He stiffened beside her, the muscles of his shoulder where she leaned against him going as hard as stone. For long seconds, he did not move. Then his sigh brushed across her cheek. He withdrew by slow degrees, brushed the skirt of her gown back into place. She drew back while shielding her gaze with her lashes.
In that same moment, she grew aware of the low murmur of voices with an undercurrent of laughter. Hot mortification assailed her. She longed to leap to her feet and leave the dais, to be lost among the lowest of those below the salt, to retreat to the chamber she shared with her sisters in virginal security and never think again of marriage or a husband.
It was not possible. Some things must be endured, no matter the cost.
She lifted her chin and straightened her spine, glared directly into the silver-gray eyes of her groom and forced her lips to form a smile. “You have had your forfeit, sir, and may it content you.”
“Hardly,” he said with a lazy smile. “I fear my appetite has only been whetted for more. Such a tender morsel I discovered, I can hardly wait to taste it entire.”
“Sir!”
“Though I do believe, after what we just shared, that you might call me Rand.”
He meant their shared vows; that was all. As for what he wished to taste, he could not mean—no, surely not! He was only attempting to discompose her.
She could not permit him to succeed. Or, at least, would not allow him to know it. Controlling her imagination with fierce effort, she turned from him and picked up a small meat pie that rested on the plate between them. She bit into it, intent on appearing oblivious if it killed her. And so it might, she thought as she chewed and swallowed against the knot in her throat. She could not have said what was within the flaky crust. It tasted of nothing in her mouth except ashes and regret.
The wedding tournament was held at Tothill Fields, beyond the confines of Westminster town. An open area set with copses of trees, it was the scene of a three-day fair every year, in addition to bull-baitings, bear-and-dog fights, cockfights and the occasional hanging. A pavilion, canopied for shade against the August sun, had been constructed for the king, queen, their attendants and honored guests, which today included Isabel and her two sisters. The billowing white tents where the knights and their horses would be armored for the contest stretched away beyond it. Everyone else straggled in an uneven row on either side, sitting their horses or perched on the seats of carts. Some few had brought Saracen carpets, stools and baskets of provisions for their greater comfort, also servants with fans to wave away the heat and the flies. Behind these titled personages, the people of the town gathered in a noisy, milling crowd. Ale and wine sellers moved among them, along with purveyors of cakes and pies and wild fruit, and the ever-present cutpurses and doxies.
As Braesford had foretold, it was not to be a civilized joust with knights in plate armor tilting at one another with lances. Rather it was a true melee of a kind forbidden to mere nobles. Armor was restricted to light mail made of steel links for ease and maneuverability. Bodily injury was common in the heat of the contest, and feuds almost inevitable. By common decree, such meetings were restricted to the entertainment of kings in England and throughout Europe.
In this imitation battle, ranks of knights were assigned to opposite ends of a field. At a signal, they would ride toward one another, meeting in the middle ground with a mighty clash. The only weapons allowed were swords blunted at the tip, along with shields to defend against them. A knight retreating from the fray could be chased down, captured and held for ransom. The man judged the bravest, strongest and most cunning in the fight would receive a grand prize from the king. And if bloody wounds and other bodily injury were not inflicted, the crowd would be sorely disappointed.
The sun beamed down with piercing heat, dust rose from the feet of milling horses and the crowd buzzed like a disturbed beehive. Hardly a breath of air stirred under the canopy where Isabel sat as guest of honor. She fanned herself with a sheet of parchment set in a bent willow frame, but still felt flushed. Her most fervent wish was to be elsewhere. She had never been present at a melee, but had heard of them. She did not look forward to seeing who would be jeered from the field for clumsiness or cowardice, who sliced by a dull sword edge, knocked from the saddle and trampled, maimed or worse. That the king had ordered this event in token of her marriage to Braesford might be an honor, but it was one she could have forgone.
It was inevitable, so it seemed, that her new husband and Graydon should be directed to opposite sides of the field. Viscount Henley’s bulk was recognizable at her stepbrother’s side, while Braesford’s half brother, William McConnell, seemed to be assigned to the same troop as Rand. She recognized a few more combatants by their colors and fluttering pennons marked by symbols and devices—such as Graydon’s boar, the viscount’s bear, Braesford’s raven—but could not begin to put names to them all. A part of the reason was that they did not remain in one place, but rode here and there to limber their muscles, to check the security of their equipment or shake the fidgets from their mounts.
She kept Braesford’s pennon—of white and blue marked by a black raven with spread wings—in view. Along with his squire, David, he appeared to be examining the ground where the main clash was to occur. He rode with his gaze on the grassy earth, quartering back and forth, though she was uncertain what he expected to find. Perhaps it was merely to guard against surprises in the way of uneven ground or rabbit holes.
He appeared satisfied at last, for a short time later he wheeled his mount, left his squire and rode slowly toward the pavilion. King Henry was just settling onto his throne, and Braesford gave him a formal bow from horseback before turning to her.
“Madam Braesford, my lady,” he called out, saluting her with a gloved fist held at the level of his heart, dipping his head, which was covered by his mail coif but no helm as yet. “A thousand salutations to you on this our bridal day! I, a poor knight about to ride in tourney, beg a favor for my encouragement and protection in this fight. Will you not give it me?”
She had told him she would not, yet here he was with a public request. She stared at him with compressed lips and indignation in her eyes, but he seemed unaffected—nay, undaunted—in accord with his personal motto. The man sat waiting, quite devastatingly handsome in his shining mail of metal links that was perfectly fitted to his powerful frame and covered by a pristine white tunic emblazoned with his device. He dared her to deny him, dared her to make him a laughingstock by proving that his bride would not present her favor and her blessing.
She should refuse. It was what Braesford deserved for his stubbornness over her Tobias Night plea, and particularly after the dastardly advantage he had taken at the breakfast table. It was unlikely he required such a boon in any case. Let him do what he might without it.
The king was waiting, as well, a frown congealing his stern features. Elizabeth of York appeared embarrassed. One of her ladies-in-waiting tittered, whispering to another behind her hand, while Cate and Marguerite murmured with their heads close together. At the end of the pavilion, leaning against the corner post, Leon, Master of Revels, strummed his lute and smiled ever so slightly. It was impossible to say, of course, whether his wry amusement was for her dilemma or only at the folly of mankind.
It was in this strained moment that a small boy ran out onto the field. No more than three years old, blond and cherubic, he laughed in high glee at his escape into the open, while his chubby little legs churned beneath his short doublet and his fine curls gleamed in the sun. He looked back over his shoulder as if for pursuit from a woman who called in a high-pitched wail, paying no attention whatever to where he ran. He flashed behind Braesford, dodged a squire leading a stallion half-blinded by its protected armor and pelted straight into the path of a galloping knight.
Gasps and cries rang out. Isabel rose in her seat with one hand pressed to her mouth. The king rapped out a command and half a dozen men leaped to obey.
Too late. Far too late.
Except Braesford was already moving, wrenching his great gray stallion around to plunge after the boy. He leaned from the saddle, one mailed arm outstretched. His fingers gripped the back of the child’s doublet and lifted him up, up, up, to fold him against his chest just as his gray stallion slammed into the charging knight.
For a single instant, Isabel thought Braesford had been unseated, thought man and child would be thrown to the ground and crushed beneath the plunging horses.
It didn’t happen.
Rand swung his stallion free, regained his seat and trotted a short distance away before halting the gray. He spoke to the clinging boy, who now sobbed against his tunic, bending his head to hear the answer. The child quieted, staring up at Braesford while a species of wonder amounting to awe dawned on his small face.
An odd, choking sensation filled Isabel’s throat. She swallowed salt tears, sinking back into her seat with her hands clasped so hard in her lap that her injured finger throbbed with a fierce ache. She hardly felt it, barely noticed as Cate hugged her on one side and Marguerite on the other. With burning eyes, she watched as Braesford rode slowly to the sideline and passed the small escapee down to the woman who ran onto the field to hold up her arms, her face wet with her weeping.
Around her, applause roared from the royal pavilion along with cries of gladness, of amazement, of approbation. A score of women began to strip the veils from the truncated cones of their headpieces, the handkerchiefs from their long sleeves, to tug ribbons from their necklines. “Take this, Sir Rand!” they called out. “My favor! My favor! For good fortune, Sir Knight! For fair fortune!”
Isabel glanced down at her wedding costume. She had no handkerchief, no ribbons. Her hair was uncovered so she was without a veil. All she had was one of her long sleeves that were fastened onto the shoulders of her gown by ties. Tugging the length of embroidered white silk free, stripping it from her arm, she jumped to her feet again. She swirled the length of it above her head as she called out with the others. “Braesford! To me, Braesford!”
He did not look her way, just as he ignored the other trilling female voices. Speaking once more to the child he had delivered into its mother’s arms, he swung his stallion away.
“Braesford!”
It was as if he did not hear. He was leaving, riding to join his troop gathering now in formation at the far end of the field. He was going without her protection, without her favor. He had accepted her refusal to present it.
“Rand!” she cried in regret and pleading.
He stiffened, turned in the saddle. A smile rose in his eyes as he saw the sleeve she held. Swinging the destrier’s head, he trotted back, rode close to the wood rail of the pavilion. Around them the clamor of high-pitched entreaty died away, as did the rumble of admiration.
Isabel’s smile was tentative as she met his gaze. His dark eyes were as sharp as steel, holding hers while she tied the full sleeve above his elbow. When it was done, he leaned abruptly to encircle her waist with a hard arm, dragging her half over the enclosure to pull her against him. The unyielding steel mesh of his mail-covered arm bit into her waist with the force of his embrace, while her breasts were flattened against the shirtlike hauberk of mail that armored his chest beneath his tunic. She felt the steel’s heat, and his heated body beneath it, as she put out a hand for support. Then his mouth—hot, possessive and incredibly sweet—captured hers, plundering like a conqueror, demanding acquiescence as his due.
For the space of a single second, she gave it. She pressed against him, allowing him entry, twining her tongue with his in surrender. The noise around them faded. A red haze appeared behind her closed eyelids. She forgot to breathe under the assault of purest need and half-acknowledged longing.
With a wrenching movement, he set her back on her feet, steadied her for an instant. His gray stallion reared a little, curveting as he backed away. Clapping his fist to his heart in hard salute, Rand stared into her eyes for an endless second, his own silvery with some vivid purpose. Then he wheeled and thundered away with her white sleeve fluttering like a private pennon from his arm.
Isabel, watching him go, was suddenly afraid that her favor would not be enough to keep him safe and whole. It might be no protection at all from the curse of the Three Graces.
7
T
he melee was vicious, a maelstrom of blows clanging against shields, of dust and sweat, screaming, neighing horses, shouts of agony and cries of rage and despair. For long moments, in the middle of it, Rand was overtaken by the red-hot heat of battle fury and the shuddering conviction that this was Bosworth Field again, that all depended on killing before he could be killed.
It was the thought of Isabel in the king’s pavilion that shook him from it. She was watching, and unlikely to appreciate seeing bodies littering the ground. He wore her favor and must bear it with fairness, with honor and gallantry.
She had changed her mind. Why had she done that? Why?
He could hardly believe it when she had called him back, so sure had he been that she despised being tied to one of his low birth, hated him for his insistence on taking his rights as her husband. Had she changed her mind about him? Was this her way of saying she looked forward to the night to come?
It seemed unlikely. What, then, had moved her? Henry’s order, the queen’s distress, the knowledge that the crowd watched? She was not so hard of heart as she wished to appear. It was also possible she was reluctant to spurn him publicly.
Or her change of heart could have been because of the toddler on the field and his effort to save him. It had not been done for her approval, but only because he had been there. Yet mayhap she saw that he valued young lives.
Then again, it could have been jealousy that spurred her, the disinclination to allow her new groom to wear the favor of another woman. Not that he had intended to accept the pledge of any except his wife. He would not so dishonor her in front of the court, no matter her conduct toward him. It was a matter of principle.
High principle was his guide. He had demanded her favor because it was his right to have it and her duty to provide it. It had no special meaning, no extraordinary power, carried no importance as a talisman. The silken flutter of it from his arm did not gladden his spirit or make his heart swell with pride. No, not at all.
Hooves pounding behind him dragged his attention back to the fray. He swung his great gray destrier, Shadow, to meet a rear attack. Graydon and Henley came at him, one on either side. They swung their swords, whistling, at his head, and he saw the glint of Graydon’s point, knew in grim acceptance that it had not been blunted.
Defending with his shield against Graydon’s thrust, he could not avoid a blow from Henley that slammed his steel helm against his skull. He twisted away from a second thrust from Graydon, blocked another. Henley, burly veteran of tourneys that he was, spurred his mount so it shouldered into the gray while Rand was busy with Graydon. Instead of slashing with his heavy blade, however, he lunged forward in the saddle, reaching with a gloved paw, trying to tear away Isabel’s favor.
The blazing ferocity of war seized Rand once more. He slashed and feinted with feral cunning and the surge of limitless strength. His muscles glided with the hot, well-oiled precision of one of Leon’s infernal machines. His sword clanged against Henley’s with such force it seemed both would shatter from the impact. Somewhere on his right, he was aware of his half brother thundering toward him to join the one-sided battle. He had no time to acknowledge him, no time for more than vague surprise when McConnell drew up in a cloud of obscuring dust, changed directions and rode away again.
Immediately he executed a backhand swing that took Graydon, howling, from the saddle. The man’s horse reared, catching his rider’s foot in the stirrup so Isabel’s stepbrother bounced heavily, head down, as it raced away. Henley, cursing, withdrew and thundered after his friend to keep him from being dragged to his death.
And Rand, his rage boiling, scourging his veins, fought on. He charged, slashing right and left, laying low the opposing force until, suddenly, he and his troop held the far end of the field and the roar of the crowd penetrated, finally, the haze of his bloodlust.
Cheers, shouts of approval and cries of victory—none of it meant anything. Rand’s ears rang, his skin felt scorched inside his sunstruck mail and he ached in every muscle of his body. None of the men around him were more than dimly familiar. His half brother was chasing an errant knight of the opposite camp into a copse of oaks, intent on ransom. With sweat pouring into his eyes, he turned toward the knights’ tents on the far edge of the field.
A chorus of trumpets sounded before he was halfway there. The king’s herald stepped forth and called his name. He must come forward and claim his prize as champion of the tournament.
Rand did as he was bid, though the honor meant nothing. He had already been given the only prize he valued. He had taken Isabel to wife, and would claim her as his own if the devil himself sought to prevent it.
The prize was a gold ring set with a carved carnelian, one taken from Henry’s own hand. Rand sat looking at it for long moments. It would be something to hand down to his son one day, along with the tale of how it had been won, by fighting for his life against his wife’s brother. Would he say his wife had wanted him to die? That was something he must discover.
Meanwhile, it was the custom to present any prize won in the tourney to the lady whose favor the champion wore. A brief smile tugged at his mouth at the thought. He kissed the ring and handed it over to his lady wife with his deepest bow. Putting spurs to his mount then, he rode from the field.
It was his squire, David, who found him sometime later, wandering half-blind from a headache amid the combatants’ whooping celebration around a butt of ale. The lad led him and the gray back toward Westminster and the destrier’s stable. There he helped Rand from his mail, discovering in the process that the blow to his helm had left it so misshapen it could not be removed. A blacksmith was his only recourse and they wended their way there. The great oaf and his hammer nearly deafened Rand as he clanged the metal back into the round while he knelt with his head on an anvil in a pose far too similar to a beheading for comfort.
Afterward, David, carrying the helm under his arm, guided him to the new quarters allotted to him and his bride. It was there they discovered Isabel awaiting them with anger and impatience in her pale face.
“Where have you…” she began, then came to a halt with her gaze on his temple. “You are hurt. I feared it.”
“Feared?” he asked, made dim-witted by surprise and the pulsating agony in his head.
“When I saw Graydon and Henley attack you. It was a dastardly trick, to come at you together and from behind.”
“All is fair in a melee,” he said as he touched his fingers to his head, saw they came away smeared with blood.
“It was a dastardly attack, two against one, unworthy of knight or noble.”
“But one I’d have thought you wouldn’t mind watching.”
She stared at him a long moment while her eyes turned more storm-gray than green. “How can you say such a thing?”
She had been alarmed for him. It was an astounding notion when he had half feared the attack might have been at her request. He felt the agony in his head begin to ease.
How very cool she appeared, there in the quiet of their chamber, so far removed from the violence of Tothill Fields that he might almost have dreamed she had been there. Her serving woman had removed the white silk sleeve that had been left to her after she gave him its mate, replacing both with new ones of pale green samite woven with strands of gold. They were not a perfect match but close enough. Isabel must have dismissed the woman afterward, for she was not in the chamber. That was, unless she was hiding behind the bed curtains.
The bed curtains in the chamber allotted to them on Henry’s orders were of dark blue wool embroidered with field flowers. The bed was so large it took up a good third of the floor space. His gaze slid away from it, but returned against his will.
Isabel paid no heed to his confusion. Turning to David, she frowned upon him. “Why are you standing there? Bring warm water and bandaging at once.”
A smile passed over the lad’s firm, regular features, no doubt because concern disguised as annoyance was more familiar to him than solicitude. Abandoned at the gate of a nunnery on Saint David’s feast day some two decades before, reared by its sharp-tongued inhabitants, it was what he had known for most of his young life. Shielding the blue of his eyes with his lashes as if determined not to offend, he dipped his guinea-gold head and went to do Isabel’s bidding.
Rand did not make the mistake of thinking her anxiety on his behalf was personal, no matter her tone. He was her husband, and he had been injured while wearing her favor. It was her duty to tend him and she would see to it. It was only to be expected.
He had little use for impersonal assistance. What he longed for, suddenly, was her compassion, her womanly softness, womanly succor in its most basic form. The cause of that virulent desire, he knew, was the furor of battle. All men, when the fight was over and they discovered they still lived, demanded that ultimate affirmation of life. If he took her now, it would be a driven, mindless rut.
She deserved more. She required a gentle and most mindful initiation into the intimacies of the marriage bed. Knowing that did not prevent him from swaying toward her with the pull of instinct so strong that denying it brought the acid burn of tears to the backs of his eyes.
“Sit down before you fall down,” she said, taking his arm and leading him to a stool. Standing before him, so close he could reach out and clutch her softness if he dared, she lifted a hand to push her fingers through his sweat-flattened hair.
It felt so good that a low groan sounded in his throat. He closed his eyes, the better to savor it.
“Did I hurt you?” She took her hand away. “I’m sorry, but something must be done. The cut on your head is bleeding.”
“No,” he said, a husky sound of protest for the removal of her touch. He yearned for it even if it had not been a caress.
“You cannot leave it as it is.”
He could, of course, often had after a tourney. The slow trickle of wetness he felt was more a nuisance than a danger. “David can tend to it later.”
“Your squire is unlikely to have skill with a needle, and I believe that is required.”
“You would be surprised at his skills.” Bright-haired, bright-minded David had made himself indispensable in any number of ways since Rand had rescued him from a mauling by street thugs the winter before. Though Rand named him his squire, the lad had little ambition to be a knight, calling himself a servant instead. That he would not always be one was a certainty for Rand. In token of it, he had taught David all he knew of manners, courtesy and gallantry, in addition to the practical skill with sword and lance that he might require to stay alive.
“There is still the feasting and mummery to be got through before you can rest,” she insisted. “You will have to change into your wedding raiment again, and you cannot bleed all over the silk.”
“No,” he said on a sigh. The shirt, thin wool doublet and padded chausses he had worn under his mail for the tourney were rough garb more suited to a peasant than a gentleman, though appropriate for the purpose. They smelled to high heaven of hot metal, sheep grease, horse and randy male, but there was nothing he could do about it until David returned. She would have to endure it, as she would endure other things in their marriage. “I’m sorry.”
“For what? It isn’t your fault you were bloodied. I cannot understand what Graydon was about. He has no need of ransom.”
“I doubt that was his aim,” Rand said with a wry twist to his lips.
“What, then?”
“Henley may have wanted to see me bested, or dead.”
Her lips compressed in a most enticing fashion while color spread upward from her breasts. She began to pluck at the knot which held her silk sleeve, much soiled, to his arm where he had insisted David secure it as his mail was removed. “It would avail him little since the king claims the right to choose my husbands for me.”
“Or else Graydon could see himself taking charge of Braesford and its rents in your name.” He caught her wrist as she released the silk sleeve and started to toss it aside. Removing it from her grasp, he folded it with care, keeping it in his hand.
She barely glanced at what he was doing. “My stepbrother may also bear you a grudge for calling him to account over my broken finger at Braesford. He is not a complicated man.”
The implication was that others were. Was he among them in her estimation? he wondered. It was encouraging to think so.
“On the other hand, my half brother,” Rand said deliberately, “cannot be called simple. I misdoubt he would do anything as obvious as attempting to have me hanged. Nevertheless, it could be instructive to discover if he and Graydon are on terms of friendship.”
“You believe…”
“He could have joined me in fighting off Graydon’s and Henley’s attack. He did not.”
“He may have thought you capable of handling them on your own,” she said with a frown.
That was true. “Mayhap.”
“It must gall him to see you in his place.”
“Not his place but mine now,” he answered. Her breasts were so close, their tender curves above her bodice more enticing than honey mead. He watched with some bemusement as his hand lifted of its own accord, cupping the fullness, brushing with a calloused thumb where he thought the peak should lie hidden. It was satisfactory beyond reason to feel it harden instantly under the fabric, to see the small, tight outline poke against it.
She inhaled softly through parted lips. Her eyes turned sultry as they met his. It seemed she inclined toward him, leaning into his clasp.
Footsteps, light and quick, sounded in the corridor outside. Her lashes swept down and she stepped away from him. “Don’t.”
He allowed his hand to fall away. “It seems I must bow to your wishes once more,” he said quietly as David pushed open the door with an elbow to deliver two cans of water, hot from the kitchen cauldrons, into the chamber. “But it will not be so forever.”