Lord of the Manor (10 page)

“For now, they will reside in the manor.”

“O’course. We must keep a close watch on them.”

Then Connor turned heel and stamped off toward the manor.

“Give him time and patience,” Richard said. “He is old and sore used, and will be the last to come around.”

Time and patience.
The phrase rang empty. She might as well hope for a miracle.

The last soul in the manor still awake, Richard sat on a stool near the banked central fire pit, a mug of ale in hand and a keg not far off.

A loud snap from the pit brought one of the dogs’ heads up, and from on a beam above, the flap of his falcon’s wings. Connor snored on his pallet. Edric, not yet ready to give up his duty as their personal guard, slept within reach of Lucinda and Philip.

The boy had curled up on the wolf pelt he now considered his. Lucinda slept near him, stretched out on a bear pelt.

The day could have been worse. So far, no one had thrown anything at Lucinda and Philip, or threatened to do them bodily harm. For the most part, his vassals had simply steered clear of Collinwood’s newest residents.

Philip’s normal exuberance had lasted throughout the tour of the bailey, and flared bright in the stables. Richard now knew what to do if the boy’s spirits ever needed a lift—sit him on a horse. Any horse.

Lucinda. The woman was a fighter, he would give her that. The spark in her eyes had faded, but she would rally, and he hoped she would do it soon. He didn’t think he could bear to watch her for too many days, hide behind the indifferent, aloof mask she’d donned after her first meeting with Connor.

As if his thoughts had called out to her, she stirred. Her delicate hand pushed aside the wool coverlet Slowly, she rose on her elbow, looking around, disoriented.

Sleep-sheened eyes spotted him.

He thought she would lie back down and go back to sleep. She wrapped the coverlet around herself and gingerly rose, then padded toward him, her night rail brushing the tops of her bare feet.

’Twas more beauty and sensual grace than a man should have to look upon late at night after drinking
too much ale—unless the woman was his and available for the taking.

Lucinda belonged to no man, and more and more, Richard was beginning to forget to whom she had once belonged. It didn’t seem right that a woman of Lucinda’s beauty should not belong to someone, or that a man who’d been dead for three years should affect his feelings now.

Hellfire. He’d met her less than a fortnight ago, and she’d already managed to turn his mind upside down and sideways.

“May I?” she asked, waving a hand at the ale keg.

“You need not ask for food or drink. Whatever is here is yours for the taking.”

She took hold of the dipper and pulled it upward, then sipped from the bowl. “Even your ale has a fine taste, Richard. After all I saw today, I wonder if anything or anyone at Collinwood is not exemplary.”

Collinwood’s lord was far from perfect.

“You approve of what I have done here?”

“I had never seen Collinwood, but I know what life must have been like for these people. You have lifted them up out of hell. How could I not approve?”

Richard remembered the first time he’d seen the holding, the buildings in shambles, the people near skeletons. “This is one of the finest fiefs in the kingdom. I never understood how Basil could let it—bah, I have no wish to dredge up the past tonight.”

She let the dipper sink back into the keg. “The holding flourishes because its present lord has scruples, which its former lord did not possess. You should be very proud that your vassals are both healthy and happy.”

“All but one or two.”

She raised a surprised eyebrow. “Truly?”

“You and Philip. Life will not be easy for you here.”

“We will survive.”

She would, but that wasn’t satisfactory. Richard put his mug down on the rush-covered floor, disturbing the rosemary sprinkled within to keep the rushes sweet-smelling. The aroma of the herb, however, couldn’t overcome the heady scent of the woman who stood sleepily before him.

He got up, fully aware that he might regret his actions on the morn. Mayhap she’d cast a spell over him, or more likely he’d drunk just enough ale to muddle his mind. But he could no more keep his hands off Lucinda than he could stop breathing.

Richard cupped her face in his hands. To his amazement, she didn’t pull back, just looked confused.

“Smile, Lucinda.”

“Smile? Whatever for?”

“Because I have not seen you smile today and I wish to see it again.”

“’Tis the ale speaking.”

“Mayhap, but ’tis still my wish.”

The corners of her mouth tilted upward, slightly.

“You can do better,” he said.

Her full, lush mouth widened. She might even be laughing at him, but damn, he didn’t care. Kissing Lucinda was a compulsion he chose not to fight.

His lips met hers gently, urging a response he didn’t think he would get. Her hands came up to clutch his wrists, but not to push him away.

Then she was in his arms, pressed fully against him, fire burning in her deepening, demanding kiss.

The desire he’d doused with calm reason since the day they’d met flared into an inferno that burned hot and bright.

Too hot, too long, for a woman whom he sensed would tumble down onto the rushes with him with little urging.

Too fast. Too soon.

He broke the kiss, breathing heavily, his thoughts still muddled but becoming clearer.

“Mayhap the ale speaks too loudly,” he said. “’Twould be wise if we refrained.”

Her violet eyes glittered. And for just a moment, he thought he saw regret.

“Mayhap,” she said softly, and padded back to her pallet.

L
ucinda bent down and tugged at Philip’s coverlet “Up with you or we will be late, and you know how Connor blusters when anyone is late for meals.”

Philip groaned but stirred, rustling the straw mat beneath his wolf pelt.

Satisfied that he woke, Lucinda looked around what must be the tidiest hut in the kingdom; she’d cleaned it often enough for lack of other chores to fill her days. Timber framing supported walls of wattle and daub, covered by a thatched roof. The hut had been her home for the past four days.

Between her and Philip’s pallets stood a chest, old but sturdy, which now held their garments. A small table and stool took up much of the remaining space. The hut was small but, according to Connor, the largest that could be built with materials currently on hand.

Connor, who’d become the bane of her existence, had balked at building her hut, had even voiced the opinion that she and Philip could find sleeping space in the stable. Thankfully, Richard hadn’t felt the same way. Aye, Richard wanted her out of the manor at
night, but not so badly that he would make her bed down with the horses.

She still flushed whenever she remembered how wantonly she’d kissed Richard, which no doubt led to his ordering her hut built. He’d initiated the kiss, a gentle touching of lips. Engulfed in bliss so foreign to her experience, she’d lost her head and pressed for more. If Richard hadn’t come to his senses, she’d have given herself to him right there on the manor floor.

Lord help her, she wished Richard possessed less sense. For all the problems between them, she wished to know Richard as a woman knows a man. Unfortunately, their kiss must have told him so, because now he avoided her.

As it was, they still saw each other several times a day, mostly at meals. Everyone who dwelled within the palisade took their meals in the manor, for Richard allowed no fires other than the manor’s pit, except for the blacksmith’s forge. A wise move. A stray spark could burn the whole place down.

Philip crawled out of his pallet and donned a new tunic—a gift from Richard.

“The sun is barely up,” Philip grumbled.

“’Twill be a fine spring day,” she said, pushing aside useless romantic thoughts about Richard to concentrate on the task at hand. She possessed two strong arms, deft hands, and an agile brain. Today she would demand that Connor assign her some chore, to help earn her keep—and to keep from going witless.

Philip hadn’t known a moment’s boredom. He spent his days with Edric, or with Richard, learning about soldiering and the proper running of a manor. Her inactivity, however, would shortly drive her to
distraction. But trying to convince Connor was like arguing with a dead tree. Once more, she would try, but if Connor turned his back on her again, she would take the problem to Richard.

She hurried her sleepy-eyed son out of the hut and across the bailey. In the manor, she took her place at the high end of the row of trestle tables where everyone ate together, including Richard. No dais graced the hall at Collinwood. Richard sat on a stool at the end of the table, with everyone else, in order of rank, on benches stretched down the sides.

Lucinda sat immediately to his left hand, across from Connor at Richard’s right Richard’s acknowledgement of her Norman heritage and noble rank irked Connor to no end.

The placement sometimes irked her, too. Far too often her food went neglected while she noticed little things about Richard. Like the way his fingers wrapped around a goblet. Or when he licked gravy from a corner of his mouth. Or watching his lips move as he spoke, and longing for another kiss.

The subject of her musings took his seat and broke a large chunk of bread from the loaf sitting in front of him. Lucinda waited for Connor to take his portion before breaking the rest in half for herself and Philip. No priest resided at Collinwood, and no one seemed inclined to say grace, so they ate without a blessing.

As usual, Connor launched into a list of the happenings about the manor that day. The rushes needed changing. The squeaking hinge on the door would be replaced. Edric intended to begin teaching Philip the art of polishing chain mail. The noon’s main course—fish.

“We are also in need of firewood, my lord,” Connor
said. “I assigned a few of the soldiers the task of gathering it from the forest to the south.”

Richard took a sip of ale from his cup, washing down the bread. “I thought we had an ample supply last I looked.”

“We did, but we are now short. We used some of the bigger logs to build the frame for Lady Northbryre’s hut.”

Lucinda hated the name Connor had branded her with upon her arrival. Not only was it improper, but served to remind everyone of her past. As Connor well knew.

She’d planned to challenge Connor today, not quite this way, but took the opportunity presented.

“I am not Lady Northbryre, Connor,” she said, causing his head to turn sharply to look at her. “Since Gerard of Wilmont now holds the property, only his wife may use the title, if she chooses. Properly, you should call me ‘my lady’ or, since I give my consent, you may use my name. Lucinda.”

He nearly choked on his rising anger, and she carefully masked any reaction. She’d coped with the explosive temper of a man far more dangerous than Connor. Inside she might quake, but she refused to show Connor any sign of anxiety.

She turned her attention from Connor to Richard. Seeing no anger, only mild surprise that she took Connor to task, she forged ahead.

“Since Connor seems to feel that building my hut has caused a lack of firewood, I offer to help gather more.”

“Impossible.” Connor spit out the word.

“Why impossible, Connor?” Richard asked.

“The men will be out there to work, not guard a…a
lady
who should not be allowed out in the forest alone with a group of men!”

“Then let them work,” she countered, encouraged by Richard’s -lack of outright refusal. “I need no guarding. Nor do I fear being alone with Richard’s soldiers. They are well disciplined and will do me no harm,” she added, realizing that she believed it.

Connor leaned forward. “’Tis not your safety that concerns me,
my lady,
but the men’s!”

“Connor, enough,” Richard admonished in a low, deceptively calm tone.

Connor leaned back at the rebuke. “The woman is not trustworthy, my lord. ’Tis why she must be confined to her hut, kept away from Collinwood’s people. So long as she stays in her place, we may yet survive the years until we can be rid of her.”

Confined to the hut? ’Twas the first she’d heard of such, but apparently not the first time Connor had proposed the plan to Richard.

“It makes no sense to confine either Lucinda or Philip,” Richard said. "So long as they cause no problems, hurt no one, they are allowed the freedom of the bailey.”

“Surely,” Connor countered, aghast, “you will not let her roam about beyond the palisade, my lord.”

Richard shrugged a shoulder. “If Lucinda wishes to gather wood, I see no harm in it. And if it eases your mind, I will go along to watch her. I had planned to check the state of the game in the southern wood anyway.”

He said it so casually, igniting a fresh look of horror on Connor’s face and causing an unsettling flutter around her heart. The thought of tramping about the southern wood with Richard’s soldiers hadn’t caused
her a twinge of disquiet. The possibility that she might find herself alone in the southern wood with Richard caused a thrill she had no right or reason to feel.

Yet finally, she had a worthwhile task to perform—even if it was only gathering firewood. So did Richard—checking on the availability of game. Certes, they would do so separately.

Richard set his men to felling two large dead trees along the side of the road, then wandered back into the wood in the direction Lucinda had taken—with a basket in hand to search for kindling. Easily followed, easily found.

She looked up when she heard him, then went back to her task as if he weren’t there.

He gave up pretending that he was looking for hares, or birds, or any other small game, admitting that his quarry the entire time was right before his eyes—picking up small chunks of wood, putting them in her basket.

Lucinda.

He sat on a log and allowed himself the pleasure of watching her lithe, supple form perform a dance of sorts, as she bent over and reached for kindling from the forest floor.

She’d performed another dance earlier, one of words, with Connor. The woman had gall and courage, he’d give her that She’d challenged Connor with the spark of self-assurance that had been missing in her behavior lately.

He’d begun to worry about her state of mind. She’d held to her hut, coming out only for meals. He’d
known all along that if she were to find a place for herself at Collinwood, she would have to fight for it.

Oh, he could have ordered his vassals to cooperate, to give Lucinda the deference due her. But they would have resented her all the more for his telling them to accept a woman they had no wish to accept He could only help her in small ways, by giving her a high seat at table, acting as a buffer against Connor.

Lucinda needed to gain the people’s respect on her own. And she had it within her power to do so, if she only would.

With a hand to the small of her back, she raised up and stretched backward, adding a new pose to the many images of her that kept him awake at night.

Not that he needed more than the memory of their one kiss to keep him awake, longing for another. He wanted Lucinda. Fighting his lust had become a hopeless battle, especially now that he was almost certain she would welcome his advances.

Too, he’d wrestled with Basil’s ghost. The specter hadn’t vanished, but grew weaker with each bout Lucinda had been a victim of her marriage, just as he’d been a victim of his birth. Neither of them had control over events not of their doing. In truth, if Lucinda were the widow of almost any other man, she might be far beyond his reach.

Yet she stood in his forest, with a few steps between them, his for the taking if one of them took those steps.

Lucinda bent over again. Two layers of fabric, a gown of gray wool and a chemise of cream linen, were all that barred his manroot from the core of her. His own knee-length tunic didn’t count. ’Twas easily
pushed aside. No breeches bound him, for he wore only short hose criss-crossed with leather straps.

“Ouch!” Lucinda bolted upright, sticking a forefinger in her mouth.

He didn’t dare stand up and go over to her with his arousal full-blown. She would see in an instant what he’d been thinking about. Seduction. Tangling his fingers in her long raven black hair, drowning in her exotic violet eyes. Finding a patch of long grass, laying her down, easing himself into her body. Claiming her as his lover.

“A sliver?” he asked, his voice rough.

She put the basket down, then turned her hand to examine her injured finger. “Mayhap.”

“Come here and let me look.”

Lucinda didn’t hesitate to obey Richard’s command. She walked toward him, slowly, giving her pounding heart a chance to quiet.

She’d thought, at first, that Richard had wandered her way and would move on. Then he’d plunked down on a log and stared at her with a breath-stealing intensity that thrilled her right down to her toes. Her body flared to instant arousal and she ceased thinking rationally.

She wanted a kiss, and more, if Richard was willing.

Perhaps she should feel shame for the brazen way she’d flaunted her body to tempt him. To both her dismay and relief, she felt no remorse, only a burning passion for the man who’d awakened her desire.

No sliver pierced her finger. A mere scratch, done apurpose, drew little blood. If Richard hadn’t asked to look at the wound, she’d have asked him to. A base ploy, but hopefully not a futile one.

She stopped in front of him and held out her hand. He took it, gently, and examined the scratch.

“I see no sliver,” Richard said, his voice as ragged as her knees were wobbly.

“Good,” she said, the word more breathed than spoken.

“Aye, good,” he agreed, then turned her hand and kissed her palm.

He caught her around the waist and pulled her into the V of his outspread legs. She stepped toward him and sought his shoulder for balance. The flicker of his tongue on her palm, moist and rough, set her shuddering. The low moan she heard came from her own throat.

And through it she heard the crack and rumble of a falling tree.

Richard felt Lucinda tremble just as the tree crashed to the ground. They had little time before the men felled the second tree and would come looking for them. Not that he needed much time to gain his release.

But a woman needed more, those strokes and caresses in sensitive places that ensured her full pleasure.

He shouldn’t be thinking like this, not when he wasn’t sure that Lucinda was willing. But if she was, and even half as aroused as he…

Richard pushed himself to his feet and found his answer in glittering pools of violet, alight with smoldering passion. For him.

He pulled her in close and molded his lips to hers, trying to hold back and be gentle. Lucinda didn’t allow it. She kissed him back as fiercely as she had before.

His body burned for the woman in his arms, who pressed so close that she couldn’t harbor any illusions about what would happen between them. Now. In an outdoor bower.

If he could find a patch of grass to lay her down on.

Richard broke the kiss and held her tight, her cheek pressed against his chest His heart thudded hard against his ribs as he surveyed the surrounding wood.

“Richard?” Her voice was high, a bit thready. Her hands clenched around fistfuls of his tunic, as if afraid he would let her go.

She had nothing to fear, not on that score.

“A moment, Lucinda. I merely look—” He found a spot where the grass reached knee-high, where the sun beamed down to the ground unhindered by the trees. “There. All right?”

Lucinda didn’t look. “I don’t give a fig about where!”

“Then put your arms around my neck, woman.”