The Rose of Blacksword (37 page)

“Believe what you wish. But you cannot honestly think that a maiden of noble lineage would consent to marry so far beneath her.” She raised her chin a notch, trying hard not to dissolve under his dark, piercing stare. Then she remembered Cleve’s words to her and her tone grew more challenging. “ ’Tis not unheard of for a noblewoman to take a lesser man to her bed. But you delude yourself if you think that signifies anything.” Then she held her breath, fearful of how he would respond.

There was an unnerving silence between them. In the close quarters of the small room, the air was fraught with tension. When he moved slowly toward her, Rosalynde tensed. Inside she was dying. The words had hurt him, she knew, and in so doing, they had pierced her to her very heart.

A part of her cried that it was too cruel to reject him so, when the truth was, she loved him desperately. Yet her logical self knew it was the only way. Her love for him would be his undoing; it would very likely cost him his life. His only chance was for her to deny her feelings for him. Send him away, she heard Cleve’s words once more. Reject him and send him away.

When he was only a foot from her he stopped. His hard gaze pinned her before him; one of his fingers traced the line of her jaw. “Am I to take it that you’ve found some other man—some lesser man—to take my place? Is it this fellow you wish to have lie with you and bring your body to such shuddering pleasure?”

“No!” Rosalynde jumped at the staggering effect his light touch had on her.

“Then, if not another like myself, who?” he asked coldly.

Rosalynde searched her mind for the right words, for the right spot to hurt him enough so that he would go. When the idea came in an angry flash, she did not hesitate nor think of the immediate consequences. “Mayhap you noticed our visitors today. One of them comes as my suitor. Since my father has allowed me my choice among those he has solicited, it remains only for me to make up my mind.”

She knew at once that she had captured his attention, for his jaw clenched and his eyes grew as dark as midnight. But his voice was calm when he spoke, the menacing tone hardly discernible at all. “And have you made up your mind, my thorny little Rose?”

She took a harsh breath. “Yes,” she said, daring him to say she lied. “Yes, I have decided. Under the circumstances I thought you should know. I-I will get you a horse … and gold, of course. You will not wish to stay here.”

His smile was chilling. The icy winds of winter from across the northern seas could never be so cold. In sudden fear of him Rosalynde tried to slip past, but his rigid forearm easily blocked her way. On the other side of her also, his arm came out, trapping her quite effectively before him.

“You cannot truly think this changes anything. No matter your wishes, you are still my wife. The vow was for a year and a day.”

“I will not stand by that vow!” she cried in unreasoning anger. “I will not! And if you try to force me, my father will be rid of you on the instant!”

“What?” he mocked. “You still threaten me with your father when no doubt your suitor is a more likely match should your honor require defending? Have you no faith
in his constancy, then? Or is it you doubt he could carry the day against me?” he added caustically.

“He bested you once! He could do it again!”

At that unexpected revelation he went very still. “He bested me?” His dark eyes bore into hers with a fiery insistence. “Pray tell, who is this paragon among men?”

Rosalynde hesitated. What had appeared such a good idea before now seemed exceedingly dangerous. Aric looked more likely to avenge himself against the man than to be cowed by his presence at Stanwood. Had she only complicated things further with her reckless words? In vain she sought some other tact, but it was much too late.

Aric’s hand shot to her chin, forcing her to face his blazing eyes. “Who is he?”

With no other recourse open to her, Rosalynde blurted out his name. “Sir Gilbert of Duxton!” Then she waited for the storm to strike.

But it was not thunder and lightning that she received from Aric. Far from it. To her complete confusion, the narrowed look he gave her was more perplexed than vengeful. And somewhat disbelieving.

“Sir Gilbert of Duxton?” he repeated. “He boasts that he bested me?”

Rosalynde was several seconds in gathering her scattered wits. As it was, she was still mightily bewildered by his reaction. “He … he didn’t say you by name. And I did not reveal your presence here. But he
is
the one who had you captured and thrown in the gaol at Dunmow. If he knows you yet live …” She let the rest trail away, undone by the grim possibilities of Sir Gilbert’s reaction. She could not be sure her father would come to Aric’s defense, even though he clearly had begun to value the man as a soldier. Sir Edward would not wish to anger Sir Gilbert.

But while Rosalynde’s thoughts tumbled in confused apprehension, Aric’s were hardly so disjointed. In the space of a few seconds everything became suddenly clear to him: his unexplainable capture at Dunmow; his conviction as an outlaw. It had been Sir Gilbert of Duxton! Here was his answer, come to him when it was the last thing on his mind. Sir Gilbert of Duxton had crossed lances with him at that last tourney in London. Although Aric did not know him personally, he knew his reputation. He was well known for his skill with both lance and sword. And equally well known for his debauched habits. Money, wine, and the favors of many noblewomen, not to say even more wenches of lower birth—these were the total of Sir Gilbert’s way of life. But when the man had been unseated by the newcomer, Sir Aric of Wycliffe, he had become enraged. He’d not even been honorable enough to come forward with his loser’s portion, but instead had sent a lackey to deliver the coins. But now it was clear his rage had run far deeper than that mere slight. Aric had suspected that the very outlaws who had for so long been the scourge of the countryside had set him up to be hanged: He was the sacrifice they needed for their own safety. He’d thought it just his poor luck to have been on that particular road when he was surprised and overset by the villains. Now he saw that it had been no accident at all. And it had not been the outlaws either. Gilbert of Duxton must have waited for his chance at revenge, and now he no doubt considered himself well rid of the man who had humiliated him in the lists.

At that moment Aric’s lust for revenge outweighed his lust for the Lady Rosalynde. He stared down at her pale, frightened face, and his anger at Gilbert focused on her. Like Gilbert, she was shallow and vain, weighing her honor and her word of far less moment than her own sense
of self-importance. Were it not that he intended to slay Gilbert himself, he would say she was welcome to him, and well deserved also. But he
did
intend to kill Gilbert, and to his way of thinking, justice would be even sweeter, knowing he also would possess both the maiden and the demesne the man coveted. Oh, yes, he would have the fair Lady Rosalynde. Nothing had changed on that score whatsoever.

Slowly he pressed nearer her, flattening her body against the wall, effectively trapping her in an embrace that was at once both erotic and demeaning to her.

“Your Sir Gilbert means less than nothing to me. And I warn you, my thorny bride, you and he shall both suffer greatly should he lay a claim to what is already mine.”

At her gasp of surprise and her helpless struggle to escape, he let loose a dark laugh. Then he shoved himself away from her. When she hied away in panic-driven flight, he did not try to follow. It didn’t matter. Whether she revealed her tale of woe to her father or her suitor, it didn’t matter. What was to come would come. It was inevitable.

20

She had to escape.

That solitary thought pounded in Rosalynde’s mind as she fled the stillroom and her disastrous confrontation with Aric. She must get away from him before she was ripped asunder by the conflicting emotions that tore at her. It should not matter that he courted disaster with her father; it should matter even less that he might now be discovered by Sir Gilbert. Yet no amount of logic would banish that fact that it
did
matter. If he was hurt she did not think she could bear it. And if he was killed …

She came to an abrupt halt at the stables and placed a hand to the painful stitch in her side. If he was killed, something inside her would die as well. It didn’t matter how he provoked her or how angry she became. In the final analysis, she could not bear to see him hurt. But she was perversely unable to prevent it either. He seemed almost to seek a confrontation with that man, Sir Gilbert. She’d thought to frighten him away with the man’s very name. Instead, it had worked more as a challenge to him, a gauntlet tossed before him that he took up with a vengeance.

Rosalynde slumped against the stable wall and closed her eyes hopelessly. It didn’t make sense. None of it did. Not Blacksword’s role as a common outlaw. Not his insistence
that she honor the handfasting. And certainly not his unexpected reaction to Sir Gilbert’s presence here.

With every move she made, everything became even more confusing until now it was beyond all hope of putting right. Before she’d only had Blacksword and her father to juggle against one another. Now with Sir Gilbert’s threat, as well as Cleve’s, she knew she was losing control. It was only a matter of time before it all came apart around her.

At that precise moment, Cleve rounded the corner, coming face to face with her, and Rosalynde felt as if her very thoughts had come to life. He stopped short at the sight of her pale face and defeated posture. Then his expression grew anxious and he moved nearer.

“Milady? Is aught amiss?”

She gave him an ironic smile, faint as it was. “Everything is amiss. Surely you cannot wonder at that.” But as his young face reflected his warring emotions—both guilt for his part in her misery and satisfaction that she had taken his threat seriously—she felt a pang of regret for her angry remark. None of this was truly of his doing, she admitted to herself. He’d reacted only as should be expected. She knew he had always been concerned with her safety.

“Forgive me, Cleve.” She sighed then turned her eyes away from him. “That was most unkind of me. It’s only that …” She faltered, then turned a haunted face back to him. “He will not go. Indeed, it seems he is more determined than ever to stay.”

“Then he shall suffer the results of his foolishness,” the boy retorted in quick anger. But as swiftly as his anger flared, it faded, for he was not proof against the desperation on her face. With a muttered imprecation he looked away before sending her an impatient scowl. “No doubt he
cannot believe you. Not after all that has passed between you. But he will believe me.”

“You! You can’t mean to threaten him, Cleve, for he will not credit it at all.”

The boy’s brown eyes grew bright with the light of righteous anger. His vow echoed with the timbre of a man’s when he spoke. “He’ll not doubt my animosity. Nor my threat.”

Aric did not believe in omens. Yet the mist and the lingering drizzle worked to his advantage, and now the boy, Cleve, ventured out alone, almost as if he sought him. Mayhap he did, Aric decided as he watched the boy’s cautious approach. The pup had come up in the world, it appeared, with a fine wool tunic, new hose, and a long dagger in his girdle. Remembering the boy’s pluck, Aric grinned to himself. Even when he’d not had a chance, the boy had conquered his fear and attacked him anyway. Sir Edward was wise to give him a chance to become a knight. Indeed, Sir Edward seemed to have an eye for selecting good soldiers. After all, he’d picked him for a man-at-arms, with nothing to commend him beyond brute strength. But then, it was said that one good man of war could always recognize another. And Sir Edward was clearly a most adept man of war.

Aric’s eyes narrowed as the boy put his hand on the hilt of his dagger. Although he was certain the lad could not see him in the dark shadows, he nonetheless had hoped not to use a weapon on him. The element of surprise should be sufficient.

Cleve paused beside a stone wall and wiped the rain from his eyes. That was the instant when Aric made his move. Like an arrow loosed from a longbow, he sprang from the shadows, pinning the boy’s dagger hand to his
side with one long arm and gagging his mouth with the other.

There was a split second of shock on the boy’s part, when his muscles did not react to the sudden danger, but almost before Aric could tighten his grasp, the wiry little fellow began to struggle. Like a wild man he twisted and kicked, all the while trying frantically to reach his razoredged dagger.

“ ’Tis not my intent to harm you unless you force me to it,” Aric muttered harshly as he tightened his grasp even more. “Hear me out fairly and no harm shall come to you at all.”

There was a tense moment when the boy went very still, as if trying to decide the truth of those words. Then his head bobbed his assent and Aric immediately released him. “Smart boy.” But no sooner had Cleve’s feet touched the ground than he whirled around, his dagger in his hand as he crouched down, ready to attack.

“What’s this?” Aric’s eyes narrowed in anger. “Have you not yet learned that to be a knight you must always honor your word?”