The Rose of Blacksword (30 page)

“I am here …” she began feebly. “I am here because this garden means very much to me.”

“Then it must mean as much to me.”

Such a courtly reply took her completely by surprise, and for a moment she could only stare at him, confusion clearly evident on her face. Then she frowned and looked away. “I am no fool. Do not patronize me.”

“Yes, milady.” he said, again with that smooth, well-mannered speech.

“Do not mock me!” she snapped, glaring at him furiously.

“And how would you have me treat you, Rose?” he answered, although his eyes glittered now with harder emotions.

“I-I am your mistress, whom you should treat with respect. And I will treat you equally well. Just do your work willingly, and you will be dealt with fairly at Stanwood.”

He considered her words a moment, all the while keeping
his eyes fastened on her. “Have I not done my work well today?”

“Yes. Yes, truthfully you have.”

“So it follows then that you should treat me well.”

“But you are being treated well. You have a place to sleep. Food to eat—”

“That meets two of the four needs of a man,” he said, reminding her of their earlier conversation. “There’s still the matter of my freedom. And my woman,” he added more quietly. Then before she could recover from the shock of those bold words he continued. “Come to my bed, sweet wife. Even though I have granted you a little more time, that need not prevent us from lying together again.”

This time Rosalynde jumped as if she’d been burned. Indeed, his smoothly said words seemed to scorch her and she was at once heated through and through.

“You … you …” She sputtered ineffectually. “You are mad!”

“Mad with desire.”

“A-a villainous blackguard!”

“You are my wife.”

“A disgusting … a disgusting—”

“You were not disgusted, Rose. No matter how you try to convince yourself of it now, it was hardly disgust you felt at our joining.”

“Oh!” Rosalynde was unable to face one more dreadful word. She took one step backward, then turned to flee those too-perceptive eyes of his. But he caught her hand before she could escape and held her there before him. If his words had unnerved her, his possessive grasp drove all logical thought from her. Like a moonstruck fool she gaped at him, unable even to disguise her emotions from him.

“Your hair should be free,” he murmured, staring deeply into her eyes. “Free to spill over your shoulders; free to slide between my fingers.” He pulled her nearer and for that moment Rosalynde forgot everything: the castle, her father, all the reasons he was the wrong man for her. “Come to me tonight,” he urged her as one of his hands circled her neck.

Then she felt the linen slip loose from around her head and in a moment her hair tumbled free in glorious abandon. She heard his quickly indrawn breath. His hands moved to slide through the thick dark masses. But she was too disconcerted to remain even a moment longer within his disturbing embrace.

“You … you should not,” she whispered as she backed away from the mesmerizing warmth of his hands. “Someone could see us—” She stopped abruptly, horrified that that was the only pitiful excuse she could come up with. That was not what she’d meant to say at all. But as he continued to stare at her with his compelling gray eyes, every logical thought flew right out of her head. She’d meant to tell him not to touch her so. She’d meant to say that he was impertinent in the extreme even to suggest such a thing. But the words would not come. With her heart racing furiously, Rosalynde could only back away from him, then, on legs that shook from the effort, walk carefully away.

She was soon safely locked in her own room, flung upon her own bed with the shutters locked tight against the light. But the pull was still there, and nothing changed that. Like a strong invisible tether, it tied her to him and she could not free herself from its power.

Heart to heart, she thought for one weak and fanciful moment.

No, she amended harshly. That was only wishful thinking. Loin to loin was a far more honest appraisal.

Tears filled her eyes at such a sinful admission, and with a sob she flung herself down onto the hard floor and huddled on her knees.

“I confess the sin of lust,” she whispered as she clasped her hands in desperate prayer. “I confess the sin of lust for a man I should abhor. Dear God, help me. Sweet Jesus, have mercy. Blessed Mother, I beseech thee …”

But though she prayed long and hard, to every saint that might heed her plea, she feared her prayers would receive no answer. And she would receive no relief.

16

Time flew by too quickly. But in other ways it crawled by at a snail’s pace.

The stillroom and storerooms progressed very well. The shelves were purged and cleaned, then only the worthwhile contents stocked, and in logical order according to regular usage. In the buttery the various wines in their butts were tasted and either sealed or drained, as Rosalynde’s delicate palate dictated. The alehouse, like the kitchen, took a little longer. Too many years of baked-on dirt and grease had resulted in thick leavings that were most difficult to remove. By each day’s end the scraped-off goo had transferred itself to the aprons and headcloths of poor Maud and Edith until they both looked veritable frights. But bit by bit progress was made.

Rosalynde’s greatest satisfaction came from the improvements in the great hall. Clean walls and floors plus fresh rushes sprinkled liberally with lavender and mint made a marked difference in both the appearance and odor of the place. The first evening her father had even commented favorably upon her efforts and given her a fond pat on her hand. Since then she had prodded the unwilling group of serving lads into dragging the tables outside and scrubbing them with strong soap, then leaving the boards to dry in the ever-strengthening afternoon sun.
Benches received the same treatment. Eventually she planned to purchase adequate linen for tablecloths. Only then would the tables be completely presentable to her sensibilities.

By far the most difficult task the boys undertook in the great hall was cleaning the torch bases and candlesticks. Endless layers of wax and burned-on tallow raised all sorts of muttered oaths from the reluctant fellows, but she ignored them completely. They could mutter to their hearts’ content so long as their curses were not too loud and their work proceeded apace. And proceed it did, day by day, until even the grumpy boys began to exhibit a certain pride in their accomplishments.

The garden, however, was another matter entirely. Cleve had abandoned her completely, embracing his new duties as squire with enthusiasm and vigor. To her carefully worded requests of her father for an additional laborer from the fields, she received a huffy no. He could spare not a single man, he told her quite adamantly. For not only must the serfs plant their own strips of land, they must also put in their prescribed days of labor on Sir Edward’s lands. While the weather was fair he absolutely refused to relinquish even one man.

That left her with only Aric.

It aggravated her to no end that neither her father nor Cleve seemed worried that such a rogue outlaw was working for her without further supervision. But Cleve had seemed to sum it up the last time she’d tried to coerce him into helping her.

“It does me good to see such a haughty one as him brought so low as to labor at what is rightfully women’s work,” he had said, giving her a self-important look. “And should he object, there’s not a man in the guard who
would not slice him down at once. Besides, ’twas you who wished him spared, was it not?”

To that she had no argument. And she dared not go to her father with any further concerns about Blacksword’s constant presence, for she feared that might lead to questions and revelations of things she wished kept secret. At times she thought her father actually wanted Aric to revolt against his menial duty, for on more than one occasion she had caught him observing the man at his labor in the garden. But he did his work well and the garden improved daily, so neither she nor her father had an honest cause for complaint. Only to herself would she admit that it was not the threat of physical harm that she feared from Blacksword. The watchmen on the ramparts and the numerous castlefolk protected her from any such danger.

No, the menace Aric presented was far more subtle, and far more pervasive. Something in him drew her. She might curse it as a madness on her part, and pray endlessly for relief, but it was nevertheless always with her. Whether they spoke or not, whether she labored nearby him or sought respite as far from him as she could, the pull was ever-present and seemed perversely to be growing greater still.

Even in her sleep he haunted her, for more than once or twice she was awakened by dreams of him. And even if they were not distinct dreams, the early-morning hours invariably found her filled with a great lassitude and a sultry awareness of her own body that she’d never known before.

It was only that she was no longer a maiden, she would tell herself sternly. But her body said it was more. Her nipples would tighten, a warmth would creep up from her belly, and a restlessness that was completely foreign would steal over her. It was then, as she lay in her plain bed,
waiting for dawn to bring light to the world, that she admitted the depths of her depravity.

She wanted him just as he clearly wanted her. Lust was a beast with its own mind and heart, and it tortured her unmercifully.

One warm morning Rosalynde awoke with that now-familiar coil of heat deep inside her. For a few disturbing moments she simply lay there, resigned to her disquieting feelings, resentful that Aric could affect her even in her own chamber but, above all, dismayed by the intense curiosity and unresolved questions building in her. Every morning it was worse. She felt as if she were waiting for something, and not just for Blacksword’s reaction when he learned she had not yet obtained his reward for him. It was a physical thing, something her body wanted, but she did not know what.

Or more precisely, she did not know why. Why did she want his touch? His caress? Why did she relive the exquisite feel of his lips pressed to hers, of his tongue stroking into her mouth and igniting a wondrous panic in her?

She twisted restlessly on the mattress, then flung the covers from her in frustration. Why must she ever be tormented by the wicked remembrance of his final possession of her? Over and over in her mind it played, and every time it left her more wrought up than before. With a muttered oath not at all becoming to a lady, she rose from the bed and padded on bare feet to the pan of water that she’d brought inside the night before. With trembling hands she splashed her face, then soaked a cloth in the water and pressed it to her warm cheeks. Yet that did no more to cool her overheated body than did the cold floor beneath her feet. She doubted that even a bath in an icy spring could put out the fire that burned inside her.

She tossed down the cloth, unmindful of the water that
sprang in drops from the shallow pan. A pox on that man, she fumed as she found a clean kirtle and tugged it over her head. He was a devil, she decided as she thrust first one arm and then the other into the sleeves. Lucifer himself, she vowed as she yanked the fabric down. The only way to rid herself of such sinful feelings would be to rid herself of him. And the sooner the better. But how was she ever to do that?

It was this worry that beset her through the early breaking of the night’s fast. By now Aric was taking his meals in the great hall with the rest of the castlefolk, sitting at the last table, nearest to the entry doors. But Rosalynde knew he was there, and despite her best intentions her eyes crept repeatedly to watch him.

He ate neatly, not like so many others of the servants. He had no knife so he ate only with a spoon and his fingers, yet still he was cleaner and more fastidious than the others at his table. Bread and cheese was the fare, along with a small bowl of gruel and a mug of ale. Rosalynde watched surreptitiously until he finished and rose to leave. Only then did she hurriedly finish her own meal.

It did not take long to dispense with the day’s instructions to the castle servants. They were finally becoming resigned to the fact that life at Stanwood was never again to be as it was. Cleanliness, orderliness. These were what the new chatelaine required, and she—and they, as a result—would not have their rest until it was so.

By the time Rosalynde left them to their work and made her way to the garden, Aric had already begun to dig up the last of the unwanted willows. With a heavy garden fork he loosened the earth. Then with a curved length of hammered metal attached to a stout length of oak, he began to scoop the earth away. Bend, dig, scoop, and straighten. Again and again he moved as he slowly circled the sturdy
sapling; and she, like one stupefied, stood and watched. One of the mongrel pups circled her, stepping on her toes and whacking her legs with his tail as he sought her attention. But although Rosalynde stooped to scratch the mutt amiably behind his ears, her gaze remained on Aric.

Once he had circled the tree, he put his spade aside and leaned his weight hard against the trunk. It was then that he spied her and straightened up.