Prisoner of My Desire (26 page)

There was one other reason that Rowena could think of for being summoned to Warrick’s presence. It had her beset with dread the entire journey, but ’twas definitely possible—nay, likely. Warrick could have seen Gilbert from the battlements and recognized him. She could be going to face his blackest rage, his cruelest visage. He could want revenge again, mayhap even to use her against Gilbert, torture her before the battlements, hang her—nay, nay, he would not do that. But she remembered the walloping Beatrix had got. She remembered the dungeon. She remembered being chained to his bed—well, that had not been so bad in retrospect—but that beating…

She was so afraid when they reached the camp that surrounded Ambray, she barely noticed the silent castle towering in its midst. She was taken
straightaway to the tent set up for Warrick’s use, but he was not in it. That did nothing to soothe her jumbled nerves. She was here. She wanted whatever she would have to deal with to be over.

But she had no time to even build up a bit of annoyance that she was to be kept waiting, for Warrick walked in less than a minute later. There was no time either to judge his mood, for she was yanked right into his arms. And that left no opportunity to get a single word out, for his mouth covered her gasp, the entreaties she would have made, the excuses.

For endless moments she was overwhelmed by sheer possessiveness, for that kiss said she was his and he wanted to consume her. Her anxieties did not return immediately when she was allowed to breathe again, did not get through her aroused senses at all until she was lowered to Warrick’s pallet and saw him throw his sword belt aside just before he dropped to his knees to descend on her.

“Wait!” she cried, thrusting both hands up to hold him back from her. “What does this mean, Warrick? Why am I summoned here?”

“Because I missed you,” he replied, defying the pressure she was exerting against him to lean down and say the words against her lips. “Because I felt I would go mad if I had to wait another day to see you.”

“Is that all?”

“Is that not enough?”

Her relief was so great, she kissed him back with more passion than she had ever shown him. His hands came to her breasts, claiming them.
Hers went to his hips, pressing him closer. But ’twas an unsatisfying embrace, hampered by clothes he would not stop kissing her to remove.

When he did finally get around to yanking off his tunic, it was with such haste he caused her to laugh. “You ruin more clothes that I must then repair.”

“Do you mind?”

“Nay, you can rip mine, too, if you like.” She grinned at him. “But I might be able to be rid of them quicker do you let me up.”

“Nay, I like you just where you are. You cannot imagine how often I saw you just so in my mind.”

She ran her hands up the chest he had bared for her touch, then leaned up to lick one nipple. “As often as I imagined doing that?”

“Rowena…do not,” he said raggedly and tried to push her back down, but she held on tight and attacked his other nipple. “Desist, or I will come the very instant I get inside you.”

“That is all right as long as it gives you pleasure, Warrick. Think you I will not make sure that you see to me after?”

He groaned, yanked her skirts up and her braies down, and plunged into her. And she did make sure he brought her to the same pleasure after.

Warrick did not leave his tent that afternoon, nor that night. The next morning when Rowena awoke, she was told Sir Thomas was waiting to take her back to Fulkhurst Castle. ’Twas War
rick’s squire who told her. Of Warrick there was no sign at all.

She was bemused, then annoyed. To be brought all this way just for one day of loving? She did not see why she could not stay longer.

She demanded to be taken to Warrick as soon as she dressed and stepped outside his tent, where Bernard was waiting to escort her to Sir Thomas. The boy shook his head but frowned, trying to remember the message he had been instructed to give her on such a request.

“He said to tell you, Mistress, that if he sees you again, he is likely to keep you here. Yet is this no place for you to be, so you are to go.”

Rowena opened her mouth to argue with Bernard, but just as quickly closed it. God’s mercy, how could she have forgotten
where
she was?

She turned to look at the castle and the tower rising above its fortifications. Her mother was in there somewhere, so close but impossible to reach—now. But soon Anne would be freed from the place that had been her prison these three years. Warrick would do it. He would not leave here until he did.

Some of the outer walls had suffered damage from a mangonel, though not enough to bring them down or open a small breach for entry. Rowena knew where the postern gate was located, though. She had been taken through it the first time she had left here, when she and her mother were separated. But to tell Warrick about it would tell him she knew Ambray, knew Gilbert, and she could not do that.

But did she dare risk trying to stay here so she
could see her mother once the castle was opened? She could refuse to go. If she could just speak with Warrick, she knew she could convince him to let her stay or at least remain near. But how could she then get to her mother without Warrick being present to witness it? She could not, and Anne would not think to pretend she did not know Rowena.

’Twas best she did leave, though ’twas maddening to know that she could do naught to help her mother escape that place any sooner than Warrick could—at least not without detriment to herself. And as her help was in no wise guaranteed to work, ’twas best left unoffered.

But soon Anne
would
be freed. And Warrick would either send her to her dower lands, which she could hold closed to Gilbert—though he was unlikely to bother to try and get her back when he no longer needed her for a hold against Rowena or aught else—or Warrick would send Anne to Fulkhurst until this war was over. There Rowena would have a better opportunity to warn her mother not to know her—at least not in Warrick’s presence. And they would be together again, finally.

Warrick castigated himself for the hundredth time for giving in to his needs and sending for Rowena. It did not make it better, his seeing her. It had been sweet, so sweet, but his craving was now worse, for now he wanted to be with her more than ever—and she had been gone only two days.

What the brief visit did, however, was make him determined to end this siege in a more aggressive manner. He increased the work on the two towers so they would be ready for the morn, and started work on two others. He sent out patrols to find him more boulders and heavy missiles for the mangonel. From the village were rounded up all large cauldrons to be packed with dirt and small stones for improvised boulders. He laid plans for a tunnel to be started if the attack on the morrow failed, though he had no
miners in his ranks to oversee that last resort.

That evening he inspected the finished wooden tower he would ride in himself. He meant to be on the top platform when it was pushed to the moat and tilted until it spanned the water and settled against the walls. ’Twould be on fire by then, for flamed arrows would be shot at it as soon as it was in range, so the whole process had to be accomplished with the greatest speed ere it became a fiery grave for those concealed within. But in being a shielded ladder, it still offered the most protection for those men he had picked to take the walls, then fight their way down to open the gates for the rest of the army. And he meant to be one of them, in on the first fighting, not the last.

He was giving orders to have the two towers doused again with water when Sheldon found him. “This ought to amuse you, Warrick,” he said as he dragged forth a very frightened, very wet woman. “She claims she and her lady have caused half the castle garrison to sicken. This was done so that we can take the castle this very night, with little to no effort.”

“Is that so?” Warrick’s tone matched Sheldon’s for dryness. “And when we leap on this unexpected though naturally welcome aid, I am certain to lose half
my
army in the trap.” His voice had turned to a growl ere he finished, and continued so. “Do they think me a lackwit, to fall for such a common trick? And to use a woman! Get the truth from her, I care not how.”

The woman burst into tears upon hearing that. “Nay, please! ’Tis true what I claim. My lady
bears no love for the new lord, and did despise his father. Ambray has been a prison to us. We want only to leave!”

“
You
found your way out, wench,” Sheldon pointed out. “So could your lady. Why did you both not just go, instead of concocting—”

“Because I need an escort to my dower property if I am to arrive there safely,” Anne said as she was brought up behind Sheldon. “I thought to assist you in getting what you want, which appears to be Ambray, in exchange for that escort.”

“My lady, ye should have waited!” the servant wailed. “Ye should not—”

“Be quiet, Helvise!” the lady snapped. “I had no patience to wait when that gate stood unguarded. And I would rather be here than in there, whether we are believed or not.”

She was as soaked as her servant from having crossed the moat without the aid of a bridge, but she held herself regally despite the guard, who still clasped her arm in his rough grip. Sheldon stared at her in bemused attraction, for she was a comely woman, apparent even in her bedraggled state. Warrick stared at her just as bemused, for she seemed familiar to him, though he had never met her.

“So we are to believe you, lady, merely because you say ’tis so?” Warrick asked skeptically.

Then Sheldon inquired, “Who are you, lady?”

“Anne Belleme.”

Warrick snorted. “Belleme now d’Ambray.”

“Nay, I do not recognize that name as mine, since the priest did not hear a yea from me to
consent to that forced marriage. ’Twas a farce that has kept me prisoner here for three years.”

“Then if you had the means to aid us to put an end to your imprisonment, why did you wait this long?” Warrick demanded. “We did not only just come, lady. We have been camped here for thirty-three days.”

That Warrick was counting the days to know them exactly elicited a chuckle from Sheldon, which brought Anne’s eyes to him. She blinked to see that he was not as old as he had seemed at first glance. When he smiled at her, she blushed, for she did not find him unattractive. Nay, just the opposite.

Warrick scowled at both of them for their sudden distraction with each other that was not getting him answers. “Do you
mind
, Sheldon?”

“Actually, I think the Lady Anne should be made dry ere you continue—”

“There is no time for that,” Anne interrupted. “The malaise that has struck so many of the garrison will not last beyond the emptying of their bellies. We did but add fouled meat to their dinner, which all have not eaten yet.”

“You still have not said why you would do this now,” Warrick pointed out.

“If you are Lord of Fulkhurst…?” She waited for him to confirm it, which he did with a curt nod, then she explained. “I was told horrible tales about you, so that I would add my prayers to others that you would not be successful here. But when I saw you had my daughter in your camp, and she appeared well and healthy, I realized I had been lied to.”

“Daughter?” He snorted. “You think you have a daughter in
my
camp, lady? Well, you are welcome to look for her, but ’tis doubtful my men will want to give her up if you think to take her away.”

What he was implying had her blushing furiously. “My daughter is
not
one of your camp followers. I know not how she came to be no longer in Gilbert’s foul care and with you instead, for he made no mention that he had lost her. Nay, he took pleasure in telling me she had done everything that he—”

“Is d’Ambray in the castle, then?” Warrick cut in impatiently, not interested in her family woes.

She shook her head, bringing a foul curse from him and the gentle query from Sheldon: “Did he escape?”

“Nay. He had come here in the most horrid rage. I thought surely he must have lost another castle, to put him in so dark a mood. But he stayed here less than a sennight, and in fact, left the day before you arrived.”

That brought another foul curse from Warrick. “Know you where he has gone?”

“To court. His resources are so depleted, he cannot continue this war with you without aid from Stephen. But that has been tried before and is not like to do him any more good now than then, for the d’Ambrays have not been on the king’s list of favorites since Hugh sided against Stephen on some matter several years ago. Verily, in rescuing my daughter from Gilbert’s clutches, you have wrested her remaining properties from his control. Do you take Ambray, all
Gilbert will have left is one small keep in—”

“Lady, I do
not
have your daughter,” Warrick interrupted in exasperation. “Think you I would not make good use of Lord Belleme’s only heir if I had gained such a prize? As you say, control of her would deplete d’Ambray’s last resources.”

“I do not know why you insist—” Anne began, only to frown. “Can it be you do not know who she is?”

“God’s blood, I have heard enough of this!” Warrick exploded. “Sheldon,
you
deal with her.”

“That will be my pleasure,” Sheldon said, starting to laugh. “But before you stomp away, why do you not ask her for her daughter’s name—or has it not occurred to you yet who this lady so closely resembles?”

Warrick looked hard at his friend, then at the lady. Then he became very still. He did not curse again as he saw why she was familiar to him, but his voice was as coldly chilling as it could get.

“So tell me, Lady Anne, what is your daughter’s name?”

She was not at all sure she wanted to answer him now. She had never seen anyone change so suddenly in appearance, to where he now looked—cruel. She took a step back. Sheldon put his arm around her shoulder, which was a great comfort, but still…

“Mayhap I am mistaken—”

“Nay, you were not, but I was, to think I could trust that deceitful witch!”

“Why is he so angry?” Anne asked Sheldon
as Warrick walked away from them. “It
was
Rowena I saw, was it not?”

“Aye, and you were correct also in thinking she did not tell him who she was.”

“If she did not, she must have had good reason.”

“I doubt my friend will think so,” Sheldon replied, but when he saw Anne’s anxious expression, he assured her, “He will not harm her. And he is sure to rid himself of his anger he is like to get rid of immediately by entering the castle now, whether he still thinks a trap is waiting for him or not. He is that angry.”

“But I did not lie. The postern gate is open and unguarded.”

“Then come, I will take you to my tent, where you can wait until this is over.”