Читать книгу His Lady's Ransom - Merline Lovelace, Merline Lovelace - Страница 10

Chapter Four

Ian felt a grim satisfaction as the lady’s eyes widened to huge, mossy pools and she sank back into the now-scummy water. With her face scrubbed clean of all paint and her body stripped of rich silks and furs, she looked younger than she usually did—and far more vulnerable. Deciding from her dazed expression that she was sufficiently cowed, Ian straightened.

“You have an hour to dress yourself and see that your belongings are packed.”

“Packed?” She swallowed painfully. “Wherefore packed?”

“Now that you are in my keeping, I will see you properly housed. You leave today for the north.”

“The north? Today?”

He strode toward the door. “You have an hour. Bring with you only what you need for the journey. The rest may follow with the baggage train.”

“Wait!”

The stupor that seemed to have locked her limbs loosened. She knelt upright in the tub and glared at him.

“Wait. You cannot be so thick-skulled as to think I can leave Kenilworth within the hour. There’s too much that needs doing. And I’m expected at the banquet this eve,” she finished on a shrill note.

And Ian had thought her cowed! He turned and advanced on her once again. She blinked, but refused to shrink back as she had before.

“’Twould appear you’ve held a favored position in the king’s wardship for far too long,” Ian said softly. “You’ve become lax in the respect due those above you.”

“But—”

“You will call me ‘lord’ when you address me.”

Her jaw clamped shut.

“And you will be ready within the hour.” His voice lowered dangerously. “Do not make me lesson you, Lady Madeline. You would not enjoy it.”

Nay, she would not, Madeline thought in simmering fury, but no doubt he would, the cur. The varl. The whoreson knave. Her whole body shook with the need to launch herself at him and scratch and claw. She wanted nothing so much as to add more bruises to that marking his lower lip. She, who had always won her way with smiles and merry laughter! She, who had enchanted one husband with her wit and enthralled another with her body! Never in Madeline’s life had any man spoken to her thus, nor raised such violence in her soul.

Shaken by the force of her unaccustomed blood lust, she curled her hands into fists under the surface of the water. As angry as she was, she had yet the sense to know that she could not win in any physical encounter with this broad-shouldered, muscled man.

Taking her smoldering silence for acquiescence, the earl nodded once, then turned and left. The wooden door slammed behind him. It opened again almost immediately, catching Madeline half out of the tub. With a gasp, she sank back into the chilled water.

“Ooh, milady,” Gerda cried, “I couldna bring the guard! His lordship’s men blocked the corridor!”

“It matters not. Just help me with my hair. Quickly. Quickly!”

Bending over the tub so that Gerda could rinse the last of the soap from her heavy fall of hair, Madeline twisted it into a tight rope to wring it free of excess water, then tugged on the shift she’d discarded just a short time ago. She pushed aside the stained red robe she’d worn to the tourney to find her jeweled girdle. Her fingers fumbled with the flap of the embroidered pouch attached to it.

“God’s teeth,” she hissed, as clumsy in her haste as Gerda ever was. Finally she wrenched the pouch open and extracted a handful of copper pennies. She pressed them into the maid’s palm, folding her plump fingers tight over them.

“Get you downstairs immediately and find out where Lord John is. Give these coins to a page and ask him to tell the king’s son that I desire urgent speech with him. If it please his grace, I would meet with him…” She searched her mind frantically for a place where she might have private speech with John. “I would meet with him in the chapel. Go! Go quickly!”

Without Gerda’s help, Madeline lost precious minutes fumbling into her robe and pulling the silken laces tight. Not wanting to take the time necessary to braid her hair, she grabbed a thin wool mantle and flung it over her wet, tangled mane. She stuffed her bare feet into her boots, then raced out of the tower room. Unconcerned for her dignity, she sped through the corridors, following the same route she’d taken just that morning on her way to mass.

Sweet Mary, was it just this morning that she’d traveled these same corridors? Just a few short hours since she’d stumbled into the earl’s arms and then taunted him with her mocking smile? It seemed days, nay, years, ago. She could not believe that she’d been so secure in herself this morn, so secure in her position at court. Now de Burgh had turned her world upside down. Picking up her skirts, she ignored the surprised stares of a pair of pages and ran the last few yards to the chapel.

Panting, she gazed around the small, dim hall. The vaulted nave where the lesser ranks stood during mass was bathed in silent shadows. Her eyes searched the wooden upper gallery that circled the chapel like a monk’s tonsure, but found no occupant. Madeline drew in a shuddering breath, scarcely noticing the heavy scent of myrrh that lingered in the air, and leaned back against one of the stone pillars. Please, John, she prayed, please come.

He did, as he always had come for her.

When the door swung open, Madeline started, then held out both hands. He took them in his strong grasp.

“You’ve heard, then?” he asked, his dark eyes taking in her disheveled appearance and distraught manner. “I’d hoped to tell you myself.”

“Lord Ian came straight from the lists to inform me,” she replied bitterly. “How—how could this happen?”

John’s mouth hardened. “I swear, Madeline, I had no idea that he would demand such a ransom, nor that my father would grant it.”

“Why did the king do so? You told me that you had spoken to him and that he’d agreed to give me say in arranging my future.”

“And thus I reminded him! But de Burgh pointed out that the lands your first lord dowered on you march with those he holds in his youngest brother’s name. Were he to garrison your castles, as well as those of his brother, he could guarantee a strong line of defense against attack by Welsh raiders.”

“I see. I’m to be handed over once again for another man’s gain!” Madeline tugged her hands free, knowing it was useless to rail against her fate, but too angry and hurt to still her words. “So much for Angevin promises!”

A flush of hot anger stained John’s cheeks. “You forget yourself, Lady Madeline.”

She realized immediately she’d gone too far. By the saints, this was indeed her day for letting her tongue slip its hold. For all their friendship, Madeline never let herself forget that John was as much an Angevin as any of his clan. She had often seen him fly into one of his rages, as awesome as his father’s, although she had learned long ago not to let it intimidate her.

“Your pardon, my lord,” she said stiffly.

“Granted.” John let out his breath on a gust of air. “In truth, I wish I could aid you, but the king is adamant and de Burgh too powerful. There’s naught I can do. Not now, at least. Mayhap soon, though. Mayhap soon things will change.”

For the space of a heartbeat, hope flared in Madeline’s breast, followed quickly by a new, dangerous worry. Her voice lowered to a whisper. “Oh, John, you don’t listen to Richard and those who plot with him against the king, do you? You mustn’t. These barons would play you brothers against each other, and you both against your father, all for their own gain.”

He hesitated, as if debating whether to speak further. For a moment, the only sound that disturbed the chapel’s stillness was the unsynchronized rhythm of their breathing, hers quick and shallow, his heavy and slow.

Madeline saw the doubt in his eyes. With a perception honed by years of closeness, she sensed that John hovered on the brink of some momentous decision. Fear for him clutched at her heart. He courted disaster. She felt it in her very bones.

“Of all his sons, the king loves you best,” she told him quietly. “Were you to turn against him, his rage would be ungovernable.”

Despite her anger with the king at this moment, Madeline knew that John had not the strength to defy him, not without losing his soul to the greedy barons who would use him.

He stared down at her, his dark eyes unfathomable, then shifted his shoulders, as if pulling at a garment that was too tight for him. “Come, do you think because I could not turn the king’s decision to give you into de Burgh’s keeping that I plot some mischief?”

“My lord…”

He waved aside her concern. “You were ever one to let your imagination run away with you, Maddy.”

She bit her lip, knowing it was useless to press him when his eyes took on that hard, black glitter.

“Look you, ‘tis not so bad,” he said, with an attempt at reason. “You’re not being forced to marry the man. He but holds you in keeping.”

“Aye,” she acknowledged with a sigh. “Would that it were any man other than this one.”

“I don’t know him well, but he has a reputation for being fair and evenhanded with those in his care.”

“Oh, so? He threatened to beat me but a few moments ago.”

John’s black brows flew up in astonishment. “Lord Ian?”

“Aye, Lord Ian.”

“What start is this? You can twist any male old enough to wear braies around your finger with your lightsome laugh and slanting, sloe-eyed looks. I’ve seen you do it often enough.”

“’Twould appear the earl cares not for my laugh, nor for my looks!”

John appeared thoroughly taken aback for a moment. Then he curled one knuckle under Madeline’s chin to lift her face to his.

“If he does not, I do.”

Madeline felt her breath catch at the dark, lambent flame that flared in his eyes. Not for the first time, she wondered why she didn’t give in to the invitation John issued each time he touched her of late. She was no stranger to desire, for all that she’d tasted it briefly enough in her short marriages. She’d seen it more and more in the looks the prince gave her since she’d returned to the king’s ward this time. From the way his finger now moved softly on the skin of her underjaw, Madeline knew she had just to smile, to give the barest nod, and he’d take her to his bed. As the court believed he already had.

The thought flitted into her mind that if she lay with John, mayhap he would try again to convince the king to give de Burgh gold or some other rich widow as ransom. As quickly as the thought came, she dismissed it. She had little enough control over her life, but she had her own sense of honor. Were she to whore with John—whatever the troubadours chose to call it—she would lose that small part of herself she held dearest.

In that tiny corner of her soul, the one she kept private, Madeline knew she wanted more than what John offered. Much as she loved this friend of her heart, she felt no passion for him. No shivers raced down her spine at his glance. Her blood didn’t leap in her veins when he pressed his lips to hers in greeting. She experienced none of the wild tumult at John’s touch that she had in de Burgh’s rough embrace. Feeling as though she were about to take the first step down some unknown path, Madeline slipped her chin free of John’s caressing hold.

“What,” she teased, “such sweet words from the one who put a beetle down my back that time your lady mother came to inspect the maidens’ progress with the bow?”

Accepting the gentle rebuff, John let his hand fall and stepped back. “You know you have but to call me, Madeline, and I will come to you.”

“Aye, my lord,” she said softly. “I know.”

He gave her a twisted grin. “Just smile that way at de Burgh, and you’ll soon have him dancing to your tune.”

“But for now,” she admitted, resignation threading her voice, “I must dance to his.”

“If I know you, ‘twill be a merry dance.”

“Well, a lively one, at any rate.”

Madeline hesitated, reluctant to say farewell, yet knowing she must. A wrenching sense of loss filled her. Somehow this leaving seemed more final than when she had left the king’s ward—and John—before.

“I must go, my lord,” she said finally, forcing a smile. “The accursed man gave me but an hour to ready myself. I leave this very afternoon.”

“Get you gone, then. And God be with you, Maddy.”

“And with you, my lord.”

Madeline swept him a deep curtsy, elegant despite the wet hair that tumbled over her shoulders and the bare ankles that showed over her boot top.

John bowed, then opened the chapel door for her. He stood unmoving for long moments, watching her slight figure disappear around a bend in the high-ceiling corridor. The hand resting on his jeweled belt tightened until the stones cut into his palm.

The journey did not begin auspiciously.

By dint of frenzied effort, Madeline was almost ready when a page knocked on the door and announced that the earl awaited her in the bailey. With a last, resigned glance at the garments still spilling haphazardly out of the wardrobe, Madeline directed her second serving woman to bring them later and slammed the lid of a small trunk.

De Burgh had said to take with her only what she needed for the journey. It would’ve helped considerably in her packing if she’d known just how long a journey she faced, and to where. As it was, she’d stuffed clean linens, two extra robes, her jewel casket and a small case with her pots of cosmetics, her combs and the silvered mirror her first husband had given her into the leather trunk.

Signaling to the page to shoulder the trunk, Madeline sat down to pull on an extra pair of stockings, then laced up her boots. She stood and smoothed the skirts of her warmest robe, a fine merino wool dyed a rich crimson and adorned with tabard sleeves that draped nearly to the floor. With her now neatly braided hair caught in cauls of woven silver yarn and covered by a silken veil held in place with a guirlande of beaten silver, she felt ready to face the earl. Gerda handed her a hooded cloak, silvery gray in color and lined with marten fur. Wherever their destination, Madeline decided, she would be warm enough for these cold days.

With the maid clumping behind her in thick-soled boots, her own bundle of possessions clutched to her breast, Madeline led the small procession through Kenilworth’s halls and out into the bailey. She stopped abruptly on the steps that led down from its main entrance.

“What is that?”

The squire who’d stepped forward to guide her down the worn, treacherous steps, glanced around uncertainly.

“What, my lady?”

“That!”

Madeline jerked her chin toward the wheeled vehicle with two horses harnessed in tandem that waited below. Its rounded roof was ornately carved and hung with thick curtains.

The squire looked completely baffled by her question. “’Tis…’tis a litter, my lady. My lord arranged it for your comfort on the journey.”

Madeline shuddered at the thought of being enclosed within those smothering curtains. Lifting her skirts, she descended the rest of the steps. A tall figure detached itself from the group of men who waited beside the horses and strode toward her.

“Are you ready, my lady?” de Burgh said, courteously enough, as though he’d not mauled her in her bath but an hour since.

The knowledge that she was in this man’s power ate like a worm inside her belly, but she would, perforce, have to go with him. The manner of her going, however, was yet to be decided.

“Aye,” Madeline replied, lifting her skirts. “I’m ready. But I would…” She trailed off in surprise when he stood immovable before her.

“Aye, my lord,” he corrected softly.

Heat flooded her cheeks. For a long moment they faced each other, she and de Burgh, green eyes locked with blue. The stamping of the horses as they shifted on the hard cobbles and the murmuring of the men behind them went unheard. There was only this lean, unyielding man filling her vision, his breath brushing her cheeks.

One of the horses teamed in harness shivered in the cold and stepped back, causing the litter to shift and rattle on the cobbles. Madeline caught the movement from the corner of one eye.

She swallowed, and swung her gaze back to de Burgh. “Aye, my lord, I’m ready.”

He had half turned away when her low voice stopped him.

“But I would ride my palfrey, if it pleases you.”

He frowned and gestured toward the litter. “You will be more comfortable within.”

Desperate, Madeline sought some means to sway him. She would not, she could not, climb into that box. Even if she traveled with the curtains drawn open as far as they would go, the tight confines would choke her. Nor could she admit the fear that had haunted her from childhood to this man and give him a weapon he might use against her.

Of a sudden, Madeline remembered John’s assurance that she could make any man dance to her tune did she but try. She wet her lips and forced them to curve in what she hoped would pass for a smile.

“I’m well horsed, my lord. My mare was a gift from my first husband, and I…I would not leave her here.”

He hesitated.

Hating herself, but driven by a fear that made sweat bead between her breasts, Madeline stepped forward and laid a mittened hand on his arm. Tilting her head, she slanted him a look that had brought courtiers stumbling over their feet to do her bidding.

“Come, sir, I will need my mare wherever it is I go.”

“You go to Cragsmore, lady.”

Well, at least she knew her destination, although it meant little to her. One of the baron de Courcey’s lesser keeps, Cragsmore had come to her as part of her widow’s dower and been managed by castellans appointed by the king during her wardship. It sat close on the Welsh border, she knew, and provided her with a steady, if somewhat meager, income in timber and wool from long-haired mountain sheep. Madeline had visited it only once, as a young bride, and had a vague memory of lichen-covered stone walls and drafty corridors. At this moment, however, he had more immediate concerns than the journey’s end.

Swallowing the pride that lodged in her throat like a crust of dry bread, she pressed lightly against de Burgh’s mail-clad arm. “If I ride, mayhap we can have discourse during the journey and ease this…disharmony between us.”

He looked down at her hand, his brows lifting. When he met her eyes once more, Madeline could not quite interpret the look that crossed his face. Whatever he would have said to her was lost in the clatter of booted feet.

“My lady.”

Madeline snatched her hand back. Will strode across the bailey, leading her bay mare. The silver bells on the palfrey’s halter tinkled as it danced to a halt a few feet away.

Will’s golden hair was spiked with dried sweat, and his cheeks yet held the grime of the tourney, but none of that detracted from the huge grin splitting his handsome face. “When Ian told me that the king had given you into his keeping, I could scarce believe it!”

“Nor could I,” Madeline replied.

“I was even more surprised when he told me that you leave today for the north.”

“Not half as surprised as I.”

William blinked at her dry response, apparently recognizing that she was less than overjoyed at her change in circumstances. “I know ‘tis a somewhat abrupt departure, but I—I’m glad you’re in my brother’s care. He’ll hold you safe.”

Madeline flashed him a startled look, but before she could ascertain why he thought she needed safekeeping, he smiled shyly.

“I leave for the north soon myself. Mayhap I will find reason to journey to Cragsmore.”

Over his shoulder, Madeline saw the earl stiffen. The lad would not come to Cragsmore, she knew, not if de Burgh had anything to do with it.

“I had not time to find a suitable farewell gift,” Will continued, “but I beg you accept the barding that I won in the tourney this morning.”

He tugged the mare’s reins, causing her to skip in a half circle on her dainty hooves. Madeline’s eyes widened at the rich caparison that covered her mount from neck to haunches. Embellished with a wide border of gold and silver threads woven in a strange cursive pattern, the viridescent trapping gleamed in the winter sunlight. Madeline ran a hand over the smooth, shining fabric, marveling at its tight weave and shimmering thickness.

“’Tis from the East,” Will told her. “The knight who ransomed it said he won it at the siege of Jerusalem. He swears he had it of Saladin himself.”

“But you should keep such a treasure!”

A tide of red crept up his neck. “Nay, I want you to have it. ‘Tis the color of your eyes, though not as deep or as verdant. And the sheen is naught to that which shimmers in your…in your…” He stumbled, searching for an appropriately shimmering portion of her anatomy.

Madeline bit her lip, then thanked him gravely for his gift. When he looked as though he would launch into paeans once more, the earl gave a snort of disgust and stepped forward.