Castles in the Air (18 page)

Anger and impatience rocked him. Hadn’t he done enough to win her trust? He said, “I’ve been patient with you. I’ve allowed you to keep your chaste bed. I’ve wooed you slowly. But it’s clear to me I’ve made a mistake. You mistake tolerance for weakness. My lady, it’s time to show you who will be the father of your sons.” He emphasized the plurality of the word, and pushed her palfrey forward. “Go to the keep now, and I’ll start your lessons.”

Her hand slapped down on her mount’s neck, and the horse sprang forward. She knew a shortcut, if only he didn’t follow too closely.

He didn’t. He sat watching her ride away.

Anger was a safe substitute for despair, and throughout the wild ride along the narrow path she shouted her rage to the elements. How dare he act as if her lands were his to dispense? How dare he threaten her with himself, raising the unwanted specter of Sir Joseph’s warning?

Abandoning her horse to the one stable hand, Juliana stormed away. She flung back the door to the keep, and it smacked the wall with a satisfying thud. Did Raymond think he could control her with his intimidation? She stomped on each stone leading to the great hall. She put her hand on the handle of the door, and it swung open with a force that pulled her with it. She stumbled in, not understanding until she
saw
him
towering above her. “You dare?” she cried. “You chased me here?”

Raymond gleamed with his triumph. “Nay, my lady, I led the way. Do you think that puny animal you ride could beat my horse?”

“Of course not. Anything you do is better than anything I do.” She slid out of her cloak and flung it in a great, bat-wing swish across the empty room. “Of course you ride better than I.”

“You little witch. You reproach me for the puny things I can do?”

“What can’t you do? You take over my castle, charming my servants and my villeins until they don’t remember who their lady is. You bring in a strange youth and make him a squire. Do you think I don’t know that Layamon comes to you for his orders?”

He reared back like a stallion affronted by a gentle mare. “Would you have me leave you to sink beneath the burden?”

“Why can’t you just sit around on your rump like the other men? Why can’t you leave the running of my lands to
me
?”

“It’s winter. Surely you don’t expect me to loaf until spring?”

“That’s just what I expect. Why must you poke your nose where it’s not wanted? Why don’t you behave like other men?”

Grabbing her shoulders, he lifted her to her toes, leaned down until they were nose to nose. “If I behaved like other men, my darling, you’d be letting out the waists of your dresses. You’d be thrashing beneath me, not moaning in your sleep when you dream of me.”

“You conceited ass. You think I dream of
you
?”

He smiled, but it was only a display of teeth. “Don’t you?”

“Nay, I—” With horror, she realized he’d trapped her, for she couldn’t tell him of what she did dream.

He brought her closer, crooning. “Don’t you? Don’t you dream of me?”

His breath, scented with apple and spice, fanned her face. His eyes, green jewels of light, teased her. All along her body, contact brought heat of his body, produced heat in her own. “Raymond.” Her lips moved without a sound, but he heard, for he lifted her with an arm at her shoulders and one under her knees.

Behind his head, she saw the beams of the ceiling whirl and rush aside, saw the casement as he entered the solar. He tossed her on the bed and feathers rushed up to envelop her. Struggling against the plush restraint, she heard him shut the new-hung door. Propped on her elbows, she watched as he discarded the surcoat and tunic. Opening his breeches, he paced toward her and she saw that the waiting was over.

Enclosed in the room, once so large, now shrinking, she never thought of denial. She never thought of her lands or her secrets or his transformation. She never thought at all. Instinct, blind and trusting, cocooned her against fear as he climbed on the bed, pushed her cotte to her waist, settled himself between her already open legs. His hands on her bare skin sent a thrill through her. She’d have him at last.

Without a hitch, he moved inside her. His groan shook the rafters. Her cry echoed without restraint. They’d waited so long, she ached. She moved against him, trying to ease the engorgement of her tissues; he kept her still with his hands on her hips.

Savage, fiery, he thrust against her. Furious, she
smacked his shoulder, wanting to respond with her own fire. He grunted beneath her attack, bent close against her neck, nuzzled her. She dug her heels into the mattress, lifted herself to him, and in a simultaneous burst, they climaxed.

Sinking down together, they panted like two of the king’s runners. He tried to lift himself off her; she pulled him back down.

“I’ll crush you,” he protested without vehemence.

“Nay.”

“Should we remove our clothes?”

“Aye.” She wasn’t quiescent as she should be. Her sensitive skin burned with an unquenched fire. Inside her, little trills of sensation rippled as her body tried to find more of the long-awaited sensations.

Still encased in her, he detected it; noticed the heat of her skin and the restless movement of her legs. For the first time in six tense days, he chuckled. “For a woman who doesn’t want me, you’re proving insatiable.”

“Shut up.”

The silk of her leg rubbed up the back of his, soothing him as she abused him. “I’m only a man,” he said, but by slow stages, her fever transferred itself to him. He pushed her hat off her head, sought the lacing of her gown with his fingers.

Watching him, her lashes shaded her eyes in unconscious coquetry.

“I’ll love you only until I’m exhausted,” he warned.

“That should prove satisfactory.”

The way she said it made him feel invincible, and he half groaned, half laughed. This promised to be a long night.

Pickaxes thumped in
an uneven rhythm, and the usual bustle in the bailey was absent. Raymond threw a genial arm around Keir as they watched the Twelfth Night revelers trail in, pale with the morning’s payment for last night’s sport. “Sad to watch, aren’t they?”

“Even the stoutest clutch their stomachs when they drink too deep,” Keir said. He looked at Raymond from toe to head. “You, however, do not seem to suffer from this complaint.”

Raymond puffed out his chest. “Married life agrees with me.”

“Lady Juliana complied with your desire for consummation?”

Remembering only the night filled with scarlet emotions and not the wild conflict preceding it, Raymond said in astonishment, “Aye, certainly she did.”

“I had surmised,” Keir said delicately, “that the Lady Juliana had reservations about the final act.”

Raymond felt too good to pay the observation any heed. “Perhaps at one time she did. But her objections were easily overcome.”

“Easily?” Keir repeated the word, tasted the word, then shook his head. “Then why, even though you shared her bed, have you been like a badger in love with a porcupine these last weeks?”

With a great burst of laughter, Raymond bellowed, “You jest.”

As solemn as Raymond was jolly, Keir said, “I never jest.”

“Juliana…” How to explain Juliana to Keir? She purred like a kitten when petted, never seeming to get enough of the caresses he lavished on her. Her astonishment at her own response expressed itself in little squeaks and moans, and once he’d distinctly heard the whisper, “To hell with Saint Wilfrid’s needle.”

He’d laughed at that, reminding her they were wed and she was indeed a chaste woman. Her grip had tightened on him then, and the words had faded away. Aye, he’d cured her ills with the application of wedded bliss, and he looked forward to the next treatment with unbridled eagerness.

Raymond couldn’t explain Juliana to Keir, he realized, and instead waved a dismissive hand. “Women are easily handled.”

“Easily,” Keir repeated, expressing his reservations with one raised eyebrow.

Raymond turned away from the gate and wandered toward the keep. “A woman’s needs are minor. Not like a
man’s
needs.”

Keir kept pace with him. “I would hesitate to agree with such an assessment. A woman’s problems tend to be of an emotional nature. Women wish to be loved by their mates and by their families, to be respected in the community. When a man has what he considers to be problems, they are usually of a physical nature.”

Impatient with such nonsense, Raymond demanded, “Such as?”

Keir looked him right in the eye. “Such as which corner to piss in.”

“You’re the porcupine, man. Are you trying to tell me something?”

“Only that I believe your scheme for the disposition of Bartonhale Castle has caused strife between you and Lady Juliana.”

“Nonsense!” Raymond clapped his hand on Keir’s shoulder. “Who better than you to take over the management of my second estate?”

“No one better,” Keir said with a fine irony.

“Juliana gladly gives up her responsibilities to me. If at first she seemed reluctant, ’twas because she didn’t know me.”

But actually, they’d settled nothing last night. Their mating had been cataclysmic, but he wasn’t fool enough to think he’d diddled her brains away. In the broad light of day, she would wish to lift each and every one of her burdens again, and she would balk as he relieved her of them. “The woman,” he said to himself, “doesn’t know what’s good for her.”

Keir shook Raymond. “Perhaps I should not have interrupted your orgy of self-congratulation, but I did wish you to realize the pitfalls of your new status. Still, you should never doubt you are good for Lady Juliana. She is like a wounded bird in your hand, sometimes frantic to escape, sometimes complying with your desire to help, and you should not yield to her entreaties to let her go. She cannot be healed except with your restraint.”

“You’re a deep one, my friend, but—”

The door of the keep slammed back and a frantic
cry interrupted Raymond. “Fire. Fire!” Fayette dragged Ella and Margery out by the arm, and screamed again, “Fire!”

Raymond broke into a run, Keir by his side. Catching the girls around their waists as they descended the ladder, Raymond asked, “What fire?”

“In th’ kitchen,” Fayette said.

“In the kitchen,” Raymond repeated.

Above him on the landing, Denys cried, “Is Margery hurt?”

“Get out of the way, lad,” Raymond commanded. “The girls are unharmed, but my Juliana—” He bounded up the steps.

Before he could enter the keep, Papiol dashed out shrieking, “Fire! We are all going to burn. Fire!”

Raymond shoved the quivering wreck of a castle builder aside and sprinted through the great hall and down the spiral staircase. Shrieks and shouted imprecations resonated against the stones, and he met two boys with buckets coming up. “Is it out?” he asked.

“Aye, m’lord. ’Tis out, but ’tis merry hell down there.”

Merry hell? What did the lad mean? As Raymond rounded the last corner, he stopped so abruptly Keir rammed into his back, knocking him down a few steps. Merry hell, indeed.

Every servant who should have been above was below, waving his arms against the smoke so that the massive room looked filled with crazed windmills. Every one of them was talking, giving his version of the incident or lamenting the cleanup. His parents stood on overturned kettles, craning their heads to watch the madness. Sir Joseph leaned against the stone in the corner, watching the mania and laughing
softly. Layamon strode back and forth, trying to herd the servants back up the stairs and succeeding only in moving them from side to side. The cook stood loudly weeping amid the soaked ruin of her kitchen, while Juliana, blackened with soot and wet from head to toe, stood patting the cook’s back and speaking into her ear.

Raymond’s gaze settled on the evidence of the greatest damage. Juliana’s skirt had been burned to her knee. Her hand was wrapped in a white cloth, and pain pressed a hard line between her brows. “The kitchen must be moved to the bailey,” he muttered.

“Raymond!”

His mother’s screech made him close one eye against the misery of the shrill note.

“Raymond, we were almost burned in our beds.” Isabel jumped off her kettle and flailed her way through the crowd.

Geoffroi joined them, pressing so close Raymond backed up a few steps to gain the advantage of height. “A terrible tragedy, narrowly averted by my own quick thinking.”

“Your father told everyone to come down and lie on the fire,” Isabel said gushingly. “And such a surge there was to obey.”

Layamon waved from across the room and shouted, “’Twas not so bad. Only a bit of an escape from the pit, if you follow my meaning.”

Geoffroi glared. “I told you softness to a woman would avail you nothing. A real man would—”

“Get out!” Raymond bellowed. The noise abruptly died, and he jumped off the steps onto the wet floor. His foot went out from under him; he regained his
balance and his fury seethed all the more. “Get out!”

His finger swept the room. “Unless you have a reason to be here, get out.”

The first rush of servants to the stairway was like the foam that tipped a wave. Behind the first rush came the force, pushing up and up, catching his protesting parents and dragging them in the midst of the swell. Sir Joseph was carried along, negotiating the currents with jabs of his ever-present stick. In an amazingly short time, the room stood empty, save Keir, Layamon, the cook, and Juliana. Raymond stood with his wet feet in the largest puddle and demanded, “What happened?”

Layamon squatted beside the rock-built fire pit in the middle of the floor. The oven for baking bread swelled out from one side. The other side, a wall with a single thickness of stone, had crumbled away. Layamon pushed the rubble with his finger. “Was the fire too hot, woman?”

The cook wailed, “Not more than any other time.”

Keir squatted beside Layamon. He, too, stirred the rubble, then the charred remains of the wood. The acrid odor of wet charcoal rose, and he grasped the end of a log and pulled it out. “A large log.”

“Sent down in a load an’ shoved in by me new kitchen boy. He don’t know much about fires, yet.” The woman mopped her face on her damp apron, leaving streaks of soot on the broad, fair face. “Still, I’ll always maintain it shouldn’t have popped th’ end out like that.”

“Before I allowed this kitchen to be used, we tested the strength of the fire pit and oven, again and again. I don’t understand how it could have crumbled,” Juliana said. She leaned against the oven with a weary wince that brought Raymond’s wrath bubbling up.

“Not often enough,” he roared. In two strides he reached her side and reached for her hand. She jerked it back, but he glared until she extended it. Gently, he unwrapped it. The back was only dirty, but the palm was reddened in random splotches, and a blister had formed. The cook hovered, craning her neck to see over his shoulder, and he directed, “Bring a clean bucket of water.”

As the woman hurried away, Raymond lifted the charred area of Juliana’s skirt. With her free hand, she slapped at him. “There’s nothing there but a few singed places. ’Twas my hand I set down in the embers.”

With awesome patience, he asked, “And why did you do that, my lady?”

“Because in the rush to put out the fire, someone pushed me down.” She sounded cross. “If that blasted boy hadn’t come into the great hall yelling about the fire, Cook would have had it extinguished with no problem.”

“Here ye are, m’lord.” With a thump, Cook placed the bucket beside his shoe. Straightening, she looked for a cloth to dry her hands. She settled for her own sleeves, muttering, “Fools don’t know how t’ aim fer th’ fire. But m’lady’s right, I would’ve had th’ fire out. M’lady insists we keep th’ full buckets on hand, an’ I could’ve done it.”

Raymond brought the bucket up and Juliana plunged her hand in. “It’s cold,” she said. Her shoulders relaxed. “It feels good.”

Glancing down at the men, Raymond asked, “What caused it?”

“Maybe…” Keir paused doubtfully. “Maybe fire stress to the stones.”

Layamon stood and shook out his knees. “Maybe.”

“We’ll move the kitchen out to the bailey at once.” Raymond indicated the oven with a wave of his hand. “If we start on the fire pit immediately—”

“Nay.” Juliana’s voice was flat.

Raymond froze, his arm uplifted. “What?”

“Nay. The kitchen stays where it is.” Juliana swept her loosened hair back from her face. “We’ll bring the master castle-builder in to look at this.”

“Ha!” Raymond said, remembering Papiol’s blanched face.

Juliana ignored him. “Maybe he’ll have some ideas why the wall failed, and how to fix it so it doesn’t fail again. Next time—”

“Next time?” Raymond rumbled.

“Next time we bring a new boy into the kitchen, we’ll drill him on what to do in case of fire, so he doesn’t run squawking up the stairs and rouse the entire castle.”

Juliana’s exasperation was obvious, but not nearly as deep as Raymond’s aggravation. “After this demonstration of the dangers of a fire in the undercroft, you would leave it here?”

“Nothing happened,” Juliana answered patiently. “When I designed the kitchen, I took good care to put the fire away from anything that would burn. If you’d look around, you’d see most of the damage was done by the panicked rampage of the idiots above stairs.”

He did look, and it was true.

Juliana continued persuasively, “The well is down here. As Cook says, I insist buckets of water be kept ready at all times.”

She lifted her hand from the bucket and examined it. With her other hand, she explored the injuries, and
Raymond was reminded of the night before. Of her soft hands exploring him. And he knew one of those soft hands would be aching for days to come. “We’ll move the kitchen outside,” he said.

She didn’t lift her head. “Nay, we won’t.”

“Aye, we will.”

“Do you think”—she exploded, her voice rising—“I would allow my children to stay in a place where there is any danger? Even I am not so stubborn.”

His voice rose, matched hers, exceeded hers. “And even I am not so shortsighted as to allow you to continue with this madness.”

“This is not your concern.” She stopped, gulped in breath, and regulated her tone. “I am trying to say this is a woman’s concern.”

He didn’t bother to regulate his tone. “You are my concern.” He was roaring again, and he didn’t care. “Everything that happens here is my concern.”

She shouted back. “Not in the kitchen.”

From the corners of his eyes, he saw the observers stepping back, but he didn’t care. This damned woman—
his
damned woman—was arguing with him. “Not in the kitchen? Where else? Not in the garden, not in the bailey, not in the great hall, not with your children, not with the defense? What is my concern?”

Juliana, too, seemed to realize she’d overstepped her boundaries, and she sounded subdued when she said, “Well, the kitchen’s not your concern.”

Cold reality prodded him; hot anger burned him. “Is the defense of your castles my concern?”

She squirmed under his considering gaze. “Aye. Well, aye, that’s a manly concern.”

“Then you will be pleased to know I’ve informed
my trusted knight Keir the castle at Bartonhale is his to maintain as our castellan.” He watched the red color ebb up her neck, up her cheeks, to her forehead. “I’ve also decided to give you permission to keep the kitchen in the undercroft.”

He turned away, letting his cloak swirl around him in a grand gesture, and stalked toward the stairs. A moment before it hit, he heard a swoosh, and then the water from her bucket plastered his back. He dodged none too soon, for the bucket itself followed, and like the cold north wind he swept back to her for retribution.

She didn’t cower. She held out her face for his slap, and he smashed his mouth on hers. With her mouth already open in a surprised gasp, it took no more than a second to remind her of the night’s passion. He locked their lips together, locked their bodies together, leaned her back against the rounded oven, and groaned when she wrapped her legs around his waist. When he lifted his head, he looked at the enraptured face that rested in the crook of his elbow. “Listen to me, and mark this well.” Her eyes flew open, and she watched him warily. “I do not hit women or any other simpletons. When you displease me, I will treat you thus, and leave you dissatisfied. Remember that, when next you rouse my anger.”