At that moment, she heard her husband’s voice from the doorway. She spun around, ready to tear him to shreds with her tongue.
But the furious expression on his face, and what he said, made her tirade die aborning. “Hyla!” He strode toward the serf. “Get you from my chambers, and do not come back!”
The serving woman started toward him, dropping the cover so that he could see the voluptuous fruits she offered. “My lord...”
He simply picked the curtain up and threw it at her, the ice in his eyes freezing her where she stood. Raynor indicated Elizabeth with a sweep of his hand. “This lady is my wife, and the baroness of Warwicke. Do you ever again speak to her as you just did, I will have you whipped.”
She shrank away from him with a gasp of denial. “Nay.” Sniveling as if she had been struck, Hyla ran from the room.
Elizabeth was beyond speech. One moment she had been ready to berate her husband for not showing her the respect of keeping his leman from her own home, the next she was overcome to hear him speak of her with such deference.
Raynor rounded on Elizabeth, his anger a dull flame in his eyes. And in spite of the way he had just defended his wife, he seemed little pleased to see her. “To what do I owe this honor, wife?”
She pulled herself together, standing tall as she remembered that Raynor had actually been upholding her position as his baroness. Not Elizabeth herself. It was his fault that there was any need to do so. If he hadn’t made his unhappiness with the marriage known, there would be no need. “I but came to speak with you, and inadvertently found your doxy in your bed,” she answered resentfully. “Is there some reason I should not come to your rooms if I desire? I have more right to be here than that woman. You set me up to ridicule by sending her here.”
He spoke slowly and carefully. “I did not send for her, nor any other. I have not in the time you have been at Warwicke.” He finished quietly, “Though I know not why.”
The last part was lost to insignificance as Elizabeth heard the truth in his statement. Raynor would not lie to her about this. He would not demean himself to do so.
Unaccountably she felt a strange flush of happiness. He had bedded no other. That was something, was it not? Though honesty told her the situation would not go on indefinitely.
At least he would not be rutting with Hyla. After what Raynor had said to her, she would not have the courage to place herself in his bed again. But Elizabeth knew the woman who replaced her would be no more acceptable in her eyes.
Thinking to have it out in the open at last, Elizabeth moved closer to him, her gaze catching his in the light of the fire. “Raynor, did you know that they all think I will not have you in my bed?” Her voice was low and uncertain. “What would the castlefolk say if they knew that it is you who will not have me?”
“Elizabeth...” he began, as if to stop her from going on.
But she was not to be halted. “Why do you keep yourself from me? I am your wife, Raynor. We are wed in the eyes of God and man. If you desire a woman, why can it not be me?”
She was so close she could feel the heat of him, and it was hotter and more radiant than the fire at her back. How she wanted this man, wanted his lips on hers, his arms around her.
He stood looking down at her, his expression strained as if he fought some inner battle, his hands clenched at his sides.
Their long-suppressed desire was a real entity between them, called to pulsing life just by Elizabeth’s speaking the words. Her bated breath came from between parted lips. Her lids felt heavy as she looked into the darkening pools of his eyes.
Then it seemed he no longer had the will to resist her, or himself. Raynor reached out. Slowly, but without hesitation, he pulled her close. It was as if the inevitable had been accepted, then welcomed as his lips found hers.
She opened to him immediately, more ready for this moment than she had been for any in her life. Their previous encounters had done nothing but fuel this flickering desire that made her pulse race and her senses whirl. As he drew her tongue into his mouth, she groaned, a sweet ache pooling in her lower stomach.
With eager fingers, she pulled at the bottom of Raynor’s tunic, wanting to feel his naked skin.
Hooking his hand over hers, Raynor stepped back and drew the garment over his head. He was bare beneath it, and Elizabeth’s eager fingers moved to touch the smooth flesh of his chest. He sucked in a quick breath of pleasure, his lids coming down to mask the passion in his eyes. But Elizabeth had seen how he reacted to her touch, and she gloried in it.
Then he pulled her into his arms again, molding her to the hard contours of his masculine body. In complete abandon, Elizabeth threw her head back, allowing him full access as he pressed hot kisses to the column of her throat.
Trusting Raynor with some instinctive part of her mind, Elizabeth leaned into him. She trailed her hands over the hard lines of his back and shoulders. God, but he was a wonder, so much a man and so very beautiful to her.
How she had longed for this time, for the simple right to touch her husband, whom she desired beyond reason.
Through the haze of her passion, Elizabeth became aware of a sound behind her. Distantly she realized someone had come into the room.
Surely Raynor would send them away, make them realize they must not come into his chamber when he was here with his wife. But he simply stiffened under her hands, his supple muscles ridging with tension.
Elizabeth took a deep, ragged breath and pulled away from him. When she looked at his face, there was no emotion there. Turning to find out who had come in, Elizabeth saw Raynor’s squire, Arthur.
Arthur stood there, seemingly struck dumb by what he was seeing. Raynor’s sword hung forgotten in his arms. The boy seemed to come to his senses. “My pardon, Lord Warwicke. I did not know. I simply brought your sword....” Awkwardly he held the weapon up as proof. “I will go—”
“Nay, Arthur, stay,” Raynor said at last, his voice devoid of emotion. “Lady Elizabeth was just leaving.”
The words hit her with the force of blows. Even after what had just happened between them, she was being summarily dismissed. Once again he had shown how easily he could set her aside. As if she were nothing. Turning to look at her husband, her eyes on fire with anger and disillusion, Elizabeth raised her head high. Not for anything would she have let him see how much this rejection had hurt her.
“Aye,” she said, “I was just leaving. My thanks to you, lord husband, for a lesson well learned.”
As she left, Elizabeth remembered why she had gone to his room in the beginning.
They had not talked, as she had hoped.
Her hopes for a pax between them seemed foolish now, in the face of Raynor’s latest rejection of her.
Chapter Nine
O
nce again, Raynor found his gaze wandering about the hall, his attention drifting from the case before him.
His fingers clenched around the arms of his high-backed chair. Where Elizabeth was concerned, it was as if he had no power over his own thoughts and emotions.
The previous day’s events, the happy time they’d spent together with Willow, then the fierce eruption of passion between them in his room, had left them even more confused than before. He shook his head. Only Arthur’s interruption had kept him from taking her then and there.
These events, and his growing attraction for his wife, his increasing desire to see her gentleness, honesty and forthright nature as genuine, made Raynor hope. And those feelings of hope were more terrifying to him than facing the fiercest foe in battle. For if he came to care for her, if he allowed himself to love her, it would be irrevocably.
The pull of her was that powerful and all-encompassing, and Raynor dreaded losing himself in anyone else to that extent. So much so that he felt compelled to do everything in his will to prevent it.
But was he not wrong for doing so? Was he a fool, as Bronic and Jean had told him? Was he tossing away a chance at happiness by continuing to reject Elizabeth?
Raynor knew he’d hurt her last eve, but he hadn’t been able to stop himself. No matter how wrongly, he had simply reacted out of a need to keep her from seeing how much she affected him. In all honesty, he was sorry, but he did not know how to make amends. For he was not ready to commit himself to trusting Elizabeth. It was easy enough for Bronic to say she was simply independent. He did not have to live with knowing that his wife could turn that streak of willfulness against him at any moment.
He came back to reality when he realized he could no longer hear the villager talking.
God’s blood, he thought. Today was his day for hearing his villeins' troubles, and he was attending nothing.
“Well, my lord?” the stocky farmer asked, his blue eyes puzzled. “Am I to be allowed to graze my sheep on the common with the others?” He nervously wiped a shock of sun-streaked hair from his forehead.
Raynor held up his hand. He knew this was no petty problem for the man. Even among the lower classes, there was a hierarchy, and those from the more influential families managed to dole out the best grazing lands among themselves. “Aye,” Raynor nodded. “I will speak to John Marshal. If the warden has no objection of merit, you may.”
With a smile of elation, the man bowed. “You have my thanks, my lord Warwicke.” He turned then and left the hall.
Raynor looked to his bailif, a slightly rounded, neatly dressed man of no more than forty. The man spoke with a respectful nod to his master. “That is all for today.”
The baron of Warwicke barely restrained a sigh as he rose and made his way from the room. He had no doubt that half the folk who had attended today’s judgments would be returning in the next month. He had heard little of what had been said, and thus could not have made the kind of definitive decisions he usually did.
As the manorial court was sought only when the village courts had not proved successful, Raynor understood that his judgments were of great import to his people. He took their trust seriously, and usually gave them his full attention, no matter how insignificant some of the disputes seemed.
He had not done so this day.
* * *
The kitchen was hot, and Elizabeth wiped her brow with the back of her hand as she looked about her.
Several other women were working—peeling, mixing and kneading—about the rough-hewn tables. The fire in the hearth gave off a great deal of heat, but the large stone oven had to be hot for baking. A cauldron of stew hung over the flames, suspended on a chain that could be raised and lowered to regulate the heat. Along the walls hung various pots and cooking utensils. And despite the closeness of the chamber, there was an ordered air to the bustling activity.
Elizabeth had been here for the past hour, after being asked to portion out the spices for the day’s baking. The scents of cinnamon, cloves and ginger wafted around her, and she breathed deeply. Ever since she was a child, she had loved to help with the baking of sweets.
Her slight frame gave lie to the sweet tooth that had made her the brunt of good-hearted teasing from her family.
With childlike enthusiasm, the lady of Warwicke sucked a bit of mince from her finger.
Eva, the cook, a slightly pudgy woman of eternal optimism, laughed, pointing a flour-covered finger. “Lady Elizabeth, never have I seen the like.” She waved a hand to indicate her ample girth. “You’d best watch, or you'll be looking like me ere long.”
Elizabeth smiled. “I have no fear, for I was thin as a child, and have worked mightily to fill myself out.”
Another woman spoke up, rolling her eyes to emphasize her point. “I've not heard any complaints from her husband. In fact, Arthur had a pretty tale to tell this very morning.”
A deep flush stained Elizabeth’s cheeks. Obviously the squire had not kept last eve’s events to himself. The castlefolk knew of the strain between her and her husband, and took Arthur’s tale as a sign that all would be well between master and mistress.
She wished they would not discuss her relationship with Raynor so openly. But she knew the castlefolk had a slightly bawdy view of life, and meant no ill. That they teased her was only a sign of their affection.
Elizabeth also knew that the women would never treat her so familiarly in the hall. But here in the kitchen, she had entered Eva’s domain. She accepted this with good grace.
Only one in the room seemed less than affectionate in her attitude toward the lady of Warwicke. Elizabeth was aware of Hyla, sitting beside the fire, peeling pears. She had not seen the woman since last night, when she had thrown her from her husband’s bed. There was no amusement on Hyla’s face as she listened to the women talking. She wore a stiff mask of anger, and jabbed her knife into a pear with barely suppressed resentment.
If the truth weren’t so painful, Elizabeth might have laughed. Hyla need have no fear that Raynor had rejected her out of any feelings for his wife. Obviously the squire had not thought to mention that Raynor had sent Elizabeth from him at the first opportunity.
When she felt a hand brush against her skirts, Elizabeth looked down to see Willow.
“Good morrow, dearest.” Elizabeth smiled, glad to see the little girl, but equally glad to change the subject.