LordoftheKeep

Lord of the Keep

Ann
Lawrence

Blush Sensuality Level: This is a suggestive romance
(loves scenes are not graphic).

When Lord Gilles invites Emma to
join his weavers, she sees it as her salvation. Emma lives at the base of
Hawkwatch Castle, barely making a living with her weaving for herself and her
daughter. But when she comes to work for Gilles, she weaves far more for the
Lord of the Keep than the finest fabric; she weaves a spell of love about him.

Lord Gilles cannot deny his love
for Emma or the jealousy he feels at other men wanting her. And when her life
is threatened, Gilles knows he has only one true gift to offer—his life for
hers.

A Blush®
historical
romance
from Ellora’s Cave.

Lord of the Keep

Ann Lawrence

Dedication

To my perfect hero

Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not
when my strength faileth.

—Psalm 71:9

Prologue

Hawkwatch Castle, England, 1190

“I have never seen such a collection of rabble and
complainers.” Gilles d’Argent turned from his closest friend, Roland d’Vare,
and stared about the hall of Hawkwatch Castle. A line of petitioners and petty
criminals stretched across the great stone chamber and wound itself about the perimeter.
“Did these people feel so unjustly served they waited upon my father’s death to
make their petitions? Some of these complaints are months old.”

“You have no need to trouble yourself with this chore. Be
gone,” Roland, a tall, spare man with streaks of silver running through his
hair, pared an apple, discarding the skins to the rushes beneath the table.
“Your father, God rest his soul, felt much the same when King Henry granted him
the barony. He made a point to be away for these events.”

“And I find no pleasure in being sent to take his place.”
Gilles frowned as a cat leapt and danced after the curling strips of apple
peel.

“Whilst you may mind your task, King Richard values your
lands and would be loath to see them fall to Prince John’s scheming.”

“Aye, it did not take Richard long to rue granting John
control of five shires.”

“Now ‘tis the task of men like you who must offer
restraint.” Roland grinned as another cat pounced past Gilles’ boots to join
the first tumbling feline.

“I served the old king from the age of nine. After three
decades of duty, I scarcely warrant such a sentence. Guard duty! Saving one
brother from another—pitiful. And must you entertain my mousers whilst old
Garth is sleeping?” Gilles growled as yet another cat skidded among the rushes
and apple skins and tumbled over the mongrel hound with a hoary muzzle that
stretched, oblivious, at his feet.

“I believe you are delaying the matter at hand, my lord,”
whispered Thomas, the cleric who had been frantically scratching out Lord Gilles’
judgments all day. He repeatedly wiped an impatient hand over his tonsured
pate.

Roland ignored the man and grinned. “You have bailiffs,
reeves, me, your newly appointed steward, to handle this. Why try your patience
to such an extreme?”

Gilles grinned back. “You know the answer.”

“Oh, aye. You must put your long nose in every matter, sniff
about like a hound.” He lowered his voice to a barely audible whisper. “You
would make a better sheriff than lord.”

“I shall not be given the choice. But I feel I must take the
measure of these men.” With a sweep of his hand, he indicated the cleric and
village worthies who sat in anxious awe of his assessment. He made no effort to
lower his voice, a subtle warning to them. “I believe they have wrung more
silver for their own pockets from these miscreants, than for my father’s
coffers—” He paused in mid-sentence and lifted his head.

“What is it?” Roland straightened and followed Gilles’ gaze
to the stout oak doors of the hall.

“I don’t know. I feel…” He didn’t finish the sentence. A
woman and an old man had entered the hall, drawing his eyes. Mayhap it had been
but the chill air that accompanied them that raised the gooseflesh on his arms.
He watched the couple advance toward him. Unbidden, as if approached by ones of
higher consequence, he rose from his chair.

“You must await your turn,” Thomas said to the couple,
pointing with a long, bony finger toward the direction from whence they’d come.

“I shall hear them next,” Gilles said.

“But, my lord!” Thomas began, then sputtered and coughed at
Gilles’ raised eyebrow. “Of course, my lord. Forgive me. State your name, sir.”

A flood of words spilled from the old man before them.

Gilles d’Argent held a hand up. “Hold. I can scarcely follow
your words.”

The old man petitioning him was dressed in filthy attire,
his odor offending even from ten feet away. His ochre skin indicated disease,
his lank hair clumped in dirty hanks, personal neglect.

In contrast to him, the young woman at his side stood tall
and lithe and, better yet, clean. Her mantle could challenge the gentians for
glory. It hung well from her shoulders, clasped with a simple knotting of the
cloth.

Her dignity before the manorial court impressed Gilles. She
somehow seemed aloof of the proceedings, untouched by the torrent of words
flowing in an obscene stream from the old man. She did not gawk at the crowd on
the benches about the hall who had gathered to be heard and to be entertained
by the telling, but kept her eyes dutifully lowered.

Gilles returned to his seat on the dais. He did not wish to
appear unduly interested in the young woman. Her hair, the color of summer
honey, fell loose about her shoulders. Her pale cheeks seemed almost colorless
as if she had been ill. He willed her to look up, to allow him to assess her
beauty.

“State your name again for Lord Gilles,” his cleric said,
whilst trying to fend off a feline determined to climb his woolen cassock.

Gilles contemplated the young woman. He wondered if she
found him forbidding. Did she fear his decisions? He arranged his face in what
he hoped was a less forbidding aspect.

The old man rasped out his name once more, this time slowly
and distinctly. “I am Simon of Lynn and my brother’s been dead these past few
years. I’ve the wardship of his only daughter—and a sore trial it be. He had
only this female, and before he died, promised her to a worthy Yorkshireman,
Jacob Baker by name. ‘Twas a bargain that would have greatly benefited me. Now
‘tis all for naught. She’s soiled herself and my good name. Demand she name the
cunning knave who stole her maidenhead. Make him take her to wed and end the
shame that will surely fall upon me and mine.”

The old man’s malicious voice rose like a wind foretelling a
coming storm. Quick as a viper, he turned and struck the young woman on the
face, forcing her head up as she stumbled and fell to her knees. The crack of
his hand reverberated around the vaulted hall.

“Hold,” Gilles thundered, leaping to his feet again. The
attack had caught him by surprise, for the man was skinny and small. The young
woman struggled back to her feet, unaided, and again stood composed and mute
before him. The ugly red mark of the old man’s fist stood out starkly against
her pale complexion. She never raised her eyes from the floor.

“She’s made a whore of herself and shamed my family. Make
her name the man and wed him, my lord. Why should I be providing for her and
her bastard? Make the man pay the price.” The old man spat onto the stones at
his feet.

Gilles subsided into his seat, though he felt the strong
throb of his pulse in his throat and temple, and considered the two diverse
individuals. “Your name, mistress?” Gilles asked. He tempered his tone to the
one he used to his youngest squire when he wanted to sound stern yet
reasonable.

The young woman raised her head and her eyes, mirroring the
mantle’s vibrant gentian color, looked steadily at him. Although pleasing, he
realized she was not beautiful. It was her compelling eyes, so large in her
face, and her dignity that made one notice her. Once noticed, Gilles mused,
never forgotten.

She watched him for a moment, then with a soft voice spoke
into the quiet oasis of men on the dais. “Emma, my lord,” she said, then bowed
her head and considered her toes again.

“What have you to say, Emma? Three others have been before
me today with the same complaint—love satisfied, but not sanctified.” Gilles
stroked his closely cropped black beard. This woman had not the demeanor of the
other young women, and he wanted to hear from her, not the uncle.

“My Lord Gilles, the fact remains—” her uncle began.

“Silence, old man.” Gilles’ voice cut through the man’s
words.

The young woman knotted her hands before her, her only sign
of agitation. “Lord Gilles, I have no complaints to bring before you. I am
content with my lot and just wish to return to my weaving.”

Her words surprised him. She spoke as one from a station of
life far above her companion.

The old man flew into a paroxysm of vituperative adjectives
describing the young woman, her mother, and her mother’s mother. When Gilles raised
his hand, the old man stamped and swore.

“Again, old man, do not speak until I direct you.” Gilles
leaned forward and rested his elbows on the arms of the ancient oak chair in
which he sat. He reached down and scratched Garth’s ear for a moment, although
he did not take his eyes from the young woman. She stood as still as a statue,
as composed as if naught concerned her, stately and calm.

“Emma, your uncle seems to think he has a complaint. As you
are his ward, he has complete control of you, your thoughts even. If he has a
complaint concerning you, it is your complaint, too.”

This time her chin jerked up and her deep blue eyes flashed
defiantly for a moment, then her head bowed quickly as if she’d gained control
and remembered her place, her anger suppressed as she answered. “I cannot help
what my uncle thinks, or others, my lord.”

“Are you a maiden?” Gilles watched intently as the question
brought a red flush up from the mantle’s braided edge to stain the rest of her
face the color of the angry mark on her cheek.

“Nay.”

The one word prompted another round of angry invectives from
the old man and a cuff to Emma’s shoulder.

“William.” Gilles snapped his fingers at William Belfour, a
young knight of his company who, along with others, had been avidly watching
the proceedings. “Take this old man out until I have finished questioning his
ward.” The knight, tall, blond as a Viking, and thick with a warrior’s muscles,
unceremoniously dragged Simon from the hall. The old man looked like a small
child dangling from the knight’s large hand.

“Now, Emma, mayhap we may proceed without interruption. Your
uncle is—not unreasonably—upset that you have lost your maidenhead. What is so
entertaining?” Gilles spoke sharply. The small smile that had appeared on the
young woman’s face disappeared at his tone.

“Forgive me, Lord Gilles. It is just that I find the idea of
a ‘lost’ maidenhead amusing.”

“How so?” he asked, puzzled by her attitude, for most often
such boldness in a serf resulted in, at the least, a few lashes. Of course, she
was a free woman. Her speech and demeanor indicated gentle birth. His curiosity
was piqued.

“Lost implies one may find the object in question and so
have the benefit of its use again, and we know that is not the case here, my
lord.”

Though her posture had stiffened with his rebuke, Gilles
noted that she no longer avoided his eyes now that her uncle had left the hall.
Gilles smiled despite his inclination to sternness. He kept the smile in place
to reassure her. He had brought a sharp discipline to Hawkwatch Keep, a
discipline resented by many who had grown lazy under his father’s haphazard
regime. His manner, coupled with his sun-darkened skin, hard features, and
black hair, had many thinking him the spawn of Satan.

Gilles let his spine relax against the chair back and
stretched out his long legs. He had no wish to rush this judgment. He had no
wish to rush such a lovely creature from his presence. In truth, he considered
that if she were no longer a maiden, if she had been well bedded, he might wish
to have her himself. She had more than a compelling face and pleasing figure.
She had some indefinable aura that drew him, sent his blood rushing as if he
were a boy in his first flush of manhood.

“The loss of a maiden’s virtue, Emma, is not a matter of
amusement,” he lectured, trying to maintain a serious demeanor and shake off
the attraction.

“Aye, my lord,” Emma returned.

“How does your uncle know of…this happenstance?”

“Why, I told him so.”

Gilles sat bolt upright and stared at her, dumbfounded. The cats
scattered in a rush. Garth lifted his head and yelped. “You? You told your
uncle? Surely you could have foreseen the consequences of such an action?”

She looked away from him, and he watched her stare down the
long, stone hall with its high ceiling and brightly woven tapestries. She
seemed to consider each person who loitered or sat at ease before deigning to
answer him.

“Nay, I did not foresee
these
circumstances, my lord.
I meant only to end the connection my uncle had arranged for me. I do not believe
my father intended any such alliance as this for me.”

“Why? ‘Twas surely an honor.” Gilles’ sympathy rose; he
empathized with the difficulty of answering his questions in a public venue.
The dais upon which he sat stood a goodly distance from the folk in the hall.
Still, her uncle’s commotion had ensured that many took an interest.

“When my uncle came to me with the marriage plans, I felt
duty bound to tell him that I loved another. I believe his words were that a
woman’s wishes meant naught. Master Jacob and he had marked their names to the
documents. My uncle said the contract was met. And so I told him ‘twas more
than a woman’s wishes. ‘Twas a deed done.” Her voice broke on the words.

“Do you not wish to name the man who took your innocence so
you may wed him?”

“Nay.” Her answer came swiftly. There was a silent entreaty
in her eyes.

“Hmm.” Gilles tented his fingers beneath his chin, then
steepled his index fingers and stroked his mustache.

“Did you give yourself of your own free wish? Has someone
abused you?” Gilles asked quietly and gently.

She shook her head, sending her hair flying out in a golden
bell. “Nay, my lord, nay.”

“Would naming the man cause him distress?”

“The distress would be mine, my lord.” Her hair subsided,
along with her agitation.

He is pledged to another woman,
he thought,
or
already wed.

Emma studied Lord Gilles as he considered her. Outwardly
calm, inwardly a sea of screaming emotions, Emma remained determined to give
away nothing of her inner turmoil or the sickness in her belly at being so
publicly examined. She thought Lord Gilles too intelligent to accept the
denials she had practiced on her way to the judging.