her need to hide herself was second to her need to understand him. Whispering in incredulous dismay, she asked, “What do you mean, King Henry commanded you to stay close to me?”

  “In a letter he sent with me, he ordered me to remain and watch over you.”

  It would have been kinder if he’d struck her. She could have borne it better than this betrayal, this proof of her own folly, this mockery of love. “You came to spy on me?”

  “I came to deliver gold from Henry’s wife to his wife’s former lady-in-waiting, then remained to protect her and her son.”

  “Spy on me?” Ignited by the pain of betrayal, her cheeks burned until they hurt. “Like my father spies on me?”

  “Protect you—”

  “A different term for the same thing.” Her vision blurred with a sudden influx of tears. “I spit on the protection men such as you offer. I spit—”

  He covered her mouth when she would have followed words with action, and his fury was no less palpable than hers. “Don’t push me, little girl. You’ve lied to me from the first moment I saw you, and this self-righteous indignation can scarcely compete with the existence of the bloody stain on the sheets. You are not who you say you are.”

  She knocked his hand away. “I am.”

  “You are not Lionel’s mother.”

  More emphatically, she said, “I am.”

  With his fingers, he pushed his thick, tangled hair out of his face. “The virgin birth occurred almost fifteen hundred years ago, and so I say to you, that child upstairs is not the child of your body.”

  The chill in the room pressed in, cooling her temper, making her realize the danger to Lionel. She’d allowed herself to be seduced by kindness, by warmth, by a tender touch and a rumbling voice. She’d given herself to a man she thought she could trust and he’d just proved his deceitfulness. “You know aught of what you speak.”

  “May I remind you, I am the only man who knows of what I speak when you are spoken about.”

  She caught his hands and squeezed them until his bones and tendons creaked. “If you say anything about me—”

  Quickly he slipped his hands out and caught hers in his. “I said I would protect you, and to speak about this would be to do you—and, I fear, Lionel—a great disservice. But you must believe in me for my protection to be effective.”

  His obstinacy pulled a frustrated little scream from her. “Believe in you? In you? I don’t want your protection. I don’t need your protection. I wouldn’t take help from one of Henry’s flunkies—”

  “Not even if Lionel’s safety depended on it?”

  She sat frozen, her mouth slightly open, and he leaned forward to plant a kiss on her lips. The first flush of his anger had faded, and sweet reason supplanted it. “You need help, sweeting, whether you admit it or not. Your father’s making some kind of plans.”

  She looked alarmed. “What do you mean?”

  “Have you not wondered about the number of mercenaries your father has hired?”

  “Wenthaven has never indicated interest in…me.”

  “Nay, not in…you.” He mocked her. “But is there anywhere that’s safe for a royal child?” Her anguished gaze told him more than she intended. It told him the truth, if not the details, of his suppositions. He brought her close against him and lay down, taking her with him, squelching her ineffectual struggles. “Ah, lass. Stay and sleep with me. Things will look better in the morning. We’ll talk in the morning, and you’ll see I’m right.”

  Alarmed at her limp acceptance, he arranged the blankets to cover them and tucked her under his chin. “We’ll talk in the morning,” he said again.

  The passion, then the anger, had washed through him, leaving him relaxed and refreshed. He hadn’t felt this good in years.

  He hadn’t felt this good, ever, and he couldn’t help marveling at the miracle of this woman. His woman. His love.

  She curled up tight as a babe, and he smoothed his hands over her, massaging her, trying to convey confidence in him, in them, through his touch. From beneath the covers where she hid her head, he heard, “But I don’t know you.”

  He chuckled. “You know me better than any woman has for over two years.”

  “Only a fool thinks a bed partner can be trusted.”

  He hugged her to him. “Then call me a fool.”

  “I’m a fool!” Griffith’s Welsh roar echoed down the stone stairway and around the tower. “A stupid, gibbering fool!”

  Art pulled him back inside the countess’s room. “Saint Dewi save us, man, don’t announce it to the world.”

  The door rocked on its hinges when Griffith slammed it. “Where could she have gone? And with a babe?”

  “More to the question—why did she go?”

  Art accused Griffith with his question, with his tone, and Griffith thrust his face close to Art’s. “Because we did what you had urged us to do.”

  Art flushed with anger. “Did ye treat her so awful she had to escape?”

  “Oh, Arthur.” Griffith flexed his fists. “Oh, Arthur, you don’t know how you tempt me to wring your neck. I treated her better than she deserved. She’ll not forget me for a long time. In fact”—he paced across the room—“she’ll not forget me ever.”

  “Conceit!” Art cried.

  “Not at all,” Griffith said smoothly. “You yourself said a woman never forgets her first lover.”

  “Aye, I know I said that, but I—” Art stopped, and his eyes bugged out. “What do ye mean?”

  Griffith walked over to him, wrapped his hands around Art’s surcoat, and lifted him to his toes. “I mean, ’tis not Lionel’s father we must wonder about. ’Tis Lionel’s mother.”

  Art’s mouth worked silently, then he released a slow, long whistle. “So that’s it, is it?”

  “Aye, that’s it.”

  With a jerk, Art pulled his clothing from Griffith’s grasp. “Ye have to take extra care with a virgin. Did ye take extra care?”

  Griffith laughed bitterly and leaned against the windowsill to look out. “I took extra care, aye. For all the wrong reasons, but I took extra care.”

  Art opened the cupboard and pulled Griffith’s clothes out into a pile. “Where do we start looking for her?”

  “I don’t know. Look!” He picked up her dress. “She left everything behind. Look!” He gestured toward the fireplace. “Even her sword.”

  Art rescued the blade from its place in the wood chips. After wiping it with a rag, he leaned it against the fireplace stone. “She might come back for it,” he said.

  Griffith stomped to the ladder which led to the loft and shook, calling in English, “Cecily, get down here. Get down at once!”

  Cecily’s blond head appeared in the hole in the ceiling, proving she’d been listening, and Griffith knew with grim satisfaction that sh
e hadn’t understood a word of the complex Welsh language. He pointed to the place in front of him, and she climbed down hastily.

  “My lord?”

  “When did your lady leave?”

  She blinked. “Is she gone?”

  In Welsh Art said, “Aye, and ye know it, ye strumpet.”

  She glanced at him, but he was stuffing clothes into the saddlebags and didn’t look up.

  “I might have heard her in the middle of the night,” she admitted.

  Griffith’s hand itched to slap her. He didn’t like silly little half-wits, especially half-wits who told a lie when the truth would serve. “Why didn’t you stop her?”

  She widened her blue eyes. “I thought I dreamed. My lady has never left me before.”

  “Hasn’t she?” Griffith snapped. “Not ever?”

  Those wide eyes slid away from his gaze. “Only once. Only because Lady Elizabeth had to go into exile and Lady Marian wouldn’t let me go with them.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she wanted me to find a husband at court.”

  “Nay.” Griffith reined in his temper. “I mean, why did Lady Elizabeth go into exile?”

  “Because of the rumors she was going to marry King Richard.”

  Art stopped packing.

  “When did she go into exile?” Griffith asked.

  “Two years ago. Well…” She blushed. “When Lady Marian bore Lionel, in fact.”

  Art started packing again.

  As Griffith realized the implications, he wiped the sudden sweat from his brow. “So you heard Lady Marian leave in the middle of the night last night.”

  “I didn’t hear anything,” she said. “I didn’t hear anything.”

  “Heard too much,” Art commented, again in Welsh.

  Cecily turned on Art in a fury. “I don’t know what you’re saying about me, but it isn’t true. I don’t know where Lady Marian went, and I don’t know when, and I don’t know why. But I’ll wager”—she drew herself up and glared at Griffith—“that somebody here knows.”

  Art scratched the gray stubble on his chin, and said, in English this time, “That might be true.”

  Emboldened, she turned on Griffith. “And if you’ve ruined Lady Marian again, Wenthaven will kill you both. Another baby will destroy his plans for her.”

  Art’s Welsh phrases sounded lyrical, but what he said did not. “Ye’ve one of yer own in the oven, missy. Ye’ll be high-bellied afore long, yerself.”

  Griffith glanced at Cecily’s waist, then back at Art.

  Art nodded. “I recognize the look. In another fortnight, everyone’ll know.”

  Cecily flushed under their scrutiny, and her hand went to her stomach in a betraying gesture.

  “So you don’t know when she left,” Griffith said to her. “Do you know where she would have gone?”

  Sullen now, Cecily said, “Oh, she’s probably hiding somewhere on the estate. She wouldn’t leave unless she thought Lionel was in danger.”

  “And if she thought Lionel was in danger?”

  “Then she’d go as far away from the danger as she could. Back to Lady Elizabeth, I guess,” Cecily muttered.

  Griffith jerked his thumb toward the door. “Go break your fast, and remember—don’t tell anyone about Marian’s disappearance.”

  Cecily scuttled out, and the men fell into their native Welsh.

  “How long until the whole castle knows?” Art asked.

  “Not long.”

  “Do ye think Marian lass is on the grounds?”

  “Not likely.”

  “Do ye think she returned to Lady Elizabeth?”

  Griffith slowly shook his head.

  Art dropped his voice, not trusting even the protection of a foreign language. “Elizabeth is the mother, isn’t she?”

  “I suspect.” Griffith started up the stairs. “Let’s see if Marian left us any clues.”

  Sir Adrian Harbottle sat in the mercenaries’ quarters, clutched his shoulder, and smiled the first smile he’d indulged in since meeting Marian in the woods. It was the first smile since Griffith had twisted his sword arm and the bone slipped its socket, rendering him useless, in pain, and without income.

  Cledwyn smiled, too, for much the same reason and with much the same affability.

  The bitch and her whelp were loose.

  She’d slipped out in the first light, dressed in her men’s clothing and leaving a trail any fool could track. Their first impulse had been to follow her at once and take their very pleasurable vengeance, but common sense had reasserted itself. She was too close to Castle Wenthaven. Worse, Griffith would take exception to her rape, and he’d proved himself lethal in ways both men understood.

  So they destroyed her track, provided several quite acceptable false ones, and waited for the hue and cry to begin.

  “We’re going to enjoy this,” Cledwyn said.

  Harbottle smiled again. “Aye, we’re going to really enjoy this.”

  Marian glanced around the woodland meadow and back up the track from whence she had come. Then she slid out of the saddle with Lionel tied in a sling before her. Before she could loosen the tie, Lionel struggled out, falling on his face. Before she could examine him for injuries, he was up and running across the spring grass.

  “Don’t go too far, Lionel,” she called.

  “Nay!”

  She squinted against the sun, then removed the heaviest of the saddle pouches from the horse and put him out to graze.

  Two years of waiting to hear Lionel’s first word, and after only a day she was sick of hearing it. But she was too tired and too worried to demand obedience. He didn’t like the deep shade. She knew that from her previous stops. So he would stay within sight.

  Within sight. A dreadful phrase. Someone had been keeping her within sight. She fingered the well-honed eating knife she kept at her waist and touched the sword that hung from the saddle. She wished she had her own sword, but taking it had been impossible. It had rested among the wood chips in the lower room, much too close to Griffith. Instead she’d removed a sword from Wenthaven’s extensive store of weapons.

  If only she could use a sling or a bow, she’d feel more secure, both about her son’s safety and about the precious treasure she had placed in a leather pouch and strapped to her leg. But she didn’t need an arsenal, she comforted herself. She’d finally shaken her trackers loose from her trail.

  At first, she’d been afraid it was Griffith. It could have been Griffith. She wouldn’t have been surprised if it had been Griffith. And she didn’t want to face Griffith. Not after last night. Not after the shared ecstasy and pain.

  Then she’d realized Griffith wouldn’t skulk behind her like a thief. He’d come tramping up and demand to know what she was doing. He’d be loud, indignant, and offended and insist she do what he commanded, but he wouldn’t hurt her. He surely wouldn’t hurt her, or Lionel.

  That wasn’t necessarily true of anybody else. So who was following her? Her father’s henchmen? Or someone who wished her ill?

  Sinking onto the ground beneath a tree, she uncorked her water jug. “Lionel, come and have a drink.”

  “Nay.”

  Pressing her hand to the hollow pit of her stomach, Marian sipped the water in hopes it would ease the ache therein. She was horribly frightened, for there were many people who might wish her ill.

  Stupid, bullying Sir Adrian Harbottle.

  King Henry Tudor.

  And her father, the earl of Wenthaven.

  Griffith’s accusations of the night before had alarmed her. Was Wenthaven hiring mercenaries on Lionel’s account? If he was, he was doing it without consulting her, and while she might wish to use Wenthaven in her plans, she wanted to be the one making the decisions. She wanted to be important again. She wanted to be in control.

  Suddenly it seemed she’d lost that control. The falsehoods of which she had been warden now escaped her. They flew randomly through the kingdom, and she knew not where they landed or who pos
sessed them.

  And Griffith was right. Lionel was a royal child, and a royal child was an easy pawn for those who sought power.

  So today she had doubled back and doubled back again: listening, watching, muffling Lionel’s cries with her hand.

  She had lost them. She was sure of it. Except…sometimes, she imagined she heard the soft shuffle of a footfall and the wheeze of a man’s panting.

  Her horse was good: well trained, strong enough to travel the dreadful English roads, swift enough to leave pursuit behind.

  But she couldn’t utilize his speed effectively, for she had to stop too often. Traveling with a rambunctious two-year-old strained the resources of her patience—and his, too, she supposed.

  “Lionel,” she called. “Look at the squirrel in that tree.”

  He looked up, clapped his hands, and, when the squirrel disappeared into the forest, cried, “Nay!”

  He’d been limply, deeply asleep when she’d lifted him from Cecily’s side and taken him to the stable. He hadn’t stirred when she’d cajoled Billy into lowering the drawbridge and letting her go. But that had been the last of her peace.

  He woke with the sun, prepared for a new day of exploration, and balked when he didn’t get it. He didn’t want to ride, he wanted to run. He didn’t want to look at the trees, he wanted to touch them. He didn’t want to eat dried meat, he wanted to eat dried mud.

  He wanted down, and she had put him down less often than he wanted and more often than she liked. Torn between the frantic need to flee and her son’s demands, Marian’s frazzled resolution faltered.

  Catching sight of a tall, four-legged, red creature with antlers, she called, “Lionel, look quick. There’s a deer!”

  Lionel spun around, looking everywhere but in the shadows.

  “There,” she said again, but the deer turned tail and vanished. “Ah, he’s gone.”

  “Nay,” Lionel said firmly.

  Why had Henry sent Griffith? What did Henry know?

  When he’d married Elizabeth, Marian had cowered, waiting for the denouncement. But the wedding night passed, apparently without incident. Couldn’t Henry see? Was he so stupid he didn’t know the difference between a virgin and a woman who’d been in childbed? Was he so befuddled with passion that he had not realized he’d been cheated? Or was he so desperate to retain the throne that he’d kept quiet and reproached Elizabeth in private?