Enchantress Mine (30 page)

The engineer accompanying them chuckled.

“I have seen evidence of neither a lover nor a warrior, my lord,” she snipped, and he burst out laughing.

“Which skill do you prefer I demonstrate first?” he chortled as she blushed fiery red.

“Ohh, you are insufferable!” she fumed, kicking her horse into a canter to escape his laughter. She was uncomfortably aware of his masculinity. Admittedly he was an attractive man although he had not the elegant beauty of Basil, nor the handsome prettiness of Eric Longsword. Rather Josselin de Combourg’s face gave the impression of severity. Still when he smiled the precise features softened.

He had a long yet roundish face that matched his long body. His tawny dark blond hair was cropped short close to his head, and cut in a bang that only partly covered his wide, high forehead. His nose was big, the nostrils flaring just slightly at the base above the full lips that ran practically the width of his squared and sharply sculpted jaw. His eyes glinted a green-gold from beneath thick brows and heavy eyelids giving the mistaken impression that he was contemplating sleep when he was, in fact, always alert. He was, she decided, a dangerous man.

Catching up with her he apologized. “I should not tease you, my lady, not when our situation is so confusing. Yet I find I enjoy it. I cannot believe you have not been teased before by a man who was as totally enchanted by your beauty as I am. Can we not be friends? I do not believe us enemies.”

“I am not certain what we should be to each other, my lord,” she said, turning to look directly at him. “My experience has been somewhat limited where men are concerned. I was half-child, half-woman when I arrived in Byzantium and attracted the attention of my husband. I had never had a suitor until Basil. The only men I have ever known well have been relatives or Dagda, who is like my family to me. I have always been sheltered by the men in my life. My Breton father oversaw the years of my early childhood. When he died, Dagda, who had been my mother’s servant, looked after me. Then came my adoptive father, and my husband. Now once again Dagda sees to my safety.

“In Constantinople Basil did not allow me to be part of the court for he considered it corrupt, and felt it would spoil me. I have lived all my life surrounded by those who would shelter me from a world I have never had the opportunity to really know. The only thing I am able to judge you by, my lord, is your motives, which seem to be to take my lands from me. Without my lands I am worthless. Even a serf has more value than a landless noblewoman. Each of us claims Aelfleah. Should this not make us enemies, my lord?”

“No, no,” he protested, realizing suddenly the one thing he did not want was her enmity. “The king is fair, and he is just, my lady. When he learns of your existence, and of your status as your father’s heiress, he will surely compensate you for Aelfleah. You will not be worthless!”

“My lord, I do not wish to be compensated for the loss of my home. I wish to keep it,” she answered him. Though her words were serious her voice was gentle. Then she laughed, almost ruefully. “You and I shall not settle this matter between us, my lord. Neither of us wishes to give up what we rightfully consider ours. Let the king who has unwittingly placed us both in this quandary settle the matter.”

“And if he gives Aelfleah to me?” he inquired mischievously.

“He won’t,” she said with infuriating certainty.

“And in the meantime,” he asked her, “shall we be friends?”

“Yes,” she answered unhesitantly, “and Master Gilleet shall continue to plan for the king’s keep. It matters not, my lord, whether you or I build it. I know now it must be raised to help keep the king’s peace.”

He smiled at her words. “It requires a great deal of gold to build a castle, my lady Mairin. I was chosen because I am a wealthy man.”

“I am a wealthy woman,” she answered him airily. “Remember, Josselin de Combourg, I am the widow of a prince of Byzantium. My jewelry alone could have financed your king’s war with Harold Godwinson.”

“Do not boast so, lady,” he cautioned her.

“Do you not believe me? You have but to ask my mother.”

“I do not believe you capable of lying, my lady Mairin. If your wealth is as vast as you believe it you must take care. There are those who would desire your wealth more than yourself. You could easily become prey to some unscrupulous knight and so you must be discreet. The happiness you knew with your prince was brief. The unhappiness you might face with the wrong man could be endless.”

“Would that make you unhappy?” she heard herself asking him.

Reaching out he drew her horse to a stop beside his. “Yes,” he said quietly. “To see you possessed by another man would make me very unhappy.” It was in that moment he knew that he wanted her more than he wanted Aelfleah. Or her fortune. Or even the king’s favor.

Mairin, her eyes widening slightly with this unexpected revelation, knew it too.
“My lord,”
she whispered half-afraid, “what is this that is happening between us?”

“I do not know,” he said honestly. “You are surely an enchantress, Mairin of Aelfleah, to have so quickly captured my heart.” Reaching out he took her hand, and raising it to his lips, kissed it.

His mouth was like a burning brand upon her cool skin. The heat coming through the soft kid of her riding gloves. She felt as if her heart had caught within her throat, and for the longest moment she thought her bones were melting. She even believed she might fall from her mount’s back, and disgrace herself. Yanking her hand from his grasp she said, “I cannot think when you do
that,
my lord!”

“Josselin,” he answered her hoarsely. “My name is Josselin, enchantress. Say it!”

Mairin gathered her reins back into her hands, and gently nudged Thunderer forward again. “Josselin, we are almost at the crest of the hill. I believe I know a perfect site there for the king’s keep. Do not look at me that way! Master Gilleet is almost upon us now. Would you have him gossip?”

“Tonight, enchantress mine,” he warned her. “You will not escape me so easily again. I vow it!” His heart was beating erratically within his chest and he was uncertain he could even breathe when she looked at him with those huge velvet eyes of hers.
Witchcraft!
It had to be witchcraft, for when else had he been so suddenly affected by a woman?

The engineer joined them. Together they rode to the top of the hill, where Mairin pointed out a large, almost square piece of land that was surfaced in solid rock.

Master Gilleet was delighted, for a castle built upon a foundation of solid rock would never fall. “We will allow the walls to follow the slightly irregular shape of our foundation,” he said, extremely pleased as he walked about making mental measurements. “Your serfs can spend the winter building housing up here for the workers. With any luck by March we shall be able to begin the digging for the walls, my lord. Look to the west! The view is unobstructed for miles in all directions. This will be an important castle despite its small size.”

They smiled at his enthusiasm, their eyes meeting over his head. When the engineer was satisfied with his inspection of the site he remounted his horse. Turning their horses once more toward Aelfleah they began the descent into the valley. A wind had sprung up, and the sun was beginning to slip behind the horizon as they reached the manor house.

“The day was so fair that I forgot it is December,” said Mairin, dismounting her animal to hurry swiftly into the building. Standing before the blazing fireplace in the hall she pulled off her gloves and held out her hands to the warmth.

“With you every day would be fair,” he said quietly coming up behind her to place his hands upon her shoulders and draw her back against him. “The day I arrived at Aelfleah I saw you coming from the woods with a group of young girls. I thought that you were the loveliest creature I had ever seen.” He brushed his lips against the crown of her head, savoring the soft texture of her hair against his lips, inhaling the haunting fragrance of her in his nostrils. His arms slipped down to encircle her narrow waist, to bring her even closer against him. “I thought to myself that if you were a serf I should have you in my bed that very night,” he finished with brutal honesty.

She stiffened at his words, and attempted to pull away from him. “But I am not a serf, Josselin.”

He maintained his firm grasp on her, and she thought she heard humor in his voice as he said, “No, you are not a serf, Mairin. You are the heiress to Aelfleah, and I find to my own amazement that I have fallen in love with you. I have made love to women, but I have never loved one.”

“Do you not love your mother?” she said infuriatingly.

“That is different,” he said. “You know it is!”

“How?” she demanded, feeling incredibly elated by his words. This is what she had been waiting for all her life, and until this moment she had not realized it! Still she would follow the advice he himself had earlier given her. Could love really happen this quickly? How could she be certain? She must be wary.

“How?” He echoed her question. “I am not certain that I can explain. I want to be with you. Not just today. I want to be with you always. I want your children to be our children. I would grow old with you,” he finished desperately, wondering if she understood him.

“Not too quickly, I hope,” she gently mocked him.

He turned her so that they faced one another. “I have never before opened my heart to a woman,” he said quietly.

“Basil loved me for my beauty,” she said seriously. “He adored perfection and in Byzantium my type of beauty was unique. He was not unkind to me. I believe I loved him in my naiveté. You, I think, love me for my lands, my lord. No, do not be distressed,” she said, putting a gentle hand upon his arm. “My innocence was lost these many months past. I am no longer certain that I believe in the kind of love that is yet sung by the bards in the halls on long winter nights.” She sighed deeply. “Perhaps it is better I do not believe in love. Then I cannot be disappointed, can I?”

“Do you say then that I lie, Mairin?” She could hear the hurt in his voice.

“Nay, Josselin. I believe that you believe you love me.”

“But you do not.”

“I cannot help but wonder how great this love of yours for me would be if I were not the heiress to Aelfleah.”

He nodded slowly. He could understand her dilemma. In his heart he knew that he had loved her from the first moment he had seen her. “I am not certain how to prove my love for you, Mairin, but I will try.”

“Kiss me,” she said, and when he looked startled, as if he had not heard her correctly, she laughed and repeated,
“Kiss me!”

He needed no further urging and dipped his tawny head to meet her luscious mouth with his own. To Mairin’s great surprise the touch of his cool lips upon her sent her senses reeling. His mouth was hard, and instinctively her mouth softened and opened slightly beneath his. Her arms moved up, and about his neck as she pressed herself against him. They kissed for what seemed like an interminable time. Then she broke off their embrace, and throwing back her head, said,

“There is an obvious solution to this problem, Josselin. You could marry me. I am not so great a fool that I do not realize I must have another husband. Depending upon the viewpoint, we each have a legitimate claim to this manor. Would not such a marriage settle everything between us?” She pulled his head back to hers and nibbled upon his lips a moment. “I have not the widest experience but I like the way you kiss. We could be content together.”

She had totally surprised him. One moment she was so innocent and lacking in guile that he feared for her, and then suddenly she was all the wisdom that women had accumulated throughout the ages. He had often heard William proclaim the female of the species a deep and great puzzlement. Now faced with Mairin’s outspokenness he wondered if any man ever truly understood a woman. She could chide him for loving her because she believed it was her lands he loved best, and with her next breath she was proposing marriage between them because she claimed to like the way he kissed her. How he wished he might marry her this very night! If she had enchanted him, he wanted to stay enchanted forever.

He was filled with joyous laughter, but mastering his emotions he said to her, “The king did not know of your existence when he awarded me the lands of Aelfleah, but I cannot marry you without his permission. He may wish to place both you and your lands in the hands of one of his great lords. I am but a humble knight, Mairin, the nobility-born bastard of Raoul de Rohan, the Comte de Combourg.”

“The Comte de Combourg? He was my father’s dearest friend! You are his son?”

“His bastard,”
he repeated, wanting to be certain that she understood him.

“William of Normandy is bastard-born,” she answered him with a wave of her hand. “My stepmother declared me a bastard though it was not true. It matters not to me, Josselin de Combourg, but to find that you are the son of my father’s friend. I was only five and a half when my Breton father died, but I remember his best friend, Raoul de Rohan. He came to the Argoat twice each year to hunt with papa within our forest. When papa died my stepmother had the church declare that I was not true-born so that her daughter might inherit my lands. Then Dagda and I came to England. Aldwine Athelsbeorn saw me, and brought me home to his wife who was grieving the loss of their own daughter, Edyth. The rest you know. An heiress I may be, Josselin, but I have no great name either here in England or in Brittany. My lands are not so vast that a great lord might covet them. Surely the king will agree to our marriage. It is the perfect answer!”

“I cannot wed you without my lord’s permission,” he repeated.

“Yet you say you love me. Perhaps you really do, Josselin de Combourg. A greedy man would wed me and bed me before he next saw the king, and only then ask for royal permission. You seek my lands, but you refuse the easy solution.”