In Honor Bound (15 page)

For the next few hours, Philip never left Rosalynde's side, playing to perfection the role of the attentive bridegroom. She watched as he graciously accepted the congratulations and good wishes of the guests and tactfully passed over the drunken, ribald comments some of them made. When they raised a toast to her, he chivalrously kissed her hand and said something pretty about her beauty and his good fortune. He even filled her plate from the banquet table himself and poured her wine. All in all, he flawlessly kept the promise he had given. The king could have no complaint regarding his obedience now.

She, too, kept up the pretense, smiling and clinging to his arm. For almost five years she had dreamed of him, made him her passion's idol. Often she had prayed for this very night to come, the night when she could give herself to him, but now she realized she was in truth not so bold as in her imagination. This man she had been given to, this beautiful man with eyes of ice, was not her Philip at all. Whoever he was, though, he was her husband and she was his wife.

"Will you have more wine?"

Startled from her musings, she turned to him. "My lord?"

"Will you have more–" A flicker of concern touched his face. "There are tears in your eyes, my lady. I hope I have not put them there."

She dashed the telltale drops away. "I was just thinking how swiftly life changes."

"You miss Westered, no doubt," he said.

"It holds all my sweetest memories."

He nodded, looking as if he pitied her being stolen from her home and thrust into a life not of her own choosing, as if he was familiar with that pain.

"Westered is not so far that you need never see it again."

"That's so, my lord, but my duty is here now."

A hint of sympathy softened his expression. "And duty is rarely easy. Still, I had thought your Ankarette would have come to attend you here, if only to keep you company."

She managed a tiny smile. "I would she could have, my lord, but she died two months ago."

Again he looked as if he pitied her, as if this pain, too, was a familiar one. "I am sorry, my lady, I know she cared for you a long while."

"Since I was born. I never knew my mother."

"Nor I mine."

She looked at him puzzled. The queen had died little more than a year ago.

"I thought–" She dropped her eyes. "I am sorry, my lord."

The day halted tediously into night and finally the king announced that the bride and groom would retire. That set off a round of suggestive toasts and raucous laughter and Rosalynde looked at the floor, red faced, unable to meet Philip's eyes.

"Come, my lady," he said, putting his arm protectively around her, his stern disapproval dampening the guests' high spirits. He led her to where his father and hers stood talking.

"Good night, Your Majesty. My lord."

Philip bowed formally to each of them and Rosalynde curtseyed.

"Good night, Your Majesty," she said and Robert took her hand to kiss.

"Faith, son, she's a tempting wench," he said heartily, his voice unsteady with wine. "A man might envy you tonight."

"He might, Your Majesty," Philip replied, his expression unchanging.

"And, fair daughter, good night," Robert said, then he leaned even closer to her. "My son allows himself little pleasure, girl. I trust you will please him."

"I pray I shall," she said low, her blush deepening, then she turned quickly to her father. "Good night, Father."

She kissed him on the cheek and he held her close for a moment. Darting a glance at Philip, he murmured in her ear, “Is all well?”

"It will be all right."

Westered turned then to his son-in-law.

"Your Highness, I have entrusted to you the dearest thing I have, and I would have her kept safe. I'll not remind you of the vows you made this morning. I know you in all honor will keep them, but I know, too, that these are uncertain times."

He took off his ring, marked with the Westered lions, and pressed it into Philip's hand, holding it there, holding Philip's eyes with his intense gaze.

"If ever, as ever need may come, you find you want my aid, send me this, and I and my army will come to you."

He caught Rosalynde's hand and put it into Philip's, the ring between them and his own large hands around both of theirs.

"You were good to my girl before, son. Be so now."

Philip briefly bowed his head. "I will defend her with my life."

Westered kissed his daughter once more. "God bless you, sweetheart."

"Good night, Father," she said, just the slightest tremor in her voice. "I pray He will bless us all."

Philip escorted her to the bridal chamber and left her in the care of her ladies in waiting, the same ones who had waited upon her sister, Margaret, before her defection. They carefully removed her crumpled gown and the delicate undergarments beneath, then they unbound her hair. It fell in heavy coils down her back, and she shook her head, glad to be free of the painful pull of the clasps. As they combed the tresses into dark, shimmering waves, she studied herself in the mirror and wondered if her husband would be pleased to take possession of this untouched flesh that now belonged to him.

She got under the coverlet and considered again what it could have been that had taken the light from his eyes and the warmth from his heart. Whatever it was, she determined to love him so purely, so deeply, so fiercely that he could not choose but love her in return.

Her resolve evaporated when there was a knock at the door. The room flooded with light as a brace of courtiers entered, followed by her father and the Archbishop. Last of all was her new-made husband, flanked by his father and brother. Philip got gingerly into bed beside her and handed his dressing gown to Rafe Bonnechamp.

"Pity he did not remove it before he got into the bed," one noblewoman murmured to another, and Rosalynde colored as the other stifled a giggle.

She glanced at Philip to see if he, too, had overheard, but he was still sitting up, staring fixedly at the Archbishop, seemingly oblivious to anything but the blessing of their marriage bed. Rosalynde let the holy words slip by her until finally the ceremony was over and the courtiers left, taking the bright lights with them.

***

Philip sat still as he had been, looking straight ahead, knowing she was watching the flickering hearth light play over his skin, watching as it defined the muscles in his arms and shoulders, watching as if she wished she dared touch him. After a moment, he turned to her, his face carefully blank. She lay there with the coverlet pulled to her chin, only the barest hint of white shoulders visible beneath, her eyes holding an odd mixture of hope and fear and desire.

"I am sorry there was not time for us to become better acquainted before now, my lady."

"We are not wholly strangers." She laid her hand on his arm and the touch burned. "I remember you were very kind to me in Westered."

"That was a long time ago," he said unsteadily, letting his eyes travel slowly along the soft whiteness of her, hand to arm to shoulder to throat. He had not touched a woman, not since Katherine and not before.

"There has not been a day of the time since, my lord, that you have not been in my heart or my prayers."

He looked abruptly into her eyes. "Not a day?"

"No."

He focused on her full wine-colored lips as they formed the word and realized that his body was eager to keep the vow he had made, though his heart rebelled at it still.

"I want to be a good wife to you, my lord," she said, her voice trembling and the color rising to her cheeks. "I want to please you."

Her hand was still on his arm, softly stroking, drawing him closer. Nervously moistening his lips, he leaned over her and kissed her mouth. The sensation jolted through him like lightening, burning the air out of his lungs.

"Oh, my lord," she sighed.

Her breath was sweetly warm in his ear and for a moment he clung to her, hiding his face against her shoulder. Her soft words brought him back to the sweet, innocent fire of that first night with Katherine, left him longing to rekindle it, longing to feel something besides pain.

Let it be more than this,
he pled silently, for himself and for this gentle girl who had kept him so long in her prayers. It was meant to be more, he knew from his few nights with Katherine. He had no experience of passion without love.

"Philip," Rosalynde whispered, pressing her lips to his temple. He closed his eyes and kissed her again.

***

He lay with his back against the pillows, motionless. She rested yet against his heart, warm and content, her dark hair flowing over them both. He had been careful to be gentle, knowing from his brief time with Katherine that the hopeful innocence this girl had just given him was something fragile, something he should hold dear, something he should cherish. She was such a soft little thing–

It's not in you ever to deceive me.

Katherine's trusting words scourged him again, and he took his guilty arms from around Rosalynde's waist.

I would have died to know someone else might hold you and kiss you and love you like this.

Rosalynde leaned up to nuzzle his ear, and he had to fight the urge to shove her away.

I should have died, Kate, before I let it come to this. Forgive me. Forgive me.

You would never play me false?

Kate, by my honor–

She'll never have my heart, Kate,
he swore silently.
Never. I'll not be false in that.

Rosalynde looked with adoration into his eyes, then she drew back, bewildered. He knew any tenderness, any passion she had seen in him a few moments ago was gone. She could not possibly know that the disgust she saw on his face now was directed not at her but at himself.

She burst into tears and moved away from him to the edge of the bed, hiding under the coverlet again. He felt a twinge of guilt at those tears, but he shoved it to the back of his mind and reminded himself that he had never once spoken of love to her. She had no right to expect it.

Still, he considered the intimacy they had just shared.
A mixing of bodies, not hearts,
he told himself sternly. Perhaps it meant more to a woman. He refused to care. Making love to her satisfied his body as well as his oath. If she wanted more than that, she would just have to be disappointed.

With a quivering sob, her weeping stopped and she lay there beside him, wrapped in deepest humiliation. She had bared her heart and soul to him, offered him her innocence like a shower of precious jewels, and he had taken it from her with no more thought than when he took his falcon's hard-won prey. He clenched his jaw.
Her choice, not mine.

She sobbed again, the sound cutting through the static silence, then augmented by the rustle of sheets as he turned towards her.

"My lady, have I hurt you?"

More than you know,
her brief glance told him, turning his twinge of guilt into a steady ache that was a little harder to push aside.

"No," she said thickly, but she could not hold back a few more tears. Her gentle lover was gone and all that was left to her was a cold-eyed, cold-hearted stranger. Little wonder she wept.