Margaret Moore - [Warrior 13] Page 7

  He let go of her and she stumbled back. He chuckled, the sound low and without mirth. “By God, Henry may have helped us more than he knows.”

  With that, he strode to the door, then slammed it shut behind him.

  Anne slumped onto the bed. To think that marriage to Sir Reece had seemed a chance for a sort of liberty when the king had first proposed it, or at least certainly a far better fate than the one Damon had laid out for her. But now it seemed a terrible prison that would rob her of her honor and possibly cost her the only loving relationship she had in her life.

  As for seducing her husband as Damon suggested…In one way, it was very tempting, but if Sir Reece discovered what she was doing, he would no doubt be furiously angry that she was attempting to foil his plan for an annulment. She knew enough of men’s ire to realize that was something to be avoided.

  God help her, what was she going to do?

  The door to her chamber burst open again with so much force, it banged against the wall. She started and looked up, expecting Damon with some new aspect to his hateful scheme.

  Instead Piers stood there, clad in chain mail that was too big because it had been Benedict’s, and with a fiercely indignant look on his young face. Although he was but fourteen, he was already taller than she. His face was still more boy than man, however, and his body was thin as a sapling. His coloring was dark like Damon and Benedict’s, and his glower made it seem darker still.

  “Is it true, what I heard after the melee?” he demanded, his deep voice the one thing besides his height that reminded her he was growing up. “You are to be married to Reece Fitzroy?”

  She had underestimated the speed of gossip. “Come inside and I will explain.”

  Her gaze scanning him for signs of blood or bruises, she saw no evidence that he had been hurt in any way as he marched into the chamber, and she breathed a little easier.

  She wondered how much to tell him, until he fixed his vivid blue eyes on her. He was still too young to understand how marriage and family relationships could be made a weapon. She would not burden him with schemes and plans and politics. Not yet.

  “I couldn’t find Trevelyan Fitzroy in the melee,” Piers began, “and when I said as much to the groom at the stable afterward, he told me Trevelyan had been summoned from the tournament on a family matter. Then I discovered you and my brothers had also been called to the king’s presence. I guessed why. It was about what happened with Sir Reece, wasn’t it?”

  She nodded.

  “I am your brother, too. Why wasn’t I summoned?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “Perhaps Damon thought it better for you to remain in the melee.”

  “Or he wanted to have me out of the way. They all treat me like a useless infant.”

  She couldn’t deny that, and they treated her no better. “The king has decided that the best way to deal with the animosity between our half brothers and Reece Fitzroy is for me to be married to him,” she explained.

  Piers ground his fist into his palm. “You can’t. Unless he…?” He blushed from his neck to the roots of his hair.

  “No, he did not.”

  “Thank God!” Piers’s expression hardened. “But this order to wed makes it sound as if he did.”

  “I know, and neither Sir Reece nor I are pleased.” Anne gestured at the stool and waited for him to sit. “There’s no denying that what Sir Reece did has had unforeseen and serious consequences, but in and of itself, following me was no great crime. If Damon and Benedict had let Sir Reece go on his way with a rebuke instead of setting upon him and injuring him, that would have been the end of it. But now the king is adamant that we wed to insure peace between our two families, so we have no choice. I ask you, who is more to blame for the king’s decision, Sir Reece or our relatives? Unfortunately, as a woman I have no say in this. I must marry because the king commands it.

  “However, Sir Reece has a plan to have the marriage annulled. We are not going to consummate the marriage.”

  Piers’s eyes flared with surprise. “He is willing to leave you alone?”

  “Yes. As I said, it was his idea.”

  She hurried on, not willing to tell Piers all the reasons Sir Reece objected to the marriage, lest his pride be wounded. “The king has agreed that you can come with me to Sir Reece’s home, to be trained by his father. Everyone in England has heard of Sir Urien Fitzroy and his talent for training knights. If benefit to you can come of this situation, I’m pleased.”

  “I’m not. This is terrible, Anne. The man’s father is nothing but some peasant’s bastard—”

  “Whatever Sir Urien’s parentage, he is a respected knight of the realm, and that is all the more impressive because he earned both the rank and the respect. You should share that respect, and appreciate this opportunity the king grants you. A wise man uses his chances as best he can.”

  Piers stared at his boots.

  Seeking to lessen his dismay, Anne reached out and chucked his chin in a playful, maternal gesture. “Now you must away and pack your baggage, for the wedding is to be at the noon tomorrow, followed by a wedding feast that the king is providing. We shall be leaving for Bridgeford Wells, where Sir Reece lives, at dawn the next day.”

  Piers raised his eyes to her, and her heart ached at the hunger she saw there. “Damon agreed to let me go?”

  Damon was no fit man for Piers to look up to, but Piers was still too young to see it, and he was blinded with admiration for an older sibling who, it could not be denied, usually won his fights.

  Fighting was the one thing at which her half brothers did excel. In all else that made a chivalrous knight, they were woefully deficient. Yet she would not hurt Piers by revealing just how little thought they gave to his fate.

  “We are all subject to the king’s commands,” she said, not lying, but leaving him free to interpret her words as he would.

  Piers got to his feet. “When I am a knight, Anne, I will look after you, and I promise that you will not have to do anything you do not wish to.”

  Her heart full of love for him, she rose and briefly embraced him. “Cheer up, Piers. It could be worse, as we both know. Damon could be making me marry that fat sot Lord Renfrew.”

  Her brother’s eyes narrowed. “You sound pleased to be marrying Fitzroy.”

  “I am making the best of it, Piers,” she replied, “as you must make the best of going to Bridgeford Wells. Plenty of young nobles your age would sell their armor for this chance.”

  “I suppose.”

  She recalled something else. “You said you noticed that Trevelyan Fitzroy was not in the melee. Were you looking for him in particular?”

  He turned away. “As you say, Anne, I have things to do—”

  She put her hand on his shoulder to hold him back, then circled so that she could see his face as she questioned him. “What were you planning on doing, Piers, if you found him?”

  Her brother’s face flushed and he did not meet her gaze.

  “Damon and Benedict have already meted out punishment, and more than Sir Reece deserved,” she said sternly. “Henry threatened to charge them with attempted murder if they refused to allow the marriage. There was—and is—no need for you to involve yourself with the Fitzroys, beyond learning everything Sir Urien can teach you. Do you hear me, Piers?”

  He nodded, looking very much like the little boy she had mothered for so long, his bright blue eyes full of love and devotion—an ample reward for any sacrifice she made for him.

  Later than night, Damon marched into a tavern in the town of Winchester, grabbed Benedict by the neck of his wine-stained tunic and hauled him to his feet. The table rocked, sending coins wagered on the dice game sliding into the ale-soaked rushes on the floor.

  “Wha’ the devil?” Benedict cried as the other men seated at the battered table scrambled for the coins. “Let me go! I’m winning!”

  Damon ignored Benedict as he all but dragged him from the smoky, stuffy building that stank of
spilled ale and beef gravy.

  Damon shoved his brother against the wall outside so hard, Benedict nearly fell. Righting himself, the brawny man glared at his thinner older brother with bloodshot eyes. “What’s the matter with you?” he snarled, his words slurred with drink.

  Damon glared at him, arms akimbo. “How much did you lose this time, fool?”

  “I told you, I was winning!”

  “How much have you lost today?”

  Benedict didn’t answer.

  “All I gave you?”

  Benedict shrugged.

  His face full of rage, Damon raised his hand to strike, but instead shoved his brother along the street. “If I catch you gambling again, I swear I’ll take what you owe me out of your hide!”

  “The estate income is my money, too,” Benedict whined. “You treat me like a child.”

  “Because you damn well act like one!” They reached another tavern, one Damon favored, and he pushed Benedict through the door.

  When Benedict realized where they were, he stopped sulking and grinned. “I’ll have an ale.”

  “The hell you will. You’ve had enough.” Damon sat on a bench in the corner and pulled his brother down beside him. Ignoring the rough-looking customers, he gestured for the broad-hipped serving wench, a middle-aged woman with few teeth and as tough as any seaman on the docks at Dover.

  “Wine for me, Mary,” he ordered, “and none of that watered-down vinegar you try to pass off as wine.” He glanced at his brother. “Nothing for him.”

  Benedict scowled and reached for his nearly empty leather pouch tucked inside his tunic. “I can pay—”

  “Shut your mouth and listen,” Damon snapped, waving Mary away. When she was out of earshot, he leaned forward, speaking just loud enough for Benedict to hear. “And listen well, you sot! It’s about Fitzroy.”

  “That piece of—”

  “That son of a man with important friends, you dolt.”

  Benedict’s mouth fell open as he regarded his wiser older brother.

  “Yes, we were wrong to be angered by Henry’s decision. Our illustrious sovereign has done something that may prove very helpful.”

  Benedict blinked, his duller wits obviously trying to comprehend.

  Damon sighed with frustration, then explained. “Anne’s going to be married to the son of a man with important, influential friends at court. She can find out who they are, and what they’re up to. We can use that information, either to their detriment or our advantage. We’ll know who to watch, who to avoid, who to be friendly to, that sort of thing.”

  Benedict’s bleary eyes narrowed. “You hate Reece Fitzroy. His father was nothing but a lowborn bastard.”

  Damon made a false smile. “Well, no matter now. It’s much better to have Anne married into a household where she can provide us with all sorts of information—and not only that, we are rid of her without having to pay a dowry.”

  Mary returned with the wine. Damon tossed a coin in her direction, a fiendish little smile on his face when she had to bend and retrieve it from the rushes.

  Benedict eyed the wine hungrily and licked his lips as Damon gulped from the clay cup.

  When he realized Damon did not intend to share, as he knew he wouldn’t but hoped nonetheless, Benedict shifted conspiratorially closer. “What of Anne? Is she agreeable?”

  “Would it matter if she wasn’t?”

  Benedict chuckled, a low, cruel sound. “’Spose not.”

  “Exactly.” Damon set down his wine and wiped his thin lips with the back of his hand. “So here is your part in this. You are to follow Anne to Bridgeford Wells, where she will tell you what she learns.”

  “Bridgeford Wells?”

  Damon grimaced as his brother’s question. “Where the Fitzroys live. You know, in Castle Gervais?”

  “Oh, aye, right.”

  “Oh, aye, right, indeed! Nobody must know you are her brother. Tell people you are a soldier headed home. She will find you there when she comes to the market, or a fair. She will tell you what she learns, then you will come back to court and tell me.”

  Benedict grinned.

  “Yes, you get to travel and stay at inns and flirt with the wenches,” Damon said sarcastically. “But if you gamble away the money I’m giving you for the journey, you’ll be on your own.”

  “Why don’t you go, then?” Benedict asked, sulking again.

  “Because I must stay at court.”

  “What the hell for?”

  “Because I have plans, brother, that require me to do so.”

  “What plans?”

  “My plans.” Damon’s eyes took on a superior gleam. “No need for you to concern yourself with them yet. You do think you can do as I ask, don’t you? You can remember what Anne tells you—or do I have to hire somebody else?”

  “I can do it!”

  Damon smiled. “I thought so. I would keep this in the family, if I could.” He held out his wine. “Here. Finish it.”

  Benedict snatched the cup from his brother and gulped it down. When he was finished and slammed the cup down on the table, he saw Damon regarding him with cold, hard eyes.

  “But if you fail me in this, Benedict,” Damon said in a stern whisper, “if you are caught or cannot remember what she tells you, I will cut you adrift. No more money, no more help when you get yourself in trouble.” He leaned close again. “No more dumping bodies of the men you’ve beaten to death in the river for you, or paying off women you’ve raped so you’re not hauled off to prison like a common outlaw. Do you understand me?”

  Benedict paled, for he knew that tone of voice and gleam of eye well. Damon meant these words and he would be absolutely ruthless if he decided to act upon them. “Aye, brother, I understand.”

  Chapter Six

  Dressed in her finest gown, a deep blue velvet overtunic with long sleeve slits that revealed a lighter, pale blue silken gown beneath, her blond hair enclosed in a netted cloth called a crispinette, Anne stood beside Sir Reece in front of the royal chapel while the priest—an ancient fellow who wheezed—blessed their union. She stared straight ahead, all her attention seemingly upon the elderly man. In reality, she was very aware of Sir Reece and his lean, hard muscular body but a hand’s breadth away.

  The tall, broad-shouldered groom was likewise well dressed in a black tunic embroidered with gold, dark breeches and black boots. She could smell the highly polished leather of his boots and the sword belt slung low around his narrow hips. His eye was still a bloody scarlet and his bruise a mottled purple, red and yellow.

  The king, queen and the entire court, the Fitzroys, Piers and her half brothers were all in attendance. She wondered what everyone was thinking, although that concern was soon subverted. In another few moments, when the priest stopped muttering in Latin and ended the ceremony, Sir Reece would have to kiss her to seal their vows.

  The priest fell silent, and she held her breath in anticipation. Sir Reece reached for her left hand. The ring, of course. That would come before the kiss.

  She couldn’t help trembling, any more than she could stop herself from looking up at his bruised face and red eye as he put a plain gold ring on her finger. She watched as his long, slender and yet strong fingers caressed the ring into place while the priest intoned the final blessing that would make them husband and wife.

  It was done. They were wed, at least in name. And now it was time for the kiss.

  Sir Reece took her by the shoulders and her body quivered at the contact. She tilted her head back and looked up into his eyes to see…what?

  Calm acceptance of a duty done? A knight’s obedience to his sovereign? The fire of desire, banked yet present nonetheless?

  She honestly couldn’t tell what emotion lay behind those intriguing light-gray eyes.

  And then his lips brushed gently over hers, as soft and gentle as a spring mist.

  At first. For an instant.

  Then his hold tightened and his lips returned, more urgent this time. His mou
th covered hers firmly, kissing her properly.

  Completely. Wonderfully—so wonderfully, her whole body seemed alive from the touch.

  Closer he held her, and the kiss deepened, taking her to different awareness of his body against hers, the strength of him, the power. The desire coursing through her, a feeling totally new to her. A carnal pleasure such as she had never known or imagined.

  Suddenly, for the first time, she understood why a woman would break the laws of God and society to be with a man.

  Reece ended the kiss abruptly and stepped back. His chest rose and fell as rapidly as hers, making her wonder if he felt as overwhelmed by that kiss as she did.

  She could still read nothing in his enigmatic expression.

  The king, however, seemed very well pleased, for he applauded. “Let us adjourn to the wedding feast,” he cried, taking his wife’s arm to lead the way.

  Anne did not think she could eat a morsel.

  “Shall we, Anne?” Reece said as he tucked her arm in his to lead her to the wedding feast, his hard muscle beneath her hand while they followed the royal couple into the hall.

  Anne. He called her Anne. Her name sounded wonderful when spoken in his rich deep voice.

  Oh, would that Damon had not come up with his disgusting plan! If only he did not control Piers’s life the way he did hers! If only she could be truly married to this man and both she and Piers free of Damon forever!

  Yet they were not free, and until that day, she must do as Damon commanded.

  She forced herself to act as if all were well, or at least as if she were not distraught and angry. She would display nothing of her feelings, just like Reece.

  So she tried to concentrate on the fine feast, even though she knew the bountiful largesse was more to appease the king’s need for display than generosity toward the couple he was forcing into matrimony.