Читать книгу The Overlord's Bride - Margaret Moore - Страница 12

E lizabeth Perronet was undoubtedly the strangest woman he had ever met, Raymond decided as he purposefully ignored her. It was as if she had no idea of what she was doing, or how her actions might be interpreted by those around her.

More importantly, it was as if she had no concept of dignity and the respect due to him, her lord and her husband.

Kissing him like that, for one thing, he silently grumbled as he tugged off his long tunic and threw it over the chest on top of the velvet gown and his leather belt. He didn’t want her to kiss him, not then and not ever. Tonight he would take her as swiftly as he could, and with as little intimacy as possible.

She didn’t want people to think she had been forced to marry him? What in the name of God did it matter what his people thought? He was their lord, their governor and protector. That was all they needed to know and remember.

Then to get nearly drunk! By God, she had just about fallen in the hall. There was no excuse for that. He had to pick her up and carry her away before she disgraced him entirely.

Half-naked, he washed his face with the cold water in the basin.

His body had, of course, reacted to the sensation of her body in his arms. It would to any woman in a similar situation. And when she leaned her head against him as if she felt safe with him—

He didn’t want her to feel safe with him, just as he would never feel safe with her, lest she betray him, too.

God save him, how could he forget that harsh lesson, even when she spoke so winningly as he held her, her casual observation that it had been a “strange day” actually making him chuckle?

Then take her and be done, his mind commanded. Consummate the marriage as if it were any other bargain. Why hesitate? Why not simply go to bed?

He whirled around—to find Elizabeth unabashedly staring at him as she sat in his bed, his covers pulled up over her breasts, her long, waving hair flowing about her, her bright eyes gleaming. “You’ve got a lot of scars,” she observed.

Suddenly, he felt more than half-naked, which was utterly ridiculous. He was no youth with his first woman!

He strode to the bed, sat on it and yanked off his boots.

He jumped when she ran a finger along one of the scars on his back. “Don’t!” he snarled.

He heard the ropes creak as she moved back.

He rose and removed his breeches, dropping them on the floor. He turned around, facing her.

“I’ve never seen a naked man before,” she whispered, staring at him. “Are they all like you?”

Without answering, he lifted the sheets and got in. He moved on top of her and shoved her shift out of the way.

Then he closed his eyes and imagined the first woman he had been with, an accommodating serving wench. He had been fourteen. Gildred had been very accommodating.

He remembered that day with Gildred in the orchard, when he had learned a mouth could do more than eat and drink and speak and kiss.

His bride was moist, but there was a barrier. So, she was indeed a virgin. Good.

He slowed a moment, then pushed. He heard a gasp, but no other cry. He started to thrust, slowly at first, then faster, and Elizabeth began to move in rhythm with him.

Gildred’s mouth.

Elizabeth’s parted lips. Her panting breath hot on him.

Gildred’s lips upon him.

Elizabeth beneath him, her legs wrapped around him, eagerly pulling him closer. Her soft moans. Her hands clutching him. Her low groan of desire.

Not Gildred. Elizabeth.

Elizabeth…Elizabeth…Elizabeth.

With a low growl, he climaxed.

Panting, he opened his eyes, to find his wife’s wide-eyed gaze upon his face.

Suddenly, as he looked down into her eyes, his manhood still within her, he wanted to press his lips against hers, to kiss her passionately and hold her close.

“Is that all?” she whispered.

Raymond abruptly withdrew and rolled off her, to the farthest edge of the bed, his back to her. “Yes.”

“I hope we made a child,” she said with a happy sigh as she pushed down her shift.

God’s wounds, she was so ignorant she didn’t realize he had taken her with all the finesse of a drunken soldier with a cheap whore.

“Sleep well, my lord,” she murmured as she turned on her side.

He didn’t answer.

Nor did he sleep well.

Elizabeth opened her eyes to find a hound of hell panting in her face.

She tried to scream, but no sound would come.

“Cadmus!” her husband barked.

She should have realized she was not having another nightmare back in the convent, because she was warm and well covered. And sore. Feeling foolish, she gingerly sat up.

Lord Kirkheathe, dressed in that same long, black tunic, regarded her from near the door, his dog at his side.

Was it possible for a dog to smirk?

At least her husband wasn’t. “Don’t be afraid of him.”

She pulled the heavy coverings up under her chin, enjoying the comfort of their warmth. “I’ll try not to be, but I was bitten very badly once,” she explained.

He was going to see the scar sooner or later, she thought with resignation, so she untied the drawstring at the neck of her shift and eased it off her left shoulder, revealing the ugly red and puckered mark made by the Reverend Mother’s pampered brute of a dog.

His eyes narrowed as he approached the bed. “A dog did that?”

She nodded.

He leaned even closer, examining her naked skin. Embarrassed by his scrutiny and mindful of what else he might see, she quickly pulled her shift back into place.

“Those other scars?”

She supposed he would have seen them sooner or later, too. Nevertheless, she couldn’t meet his steadfast gaze. “I stole things at the convent and was duly punished.”

“You, a thief?”

She shrugged. “We were always hungry and the little girls would weep so…”

“You stole food?” He sat beside her on the bed.

She raised her eyes, but could not tell if he approved, or was disgusted by her dishonesty. It was a very grave sin to steal from holy women, although in her heart she did not regret it for a moment. “All I could get, whenever I could get it,” she admitted.

“For others?”

It was very tempting to tell him she never touched a morsel, but she could believe this man, with his intense and penetrating gaze, would know if she lied. “I ate of it.”

He picked up her hand. His calluses felt rough against her skin as he examined her thin arms. “Not much.”

“Enough,” she whispered, half-afraid to speak in case it made him stop holding her.

His gaze met hers. “Cadmus will sleep on the other side of the door.”

She couldn’t help the sigh of relief that escaped her lips. “Thank you. I shall try to get used to him, my lord, so that he doesn’t have to be exiled forever.”

He smiled a little and heat trembled along her limbs.

Then noises from the courtyard caught his attention. He dropped her hand and went to the window to look outside.

Feeling bereft and thinking it must be getting near time for mass, she threw back the covers, then shivered as the cool air hit her body.

“Stay,” her husband ordered as he faced her, in much the same way he commanded his dog.

“My lord?” she asked warily.

“Stay in bed.”

“It is so late in the day already,” she replied. She gasped as her bare feet touched the stone floor and wrapped her arms about herself as she continued. “Surely there are things I should be doing. The servants will think I am lazy. That would a terrible way to begin.”

“No one will disturb you.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Stay in bed as long as you like today. Call for Rual when you are ready.”

She couldn’t say what shocked her more: the notion that she could climb back into that warm, soft cocoon of a bed, or that he had said so much at once. “But mass—”

“Is over.”

“For certain?”

He nodded.

“You do not fear the servants will think me slovenly?”

He shook his head.

Of course, she thought, he would not fear the servants.

And neither, Lady Katherine would say, should she. So why not take advantage of his offer and indulge herself?

She scrambled back into the bed and, snuggling down into the featherbed, gave him a delighted smile. “Thank you, my lord. I cannot say how many times I imagined such a luxury as this.”

“You will sleep?”

“Sleep? Oh, no, for then I would not know what I was enjoying.”

His lips jerked into another little smile. “As you wish.”

She sighed rapturously. “First the beautiful gown and now this! My lord, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, and I bless you for marrying me.”

Lord Kirkheathe didn’t answer as he strode from the room.

Sighing again, Elizabeth pulled the covers even tighter and contemplated her unusual husband. Seeing him smile, though it be a little one, made her want to laugh.

No doubt he had many cares, being such a rich and powerful lord. She would do what she could to lessen them, especially if she could see him smile more often.

Maybe a child would make him happier, too.

She climbed out of the bed, noting the dried blood on the sheet as she knelt.

“Dear God,” she prayed, wishing she had gone to mass, the better for her prayer, and also that she had been a more humble, obedient person and thus more deserving, “let me be with child. If not already, soon!”

Fearing she had sounded too demanding, she added, “If it be Your will.”

Shivering, she got up. Outside, the sound of horses and jingling harness took her to the window.

Her husband sat upon a mighty stallion. Behind him was a troop of mounted soldiers. She watched as Lord Kirkheathe raised his hand and moved toward the massive gates, his well-equipped men following.

He had not called out an order, merely raised his gloved hand and gestured. All was done with purposeful silence—and the instant obedience of well-trained and disciplined men.

With a grin, she realized the Reverend Mother would surely approve of her husband, and just as surely think he had made a poor choice of bride.

But the Reverend Mother was far away, and she was married, and soon—please, God, soon!—she might be a mother, looking after her children with love and kindness, as her parents had raised her before their deaths from fever when she was but eight years old.

Sighing, she blocked out the memories that came after that, of traveling from relative to relative, never really wanted or cared for. Of the brief respite at Lady Katherine’s, who was strict, but fair.

Then the horrid years at the convent.

She turned and looked at the inviting bed, but there was no point now to go back. Nor did she wish to give the servants any cause to disparage her, despite her husband’s remarks on that point. She might as well dress and go to the hall.

Besides, if breakfast was half so good as the feast…

She slipped her feet into her shoes beside the bed and ran eagerly to the door. “Rual!”

The woman appeared so quickly, Elizabeth thought she must have been waiting on the stairs for her summons. “My lady?”

“I was to call for you when I was ready,” she said jovially. “Well, I am ready. Do you know where my other dress has gone? I cannot wear the velvet gown today.”

“Your old dress is in the chest beside the bed,” Rual said as she came into the room.

“And all my other goods?”

“There, too.”

“They don’t take up much room, do they?” Elizabeth noted as she opened the chest.

“Shall I fetch warm water, my lady?”

“Do not trouble yourself. I am used to cold.” No lie, that, Elizabeth thought ruefully as she put on her warm stockings and then her gray woolen gown. With the speed of years of familiarity, she tied the laces while Rual began to gather up the bedding.

Thinking of the dried blood, Elizabeth hurried to wash her face and hide her silly blush. After all, Rual was a grown woman. She would know what had happened.

Everybody would know.

She splashed the water over her face, again and again, until she felt the heat diminish.

She picked up the small square of linen beside the basin and wiped off her face.

It smelled of him, her husband, Lord Kirkheathe….

“By our Lady,” she muttered. I don’t even know his first name.

“Do you need anything else, my lady?” Rual asked, holding the big bundle of cloth against her broad hip.

“No…well, yes,” she confessed as she went to the chest and found her scarf and wimple. She didn’t want to appear ignorant, but wouldn’t it be worse not to know? “I fear in all the hurry yesterday, I didn’t ask my husband’s Christian name,” she said as she put the scarf over her head and attached the wimple beneath her chin.

“Raymond D’Estienne is his Christian name, my lady, like his father before him.”

“Did you know his parents?”

“No. They both died well before my time here.”

“What do they say about them?”

The maidservant shrugged. “His father was reckoned a good man, although basely born.”

“How did he come to have such an estate then?”

“It was taken from another and given to him by the earl of Chesney.”

“You do not think he deserved it?”

“That is not for me to say, my lady. The earl thought he did.”

“And his mother?”

“She died giving birth to him. His father did not marry again, like he did.”

Elizabeth tried not to look shocked, but she suddenly felt off balance and unsteady, as if she were trying to cross a raging river on a fallen tree trunk.

Yet why should she be so surprised, she reasoned. He was not a young man. Of course he might have been married before, perhaps more than once. “How many wives has he had?”

“Just the one, other than you.”

That was something at least. “Did she die in childbirth, too?”

“No, my lady.”

“Was it an illness?”

“No, my lady. He killed her.”