Claire Delacroix (140 page)

Bronwyn’s mouth went dry beneath Rowan’s perusal. She could not look away; she felt that the bath was suddenly too hot. And remarkably, she could not bring herself to utter the truth of what she did want.

Because she knew that Rowan would not grant her desire.

So Bronwyn held her tongue, though she could not look away. She did not know what Rowan found in her eyes, but finally he smiled that languorous smile that she knew better than to trust.

“I have a better solution,” he whispered wickedly.

Bronwyn’s breath caught in her throat, but she could not even form a question before he winked again.

“Trust me!” Rowan dove across the tub, a purposeful gleam in his eyes. His move launched a wave of water over the rim. He caught Bronwyn in his arms and she had time only to squeal in protest before the tub rocked on its considerable weight and slowly tipped. ’Twas not an easy deed to topple a full tub of this size, and she had no doubt that Rowan forced it over by his own choice.

Then everything happened very fast.

Bronwyn screamed as they fell backward, Rowan’s cursedly confident chuckling in her ear. He held her tightly
against him, rolling them so that he landed beneath her. Bronwyn saw him wince when his back hit the floor, saw the tide of water roll across the floor and under the door. Servants cried out in the hall and the door was thrown open, just as Rowan rolled her beneath him and captured her lips in a soul-stirring kiss.

Then Bronwyn cared for naught else but his touch. His kiss was everything she recalled and more, as if he poured his heart into the embrace. He kissed her with a thoroughness unexpected, and Bronwyn could hold back no longer.

God in heaven, but she loved this man. If this was to be her last taste of him, she would make it a kiss to cherish always.

Her father, however, had a rather different perspective.

“What nonsense is this?” he bellowed in outrage.

His roar compelled Rowan finally to break their kiss. Bronwyn caught her breath, eyed the knight’s cocky smile, then followed his gaze to the portal.

The whole household had gathered around, their expressions uniformly shocked. Bronwyn realized belatedly that she was not only nude but entangled with a similarly nude man who was
not
her betrothed. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment, but Rowan seemed completely untroubled.

’Twas only then that she wondered what he did.

Rowan grinned confidently before her father’s glower, as if there was naught untoward about the circumstance, even as he shielded Bronwyn from curious eyes. Bronwyn closed her eyes at her father’s stunned expression and soundly cursed Rowan’s self-assurance. Twittering rolled through the ranks of the household, and she knew this moment would be the talk of half of Ireland before the week was through.

Aye, ’twould take every measure of Rowan’s charm to talk them free of this scandal!

here was something about Bronwyn of Ballyroyal that made a man lose his course toward his goals, that much was certain.

Typically—at least in this woman’s maddening presence—Rowan had thought only of saving her from the fate she did not desire and had not considered matters beyond that. She did not want to wed Matthew, so Rowan intervened.

’Twas simple enough.

The delight of holding Bronwyn close again surprised him with its intensity, as did the feel of her curves pressed against him and the taste of her kiss. Rowan realized he had never yearned for any other woman as he had for her, especially not after several bouts of lovemaking. But everytime he touched Bronwyn, it seemed he only wanted all the more.

This was more than desire at root. Aye, he loved the sound of Bronwyn’s laughter, he loved how her eyes flashed when she was angered, how she pursed her lips when she puzzled a matter through. He loved her concern for others, regardless of their rank, and he loved how she made a gesture akin to flicking back her hair.

She had no hair to flick, since it had been shorn so short, but the gesture hinted that her tresses had once been long like her mother’s. Indeed, he wondered how she would look
with silken locks of red gold and was tempted to remain in her company long enough to see.

When had he ever wanted to remain
years
by a woman’s side?

Rowan looked down at the lady, flushed and wary, and his heart skipped a beat. He loved more than the sum of these attributes—he loved the lady herself. And that love, a love he was so very afraid to trust, was what prompted Rowan to act against his own interests, time and again.

He loved Bronwyn.

There was a light in her eyes that made him wonder whether she might love him. The very possibility was staggering. A treasure Rowan had not even known he coveted was offered to him, with no price upon it except his declaration of love.

He stared into the lady’s eyes and his confusion gave way to clarity. Rowan loved Bronwyn of Ballyroyal, which made his course remarkably obvious.

Meanwhile, the chattering of servants had risen to a din that was nigh enough to drive a man mad. Bronwyn’s father shouted, his wife tried to interject a voice of reason, Marco frothed about the unsuitability of Bronwyn for his son.

Nicholas turned upon Rowan. “And what,” he demanded frostily, “do you intend to do about this circumstance?”

“I shall wed your daughter, of course,” Rowan said smoothly, and heard Bronwyn catch her breath before chaos reigned anew.

“What?” She gasped.

“What?” Nicholas demanded.

Adhara stepped past her spouse, her gaze glittering as her daughter’s own often did, and asked the most pertinent question to Rowan’s mind. “Why?”

Rowan grinned, then looked down into Bronwyn’s wary
gaze. “Because I love her,” he declared. “And I would wed her.”

But if Rowan imagined that his sweet pledge would make all come aright, he was sorely mistaken. Bronwyn’s eyes flashed and she planted both hands in the middle of his chest, giving Rowan a push that startled him with its strength.

He fell back and she bounded to her feet, seizing a length of linen and wrapping it around her nudity with a savage gesture. “You lie like a hide before the hearth!” she cried. “You do not love me!”

“Bronwyn!” her parents chided in unison, even as the servants pressed closer for a better view.

“Bronwyn,” Rowan appealed as he got to his feet. “I do love you, I swear it to you.”

The lady’s marvelous blue eyes narrowed. “Were you not the one to warn me that a pledge of love cannot be trusted, especially when one wants something from the other?”

Rowan did not flinch from the accusation in her eyes, though he immediately guessed the root of it. “I told you that I had sworn off my quest.”

“Until you had sight of Ballyroyal,” Bronwyn retorted bitterly. “ ’Tis a fine holding, is it not? And one upon which a man could live at leisure, if his wife turned a blind eye to his roving?”

She made to push past him, but Rowan seized her arm. “I know I said many things,
ma demoiselle
, but they are no longer true …”

“But words once uttered cannot be recalled, can they,
chevalier
?” she demanded, tossing Rowan’s own words back to him. She lifted her chin, the valkyrie with the cold eyes he had admired all those weeks ago. “I am not your
demoiselle,
” she said with resolve. “You had best seek your heiress elsewhere.”

She pulled out of his grip and strode out of the bathing chamber, the servants parting before her like a biblical sea. The lady had stated her terms, and Rowan needed only a chance to persuade her that she had convinced him of their merit.

But it seemed he was not to have it. Rowan gritted his teeth and lunged after Bronwyn, determined to have his hearing, but her parents closed rank against him.

Nicholas’s expression was considering. “I would expect then that you will withdraw your suit?”

“Of course not,” Rowan retorted, annoyed that Bronwyn’s father should think his affections so fleeting as that. “She will wed me in the end.”

He was so busy looking after the departed Bronwyn and plotting his course that he did not notice the smile Adhara cast sidelong at her spouse.

Matthew had not taken the news well.

But then, Matthew never took news well that was not to his own clear advantage. Marco sat in his establishment near Dublin’s wharf, amid all the lengths of cloth, a day after departing from Ballyroyal and wondered how he might have explained the situation better.

He sighed and rubbed his temples, certain that his son would have stormed into the night no matter how he had presented the truth. Though Niccolo’s daughter was impetuous, Marco could not have said that his son was of any more stable temperament. Increasingly, Matthew was vocal about his dissatisfaction the change in a once-shy child most startling to Marco.

Perhaps it was better Matthew and Bronwyn would not marry.

But then there were practical matters. Marco was skeptical that this knight who would wed Bronwyn could manage Ballyroyal, once Niccolo was no more. The noble class was oft beyond such mundane concerns, and this knight seemed less sensibly inclined than others.

Though Matthew might have done no better. Marco supposed he should not have kept the boy and his new moods hidden from Niccolo. Aye, Marco had been convinced that the boy would grow out of his inclinations.

He had been wrong. It seemed Matthew would never be sensibly inclined. Though few were as sensibly inclined as Marco. His lips twisted with the certainty that his son was undoubtedly gambling and drinking already, the two least sensible activities in which he might have engaged.

Sweet Jesu, but where had Marco gone awry? He buried his face in his hands, puzzling over the possibilities—or distinct lack of them—as the sounds of activity faded beyond his doors. The wharf stilled as night fell, even the whores’ calls fading as the time passed. He did not know how long he sat there, but he straightened in shock when his heavy oak door was suddenly kicked open.

It slammed against the wall, revealing a slice of midnight sky that made Marco wonder whether he had slept. Then his fears returned and redoubled at the sight of his son, eyes alight with that fey optimism that oft seized him these days.

At times like this that Marco could not believe this man was his own child.

“Father! I shall have Ballyroyal in the end!” Matthew cried, punching his fist into the air. “You promised it to me, Father, and truly ’twill be mine!”

Marco shook his head. “Matthew, I have explained that matters have changed …”

“But we shall change them again. I will have the untold wealth of your concerns, I will be a king among traders.”

“Matthew,” Marco said wearily. “I have explained to you, and truly it may be for the best. You have never had much aptitude for trade, and ’tis clear I have indulged you overmuch …”

Matthew laughed and stepped farther into the chamber. “No aptitude? But I have a new friend, Father, a friend who insists I have precisely the qualities required. He insists that I should not stand aside and lose what is my rightful due.”

Marco rubbed his temples. But any admonition froze in Marco’s throat when his son tugged this new friend into the open portal.

It could not be!

He blinked, he looked again, and could not believe the evidence of his own eyes. Marco gripped the arms of his chair and stared, struck dumb to find a spectre from the past before him.

He knew Vincente di Vilonte was long dead, yet it seemed that very man stood before him once again. Perhaps ’twas Vincente’s ghost, for he looked as if he had not aged a day.

Marco blinked and looked again, his good sense slow to assert itself. The answer, once it came to him, was painfully evident. ’Twas Vincente’s son who stood before him, Vincente’s son whose eyes filled with the same madness that had spelled his father’s demise.

Baldassare folded his arms across his chest and grinned wolfishly, no good intent in his expression. Vincente might be dead, but his son was not.

Worse, Baldassare was
here.

A man of wits could guess why all too well.

“Sweet Jesu, Matthew,” Marco whispered. “What have you done?”