Midnight Eyes (3 page)

He gave her a small smile, which she didn’t return.

“Greetings, m lord, and welcome to Shadowsend,” the woman said stiffly. “I apologize for Alice, but you did startle her, although we have been expecting you. At the moment, the Keep is only being served by nigh on ten women, but if you ask for me, I’m sure that we will manage to serve most of your needs, Sir Knight.”

“What is your name, and what exactly are your duties here?”

“My name is Mary. I’m principally my lady’s companion, but I also function as a chatelaine in the absence of someone else more suitable.”

Robert nodded, only a little wiser than before. What he knew about the running of a castle, keep or cottage was insignificant, and he had only the vaguest of notions as to the function of a chatelaine. Hopefully it meant that she could run everything without any help from him.

“You may go about your duties,” Robert said in what he hoped was a confident manner, feeling large and clumsy in a domestic setting. Give him a meadow and twenty unseasoned soldiers and he moved with confidence. Present him with one self-assured servant and he was almost ready to eat the rushes. He tried to hide that uncertainty by turning his back in dismissal, but changed his mind abruptly, catching the woman midcurtsy.

It was a clumsy return to standing, and Robert felt a little more at ease in the face of this small imperfection.

“Wait. Why isn’t Lady Imogen greeting her guests?” Even he was aware that the basic rules of hospitality demanded that the lady of the house see to her guests’ comfort.

For a moment Mary looked disconcerted. “My lady, uh…sleeps and I was asked not to disturb her.”

Matthew snorted, stopping for the first time his fire worship. “They have found you the perfect wife. One who can manage to sleep through your battle bellow.”

The woman had the grace to blush at the too-obvious lie and for the first time lowered her gaze.

“We have much to discuss,” Robert said gently, “the lady and I, and I think we should start now. If you can go and wake her and tell her that Sir Robert desires very much for her to present herself in the hall.”

The woman seemed dumbstruck for a moment before her natural confidence returned. “I’m sorry, Sir Robert, but Lady Imogen never leaves her chamber.”

Robert was momentarily nonplussed. Perhaps Lady Deformed was unable to manage the stairs? Perhaps her legendary deformity prevented her moving altogether?

A nauseous feeling rose up in his throat. He had never been squeamish before. How could he, when the battlefield offered so many kinds of death and none of them were pretty? He had seen men ripped to shreds, splattered so far that they were unidentifiable. He had seen retribution, that cold, mechanical murder of the enemy. He might never have relished it; but he had accepted it. It seemed natural to him after so many years and he had learned to live with it, learnt that it was part of his days and, occasionally, a part of his nightmares.

But never before had he seen a female so scarred by her injuries that she couldn’t leave her room, so badly damaged that she hid from the world. Warriors wore their scars as a badge of pride, a symbol of their survival. This new kind of pain didn’t sit well with him. He longed for escape, longed to leave the lady buried in her living grave, but his newly defined honor demanded more.

He set his shoulders. “Well then, it is only fitting that I go to the lady if she is unable to greet us. Lead the way.”

Mary bowed her head and grabbed the candlestick from the great table, using a burning stick from the fireplace to light it. Robert raised his brows. The sun had risen two hours ago. Did none of the Keep open to the natural light? As if she read his mind, Mary shrugged her shoulders, a little apologetic.

“The light on the upper floor is not the best, Sir Knight, and the steps are not entirely sound. After a few nasty falls, you will learn the wisdom of these candles.”

She smiled and left the room. Robert paused for a moment but knew the time for delay was passed. It was time to face the lady herself.

The wooden stairs groaned ominously under Robert’s foot. He grimaced, and tried to pick a quiet way through the cacophony of noise. It would seem that before he was able to husband the land back into some fruitfulness, he needed to rebuild the Keep first! Even in the dim light cast by Mary’s candle up ahead he could see the rising damp and decay.

Mary stopped in front of one of the doors and turned to him. For a moment, her clear eyes looked deep into his, as if trying to find the very source of his being. Robert shifted uneasily but refused to break contact, refused to be the first to give in.

It seemed she reached some conclusion as she nodded. “I think you might be a good thing after all,” she muttered enigmatically. She nodded again and went to brush past him, leaving him increasingly confused. She paused for a moment, and then suddenly reached out a hand to touch his leather-covered forearm. “She awaits you within, Sir Knight. She has passed the last weeks in much fear. Please be kind.”

He stared bemused for a second as she and her light quickly retraced their steps, leaving him alone in the darkness.

Fear. He supposed his was a reputation to invoke fear and he was disconcerted by the guilt that flared to life inside him. Perhaps he should have tried some other contact first, allayed the lady’s fears somewhat before presenting her with a warrior husband. He should have found some way to woo her.

Woo. The word was strange to his mind.

Although, he added defensively to himself, hers wasn’t exactly a reputation designed to calm a suitor’s fears either. For a brief second he felt some mild justification, but then he flushed as he realized just how clumsy he would appear to his gently bred, soon-to-be wife.

Hells blood! What did he know of home, hearth and wooing? How was he going to manage not terrifying his poor, deformed virgin wife? he thought with despair. He might manage for a while, say an hour or so, but his own nature would find him out in the end.

Bracing himself he knocked on the door, only to be greeted with silence. For a second he hesitated, but impatience won out in the end. His need to get this first meeting over with was too great to dally in a cold hall on a lady’s whim.

He pushed open the door.

After the dimness of the hall he was blinded by the brightness of the full sun in the chamber. It was seconds before he could make out the figure on the other side of the room.

When his eyes adjusted, his heart almost stopped. She had stepped forward, and unknowingly revealed to him every exquisite detail. It was like an angel had stepped down from heaven.

Her long black hair hung in waves around her, glowing in the sunlight like an aura. It framed her gracefully, outlining her tiny waist, the gentle flair of her hips, the lushness of her breasts.

Her skin shone a pale ivory, splashed with the redness of her perfectly formed lips and the deep glow from her brown eyes. They were eyes that a man could drown in and never regret the demise.

She stood straight and proud, but still she would reach only his chin. He felt suddenly large and clumsy before her, felt unworthy to see such ethereal, unworldly beauty. A beauty that produced a very earthy reaction through his body. He could feel that reaction in the tightening of his loins, in the pounding of his heart, in the air that suddenly rushed into his deflated lungs, making him almost light-headed.

For the first time in his life he was totally struck dumb and when his mind finally kicked back in, all he could manage was to hoarsely say, “My God, you’re perfect!”

She let out a shrill peal of laughter. The hollow sound hung heavy in the air.

She instinctively closed her eyes, wishing the laughter away. She wished she hadn’t given vent to the hysteria she could feel rising from her stomach, but somehow it was a force that could not be denied. The absurdity was just too great.

He saw perfection. She couldn’t see at all.

His deep, strong voice created pictures for her, but she could not see him, couldn’t tell what kind of man he was, whether he came to her dressed for war or wooing. She couldn’t even see to run away from him.

A shiver ran down her spine. It was a creeping disadvantage. She longed to hide, and felt vulnerable when she knew she couldn’t.

Roger’s dark whispers rose up to taunt her. Robert had both the strength and the determination to devote his life to one goal. He was here to claim his reward from the king, and she doubted that he would allow her to hide, but it wasn’t the king that she was afraid of. No, this was all Roger’s dark game, for all it had a royal disguise.

If Robert Beaumont was part of Roger’s plans, then he must be her enemy, and an enemy that you couldn’t see was a very dangerous foe indeed.

Fear squeezed her throat. She wanted to scream, to yell freedom, to fight and claw her way out of the dark, out of this man-filled room, out of her life.

She wished wildly for a moment that she was indeed so hideously deformed that the dismembered voice would run screaming from her, and leave her to her fears.

It wasn’t going to be that simple, Imogen realized sinkingly. This was Roger’s game. It had to be played out, and she could only hope that when the time for the ending came she had the strength to fight.

She walked stiffly to the chair two paces in front of her and sat down on the edge, clasping her hands tightly. For a second the man seemed to pause indecisively, and then he pulled back the other chair gratingly and sat down heavily.

A big man, Imogen mused. A man whose knees didn’t fit in the space she had left between the chair and the footstool, a man who made her solidly built furniture groan.

She had never really thought about his physical proportions, but a knight would have to be big, strong. Small men did not kill easily. Roger had never had the body mass to be a true knight. He couldn’t bring down a man with one swing of a sword, couldn’t physically control those around him. No, he had to use the more subtle method of fear and isolation. This man he had sent to her won through sheer bulk.

It was hard to say which she found the most horrifying at the moment. Perhaps that was why Roger had chosen him. Robert was a physical threat that he couldn’t make himself. Roger could torture her with his little games, but this man could crush her with one hand.

She mentally shook herself. There were smaller things to be concerned about here, like returning the chair to its spot if she wanted to avoid yet another bruise.

“I’m sorry for my rude silence, Lady Imogen,” Robert said slowly, “but you aren’t quite what I had been led to expect.”

He was trying desperately not to stare like some callow youth, and hoping against hope that she wouldn’t notice the red heat that had risen and swamped his face.

She smiled bitterly. “Surprise must be one of the downsides of buying without first checking the stock.”

He went absolutely rigid. He had expected politeness, been prepared for patronizing, but he hadn’t ever thought that she would be openly rude. That wasn’t his understanding of how ladies acted.

His first instinct was to return like for like, but some part of his mind whispered about the vulnerability that lay beneath those bitter words and held him in check.

That part of him understood it very well. It was the reaction of a wounded animal to lash out wildly. Instead of getting in range of the claws, he knew it was better to wait till the fear and pain had played itself out.

“I don’t think of you as purchased,” he said tightly, “and I would prefer it if you also refrain from such merchant talk.”

“I apologize.” She raised her chin an inch. “You are right, of course.
I
wasn’t purchased. It was my land you were bargaining for. I’m just the sting in the tail: the catch at the end of the bargain. It must be depressing to finally have your Keep, but to also have to take possession of Lady Deformed as well.”

She smiled at him silkily. “And what a very brave knight you must be to accept a bargain that binds you in marriage to Lady Deformed.”

His lips tightened, and he held his temper with the greatest difficulty. “I do not care for that name, and I will not have it mentioned again.”

“What? ‘Lady Deformed’? That would be too harsh, Sir Knight. The poor women who look after the Keep lead such dreary lives that they have little else to talk of. Who are we to deprive them of such small pleasures?”

“If their pleasures interfere with my honor, then I’m afraid I will have them stopped.” He leaned closer, trying to catch her gaze, but she stared resolutely over his shoulder. “Besides, I see no need for the name. I can see no imperfection to warrant such harshness.”

Her hands gripped more tightly to each other, her nails drawing blood.

He hadn’t noticed! It seemed incredible to her, the darkness too evident to be hidden.

Perhaps he was attempting gallantry. Perhaps…but it didn’t make sense any way she shifted it about. Her brother hadn’t sent her a lover. He had sent her a punishment, and punishments didn’t entice with honeyed words. No, they pulled you apart piece by piece.

There had to be some deeper game being played here, some tactical reason for claiming her imperfections invisible.

Maybe he wanted to hear her declare her deformity. Maybe he was like her brother and enjoyed making her destroy herself. It had always made Roger feel like he was stronger than a god when he had brought her to her knees.

She tightened her jaw. She was not ready to play dead for this man yet. “Knight, I’ve no patience for idle flattery. My deformities are plain for all to see and I will not be mocked. Our marriage may give the rights to my land and my body, but I will not give you my pride on a platter. So beware.”

He raised a hand in supplication. “I meant no offence. I’m a blunt man and the subtleties you speak of are not in my nature. I was stating an honest puzzlement.”

“You mean you really don’t know?” she asked incredulously. “You mean my brother hasn’t prepared you for the role he wants you to play?”

Robert paused, trying to find the diplomacy that was normally lacking in his character. “Your brother and I do not move in the same circles,” he said carefully, not mentioning that he thought of Roger more as something that slithered out from under a rock than as a man. That didn’t seem to be the kind of thing that you mentioned to a man’s sister, however.

Nothing makes any sense, she thought with some agitation. She stood abruptly and began pacing.

“What does it mean?” she muttered darkly to herself, trying desperately to understand this latest ploy of Roger’s. In her agitation she forgot that Robert had moved the chair and his shout of warning came too late. She ran into the back of the chair and was beginning to topple over when strong arms grabbed her, steadying her against his firm chest.

For a moment she forgot her fear, and gave herself up to this strange new experience. Never before had she stood so close to a man that she could feel the ridges of muscles beneath the soft spun wool of his tunic.

So Robert had come to her dressed as a suitor after all, with no metal to hide behind. She wasn’t surrounded by the acrid smell of sweat-soaked metal; instead her senses were clouded with sandalwood, fresh air and another strange element that she couldn’t name, something unique to this man himself.

It was intoxicating, just as was the warmth radiating from his large body. For the first time since she had been exiled to this cold north, she felt a warmth that actually seeped into her bones, warming her to the core. Her limbs felt like they were on fire, but it was a strange fire that excited rather than hurt. It rushed along her nerve endings, causing sensations she didn’t understand, but she already knew she never wanted them to end.

It was a moment that seemed to both last forever and yet to end far too soon.

Robert struggled with himself. Every fiber of his body screamed the rightness of this near-embrace. She fit against him like she had been made to rest there. It seemed against nature to let go. He longed to pull her closer; longed to raise a hand along the soft, smooth skin of her throat and cup her face; longed to lower his head…

He tried not to think such things. Down that path lay madness. He closed his eyes for a second, but quickly opened them again. He didn’t want to lose one moment of this. He stared deep into her eyes, and almost lost control altogether.

Her pale translucent skin was flushed, and her lips parted to reveal two rows of perfect white teeth. It was as if she could hear his lurid thoughts and was responding with a desire that equaled his own. He tried to read an invitation, a rejection or anything to stop this torment of indecision.

Her eyes didn’t quite meet his.

He wanted to howl to the moon. He wanted to kiss her till they both lost their senses. He
wanted
. He had never understood want until this moment. He pulled her closer for a fraction of a second. Then he let her go and stepped back, holding his hands ruthlessly to his sides.

The end was cold, abrupt and complete.

For a second she couldn’t work out where she was on her mental map. She seemed to float a little above the ground, her carefully crafted realities dissolving around her in the heat of this man. Without the warmth of his body she seemed to have no existence.

She floated for a second but quickly pulled herself back together. She shouldn’t stand stunned before this man like some lovesick mooncalf. She wouldn’t show him such weakness. Unfortunately, despite her reluctance to show weakness, her knees no longer seemed strong enough to support her.

“Can you please direct me to my seat?” If her voice broke a little, she could always blame it on the near collision, she decided desperately.

“Sorry?” Robert asked, bewildered both by her apparent calm in the face of his own suddenly burning needs and the question itself.

Imogen could feel the color leave her face. It seemed like the ultimate humiliation.

“Don’t worry,” she snapped out. “I’ll find it myself.” She stretched out her hands, groping for a familiar object. She could have cried with relief when she felt the back of his chair.

She moved her hand over the still-warm fabric and reached out to where she should have been able to grab the next chair. She could barely suppress the urge to stamp her feet. He had moved the chair. That was what had caused the chaos in the first place. She stood undecided. The two options before her were both equally unattractive. She either stood till the wretched man left, or she was going to have to crawl to her seat.

Robert stared, stunned by the dawning understanding.

“You can’t see?” he muttered, unable to hide his shock.

She let go of the chair and straightened her spine. The simple words belied all the pain of the reality.

Robert was lost for words. He had braced himself for ugliness, had been prepared for it, even—but this, this was somehow more unjust. A perfection that couldn’t even glance into a mirror to see itself?

His silence was beginning to grate along her nerves.

“Say something,” she said through gritted teeth.

“My lady, I don’t know what to say.”

She made a frustrated gurgle in the back of her throat and threw up her hands.

“By all that’s holy, you can’t be that shocked. You didn’t think I was called Lady Deformed on a whim did you? You bargained for damaged goods knowingly.”

“I asked you not to use that insult,” he said carefully.

For a second her mouth fell open. “You really meant it? Why ever not? That is how I’m known the length and breadth of the country. I find it strangely apt and I can’t see why I alone should stop using it.”

“I care not about the rest of the people on this island, only my small corner of it, and in that corner I expect never to hear it again. Am I understood?”

“No. It’s nonsense. And I won’t be dictated to this way.”

“I’m your husband, and to a larger extent, my word is your law.”

“You’re not my husband yet,” she muttered resentfully.

“Why will everyone keep reminding me of that small, inconsequential fact?” he murmured enigmatically.

“Because, fact it is.”

“Well, not for much longer. I shall send word to the priest this night and we will be married by sunrise.”

“We are still to be married?” she asked in a small voice, not entirely sure what answer she feared hearing the most. Inside her all was confusion, but the one thing she seemed to know for sure was that she was glad Robert hadn’t fled when he had found out about the first of her dark secrets.

He smiled a little and stepped closer. He picked up her small hands in his larger one, engulfing it with his calloused strength.

“I have pledged my honor on it. You are now my honor.”

Her brow crinkled in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

He lifted his forefinger and clumsily massaged the frown out of existence. “You don’t have to understand. It is fact.”

She felt his warm breath on the back of her hand as he lifted it to his lips, felt the moisture as they brushed over it, and she realized with dawning amazement that in the welter of emotions that filled her there was no repulsion at this man’s touch. She was confused, excited, frightened and bewildered, but she felt no revulsion. She absorbed that realization with dazed amazement.

“Until dawn, my lady,” Robert said with a gravely voice that played over her nerve endings. Then suddenly the room was empty, emptier than it had ever been before.

She raised the back of her hand to her lips and felt her first kiss.

“Oh, Brother dear, what is it you do now?” she whispered.

Imogen spent the night before her wedding in vigil. After Mary had prepared her for bed, Imogen sat in front of the fire and waited.