The Lord's Right (8 page)

Her hand was barely large enough to
fit round him, and finally, he didn’t know what stroke of genius
touched her, but she brought her other hand to bear, wetting and
soaping it well, and that was all he could stand. He flew off into
the sun, and was putty in her small hands with a scream dragged
from the deepest recesses of his throat. Archie knocked at the door
to see that he was all right.

Knowing that the man wouldn’t take
Amber’s word for it, he shouted angrily, “Yes, man, I’m fine.” It
didn’t help that Archie was half deaf, but he’d been his father’s
man, and Piers couldn’t see his way to getting rid of
him.

Amber, for her part, sat there, amazed
at what had just happened. She had never seen the like in her life,
and it was written all over her face. Piers caught a glimpse of
that look before he relaxed back into the rapidly cooling water of
his bath.

“
Don’t tell me that
watching me spill my seed was quite that horrendous an event. From
the look on your face I would think you’d seen a ghost or a demon.”
He added, “Fetch my bath sheet.”

So that was what it meant when a man
spilt his seed! “But that’s a sin!” She rose and brought him the
towel, holding it for him as he got out of the tub.

Piers crossed to the door and called
for Archie to have someone come collect the tub. As he dried
himself, completely unselfconscious about his nakedness in front of
her, apparently, he chuckled a bit. “I’ve always been surprised at
that concept. It’s not as if there’s not more where that came
from.”

Amber was trying desperately to look
anywhere in the room but at him. She settled on staring out the
window, and blotting the thing he’d just made her do out of her
conscience as best she could. What was that thing he’d made her
touch, and what had happened to him? It had seemed to be a lot like
what he’d done to her recently, but she didn’t have equipment like
that down there. She’d never seen the like, except on male
animals.

“
You can go now, Amber,
but keep close. No venturing into the woods for hours at a
time.”

She had the grace to blush that he
even knew she did this.

Piers came up behind her. “Mrs. Tulane
keeps me informed of everything you do—and everything you don’t
do,” he advised.

“
The king is honoring us
with a visit, and we will be pressing every hand into hard service
to make ready for his arrival.”

“
Yes, Sir.” Amber
curtsied, and walked towards the door to his room.

“
Use the back stairway, my
flower. No sense in ruining your reputation
unnecessarily.”

As if the arrangements for the king
with the entire castle and most of the nearby village scurrying
around underfoot in preparation weren’t enough, recently everyone
in his regiment, it seemed, was coming out of the woodwork to ask
him for permission to marry Amber, with the distinct exception of
Troy, who had never forgiven her for his mishap with the fountain.
He, instead, spent his time filling Piers’ ear with vitriol against
her, such ridiculous things as that she was a spy, a whore, and a
witch, and anything else unpleasant he could concoct.

But everyone else sang her praises as
if she were a gift from Heaven above, despite the fact that Piers
knew that Troy did his best to spread his vicious gossip amongst
them, too. But her good deeds outshone his patently false words.
She’d healed this one’s boil and that one’s tooth and stitched the
other’s certainly mortal wound, all with a soft, woman’s heart and
a gentle, angel’s touch. If he had to hear one more randy buck
singing her praises, he was going to massacre his own
regiment.

Finally, at the end of training, he
told Bruce—who was one of the few who had not come to him, even
though Piers knew that he, too, thought very highly of Amber—of the
situation, and told him to distribute this information amongst the
men: that if any of them wanted to marry Amber, they would have his
blessing, but he would claim droit de seigneur. Luckily,
Fitzwilliam was too shy to have asked, or that declaration would
probably have gotten Piers handed his head on a platter.

From that day on, no one came to him
asking for Amber’s hand. None of his men would ever consider having
a woman to wife after he’d taken her virginity on what was supposed
to have been their wedding night. It just couldn’t happen. Their
honor meant too much to them.

Bruce had done as he was told, but
then also came back to Piers, who was his commander but also an old
friend, as soon as he got the chance. The two of them sat in the
great hall, while servants scuttled about them, spreading fresh
rushes on the floor along with small, tied bundles of sweet
smelling dried herbs. “Any more of them jackanapes sniffing after
Amber?”

“
Not a one.”

“
I thought
not.”

Piers chuckled, taking a long pull on
his wine. His friend seemed to want to say something, but was
hesitant. “What is it?”

Bruce was uncomfortable with what he
was about to say, but came out and said it anyway. “The girl. With
what I just said to the men, you’ve condemned her to spinsterhood,
not that she isn’t really already too old. But no one is ever going
to offer for her now.”

He hadn’t thought of that. Piers had
allowed his jealousy to overtake him, and he had made a declaration
to all the men in the area that she was his, without actually
making her his, without giving her the benefit of his name in
marriage or even taking her as his mistress, which would have given
her at least some small measure of protection. As it was, there
would be nowhere she’d be safe from the gossip, ridicule and
speculation about the fact that he’d told the male population that
he desired her, and that he intended to trump any man who wanted to
give her his name in order to take her virginity for
himself.

In essence, he’d labeled her his
whore, however unintentionally.

Piers frowned deeply at his own
blunder.

“
The king’s been spotted
an hour away!” a servant boy announced loudly, and the furor inside
the hall tripled in pace.

He trusted his people to do what they
needed to do. He had to find Amber. Piers sought out Mrs. Tulane,
who was just coming out of Amber’s room.

“
Where is she?”

“
I don’t know, Sir. She
finished her work; she made all the bundles of herbs for the
rushes. Don’t they smell wonderful, now? But I’ve lost track of
her. She’s probably gone wandering in the woods again, you know how
she does, Sir.”

Piers was thinking that she better
hadn’t, since he’d expressly told her to stay close to the
castle.

Mrs. Tulane was prattling on. “Those
tunics you had made for the staff arrived just now, though, Sir. I
was putting hers in her room. That was a lovely thing you did, Sir.
Everyone’s clothes were looking right worn. Now we’ll all look
fresh and bright for His Majesty!”

If he’d thought he could have gotten
away with just getting new clothes for Amber, he would have, but
he’d thought that might have singled her out a bit too much. He
wished he’d carried that idea through to his solution with the men.
It had cost him a pretty penny to get one new set of clothes for
every servant in the castle, but it would be worth it to put on a
nice face for the king, he supposed, and it would definitely be
worth it to see Amber in something new, that was of good
quality.

He slipped into her room and grabbed
the deep green garment that was on the bed and tucked it into his
shirt, then headed out to see if the hunter could track the
hunter.

He was gratified to find that he
could. Her feet were smaller than those of the men usually found in
the woods, so her tracks were generally easy to spot, although
there were a lot of them, and it took a careful eye to discern
which were the most recent, and he found he enjoyed the challenge.
When he finally found her, though, he was not of a mind to disturb
her, for a moment, but rather kept well back and watched, grateful
for the cover and the chance to observe her at her most
natural.

She swam like a water nymph, diving
under and holding her breath for an impressively long time, diving
for a white rock she threw further and further into the pristine
lake. There was a small waterfall at one end, and he enjoyed the
immeasurable pleasure of watching her swim out there and wash
herself most thoroughly, wishing, as parts of him began to ache,
that he was out there to assist.

When he was younger, he might well
have thrown caution to the winds and joined her, but with the king
only an hour away, he knew he couldn’t do that in good conscience.
He knew how that would end, and he didn’t have time for it,
especially considering that she obviously needed to be reminded
that she had been prohibited from doing exactly this.

So, as she climbed, naked and
glistening out of the water, he appeared out of the forest, walking
onto the shore and preventing her from reaching for her clothes.
Instead, he appropriated the scrap of cloth she’d brought to dry
herself with and proceeded to do it himself, rubbing her briskly
but gently all over until she was entirely dry, and even taking
several swipes at her hair, but giving up since there was so much
of it. But he did manage to get a lot of the water out of it, and
seemed to enjoy running his hands and the cloth through
it.

Amber had stood docilely throughout
this process, which had surprised him somewhat. That wasn’t like
her, and he was a tad suspicious. But he didn’t waste any time once
he thought he’d gotten her to the point where she’d be a little
more comfortable standing out of the water, and he brought her a
bit to his side, bent her over while holding her with one arm, and
stepped on that long hair of hers with his foot, which trapped her
right where he wanted her. She couldn’t get up without scalping
herself, and her bare bottom was exactly where he wanted it. The
wooden training sword he’d been using earlier in the day was the
perfect implement to help refresh her memory about the rule he had
set for her. It wasn’t as if he had made a thousand of them. She
should have been able to obey that one.

“
What did I say to you not
too long ago about staying close to the castle, Amber?”

She had forgotten. She really had.
There had been so much hustle and bustle with the king arriving
shortly, and she just couldn’t stand it any longer. Amber had made
sure she’d gotten everything done that she could, helping
everywhere she could, but she needed to escape for a while, just
one last time, knowing she’d be pressed into service in every
possible way while he was here, so she ducked into the woods to
swim and bathe while she thought no one would miss her.

Of course, he would notice, and she
would end up punished, as always. It seemed he never missed a
chance to blister her for one reason or another. Sir Piers punished
her three or four times more often than her father ever
had.

She shuddered to think what he was
using on her now. Amber could feel the welts rising individually
each time his arm fell, and, as usual, she was crying almost before
he’d begun spanking her. It annoyed her to no end that she had so
little control of herself around the person she wished she had the
most control. Her emotions seemed so scattered with him, and it was
as if he knew her body much better than she did—how to deliver it
searing pain and unbelievable ecstasy, sometimes in the same
instant.

It was in the middle of this
disciplinary session that they heard thunderous hoof beats, and
before they knew it, they were descended upon by a large army of
men bearing the king’s crest, and then by the king himself, who
stepped to the forefront and required that his men, who found the
scene to be quite comical, step well back into the
woods.

King William, who knew and liked Piers
quite well, walked down to the shore, where both of his subjects
were on their knees to him, one quite prettily but unintentionally
giving him a very nice view of English scenery, indeed.

“
Rise, rise, the both of
you.”

Piers did so immediately, handing
Amber her new tunic and shoving her behind him to don it
quickly.

Amber was shaking so badly that it
took her five times longer than it might have, because she knew the
King of England was a mere ten feet from her.

When she was done, she barely peeped
around Piers, wanting to sink to her knees again, but King William
wouldn’t hear of it. “I see you’ve found a fair English flower with
whom to occupy yourself, Sir Piers. And what an interesting
occupation it is.” He smiled broadly. “Please introduce
me.”

When Piers drew her towards the king,
his hand strong and steady on hers, his strength infused her, and
she became more of herself and less the frightened maid, despite
the ignominious circumstances.

She met King William with a deep
curtsey, but squarely, not shrinking from him, proudly, as she
should. Piers was very proud of her, knowing it was hard for her,
especially considering the scene he’d stumbled upon.

He drew her up with one hand, kissing
the back of hers. “I had concern that there was a maid in distress,
but I had no idea just how distressed. Tell me, Miss Amber, were
you deserving of the punishment Sir Piers was
administering?”