Conqueror (27 page)

“You must be pleased with your accomplishments,” she observed sourly.

“I would be if my pretty betrothed did but smile at me.” Down went the corners of her mouth. He sighed. “Wine does not agree with you.”

“Defeat does not agree with me.”

“Nay,” he said, his eyes roaming over her face. “What can I do to ease it?”

She pretended to ponder this. “Leave?”

He laughed, evidently willing to entertain her bad humour for the moment. And what did it cost him, she wondered gloomily. Nothing but a few seeds of patience probably well-sown in the armies of the fitzEmpress over the last eighteen years.
Let her prattle on,
he must be thinking,
in the end she will be mine.

“What did you say to him?” she asked abruptly.

“Whom?”

“Jerv.”

His dark grey eyes held hers. “He’s a liking for castles and how they’re built.”

“How did you know that?”

He shrugged.

She scowled. “I could have told you that.
I
knew a long time ago. When he was twelve, he told me his first dream of building a castle.”

“Umm.”

“For years now,” she insisted, as if she had to prove Jerv was more hers than his.

He nodded calmly, infuriatingly. “How wonderful.”

A fissure of fury steamed through a crack in her hard-fought composure. “Yes, isn’t it?”

He looked at her in silence.

“I’ve known him since I was a child. Since we were five.” She sounded like an idiot, and couldn’t stop. Why was she going on in this childish way, as if Jerv were something to be fought over?

“Ahh.”

“And he’s loved such things, castles and architecture, since he was twelve.”

“Seven.”

This hauled her up short. “What?”

“Since he was seven.”

“Seven?”

A nod of the dark head, then more silence. She downed a rather large quaff of wine. This would make what…three cups? Mayhap four. Who cared. She was absolutely aghast at this piece of information. Since he was
seven
? It had taken her years of knowing Jerv to discover this hidden love, and Pagan had extracted it in what…ten minutes?

“He told me of it when we were twelve,” she muttered, more to herself than him.

“Ahh.”

They were quiet a moment while the full impact of his smooth, wordless reply hit her. She turned with narrowed eyes. “You think you are so clever.”

“I do?”

A wary, slightly drunken tilt of her head greeted this. He was a menace. Pure, unadulterated evil. And he was
stealing
her men. “You do not know so verily much.”

“Nothing at all,” he agreed, then stepped around her chair to take his seat beside her. She swiveled her rump in the chair to examine him better. Thief.

She hiccoughed. Their eyes met, and she hiccupped again. A slow smile drifted over his face, and his eyes did a downward spiral across her gown. A flutter of heat quickened inside her groin, and she set the rim of the cup to her teeth to stop herself from—’twas awful—smiling back.

“De l’Ami,” he said, rolling her name over his tongue as if he were tasting it. A small shiver raced down her spine. “
A friend
. ’Tis an odd name for your father.”

“King Stephen gave him the name,” she retorted, swallowing another huge draught of wine.

“Stephen did not give him the name.” He reached over, took the cup from her hand and placed it on the table. “My father did. In Palestine.”

The wash of chills curled up her backbone. “But, no,” she protested weakly. Was everything she’d once thought settled to be churned up by this man? “I was under the impression…my lord king gave him the name. King Stephen found Papa to be loyal and constant.”

The smile Pagan sent down was slow and terrifying. “Henri did not.”

He lifted his hand and in a heartbeat two servants stood at his side. A low conference ensued. Gwyn’s only participation in it was as the recipient of a number of significant looks. When the servants retreated, she glared at him.

“They come quicker to you than they have to me in ten years,” she admitted grudgingly.

He shrugged.

“Mayhap I ought to have been sterner,” she reflected.

“You think I have been stern with your kitchen staff?”

“God’s truth, Pagan, you’ve scared them witless.”

He looked at the screens separating the corridor to the kitchens from the great hall. “They do not appear witless to me. They seem obedient.”

“Quite. That is my point. I should have used more of your tactics,” she mused. He looked at her. “You know, unsheathe a sword about supper time and bellow ‘
This is my castle
!’”

And bellow she did. The hall ground to a halt. It was nothing compared to the silence before. This was a full-on, drop-dead stoppage of all breath and movement throughout the cavernous hall. Every stricken eye flashed to the dais. The music faltered.

“Careful, Gwyn,” he murmured by her ear.

If he had curled his fingers around her throat and begun squeezing, she couldn’t have been more frightened. Indeed, this low restraint set her teeth clattering. He lifted his hand and ran his thumb along the underside of her jaw. Her swallow had to edge by his threatening caress, and he surely felt it.

“Had only I known, my lord,” she whispered. “Your tactics are far superior.”

“You did that, Gwyn, not I.” His thigh brushed against hers, a slight contact that sent an entirely different kind of chill through her body. “Go upstairs. Now.”

He lifted his hand and three servants appeared at his side, one with a tray of aromatic spices designed—she could tell by her nose—to have a sobering effect. She rose unsteadily.

“Show Lady Guinevere to our chambers,” he instructed the servant at his side, who nodded briskly.

Then he raised his cup, occasioning a likewise and immediate response in every castle dweller in sight. She sent a dagger-like look around the hall in general, but no one was watching her anyway. All eyes were on Sauvage. “To the Lady Guinevere, my betrothed.”

A hum of “Huzzah’s” and the thumping of fists followed her out of the hall, accompanied by three servants who hadn’t taken so much care with her since she’d been swaddled in cloths and burped on her mother’s chest.

“I’m not a child, John,” she snapped to one, a man she’d known for fifteen years.

“But he’s said to treat you like you were, my lady.”

She stopped so quickly the servants carried on a few steps before realising their cargo was left behind. John hurried back to her side. “He said to treat me like a child?” Her voice was high-pitched, incredulous, and aghast.

“Nay, nay, my lady,” he stammered, realising his error. The last thing he needed was
two
nobles angry with him. “He only said to treat you as we would a precious jewel and we decided, didn’t we?” he asked, sending an imploring look at his compatriots, who all nodded like sheep being led to slaughter. “We decided that meant like a child.”

“Well,” she snapped, picking up her skirts and walking again. “I am not a child, nor witless, nor
drunk
,” she added emphatically, then tripped on her skirt hem.

“Oh, no, milady,” he huffed, helping her regain her footing, then wiping a sheen of sweat from his brow. “Not a child.” Oh Lord, to truckle with two such fiercesome masters was too much to bear. Mayhap Wales held an easier lifestyle, with its bloody wars of succession and stern-eyed princes.

She stood in the lord’s chambers with her arms wrapped around her waist, her eyes full of wonder. All traces of drunkenness had left; it must have been Pagan who was intoxicating her.

He had been wandering for many years by his own admission, but the sight before her did not bespeak the lifestyle of a nomadic warrior. The candles flickered, blown by small gusts of breeze through the open window as she walked around the perimeter of the room. A life of campaigns in the service of an itinerant lord was not the way to create what she saw in front of her. For that, one needed a home. He’d said that was Everoot. And it looked as though he’d been coming home for a long, long time.

She suddenly and quite unwillingly understood why he had come to the Nest with a sword in his hand and revolt on his mind.

A glance at the window ledge made her smile. Crossing over, she ran her hand over the orange-eared cat, ferociously-furred and purring, and continued her examination of a room that had been hers only a day ago.

It had been transformed from the cold, military-like chamber—which she’d had neither the time nor money to change—to a place of indulgence and refinement. Well-wrought iron sconces were affixed to the wall and beeswax—beeswax!—candles burned from them, leaving none of the smokey mess tallow did. Pelts of fur were scattered across the floor, the extravagance staggering. She bent over and touched one, then straightened.

A series of finely stitched tapestries rippled like floating velvet against the walls, coaxing the dreary room to practically undulate with warmth. A finely carved wooden table abutted the doorframe and burned with more fat, squat candles.

Against the opposite walls stood a pair of oak wardrobes, polished to a reflecting shine. The one Gwyn shyly edged open held such a tumbleful of silk and fine fabrics her mouth dropped open. Why, this was silk and samite and…Her hands delved greedily into the luxurious pile. Here was velvet…and…

“Merciful heavens,” she exclaimed aloud, backing up,
“those are women’s clothes!”

He had brought her clothes.

Some were her own, she realised, moving forward again. Here was a samite overtunic, so worn and old it could barely hold stiff against her body, but most of them were not hers. She had no silk, not anymore, and had never so much as touched velvet. But here were textile riches, some already cut and sewn. She held one up to her body—it would fit—then hurriedly shoved them all back inside, grimacing as she wrinkled the lush fabric. Griffyn had been planning for her.

The notion was very disturbing.

A reflecting mirror rested on the large table set against a third wall. Backing away from the wardrobe, she wandered over, confused by the clarity of the reflection bouncing back to her. Polished metal never shone like that.

She stretched out her hand hesitantly and ran her fingertips over the smoothest, coolest piece of alloy she had ever touched. What was it? She bent closer, until her nose touched the surface and her eyes stared back at her.

A sound outside the door her made her jerk back and spin, but no one was there. The rumble of masculine voices and footsteps faded away. All was quiet again. Some miscreants from the feast, no doubt, stumbling around for a privy. She turned back to the glistening surface. What on earth would motivate a warrior in the midst of a war to lug all these treasures to a far-flung northern province?

Gwyn stared back at her unmarred reflection. Was that what she looked like? Two eyes, a freckled nose, and a crooked mouth? Simple enough, she thought, turning away. Thank goodness she hadn’t looked into a still pond of water since she was twelve.

Griffyn Sauvage may have estates in Normandy, but ’twas Everoot that had held his heart all these years, by the evidence of her eyes. And by that same stick, she measured his intent: he had been planning to make the Nest home for some long time.

The luxurious masculinity of the room was hypnotic. For a moment she could pretend there was no more pressing task than to relax, that no one wanted her to do anything, that she could stretch out on the bed and gaze at the ceiling and…what on earth was that?

A shelf had been bracketed to the wall. On it, flush with the wood, lay a pile of vellum and parchment manuscripts. Her head began to spin as she approached. She put out a finger and brushed it down the side of the bindings, then abruptly lifted one from its resting place.

Sitting on the bed with her feet tucked beneath her, she opened the massive volume of pages that was
Historia Regum Britanniae
. She recognised it; it was like the one at the abbey the de l’Amis patronised, where as a child she’d convinced the monks to at least
tell
her the tales, if not incur her father’s wrath by actually teaching her to read them herself.

She traced her fingers over the beautifully etched lines on the pages. The blues and reds and greens were so brilliant they still looked wet. She touched an illustration that ran along the margin of one page, a bemused-looking monk holding a stylus, drawing a line to insert a missing A in its proper place in one of the words. Such whimsy and talent. She smiled and carefully turned another page.

“What do you think?”

She jerked her head up. Griffyn stood in front of the brazier, warming his hands. She hadn’t heard him come in. He tossed her a casual glance before turning back to the flames. She got to her feet, book in hand.

“I think I am surprised,” she admitted.

“By Monmouth?”

“By you.” She indicated the shelves with a pointed finger.

He looked over his shoulder and smiled. “And what do you think of Geoffrey Monmouth’s
History of the Kings of Britain
?”

It was impossible not to return the grin. “I daresay I don’t know, but have heard ’tis pure invention.”

“Ah, but well for we Welsh, who came out of it with King Arthur.”

She peered at him curiously. “And where in your blood are you Welsh? ’Twas certainly not your father. ‘Sauvage’ is Norman through and through.”

He nodded. “My father was many things. He liked to be thought of as Norman to the bone, and he surely did not disdain the title and lands he had here in England. But ’twas my mother who was a Welsh princess.”

She lifted her brows and depressed the corners of her mouth briefly, playfully impressed. “What else is there?” she asked, nodding towards the shelves.

“The
Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy
, Vitalis’s work, of course. And Bebe’s
Lives of the Abbots
,” he went on, warming his hands over the brazier thoughtfully. “Let’s see, there is the
Gesta Pontificum Anglorum
that Malmesbury wrote, which is more of an informal chronicle of the lives of the bishops than a full history. But ’tis sound. And useful.”