Virginia Henley (5 page)

She sat on a cushion and strummed her lute while he translated romantic verses written by a German poet. All at once, they looked up into each other’s eyes, and a moment later the book lay forgotten; Bryan closed the distance which separated them. He set her lute aside and slipped his arms around her. “Roseanna,” his lips murmured as she breathlessly received her first kiss. It was so
exciting, she trembled against him. “I did not mean to frighten you,” he said low.

“You … did not,” she answered shyly. He was emboldened to repeat the kiss. She lay against his arm, enthralled at the love words he whispered.

“You are the loveliest maiden I have ever seen. I lost my heart the first moment I laid eyes on you.”

“I felt that way, too,” she admitted.

“Don’t toy with me, Roseanna. It will break my heart!” he said passionately.

Her eyes widened, “I’m not toying with you,” she said seriously. “I … love you.” She was flushed and breathless; her love was in her eyes, plain for him to see.

Then he threw himself upon the grass beside her, dejectedly. “It can never be!” he said miserably.

“Why not?” she asked, a crease furrowing her lovely brow.

“Your parents would never give such a prize to a landless knight,” he told her.

“But I have land in my dowry,” she pointed out.

“A woman’s attractiveness increases with the size of her fortune. You must be spoken for,” he insisted.

She put her hand out to him to reassure him. “When I was eleven I was betrothed, but he doesn’t want me. He has never come forward to claim me. He should have done so when I was fifteen. Now I am seventeen—at least a year older than most girls when they wed—so you see, the betrothal is just a formality that will be dissolved.”

Sir Bryan looked happier. “Perhaps there is hope, if all these years he has never claimed you. Who is he?”

“Montford, Baron of Ravenspur,” said Roseanna.

“Ravenspur!” He recoiled at the name. “He stands high in the King’s favor.”

Watching his face carefully, Roseanna asked, “Why do you look horrified?”

Sir Bryan hesitated, then blurted, “His reputation with women stinks to high heaven. He’s already had two wives; both are in their graves!”

“His wife died in childbed,” said Roseanna thoughtfully.

“The first one did, perhaps. The second one died under very suspicious circumstances. ’Tis rumored she was murdered—or worse!”

“Bryan, please, don’t be upset over this. My parents would never force me to wed a man I didn’t love.” She smiled into his eyes. “They have always given me my heart’s desire.”

He took her into his arms again and held her fiercely. “I’ll not let you go to him,” he swore.

She reached up a finger to smooth the frown from his brow; he took it and kissed it. “Pledge me your love, and I’ll be satisfied. For now,” he added.

“I pledge you my love with all my heart,” whispered Roseanna.

Jeffrey and Alice rode up, and their privacy was at an end. But before they parted, they pledged their love again, silently, with their eyes.

Roseanna was spending less time in the stables and more time indoors these days, her mother noticed with satisfaction. Her daughter actually asked Kate Kendall’s advice about housekeeping duties and was seen in the kitchens writing down some menus. When Joanna remarked on her new interest in womanly occupations, Roseanna said sweetly, “I will need to know these things when I become a wife.”

Joanna drew in her breath. “Darling, you won’t be devastated if the betrothal with Ravenspur comes to naught and is dissolved, will you?”

“Oh, Mother, of course not. I know it can come to nothing. I’m not naive enough to think he will ever claim me.”

“Then you will be happy if we look about and consider another husband for you?”

Roseanna smiled. “It is what I desire most.” She almost said more but caught the words and smiled her secret smile instead. Silently she added, “You won’t have to seek far, Mother.”

In the stables, she helped her father dose a mare who had delivered a foal easily enough but whose afterbirth was proving troublesome. He appreciated Roseanna’s gentle hands. As he held the mare’s head at a good height, Roseanna poured warm gruel laced with black treacle into the mare’s mouth. She did it very slowly so that it wouldn’t go into the windpipe.

“Ah, Roseanna. What would I do without you?” he asked with admiration.

She teased, “You’ll have to train someone before I get married—unless of course I marry one of your knights and live at Castlemaine.”

“That would please me.” He smiled fondly. “But what of your mother?”

She ignored his question and asked one of her own. “Father, if I did fall in love with someone and wished to marry, would there be any difficulty with Ravenspur?”

He shook his head. “I think not. You’d be honor bound to beg off, but I think the vow was forgotten years ago.”

    Whenever they were in the great hall together, Roseanna’s and Bryan’s eyes followed each other’s every move. Roseanna was blooming. She wanted to shout her love from the rooftops! Everyone must be blind. Couldn’t they see she was walking around in a love trance? Whenever the two young people managed to steal a few moments alone, the scenario was always the same: bliss while a few breathless kisses were exchanged, followed by Bryan’s misery because she was pledged to another. She could not convince him that everything would work out for them if only he were patient.

Roseanna had a plan. It was simple, really, and it
would solve everything! Ravenspur was now at Belvoir, the King’s hunting lodge, not six miles distant. She would simply go and ask him to release her from the old betrothal because she loved another. She would go tomorrow. She blew out her candles, and having made her decision, she was asleep almost as soon as her head touched her pillow.

The morning was hot and unbelievably oppressive for such an early hour. Roseanna decided to tell no one of her plan so it could not be thwarted. She was a girl who was used to making her own decisions and acting upon them. She seldom needed anyone to aid and abet her. In fact, she rather despised women who could not do things alone and forever went about in twosomes, propping each other up.

On a fancy, because she would be going through the forest, she chose a pale green dress of lightweight material and a matching scarf to cover her long tresses. She wished to appear properly demure when she appealed to the baron. She wore her new green leather riding boots embossed with winged horses. How clever the workmanship on them was! Her father had known she would love them on sight.

She took her breakfast late so that her father and most of his knights and men-at-arms would be long gone from the great hall. This was one morning she did not wish to tarry with Sir Bryan.

She gave Zeus an early apple and rubbed the black velvet of his muzzle; then she thought better about riding him. Perhaps it would be more seemly to ride a palfrey. So she picked out a young filly and saddled it quickly. As old Dobbin ambled up, she smiled at him and said, “As you see, I’ve chosen a gentle mount today, so there will
be no need to send a groom to follow me to pick up the pieces.”

He grinned up at her, exposing the gaps in his teeth. “What’s the use? You usually manage to give him the slip anyway.”

As she rode, the sun beat down unmercifully upon her shoulders, and she felt her neck becoming damp beneath her hair and the head covering. She noticed, however, that a few sultry, bruise-colored clouds were gathering ahead of her; briefly, she hoped the storm would not come until night.

A fat partridge flew out of the gorse, and the young filly reared up in fright. The horse was still skittish after she brought it under control; it danced aside at every shadow. She slowed her pace and patted the animal’s neck and soothed it with calming words, but its nervousness increased. Then Roseanna heard the far-off rumble of thunder, and she realized the horse’s keen hearing had picked it up long before she herself heard it.

“Damn,” she swore, and dug her heels in, hoping to reach the shelter of the forest before the drenching began. She almost made it. She was within two hundred yards of the trees when the deluge came. Animal and rider entered the woods at full gallop, curving around the trunks of trees and jumping over fallen branches. Then the rain, coming in sheets, began to penetrate the foliage above, and the forest floor became slippery with mud and weeds.

Roseanna dismounted and led the nervous young animal by the bridle deeper into the forest, where the oaks were so large, their trunks were six feet in girth. She tied the filly’s reins to a branch where it was quite dry and sheltered and sat down close by on a fallen log to wait out the thunderstorm. She was aware that her appearance
had been ruined by the rain; reluctantly she pulled off the pretty head veil that had been so becoming this morning but that now resembled a sodden rag. She ran her fingers through her wet hair in an effort to spread it across her shoulders so that it would begin to dry.

After about an hour the thunder and lightning began to abate, and she knew the storm was moving off. With a sigh of relief, she arose to untie the horse’s reins. At that precise moment, the shrill blast of a hunting horn carried through the trees. The young animal panicked instantly: it screamed, showed the whites of its eyes, and bolted.

She cursed the horse’s cowardice and thought,
Zeus is a thousand times safer than this untrained filly.
Roseanna ran through the trees in the direction the horse had taken and began what she thought might be a fruitless search. She had almost given up when she heard an unmistakable cry for help. She followed the horse’s pitiful cries until she came to a wide stream. The horse’s back quarters had gone down into the water, and though the river didn’t appear deep enough for real danger, she realized that the animal’s fright alone made it necessary for her to go in after it.

She sat down and removed her new green boots carefully, calling out soothing words that she was far from feeling at the moment. She pulled her gown up above her knees although it was already quite wet from the rain. “Hold on, girl. I’ll help you,” she called softly, wading out into the middle of the stream.

Just as she reached for the trailing reins, the frightened young filly lunged forward, thrashed her back haunches free of the stream bed, and took off as if the devil himself were prodding her tail with his pitchfork. Roseanna was splattered from head to foot, and she was very angry. She
staggered from the water up onto the bank, and for a moment she was disoriented. She didn’t see which way the horse had gone; she didn’t even know which side of the stream she had entered. It was unbelievable the way the day had turned out after such a promising beginning. Even her lovely gown with its subtle shade of green was now a colorless, sodden rag. She had no horse, no boots, and she harbored a suspicion that she just might be lost.

After almost two hours of wandering around, her anger melted away and was gradually replaced by apprehension, approaching fear. These great forests of Sherwood were alive with wild beasts, and although she was fairly safe during daylight hours when on a good mount, such was not the case when she was alone, on foot, as the evening shadows approached. Firmly she put the picture of wolves, boars, and wild bulls from her mind and cupped her hands on either side of her mouth. She called, “Hello? Hello?”

To her amazement she heard a horse approach through the trees. A male voice, filled with amusement, said, “Well, what quarry do I have here?”

She saw a handsome young lord whose white teeth flashed in his dark face and whose eyes fairly danced with mischief under heavy black brows. He was leading a second horse that carried a very bloody wild boar across its saddlebow.

“I’m lost,” she blurted.

“Not anymore, sweetheart.” He grinned with a leer.

Roseanna was instantly wary and drew her dignity about her. “I am the Lady Roseanna Castlemaine. I—”

He threw back his head and laughed with glee, “You’re a liar, little wench!”

She said stiffly, “I beg your pardon?”

“Pardon freely given, sweetheart. Do you often suffer from delusions of grandeur?” He grinned.

By God, the laughing, gaping oaf didn’t believe her! She almost threw at him that she was the daughter of the King, so stung was she by his laughter. She caught sight of the hunting horn slung at his side, and anger gripped her. “Your stupid screeching through that horn is what frightened off my horse! Who are you?” she demanded.

He bowed gravely from the saddle. “Tristan Montford, and you are? Oh yes, I forgot, you are the Queen of Sheba.”

She was so angry, she trembled. He mistook it for a chill. For a peasant girl she was exquisite beneath the grime. His eyes traveled from her bare feet up her body and rested on her stubborn, tempting mouth.

“Where are you bound, my queen?”

She didn’t answer him. Then she realized he was her only means of deliverance. “I am on my way to Belvoir.”

His eyes began to dance again. “No doubt by special invitation from Baron Ravenspur.”

“Yes. No—I mean, yes, that is who I wish to see.”