Rexanne Becnel (17 page)

When she reached the blanket she flung it over her shoulders then whirled once more to confront him, more secure with the heavy wool around her. If anything, however, his face was even grimmer than before, with that same expression of pain etched upon it. Still, she must not be concerned with
his
problems, she reminded herself. Her own were trouble enough; she did not care about his difficulties with the king.

But then again, maybe she should.

Joanna’s heart leaped with sudden hope. If she could somehow devise a way for him to keep control of Oxwich without forcing an unwanted marriage on her, he might then leave her alone. He wanted Oxwich safe from the king; she was only a means to that end. But if his goal could be accomplished in some other manner, she could then be returned to St. Theresa’s.

Clinging to that hope, she determinedly buried the tiny wave of disappointment she suddenly felt at the thought of actually living the remainder of her days at the priory. To admit to such feelings was to admit that he might be right about her. No, all she wanted was to return to her peaceful life at St. Theresa’s. That was all she’d ever wanted, and nothing he had done or said could change that.

But she must do this right, she realized as her eyes searched out the cottage space. If she kept too much distance between them, she would look frightened. Too close was not good either. No, not good at all. She finally took a steadying breath, then moved toward him and seated herself most casually at the square table. She was conscious of his eyes following her, but when she looked up he was once more staring at the fire.

“Did you give this plan of yours lengthy consideration before deciding to abduct me?” she began without preamble.

He looked over at her. “’Twas not so complex a scheme as to require endless deliberations.”

Joanna’s jaw clenched in irritation at such an offhanded commandeering of her life, but she squelched the angry retort that bubbled to her lips. It was not her intent to argue with him this time.

“In your haste to secure Oxwich from the king, did you never consider that you might achieve your goal in another fashion?”

He stared at her a moment, then advanced toward the table and pulled out the stool opposite hers. Once seated, he folded his hands across his stomach and leaned back in his stool, lifting the forward leg off the floor in the process. “No, I did not consider any other idea. Marrying you to one of my own barons was the most obvious solution. It still is.”

Joanna leaned back also, but not because she was relaxed and taking her ease. No, it was not that. Rather, she longed for the safety of some distance between them, and right now he was far too close for her comfort. Already her palms were sweating and she licked her dry lips nervously.

His stool came down with a thump. “Don’t—” He broke off but his eyes remained locked on her mouth.

“Don’t? Don’t what?” She stared at him in confusion.

“Don’t …” He took a harsh breath then stared up at the cruckwork beams above their heads. “Don’t even try to talk me away from my plan. There’s no other way.”

“But I will most freely give you Oxwich!”

“You cannot.”

“If it is mine, to be bartered away along with my hand in marriage, why can I not simply give it away?”

“It is yours, my innocent one, only at the pleasure of the king. It passes through your family, from father to son—or daughter in the rare case when no son remains. But you hold your demesne and maintain it for England. For your king.”

“Then King John could very well disenfranchise me and the husband you force upon me.” She smiled smugly at him at that clever deduction.

He raised one brow at her quick words. “In theory, perhaps. But in practice it is rarely done. Once you are wed, and you and your husband settled in Oxwich Castle, it will be almost impossible for King John to undo the deed. No lord, whether friendly or not to my cause, will want to support the king in deposing another lord—except in the case of gross treason. For such a move by the king makes every other lord’s position more precarious as well. And John, softsword that he is, would never take it upon himself to challenge me or your husband. Yorkshire stands hard against our spineless fool of a king. ’Tis for that very reason your Oxwich is so important. So you see.” He gave her a warm, wicked smile. “Your castle is the key to Yorkshire, and you are the key to the castle.”

Joanna gaped at him, unable to believe that she could be so important a player in England’s endless political intrigues. She was just one woman, the daughter of a lesser lord, at that. Yet if Rylan’s words were fact …

She shook her head, not wanting to believe her cause was so hopeless. “I … I will not marry,” she whispered, unaware of the tremor in her voice.

“You will.”

“What if no man will have me?”

He grinned at that. “What man would refuse you?”

“You mean, what man would refuse
you,
” she countered angrily. “Besides, if I am so important—if Oxwich is—why do you not offer for me yourself?”

The words popped out before she could halt them, and Joanna was aghast. He was the last man she would ever wed!

He clearly found the idea preposterous as well, for the amusement fled his face.

“I cannot,” he clipped out, though his eyes bored into hers. Then he turned his gaze toward the fire. “I assure you, your husband shall be a most acceptable fellow. One who will be well pleased to have you to wife.”

Joanna forced down the lump that had risen in her throat. “Then he’d best be well pleased with a shrew for a wife, for mark my words, I shall make his life a hell!”

“So you say now. But I—But he shall tame you, Joanna. He shall direct your angry passion into another direction. Another passion. You are fair and a virgin, with a fine demesne attached to your hand. ’Tis all any man could hope for in a wife. And lest you think to escape me once more, be forewarned that King John will treat you no better. At least I will find you a young man of honor. King John …” He did not finish but only shrugged.

Joanna stood up abruptly. With her two hands on the table she leaned forward, her eyes flashing with fury. The blanket slid down forgotten. Her waist-length hair lifted about her face, the mahogany streaked golden in the firelight.

“You have not enough honor yourself to identify that virtue in another!” Her glare did not waver although her strident tone trembled. “You think you have stolen the march in this game of yours, but I shall prove you wrong. The time shall come when you will regret ever having used me so poorly.”

T
HE IDEA CAME FROM
nowhere. At first she thought it too ludicrous to even consider. But as the hours passed Joanna slowly came to see it as her last hope.

Outside the storm still battered the island. The rain came down in unremitting sheets and the wind gusted loud and strong around the solid cottage. She could not judge the passage of time at all, save for the occasional need to replenish the fire, for the sun was well concealed by the menacing storm clouds.

In such a grim surrounding did she sit silently before the fire, idle but for the nervous combing of her fingers through her long hair. Given enough time, the hopeless tangles had eventually come free. But her predicament was a far knottier problem, one not nearly so amenable to solution. No matter how she addressed it, the results came out the same each time: she was condemned, due solely to the castle of her birth, Oxwich. She despised that place above any other spot on the earth. Her father might have revered it—other men might consider it a prize to fight over. For her, however, it was a source of misery and torment. Hadn’t her mother’s suffering been caused by her father’s obsession with an heir to Oxwich? Wasn’t her own mistreatment now at the hands of the arrogant Lord Blaecston due to the selfsame castle?

She sneaked a sidelong glance at Rylan who sat across the room, seemingly lost in thought. Over and over his words echoed in her mind until she wanted to scream. The irony was, he considered what he had said of her a compliment of the highest order—she was fair, and an heiress, and a virgin. Any man would be pleased to wed such a paragon of womanly attributes!

She tossed a bit of broken straw into the fire as she pondered his words, then watched the strand writhe as if in agony, turning first red and then black. The fact was, she could do nothing to change her appearance—if indeed she truly would be considered fair. She would not be surprised if his words had only been aimed at appeasing her. But she
was
heiress to Oxwich. Despite her wish to be free of the place, she seemed perversely encumbered with it for good. Those two factors she was unable to alter. But her virginity …

In went another length of straw, and in its tortuous writhings Joanna fancied her soul tormented in hell by the devil. What she contemplated was unforgivable!

No, she amended. God forgave his children everything if they but repented sincerely the deed. She struggled mightily with her conscience. If she were not a virgin she would not be deemed a suitable bride, for most assuredly no arrogant nobleman of the sort Lord Blaecston planned for her would want her then.

Yet she would also no longer be pure for her veiling ceremony.

Overcome with too many conflicting emotions, Joanna closed her eyes and rubbed her fingers against her temples. She need not be a maiden to take her vows with the Gilbertines. That she well knew. But she’d always thought her pure state would make up for her many other shortcomings. But now … now she would not even have the
chance
to take her vows unless she deliberately committed that one vile sin.

Could this really be happening to her? she wondered dejectedly. Could she truly be faced with two such unacceptable choices?

The presence of the man across the room unfortunately deemed it true. She could allow him to ruin her maidenly state, or else find herself wed to some oaf of his choosing, and condemned to a lifetime with the clod. She only had to remember her mother’s long-suffering silence—and her ultimate choice—to make up her mind.

Without daring to think beyond the immediate present, she stood up, determined to go through with it at once before she could change her mind.

“So, does this mean you’re done with sulking?” Rylan stared at her with an expression she could only describe as antagonistic.

“’Tis not likely you’d deal with the ruination of your life very easily!” Joanna regretted her tart reply at once. If her plan were to work she must first get him to kiss her, and he was hardly likely to do that if she were a shrew. With a grimace she forced down her fury.

“Anyway, I was not sulking. I was simply searching my mind for some way out of—some way to avoid the marriage you propose. I want nothing to do with Oxwich Castle, and least of all to live in it.”

“And did you find a way?” he prodded in a voice that was dark and smooth.

He was mocking her, she fumed. Yet there was more in that low, amused voice than merely that. Had she not known better, she might have imagined that he mocked himself as well.

“I … No,” she amended, afraid to reveal her desperate plot through some innocent slip of the tongue.

“No. I did not think you would.”

At those smug words her resolve to maintain a calm mien at all costs flew right out of her head.

“Despicable vermin! Black-hearted swine! You think you are so smart. Well, I hope King John finds you out and spoils all your terrible plans!”

He rose from his chair as if a fire sparked beneath him, and Joanna stepped back in alarm. It passed fleetingly through her mind that mention of King John ever goaded him to fury. Then, seeing the look in his midnight-dark stare, she realized that she may have solved her problem after all. Each time he’d kissed her before he’d been in a towering rage. Why should this time be any different?

“You shall someday thank me, and very well, for my terrible plan,” he said with a growl when he halted only inches from her.

It took all her courage to raise her chin, stare up into his unsmiling face, and goad him even further.

“Believe what you will, fool.”

She saw a glimmer of amusement in his eyes, and for a moment she feared she’d miscalculated his reaction.

“A fool? I think not.” His gaze grew warmer then, and his amusement altered to another emotion, one that sent a thrill of fear and anticipation through her. “You but cling to a vain hope, my passionate little dove. For the truth is clear. You were meant to be held by a man. Shall I demonstrate that fact once more?”

Before she could respond, his lips captured hers as he drew her nearer. In the first heady moments of their kiss Joanna tried to keep a perspective on what was happening. He was kissing her, although with a recognizable amount of restraint. Next he would move his hands up and down her back, perhaps all the way down to her derriere, as he did before.

At the thought of him touching her there, she gasped in remembered passion. At once his kiss changed. As her warm breath mingled with his, as her lips softened and allowed him entrance, a low groan of desire escaped his mouth. His arms tightened as if in reflex, and she was suddenly crushed against the full length of him.

“So sweet … so fiery,” he murmured between the bold kisses he pressed upon her. “Like heaven. …” His tongue plunged deep into her mouth, as if he sought the essence of her. Then one of his hands did indeed move down to cup her derriere, and he pressed her intimately against the masculine glory of his rising passion.

Joanna melted against him, forgetting everything but the delicious feelings he was rousing in her. Oxwich was forgotten. King John faded from memory. Most especially did any thoughts of St. Theresa’s or the Gilbertine Order flee her mind. As he held her and caressed her, she knew nothing but him and the way he made her feel. Her arms found their way to circle his neck. Her hands filled with his long waving hair.

How could this one part of him be so silken and soft, she wondered fragmentedly, while in every other fashion he was so hard and demanding?

His seeking mouth moved down from her lips to kiss and taste along her jaw to her neck, then up to her ear.