“Lord Bernard, you truly know nothing of me. How can you? We’ve met naught but once….” She raised her face to his and his breath caught in his throat at the hunger in her eyes…the hunger, he saw, not for him as much as to know that there was something of herself that he should want.
Fury seized him at the thought of this beautiful creature being abused by the man who should have been her protector, and even her love…and the realization that she thought herself unlovable. He quelled the anger that rose inside him, taking care to keep his expression easy and calm. It wouldn’t do for him to give her cause to fear him as well.
“I know that you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” he told her quietly. Then, with the flash of jest, he added, “with the exception of my mother.” He pretended to think for a moment, then added, “Nay, you are even more beautiful than she.” Her smile came and went, leaving more than a trace of sadness in its wake.
“I have never met my mother, as she perished birthing Ava when I was but two summers.”
Bernard closed his fingers over her hand resting on the ground, feeling the warmth of her next to the cool moistness of the rich earth. Somehow he knew it was of grave importance to make her feel as beautiful inside as he found her appearance. “In our brief meetings, I’ve learned that beyond your lovely face and beautiful form, you are a kind-hearted woman who would put her own comfort and safety at risk for the life of a cat and her litter. I know that you speak well even to serfs such as the lowly stable boy Leonard. I know that you care for your sister and wished to spare her any angst that might have come her way on the night of her wedding. I know, too, that you are brave enough to stand up to a man when you are not trapped with him by marriage—which means that you are not foolish in your bravery, only prudent. And I know that my heart has been yours from the moment I pinned your thick, heavy braid into your hair last even, smelled the lavender water you must use, and felt the softness of your skin.”
He looked into her eyes—eyes that now held wonder—and said, “That is all I need to know, Joanna.”
“My lord….Bernard….” she breathed, her fingers twisting in his to cling to his hand. “I….”
“I vow to you, Joanna, on the life of my father and mother—and my own—that I will find a way to free you from the ties by which you are bound. And then, if you will have me, I will wed you and care for you and love you all of our days.”
The perfume of the roses about them touched his nose, mingling with that of the crushed lavender and Joanna’s own erotic scent. It was too much for him to resist—he leaned forward to taste her parted lips.
She trembled under him, and moved not at all but for that slight tremor, so he forced himself to barely brush against her mouth, taking care not to drag the bristles of his beard and moustache too harshly over her tender skin. Joanna’s lips were sweet and plump and warm, as he’d known they’d be…and she tasted of mint and strawberries—or something like them.
Or mayhap ’twas just her. Just Joanna.
When she began to pull back, he allowed her to do so immediately and took a deep breath to slow his racing heart. “And now that I know you taste like heaven,” he murmured, the intensity of his emotions coming out as a crooked smile, “I am thrice as indebted to my vow.”
Knowing they’d tested Fate long enough, and not able to trust that he wouldn’t put her to the test again, he pulled to his feet. “I must leave you now, Joanna. But know that you are not alone…nor will you be.”
III.
Joanna started when her husband strode purposefully into their chamber. She sat near the window-slit of the room that had been hers before she married and moved with Ralf to Swerthmoor, mending a rent in his garment by the dim light.
“What do you here?” Ralf said in his rough, grating voice as he slid his sword from the sheath around his waist. He took his time, allowing the steel to scrape slowly and deliberately over its metal casing.
The hair at the back of Joanna’s neck rose, prickling, and her breath quickened though she tried not to show it. “I but sew the tear in your tunic, my lord.”
He stepped closer, his booted foot ringing solidly on the stone floor and causing her stomach to churn. Joanna clamped her lips together as she continued to sew, her fingers clumsy with tremors as he stood, watching. “Have you spoken with your father betimes?”
“Nay. I—”
“Joanna.” His voice, dry and cracked as her throat had become, lashed into the room. “I want that map.” With a sudden movement, and a glint of steel, he moved, and the point of the sword slipped under her chin, resting there flatly.
Joanna swallowed, and felt the weight of the cold steel shift against her throat. She fought to keep her voice steady. “My lord, I thought to speak with him on the morrow—after the melee tournament. He is sure to be in a fine mood with the purses you will win as his champion.”
“A poor attempt at flattery will not turn my eyes from your disobedience, Joanna.”
She hated the way he said her name—the way the sounds came so gutturally from his mouth, twisting it into something mocking and ugly. The point of the sword pricked the soft skin under her chin and she did not move, barely breathing, focusing her thoughts on the leather placket still hidden in the stable…and the earnestness in Bernard of Derkland’s face.
Ralf would not kill her—at the least not until he got the map. But there would likely be pain to come and she steeled herself for it. She could—she would—endure it.
“Well, my lady? Have you swallowed your tongue?” Something warm trickled down her neck.
“I do not mean disobedience, my lord.” She managed to speak without moving her jaws or lips. “I would speak with my father on the right occasion so that he will grant your wish.”
Mercifully, the sword tipped away, and he slid it back into its case. Then, untying the sheath from his waist, he flung it onto the bed—all the while his eyes boring heavily into her. “Did you remove that stain from my tunic of last eve?”
“Aye, my lord. ’tis clean and awaits your attention.” She gestured to a trunk near the fireplace, then returned her hands to clench in her lap.
“I’d as lief have a crossed sword with the cock-sucking bastard that spilled his ale on’t.” Ralf sat on a stool near the fire and kicked off his boots.
Joanna obediently moved to kneel in front of him, untying the crossgarters over his chausses and unwinding them from his calf.
“Bernard of Derkland,” sneered Ralf, and Joanna flinched at the name, her heart-speed increasing as cold fear washed over her. Had someone seen them together? “I’ll meet him on the lists on the morrow and teach the oaf to have a care near his betters.” He stood and Joanna forced herself to raise the tunic over his head, coming too close to his sweaty, stale skin. She turned away quickly to place it on the trunk, but the hand on her arm jerked her to a halt.
“He was the big man in the bridal chamber last evening, Joanna. Know you him?”
She dared not pull from his grasp, and she dared not look him in the eye. Aye, she knew him…he’d haunted her thoughts all the night and day since their meeting in the stable. Joanna concentrated on folding his tunic as she phrased her answer. “Nay, my lord, not until I saw him last eve.”
He released her and she turned away, her throat dry and her heart thumping madly. She placed the tunic deliberately on the trunk, then, when she had no further choice, she turned back.
“He looked at you, Joanna. He did not watch the bride. He looked at you.”
The blood drained from her face, and she swayed slightly. All of her strong focus shattered. “My lord—”
He stood, not so much taller than she, in his hose and tunic, his craggy face stark with the look she knew too well. “You are beautiful, Joanna. Oh, aye—mayhap too beautiful. He shoots too high if he looks to you. But mayhap you are too beautiful and aught should be done to remove that temptation from his sight.”
Acid rose in her throat as all feeling in her limbs disappeared. “My lord—”
“You would not tempt the man, would you Joanna?”
He stepped toward her.
“Nay.” Her voice was a thread wisping through the air.
“He wishes to have the best of me. And you’ll not be a part of it.”
“My lord, Ralf, I—”
“Come here, Joanna.” He pulled a long, thin, leather cord from around his waist. “We’ve time before supper.”
Aye, Maris of Langumont was beautiful. No man could deny that.
Bernard endured three knowing grins from his father before his own ferocious countenance caused Harold to desist. But his father could not resist one last well-placed kick under the table before turning his attention to Maris’s father, Lord Merle.
“’Tis the first time you’ve traveled from Langumont?” Bernard asked Maris as he used his knife to tear the rabbit meat from its bone. He glanced out over the hall, hoping to catch sight of Joanna as he pushed some of the dry, stringy meat to Maris’s side of their bread trencher.
“Aye, at least, this is the first time that I recall doing so,” she replied. “Other than to visit Father’s other fiefs, I’ve been nowhere from Langumont. I should like to visit the court—’tis much I’ve heard about the new queen Eleanor.”
“My brother travels with Henry’s court, and was there when they wed,” Bernard replied. His sharp ear caught a snatch of the conversation between their two fathers—and he tensed at the words “betrothal” and “Christ’s Mass.” By the rood, his father had best refrain from sealing any contracts without his approval.
“They speak of our betrothal,” Maris told him needlessly. She leaned closer, and a pleasing scent came with her—but the floral scent only reminded him of Joanna, and their proximity in the garden. “But ’twill be for naught, for I’ve told my father I’ve no wish to wed.”