Читать книгу Velvet Touch - Catherine Archer - Страница 9

Just a short time later, Stephen watched as two female figures came to the arched doorway of the hall. The light from the narrow windows was not bright on that end of the hall at this hour and, as they paused at the other end of the wide stone chamber, the two were cloaked in shadow.

The first, a slender woman of perhaps forty entered after only a moment’s hesitation. She was dressed in simple but well-made garments of dark blue samite, and her head was covered by a dark veil and wimple. A ring of keys rode the belt at her waist and she approached Richard Grayson with stiff formality. “You sent for me, my lord husband.” She nodded, her brown eyes fixed on the one she addressed without affection.

Stephen could see that she had surely once been a pretty maid. But now her expression was tightly fixed and unyielding, leaving her features pinched.

Grayson turned to Stephen, no hint of his feelings on his face. “Allow me to present my wife, the Lady Mary.”

She made no attempt at speech, simply stared at him coolly.

Her husband gestured toward Stephen. “My lady, this is Sir Stephen Clayburn, he is come here from King Edward.”

Stephen nodded and uttered a polite greeting. “Lady Grayson.” There seemed little about this woman to lend such awe in her husband, though she did appear somewhat ill-tempered.

Lady Grayson’s expression was rife with displeasure, her lips set in a firm line. Considering the fact that her husband had expressly forbidden the serving woman to tell his wife of Stephen’s purpose in being there, her attitude was surprising.

He wondered if her reaction was directed toward himself, her husband, or just a sign of a sour nature. He hoped she had not passed it on to her daughter if the latter was the case.

With curiosity, Stephen’s gaze strayed to the other female who still lingered in the shadows beside the doorway.

Stephen became aware of Lord Grayson’s attention and turned to the other man to find a smile on his handsome face. Not that there was any real humor in it. That grin bespoke more a sense of resignation and pity for Stephen.

Unsure as to the cause of either emotion, Stephen turned his attention back to the girl.

“My daughter, Fellis,” the older man confirmed. His tone became one of impatience. “Come here, girl, into the light where we can see you. You have no need to fear.”

She hesitated still, only her shoulders shifted as if with indecision.

Lady Grayson spoke and her tone was filled with suspicion. “Why are we here, Richard?” she asked. “Why have you sent for Fellis to come to the hall and meet this man.”

When Stephen looked at her, she was staring at Lord Grayson with open hostility. “I hope you have not finally given in to your selfish desire to try to wed our daughter to some hopeful suitor. He will only end in leaving here disappointed.”

Richard laughed, still without humor. “Not I, my dear. And this man is no suitor, so you may cast your righteous indignation toward him away. He has not come here to marry our precious daughter. Though you will be equally displeased when you find out why he has come.”

Stephen frowned. The relationship between husband and wife was more openly antagonistic than any he’d seen. His own parents had indeed argued in their marriage before they had succumbed to the plague, yet there had been no hint of the bitterness that clearly existed between these two.

Yet that was not his concern. Getting their daughter married was, and he wondered at the strange remarks Lady Mary had made concerning her fears that Lord Richard had brought the knight to Malvern as a suitor. The subject was clearly a heated one.

But he stopped himself there. What had gone before mattered not in the least. The future was paramount and Stephen was not going to allow them to digress into an argument about the situation before he’d even had a chance to reason with the girl.

He was certain that, given an opportunity to see what her duty was, the maid would do as she must.

Thinking to expedite the process of explaining the situation, Stephen called out softly, speaking directly to the girl. “Do not shy from me, Maid Grayson, I am not here to do you harm. As your father has told you there is nothing to fear from me.”

She stepped farther into the room and stood in the soft golden glow of one window’s light. Still she did not raise her head.

Stephen was surprised to see the young girl dressed in a gray rough-spun garment much like that of a nun. A veil and wimple of the same dull hue covered her head and obscured any glimpse of her face from his view.

He wondered at such lowly dressing for the lord’s own daughter and swung around to face her parents with a frown. Though the mother’s cote was admittedly plain, he had taken note of the fineness of the blue cloth. “What means this garb? Did I not know better I would think your daughter had taken holy orders. Or that she must live by some vow of poverty unobserved by the rest of her kin.”

Richard Grayson faced him with a frown of his own, though he made no reply. It appeared that the situation pleased him no more than it did the younger man

His wife interjected with a self-satisfied smile. “Unwittingly you have hit upon the truth. Although my daughter has not taken vows as of yet, ’tis but a matter of time until that eventuality takes place. We wait only for her father to pay her dowry and the abbey at Hardwicke will receive her into their order.”

Stephen gave a visible start at hearing this. Even though he’d said the words, he’d not thought of them as anything beyond reprimand for the girl’s poor state of dress. Then he forced his shoulders to relax. He was not going to let this woman get the better of him. “I think not, Lady Grayson. Your daughter is to be wed, most certainly, but not to our Lord and Savior.”

Mary Grayson looked to her husband as her daughter echoed her gasp of shock. “What says he, my lord husband? This is surely some jest on your part. Why you just said this man was not here to wed our Fellis.”

“He is not,” Lord Grayson intoned “He is come to arrange a marriage betwixt Fellis and Wynn ap Dafydd.”

Mary Grayson cried, “Not on my life. You will not marry my daughter to that Welsh barbarian.”

Richard Grayson flushed, casting an angry frown Stephen’s way. “Lady wife, you know my feelings concerning our enemy match your own. I have not given my permission for this event to take place. Only agreed to go forward with talks on the matter should the Welsh agree to comply with a truce. I have been left with little choice in the matter. King Edward himself has sent this man here to see to the deed.”

Stephen did not look at him but kept his gaze on the Lady Mary. “What he says is true, Lady Mary. The matter rests little in your husband’s hands, but in King Edward’s. He has declared the marriage will take place if it can be arranged and there is naught that can be done to change it.”

He reached inside his tunic to pull out the document that sealed Fellis’s fate. He passed the missive to the older woman, who took it somewhat gingerly. Slowly she opened the document to scan it, her expression showing her displeasure and horror, which grew steadily with every word she read.

Thinking to give the lady an opportunity to absorb the truth with some modicum of privacy, Stephen averted his gaze to the young girl. She had stepped back into the shadows by the door, her slender body poised as if ready for flight.

Stephen had had enough of this. She had no need to fear him. He spoke to her. “Damsel, please come forward so that we might discuss this rationally. Naught can be gained by hiding.”

He moved across the room in long, purposeful strides and held out his hand.

But she refused to put hers in it. After only one more brief moment of hesitation she finally did come into the room, stepping around him carefully, her shoulders squared as if fighting for courage.

When she moved, it was with a strange halting grace that drew Stephen to watch her with interest. Slowly she came forward, pausing as she stepped beneath the direct light of the window along the outer wall. For a moment her face was profiled in a fine, clear shaft of brightness.

It was then Stephen caught his breath.

It was her! The sprite from the forest. There was no mistaking the fragile beauty of her profile haloed in the whitegold light. Though none of that glorious silver blond hair escaped her nunlike wimple and veil, he knew there was no mistake.

Nothing could make him forget those moments in the forest glade and what he had seen. Each minute detail of her face and exquisite form was etched forever in his mind.

With chagrin he recalled his resolve to find her, his plans to have her, no matter what the cost. For one long moment he knew a gripping tightness in chest, the intensity of which surprised and displeased him.

God, to find her here. And worse yet, to know he must arrange her wedding to another man.

But Stephen quickly quelled his reaction. He would do what he must. Even though this was the first woman he had ever felt such an intense and overwhelming desire to know, she was not for him. It was, in point of fact, ridiculous of him to even ponder such thoughts.

He had only just set eyes on the maid this very morning. Surely he was quite mad to even concern himself with her.

But no matter what he told himself, Stephen could not force his gaze from her.

Fellis halted and glanced at the tall, imposing knight with a frown of displeasure as she passed him. What did her father mean by saying he had come here to arrange a marriage between herself and Wynn ap Dafydd? Then, as she actually looked at the knight for the first time, Fellis unexpectedly found herself giving pause, for he was devastatingly handsome with his dark auburn hair that gleamed with fiery highlights and eyes so dark a green they made her think of her secret place in the forest. Her gaze swept upward over a hard, chiseled jaw, an aquiline nose, then was caught and held by his.

For the eternal length of that one long pulse-pounding moment, she was unable to turn away.

There was something different about him, about the way she felt as he looked down at her. It was as if he were gazing not just at her but into her—into that place she had long buried where she was a woman with needs and desires like any other.

Without her consent, her willful gaze slipped down from that lean-jawed face, over a corded neck and across wide shoulders encased in dark green velvet. Not even the heaviness of his tunic sleeve could disguise the power of his arms, nor of his sun-bronzed hands, with their surprisingly supple fingers. Those fingers looked as if they would be equally at home on the strings of a lute as they would be on the hilt of the sword that hung from his narrow hips by a goldbuckled belt.

This was a man who had turned the heads of many a maid. Even to her untutored eyes there was no doubt.

But what completely unnerved her and made it doubly difficult to catch her breath was the hunger in his eyes as he looked down at her. It was as if he were drinking in the sight of her as she was him.

Fellis could not credit that this man with his strong, hard body and handsome face could be interested in her. The idea was unthinkable. It was simply her own reaction to his incredible masculinity that made her feel so breathless.

She was not a woman to draw such notice. Her crippled foot set her apart from others. No man would desire a woman who was so marked, ’twas a clear sign of God’s displeasure

Why then was he watching her with such open intensity? Then the answer flashed into her mind like a painful poke at a sore tooth. Her deformity! The man knew of her twisted ankle and simply sought to carefully study one so afflicted.

She flushed a deep scarlet and dropped her gaze. Always it was so. They could not see that inside her she was a young woman like any other and that defect had not twisted the rest of her body and mind as it had her ankle. They did not care that inside her beat a heart like any other. And that heart was vulnerable to their stares and revulsion.

Quickly she swung away from him, unable to face his scrutiny now that she knew the reason behind it.

To her great distress, her limp seemed even more pronounced than usual as she made haste to seat herself at the trestle table. But she held her head high, refusing to allow the man to see how hurt she was by his appraisal.

Her surreptitious glance darted to her parents and away. Hopefully they had not taken note of what had just occurred. She knew how sensitive they both were to people’s negative reactions to her.

Her mother was still much occupied with reading the roll of parchment and Richard Grayson was watching his wife with undisguised longing.

Fellis forced away her own feelings of hurt, aware of a familiar ache of sadness for her father, but knew she could do nothing to help. Her mother had long ago made her feelings on the marriage known to them all.

Fellis was aware that the Baron of Malvern was a lonely man, yet to his daughter’s knowledge he had not taken a mistress. He still hoped for his wife to someday turn to him.

But then, as she sighed with regret, Fellis looked to her mother again. Her gaze came to rest on the missive in the Lady Mary’s hands and her eyes opened wide as the old problems flew from her mind in the face of the new.

It had certainly hurt for the man to stare at her so. But that was naught in comparison to what his gaze had made her forget.

Sir Stephen Clayburn had said she was to be married.

She longed to look at the man who had announced such incredible news. But Fellis could not bring herself to do so in the event that she might once again fall victim to that probing green gaze. Her attention focused on the whiteknuckled hands she twisted so tightly in her lap.

Married. And to Wynn ap Dafydd, her father’s sworn enemy. She had never so much as seen him, though the deeds of his followers were well-known to her. They were wont to rob, burn and terrorize the English residing at Malvern castle at every opportunity.

Her father had been granted custodianship of the castle twenty years ago, two years before she was even born, and Fellis knew no other existence beyond this uncertain one along the Welsh border.

Fellis looked to her mother, who had now dropped her hand so that the parchment dangled from her fingers as she visibly fought for control. And find it she would, of that Fellis had no doubt. Mother was not one to be overset by any circumstance, no matter how disturbing. She had a way of forcing things to come out as she wished them to.

Then Fellis realized that she need not concern herself with this marriage. Never would Mary Grayson agree to the match. She was determined for Fellis to enter the convent. In the past years her mother had managed to keep her father from so much as suggesting any suitor, though he still refused to pay the dowry that would grant her admittance to the abbey.

In Fellis’s eyes Mary Grayson was a more intimidating force than any distant king could ever be.

It did not occur to Fellis that she was more than an observer in these proceedings. She had been told, since she was old enough to remember, that she must enter the church.

Like Malvern castle, it was all she knew.

But her mother was not saying anything. Her pale cheeks were flushed with unhappiness as she looked from Stephen to her husband.

At last Mary Grayson spoke, and Fellis had the answer to the question of her mother’s reticence. “King Edward has deigned to command this. Why would he be so interested in the affairs of one insignificant girl?” She asked the question out of obvious anger but her tone was one of awe and respect.

So even Mary Grayson was moved by the wishes of a king, Fellis thought, realizing that her world was indeed on the verge of forever changing.

Stephen moved forward and gestured to the seats around the table. “Perhaps we should sit and discuss this more comfortably.” They followed his suggestion without demur, as if forgetting in their shock and confusion that they, and not he, were the hosts here.

Fellis’s surprised gaze went to his face. He appeared totally in control of himself and sure of the outcome of this situation. Fellis could not halt a glimmer of grudging admiration.

She had thought her parents the two most commanding people in all the world, and they were obeying this handsome young knight as if they had no wills of their own.

He sat down across from her and she could feel him willing her to look at him. But Fellis did not meet his probing gaze, finding an unaccustomed sense of rebellion swelling her chest. She knew a desire to show him that she, for one, did not feel the need to obey him. Yet the effort to withstand that magnetic attraction was great, and she was grateful when she felt him turn his attention to her mother.

She looked to Sir Stephen only when he began to speak. “First I must address your question as to why King Edward would be interested in the affairs of your daughter. I assure you, Lady Grayson, that King Edward is always concerned with the well-being of the least of his subjects. He has thought long and hard upon this matter and believes that a marriage between your daughter and Wynn ap Dafydd will bring about a peace in this region.”

“But why has he interested himself in this matter in particular?” she asked again. “How did it come to his attention?” The puzzlement on her once-fair countenance was obvious.

Richard Grayson cleared his throat. “You know, my lady wife, that I have asked King Edward to intercede in our troubles with the Welsh, though I had not asked for such a drastic solution. I had thought more of troops to help quell the knaves. This reply from His Majesty is most unexpected, to say the least.”

“This is your doing then,” she accused, eyeing her husband with a look of betrayal.

Lord Richard’s gaze hardened. “How can you say so, wife? I wouldst not have had our Fellis put to this sacnfice. Rather would I have seen her enter the convent as you have pleaded with me to do.”

Stephen halted further argument with a raised hand. “It is what the king wishes that matters. He is the one to have chosen this method of peacemaking. You know, do you not, that the Scots plague him without cease? And it is known to all that the war in France shows no sign of ending soon. The manpower could not be spared to send you military aid and he wishes to see this feuding done. For now and for all time. A marriage is a sensible solution. Wynn will not be near as likely to raid and make trouble for his own in-laws.”

Although it was Fellis who might be forced to marry the Welshman, and she was not particularly pleased about the idea, she listened to the knight thoughtfully. She could see the logic in this reasoning.

She wondered why she felt so little reaction at discovering that she was to marry. But she could find no real satisfactory answer. Mayhap it was just the shock of it that left her feeling numb. Surely it had nothing to do with the fact that even the probability of her own changed future seemed to pall in the presence of this all too fascinating man.

Her gaze went to Stephen. Seeing that he had his attention fixed firmly upon her mother for the moment, Fellis took the opportunity to examine him more carefully.

Mayhap if she really looked at him, the knight would not seem as devastatingly attractive as she had first thought him. No man could be so compelling, she told herself.

But as she studied him, she knew her own eyes gave lie to the thought.

He had a face and form that would make any damsel sigh with longing. His hair was a strange shade she had never seen on a man, dark, deep auburn, but on him, with his straight nose, hard jaw and wide shoulders, it was completely masculine and gave him an aura of being filled with fire and energy. Thick dark lashes framed the eyes she knew were an intense shade of green.

Meeting this knight did indeed make even the threat of marriage to a stranger fade into insignificance. After all, she did not know Wynn and so had a difficult time seeing him as a real threat to her ordered existence.

Sir Stephen Clayburn was another matter entirely. He was here and, in the oh-so-tangible flesh, far more compelling than any alleged husband-to-be.

* * *

Stephen could see that accomplishing his purpose was not going to be easy. His first impression that Lord and Lady Grayson seemed to have little liking for each other was apparently quite accurate. Stephen couldn’t help wondering at the cause of it.

It was obvious, despite their hostility for each other, that both parents loved their daughter, though in his mind they had an odd way of showing it. Did neither of them see that it was their child for whom they should show concern? She was the one who had just been told she was to marry.

Stephen did know that females were wed for political purposes on a regular basis. But he would have thought that, this coming as such a surprise to all of them, Lord and Lady Grayson might have felt some compulsion to assist their daughter in adjusting to the idea. After all, they must both see that ultimately, if Wynn agreed to the match, there was no way out of it. Once the king had set his hand to the idea it was done.

Stephen stole a glance at Fellis to see how she was taking the proceedings. The maiden flushed a deep scarlet and turned away.

Stephen spoke directly to her, ignoring the elder Graysons. She kept her face averted, and the edge of her veil effectively blocked her expression. “You do understand what I have said?”

She looked at him then, raising her brows as if in disdain. “Of course, my lord.”

He studied her even more closely, drawn to that slight show of spirit, which made her blue eyes sparkle like sunlight on water. The image was a disturbing one, for it reminded him anew of the way he had seen her that morning. He forced himself to set the thought aside and say what he had been about to. “You seem little moved by the notion of your impending marriage.”

She shrugged. “What choice have I? Though the outcome seems less assured than you would have us think, have you then already attained Wynn’s agreement to this proposal?”

Stephen grinned, despite his own preoccupation with controlling his reactions to the Lady Fellis. The maid had thought faster than her mother. He watched her approvingly, shrugging his shoulders with confidence. “I have not met with Wynn ap Dafydd. But I have no doubt that I will be able to convince him as to the merits of the plan.”

Lady Grayson interrupted, appearing decidedly pleased at this news. “You have not spoken with him?” She shook her head with a pity borne of condescension. “I am afraid, Sir Clayburn, that the outcome of this plan may not be so assured as you believe. Wynn ap Dafydd is not one to bow to anyone’s coercion, even that of a king. He, like the rest of his countrymen, resents English rule and does not recognize Edward as his true sovereign.”

“Hence your difficulties with him,” Stephen supplied. “But have no fear I shall gain his agreement. That is not your concern.” He turned back to Fellis, finding himself lost in the depths of her wide blue gaze. He forced himself to say what he must, to remember what his purpose here was. “I simply require your assurance that you will consider the notion of marriage to him.”

She stared at him, her surprise evident in her eyes. Fellis replied, “I must say that I am most astonished that you would even think to ask. I will have no say in what happens.” She flushed deeply as she faced him, looked down, then back at him. “What…who is to say that Wynn will have me? Does he know of me…of my imperfection?”

So occupied was Stephen in trying to put name to the exact shade of blue, azure, he thought, that it was a moment before he could attend to what she said. Then he frowned. “Wynn ap Dafydd is not so great a man that he might repudiate you.” It amazed him that she would think that Wynn might not want her. What man could refuse such grace and beauty for his very own? It was difficult for Stephen to even contemplate another man having the right to touch the perfection he had viewed that very day. He spoke slowly, thinking of his own loss in finding she was unavailable to fulfill his desire. “Not every man has the right to expect or even hope for true perfection in a bride. He must simply accept the more common lot he has been given.”

Stephen was surprised to hear Fellis gasp, and forced his attention away from his interior thoughts.

But the sound of Fellis’s indrawn breath was followed by her father’s angry words. “How dare you, Sir Knight!” Lord Richard stood to glare across the table at him.