The Pleasures of Sin (12 page)

“I agree to your terms,” he said. “The land will remain in your family’s name until the Martinmas Tournament where your brother will be given opportunity to make recompense. Your father will remain with my brother rather than be taken to London, and your sisters will have some say in choosing a husband.”

Choking back her words, she clenched her teeth. If she could reach her brother, they could put the issue aright. Then somehow, she would find a way to escape from this marriage. She could not stay here and allow herself to be vanquished by this man.

She would have to be very careful to only grant him leave of her body but keep her soul intact.

Her smooth rounded bottom tempted James to untie his brais and plunge into her even knowing she wasn’t ready. Her position of being draped over his arm, open and available for his every desire stretched the limits of his control. He wanted to take her, to bury himself inside her. To not even take the time to remove her chains or soothe her humiliation of wearing them while he swived her.

He held her for a second longer, enjoying the feel of her stomach pressed against his forearm. Her little whimpers of vulnerability ignited a dark urge.

The woman addled his brain. How could he be so bloody stupid as to allow her family to remain in possession of the land!

The desire to swive her, to possess her, coursed through his mind.
She’s yours. Take her. She’s a wife to tup, not a mistress to seduce. She’s already given her consent.

She was trembling, partly in fear, he knew. But there were other levels of complexity to this woman. And not all her quivers came from fear. He would deal with her pleasure later, for now he would take what was his. All the trickery that she’d done left little room for mercy where she was concerned.

It was on the edge of his tongue to tell her to hike her skirt and get on her knees with her arse facing him. He yanked her upright, the dark thought sending a quiver of terror through him. Passions of that sort would tear down the tightly controlled life he’d spent years carefully building.

The chains clanked. The short cap she was wearing fell aside. It tumbled to the floor planks. Red-blond curls sprang loose and frizzed around the top of her scalp.

Gasping, she hurriedly covered her hair with her hands and lunged for the covering. Her bonds toppled her off balance, and she stumbled to the floor, falling onto her buttocks as she scrambled for the covering.

“What the hell?” He stomped the linen cap with his boot, preventing her from snatching it so he could get a good look at her uncovered head.

Not attempting to rise, she trembled and covered her head with her hands.

Dear Christ. Her hair was horrid. Unruly. Uneven. It looked as though someone had taken a battle-axe to it.

“What the devil happened to your hair?” he bellowed. Had he been given a plague victim to wed? Was that why the sisters had switched places?

Cowering on the floor with her arms and hands covering as much of her hair as she could manage, she turned wide-eyed to him. She looked terrified, as though afraid he would beat her or take back the compromise she’d fought for.

“Are you ill?”

“Nay.”

“Have you been ill?”

“Nay.”

“The plague?”

“Nay.”

“Smallpox?”

“Nay!”

He loomed over her, wanting to intimidate the truth out of her. “I swear, Brenna, if I catch you lying again and I’ve been given a plague-infested wife—”

“I do not have the plague! I just cut it!” Her vehemence took him off guard and fear lurked in her gaze as she tried vainly to cover her head with her hands.

He almost laughed. She’d been defiant when he’d tied her to the woodchopper’s stump, angry when he’d locked her in chains—and now…she was afraid of her hair showing?

When would he ever understand women?

He reached for one of the curls.

She jerked her head aside, her knees shuffling against the floor. “D–do not.”

He tsked. “Your promise was to allow me to touch you in any way I wished. Have you forgotten already? Let go of your head.”

She swallowed. Her cheeks flamed, her arms slid from her hair, and she turned her face back to his in a show of defiant surrender. “As you wish, my lord.”

He wondered at what that act must have cost her. More than taking her virginity would have he imagined.

“Kneel up to me.”

She obeyed, a look of distress lighting across her face. The chains make a soft metallic sound as she changed positions from cowering on the floor to kneeling before him.

Taking a frizzy strand of her hair, he rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger. She trembled in some sort of odd terror he did not understand.

Her hair was soft and smelled like her—of paint and turpentine. Odd scents for a woman, and yet, it suited her.

“You cut it like this apurpose?”

She nodded jerkily. She seemed so vulnerable that he wondered where her warrior princess attitude had gone. Mayhap he should have snatched her cap from her head in the Great Hall as Godric had done Meiriona’s.

“What happened?” he asked again, this time in a gentler tone.

Her lips quivered. “I cut it to prevent a marriage betwixt my sister and a man not suited for her.” She shook her shoulders as if warding off a chill. Or warding off her vulnerability.

He raised a brow. “Is it a habit for you to prevent your sister’s marriages?”

Despite her tears, her eyes flashed. “Mayhap.”

“Do not play coy with me, Brenna.”

“’Twas a year ago,” she said bitterly. “He was a very bad man.”

“Like me?”

“Nay. Much worse than you.” She drew a sharp breath, and for a second he feared she would start bawling again. Instead she covered her lips with her hand as if she had not meant to admit that she thought anyone could be worse than him.

Taking her wrist, he pulled her hand from her mouth. “Tell me about this marriage you prevented. Is that how you got your scar?”

Her eyes widened at the word “scar.” “Nay, the scar is old, from when I was a child. The marriage was to Gwyneth—”

At once she seemed more naked to him than when she was bent over his arm with her skirts upturned. Obviously the strain of the bitter battle and the strange passion between them affected her much stronger than she had let on. He had wanted her humiliation to be complete, but seeing her cowering, terrified that her ugly hair was showing, did not give him victory as he had expected.

Without allowing himself to over-think his actions, he pulled her to her feet and enclosed her in his arms.

She didn’t fight him.

“You
are
beautiful.” Zwounds. What a dunderhead he was. He should be reveling in the vanquishment of her pride, not speaking love-words to her. There could be no tenderness for a betrayer such as her. She’d already used his fascination with her body against him, had him agree to terms he never should accept. What would she do with this new weapon?

She sniffed.

Sniffed?

He looked down to see if he had heard correctly. Was this more trickery? More of women’s games?

She blinked furiously. Tears? Of all the blasted things.

Tilting her chin up, he scrutinized her face. She did not resist although she seemed to be fighting the urge to do so. She was so utterly unique and complex, both so strong and so vulnerable, that he could not imagine why she was still unmarried, that men had not been fighting to possess her.

“No one has ever noticed your beauty, have they?” It wasn’t a question.

Her lips parted, and she touched the scar on her cheek in a telltale motion.

“’Tis no wonder,” he continued, “dressed as you are.” His first order of business would be to buy his wife a new wardrobe. In all the ways he wanted to prick at her pride, wearing rags was not one of them.

“I–I–” she started, shifting in his arms. “I had lovely hair once.”

“Hmmm…” Reaching up, he fondled her ill-cropped locks. Her hair was soft and thick. It curled around his fingers with a life of its own. Her hair was still lovely, ’twas just cut badly.

“It was long,” she added. “I could sit on it.”

“’Twill grow again.”

Her body grew rigid against his and he felt a trembling sob push through her before she uttered a loud snort. “’Tis been a whole year and I have naught but frizz.” Her breath caught several times in a snivel of distress. “I have no need for beautiful hair,” she sniffed. “Truly I don’t. Nor for beauty of any kind. I want to be an artist. I can paint all the beautiful women I want, I don’t need to be one myself.” Then, oddly, she began to weep.

James tightened his grip on her body, completely at a loss of what to say. His little hellion was crying over beauty? She was already beautiful.

The innate urge to protect those under his care swelled inside him.

“Gwyneth is beautiful. Adele is beautiful.” She sobbed. “My father calls me scarred goods, the one too ugly to get rid of.”

“Is that why you were foisted off on me?”

She buried her face in his chest and twisted his tunic into her fists. Her tears wet the linen causing a large spot in the pristine garment. A flicker of guilt ran through him that she was chained. He could bond the defiant warrior princess—but this woman left him at a loss.

“Nay. I chose to marry you. At first I refused, but I didn’t want to see my sister crushed. I thought I could kill you and then go to Italy.” She sobbed louder.

“Italy?” he pressed.

“I was meant to be a nun,” she wailed. “My father didn’t want me to join a convent, and he locked me in my chamber. My family hates me and now this marriage is a disaster.”

“You
wanted
to be a nun?” There was so much about this woman that baffled and intrigued him.

“Yea,” she sniffed.

“That profession would not suit you at all.”

“So everyone says.” Her hands wrenched his tunic. The fabric would forever be ruined, its perfect tailored lines irreparably damaged.

At a loss for how to extract her fingers from his garment, he hugged her closer and was inexplicably pleased when she did not resist the embrace.

“Marriage is much more suited for someone of your fiery nature than some dull life in a convent.”

Stiffening, she moved away from his arms and wiped the tears from her cheeks.

He let her go, but the chain clinked softly, reminding both of them of their positions as master and captive.

“Bah,” she said with a wave of her hand. “What do you know about what marriage does to a woman? To ne’er be able to go where she will or make her own choices or even have a cow to call her own.”

His lips twitched. “You do not wish to be married because you want to own a cow?”

“Nay! I want to make my own choices.”

Stifling a prick of guilt, he slid his hand down her arm. “You are a noblewoman, Brenna. Our marriage was ordered by the king. ’Tis your duty. And I swear I can make the marriage bed a pleasure, not a chore.”

She trembled against him, but he determined to not allow any sympathy toward her keep him from what must be done. The marriage must be consummated. He would do well to remember she had tried to kill him. That this play of emotion might only be a bid to gain his sympathy so he would let her go.

He could make their marriage bed pleasant for her; it would have to be enough.

At that moment the door burst open and Godric followed by two guards entered the chamber.

“Lecrow!” Godric exclaimed, his wild hair whipping around his shoulders. “He’s missing!”

“Damn!” James sprang into action, glad he’d not gotten around to unchaining his wife. “Be here when I return, wife.”

“Wait!” Brenna called, but was only answered by the stomping of boots down the tower steps. She glared at the door, damn tempted to help Montgomery look for her father and turn him over to the king. She had just humiliated herself grandly to save his sorry hide, and now he had betrayed all of them and left them to fend for themselves.

Here she was, locked in her chamber once again, only this time in manacles.

She raised her fist and shook it in the air. The chain clattered against itself. “Curse you, Father! Curse you, Montgomery! Curse you, King Edward! And curse the rebels too!”

Perhaps she could find a way to pick the locks on her manacles and escape as well.

She prowled the chamber, searching for some small instrument she could fit into the latches. All her small paintbrushes were locked away—Montgomery had even found the pack and taken the tiny hog’s hair one out of it. She had no hairpins—she’d had no need of any since her hair had been cut.

She plucked at the springy curls as she made her way around the room. Her cheeks heated with the memory of Montgomery’s bellow asking her what the devil had happened to the mass. Her hair was longer than it had been, and she ought to feel some spark of happiness that it was growing, but the strands sprang back into tight, frizzy loops when she let it go. When it was longer, the curls had stretched out.

Irritated that no instruments to pick the lock could be found, Brenna stopped her pacing, raised one arm as far as it would go, then switched and raised the other. She watched the chain slide through the circular link. The sound grated on her already tight nerves, and she wanted to howl with outrage. Why must women be pawns in men’s war? It was unjust. Unfair.

Sighing, she plopped down on her stool beside the painting desk, disgusted with her father and disgusted with herself for getting caught up in his personal drama against the king. All she had wanted was a chance to sit and paint and make her own way through life. She should have left when she had the chance, when Gwyneth had first come into the room with her wedding garment on.

A wave of despair passed through her as she realized how fully caught she was. Even if she could get free of her bonds, she could not simply leave as she wanted.

If her husband returned and found her missing, God only knew what he would do. She was the only thing standing between Montgomery and the destruction of her sisters.

She tried to tell herself that she didn’t care about what happened to Gwyneth and Adele, but she could not make her conscience believe the lie.

She could leave her blasted father to his own devices, but she must find her sisters and formulate a plan of escape that included all three of them. If they could scrape together enough gold to make it to Italy, Mother Isabella had already promised to accept her into the convent and Nathan could surely buy her an annulment.

Opening one of the rough drawers in her table, she ached at the empty space, then glared at the trunk pushed against the wall. Painting had always been her sanctuary in a world gone mad. Her fingers itched. She wanted to paint something violent and passionate, to lose herself in the glory of color and brushstrokes, to forget her troubles for a time. Part of her bargain had been that he would unlock her art supplies, but with him out searching for her vagabond father, they were still locked away.

Frustrated with her lot in life, she slammed the drawer shut and ran her finger around the metal encircling her wrist before standing and marching toward the door to bang on it, to insist they let her out.

She would start moving plans into place to get ready for her escape. She would go down to the Great Hall and supervise the removal of the rushes so she could find Meiriona’s hairpin. Perhaps she could even steal a knife. She would find her sisters. Brother Giffard had been here for the wedding; she would speak to him about making secret travel arrangements. And she would speak to Egmont the blacksmith about forging a key to the chains.

The marginal plan gave her a small hope. She banged on the door with her fist.

It swung freely open.

Not locked! She stifled a small thrill of victory and another wave of disgust that she had been so beat down by the past year of confinement that she had not even checked to see if the door had been locked.

Anticipation sprang in her chest as she looked into the hallway. A year of imprisonment and now she was free to move about the castle.

A gangly youth wearing a purple cape and an overly large mustache for a boy of his age leaned on the stone wall. The hair above his lip was twisted with beeswax so that it poked outward from his face like a bushy walrus.

Ridiculous.

He was barely more than a boy. ’Twas as if the only reason he’d grown it was, because, by some fluke of nature, he could do so. It certainly did not fit his youthful looks or suit him in any fashion.

“My lady,” he said deferentially, stroking his facial hair. “Is there somewhere you would like to go?”

She stared at the mustache for a moment wondering if she should compliment it or ignore it. “Who are you?”

“Your guard, my lady.”

Harrumph. So she had a guard. As if the chains weren’t enough to keep her bound to the keep. Irritating, but not surprising. At least she was not locked in her room. She looked him over. He was just the sort who fell in groves at Gwyneth’s feet spouting courtly love.

“I am to accompany you wherever you need to travel,” he said.

“I would like to visit my sister.”

He made a flamboyant bow with his purple cape. “My deepest regrets, my lady. I was told you were not to speak with any of your family.”

She wanted to scream. Instead, she composed her face. “To the Great Hall then?” She would go and search for the hairpin.

“Of course.” His long gawky fingers twirled the mustache round and round.

Bloody hell, the thing was awful. As if a hairy worm crawled across his face.

He shifted back and forth, his face reddening as she continued to size him up. He would be a handsome youth when he grew into his shoulders and shaved that hairy thing off his face. He turned awkwardly and began walking down the hall toward the tower’s steps.

She gave him a cheerful smile, deciding that if he was to be following her around, ’twas best she win him over as soon as possible. “What a lovely mustache you have.”

The boy beamed, nearly missing a step.

Ha! She was right. He was damned proud of the thing.

“Your name?”

“Damien.”

“Damien, do you know if my father is well?”

“I haven’t heard.”

He motioned for her to go ahead of him in the stairwell. The steps were steep and narrow, concave and slick from years of use. The iron rail had given way years ago and her father had not seen fit to replace it. What need was there when ’twas only his wayward daughter, the one too ugly to get rid of, that was here in the tower. The chains made climbing up and down hazardous and she clung to the chilly damp stones of the wall moving very slowly downward. There were no lit candles in the sconces to illuminate the way, and the tight passage felt as gloomy as she did.

“Has my new husband returned?” she asked.

Behind her, she heard the rustle of clothing indicating Damien had shrugged.

Harrumph. If she was to be given a guard, why could she not be given one who was more useful?

More than a fortnight later, Brenna still had no word from her new husband. More and more an anxious despair clouded her thinking and she felt desperate to escape, even if only so that she could change clothes. After several days of coy searching, she had found the hairpin and now sat at her stool furiously trying to jam it into the locks to unlatch the mechanism on the manacles.

The skin around the bonds itched and her tattered kirtle was wrinkled horribly. She had washed herself as best she could, but wearing and sleeping in the same clothing day after day made her feel bedraggled and unkempt. Her plain clothing had never been fine, but she had always made a point of keeping her garments neat and washed.

“Bloody hell!” she cursed at the locks as they refused to give.

“Be you alright, my lady?” Damien called from outside the door.

“Yea, Damien, fine. Just cursing my husband, ’tis all.”

“He’s a good man, mistress.”

Good man! “He’s a damn bastard,” she muttered, tugging furiously at the manacle out of sheer impotent frustration. She resisted the urge to rail at Damien for his lord’s sins. “It’s unfair that I cannot converse with my sisters!”

Rising, she marched to the trunk that had her paints locked inside it, poked the pin into the lock and fiddled around with the device. It would click, but not open.

Damn.

Damn.

Damn.

She kicked it, as she’d gotten into the habit of doing every time she entered and exited her room, then yelped as her toe smarted in protest. When her husband returned—please, God, let him return, she could not bear to spend the rest of her life in this itchy, dirty garment—she would give him a piece of her mind. Especially about his promise concerning allowing her to paint.

She wrenched up the floor plank that was her secret hiding place and took out the nude of herself. On the morning of the wedding, after Montgomery had left so that she could get dressed, she had pleaded with her sisters to give her a moment of privacy and go to the chapel ahead of her. In that moment, she’d hidden the miniature here. She lifted the painting into the air. Was this the last thing she would ever create?

“Pox-ridden dunderhead,” she cursed her husband again.

“My lady?” Damien asked.

Hiding the miniature in her pouch, Brenna marched to the door and hurled it open. “I would like to go pray,” she gritted out. Brother Giffard should have returned this morning—perhaps he had some solution to her quandary. And perhaps she could sell this painting for gold.

Damien must have sensed her outraged frustration because he gazed at her with sympathetic eyes. “I can ask Master Gabriel for some leniency that you could visit with your sisters under strict guard. I do not know what he will say, but I can ask.”

Pressing her lips together, she nodded. “Gramercy, Damien.” He was a good youth, he truly was. And his mustache was growing on her. No doubt guarding her was as dull and tedious for him as it was for her.

“To the chapel then?” he said.

“Yea.”

A few moments later, she knelt at a prayer bench in one of the alcoves with her head bowed. Damien stood outside the sanctuary doors, stationed as he always was.

As always, she wished she could fix the position of the lands and the proportions of the torsos on the screen. It irked her that she had not been chosen to do the artwork to begin with. A man
had
gotten the position simply because he was a man, not because he was a better painter. If she would have been able to get her art supplies, she might have brazenly whitewashed them and repainted over the inferior work today. With both her father and husband gone, no one would be able to stop her. A statue of the Virgin Mary stared down at her and several painted screens—not her own work—gave some privacy.

Brother Giffard slid up to her, his robe rustling as he walked. He was barefooted in the manner of the Benedict monks and great tufts of hair curled on the tops of his feet like fur.

She gazed upward, not wanting to look at his large, misshapen feet and uneven toenails.

He was a tall man with kind eyes, an easy demeanor and a loose-limbed gate. He threw his cowl back off his tonsured hair in a carefree gesture.

His easy manner made him well loved and welcomed at many tables across England. But his mannerism seemed more suited to that of a court entertainer than a monk, and the bishops in several dioceses openly despised him. The town’s local Bishop Humphrey had taken him into custody on several occasions, but somehow Brother Giffard had always managed to get free.

“Brenna, my child, I heard what happened and came as soon as possible.” He looked down pointedly at the chains and gave her a pitying look as he rested his hand on the tall back of the prayer bench. Candle glow flickered around them. “Why did you not follow through with the travel plans we had arranged?”

She nearly groaned. Mother Isabella, the abbess of La Signora del Lago had been expecting her, indeed she had encouraged her to come by telling her how desperate the abbey needed artwork and promising all the canvas and paints an artist could ever desire. Brenna had met the aged nun years ago and they had exchanged friendly letters ever since.

“I cannot get free of the chains. All the gold is lost?”

“With regret—” Brother Giffard started.

She waved a hand at him dismissively, nearly knocking over the nearby candlestick. “The past cannot be returned. But I need help.”

A glint formed in his eyes. For one vowed to poverty, Giffard seemed to have a large propensity for smelling gold. “What can I do?”

She shuffled on her knees and fingered her manacle. “I am turning lunatic being chained all the daylong while my new husband is scouring the countryside to chase down my father. I cannot speak with my sisters or send a message to Nathan. I have tried to speak with Egmont the smithy, but am guarded oppressively night and day.”

Giffard’s robes rustled as he patted her shoulder. “Have you been painting? Oft the colors have soothed your troubled soul.”

Despair touched her. “My husband locked my paints in a trunk!”

“My child.”

She leaned back, casting a wary glance at the massive church door. “Where is Father Peter?” she whispered.

“Gone to the town to converse with Bishop Humphrey, for certes. Have you any paintings to show me?” He nearly licked his lips, the lecherous old toad.

She gazed around. The two of them were alone in the sanctuary and if anyone burst into the church the alcove should provide some protection and give her time to re-hide the erotic miniature. But one could never be too careful. If they were ever caught selling the illegal artwork, both of them would be burned at the stake as devil worshipers.

Satisfied they were alone and that Damien would stay outside the church, she undid the stays on her pouch and withdrew the small parchment.