Conquering William (4 page)

Clearly, her last three husbands had failed to convince her of the pleasures of the marriage bed. Her first, William of Clarges, he could understand. Sir William had not leant toward women at all. The subsequent two had only made his task harder.

William tucked his hands behind his head and smiled at the canopy. Challenge accepted.

Alice opened her eyes to fitful sun painting the flags beneath the casement. She should get up and go about her day, but her warm bed whispered sloth in a tempting embrace of toasty linens and a hot, hard body beside her.

Her husband. Or not quite husband yet, considering that after Sister’s departure he had lain beside her and chatted—aye, chatted—until Alice fell asleep.

Braced for the nip of early morning, Alice poked her nose over the edge of the covers. Warm air met her, and she edged her face out. Not as cozy as the bed but comfortable enough not to require her usual pained dash to the washing basin. God forgive her extravagant nature, but she loved the heat.

Dark hair tousled on the pillow, his face at rest, William breathed deep and even beside her. Together in the dark, he had told her of his family and his life at Anglesea. A very different life awaited him at Tarnwych, and one he might very well not enjoy. Would he find her wanting too? Well, he did not need to like her to fulfill his purpose. It might be nice, though.

Someone must have tended the fire in the night, because a cheerful blaze added light to the unenthusiastic sunshine. Careful not to wake William, she slid from the bed and crept across the chamber to her basin and ewer on the washstand.

Plunging her hands into the water, she gasped. At least there was no layer of ice to break before she could perform her morning ablutions.

“Good morrow, my lady.” William sat knees splayed beneath the covers with his elbows resting on them. His warm smile caused a quiver low in her belly.

“G-good morrow.” What did one say waking with a man in her chamber? Did one comment on the weather or speak of the coming day?

“Did you sleep well?” Thankfully, William seemed more knowledgeable in these matters. She refused to dwell on why that was.

“Aye, thank you.” Stone chill burned her soles, and she rested one foot atop the other to relieve the discomfort. “Did you? Sleep well, I mean.”

“Nay, my lady, I did not.” He tossed the covers aside.

He rose and stood beside the bed in nothing but his braies. Heat flamed in her cheeks and she averted her gaze. Her new husband lacked modesty it would appear. Heavy shoulders crowned a wide muscular chest that tapered into his slim waist. Why, indeed would he hide such a form? A chaste woman did not think such things, even about their lawful husband. She, for certain, would not work this hard to keep herself from having a longer, closer look. Penance at morning prayers was required.

“That is not a comfortable bed,” William said. “How do you manage to sleep on it?”

“I manage.” Here a mere day and already he found fault with Tarnwych. However, the straw of the bed did poke through the old sacking as if one slept upon a hedgehog. Other parts of the palette had worn thinner than parchment. She had heard some places stuffed the bedding with down and feathers. She’d wager William had such a palette at Anglesea. He enjoyed his comforts too much to content himself with plain straw. Feather and down would be wondrous soft, like sinking into a happy cloud at night.

“Alice,” he said from right behind her, and she started. A large, tanned hand appeared between her and the water basin. “William of Anglesea. Your groom.”

Alice spun round and faced him, not at all sure what he was about now. “I know who you are.”

He sketched a courtly bow. “I thought we might dispense with the awkwardness of the situation. Now you introduce yourself to me, and we shall proceed from there.”

“But you know who I am.” Perhaps his pretty face hid a fool. He stood too close to her with his broad, muscled chest the only place her gaze could go. She focused on the indent below his throat. “Are you mocking me?”

“Nay, Alice.” He tilted her chin and his gaze met hers. “I am attempting to get to know you.”

“Oh.” She had no earthly idea why he would want such a thing, but it was nice. Considerate even. “I am Alice.”

“There.” He grinned at her. “That was not so very bad. Was it? Shall I send Cedric to the kitchen and we can break our fast right here?”

“Nay.” He could not mean that. Taking your meals in your chamber like royalty—madness. “We must go to the hall.”

“Very well.” He pulled a wry face. “Allow me to assist you to dress.”

He was addled. She’d already guessed it. “You cannot do that.”

“Nay?” He tilted his head. “Why is that?”

“It is not done.” Alice was not very sure why not. After all, a husband and wife lay together, but to assist each other in the mundane task of dressing seemed far too intimate. Did he have an army of squires to clothe him at Anglesea?

William moved to the fire, his back rippling with more intriguing muscle. Linen clung to the firm orbs of his…hindquarters. He added another log and flames roared into a hearty blaze. Another thing not done until yesterday. But this one she rather approved of.

Alice snatched her chemise off the clothes tree. It lay limp in her hands. She could not very well dress with him standing right there.

“Allow me.” He rose and approached her. Stopping before her, he reached behind her. “I believe we could begin here.”

Alice stared at the length of hide in his hand. He had loosened her hair, and already the braid unraveled against her back.

Hands warm on her shoulders through the linen, William turned her about. “This, my lady, is a shame.”

He loosened her braid until her hair lay heavy on her back and shoulders. Drawing his finger through the length of her hair in long, sensual sweeps that prickled her flesh into goosebumps.

“To keep such bounty hidden.” William made a tutting sound. “Do you have a comb?”

“Aye.”

His fingers roamed her scalp, loosening hair and easing the ache from the braid. He rubbed soothing circles over the ache. “May I have your comb?”

Alice snatched her comb off her washstand and handed it to him.

He growled, so close to her that the vibrations skittered up her spine. “This is a dismal affair. Do not move.”

Cool air hit her back. His bare feet padded over stone, and a chest creaked opened. He muttered to himself as he rummaged. Words that no godly man would know, let alone use.

Bringing the curious warmth that emanated from his body, he returned. “This is a decent comb.”

Between his long fingers he held a comb, but one so fine she would not have dared use it on her hair. Carved, intricate patterns marched along the spine, inlaid with mother of pearl. Such beauty in a prosaic implement, and yet she coveted it. The thick teeth would tug less at her hair than her old bone comb.

“Cedric combs my hair with this,” he said. “A hundred strokes every night.”

Alice lost her words. Verily?

He chuckled beside her ear. His breath brushed her neck. “I jest, my lady.”

Even stronger sensations skittered down her neck. A funny picture formed in her mind of William settled before the fire with Cedric behind him, combing his hair.

“Is that a smile I see?” William smoothed his palm across her scalp and followed it with the gentle scrape of the comb.

“Perhaps.” Touch firm but gentle, he pulled the comb through her hair from root to tip. He stopped when he encountered a tangle and worked the hair free with the smallest of tugs on her scalp. Sister wielded the comb with a rough hand, muttering about her hair as she went.

“So beautiful,” William murmured as he combed the hair back from her forehead. “It is the most striking color.”

“Brazen red?”

“Sunset red,” he said. “Molten red. Copper.”

“Is that another jest?”

“Nay, my Alice.” He leant over her and replaced the comb on the washstand. “Why do you bind it and hide it away?”

The waft of cloves weakened her knees. “Sister Julianna believes it to be immodest.”

“Ah.” He held a handful of her hair to the sunlight. “I would like to see you wear it without your wimple.”

Alice spun and faced him. Sister would be horrified. “I could not.”

“Nay?” He grimaced. “Let us make a bargain, you and I. You will wear it lose when you are here in this chamber with me. Until such time as you are comfortable to go about without your wimple.”

It seemed a strange sort of bargain to her, but it would be nice to not always have her head grow hot and itchy beneath her wimple. “I will never go about without my wimple.”

“We shall see.” He raised his arms above his head and stretched. A long, sinuous ripple of muscle and sinew that took her thoughts with it. “Come sit by the fire with me.”

“But the keep waits to break its fast.”

“At this hour? Do you rise with the sun in the north?”

“Aye.” When else did one rise?

“I see.” Her strange new husband raised his face to the ceiling and blew out a long breath. He motioned the chair before the fire. “Shall we?”

There was only one chair before the fire, and he did not heed her that the keep waited.

William led her to the chair and sat. Then, he arranged her until she sat on his lap, like a child.

The heat of his bare thighs burned through her nightrail. The intimacy of their position discomforted her. Alice wriggled to break free, but he clamped his hands on her hips and held her in place. “Indulge me for a moment.”

“My lord, the keep.”

“William.” His hand tightened about her hip. “Here, at least, you must call me William.”

“I cannot.”

“Why?”

Alice had no good answer for that, other than it would create a bond between them as man and wife. They were man and wife. An ache throbbed behind her eyes. This had her all turned about, and her thoughts grew clouded.

“If we are to have any sort of marriage, my Alice, you and I need to begin as friends.” William tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I do not fancy the sort of union where we hide at opposite ends of Tarnwych from each other. And you?”

It sounded a lot like her other marriages. “I did before, with the…” Perhaps William wanted no reminder that other husbands had come before him. Steven had forbidden her from referring to his predecessors.

“With your former husbands?” William tucked her closer to him. “Tell me about them.”

“Why?” That question came more and more from her lips this morning.

“I would like to know.” He shrugged. “William of Clarges came first?”

“Aye.”

“Was he kind to you?”

Alice nodded. Her first William had been kind, when he had been about. “He did not spend much time in my company. He had a friend, called Patrick, of whom he was very fond. They went everywhere together.”

William nodded but a strange look, part amusement and part pity, flashed across his face. “Did he consummate your marriage?”

Alice near swallowed her tongue. The question caught her unguarded, and she answered before she could censor her tongue. “Nay. John did.”

“As I thought.” William’s large hand spanned the breadth of her back.

“Wh—” She refused to use that word again. “He and Patrick were out riding when Patrick fell into the tarn. William jumped in to save him, and they both drowned. It was rather brave of him.”

“Indeed.” William tugged on his earlobe. “And the next.”

“John.” A bull of a man, of medium height, John she had favored the least. She had not loved any of them, and only the worst sort of wife would admit such a fault, but John she had not liked at all. John had a way of stomping around Tarnwych, bellowing orders and using his fists when they weren’t obeyed fast enough. The relief after his death had her on her knees for weeks. “He fell from the walls in a storm. They say he went to check the guards on the battlements and slipped on the slick stone.”

“And the last?”

“Steven.” Alice had not minded Steven so much. Tall and slim, he was rather a quiet man, but still insistent on having things his way. He and Sister Julianna had battled long and hard during his short lordship of Tarnwych. “He caught a chill when out hunting. He never recovered.”

William laid his chin on her shoulder. “Were you sad, my Alice, when your husbands died?”

“Nay,” she said. He stilled, and she glanced up to see if she had shocked him, but William smiled at her. “I was sad that I did not have a child, though.”

“You want a child?”

“More than anything.” Her chest ached with the confession.

“Then, my Alice,” he said and pulled her against his handsome chest, “rest assured that I shall apply myself assiduously and make your wish come true. Morning, noon and night, I make myself available to you.”

The laughter in his voice drew a giggle from her. “I appreciate your commitment to duty.”

“Alice?” He jerked his head back, but grinned as he did so. “Was that a jest I heard?”

“Perhaps.” Alice dropped her head, beset by sudden shyness.

The door flew open, and Sister Julianna strode into the room. “My lady.” Sister’s eyes narrowed, and she stopped short.

Alice’s cheeks heated. Caught, and in such a position. She tried to get off William’s lap.

He tightened his arms about her and held her in place.

“Sister.” William tensed, but inclined his head cordially. “Good morrow to you.”

“You are not dressed.” Sister sneered at Alice.

“I was about—”

“The entire keep awaits your pleasure. And your hair!” Sister stalked toward her.

“Sister.” William rose and put Alice on her feet beside him. “My lady and I will join the keep shortly. As you see, we are not attired.”

“Nay.” Sister flushed and dropped her gaze to the floor. Tucking her hands beneath her scapula, she said, “We are not accustomed to courtly ways at Tarnwych.”

“Nor, would it seem, are you accustomed to closed doors,” William said.

Sister flinched as if he’d struck her.

Alice wanted to go to her, to comfort her. Sister always entered Alice’s bedchamber unannounced.