Love Everlasting (4 page)

“So,” he said, warning himself to keep his
thoughts firmly

on the matter at hand, “we have agreed to
mutual honesty, kind treatment, and a clean castle. Can you think
of anything more that’s necesssary to a successful marriage?” He
could think of a few delightful things that marriage involved, most
of them remarkably sensual, but he didn’t want to alarm her. How he
wished he could trust her.

“On the subject of vows, my lord.” She
inhaled deeply before continuing, rather like a warrior preparing
to plunge into battle. When she spoke again she did sound as if she
was issuing a challenge. “On the day when Lord Craydon died, I
swore a solemn oath that never again would I allow myself to be
given away as second best.”

“I don’t understand,” Royce said, surprised
by her solemnity.

“Both of my husbands were widowers when I
married them, and neither man made any secret of his preference for
the first wife. Now it is happening again, and again, despite my
vow, I have been given no choice about my own life. I have been
told that you were widowed more than ten years ago. That is long
enough, I think, for a man to turn any woman into a saint.”

“Few women attain sainthood.” He refused to
say a word about Avisa. She had been no saint; she’d been
delightfully human, but she was in the past and he’d leave her
there. “I promise, you will not be second best with me. What say
you, then? Since neither of us has a choice in this matter, will
you agree to the terms of our private bargain?”

“I will.” She stuck out her hand, though she
remained several feet away from him.

Royce clasped her cool fingers and tugged
hard, unbalancing her. When Julianna stumbled and fell against his
chest he wrapped his arms around her, holding her close, and
lowered his mouth to hers.

Julianna’s lips were as cold and unresponsive
as her hand. Royce slanted his mouth across those cool lips and
pressed harder, silently instructing her to open to him, yet
uncertain of her submission. He half expected her to fight him and
at first she did, using one fist to push against his shoulder. He
refused to give way, for he wanted her learn at once that he was
her master.

Royce slid his hand under her crisp linen
wimple to the nape of her neck. Slowly he stroked the smooth skin
there, while with his other hand he encircled her waist and pulled
her closer still.

She made a soft sound low in her throat and
then moved her lips, accepting his kiss. With a sense of triumph
far out of proportion to her minor surrender, Royce teased his
tongue along the edge of her lower lip and, when she opened her
mouth on a gasp of surprise, he surged into her sweet warmth. For,
despite her cold hands and lips, she was warm there, deep in the
moist honey of her mouth. She was incredibly sweet, and she kissed
him back like an innocent young girl, as if she had never been
kissed on the lips before. The hand with which she had been trying
to push him away curled into his woolen tunic, twisting the fabric,
clinging to it with a strange desperation, almost as if she was
trying to hold on to him.

When Royce finally, reluctantly, broke off
the kiss, she gazed at him from a face suffused with wonder. Then
she moved away from him and her previous cool, tense expression
returned.

“What did you just do to me?” she whispered,
sounding frightened.

“I was merely sealing our agreement.” He
brushed his fingers along her cheek, noting how she winced and
tried to pull back from his gentle caress. But then at the last
moment she leaned her cheek into his palm, accepting his touch. The
tender response lasted for only a heartbeat or two before she
pulled away.

“Good day to you, my lord.”

With that, she fled from the garden. Royce
could think of no other word that would adequately describe her
swift and sudden departure. It was flight. No doubt about it, she
was afraid of him. The question was, why?

She had been married twice, so she knew what
the marital embrace involved. Yet she reacted to his kiss like a
naive, untried schoolgirl. Royce knew there was more to her
skittishness and her hasty withdrawal than mere nervousness at the
prospect of being intimately embraced by a stranger.

So, he summed up the situation, he was about
to take an oddly innocent, twice-widowed bride, whose mouth
promised a taste of heaven and whose loyalty to her king and her
soon-to-be husband was open to serious doubt. Julianna was a
mystery, and Royce was always fascinated by mysteries. Though still
not happy at the prospect of remarriage, he began to perceive some
interesting possibilities.

Julianna wished that Royce was ugly and old
and frail. She hadn’t been prepared for a handsome,
broad-shouldered man with red-gold hair and knowing, grey-green
eyes. Nor for the muscular strength of the arms he’d wrapped around
her. Or for her own, decidedly unwise response to him.

If only he were as cold-hearted and
disinterested in her as her two previous husbands. She did not know
how to deal with masculine interest. She was used to being ignored,
with her opinions neither sought nor listened to when she offered
them. She had learned early in her first marriage that cruelty came
in many guises. A man did not need to beat his wife; disparaging
words and contempt for a woman’s heart and body could also inflict
potent, long-lasting damage.

Royce’s so-called bargain left her confused.
While she had agreed to mutual honesty, she knew it was a promise
she could not keep. She dared not be honest with him, dared not
trust anyone, least of all Royce of Wortham. He was marrying her
only because the king commanded it. If she gave him any reason to
set her aside, he would. He’d keep her estates while consigning her
to a convent for the rest of her life - or to a prison cell. Or to
the headsman’s axe.

It was too bad, really, because under
different circumstances she could have learned to care for him.
Perhaps, in time, he would have become fond of her, too.

“My lady.” A short, square-shouldered man
with pale hair stepped in front of her, blocking her path.

“Sir Kenric.” Julianna halted, her brief,
wistful daydream vanishing.

“Well?” said the knight. “Has Royce accepted
his proposed bride? Damaged goods though you are, will your lands
gain you entrance to Wortham Castle?”

“You should not speak thus to me, especially
not in a public place.”

“Why, my lady, I merely stopped to offer my
best wishes for your future happiness.” Sir Kenric’s smile was so
false it could have curdled milk. “I do no more than any other
member of this fine royal court will wish to do. Though it’s true
that so grand a marriage is more than you deserve.”

“I know full well that you do not wish me
happy,” Julianna responded in her most arrogant tone.

“You wound me.” Sir Kenric pressed a hand
against his heart.

“Would that I could,” Julianna snapped. “Get
out of my way.”

“Such unwarranted rudeness from my beloved
aunt.” Sir Kenric did not move. “The baron of Wortham will, of
course, expect his new wife to be accompanied by her own people
when she travels to Wortham Castle. A dear relative could easily be
included in her retinue.”

“Not so.” Julianna lifted her chin and spoke
with more boldness than she felt. “I have already commanded my
staff to return to whichever of my estates they originally came
from. I will go to my new husband without a retinue. As for you,
Sir Kenric, you are no relative of mine.” She did not add that she
was aware, and had been for some time, that most, if not all, of
her attendants were spying on her and reporting on her activities
to Sir Kenric, who was an agent of King Louis of France.

“You have made a poor decision, my lady.” Sir
Kenric glared at her.

“I disagree. I want a new beginning, far from
court and its poisonous influences. I am finished with you, and
with your friends and your subordinates.”

“No, my dear lady, you are not.” Sir Kenric
bared his teeth in a nasty smile. “Once begun, no one leaves King
Louis’s service.”

“I did not begin willingly. I refuse to
continue.”

“Do not force me into violence, Aunt.” Sir
Kenric loomed before her, all semblance of false politeness gone,
only his threatening menace remaining.

“Lady Julianna.” Royce had approached so
quietly that Julianna hadn’t heard his footsteps. She wondered if
Sir Kenric had noticed Royce and thus had chosen his threatening
words as a warning to her that, if she did not do as he wanted,
Royce would be told of her activities before and after the death of
her last husband. Since King Henry wanted Royce to have control of
her properties, he would doubtless still marry her, but he’d soon
rid himself of the wife he’d never wanted and no one, least of all
King Henry, would think any worse of him. And in the meantime, he’d
be anything but kind to her. She shivered, recalling some of the
very unkind and very private things that men could do to women.

“My lady,” Royce said, “is anything
wrong?”

For a moment Julianna toyed with the idea of
denouncing Sir Kenric to him regardless of the cost to her, or of
claiming that he had been importuning her. She hesitated just a
little too long and Sir Kenric spoke up, manipulating the facts
with his usual deft cleverness.

“I was merely wishing Lady Julianna well,” he
said. “Perhaps you do not know, my lord, that her late, second
husband, Lord Craydon, was half-brother to my mother. Before I was
knighted I served as my uncle’s squire and lived in his household
for several years. We were always remarkably close, so I feel
certain he’d want Aunt Julianna to be content in her new
marriage.”

“Thank you.” Royce spoke without warmth,
dismissing the other man with a hauteur that skirted the very edges
of rudeness. Extending his hand to Julianna, he added, “My dear,
allow me to escort you to your chamber.”

She put her hand in his and his long fingers
closed around hers. Warmth flooded over her, the same warmth she
had felt when he kissed her. She yearned to immerse herself in his
warmth, to give herself to it honestly and without reservation.
Most of all, she wanted to let the past die so she could look to
the future without fear.

She knew that was a naive young girl’s dream.
Since she was no longer either young, or naive, she believed in
nothing, not even the hope of heaven. She had learned it was better
to live without expectation of kindness, and always to be on guard
against predators and double agents. She reminded herself that the
man who held her hand as if they were a pair of innocent children
was far colder and more calculating than she. Royce had promised
her honesty and fair treatment, but Julianna knew from her own
experience that she couldn’t believe any man’s words.

They reached her chamber door. Royce pushed
it open and followed her inside. He glanced around the small,
sparsely furnished room and his brows rose, as if he could not
believe she lived so simply.

“In case you are unaware of it,” he said,
“some people suspect that Sir Kenric’s true allegiance lies with
King Louis - if he holds allegiance to anyone but himself. He has
just claimed to be the nephew and close confidant to your most
recent husband. Such closeness doesn’t speak well for your late
spouse.”

“I am certain you are right, my lord.”
Julianna spoke quietly, keeping her eyes downcast. “I will attempt
to avoid Sir Kenric in the future.”

“If he speaks to you again, I want to know
about it.”

“Yes, my lord.” She sensed his impatience at
her apparent meekness, so she wasn’t surprised when he caught her
shoulders and pulled her close for a quick, yet searing kiss. She
didn’t resist. She was, after all, his to do with as he wished. He
drew away to stare at her from cool, grey-green eyes. They were
almost the same height, so he could not look down on her - at
least, not physically.

“Mark me well, my lady,” he said. “I will not
tolerate even the slightest suspicion of treachery from my wife.
Should anyone, man or woman, threaten you, report the threat to me
at once. I know how to deal with such unpleasantness. And I know
how to guard what belongs to me.”

“I do not need a guard.” To her chagrin the
statement sounded sullen and petty.

“I think you need protection from people like
Sir Kenric.”

No, she wanted to say, I need protection from
you, from good intentions and kindness. I have been dealing with
men like Kenric for years and I’m used to it. What terrifies me is
your goodness toward me, which may weaken me until it destroys me,
and destroys you, too. Be indiffierent to me, Royce. Take my lands,
use my body as rarely and as coldly as my other husbands did, but
leave my heart alone.

He kissed her again, more gently, almost
tenderly. Julianna closed her eyes, but a single tear escaped her
rigid self-control to trickle down her cheek until Royce noticed it
and kissed it away.

“You are the most interesting and elusive
woman I’ve met in years,” he said. “I promise you, I will solve
your mystery, Julianna.”

With a smile that weakened all of her
defenses, he set her aside and let himself out of her room.
Julianna stood unmoving for a moment, before she collapsed onto the
bed and lay there dry-eyed, wishing she dared weep, yet afraid to
give in to her longing, lest her maid appear and see her and report
the tears to Kenric.

Royce stalked down the corridor with an
expression so dark and glowering that all who passed him moved
aside without speaking. He scarcely noticed the gaily clad
courtiers or the servants. Silently he cursed himself for imagining
that he could trust his future wife. Royce knew Sir Kenric as one
of a band of men and a few women who were attached to King Henry’s
court, but who were actually agents of King Louis of France.