A Passionate Magic (10 page)

“May I ride to Trevanan with you?” Emma
asked.

“There is no place for you to stay,” he
objected.

“I don’t want to stay in Trevanan,” Emma
said. “I am sure the villagers are much too busy making the
necessary repairs before the winter gales to have time to entertain
me. Not to mention their urgent need to bring in and store the
harvest, and to cure and salt down the fish they catch. The damage
the outlaws did has only added to their late-summer labors. I don’t
want to disrupt their work. I only want to visit Agatha.”

He gave her a cold stare while he tried to
make up his mind which part of her speech to object to first. How
did she know about the strenuous efforts the villagers were making
to harvest the fruits of both land and sea before the storms of
autumn and winter arrived? He was aware that the weather was
different in Lincolnshire than in Cornwall. Emma had grown up with
harsh winters, yet she seemed to understand that at Penruan the
winter days were ruled by rain and strong wind, rather than by ice
and snow. Had she been questioning Sloan? Or cajoling that
impressionable boy, Blake, into indiscreet talk? All of his people
had been warned not to reveal to Emma any information that she
could send to Gavin, that he might use against Penruan or its lord.
Did she really care about the people of Penruan and Trevanan, or
was her interest a ruse? And what business did she have with
Agatha?

It was exceedingly difficult not to be able
to trust one’s own wife. It was even more difficult not to embrace
her when she was so enchanting. Emma smiled at him and touched his
arm, and Dain went rigid with the effort it took not to put his
hands on her shoulders and draw her close for a kiss on her
delectable lips.

“Dain, are you woolgathering?” Her breathy
little laugh sent a shiver down his spine, followed immediately by
a surge of heat. “Have you heard anything I’ve said?”

“I have heard you. I don’t think you ought to
intrude on Trevanan at this time.”

“As I just told you, I have no intention of
intruding. All I want is your company as far as the village. Once
there, I will visit Agatha for an hour or two, and then I will
leave. If you let me take Blake along, he will be escort enough for
my return to Penruan.”

“Why do you want to meet Agatha?”

“Because, according to Blake, and to several
of your men-at-arms, whom I have asked about the manner in which
wounds are treated here, Agatha is the person you send for whenever
a serious illness or an injury occurs that you or Sloan or the men
by themselves cannot manage. Everyone I asked spoke of Agatha’s
skills, and also mentioned that she is very old and not likely to
live for many more years. It was my idea that she could teach me
what cures she uses, and provide information about local plants
with curative powers, plants that I might pass by on my searches,
because I am not familiar with them. I want to learn as much as I
can from Agatha.”

“I thought you came to me well taught,’ he
said, sounding irritated. Which, in fact, he was, but not because
she wanted to use old Agatha as a teacher. It irked Dain that he
could find no fault in her. Emma was attempting to do exactly what
the new lady of the castle ought to do. She was trying to use her
skills as a healer for the benefit of the men and women of Penruan.
It was his duty to give her every assistance.

“There is no person so well taught that she
cannot learn more,” Emma said. “If Agatha is as wise as I have been
told, then there is much she can teach me.”

She met his stern gaze with a look that Dain
perceived as complete openness, and in that moment, charmed by her
beauty and her sweet voice, he decided to disregard the other, more
familiar voice in his mind that shrilly warned him not to trust
her.

“You may go with me,” he said, “and I will
order one of my men-at-arms to accompany you back to Penruan after
you have finished your business with Agatha. The lady of Penman
ought not to ride about the countryside without an armed
escort.”

“Thank you, Dain.” She lowered her eyes,
blushing, and her voice was soft when next she spoke. “Do you wish
to join me in the lord’s chamber tonight?”

“Is that to be my reward for agreeing to what
you want?” he asked, speaking harshly to hide the warmth that
flooded his body at the thought of lying down with her in his own
bed and taking her into his arms. He was sure she noticed how hot
his face was, and if she looked more closely at him, she would see
the obvious evidence of his desire for her, evidence he was unable
to conceal without making a fool of himself by tugging down his
tunic or pulling the tablecloth across his lap.

“I only thought you might feel it was time,”
she said, still blushing. “You have kindly allowed me several weeks
in which to recover from my long and difficult journey to Penruan,
and I did understand that you preferred not to engage in marital
relations immediately after the death of your son, and then there
was the reconstruction of those houses at Trevanan to see to, but
now you are home again.”

“So I am,” he said. And about to run away to
Trevanan again in the morning, just to avoid her. That he, who had
never fled from a battlefield or from any other fight, should
depart from his own castle in unseemly haste in order not to sleep
in the same bed with his wife seemed to him ludicrous. It was
unmanly of him. Emma was his chattel, to possess or reject as he
chose. He wanted her as he had never wanted any other woman.

If he took her, he might get her with child,
might blend his blood with the blood of Baron Udo and of Gavin, the
two men he had been taught for all his life to hate. To do so would
be to betray his father and grandfather. The old voice to which he
had listened for so many years echoed in his mind, telling him that
it was far more manly of him to deny his yearning for Emma than to
give in to it.

Yet there was another reason why he could not
lie with her, a reason having nothing to do with his family’s
long-established hatreds. There was in Emma a gentle richness, a
quality of her soul that called out to him with an almost
irresistible strength. If he led her to the lord’s chamber and
stripped off her clothing and his, if he took her into his bed, he
would also take her into his heart. He would not merely possess his
wife, he would make love to her. And loving was weakness. So he had
been taught.

“Not tonight, my lady,” he said. “I have much
to discuss with Sloan, and plans to make for gathering in our own
harvest, here at Penruan.”

“As you wish, my lord.” She had gone a little
pale, but her low voice was steady. He would not expect it to be
otherwise. While she was in public Emma would not show
disappointment at his rejection.

”Yes,” he said, “it will be as I wish.” With
that, he pushed his chair away from the table and stood. Calling to
Sloan to join him, he left the great hall.

“Our harvest?” Emma muttered. “I have not
seen any fields under cultivation around Penruan.”

She stood by the window in the lord’s
chamber, gazing out at a sky streaked with clouds of purple and
pale pink, and at a sea that was far more calm than her own heart.
The air wafting in through the window was soft and mellow, just
lightly touched with the tang of salt.

“But there are fields, my lady,” said Hawise,
who was folding a basket of clean underclothes and laying the
garments into a chest. “I have been making friends with the cook,
and she has described how Penruan lands extend to a sheltered
valley set well away from the sea winds, and there Lord Dain’s
villeins grow wheat and barley. Cook says there is a fine apple
orchard, and several kinds of plum trees, too, because they are
Dain’s favorite fruit. And, of course, a portion of all the crops
grown in the fields around Trevanan come to the castle.”

“How is it that you have been able to learn
these facts, while no one will tell me anything about Dain’s
holdings, no matter how often I ask?” Emma exclaimed.

“Dain gave orders that you are to be given no
information, not until after you have proven yourself trustworthy,”
Hawise told her. “I guess he thought Lord Gavin was planning to
follow you to Cornwall with a large army, and that you would find a
way to send information to him or, perhaps, to open the gates of
Penruan to him.”

“I know Dain doesn’t trust me,” Emma said
with a sigh. “It explains much.”

“Including why he hasn’t insisted on
consummating your marriage,” Hawise said. “He’s probably afraid to
give you a child whom you might decide to take back to Wroxley and
use against him.”

“I have given him no cause to mistrust
me.”

“Well, it’s the feud, isn’t it? That, and
Lady Richenda. From what I’ve heard since coming here, she preaches
against Lord Gavin, and against your poor, dead grandfather, Lord
Udo, as if she’s calling for a crusade against the Saracens.”

“When is Lady Richenda expected to return
home?” Emma asked.

“From the way the cook talks, I’d say it will
be another week or two,” Hawise answered. “Certainly not much
longer. She has already been gone for a whole month, which Cook
says is a long time for her. Lady Richenda likes to keep everyone
and everything under her close control.”

“Well, then,” Emma said, “I shall have to
teach Dain to trust me, and then to love me, in just one week.”

Emma was dressing for the ride to Trevanan
when the bedchamber door was flung open with such force that it
swung around on its hinges and crashed against the wall.

In strode Dain. He was unarmored, but still,
he presented an imposing sight. His dark blue tunic was snugged to
his narrow waist by a wide leather belt from which hung his
ever-present sword, and his long, muscular legs were thrust into
brown leather boots. His brown cloak was tossed back over one
shoulder, and the silver clasp that held it at his throat glinted
wickedly, sending splinters of light onto his tight, angry face. He
did not waste time in polite greetings.

“I have been told that you have altered my
private room,” he said, halting just inside the doorway. His mouth
closed in a hard line as he looked around the chamber.

“One would scarcely know it is your room,”
Emma responded calmly, “since you have not entered it for
weeks.”

“Do you think to make me grow soft and weak
with such luxury?” he demanded. He extended a hand, as if to feel
the fabric of the new blue bed hangings, but pulled his hand back
and rested it on his sword hilt instead.

“I do not believe anything will ever make you
soft, my lord.” Emma decided her best course was to attempt to
reason with him. “My only concern was to make you more comfortable
in your own room, and thereby make myself more comfortable, too. I
am not used to living each day as if I were on campaign with King
Henry’s troops.”

“Are you complaining about the arrangements I
have made for you?” Dain growled.

“No, my lord. I am only saying that in this
one, private chamber your life, and mine, need not be so harsh.
When I first saw it, the room was barely furnished.” She moved
closer, smiling at him. “Surely you know it is the custom for a
bride to arrive at her new home with chests of linens, with silver
plate, and with furniture, as well as her bride clothes, and to add
these things to her husband’s belongings so that, together, they
may enjoy all of their possessions.”

“I do know it.” He was frowning at her. “You
neglected to discuss with me the changes you wished to make before
you made them.”

“How could I?” she asked, keeping her voice
sweet and a smile on her lips, so what she said would not sound
like an accusation. “You have been absent from Penruan for much of
the time since I arrived, and when you have been here, you’ve had
far more important matters to think about than a new set of bed
hangings, or a chair.”

“Yes, a chair.” He went to it, to run his
fingers along the smooth arms of it. “Did you think we had no
chairs at Penruan?” His voice was remarkably soft for Dain, as if
he, too, was trying to avoid the impression that he was making an
accusation.

“I was certain you owned as many chairs as
you want,” she said. “This one is my gift to you, especially made
for you. I sewed the cushions myself, and stuffed them with my own
hands.” She did not tell him that Gavin owned the same kind of
chair. She thought it best not to mention Gavin, not if she wanted
Dain to accept the gift.

“Did you make the bed hangings, too?” he
asked. “I notice the wool is the same as that on the cushions.”

”Hawise helped me to sew the curtains. She is
a fine needlewoman.”

Dain moved to the bed and flipped the nearest
curtain up to examine the underside. He tested the curtain lining
with his fingertips, looked at the quilt and at the pillows covered
in new linen. Then he looked into Emma’s eyes. One corner of his
mouth quirked upward, but almost immediately straightened again, as
if he was fighting the urge to return her smile.

”Thank you,” he said. “It was churlish of me
to complain about what you’ve done, but I was surprised to hear of
it.”

Emma refrained from pointing out that if he
had come to their bed, he could have seen for himself how she was
altering the room, and not have had to hear of it from the
servants.

“I hope you are pleased,” was all she
said.

“You will be well sheltered from drafts when
damp winter comes,” he said.

Emma bit her lip, determined not to annoy him
by telling him that he, too, ought to be sheltered within the new
bed hangings, with her. The thought of sleeping in Dain’s arms made
her cheeks burn. But it was clear that she held little interest for
him.

“Are you ready to ride?” he said. “It’s past
time for us to leave for Trevanan.” He was out of the room and
halfway down the stairs to the great hall before she could answer
him.