By Arrangement (28 page)

She leaned back until she could lean no further. She desperately turned her face away, but that bruising mouth found her cheek and neck. He grasped her hair to steady her darting head and forced a crushing kiss on her lips. His other hand slid down to grab her bottom. Her stomach turned. To think that she had cried over this lout! She began using all of her strength to break free.

Stephen laughed. “You are spirited. That will soothe my regret that you are no longer innocent. The memory of the passion that I awoke in you last time has filled my memory ever since, begging for completion.”

“Passion? I felt no passion with you, you conceited fool! You hurt and humiliated me that day and you will not do it again! Loose me or I will scream and the whole court will know that you force unwilling women!”

“You are not unwilling, just afraid,” he murmured, pressing her against his warmth and forcing a caress down her back. “I will show you the pleasure that love can be when you are with a real man. When you scream, it will be with desire and none will hear you. The walls are thick and the building noisy, so do not be shy.”

Good Lord, his arrogance knew no bounds. No wonder Idonia never wanted them to be alone with men.

His hands began wandering freely over her body. She gritted her teeth against the repulsion she felt, and took
advantage of his loosening hold. Frantically she groped behind her back on the table, feeling for some weapon. Her hand closed on a crockery pitcher.

Just in time, too. Stephen's breathing had grown ragged and heavy. He began pressing her backward against the table, trying to lay her down. His hand started raising her skirt.

She stopped her fight and leveraged her hips against the table's edge. She smiled at him. Stephen paused, looked at her triumphantly, and readjusted his stance. With a snarl, she lifted her knee with all of her strength up between his legs. Then she crashed the pitcher down on his head.

His face shattered in pain and surprise while he bent over. She roughly pushed him away.

“I am an honest woman who loves her husband,” she seethed. “Do not ever touch me again.”

She strode to the door. As she left she glanced back at the man in whom she had believed during the last days of her childhood.

As she flew down the stairs she heard his step behind her. On the second level he caught up with her. She shook off the hand with which he tried to restrain her. Pushing her way through the throng of revelers, she hurried to the public room below.

She noticed Lady Catherine in the crowd, and those cat eyes glanced at her smugly. Stephen had said that he was not friends with Catherine, and yet this woman had gone out of her way to help him. She wondered why.

“You might at least bid me farewell, my sweet,” Stephen said lowly in her ear. His attempt at lightness could not hide an underlying anger in his tone.

She turned on him, furious at his persistence. Before she could speak, he bent down and kissed her, then smiled and melted into the crowd.

CHAPTER 16

T
HE FLEET SET
sail. Westminster and London, emptied not only of the visiting soldiers but also of many of their workers, grew strangely quiet. Christiana returned home and impatiently counted the days until David returned.

Spring storms arrived and soon the news spread that the fleet was returning. Long before the first masts reappeared on the Thames five days after embarkation, everyone knew that ill winds had forced King Edward to cancel his invasion.

The city filled with soldiers again, this time passing through as they began their return to towns and farms and castles inland. Edward could not hold the troops indefinitely for better sailing and had dispersed them.

Christiana was stunned by the relief that she experienced when the news of the aborted campaign reached her. She thought that she had convinced herself that David indeed had gone to Salisbury, but her reaction spoke the lie of that illusion. Now she just felt gratitude
that Edward's plans had changed and made the possibility of David's betrayal irrelevant.

The chance that he had done this thing, or had even tried to, should appall her more than it did. The potential dishonor should disgust her. But all she cared about was his safety and the fact that this turn of events would preserve him from the horrible consequences of discovery.

She longed to see him. Memories of him hung on her every moment of the day and filled the hours of the night. She realized that she had probably loved him for a long while. She had refused to see it because of her obligation of loyalty to Stephen. And, she had to admit, she had long denied her feelings because David was a merchant. Noblewomen were not supposed to love such men. She had been raised to think such a thing contrary to nature.

Did he love her at all? His joy appeared to match her own at his homecomings each day, and he had seemed sad about leaving her for this trip. During their lovemaking she saw more in his eyes than simple pleasure, but in truth she did not know how he really felt. She had no experience in such things, and he remained an enigma in many ways.

It didn't matter. As the days slowly passed she knew that there could be no hope of hiding her feelings. Surely when she gave him a child, some type of love would grow for her. In the meantime she felt confident that he would accept her love kindly. She did not plan when she would tell him. It would simply happen in the warmth of their reunion.

He rode into the courtyard a day early. She heard the sounds of his arrival while she sewed in the solar. She threw aside her needle to run down the stairs. Bursting through the door, she flew to him and jumped into his arms.

He caught her as he always did, and swung her around
as he embraced and kissed her. She clung to him while his scent and touch reawoke her soul.

Her blood raced with joy. “I am so glad that you are back and safe. There is something that I must tell you …”

The expression in his eyes brought her up short. He examined her with a haunted scrutiny. No affection reached out to her, despite his embrace. In fact, those arms closed on her in a restrictive way as if he sought to hold her in place while he studied her.

She noticed with misgivings the hard line of his mouth. Something dark and disturbing emanated from him. She had never seen this expression and mood. Indeed, for a horrible instant, she felt as if she had never seen this man before.

“What is it?” Had he been discovered after all? Was he in danger?

He turned her in his arm and guided her toward the hall. The grip holding her shoulder felt hard and commanding. “I have had a bad journey and need a bath and some food, Christiana. We will talk later. Send a servant up to me.”

His arm fell away and he walked across the hall toward their chambers. His words and manner made it clear that he did not expect her to follow.

Flustered and hurt, she set about seeing to his needs. She sent Emma and the manservant up to prepare the bath and warned Vittorio to serve dinner as soon as possible. Then she paced the hall, absorbed with concern over this change in him.

Could this be his reaction at having his plans thwarted? If he had gone to France, and risked what he risked, had the turn of events angered him? For there had been anger in those blue eyes, and a cold distance that chilled her.

He joined the household for dinner. He sat beside her
and received reports from Andrew as he ate. Nothing specific conveyed his displeasure, but she could sense it distinctly. At the end of the table, Sieg ate his meal with a methodical silence that suggested he at least recognized David's mood.

She had assumed that they would tumble into bed at the first chance upon his return, but under the circumstances she didn't mind too much when he moved his chair to the hearth after the meal. The others left and she sat across from him and watched him stare into the fire.

A very strange silence descended. She bore it awhile and then tried to fill it with conversation. She described small events in the household while he was gone, and the reaction when the fleet returned. Chattering on anxiously, she told him about her sad leave-taking of Morvan and then her relief upon his unexpected return.

He turned those haunted eyes on her while she spoke. His steady regard made her uncomfortable. She had imagined his homecoming many times, and it had been filled with elation and joy and her newly discovered love. She found all of those emotions retreating from the dark presence sitting near her.

She began telling him about the Easter joust, but he interrupted with an abruptness that suggested that he hadn't been listening to anything.

“You were seen,” he said.

She jolted in confusion. The frightening realization struck her that this change in him had something to do with her.

“Seen? What do you mean?” She instinctively felt defensive.

He rose from his chair. Grabbing her arm, he lifted her and began pushing her in front of him through the hall.

“What are you talking about?” She glanced back at the stranger forcing her to scramble up the steps.

He dragged her to the bedchamber and slammed the door behind them. She sensed his anger spike dangerously. Some anger of her own rose in response and mixed with her worry and fear. She shook off his grip and backed up to the windows.

He faced her with tense hands on his hips. “You were seen, girl. With your lover.”

“There were men at court who paid me attention, David, but it was harmless. No doubt many saw me, but not with any lover.”

Her light response only made it worse. His anger surged. “Men paying you attention are inevitable. Stephen Percy, it seems, was inevitable, too, despite your vows and your assurances to me. It did not take you long to find your way back to that knight's bed.”

His crisp words stunned her. She had actually forgotten about that dinner with Stephen these last few days. Stephen Percy had ceased to exist for her as she reveled in her love for David. She stared at him speechlessly and knew that the truth, that she had met with Stephen, was written on her face.

“That was harmless, too,” she said, knowing that her denial would not matter. The meeting itself was the betrayal and he would assume the worst.

“You have no talent for adultery, darling. You don't even know when to lie and how to do it. Harmless? Lady Catherine was seen taking you up to a chamber in that inn and then returning without you. An hour later you emerged with Percy. I am told that your kiss of farewell was chaste enough, but he could afford restraint and discretion by then.”

“What you were told is true, but I did nothing wrong in that chamber,” she explained with a calm she did not
feel at all. She could offer only her word against the damning evidence. “Who told you of this, David? Many saw, I am sure, and I am sorry that I did not think how it would appear to them and what it might cost your pride. But who felt the need to tell you? Was it Catherine? She helped Stephen in the ruse that brought me to him unknowingly.”

“No doubt Lady Catherine eagerly awaits letting me know,” he said bitterly.

“Then who?” but even as she asked it she knew the answer. He had just arrived back in London. Whoever had told him this was someone he trusted. Her indignation at the implications helped beat back the desperation.

“Oliver,” she gasped. “You were having me followed. Dear saints! All of the time? When I walked about the city, was he always there? Did he hide in the shadows of Westminster and follow us into the forest for the hunt? Did you trust me so little …”

“He followed you for your protection, and not to catch you thus. In this one thing I surely trusted you, or I would not have let you go back to court where he could not follow.”

“He was there? At the inn?”

He advanced toward her, dangerous and tense, and she backed up until she bumped against the window.

“He tried to hide the truth from me, but I can read him as I read you, and I forced it out.” He reached out and laid his hand against her face. There was nothing soothing in his quiet voice or reassuring in that touch. “So you have finally had your knight, my lady. Was it all that you expected? Like the songs and poetry of chivalry on which you were raised? Did that knight's hands give you comfort that you are still who you were born to be? That you had not been debased beyond redemption in the bed of a merchant?”

Nay
, she wanted to say,
it was the other way around.
But admitting that Stephen had touched her would only throw oil on this fire.

He neither crowded her nor restrained her, but she suddenly felt extremely helpless. A sensual edge in his soft tone made her wary.

“I did nothing wrong …” She repeated, searching his eyes for belief and understanding. She saw only shadows and fire and something else that alarmed her.

When he lowered his head, she tried to turn away. His hand twisted into her hair and held her as his mouth claimed hers.

She loved him and missed him and wanted him, and at first her body and spirit accepted him gratefully. But as she felt his passion rise and his kiss deepen, she knew that it was neither love nor affection driving him but rather pride and anger, and this reminded her too much of Stephen's assault. She jerked her head away and struggled as he pulled her into his arms.

“Nay. Do not …”

“Aye, my girl. I have been two weeks without a woman. That is the best thing about marriage. One need not waste time wooing and seducing when it waits for you at home.” He imprisoned her with his embrace and cradled her head steady with a forceful grip. “This is the problem with adultery, and you might as well learn it today. The man can avoid his wife if he chooses, but the woman must return to a husband who still has his rights.”

He held her firmly and kissed her again. She desperately squirmed against those strong arms. Her shock eclipsed every other emotion. He might have been a stranger handling her.

“I feared that you might repulse me, knowing where you had been and what you had been doing the first time I left the city,” he said as his hands moved over her body.

He smiled faintly but she could tell that his anger hadn't abated at all. “It would be ironic, wouldn't it? To have paid all of that silver for property and then found that I no longer wanted the use of it.”