The Holding - Book 1 in The Medieval Knights Series (34 page)

The curtain at the door trembled as he entered the chamber they shared. He did not look upset that she had stolen his bath, the bath that awaited him each day before he supped. He did not look angry in the least. William walked across the floor as quietly as he had mounted the stair, stripping the clothes from his body as he came. Cathryn waited, her eyes dark and huge in the smallness of her face.

His mantle was the first to be discarded. William let it fall to the floor—quite unlike him. His hands were dirty, the dark soil of Greneforde sticking to him, as he pulled his tunic up and over his head. For a moment it looked almost like a banner waving in his hand before it, too, fell to the floor.

Cathryn sat straighter in the water, letting her breasts rise above the waterline. The water trickled away from the mounds slowly, almost reluctantly, to lap against her narrow rib cage and form a clear table on which the fruit that was her bosom was displayed for his pleasure.

William, his gray eyes as dark as storm clouds, kicked his boots into a corner of the room and slid down his hose with some difficulty, as the sword of his passion was largely in the way.

He stood over her. She felt quite small against his size. A tremor of passion swept through her at the look in his black-fringed eyes, and she relished every delicate beat of it.

"'He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favor from the Lord,''' he murmured huskily.

So he would quote God's word to her? This time she was prepared.

"'I am my beloved's and his desire is for me,''' Cathryn answered with a sultry smile.

William's surprise was reflected on his face. It was a very sweet moment, and she had Father Godfrey and his patient tutelage to thank for it. If she was going to live with a man who quoted Holy Writ, then she had better prepare herself against the day when he might be tempted to use his knowledge and her lack of it for his own gain. She hardly thought him capable of it, but then, he was a man. And French.

"Father Godfrey?" William asked as he reached for the fruit she so temptingly offered.

"Father Godfrey," she answered, arching toward his hand.

"'An excellent wife, who can find?''' William challenged, caressing her face with his hand. "'For her worth is far above jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her and he will have no lack of gain.'''

He trusted her. Sweet, sweet words from a man so wronged with an impure wife. How much vengeance he had denied himself to so accept her. She would never cease to be grateful for his merciful compassion toward her. She would never cease to want him.

"'His mouth is full of sweetness. And he is wholly desirable,'" Cathryn quoted, pulling him down to her, kissing his throat and his jaw until she felt a tremor of passion pass through him.

"Cathryn, wait," William said in a throaty whisper. She was undoing him with her words and with her touch.

"'May he kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!''' she said against the curl of his ear, his black hair brushing against her face. "'For your love is better than wine.''' Her hand trailed down his torso to the pulsing evidence of his arousal. With gentle fingers, she rubbed the tip, as he rubbed the turgid thrust of her nipple.

With near savage force, he plunged his tongue into her mouth with all the thrusting beat he longed to visit elsewhere on her body. She would not relent in her attack upon his senses; she traced the length of him to cup the sac beneath and then ran both hands down the column of one leg, pulling him down to her with ever-increasing force and urgency.

"Cathryn," he whispered, his eyes alight with a holy fire.

"William," she answered with a smile, her voice seductively low, "I wait for thee."

With a laugh that was more a bark, he answered, "Then wait no longer."

William lifted his wife from her bath. He did not take her to the bed. He sat himself down and sat her atop him, her knees drawn up to his chest, the water sloshing over the sides of the small tub. It was a most odd position. But it worked.

She should have known that William le Brouillard would not relinquish his daily bath.

* * *

William loved the scarlet on her. He loved it so much that she had some difficulty keeping it on.

Cathryn could not have been more pleased.

It had taken voices of complaint raised to a near shout from the hall below, voices weakening from lack of food, or so it was claimed, to rouse them from their chamber and propel them below. The men who followed William and the people who served Greneforde stopped all activity to watch them enter. They had waited long to see her in the scarlet acca, and not a man or woman present felt the wait had been in vain.

Cathryn glowed in her scarlet and amber as brightly as a torch that fit one hand only, the hand of the man who held her elbow softly as he led her to the high table. They seemed of a piece, Greneforde's new lord and his lady, as if woven from a single thread, and woe to the man who dared raise a knife to cut them in twain.

William wore his bridal finery of white samite and gray to compliment Cathryn's brilliance, the ruby at his shoulder glowing hotly in the flickering light of the hall. They looked as they should have on the day of their marriage, clothed in richness and suffused with contentment at their state. William presented an image of cool strength to Cathryn's surging warmth as they moved through the hall. In some way common only to the married, they had changed positions.

William would always be courtly in his ways, that would not change, but there was something more guarded in his manner, as if the walls of his personal defenses had been raised to a more forbidding height. His gray eyes were pleasant as he surveyed the hall and his hand light upon Cathryn's arm, but his manner was one of battle readiness and tightly harnessed caution.

Cathryn seemed not aware of any change in her husband, the change in herself so overwhelmed her. Gone was the woman of cool regard and icy stillness. She looked upon the throng awaiting them with a smile teasing the corners of her mouth and her dark eyes shining merrily; she was amused by them and their faces of expectation. She was amused and confident and secure in all things of late. William was warm, very warm, toward her; he more than liked her in the scarlet, and the world was once again the safe place it had been before the death of her mother and the departure of her father. And if anyone heard a cry coming from the lord's chamber in the night, she would not hide her head in shame; rather, she would need to struggle to hide her smile of supreme satisfaction. Yes, William was pleased with her efforts on his behalf; the fact that they had delayed the serving of the meal by an hour was the clearest testimony to how well pleased he was.

It was a happy meal with smiles all around, and made happier still by the return of Rowland and Kendall.

"The sojourners return!" William called in greeting, beckoning them to the table with a wave of his hand. "Sit and eat and relate to me the success of your journey."

Rowland knew well that William spoke only of their reaching Henry; the news, or lack of it, concerning Lambert's whereabouts would wait for a room that housed fewer ears. But there was more to tell concerning William's hold on Greneforde than William knew.

"Our thanks," Rowland said simply.

William waited for Rowland, or Kendall at the very least—for who could muzzle him?—to relate that they had reached the king and told him that Greneforde was safe in his possession. Rowland's black eyes over the rim of his cup told him much.

Kendall's silence told him the rest. None but the most disastrous news could subdue Kendall.

William cast his eyes toward Cathryn, knowing that she sensed the disharmony and willing her not to. In vain. She was aware of the changed atmosphere as a bird is aware of a coming storm. Clasping one of the hands that she held so tightly in her lap, William lifted it to the table and caressed it there, in plain sight of all. Whatever would come, they would face together. Never again would he allow her to retreat into the cocoon that had sheathed her for so long, no matter how she longed to fly there. His winning of her warmth had been a battle too long waged to relinquish even one foot of ground, and though he feared the effect Rowland's words would have on her, he would not run from them. Nor would he allow her to run.

"You found Henry?" William asked bluntly, unwilling to delay the inevitable with pointless parrying.

"Aye, William," Rowland answered. "Henry was found."

And Lambert was not, William guessed, stroking with gentle familiarity the softness of Cathryn's hand.

"You were gone long," William commented, reaching for his cup. "Had he traveled far afield from London?"

"Nay, he was in London still, against all expectation, for we covered the leagues between here and there as does the wolf seeking prey, crisscrossing our own tracks," Kendall supplied, annoyance clear in his voice.

Rowland kept his dark eyes firmly on the plate in front of him; there was no need to explain this method of travel to William. His purpose would be well understood. But not what had been found; that William would not understand unless it was spelled out for him, and that Rowland was not willing to do in the presence of William's lady. Not so Kendall.

Kendall had hardly turned his gaze from Cathryn since entering the hall. She was different. He did not know if she was different in fact or only because he saw her with different eyes. Cathryn of Greneforde glowed with suppressed sensuality; her beauty was a beacon fire that was fueled by the lustrous garments that sheathed her. He could well believe, looking at her now, that she had lain with a man not her husband.

She was not fit for William le Brouillard.

"The king ushered us into his chamber as soon as our feet touched the earth," Kendall said.

"You received a warm welcome," William noted.

Kendall smiled coldly. "Nay, not warm, only quick."

Rowland cast a darkly forbidding glance at Kendall and then at William, his eyes beseeching. William returned the look with flinty eyes and raised Cathryn's fingers to his mouth for a chivalrous kiss. She shivered noticeably and reached with her free hand for her wine. William did not stop her.

For all his warmth of expression toward his wife, his manner was as cold as Rowland had ever seen it. William was set for mortal battle, and if Kendall did not watch his tongue, he would feel the force of William's outrage to the full.

Kendall, too immersed in his own outrage, did not note William's.

"Drink, Kendall; your journey has been long," William commanded. "There is time to tell of your audience with King Henry. We are just at the first course."

Kendall obeyed, reluctantly, and while his mouth was thus engaged, Rowland spoke.

"The king was most eager to hear of your possession of Greneforde."

"And most pleased?" William asked with cool detachment.

Kendall plunked his goblet down with force, spilling some of the wine on the cloth. "Nay, for there—"

"Drink, Kendall!" Rowland ordered in a voice quite unlike him.

Startled, Kendall was silenced. But he did not drink.

"You informed Henry that Greneforde is mine?" William asked, his eyes glinting with silver sparks.

"Yea," Rowland answered simply, willing to let William control the conversation. Willing Kendall out of it.

"He knows that Cathryn is mine?"

Cathryn's shivering diminished upon those forcefully spoken words. Could aught harm her if she was so firmly William's? No, for he had delivered her from the black pit of her sin with his tender devotion; none could harm her, and she knew that none could take her from him. Unless it was the king.

"He was told of your marriage," Rowland answered precisely. Too precisely.

"And his reaction to this news that his orders had been carried out to the letter?" William pressed.

"Another has laid claim to Greneforde," Kendall blurted out, his eyes alighting on Cathryn, "and Greneforde's lady."

William kissed Cathryn's hand again with all the tenderness and intimacy of the bedchamber, breathing his warmth into the heart of her hand. He held her eyes with his own as he asked, "Who has dared to claim my lady?"

"Lambert of Brent," Kendall said with some satisfaction, watching Cathryn for her reaction.

He was disappointed, for all he saw was the Cathryn that he had always seen: a cold woman, icy in her manner, distant in her bearing. The doors of her warmth slammed shut with the mention of Lambert. She was no more William's wife; she was Cathryn of Greneforde, and the possession of either was in dispute.

The next course was forgotten in the hall as all eyes watched the play of emotion at the high table. Cathryn in her icy majesty was well known to them, and they all, Marie included, sorrowed at her return. Rowland, so quiet, looked at William with eyes so large and so black that they seemed unfathomable. And William. They had never seen him so. He was as quiet as the mist. There was no shout from his lips, no cry of denial or rage, no demands or questions. He was as chill as the winter dawn, as still as the frozen lake; he was a warrior. And he was seeking his adversary.

"Greneforde is mine," he stated with whispered force. "Cathryn is mine. There are no other claims."