Anne O'Brien – Conquering Knight, Captive Lady (страница 7)

It burned. She could feel the heat of him, as she had before, as it crept from that inadvertent touch of her spread fingers to engulf her whole body. And not merely a physical warmth. Her heart seemed to swell with it, filling her breast so that her breathing shortened. Her belly shivered with nerves. Every inch of her skin seemed suddenly to be conscious of his looming presence. He might not be touching her, but she felt the hot slide of his glance over her flesh. Aghast, Rosamund swallowed against the dryness in her throat. She could feel the flame of it in her cheeks, and cursed her pale complexion that mirrored every thought. Could think of nothing to say, could only stare at him wide-eyed as his heart beat steadily beneath her palm.

Then, to her relief, the knight stepped back.

‘I assure you, I have no designs on your person,’ he growled. The grin widened to show even teeth. Wolfishly, she considered. ‘As for yourself, lady, you are remarkably proud and haughty, considering that you are entirely at my mercy.’

Flushing again, vividly to the roots of her hair, Rosamund found her voice. ‘At your mercy? I am no such thing!’

‘No? I don’t suggest that you challenge me on that point.’ He looked her up and down as if about to say more, changed his mind. ‘Enough of this. I have things to do here, lady. We’ll discuss this … this little difficulty … over dinner at mid-day. If nothing else, we must arrange for your transportation elsewhere. So if you would be so good as to order the provision of hot food for my men with my steward, and for ourselves …’

Without a backward glance, Fitz Osbern strode off toward the stables, leaving her standing. My steward! Her clear brow furrowed into a scowl, her hands tightened into fists. She would have tapped her foot if her shoe had not been firmly anchored in the mud. Order the food! As if I were a servant at his beck and call! Stalking past her mother without a word, she climbed the stairs into the hall, head high, realising that she had no choice, that she would get nowhere with this situation until they faced each other again and hammered out the legalities. She refused to chase after him to demand his attention. So she would organise the meal. Present him with the documents of her legal ownership. And then force him to leave. Although how she would achieve such a conclusion she had no very clear idea. Whatever she had or had not learned about him in that short confrontation, he was not a man open to persuasion.

But that was not all she had learnt. And it was equally unacceptable. Rosamund found herself wiping her damp palm down her skirts. His touch still burned there.

Lady Petronilla remained standing at the foot of the staircase, a fascinated witness to the little scene, an avid spectator of a clash of wills that could not but fill her with anxieties for the future. She might have been unable to hear all the words spoken, except when Rosamund raised her voice beyond what was seemly to call the knight an uncivilised lout—perhaps not the best thing to do on first acquaintance—but the tone of the whole exchange had been abundantly clear. Sometimes Rose was too much her father’s daughter for everyone’s comfort. And now what? The Fitz Osbern men were quite incontrovertibly in control, occupying the gatehouse and the towers of the central court, their equipment stowed and their horses occupying the stables. Petronilla slid a glance over to where the elder of the two knights still stood where he had remained throughout, at his horse’s head, hands clasped on his sword belt as he watched the proceedings with an undisguised appreciation. Now, sensing her interest, he looked across at her, his smile gaining a rueful quality. For some reason his quiet confidence, his tolerant smile and the gleam in his eye as it met hers across the width of the bailey brought a warmth to her face. She felt his sympathy, his quick understanding of the uncomfortable position that she had been thrown into, and it irritated her beyond bearing. She felt an urge to wipe the smile from his face. Before common sense could step in, she stalked across to his side.

‘I don’t know what you found to be so amusing in that little interlude,’ she remarked with stern censure. Had she known it, the lift of her chin was very like that of her daughter. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself!’

‘What?’ The smile duly vanished, the knight’s rough brows snapped together. ‘What did I do?’

‘Nothing! That’s the thing!’

Like her daughter, she turned on her heel and left him to mull over the enigmatic words as he wished, whilst Lady Petronilla wondered at her response to the knight and her temerity at castigating him for no reason at all.

Rosamund paced in the Great Hall—her Great Hall—her thoughts in confusion. As if her arrival at Clifford on the previous day had not been bad enough, with all its shocking revelation. As if the decisions she had been forced to make had not taken all her courage. And now this débâcle—this monstrous turn of events. From the moment when she had at set foot in the small settlement of some twenty timber-and-thatch houses on the bank of the Wye where the river could be forded with relative ease, everything seemed destined to go wrong. She had simply sat and looked in horrified awe at the central keep of Clifford, recently rebuilt in local stone, her inheritance and her chosen home. It was grey and entirely forbidding.

‘It’s not exactly welcoming, is it?’ Lady Petronilla, lips pressed into a straight line to prevent an exclamation of sheer horror, sat in the bailey of Clifford Castle and viewed the near prospect from the safe advantage of her mare’s back. Her hands clutched around the reins at what she saw.

‘God’s bones!’ Less restrained, Rosamund’s first impression of her new home was dire. Was this—this hellish outpost on the very edge of what she considered to be civilisation—to be her home?

‘Don’t blaspheme, Rosamund.’ But the Countess’s tone was mild. ‘It’s not as bad as all that.’ A rat scurried across their path, larger than most cats. ‘Or perhaps it is.’

Due to the striking de Longspey pennons in black and red, flaunted by their escort, the castle gates had been opened for them without question. The commander of the garrison, an elderly knight of lined and mournful visage named Thomas de Byton, stood elbows akimbo on the steps leading up to the entrance to the keep, sour and unaccommodating. He made no advance to acknowledge or receive the women who had turned up unwanted and uninvited on his threshold, but watched them with what Rosamund could only interpret as a jaundiced air. She could read his disapproval in his stance. Awaited his approach. When he made no move, she nudged her horse forward until she sat before him, her eyes on a level with his, as she had intended, and very direct.

‘Thomas de Byton.’ Her voice was clear, carried well. She had made it her business to discover the name of the man who held Clifford in her name, the protection of her property. ‘I am Rosamund de Longspey.’

‘Aye, my lady. I heard the Earl had given the castle to a woman.’

She ignored his words but, eyes widened, continued to hold his. ‘Perhaps you will make arrangements for the accommodation of my escort and for myself and the Dowager Countess.’

‘And for how long would that be, my lady?’

She lifted her chin an inch, stared down her nose. ‘For as long as I see fit. I intend to make my home here.’

‘As you wish, my lady.’ Sir Thomas turned, to stamp back up the steps, in no way discommoded by the interview.

‘One moment, Sir Thomas. If you please.’

He halted, half-turned, but did not retrace his steps.

‘If you would see to my horses and my baggage, I wish to inspect the private quarters.’

‘As you wish, my lady.’ With bad grace, he marched back down the steps and across the bailey to the thatch-and-timber constructions that housed the kitchens, resentment hovering round him like a swarm of flies in summer. She heard his muttered parting shot.

‘Let me know when you decide you don’t wish to stay, my lady.’

But she would stay. She must. The new Lady of Clifford braced for what was to come.

‘Well, it could be worse. Some improvements have been made.’ Petronilla surveyed the stone walls rising on every side to create an inner court.

‘I fail to see them,’ Rosamund lifted one soft leather boot to inspect the mud caked almost to the ankle. This inner courtyard enclosed within the defences of the stone keep was badly drained and awash with standing water. The walls were high, hemming them in, cutting off the light. The air was dank and chill and would be so, she suspected, even on the warmest of summer days. She shivered within her mantle. ‘It’s like being enclosed in a stone tomb.’

‘At least you have the comfort of a stone hall. Timber lets in the draughts so,’ Petronilla continued, trying to make the best of it. They looked around them at the five towers and the three-storied Hall, all connected by a strong defensive wall, a battlement walk around the top. ‘And our safety here is guaranteed, even if the outer bailey falls to an attack.’