Joining (18 page)

“Happy?”

She almost laughed. She did smile wryly. “When most marriages, like ours, are arranged? What, pray tell, would cause happiness in such a case?”

He appeared thoughtful for a moment. “Well, there is the fact that neither of us is impaired, overly short, or cross-eyed, things to cause great joy.”

An image of him crossing his eyes was too much to keep her from laughing, which was too bad. Their supposed happiness was a subject she could have sunk her teeth into in all seriousness. Now she would feel silly doing so.

She crossed her own eyes instead, and heard him burst out laughing as well. So much for letting the castle folk know they were unhappy with each other. Actually, the amusement had her relaxing, which
was
preferable to the tension he had been causing her.

“Now I must recant my own words. You are a vision, lass, even with crossed eyes.”

She blushed. Actually, she blushed profusely. Compliments from him were extremely difficult to take, and she couldn’t even say why that was so. Had someone else said what he just did, she would barely have noticed. Yet his words went right to her gut and stirred things there.

She reached for her wine, and nearly spilled it.
Jesu,
were her hands trembling as well? But gulping down what was left in the chalice did seem to help somewhat. She was at least able to look at him without blushing again.

It was still a mistake, to glance his way again. The humor he still wore in his expression added a sparkle to his deep blue eyes and softened the hard edges of his mouth. It made him seem so different, hardly brutish. It also pointed out once again just how very handsome he was.

It must have been the surprised wonder in her own expression that caused his to alter, but suddenly he looked as he had earlier that morn, just before he kissed her. Her breath caught and held. Her belly churned. Her pulse seemed to thunder in her ears.

He looked away first, thankfully, for she’d been unable to do so herself. And he seemed a trifle disconcerted, mayhap even embarrassed. She saw him rake a hand through his hair, just before her eyes flew elsewhere.

She thought to get up and leave the hall. That was her first instinct and would be the wisest action. Simply get far away from him until her senses returned to normal. She could give him any excuse, or none; she did not think he would
try to detain her after what had just passed between them—whatever it was.

But when she heard, “I wouldst speak with you, after the meal,” she abruptly changed her mind, afraid that he would follow instead.

“Speak now if you must,” Milisant said without looking back at him, and in a voice that she barely recognized as her own, it was so breathless.

“In private,” he stressed.

“Nay.”

“Mili—”

Alarmed now, and in absolutely no doubt about what he wanted in private, she cut in, “Nay, there will be no more kissing.”

“Why not?” he asked simply.

The question so surprised her that she turned to stare at him again. And he did seem genuinely confused, though no more than she was, since she had not thought she would have to give a reason. Nor did she have one that would not embarrass them both.

So she avoided an answer by countering, “Think you a woman needs a reason to say nay?”

“When ’tis her betrothed she is telling nay, aye, she does.”

“We are not joined yet.”

“I do not mean to bed you—yet—so what can you object to in a simple kiss?”

Jesu,
she had known the subject would scald her cheeks again. And what could she say, that his kiss disturbed her so much, she could not take it in the light way he seemed to be thinking
of it? Simple? There was naught simple about his kiss, nor what it made her feel.

She took a defensive tack. “You love another. Why do you even
want
to kiss me?”

His lips tightened. He obviously did not like the reminder that she was not his choice for a mate, any more than he was hers.

“Is that why you think to deny me? Because
you
love another? You will forget him, wench. The
only
one who will be kissing you henceforth is me, so best you resign yourself to that soonest, ere you cause us both grief.”

Having ground out those words, he abruptly left the table. Dislike the reminder? Nay, nothing so mild as that. It had made him furious.

Twenty-four

“How many men
will you shatter today, ere you figure out what is bothering you?”

Wulfric glanced at his brother, who had come up beside him, then at the row of knights and squires Raimund was staring at, who were sitting nearby, nursing various bruises and contusions after the vigorous workout Wulfric had just put them through.

“There is naught bothering me,” Wulfric denied, though he did sheathe his sword and shake his head at the squire who was next in line to test his skills against him. He then scowled at his brother. “I should have looked for you instead.”

Raimund gave a hoot of laughter. “Thank you for sparing me. And you barely worked up a sweat. Or are those ice crystals I see on your frowning brow?”

“Mayhap you
are
due for a workout,” Wulfric rejoined menacingly.

Raimund grinned. “And mayhap you are due for a large tankard of mead and a shoulder to—bite on.”

“You should apply at John’s court for the position of buffoon, brother. Methinks you would be hired right quickly—and what has
you
in such silly humor?”

“I spent a very pleasant eventide with my wife, so why would I not be in good spirits? You, on the other hand, are obviously in an even worse mood than you were on the way to collect your betrothed, and I had thought naught could possibly get worse than that. What has occurred since I parted from you yestereve?”

“’Twould be better to ask, what has not occurred.”

Wulfric said it in a mumble as he walked away, not really for Raimund’s ears, yet did Raimund follow him quick enough to hear each word, and replied with a grin, “Very well, what has
not
occurred?”

Wulfric glanced back to give him a glare. His only answer was a snort. He continued on his way, entering the nearest stable, stopping by two occupied stalls. His stallion was in one. Milisant’s destrier was in the other. Surprisingly, it was the destrier, rather than his own horse, that Wulfric offered the sugar crystals to, which he pulled from the pouch on his belt. More surprising was that he did it at all.

“I wouldst fear for my hand,” Raimund remarked quite seriously.

“Nay, he has the veriest sweet tooth. There is not a mean bone in him when it comes to sugar.”

“’Twas brave of you to find that out.” Raimund chuckled, then, curiously, asked, “You offer her horse, but not yours?”

Wulfric shrugged. “Mine is spoiled enough.”

“Think you she does not spoil hers?”

Another shrug. “If she does, she will not be able to much longer. Once the guests begin to arrive, she will be restricted to the keep.”

“A wise precaution,” Raimund agreed. “But what is the immediate problem, that has you decimating the lower ranks?”

Wulfric sighed and raked a hand through his hair, so rankled that he forgot it was coated with sugar crystals, nor did he notice. “I find that I want to kill a man I do not even know.”

“Understandable. I wouldst be livid with rage did someone try to harm my—”

“Nay, I do not mean the one trying to harm Milisant,” Wulfric cut in. “That one will wish for a score of deaths ere I am done with him, once I have him. I mean the one she has given her heart to. I did not give him a thought at first. Now I can think of little else.”

Raimund was amazed. “When did you switch from hating her to liking her?”

“Who said aught about liking her?” Wulfric countered. “She is my betrothed, Raimund. I find it intolerable that I will be competing with someone I have never even met.”

“You have a name then, to know that you have never met him?”

Wulfric frowned. “Nay, ’tis a name I am wanting.”

“What keeps you from simply asking her for it?” Raimund ventured. “And have her think I mean to do him harm?” Raimund chuckled. “Is that not what you
were just saying you wouldst like to do? Kill him, I believe were your exact words.”

Wulfric waved a dismissive hand. “An exaggeration, and give me none of your doubtful looks, brother. I cannot figure out how to end her attachment to him until I know why she did form one, and I cannot know that until I know who he is.” His look then turned thoughtful. “But methinks you can aid me in this.”

Raimund raised a brow, guessing. “You want
me
to ask Lady Milisant?”

“Nay, not her. She wouldst tell you no more’n she would me. But her sister, Jhone, she is a much different lass, sweet, biddable, hardly the suspicious sort. She would know who this man is, and is more like to tell you than me.”

“And if she does not, I suppose I could beat it out of her,” Raimund said, tongue in cheek.

“You jest when this is a matter of serious concern to me?”

“Jesu,
I hope the priest was eloquent in the burial of your humor, brother. Nay, what I
think
is you make too much of this. Even if your lady is fond of another, ’tis you she will marry, you she will keep faith with. Or do you have reason to believe otherwise? Think you she wouldst betray you?”

“Nay, I think she would honor what vows she makes. That is not my concern. Let me ask you this, then. How wouldst you feel if, when making love to your wife, you know,
know,
mind you, without any doubt, that she is imagining you to be some other man?”

Raimund’s cheeks lit with heated color. “I’ll speak to her sister today.”

Twenty-five

It amazed Milisant,
the things women did gossip about. It had been years since she had been forced to sit and listen to such idle chatter. Nor would she have done so today if Lady Anne hadn’t fetched both her and Jhone right after the midday meal, putting them to work on the huge tapestry she wanted finished before the wedding.

It was set up near the Great Hearth on a large rack. Nigh a dozen needles plied it at once, and without crowding, so big was this tapestry. Milisant stayed, but only because Anne stayed to supervise, and she didn’t want to argue with that determined lady.

Yet she only pretended to use the needle she had been given, because it really was a beautiful tapestry, or would be when it was finished. It depicted a lordly knight and his entourage on horseback on a lovely hill in summer bloom, surveying an approaching army. Yet so little concerned by the impending threat was the knight that a hawk perched on his wrist, and he
was nigh laughing. Was he supposed to be Sir Guy? Or Wulfric? No matter, it would be petty of her to ruin the tapestry with her unskilled stitching.

As for the gossip flying about her, the subjects ranged from the gory details of childbirth, to the intimacies that caused such conditions, to the exaggerated size of a certain man-at-arm’s sword—it had taken Jhone to whisper to her what sword they referred to before the ladies got the expected blush out of Milisant that they had been trying for.

They soon gave up, though, when they realized that she was not a bride-to-be easy to tease, which had been their harmless intention. Standard fare that all new brides must endure, yet Milisant was not a standard new bride, thus her reactions were not what they did expect—quite a few glares and only one blush.

It was during this time, while she was sitting among so many, that Milisant felt eyes on her that did not belong. Just an odd little feeling that she shook off, since the ladies were making a great deal of noise in their laughter, and so would be drawing eyes their way.

That she felt the eyes on her in particular was a moot point. She just happened to be among the many—at least, she tried to convince herself of this, rather than accept her first thought, which was that she was being guarded so closely that men had even been set to
watch
her, which she would find intolerable. But in either case, she was quick to take herself from prying eyes just as soon as Lady Anne left the hall.

She was able to do so because Jhone wasn’t
there either. She had gone up to the chamber they shared to fetch an unusually bright blue thread she’d been hoarding from the treasures their father had brought back from the Holy Land, which she wanted to apply to the lead knight’s eyes on the tapestry. A kind gift on her part, since the tapestry wouldn’t grace Dunburh. But at least she wasn’t there at the moment to try and prevent Milisant from sneaking off.