Conquering William (18 page)

Behind her, William’s voice rose angry and demanding. Yelling her name but she couldn’t stop. She needed to get out of the hall. Away.

On the stairs, her skirts tangled with her legs and she came down hard on the edge of the sharp risers. Air sawed in and out of her lungs as she used the wall to right herself. Beneath her fingers, hard stone pressed into the pads. Alice dug her fingers in, trying to grasp at something solid and still her mind. Darkness hovered on the edges of her vision, driving her limp legs to keep climbing.

She stopped at the top and pressed her back to the wall. From below came the ordinary rise and fall of voices. The oppressive weight on her chest lifted enough that her breathing eased. Sticky sweat trickled down her sides. From this small distance she could battle her thoughts into order again. Force back the clinging fear enough for her mind to work. Dear God, what ailed her? One glance at Mathew and she lost all reason.

Sister called him the Abomination, but Alice recoiled from the idea. “He is just a boy. A small boy.”

Pushing away from the wall, Alice stumbled into her chamber and shut the door behind her.

William’s presence lay heavy on her refuge. A discarded tunic hung on the clothes tree beside her chemise. His chest of gifts skulked by the base of the bed. Gifts from a pleased groom to his bride. Cloves scented the fire-warmed air.

Heavy footfalls approached the door and Alice moved away just as William threw the door open.

He towered in the doorway, raw anger etched into the carved lines of his face. “You dare.”

Alice backed away.

William advanced as she had seen him against Dunstan, feral in his anger.

Her legs nudged the back of the bed, halting her retreat.

William loomed above her, body tight with anger, fists clenched by his side. Peril lurked in each well-modulated, evenly delivered word. “You dare to treat my family in this manner.”

“I…” She had not the words to explain her behavior to herself, let alone the very angry man before me. “I was frightened.”

“Frightened?” His boots nudged her slippers.

Alice nodded. Terrified came closer to the truth.

“Of whom? Ivy?” William tilted his head and glared down his perfect nose at her. “Were you afraid she would taint your sanctified presence?”

“Nay, I have naught to fear from a whore.” The moment she said them, Alice wanted to stuff the words back down her throat. She did not mean them in that way, but her roiling thoughts had her all turned about.

William grabbed her shoulders.

Alice slid out from beneath his grasp and clambered onto the bed, aiming to put the large furnishing between her and her husband.

He caught her ankle and dragged her back to him. Her skirts rucked about her thighs. “If I ever hear you refer to Ivy in that manner again, I will have that poisonous nun locked away in a nunnery for the rest of her days. Give me one more reason and you will keep her company.”

“Nay.” Alice pushed her skirts down. William and his sweet ways had lulled her into believing he would not behave as her other husbands had, but in his anger he became like John. “You would send me away over another woman?”

“Ivy is one of the wisest and most beautiful women I know,” he said, twisting the knife through her heart. “You will learn, Alice, that a woman is not defined by what is between her thighs.”

What he didn’t say, that he found Ivy wiser and more beautiful than her, clamored in his silence. She had behaved badly in the hall, made a fool of herself and insulted her new family. As even greater proof of her deplorable lack of wits, anger rose in swift defense. “Is a woman then defined by who is between her thighs?”

“Only when that man is her lord and husband.” His grip on her ankle tightened. “The moment you said ‘I will,’ I became lord of Tarnwych, and you would do well to remember that.”

“And that gives you the right to do as you please, fill it with all sorts of people of whom I do not approve?”

“I can fill it with whores, gutter rats, thieves, murderers, and rapists if I choose.” William pushed his face closer until their noses touched. “I can do what I like, because I am lord here. Dunstan learned that lesson at the ultimate cost. I suggest you learn faster than he did.”

Air rushed out of her lungs. “You threaten me?”

“I am telling you, my lady. Behave yourself, or you will not enjoy the consequences.”

He dropped her ankle and spun about. The slam of the door reverberated through the chamber.

Alice collapsed onto her back on the bed. “I am already not enjoying them.”

* * * *

William stormed down the stairs and through the hall.

Beatrice and Ivy clustered about the children whispering to each other.

He could well imagine what they said. Alice had shamed him in front of them, but that did not bother him as much as her reaction to Mathew. Aye, he had seen what drove his wife upstairs, and it had naught to do with Ivy.

Since the day of his birth, they had gathered about their youngest brother and protected him from the cruel tongues and derisive faces that followed the lad. Slower than other children, and at times only Ivy and Mother could manage Mathew, but when his world stayed ordered about him, no sweeter or more loving child could you find. Several people had tried to persuade their family to put Mathew away with the holy fathers or keep him on his own with a caretaker. Mother and Father had refused, and so they raised him with the rest of the Anglesea children.

The horror on Alice’s face as she stared at Mathew was seared into William’s mind. That his own wife could be one of the small-minded accursed fools who looked at Mathew and recoiled he could not tolerate. A woman he had lain with, one with whom he shared his life. He could not, would not, accept it.

He needed to hit something, hard, or he could not be accountable for his actions. His boot heels dug into the damp soil of the bailey as he strode toward the practice yards. There he would find an outlet for the fury gripping him by the balls.

Men stepped back, eyeing him warily as he entered the yards.

“You.” He snatched a practice stave from a barrel beside the barracks. “Fight me.”

“My lord?” The oldest Domnall dropped his stave tip to the soil and glanced at his fellows.

“Fight me.” William closed on Domnall. He attacked. Stave met stave with a solid crack that sent shock waves up William’s arm.

Stave still embedded in the soil, Domnall blinked at him.

“Fight someone more your weight,” Gregory said.

William met Gregory’s gaze over their crossed staves. Aye, Gregory would do.

Whispers broke out around them as William circled left.

Gregory twirled his stave. His dark gaze searched for the opening, his weight balanced on the balls of his feet.

William struck Gregory’s stave hard enough to jar his hand. Pain numbed the anger to a low simmer.

Gregory danced, impossibly light on his feet for such a big man, and forced William to climb out of his thoughts and counter the rapid fire blows coming at him. Gregory fought at full strength, giving no quarter, not holding his blows back, and pressing William hard to counter.

Gregory fought with the ferocity of Northmen.

Sweat dripped from his face as Gregory locked him in the bind before shoving him back. William caught his balance and circled.

He closed again.

Gregory met him.

Their blows tapped and cracked across the bailey faster than a bard could clap.

William fought until his lungs burned and his muscles trembled with exertion, until the angry burn sputtered and died. His only satisfaction lay in Gregory’s sides heaving like bellows and sweat plastering his tunic to his chest. “Enough.”

One of the men brought them both water as they stood, swaying with exhaustion in the practice yards. From the ramparts, the watch called the hour well advanced, and the keep casements had gone dark. They had fought well into the night.

His men had remained to watch, and now murmured amongst themselves.

Aches and pains from Gregory’s well-aimed blows set a low throb from several points on his ribs and thighs. Legs turned to pudding beneath him, William pressed his back into the barrack wall and slid to the ground.

Gregory joined him with a groan. “You have improved.”

William grunted. He suspected Gregory had landed more blows than he had taken. His ribs certainly concurred. “You are still the best I have ever seen.”

“But not good enough when it counted.” Gregory shook his head.

“Calder played a dirty trick.” William raised his aching arm and punched Gregory on the shoulder. It did not surprise him Gregory still carried the burden from his duel with Faye’s late husband. Gregory had killed the man, but not before Calder’s lackey had nearly gutted Gregory with a hidden knife blow. “My sister was well when you left?”

A rare smile crossed Gregory’s face. “She is very close to her time now. I would like to return before she delivers our child. She did not fare well in the beginning. She was often ill. I thank God for it now because it kept her away from Anglesea.”

“This is a worrisome business about Anglesea,” William said. His mother, father, brother, so many people he loved and knew. Perhaps his worry for them had fueled his anger toward Alice.

“It is in God’s hands.”

William pressed down the now familiar surge of irritation. “I have heard rather too much of God and His will since coming to Tarnwych. Between that blasted nun and Alice, it is all I ever hear.”

“How fares Lady Alice?” Gregory upended the water gourd over his head.

“I threatened her.” Shame snuck around his righteous anger and pricked at him. His father had raised him better than to thunder and rail at a woman, no matter how justified.

Gregory stared at him. “That is not like you.”

“Nay.” William had never lost his temper so spectacularly with a woman before. He had behaved badly, but Alice’s reaction to Mathew had pushed him beyond reason. “Mathew is precious to all of us.”

“I suspect there is more to this than first appears,” Gregory said.

Always the watcher, Gregory kept his lips fastened and his eyes wide open. “What do you mean?”

“Her reaction.” Gregory frowned and rested his head against the wall. “She was terrified. Beyond reason terrified.”

“Of Mathew?” His ire gave a tired stir. “Who, in God’s name, is terrified of Mathew? Unless they regard him as evil.”

“Nay.” Gregory shrugged. “It was not that sort of fear. It was something…else. I know not, but a wise man would find out.”

William gave a rueful laugh. He did not judge himself a very wise man at this moment.

Skulking into her own hall to break her fast the next morning sat ill with Alice. Where William had spent the night, she knew not, but he had not spent it with her. She had lain awake and kept the fire fed until well past when the watch called midnight. As she lay she tortured herself with every flirtatious glance tossed William’s way, every coy giggle that had greeted him since his arrival at Tarnwych.

Lively noise rose from about her as she threaded her way through the tables. As if they knew of her chastisement, Tarnwych folk cast her sympathetic stares as she passed. Despite that, William’s presence at Tarnwych had changed the hall. Not just the inclusion of the men adding a low bass murmur, but the general air of conviviality amongst those gathered for a meal. Someone who had grown up in such a hall must find it commonplace, but it lifted her spirits a bit.

Domnall rose from where he sat amidst his brothers. “Lady Alice.”

“Good morrow, Domnall.”

He thumped his chest. “We wanted you to know, the lads and I”—he swept his brothers with one large hand—“we stand beside you.”

Aonghas’s sons all nodded to her. What must they have heard of her altercation with William? She could not very well drive the keep against itself, but their support bolstered her spirits. And she needed it, because the Anglesea clan arrayed in strength this morning.

William sat at table, with Beatrice to his left and Ivy beyond her. William leaned forward to speak to Ivy. Ivy colored and laughed.

William appeared very fond of Ivy. What man would not esteem Ivy with her dark hair, pale skin, and eyes the most arresting shade of green, nestled between thick, dark lashes? Only a stupid woman believed her husband did not notice lovelier women about him.

Fa, la, la, la, la.

Beatrice’s boys sat beside Gregory on William’s right side, with a gap left in the middle for her. No Mathew. All four males rose as they caught sight of her. Clearly, his anger did not upset his manners because William assisted her as she took her place.

Alice’s stomach clenched in rejection of the bowl of stewed fruit placed before her.

Stiff as wood, William sat beside her, his head turned to speak with his sister and Ivy.

“The weather looks dismal this morning,” Gregory said.

Sure enough, broody pewter clouds disgorged a steady trickle from beyond the hall casement. Wind played willy-nilly with the heather plants and flattened the scrubby, brown grass to the soggy soil. Other than a miserable day, it meant the majority of people would be confined to the keep today.

Alice handed her untouched bowl to the serving woman. With winter fast approaching, one dreary day could stretch into a sennight or even more. An entire sennight trapped inside with her angry in-laws.

“It is fairly typical for this time of year,” Alice said.

Gregory pushed a cheese board closer to her. He cut her a slice and placed it on a hunk of bread before handing it to her. “I should leave soon. I want to reach Calder Castle before the worst of it arrives.”

Alice shook her head.

Gregory kept the bread and cheese out held.

“Your wife is there?” Alice took his offering and nibbled on it.

“Aye, and our two boys. Faye is due to deliver her child any day now.” Love for his family filled Gregory’s voice.

What young girl hadn’t dreamed of finding a strong, handsome knight to dote on her? Alice put her meal down. Such silly dreams young girls had, and three marriages should have rid her of them by now.