Love Everlasting, page 3
“Is that what your late husband did?” Perhaps she had been badly mistreated and that was why she was so angry and so averse to remarriage. She did have a point; Royce had encountered enough cruel noblemen in his lifetime to know that abuse of a wife was not unusual. He opened his mouth to promise he would not beat her or force himself on her in bed, but she spoke first.
“Which husband?” she asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Of which husband were you speaking?”
“How many have you had?” Royce asked, appalled that King Henry, consumed with worry lest her properties fall into French hands, hadn’t told him much about her past. Appalled with himself, too, for being so unhappy at the need to obey the royal command that he hadn’t asked enough questions and hadn’t bothered to consult with his own agents about Julianna. Lack of knowledge about one’s spouse was a perilous way to begin a marriage. In this case, ignorance could prove lethal.
“Two,” Julianna said. “Both of them were much older than I. Forty years and more older, in fact. How old are you, my lord?”
“Forty-five,” Royce said. “And you?”
“I have just recently turned thirty. Well, I suppose your age could be counted as an improvement over the others.”
“Thank you, my lady.” He bowed with mocking grace. “I am flattered by your good opinion.”
“Don’t pretend to care what I think of you. My property is all that matters. Isn’t it?”
“Not entirely. I hold vast estates of my own, so I don’t need yours. In fact,” he said, watching her closely to see her reaction, “the prospect of holding still more land is just a nuisance to me. Possibly, a dangerous nuisance, since I will have to keep your properties in Normandy and Flanders safe from French encroachment. But I dare to hope your estates in Cornwall and East Anglia will present no serious problems.”
“I do not wish to marry you,” she said.
“I’m aware of that.” Interesting, the way she swung away from the subject being discussed and then attacked from a different angle. The lady was intelligent. She had the makings of a skilled strategist. Or a very clever spy. Royce decided to test her a little further. “I don’t want to marry you, either. But, as I said at the outset, given your circumstances and my loyalty to the king, we have no choice.”
She stared at him with such apprehension in her gaze that he knew she was involved in something disloyal to King Henry and, therefore, dangerous to her - and to him, once he married her. He’d been a fool to hope the king was wrong and that all he’d have to contend with would be a younger and most unwilling woman. He set his jaw and regarded her coldly, knowing full well that she was the enemy.
Yet some quality in Julianna, in her low voice and her lovely, regular features that were currently pinched with tension and in her frightened eyes, struck an answering chord in Royce’s cautiously restrained heart. How odd it was that she should affect him so profoundly, when he had remained immune to female charms for so many years.
“Is there no way for us to avoid this marriage that neither of us wants?” she asked.
“None that I can think of. I could refuse absolutely, and perhaps in time Henry would forgive me. But you must marry, and soon. If I do refuse, Henry may well choose a man for you who is far more repulsive than I am.”
“Repulsive?” She considered the word, frowning, and moved her head just a bit. It was not quite a shake to reject the notion that he was repulsive, but the tiny movement was enough to give him an idea.
“What I suggest we do,” Royce said, “is make the best of an unwanted situation.”
“How?” she demanded.
Now, at last, her chin was high and her eyes were flashing with the spirit that Royce had sought in her at first and had not found. Encouraged, he decided to challenge her.
“We could begin by promising to be completely honest with each other,” he said.
“Honest,” she repeated softly, almost as if the word was new to her.
“In addition, I will swear never to mistreat you.”
“Indeed?” Her eyes were stormy with doubt. Or, perhaps, with confusion. “What will you expect of me in return for such a vow?”
“That you will be a good chatelaine. I cannot abide a dirty, chaotic castle. I loathe unwashed linens. And I want to eat tasty, well-prepared food.”
“So do I. That is a promise I can easily keep.”
A faint smile curved her lips. They were, Royce noticed, very pretty lips when they weren’t tightly compressed into a grim line. When Julianna wasn’t trying to be severe, her shell pink lips were soft and gently molded. To his own surprise, he experienced a sudden urge to kiss those lips.
“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.
