A Warrior's Bride Page 18

  Yet because she couldn’t read, she could not be sure if the mistake was hers. So many words looked similar!

  And she had to admit to herself that it could be that she hoped to find something amiss so that she wouldn’t have to endure Herbert’s presence.

  She found it difficult to even tolerate the Jolliets. While Herbert was the very model of a patient man as he explained things to her, she always felt he was secretly criticizing her and thinking her stupid. Richard, with his jovial bonhomie, disturbed her even more, although she would be hard-pressed to say exactly why.

  She could not help feeling, and strongly, that both men were not to be trusted. Unfortunately, there had been nothing blatantly obvious to her eyes, and to voice her suspicions now would mean admitting that she had never been taught to read properly. Her ignorance would be common knowledge, along with her less-than-flawless deportment and inability to dance.

  Nor could she assuage her dread that her husband was a spendthrift, although the dour Herbert had assured her that there was no need for concern. After voicing her apprehension the second time, and seeing Herbert react with disapproving condescension, she decided she would keep silent and try to believe him.

  She sighed wearily and laid her head on her knees. Her father had taught her to be an excellent soldier, not an excellent wife. Here at Ravensloft, she was never quite sure what to do or how to do it. Lady Margot tried to teach her, but every alleged duty of a chatelaine, such as counting all the linen, had been boring beyond measure.

  The only times Aileas felt free and once again her old self were the occasions she went riding, although even then, all was not completely blissful. First, she had to endure an armed escort. Once, she had tried to outnde the men George sent with her, to no avail, and Elma soon gave her to know that George had chosen his very best riders to be her guard.

  She missed the comfort of her breeches. She found her new long skirts cumbersome and awkward and despised them.

  Added to this was the uneasiness of trying to eat a meal without feeling George’s censure. She felt he was watching her every move, which destroyed her appetite, although his cook always concocted delicious—and costly—meals. He sometimes told her what he thought she was doing wrong, or reminded her to chew with her mouth closed. Lady Margot, her alleged teacher, was much more subtle.

  So much so, and so kindly into the bargain, that Aileas felt it would be easy to like her. Aileas had never had a female friend, and sometimes, she thought Margot might be the first.

  If only she weren’t so beautiful and exemplary.

  If only George didn’t seem to find her company preferable to his wife’s.

  Again, that nagging dread came to trouble her, try as she might to subdue it, that George had invited Lady Margot here not because he thought his wife needed a teacher, but because Margot was a beautiful, elegant woman who obviously liked him a great deal. Perhaps even loved him.

  Had she not done enough, been enough? Had he found it necessary to go to another woman’s bed? Was the other woman Lady Margot? Was he apparently loving to his wife only so that she wouldn’t suspect him of duplicity?

  Oh, horrible, horrible thought! She wanted to banish that notion, but it lodged in her heart, along with the incontrovertible knowledge that she desired him more than she would ever have thought possible. The moment he touched her, all that mattered was the love she felt for him and her passionate need for him.

  Did he know this? Was he using this knowledge to blind her to the true state of things at Ravensloft?

  She wouldn’t believe it, Aileas told herself firmly. She wouldn’t believe that he would be unfaithful to her so soon.

  Her gaze rested on the bed. Here, more than anywhere, she felt adrift and lost since the night he had said he would be in command. Now she was always afraid she was going to do something wrong, say something wrong, prove that she was ignorant here, too, despite her best efforts.

  She had tried to act as she thought a well-bred wife should, letting George lead the way here, as he wanted.

  But she couldn’t. Not when his touch was so exciting and his caresses so arousing. She simply couldn’t lie there like a log. She had to touch and caress and stroke and move.

  Yet every day he seemed to be drawing away from her more and more. Instead of learning more about her husband, she was learning nothing.

  Why did he now seem so guarded in her presence, except when they made love? To be sure, he was inevitably polite and charming and smiled just as much, but something was very different. It was as if he were slowly and inexorably building a wall between them. Sometimes, even when they were alone together, she sensed that he was trying to pretend she didn’t exist.

  Would he ever again love her as he had on their wedding night, with a fierce, wild passion that overwhelmed her utterly?

  What was she to do? she asked herself for the hundredth time. She felt as if she were bound with sturdy ropes, and every day the ropes were pulled tighter, as if they would eventually strangle her.

  She untucked her legs and rose slowly, then walked over to one of his clothes chests and stared at the worked leather on the top, brushing it lightly with her fingertips.

  She had tried to please him. She had struggled to change, for his sake. She had endured the dresses and the dancing. She had tried to comprehend the accounts and spent tedious hours listening to the steward. She had kept to the castle far more than she would have liked. She had tried everything she had ever heard her brothers and his friends describe that gave them pleasure with a woman, to make George feel the same delight and desire as she did for him.

  For nothing. She had lost the battle and probably the war. So what was she to do now? Lie down and die?

  Admit her defeat? Go home like a whipped dog?

  Never. Never! Her father had always maintained it was better to die honorably than be defeated.

  So she would triumph—on her own terms, not his. No longer would she allow herself to feel constrained and anxious. Never again would she feel flawed and hopeless.

  With a determined expression, Aileas opened George’s chest and yanked out the first pair of breeches she found. They were big, but she was used to wearing her brothers’ castoffs; all she needed was a belt. She went to her own clothes chest and tore one of the laces out of a new gown of blue wool. With a few swift movements, she hiked up her skirt, put on the breeches and tied her makeshift belt. Then she let the skirt fall to the floor.

  The breeches were barely visible, and she permitted herself one small, sorrowful sigh. If her heart had been broken, she would hide that, too.

  Then she marched from the bedchamber, going directly to the armory, where she took the fine yew bow and a quiver of arrows; slinging the bow over her shoulder and the quiver on her back.

  She was going hunting.

  The bell in the village church had tolled matins sometime before when George finally slipped into his bedchamber that night. He had spent the time after an enjoyable evening meal of quail—shot by his wife, or so Gaston had informed him—playing chess with Richard Jolliet.

  Aileas had remained silent during the meal, but that was usual these days. Nothing he said seemed to amuse her, and while her manners had improved, this sullen silence was growing nearly unendurable.

  Despite what Margot still apparently believed, he was not so certain that Aileas’s fierce emotions were a good sign. He could more readily believe that she disliked him and had married him only because the real object of her affection, Rufus Hamerton, had not asked for her.

  He could also, unfortunately, believe that the fellow had been her lover, or one of them, and that Aileas Dugall was no virgin bride.

  Even Richard Jolliet was implying—oh, so carefully, lest he upset his lord and friend—that Aileas seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time in the company of the garrison. He delicately indicated that the men seemed to enjoy her attention as much as she did theirs, and that perhaps the chatelaine of Ravens-loft was a little too affable
where the soldiers were concerned.

  George had heard the rumors that were starting to be told about his wife, with her penchant for riding about the countryside with men who were not her husband.

  Her behavior when she was with him would do nothing to dispel such rumors. Aileas pointedly ignored him, thereby making it obvious to all in the hall that the relationship between their lord and his bride was a troubled one.

  But not all the time. Not at night. No matter what thoughts troubled him during the day, when he was alone with her in the bedchamber, nothing else seemed to matter but loving her. One touch of her skin, and he needed her. One kiss, and everything except desire melted away.

  He was always overwhelmed by his feelings for her, losing himself completely in passionate surrender.

  Now he stood just inside the bedchamber door, listening to Aileas’s deep, even breathing, which told him she was asleep. He moved farther into the moonlit room. The brazier had not been lit, and there was no scent of a recently doused candle to tell him she had been awake and awaiting him.

  He didn’t know which he would have preferred, to find her waiting, annoyed at the lateness of his retiring, or to realize that she apparently didn’t care how late he stayed below. Her bow rested against the wall near the window, the quiver on the floor beside it.

  With a disgruntled frown, he cautiously approached the bed.

  Clad in her shift, Aileas lay on her side facing him, her features relaxed with sleep and with one slender arm outside the covers, her long-fingered hand lying upon the satin coverlet. Her thick, wildly curling hair surrounded her face and spilled over the pillow, and her dusky lashes fanned her sun-browned cheeks.

  How peaceful she looked! Like a sleeping Diana, goddess of the hunt.

  He reached out and gently brushed a lock of hair from her face. Her lips parted slightly and she sighed softly before turning onto her back.

  George felt his manhood stir. He pushed away the visions that tormented him, of a red-haired man lying with his wife. Touching her. Kissing her. Loving her.

  He concentrated solely on his wife. Almost without conscious thought, his hand began to undo the lacing at the neck of his tunic as he looked down upon her. She was lovely and exciting and special. He would join her in their bed and kiss her soft lips. They would share again the pleasure. The passion.

  His clothing fell to the floor in a heap and he climbed into the warm bed beside her, quickly enveloped in the moist heat. He reached out and took her hand, pressing his lips on her palm. Then, with light, gentle motions, his lips began to move up her naked arm.

  She smelled of the fresh air, so different from the heavy perfume that clung to other women’s skin. Although he could feel the muscles and sinews beneath, her flesh was as soft and inviting as that of any woman he had known.

  With his other hand, he began to caress her body, enjoying the different textures he encountered. He pushed her shift higher and moved closer as his hands continued their leisurely exploration. Always he had been too engulfed with excitement and need to take time to peruse her body.

  She stirred again and sighed. “George?”

  “Yes, my love.”

  “George,” she whispered, leaning toward him and encircling him with her arms.

  George wanted to be patient, to take his time so that he could arouse her slowly. Despite their troubles, he wanted to give her some measure of the delight she gave to him. He tried to hold back and maintain control, telling himself it was necessary if he was to pleasure her completely.

  But the moment their lips met in a kiss, his resolution was destroyed. As always, her immediate, passionate response inflamed him further, beyond anything he had experienced before. She was fire and heat and light to him, her body the vessel of his pleasure. He could not have left her side if a battle were raging outside the door or his soul depended upon it.

  All too quickly, the crescendo came and passed, and as George lay back, spent and panting, Aileas pushed her shift below her waist. “Where have you been?” she demanded.

  “Paradise,” he replied, his eyes closed and the sweat cooling on his naked chest.

  “No, that is not what I meant. Where have you been? Why did you not come to bed before?”

  “I was in the hall.”

  “With whom?”

  He heard the suspicion in her tone. “With Richard Jolliet, if you must know.”

  “No one else?”

  He did not appreciate her interrogation. He had done nothing wrong since they had been married. She had no cause for complaint, as he probably did. “It is not your place to question me,” he said, opening his eyes and raising himself on his elbow to look at her, and the suspicion in her brown eyes angered him. “I can do what I wish, with whomever I wish. I am the lord and master here.”

  “I am your wife.”

  “I am well aware of that,” he snapped, lying back down.

  “Are you?” she charged before abruptly moving away from him. Aileas shivered from a sudden chill and cursed herself for being a weak-willed fool. She should never have welcomed him so quickly into bed, not when he had been so long before joining her. “Where have you been, my husband?”

  “I do not have to answer that,” he said with the barest hint of anger in his voice as he got out of the bed and began to pull on his breeches. “But it is as I have said, Aileas. I was in the hall with Richard Jolliet. Then I sat before the fire, deep in thought—something I’m sure you cannot appreciate.

  “I see I should have stayed below,” he continued brusquely. “where I could at least comfort myself with the thought that my absence might be forcing you to contemplate the error of your ways.”

  “My ways?” she gasped, glaring at him. “What is so terrible about my ways? At least I do not waste hours with idle sport! Nor do I leave my duties to someone else! If you think I have shortcomings as a lord’s wife, perhaps you should examine your own!”

  He reached down for his tunic. “I do not idle my time away.”

  “Oh, forgive me for thinking that playing chess is important work. Or that sending your estate steward to speak with the miller when you learn he has been nearly beaten to death is fulfilling your obligations as lord, instead of investigating the matter for yourself!”

  “It was a jealous lover’s retribution and nothing more,” George said, waving his hand dismissively after tugging the tunic over his head. “I suspected as much.”

  “But you didn’t go yourself.”

  “I did when the mill rate was in question.”

  “Oh, yes, you did—and that is the only act of supervision I can recall in all the time I have been here!”

  “Because I do not talk of such matters,” he muttered as he put on his belt. “Your father might have enjoyed bragging about his labors. Some of us do not.”

  “My father knows what a lord’s duties are, and he does them—and more.”

  George suddenly whirled around and glared at her, his face flushed and hot anger burning in his eyes. “Except for supervising his own daughter! Tell me, wife, am I better than Rufus?” he demanded harshly.

  “What?” She stared in shock as he slowly approached the bed, like a cat stalking its prey.

  “Am I a better lover than Sir Rufus Hamerton?” he growled, so different from the Sir George de Gramercie she had known, it was as if a demon had replaced him.

  “I don’t know,” she answered honestly, pulling up the sheet as if it were a shield that could protect her from that look. Then the full import of his question struck her and she gasped in shock. “I have never made love with him!”

  “Then who?” he charged, wrath written deep on his face. She scrambled back until she could retreat no farther. “Who taught you so well how to pleasure a man? Who was the lucky recipient of your virginity?”

  “No one! You!” she cried.

  His hands balled into fists. “Don’t lie to me, Aileas,” he said, his voice low and quaking with rage. “Whatever you do, don’t lie to me.”r />
  “I am not lying!” she protested. “I have never loved any man but you.”

  For an instant, his gaze seemed to flicker and he drew back, his whole body as tense as the bowstring before the arrow is released.

  Then he straightened, the lover as well as the demon gone, replaced by the cool, inscrutable Sir George de Gramercie—yet it was a different Sir George, a new Sir George, as cold and hard as granite.

  In that instant, a part of her wanted to die. She had failed, completely and utterly. How could any man who loved her look at her so?

  But she had not betrayed him. She had not loved another. She had come to him pure and honorable; she would not let him say otherwise.

  “By what right do you insult me?” she asked sternly, climbing from the bed and wrapping the sheet about her in one swift motion. “What evidence have you to back up this accusation?”

  “There was no blood on the sheets.”

  So calm and so deadly cold.

  “It was on me!” she replied forcefully. “And you. I washed it away.”

  “Very convenient.”

  “And do you not love your cousin, who has come to visit so conveniently?”

  His eyes narrowed. “I love my cousin as I should, and nothing more.”

  “Is it not diverting to be accused unjustly, my lord who lives for diversions of many kinds?” she mocked.

  “How many kinds of diversions do you enjoy, Aileas?” he asked. “You seem very accomplished—for a virgin bride.”

  Kicking at the sheet, she strode toward him, raised her hand, her palm open wide as if she were going to slap him full across the face.

  He grabbed her hand, his grip as strong as oak, and she braced for his blow. Her father and her brothers would have struck her had they been so red-faced with rage—but he let go of her and walked abruptly to the door. Going out, he slammed it so hard it sounded like a clap of thunder.

  She hurried after him, flinging open the door. She took a step, determined to follow him and make him see the truth—until pride stopped her.

  What would people think if she pursued him, clad in her shift, barefoot, in the dead of night?