Lord of the Manor (7 page)

“What about the father? Who does he favor?”

“He lies on his deathbed. Carolyn comes to court in his stead.” Stephen tore his eyes from the object of his fascination. “The best part is that she is no simpering virgin. She has already buried two husbands.”

“Two? How old is this woman?”

“Eight and twenty.”

“Ancient.”

“Well seasoned.”

Suddenly remembering a snippet of gossip he’d
overheard, Richard leaned forward. “Is this also the woman who is suspected of poisoning her last husband?”

“Aye. ’Tis said she rid herself of him because he could not pleasure her. While I think her much too sweet a person to do away with anyone, if she did away with the man for such a reason, I have nothing to worry over. And I intend to prove it to her. Mark my words, Richard. I will bed her before I leave, and will pleasure her so thoroughly that she will weep for me until I return.”

Stephen’s utter audacity never failed to shock Richard, and warning Stephen to have a care would do absolutely no good. The most he could do to protect Stephen was to warn Gerard of their brother’s intentions and let Gerard do some checking on the woman while Stephen was in Normandy.

Richard got up. “Before you become so entangled with this woman that you forget your duty, come up to our chambers. Mayhap Lucinda has written out the list of Basil’s holdings by now.”

“Go on ahead. After I arrange a tryst with the Lady Carolyn, I will join you. By the by, you should look at the list of available women again. This affair over Philip has brought you to the attention of several of the heiresses, and many look upon your actions with favor. You should not let the prospect of advancing your fortune lapse.”

Richard strode toward Wilmont chambers, shaking his head. He knew of no one except Stephen who possessed the gall to simply inform a woman that he was taking her to bed and get away with it. Certainly not Richard.

Certainly not with the woman who he had once
considered bedding.
Lucinda.
Before he knew her identity. Before her request of the king had ruined his plans. Despite Stephen’s beliefs, Richard doubted that any heiress would look far beyond his bastardy no matter how much they admired the stance he’d taken on his brother Gerard’s behalf.

Likely, Stephen would bed his Carolyn, and aye, she would probably weep when he left her bower. Though Richard had shared a pallet with a few willing wenches—never so many as Stephen had—not one of them had wept. Not one would be bereft if she never coupled with him again.

Lack of practice led to lack of skill, both in the training yard and the bedchamber. He preferred the training yard where he was confident of his well-honed skills.

The guard stood at the door to the chamber, alert for trouble, as Richard expected.

“She is inside?” Richard asked.

“Aye, my lord,” the man answered. “She peeked out once, saw me, then ducked back in again. Ain’t seen or heard a peep from her since.”

“Visitors?”

“Except for the servant who brought food, nary a one.”

“Good. Go have your meal. I plan to remain here for the rest of the evening. You won’t be needed again until nightfall. Edric will relieve you at midnight.”

The guard bowed, then strode down the hall.

Richard opened the door to find Lucinda and Philip seated at the table, their trenchers before them. Both rose as he entered the room.

Lucinda looked the same as when he’d left. She’d
neither changed her gown nor fussed with her hair. Yet, somehow, she seemed more beautiful, more tempting. More the vision, the siren.

Desire flared hotter than ever before. His physical reaction to Lucinda was neither welcome nor logical. But he wanted her badly. To the point of pained loins.

Mayhap, if he had her just once…

In that thought lay disaster. Never, ever, would he couple with Basil of Northbryre’s widow. Remembering who she was helped cool his ardor.

“Philip, take your trencher over to the hearth. I wish to speak with your mother,” Richard told the boy.

It irked him that Philip looked to Lucinda, who nodded her permission. The boy needed to learn that his mother’s opinions and wishes no longer mattered, only Richard’s. The boy would learn, eventually, but for now all Richard required was the list of Basil’s lands to give to Stephen and a good night’s rest.

She waited to sit until after he took the chair Philip had vacated.

“Your list,” she said simply, sliding two pieces of parchment across the table. “I made two, one for you to keep and one for you to send with Stephen.”

Richard could barely believe what he was reading. Did King Henry have any notion of the fortune he’d placed in Richard’s hands? Richard doubted Henry knew, or the king would have diverted some—probably most—into the royal treasury.

No longer did Richard need an heiress to expand his holdings. If the list proved true, marble from Caen’s quarry would soon grace Collinwood’s floors. His wine cellar would rival Gerard’s. Grain and spices would flow to his doorstep.

But for all of the goods and services listed, ’twas the amounts of coin due that nearly made his hands shake. His coffers would fill to the point of bulging. Enough to purchase hide upon hide of land. Enough to equip his tenants with new plows and the oxen with which to pull them, and the arms necessary to defend his growing empire.

Enough to easily put a little aside to meet Lucinda’s price.

All depended, of course, on George’s cooperation. Even if he didn’t comply, Richard reasoned, for this amount of wealth Gerard would provide an army to force George into submission, and Richard could pay back his brother out of the wealth won.

So calmly, as though she hadn’t just handed him the keys to his future, she continued to eat. Her dainty fingers dipped into the trencher for a piece of meat slathered with heavy, molasses-laden gravy. She bit the morsel in half with pearl white teeth between roselush lips. He struggled to hold himself in place when she licked the gravy from her fingers.

“Does it meet with your expectations?” she asked, glancing at the parchment he held in a too tightly clenched hand.

“If reliable, aye,” he answered, his voice too husky for his liking.

“’Tis a true accounting,” she said. “You should warn Stephen that George might argue its validity, but I assure you that this is what is due.”

“Why did you not go back to Normandy and claim this in your son’s name?” he asked the question that had niggled at him from the beginning.

“I have no army with which to claim it,” she said. Then her violet eyes clouded over. “Basil’s relatives
are not pleasant people. I feared for both my life and Philip’s. A woman and small boy would have little chance against them.”

If George shared any of Basil’s character—rather, lack of character—she’d been wise to hide from them.

“Stephen leaves for Normandy on the day after the morrow. We will leave then, too. Have you any belongings that need fetching from the abbey?”

“Nay. We have our packs.”

“The mule?”

“I gave the mule to the monks in payment for our shelter. I wish them joy of the beast.”

Philip sat near the hearth on his wolf pelt, greedily consuming the bread that had served as his trencher, as if it were his last meal. Richard noted the bear pelt. Lucinda was resigned, it seemed, to staying. Still, he would leave the guard in place.

He rose and headed for his bedchamber.

“My lord,” she said, halting his steps. “Do we have a bargain?”

For her bride’s price.

“We do, if your accounting is honest.”

“’Tis complete. I would not cheat my son of his full inheritance when he comes of age.”

Which was probably why she’d made two copies of what made up Philip’s inheritance. One for Stephen to give to George, and one to warn Richard that she would know if he cheated her son out of so much as a sou when Philip reached his majority.

“Then ’twould appear, Lucinda, that we have a bargain.”

T
he brothers looked splendid, Lucinda admitted. On this morning of the royal betrothal, Stephen again wore scarlet and gold. Richard wore black and silver—less pretentious but just as rich. The dark garments perfectly accented his blond hair and fair features, and drew attention to his green eyes.

After breaking fast, both would ride in the procession that would wind through the city’s streets to give everyone a last look at the Princess Matilda.

Stephen was in a rush to be off. Richard lagged behind, giving Lucinda the impression that he wouldn’t be overly upset if he missed the procession.

“I will have food and ale brought up,” he said. “If you need aught else, inform the guard.”

“Could we go down and watch the procession, my lord?” Philip asked, his excitement barely held in check.

Richard shook his head. “Nay. ’Tis far too dangerous down there for one so little.” At Philip’s fallen expression, he added, “If you wish to watch, pull my trunk to my bedchamber window. In truth, you will
see more of the procession and the entertainments in the courtyard from far above the crowd.”

Philip’s smile for Richard was adoring, as though Richard had arranged a special perch for Philip to watch. Lucinda wondered if Richard simply didn’t want them down among the crowd because he still feared she would abscond with her son.

Stephen opened the door. Edric, the crusty old captain of the guard who’d shown such kindness to her and Philip on the road, stood without. It seemed unfair that Edric would miss all of the pomp because he was stuck inside the palace passageway.

“My lord, might Edric guard us from within the chambers?” Lucinda asked.

“To what purpose?”

She brushed aside his misgivings, knowing it would take a fair amount of time, and many acts of honesty on her part, to earn his trust. “I merely thought that Edric might also enjoy watching the procession.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Richard turned to his guard. “What say you, Edric?”

Edric bowed. “I do as you command, my lord.”

“You may do as you wish, if you have a care. Should you decide to guard from within, do not let Lucinda talk you into anything foolish.”

Edric looked offended. “They are not to leave the chamber, and none are allowed to enter but you and Lord Stephen. I would follow those orders from either within or without.”

Lucinda couldn’t help but smile at Edric’s impertinence.

Richard crossed his arms. “Do you want to watch the procession or no?”

“I wouldn’t mind seein’ it, my lord. ’Tis said the princess will ride a cloud white horse, and wear a cloak of spun gold. These old eyes have never seen the like.”

“Richard, we will be late,” Stephen admonished.

Richard glanced from Philip, to her, then back to Edric. “Do as you wish, then. I will return after nooning.”

Edric closed the door after the brothers and slid the bolt.

“My thanks for your kindness,” Edric said stiffly.

She noticed the absence of an honorific. ’Twas her due to be addressed properly, but just as she must have patience with Richard, she must tolerate—within bounds—slights from his men. Being the widow of a traitor, she wouldn’t be easily accepted by anyone, especially those in service to Wilmont.

“How long before the procession begins?” she asked.

“Some time yet. Have you seen the entertainers in the courtyard? I hear there is to be a dancing bear.”

“Truly?” Philip exclaimed, his eyes going wide.

Edric looked down at Philip with an expression akin to pity. “So I hear.”

Philip dashed for the bedchamber and managed to push the trunk several inches without aid. Then Edric put his muscle behind it and shoved it beneath the window. Philip scrambled atop the trunk, leaning too far out of the window for a mother’s comfort.

She put her hands on Philip’s waist just as he lurched forward, his arm fully outstretched, pointing down and to the left. “Oh, look! There
is
a bear in the courtyard! And he dances on his hind legs!”

Richard may have kept them here for his own reasons,
but Lucinda admitted he’d been right about their vantage point. She could see the entire courtyard, as well as the street in front of Westminster Hall, without hindrance.

With fascination nearly matching Philip’s excitement she watched the bear whose black fur matched the pelt she’d slept on last night—on which she’d dreamed of Richard. No doubt because the pelt no longer smelled of bear but held Richard’s scent. Human male.

She remembered little of the dream now. Just that Richard stood before her, desire in his eyes, and gently stroked her cheek. She woke aching in places where a widow should not ache, for a man she couldn’t have and shouldn’t want.

“Acrobats!” Philip cried, drawing her attention back to the courtyard.

Men walked on their hands and flipped their bodies in midair. They tumbled over and around each other in precisely coordinated patterns.

She sensed Edric move in behind her. She shifted slightly to give him a better view.

Musicians followed the acrobats. Then a scantily clad woman who walked on a rope strung high off the yard between two poles. Philip clapped and cheered for each in turn.

A knock sounded at the outer door. Edric drew his short sword from his belt.

“’Tis likely only servants come with our meal,” she told her guard.

“Likely,” he said, but didn’t put his sword away as he left to answer the door. He returned moments later, bearing a platter of bread, cheese and cups of ale, which he put on the table.

He then grabbed a fistful of the back of Philip’s tunic. “I will hold whilst you eat.”

Lucinda felt a brief flash of panic, then chided herself. Edric’s duty was to care for Philip. Richard’s man would guard the child with his life, if necessary. She let go of Philip’s waist and went over to the table.

She broke off a piece of cheese, shoved it into a chunk of bread and gave the food to Philip. He ate absently. She doubted that he knew who gave him the food or what he ate.

“Would you care to share our meal?” she asked Edric.

“I ate.”

“Ale, then?”

His eyes narrowed with suspicion, as if she were offering poison. “Not whilst on duty.”

She went back to the table and broke her fast, struggling with frustration. Dealing with these men of Wilmont would test her fortitude sorely. Edric’s kindness easily succumbed to suspicion. Stephen refused to acknowledge her very existence. Richard looked for hidden motives behind her every word or action.

’Twould be a very long two years if she must watch her every word or action. But then, she’d been in their constant company for a mere day. She silently confessed her guilt of behaving in a similar manner, not trusting them much either.

Trumpets sounded.

“Mother, come look! The princess approaches!”

Lucinda moved to the window and looked down at the little girl atop a brilliant white horse. A cloak of shimmering gold draped her shoulders and flowed down to beyond her feet.

Matilda was but a year older than Philip. Her royal
bearing, however, contradicted her age. Here was not a little girl, but a princess bound for the Roman Empire to become its empress. And she knew it.

Behind Matilda rode three men. The emperor’s delegation, Lucinda guessed. Then came the nobles of England and Normandy. Richard and Stephen rode in the third row—high placement in the procession, indeed.

“He is truly wondrous,” Philip sighed.

“Sired and foaled of the finest of Wilmont stock,” Edric said proudly.

They spoke of Odin. Lucinda stared at Richard. He rode straight-backed, his chin raised high and expression stoic. Truly wondrous. Odd that she felt a tingle of pride.

Richard looked up and acknowledged Philip’s wild waving with a slight nod. His gaze locked with hers for an unsettling instant, then he turned his eyes forward again, a grim set to his mouth. He passed on, headed for Westminster Hall, where feasting and entertainment would go on far into the night, interrupted only by the betrothal ceremony this afternoon.

“His lordship does not care for pomp,” she uttered the observation aloud.

“Nay, he does not. But he does what he must for the benefit of Wilmont,” Edric said with an edge to his voice.

“I did not mean to insult him, Edric. I merely notice that he looks uncomfortable.”

“Humph. He should not. For a bastard he has done right well. Richard can stand his ground with any of them without shame.”

Philip spun around to ask Edric, “What’s a bastard?”

“A child born out of wedlock,” Edric answered.

“Is that a bad thing?”

Edric thought a moment before answering. “Depends on what the person does to rise above it.”

“Am I a bastard?”

Philip’s question took Lucinda by such surprise she sputtered, “N-nay.”

“Oh,” Philip said, disappointed.

A hint of a smile touched the corner of Edric’s mouth. “You may not be a bastard, Philip, but you have another shortcoming to rise above. You could do worse than to model your life after Richard of Wilmont’s. Now go eat.”

Philip jumped down off the trunk to do Edric’s bidding. Edric left the bedchamber. She heard the bolt slide and the door close behind him.

“What shortcoming?” Philip asked, spitting crumbs from talking with his mouth full of bread.

She sat down on Richard’s bed, suddenly weary.

“The shortcoming is not yours, but your father’s. I have told you what a hateful man he was. Many will hold his faults against you.”

“So I must rise above them, like Richard.”

It seemed a daunting task for one so young. “Aye.”

“Aught else?”

She ruffled his hair and smiled. “You must learn not to talk with your mouth full of bread. Look, you make a mess. Out to the sitting room with you.”

Philip was napping when Richard returned to the chamber, looking overwarm and out of sorts.

“Are you all right?” escaped Lucinda’s mouth before
she thought better of asking. ’Twas not her place, nor should she care.

“I will be as soon as I get out of this garb. A servant is fetching ale for me. Let her in.”

He disappeared into his bedchamber. No sooner had he done so than Lucinda opened the door to a serving wench bearing a large flagon and cups.

No guard stood outside the door. Surely, there must be one. She poked her head out into the passageway, looking right, then left. No guard? Was Richard finally coming to realize that she didn’t intend to run?

She closed the door.

“I see no need for a guard while I am in the chamber,” he said from the archway.

“I see,” she said, her lightened spirit fading.

He’d traded his black silk for unadorned brown linen.

She poured ale into his cup. He drank it down like a man dying of thirst, then held it out for her to refill.

“I assume the betrothal ceremony is over,” she said.

“’Tis not yet started. I left the hall when the closeness of the crowd became overbearing. No one will miss me.”

Lucinda didn’t agree. A man who’d ridden in the third tier of nobles in a royal procession would certainly be missed, and his lack of attendance commented upon.

“You should return to the hall for the ceremony, if naught else,” she told him. “Should someone wish you ill, and whisper into the king’s ear, you will suffer the consequences.”

He groaned and laid his head back on his shoulders,
then stretched his neck from side to side. She knew how to ease his pain.

“Sit in the chair,” she ordered, and to her amazement he gave no argument.

The moment she touched him, he tensed. So did she. Quicksilver heat rushed through her limbs and flared in her nether regions. Putting her hands on a man’s neck should not affect her so. No matter how warm, how thick, how muscled.

She determinedly regained her composure. “I have not the hand’s span or strength to strangle you. Be at ease.”

Richard tried, but the feel of her fingers kneading at the knots in his neck was nearly too much to bear. Aye, the pain in his neck succumbed to her manipulations, but another pain seized him. He highly doubted she would be willing to massage that pain, too.

He’d left the hall when the crowd had closed in around him and the air grew stale and unbreathable. Coming back here had seemed such a good idea, but he’d not counted on Lucinda having her sweet way with his neck.

Her thumb pushed into the worst of the knots. His groan of undiluted pleasure made her laugh lightly. A dainty, musical sound. She worked without comment, and he allowed her to continue far beyond necessary.

Lucinda was right He should go back to the hall, for more reason than the one she’d stated.

He’d dismissed the guard. If he went back, he must take his charges with him. He couldn’t leave them vulnerable, especially not after the comments he’d heard today from some of Basil’s victims. He doubted
that any of them would dare take action while Lucinda and Philip were under Wilmont’s care, but he wouldn’t take the chance.

Richard removed Lucinda’s hands from his neck. “Would you and Philip care to see the betrothal ceremony?”

Lucinda wasn’t interested in the ceremony, but she would love the chance to escape the confines of Wilmont’s chambers.

“You would take us?” she asked, incredulous that Richard offered, considering his insistence on keeping her and Philip confined and guarded.

“I would not ask had I not meant to.”

She looked down at her gown. “Neither Philip nor I have garments suitable for so grand an occasion.”

“We will keep to the shadows. The crowd’s attention will be on the king and princess, not on us.”

Lucinda wasn’t so sure, but that wouldn’t stop her from going. She woke Philip and made them both as presentable as possible.

They made slow progress during the walk from the palace to the hall. Many of the entertainers she’d seen from the bedchamber window still lingered to ply their trade for the city folk not allowed inside the hall with the nobles. When Philip complained that he couldn’t see around the gathered crowd, Richard hoisted the boy onto his shoulders.