By Grace Possessed (19 page)

Braesford was magnificent, Cate had to admit, a marvelous figure of a man and an excellent swordsman. David was holding his own against him, however, an indication of how much he had progressed since becoming Rand’s squire. His shoulders had broadened, and hard
muscle encased his arms, outlined by his damp linen. He would be a formidable man one day.

She glanced at her sister, wondering at her rigidity. Marguerite’s gaze was fastened upon the squire. Her face was pale, her breathing uneven, and a fine dew of perspiration shone on her upper lip.

“Marguerite?” Cate touched her arm as concern burgeoned inside her.

Despair shadowed the dark brown of her sister’s eyes. “He’ll kill him. I know he will.”

“You must not worry so. I’m sure Braesford is more than a match—”

“Must he maim David in order to make a knight of him?”

Marguerite’s concern was for the squire. He had been injured: Cate saw it now, though she had not noticed the patch of red on his arm until that moment. It was not a fatal cut by any means, yet such things were always dangerous. Blood poisoning carried off more men after a feat of arms than ever fell in battle.

“It’s the way of these things,” she said with a helpless gesture. “How else is he to learn to use a sword? He must grow so accustomed to the cut and thrust of it that it becomes second nature. As you saw with Ross, when we were set up at the ford, there is no time to think when you are attacked.”

“I know, but it’s terrible to watch.” Marguerite’s face was set in lines of tragedy.

“Come away then.” When she didn’t move or even appear to hear, Cate gave her a speculative look. “You fear that much for him?”

“Who would not?” Her sister finally glanced away. “At this rate, he’ll die before he can win his spurs.”

“Is that what he wants, to be a knight?”

“It’s all he’s ever dreamed of. He’s so serious about it, thinks of little else. He was a foundling, you know, brought up in a convent after being left at the gate.”

“It happens all too often.”

“Now he has this grand plan to win a fortune and great renown in the tournaments of Europe, and nothing can be allowed to stand in his way.”

“An admirable goal, surely?”

“Not if that’s all there is for him.”

It was unlike Marguerite to notice such things. Or was that unfair? Her younger sister had always been quiet, ethereal, preferring to keep to herself. They had grown used to leaving her alone, she and Isabel and most everyone else. How could they know what might occupy her thoughts?

It seemed she thought a great deal about Braesford’s young squire. It was something to keep in mind.

The contest below came to an end as Braesford, with abrupt power, disarmed David. He bent to pick up the squire’s sword as it clanged and slid, coming to rest against his boot toe. Holding both that weapon and his own in his hand, he slung an arm over David’s shoulders, shook him a little and said something that made the young man laugh. The two of them turned and walked away in the direction of the stables.

“At least it’s over for now,” Cate said in encouragement.

Marguerite sighed. “Yes, for now.”

Her hope of speaking to Braesford was over, as well, at least for the moment. He and David would require a bath, by which time the main meal of the day would be ready. Afterward, the master of the hall usually rode out from the keep, galloping away in the direction of the sea to make certain all was well on his lands. She would be lucky if she saw him again before dark.

In the event, it was the next morning before she was able to capture his attention. She came upon him as he started down the stairs to the hall.

“Sir Rand!” she called out, running the last few steps to catch up with him.

“Lady Catherine,” he said with a polite bow, though wariness slid across his features as he turned to face her. “How may I serve you?”

“I would ask if you had thought of paying a visit to the property Ross received from the king.”

Irony rose in the gray of his eyes for that artful suggestion. “Nay, milady, not without invitation.”

“But have you no curiosity to see what he’s done with Grimes Hall?”

“Very little. And you?”

“Much,” she said succinctly. “I wondered if I might prevail upon you to act as my escort, should I decide to inspect it.”

His eyes narrowed a fraction. “It appears to me you have already decided.”

“And if I have?”

“I regret that I am unable to accommodate you. Isabel must be my first consideration just now. I could not risk being away when the babe is born. Above that, I am
pledged to stand ready to warn of any invasion. It would be worth my head if Henry should be surprised by an enemy landing while I was absent from my post.”

Both points were valid; still, she hated to admit defeat. “The distance isn’t that great, only a day’s ride if we don’t dawdle.”

“Also a night there and another day for the return. My deepest regrets, Lady Catherine, but I dare not.”

He would dare without a backward glance, she thought with a certain cynicism, if the need was his or even Isabel’s. “Given the short distance, a few men-at-arms should be sufficient protection. Could you not so order them, with mayhap the added guard of your squire?”

He tilted his head, his features unreadable. “David, is it?”

“I noticed just yesterday that he has gained considerable skill with a sword.”

“His talent is God-given. What he has gained is the power to use it.”

She smiled, seeing he had added to her argument. “Without a doubt.”

“Nevertheless, the danger is great. Bands of men are everywhere, gathering for York, for Lancaster or for their own gain.”

“I feel sure David is competent enough to see me there and back again in safety.”

Rand watched her while swift consideration darkened his eyes. “You do intend to return then?” he asked finally.

“Unless my presence is required permanently.”

He hesitated, then shook his head. “If Dunbar had required your presence, he would have sent for you. Mean
while, I am entrusted with your security. I am persuaded your husband would not be pleased if I sent you to him without his leave.”

Annoyance flashed over her, particularly as she had thought he was softening. “I could grow old and gray waiting for that!”

He lifted a velvet clad shoulder. “I would not come to blows with my brother-in-law and nearest neighbor because I allowed you to overrule my doubts and his wishes. This is between you and Dunbar.”

“And he is a stubborn Scotsman too stiff-necked to admit I am more useful there than here! I appreciate your concern, sir, and am grateful for your care, but cannot permit myself to be governed by your fears for me.”

“Can you not?” he inquired, the words edged in steel.

Apprehension slid down Cate’s backbone. How did her sister deal with this man? He was as immovable as the stone steps nearby, almost as immovable as her husband. “I must go,” she said in desperation. “The longer I stay away, the harder it will be to…to take him as my husband again.”

“Never fear, milady,” Rand, Baron Braesford, said with the ghost of a smile. “I misdoubt Dunbar will have any difficulty whatever taking you to wife.”

If that observation was meant to reassure her, it missed its mark. She was not reassured at all.

Since Braesford refused to escort her or direct David to undertake the duty, then she would have to make other arrangements. All she had to do was put her mind to the problem.

Difficulties abounded, however, as she discovered
after discreet inquiries here and there. No man-at-arms would dare take her in charge without an order from Braesford; the mere idea was enough to make them blanch. Not a single stable hand would choose a mount for her, much less saddle it. With the current unrest, the gates were opened only at need, and a watch patrolled the battlements day and night.

If she had not spoken to Braesford, she might have convinced him of a sudden desire to go hawking, now that the weather had turned warmer and a green haze lay over the land. She could have ridden out with a groom and a pair or two of men-at-arms, and then persuaded them to accompany her by swearing to take full blame. As it was, she had little hope that her brother-in-law would be fooled, was certain her escort would be given strict orders to keep her close.

It was surely possible for her to saddle a mount without aid, lead it from the stables and let herself out of the keep through the postern gate. She would first have to slip past the hands who slept in the stable, however, and then elude the watch. Those men would all be punished if she managed it, a burden for her conscience. More than that, she was far from certain of the wisdom of going alone. Much of the way would be through open country. A woman riding through it without escort would stand out like a pimple on a courtesan’s nose. That she would become instant prey for any outlaw or errant soldier who saw her was a given. To be caught and held for ransom was the very least of what she could expect.

The risk in going was not small, she saw that clearly.
Yet she could not bear to remain where she was, doing nothing while others decided her life for her.

She would go, and soon.

C
ate put on a show of cheerful resignation. It seemed best if Braesford thought she had taken his refusal to heart and given up her intention. Meanwhile, she began her preparations.

Her first act was to stroll through the stables and discover the stall where Rosie was kept, also where she might find the saddle and other accoutrements. She took notice of the posts of the battlement guards, and the times of least activity around the postern gate. Food and drink had to be secured for her journey. This was a slow process, to make certain the provisions were not missed.

She could have asked Gwynne to see to these things, but preferred to do them herself. It was not that she didn’t trust the serving woman, but rather feared she might let something slip to Marguerite or Isabel. Her sisters were discretion itself, but Isabel could decide the danger was too great to be allowed, and so go to Braesford.

Several times every day, Cate mounted to the battlements to stare in the direction Ross had taken. Her heartbeat increased as she reached that height, in her hope that she might see him returning, so her preparations would
be for naught. The land remained empty, however, rolling in green waves to the slate-blue mountains.

On the day she had appointed, nearly two weeks after her talk with Braesford, Cate slid from her bed before dawn and dressed in the dark. Taking her cloth sack of provisions from its hiding place deep in the chest at the foot of the bed, she eased her door open and peered out into the empty corridor. Dim light shone from the staircase that led down to the hall, a reflection from the smoldering coals in the cavernous fireplace on one wall. Though she listened with care, the only sounds she heard were snores from the small chamber Gwynne shared with the serving women who looked after Isabel, and a few from the men-at-arms who slept in the great hall. She stepped out, closing the door soundlessly behind her in hope of discouraging too early notice that she was missing.

Her footsteps barely whispered along the stone floor as she made her way down the short corridor. Every sense was painfully alert, her pulse leaping under the skin, her heart shuddering in her throat. The head of the stairs appeared in front of her. She shifted her burden to her left hand, reaching for the heavy railing as she put her foot on the first step.

The cry came the instant her toes touched the tread. It was faint and oddly disembodied, echoing like the hollow moan of a ghost.

Cate ceased to breathe. Her every muscle seized.

Another moan followed the first. It seemed to come from the far end of the corridor, where it ended at the garderobe set into the wall, with its latrine in one corner.
Cate thought it had a familiar timbre. She turned toward the sound, listening with painful intensity.

It came again.

Isabel!

Cate whirled and ran toward the garderobe. Pushing through the door that stood half-open, she almost stumbled over her sister. Isabel was slumped on the floor, one shoulder against the wall for support. As she slowly raised her head to look at Cate, the faint light from the hall showed her face pale and sweating and her eyes glazed with pain.

“What is it?” Cate demanded, dropping her sack as she flung herself to her knees beside her sister. “Did you fall? Are you hurt?”

“The baby,” Isabel gasped. “My stomach was cramping. I thought… My water broke. The baby is coming.”

Cate saw then that Isabel sat in a widening puddle of liquid tinted red with blood. A strangled gasp caught in her throat. It was too early by almost a month for her sister to go into labor.

“Gwynne! To me!” she shouted in terror, an unconscious echo of a battle cry. “Braesford! To me! To me!”

What followed was a nightmare of flaring torches, curses, running servants and moans. Braesford, barely decent in hastily donned braises, slammed into the garderobe and lifted Isabel in his arms, carrying her at a run to their bed, which was raised on a dais in the solar. He stripped away the quilted coverlet and laid her upon the mattress, roaring out orders in a hoarse voice while fear darkened his eyes. It was Gwynne who pushed him away, shoving him out the door while instructing one serving
woman to build up the fire, another to bring old linen set aside for the event, another to set water to boiling and Cate to bring her a bag of simples.

They stripped Isabel, washed her and wrapped her in soft, worn linen. Gwynne mixed a weak tincture of honey, herbs and warm, watered wine, and bade Isabel drink it. The birthing chair was brought from a storehouse. Then they prepared to wait.

The pains grew regular as dawn rose and daylight glowed beyond the shutters that covered the glazed windows. They came closer together near noon. As the day waned and still they continued, Braesford cursed at Gwynne and pushed her aside when she would have kept him from the solar. His presence seemed to give Isabel strength. A mere half hour after he joined her, she gave a final gut-wrenching push while gripping her husband’s hands so tightly her nails cut him to the bone. Her child slithered from her body, a perfectly formed boy. He was small but mighty; his voice raised in raging protest at his entry into the world was enough to frighten the rooks from their tower perches.

Cate could not prevent tears from seeping down her face as she saw her sister’s joy and Braesford’s pride and fervent relief that the ordeal was done. An ache throbbed in Cate’s abdomen, as well, an odd sympathetic emptiness. It was impossible not to imagine what it would be like to present Ross with so fine and lusty a son. Would her husband be glad or sorry? Would he care? Yes, and would it affect him at all to think she might have died while giving birth?

A short time later, when Isabel finally slept with her babe in her arms and Braesford watching over her, Cate slipped away. She retrieved her sack of supplies from the garderobe. Returning it to the chest where it had been hidden, she closed the lid upon it.

She could not leave now, not while Isabel had need of her. Even if it were possible, she would not trouble her sister with worries over what might happen to her on her journey. The joy Isabel held was precious. It could end soon enough if the Yorkist faction forced Henry to fight. Nothing must mar this time with her husband and new son, nothing at all.

Weary beyond description, Cate bathed and ate a light meal in her room while darkness deepened in the courtyard beyond. A light spring rain had begun, pattering against the window. She lay listening to it, staring into the darkness, wondering if it fell wherever Ross might be sleeping. Finally exhaustion crept over her and she closed her eyes.

The dream was exhilarating, a beguilement of the senses that was disturbingly real. The scent of rain-washed, herbal freshness surrounded her. Caresses more vivid than mere memory sent heated pleasure from the tips of her breasts to the furrow between her thighs. Bare flesh, roughened with hair, glided against her so she murmured in her sleep, rolling closer. Her blood poured through her veins with the intoxication of strong mead. She was deliciously warm, in spite of the cool, hard surface she pressed against. It seemed natural to lift her knee, to rest it on a hard flank. She shivered, moaning with incredible gratification as hard heat entered her, and
callused hands caught her hips and pulled her close until she surrounded it, clenched upon it as she came suddenly awake.

Ross inhaled with a hissing oath that was like a prayer. Cate tried to push away from him, but he gripped her with such uncontrollable need that he feared he left bruises. Her body held him, her internal muscles so tight around him that he ached, yet the completion was too perfect to relinquish. “Don’t,” he whispered against her hair, with its faint scent of roses. “Just…don’t.”

“What are you doing?”

“If you don’t know,” he said with a tired laugh, “then Braesford was right, and I’ve neglected you far too long.”

She stilled in his arms, though the sharp breath she took drove the small, tight buds of her nipples into his chest. “Braesford?”

“Aye. He said I’d best come to you or he feared you would try to come to me. Knowing the determination of your sister, he feared you might succeed in escaping his guard.”

“Did he indeed?”

“You needn’t sound so surprised. He can’t be everywhere, and he does have a few other things on his mind.” Ross hardly knew what he said, for his attention was on the soft skin under his hand as he smoothed upward from her hip to her back in soothing circles. She relaxed a degree, so he was able to ease from her an inch or two and slide back again.

“Other more important things…I suppose,” she said with a definite hitch in her voice.

“Different, that’s all.”

“He is a father. Isabel had her babe today.”

“So he said, after he signaled the guard to open the gate for me.”

Cate clutched at his arm with a small sound deep in her throat as he twisted his hips, gently circling, abrading the small nub of her greatest desire. “You were abroad late.”

“I rode hard,” he said, plunging a little, “and fast,” he added with a short, swift pumping, “as I could not let you ride out alone. Would you have come to me, sweet Cate?”

She allowed her fingertips to roam over his chest, threading through the hair that grew there. Finding one flat, hard nipple, she ducked her head to lick it. Her breath warm against him, she said, “I meant to see your hall, to turn it into a decent place to live.”

His disappointment was like a knife thrust. Heaving up, he flipped her to her back, shoving his hips between her thighs and spreading her legs wide so he filled her to the hilt. “And that’s all?”

She sucked in a breath, tilting her head back. He thought she closed her eyes tight, though it was too dark to see. “Should…should there be more?”

“This,” he said, and set a rhythm that sent the blood thundering through his veins, racing away from his brain and heart to his nether parts so fast he felt light-headed, delirious with the pounding, shuddering bliss. He plumbed her, learning anew the enthralling silken heat and depths of her, absorbing every surge she made toward him, taking it, taking her, having her as he had
dreamed, had planned with every weary mile he rode in these past hellish hours.

He couldn’t go deep enough, couldn’t have enough of the feel of her against him, her thighs, the smooth surface of her belly, the tender yet firm globes of her breasts. He took her mouth in the extremity of his need, an additional possession, as if he could consume her in that manner if in no other. She was his, and no small corner of her would be unknown to him. He held the hard pressure of his need in unrelenting constraint, even as he felt the small contraction, the liquid heat of her release. It was too soon, too soon. Not enough, never enough. And even as his own release escaped him, as he felt the fierce explosion of pleasure beyond limit, he was still hungry for her, still longing, still afraid he might never have her again, as he had been afraid every second since he had received Braesford’s message in hand.

No, it was not enough, and so he waited until her breathing slowed, until she was boneless in her relaxation against him. Then he began again. This time he was slow, thorough, tasting her essence in every hollow, suckling her breasts, licking, teasing and tempting until she writhed under him, moaning and calling his name in plea and demand. When he pushed into her, he went deep, hovering until he felt the hard throb of her heart deep inside, could count its beats against his own tender skin. He drove into her with carefully measured force, testing her depths again and again, until he saw red behind his eyes and his scalp felt on fire, until every muscle burned and his teeth ached from the effort of containment.

He let go then, but did not let her go. No, he was seated
inside her still when sleep took him. He would have stayed there until dawn except he shifted in his sleep, or she moved, and he slipped free.

He groaned in the depths of his dreams as he felt it.

Three days later, the drilling in preparation for war began.

Ross had brought with him the men Henry required from the lands given him, along with the horses, arms and supplies to support them. Well, he had actually ridden ahead in his impatience and fear that Cate might be riding into danger, had left his men to follow behind. His haste had caused no end of ribald comment among them, he was certain. He could ignore it as long as no one dared say anything to his face, or in front of Cate.

Gathering the company of cowherds, shepherds, field laborers, poachers, an itinerant knight or two and a few hill outlaws had been no easy task. He’d first had to estimate the number of men of fighting age in each village, and then decide who could be spared and who could not. At least they were no longer as green as when they’d first lined up for inspection.

The past three months had been spent putting them through their paces, trying to give them some familiarity with weapons and following orders. He’d no stomach for herding them onto the king’s battlefield to be slaughtered without at least some idea of defense. For one thing, he had need of them to see to his lands in the years to come. For another, facing the mothers and wives of those who did not return was not his favorite part of a homecoming from raid or battle. Winning a degree of acceptance as
their new lord from them, and the cooperation that went with it, had also seemed better than riding with a sullen company at his back.

Marching and countermarching, following the orders of Ross’s captain of the guard, could only be beneficial to them. He should have brought them sooner, should have come sooner himself. That he had not was…

He wouldn’t think of that.

Surveying Braesford’s keep, his several villages near and far, the animals that grazed his field, his various craftsmen and the lands that were beginning to be cultivated for crops, Ross felt a new respect for the man Cate’s sister had married. All was order, energetic activity and harmony. Every person in sight seemed to know what to do and be doing it without complaint. No one shirked or slouched about with a dullard, uncooperative mien, as had the villagers at Grimes Hall.