A Passionate Magic (2 page)

Dain of Penruan was unusually tall and gave
the impression of sleek leanness despite his broad shoulders and
muscular arms. From what she had heard of him, Emma had expected to
find a dark and brooding lord. Certainly the man before her was
dark-skinned, obviously tanned by long days in the sun. She was
surprised by that; she and her companions had encountered so much
rain during the last part of their journey from Lincolnshire that
she was beginning to doubt if the sun ever shone in Cornwall.

For all the whispers and rumors about Dain’s
bloodthirsty fierceness, no one, not even Mirielle, had thought to
warn her that her new husband was both young and handsome. Emma did
wonder about the odd omission. It was unlike Mirielle to be so
forgetful.

She gazed in mingled apprehension and
admiration at the man to whom she had been married, by proxy, for
slightly more than a month. Admiration won. Dain’s sheer physical
splendor overcame Emma’s secret, lingering concerns about her
ability to go to her unknown husband’s bed with some semblance of
willingness.

Dain’s hair was the palest silver-gold Emma
had ever seen, though his brows and lashes were brown. She assumed
his hair was bleached by the same sunlight that had tanned his
skin. Below the short, pale hair the man the world knew as a
ruthless predator displayed an angel’s face. Emma smothered a sigh
of pleasure at the sight of him. Dain’s face was all smooth, taut
planes—high cheekbones, a long, straight nose, and a firm jaw that,
unlike the jaws of most other men she knew, was unblemished by any
trace of stubble. She thought, irrelevantly, that he must shave
every day.

Emma met his eyes and a shiver went through
her. Dain’s eyes were a peculiar shade of blue-green, a color
emphasized by his woolen tunic of exactly the same shade. Such
stormy eyes, puzzled and more than a bit annoyed by the sudden
arrival of a grown woman in place of the little girl he was
awaiting.

“I was told that my wife was seven years
old,” Dain said. He looked from Emma’s rain-dampened face to Father
Maynard, the priest Dain had sent to accompany her from Wroxley to
her new home.

Father Maynard was every bit as cold and wet
as Emma, and she felt sorry for the man who had been unfailingly
kind to her during their travels. Out of sympathy Emma offered the
explanation that Dain apparently expected from the priest.

“It was my younger sister, Alys, who was
first proposed as your wife,” Emma said. “Unfortunately, she is in
poor health and our parents feared she could not survive the
journey to Penruan. I am the eldest of my father’s three daughters,
and I do assure you, my lord, I am remarkably strong and
healthy.”

“No one could guess it by looking at you,”
Dain remarked. There was no hint of welcome or of hospitality in
the cold gaze he cast upon her. “You appear to be
half-drowned.”

“We have ridden through this entire day in
heavy rain,” Father Maynard informed him. “All of us are wet and
cold – and hungry, my lord. We have not eaten since early
morning.”

In any other castle that Emma knew of, those
words would have brought an immediate outpouring of food, drink,
and comfort from the host. Not so the lord of Penruan. He pinned
Emma under his searching glare for a time before speaking again,
and it was not to her he addressed his question.

“Is she truly the granddaughter of Udo of
Wroxley?” Dain demanded of the priest.

”I will be happy to tell you so, my lord, if
only you will have the courtesy to speak to me directly,” Emma said
in a loud voice aimed at regaining his attention. “Let there be no
question on the matter of my descent. Furthermore, you and I were
wed before more than a dozen witnesses in the chapel at Wroxley
Castle, with my father’s seneschal serving as your proxy. Father
Maynard himself blessed our union. It is quite legal. If you break
our marriage contract, you defy King Henry’s express command.”

Dain stared at her as if he could not believe
any woman would dare to speak to him so boldly. Emma saw a flash of
some emotion in his blue-green gaze. It was gone so quickly that
she could not decide whether it was anger or hastily suppressed
amusement.

“Not quite legal yet,” Dain said, his fine
mouth twisting on the words. “All marriages require one final act
to make an undissolvable union. I speak, Lady Emma, of the act of
consummation. Until I bed you, ours is no true marriage, no matter
what the king, or the baron of Wroxley, may claim.”

The glint of that unknown, unspeakable
emotion shone in his eyes again. He looked so fierce, so like the
coldhearted predator he was said to be, that Emma took a step
backward, wanting to put a bit more distance between herself and
him.

During the ride to Penruan, Father Maynard
had undertaken to educate her about Dain’s family history. The
priest had told her that several of Dain’s ancestors were Norsemen,
who in the distant past had crossed the sea from conquered Ireland,
seeking new lands to wrest for their own. The first Dain had seized
Penruan lands by bloody warfare, and his descendants had held
tightly to that same land ever since. Meeting the present Dain’s
cold eyes, Emma could easily believe the tale. But she was
determined not to be cowed by him. A voice deep in her heart
whispered that while Dain would never appreciate a meek, simpering
wife, he would respect a woman of courage, a woman who knew her own
worth.

“Are you refusing to accept your bride?” she
demanded of him.

“Certainly not,” Dain answered her in a
dangerously smooth voice. ”A refusal would be disobedience to the
king’s direct command. Unlike your grandfather, I am no dishonest
lord.”

“You will not have a very fond wife, my lord,
if you persist in disparaging her grandsire,” Emma warned.

“Whatever made you think I want a wife who
will be fond of me?” he asked. “We have wed only because King Henry
insisted upon our marriage. You will obey me in all things, you
will lie in my bed and accept my embraces when I am in the mood to
bestow them upon you, and you will bear my children. I have no
other use for you.”

“I am trained as a chatelaine,” she said. “I
have considerable skill in the healing arts. And I do believe it is
only fair to tell you at once about my other abilities.”

“I am not interested,” he interrupted her.
“My mother, Lady Richenda, is chatelaine here. You will obey her as
you obey me. Perhaps she can find something useful for you to do,
to occupy your days. Otherwise, stay out of my way as much as
possible.”

“My lord,” Father Maynard objected, “that is
no way to treat a new wife.”

“You will please me best by remaining
silent,” Dain told him with a look so fierce and cold that Emma’s
heart quaked within her when she saw it.

“My lord Dain,” Emma declared, righteous
anger stirring in her bosom, “as Father Maynard has already told
you, every member of our party is cold, wet, hungry, and weary. We
deserve better hospitality than this. If you will not offer what is
due to us, then I, as new mistress of this castle, will order what
we need for our comfort. Let me remind you that you are in
violation of the rules of hospitality.”

For the second time since meeting her, Dain
stared at her as if he could not believe his own ears. When he did
not at once respond to her criticism, Emma looked around the hall,
seeking a servant to whom she could give orders. She saw the flash
of a skirt as a female dashed around a corner into the screens
passage, heading toward the kitchen, perhaps in flight from the
quarrel that seemed about to break into all-out warfare between
lord and lady. Other than that one, vanished woman, there were only
a few men-at-arms lounging about the hall, and all of them were
rather pointedly ignoring their new mistress. The men-at-arms and
their squires who had escorted Emma from Wroxley were either
crowded at the entry or still outside in the courtyard, waiting for
orders about unloading the pack-horses. Hawise, Emma’s companion,
stood close behind her.

Emma flung the damp folds of her woolen cloak
back over either shoulder to free her arms. Planting her fists on
her hips, she approached Dain, not stopping until she stood
toe-to-toe with him.

“If you continue to deny us proper
hospitality,” she said to him, “then I and the rest of my party
will leave Penruan. We did not come so far to be insulted.”

“If you leave,” he responded, sneering at her
outrage, “you will break the terms of the peace agreement your
father and I promised in the king’s presence to abide by, and
therefore, you will be responsible for the outbreak of hostilities
between Wroxley and Penruan.”

“It will take months for you to march an army
to Wroxley,” she said. “By then, I can ride to court and tell the
king how badly you have treated me and my company. What do you
think King Henry will say to that?”

“What makes you think I don’t already have an
army based in Lincolnshire?” he asked.

“That is impossible!”

“Really? Are you foolish enough to imagine I
don’t have friends?” His blue-green eyes danced with fiendish
amusement. “I could name several men who are jealous of the power
of the baron of Wroxley and of his close friendship with King
Henry. Such men would delight in any opportunity to do harm to
Gavin on his own lands.”

“Inciting others to attack Wroxley is as much
a violation of your agreement with my father as is the way you are
treating me,” Emma exclaimed.

“How would you know? Have you read the
agreement?” he asked in tones of such contempt that she all but
screamed her response at him.

“Of course I read it! I read every cursed
word! And every word of our marriage contract, too. Never think, my
lord, that I came to Penruan ignorant of what is expected of
me.”

“You can read?” For the first time since she
had entered the great hall Dain looked at her with an interest that
went beyond contempt and disparagement.

“I learned to read at an early age,’ she
said, grasping at the chance to elicit some respect from him. “I
can also write and count. There are a great many things I know how
to do.’

“There is only one thing you need to do here
at Penruan. You are to bear me a son. We will attempt to conceive
one tonight.”

Emma considered his words as calculated to
intimidate her. She wasn’t going to allow it; she was going to
fight back.

”You will not bed me when I am cold, wet, and
hungry!” she shouted at him. “Nor while my attendants are
uncared-for.”

“I grow weary of your repeated complaints,”
he said.

“If you will only have the courtesy to
respond to them, the complaints will cease,” she told him.

“Perhaps I do not care about your condition,”
he said, regarding her disdainfully.

“Perhaps you should care, my lord, if you
want a healthy son from me!”

“If not from you,” he replied, “then from
some other woman. It matters not at all to me.”

“I think it does,” she said, suddenly calm.
His indifference to her was feigned; she was certain of it. “For a
reason I do not yet comprehend, you wanted a granddaughter of Udo
of Wroxley for your wife. You wanted it so much, in fact, that you
were willing to wait years until my sister Alys was grown to
womanhood before getting a child on her. You will not have to wait
so long with me. That fact ought to please you, not discomfit you.
Unless you are afraid of me, my lord?”

She thought he was going to hit her. She had
chosen her words deliberately, knowing no man liked to be called a
coward and certain he would be angered. She watched his reaction
with some surprise and dawning respect for his powers of
self-control. She did not doubt his anger. It blazed in his
beautiful eyes and hardened his finely boned face. On first seeing
him, she had found it difficult to reconcile his handsome
appearance with his fearful reputation. She did not find it
difficult now.

He did not strike her. Slowly he unclenched
the fists he held close to his sides. Emma watched in amazement as
his face smoothed from an expression of fury to one of bland
disinterest. When he spoke his voice was soft, yet she heard the
underlying danger in it.

“You have no idea how mistaken you are about
what I want.” Abruptly, he changed the subject. “How many female
attendants have you brought with you?”

“Just one, my lord, according to the terms of
the agreement between you and my father. I have also an escort of
twenty men-at-arms and squires, all of whom will return to Wroxley
after a day or two of rest.” She did not add that the returning
captain of the men-at-arms would bear the letter she intended to
write to Gavin, describing her reception at Penruan. She thought
Dain would understand as much without her telling him.

“There is room for your men in the barracks,”
Dain said. “I will have someone show you and your maidservant to
the lord’s chamber.”

“I will want a bath,” she said, pressing her
advantage. “Also food and drink for myself and those who came with
me. I assume the midday meal is over.” She looked around the great
hall, noting the empty tables.

“Order what you want,” he told her. “I will
join you later, after you have rested.” There was a world of
unmistakable meaning in that last sentence.

“Do you wish me to appear at the evening
meal?” she asked, willing to be conciliatory now that she had won
simple hospitality for herself and her companions. “If so, I will
have Hawise unpack my best gown.”

“There will be time enough tomorrow for me to
present you to my people.”

She could not help but wonder if he would
acknowledge her as his wife at all, if she did not please him when
night came.

“I should like to meet your mother,” Emma
said.

“Lady Richenda is away from home, visiting
her sister in a convent,” Dain informed her. “She will return in a
week or two.” With that, he turned his back on her and walked
away.