The Rose of Blacksword (26 page)

Then his lips descended on hers with a fierce ardor that rocked her back on her heels. Anger, pain, and desire flared between them in that kiss. He was harsh and demanding, forcing her mouth open, slipping his tongue between her startled lips. Yet any rational thoughts of repugnance
and horror melted away in the heat of his emotion. The very savageness of his kiss, the hard possessiveness of it, seemed perversely to make her softer and more pliable until she was fitted intimately against him, tilted backward in his implacable embrace.

When he at last pulled back from her she was off balance and gasping for breath. Their eyes met and in that instant Rosalynde felt as if he’d discovered some secret about her, as if she’d somehow given herself away. Then he smiled and she was suddenly sure of it. She struggled out of his arms, confused and frightened by the unsettled feelings inside her.

“There’s no reason to put if off, Rose. I would have the truth of our union made known. Already I have delayed too long, dallying at your skirts when there are urgent matters that require my attention.” He halted and his features darkened. For a moment he seemed lost in thought.

In the brief silence Rosalynde found her voice. “Dallying at my skirts!” She sputtered in outrage. “You cannot blame your foolishness on me! Oh, but you are truly quite mad!”

“Perhaps I am, Rose. Only time will tell. So run to your father and tell him. Tell him I kissed you in the stable. Tell him I made love with you in the forest.” He laughed at her wide-eyed look of shock. “Tell him we are man and wife, or else I will. And then my blood will be on your hands.”

It was this last that lent wings to her feet. She fled through the stable, uncaring of where she ran so long as she escaped his mocking words and taunting laugh. Out into the castle yard she dashed, across the dusty bailey until she reached the great hall and the narrow stone stairs that led up the east tower. But even when she attained her own chambers and slammed the door closed, she was not able to dismiss his tormenting words from her mind.

She was gasping for breath as she hastily disrobed, still panting as she nervously twisted her long hair into one thick plait. She could not tell her father the truth. Yet would it not go even worse for Blacksword if he was the one to reveal it all? Torn by her conflicting emotions—he was horrid and deserved whatever hand fate dealt him, but she could not bear to see him hurt again—she climbed into her bed and flung a heavy sheepskin over her. The dark warmth of her bed, however, was of no comfort whatsoever, for no matter what she did—tell or keep her silence—it would all come to the same end. If her father knew, he would most certainly have Blacksword punished, undoubtedly to the point of death. She knew that with a surety she could not shake. And then, just as Blacksword had said, his blood would be on her hands.

She buried her head in her arms, wishing to blot out the entire world as she huddled in her misery. Why must he be so stubborn? Why must he be so inflexible?

But as her utter exhaustion gave way to the numbing relief of sleep, she was not entirely certain whether it was Blacksword’s inflexibility that disturbed her so, or her father’s.

14

Rosalynde was awake before dawn. As she made her way down to the great hall, the fire was just being lit and the tables were being assembled by four menservants. Two harried women came in carting fresh pitchers of ale and baskets filled with the previous day’s bread for breaking the night’s fast.

The rushes were more than disgusting, Rosalynde noted in passing. They appeared even worse by day than by night. Yet the many tasks that faced her in order to put the castle to rights were not uppermost in her mind. Not at the moment.

She had slept fitfully, waking over and over again to worry about the ultimatum Blacksword had given her. Either she would reveal all, or he would; that summed up his unyielding position. Yet she was equally determined to keep their secret from her father. Now, as she slipped past the tall oak door, she intended to confront him once more. If she could just get him to delay. If she could just convince him to hold his tongue, even if it was only for a little while.

On the ramparts the guards were changing, while in the castle yard servants and men-at-arms both were beginning their day’s tasks. A gang of young boys made their way to the well, carrying empty buckets on either side of their
shoulder yokes. They ceased their boisterous chatter when they spied her and speedily doffed their assortment of misshapen caps. But they gaped at her with mouths half opened and stared without the least thought for their manners.

Another area lacking, she thought as she gave them a wan smile and hurried past. Stanwood was sorely lacking in any of the amenities of life. Last night’s meal had been mediocre at best. The housekeeping was deplorable. The castle children had no manners. And where, she wondered with a frown, were the women servants? She’d seen only the two in the great hall this morning, and a few more last night. There was the dairymaid as well, she recalled sourly. But she quickly dismissed that hussy from her mind. The women of the castle were few and far between, and those she’d seen were ragged, poorly trained, and clearly overworked. Stanwood had obviously become a man’s domain in the years since her mother’s death. But all that was about to change.

Rosalynde lifted the end of her girdle and felt the reassuring weight of the keys that hung there. She was mistress now and she would see things put to right, one way or another. And the first thing she would do was buy Blacksword’s silence.

The storerooms yielded a suitable beginning to her plan—one well-mended but clean chainse of soft linen and a supple tunic of deep-green kendal. With that in hand plus clean wash rags, and more of the balm she’d prepared, she was ready to face him. But when she reached the stable, she was taken with a terrible case of nerves.

What if he kissed her again? Her logical self knew that a kiss was the very least she should be worried about. What really mattered was what he might say—or even worse,
what he might do. But as in every other instance, she was not at all logical where Blacksword was concerned.

She halted at the stable door and pressed one hand to her fluttering stomach. Do not think of him in that way, she ordered herself sternly. He was only another of her father’s many servants, and in need of her healing skills. No more, no less. But despite such sensible reasoning, her heart thundered furiously and her mouth was as dry as carded wool. As she forced one foot forward and then the other, she consoled herself with the thought that he might not be there at all.

But he was there. She heard his low voice and then his grunt of pain, followed by a heavy thud. Fearing the worst, she flew around a low wall only to stop short at the scene that greeted her. Blacksword squatted next to a heavy granite block. The thick-bellied stable marshal was staring at him with undisguised awe, a foolish grin of pleasure on his brown-seamed face.

“I’d ne’er ha’ thought it possible if I ha’n’t seen it with me own eyes!” The man patted the block proudly, then lifted a short steel mallet and brought it down once sharply on the solid stone. “Now I can work easier without them fool boys gettin’ in me way.” He glanced at Blacksword again and screwed up one side of his mouth. “Ye’ve got the brawn, boy. Now it remains to see if ye got the brains.” Once more he patted the stone before he turned and then spotted Rosalynde.

“Milady!” He looked at her with wide, disbelieving eyes, as if the thought of the lady of the castle setting foot in the stables was quite beyond him. He bobbed his head respectfully. “Is there … is there somethin’ I can be helpin’ you with, milady?” He bobbed his head again.

Rosalynde’s eyes strayed from him to Blacksword and then quickly back to the tongue-tied marshal. It was far
easier to look at him than at the hard-eyed man whose gaze even now was causing her skin to heat.

“You … you may go now. I only came to tend this … this man’s wounds.” She thrust out the vial with the ointment in it as if to verify that she spoke the truth. “He will not work so well if … if his wounds should fester.”

But the stableman seemed unlikely to argue with her no matter what reason she gave. He was clearly uncomfortable around a noblewoman and was only too happy to leave her to her task.

“I’ve harness to mend. And two shields.” He shuffled around, giving her a cautious sidelong glance. “Just send him back to me when ye’ve finished with him, if ye please, milady.”

With no further excuse to avoid it, Rosalynde finally looked back at Blacksword. He had remained as he was, squatting beside the great stone he’d obviously moved for the older stable marshal. But when her eyes met his he slowly stood up. Once again she was struck by the sheer animal beauty of the man. He exuded a raw power, tempered by the shrewd light of intelligence in his clear gray eyes. There was a pride evident in him. It was there in the way he squared his shoulders, the way he held his head. The way his gaze never faltered. In that moment she was sure that he was more than what he seemed. He was no common servant, no serf born to an existence of toil and labor. He’d known more than that in his life. And yet she could not get around the fact that he was still a common criminal.

Rosalynde bit her lower lip as she stared at him, all but forgetting her original purpose in seeking him out. It was only when he glanced briefly at the stable marshal who was busy ferrying the tools of his trade nearer the relocated
stone, then returned his gaze to her that she forced herself back to the task at hand.

“If … if you’ll remove your clothes. Your shirt,” she hastened to clarify in a strained voice.

“Yes, milady,” he murmured politely. But he let his eyes travel over her in a leisurely fashion before he gave her a faint mocking grin, then pulled the torn, soiled shirt over his head. He tossed it unceremoniously aside and stared boldly at her.

“Turn around,” she croaked out as she blushed scarlet from his impudent gaze. He was a wretched beast, purely a devil, she seethed, until the sight of his mutilated back chased every other thought aside. She stared at it sickly. Scabs had formed in the night, but his efforts in moving the stone had clearly broken the wounds open. Fresh blood trickled across the crusted remnants of the ointment. That, combined with the many raised welts gave his wide back a horribly scarred appearance. Even though she was confident of her ointment’s ability to heal the wounds without serious scarring, if he continued to break the wounds open, no amount of her skill could help.

“Why was this man put to such heavy work? Look at his back!” she demanded of the silent stableman. Once given vent, her anger would not abate. “Can’t you see what your thoughtlessness had caused?”

“ ’Tweren’t me, milady. ’Tweren’t me,” the man vowed earnestly as he faced her furious scowl. “ ’Twas Sir Roger as said he was to be worked dawn to dusk, and hard too. I’m only doin’ as I was told. Truly, I am!”

“Sir Roger?” She glared at the older man. “And who does Sir Roger get his orders from?”

The man did not answer. He did not have to. Rosalynde guessed at once from his suddenly pale face that Sir Roger must answer only to her father. And that brought things
right back around to the original problem that had driven her here to the stables: Blacksword and her father. A vein throbbed in her temple and quickly grew to an aching rhythm. Her father and Blacksword. Between the two of them and their unreasonable stubbornness she was stretched like a taut rope. It was awful enough when they both tugged with equal pressure, but the two of them were pulling at her in erratic bursts and always from unpredictable directions. How long could she balance between them?

Seeing the stable marshal’s nervous shifting from one foot to the other, she let out a weary sigh. “I’ll speak to my father. You need not worry on that score.”

The man needed no more than that to consider himself dismissed. With a final bob of his head he backed to the door, then eased himself through and disappeared. But though he was relieved to escape an awkward confrontation, Rosalynde was granted no such favor. Alone in the stable once more with Blacksword, she felt her righteous anger at his mistreatment give way to near resignation. He was going to be difficult, that was clear. She’d been a fool to hope otherwise.

“So,” he said as his clear gray eyes locked with hers. “You shall speak to your father. And on my behalf. But just how much shall you say?” His brow arched skeptically. “I await your answer, sweet wife.”

“Don’t call me that!” she hissed, casting an alarmed glance about them.

“Do you deny it yet?”

Of course she did. She must. Yet Rosalynde knew that she had to take a different tack with him. She bit down on her lower lip and took the stopper from the vial. “I came here to see to your wounds. Can I not attend that without quarreling with you?”

There was a brief silence. Then she made the mistake of raising her eyes back up to his. He was staring at her with an unfathomable expression on his face. Not angry, for a change. She could detect little discernible emotion at all. But her stomach nonetheless tightened in complete awareness of him.