Finnula lay on the bed she and Mellana had shared for nearly all their lives and scowled. She had cried for nearly a quarter of an hour, her sisters clucking around her like hens, but Finnula had never been a weeper, and couldn’t keep up a steady stream of tears for long.
So after having endured Brynn’s coddling and fended off Patricia’s scolding, having allowed herself to be disrobed by Camilla—“These leather braies are a disgrace!”—and dressed again by Christina—“You have such lovely bliauts, why do you not wear them?”—she lifted her head from a damp pillow and abruptly stopped weeping. Rolling onto her stomach, oblivious to the wrinkles she was making in her dark green bliaut, Finnula scowled at the headboard while her sisters chattered around her.
“’Twas a nasty trick he played on you, Finn,” Christina was saying, running a brush through her little sister’s thick hair as she sat beside her on the wooden-framed bed. “But you can’t blame him—”
“Aye, how was he to know about you and Lord Geoffrey?” Brynn sighed. “The poor man—”
“Poor nothing.” Patricia, who was the family scold, was happy with neither Finnula nor the earl. “He would have told her, if he hadn’t been so enchanted with the idea of being held for ransom by a winsome redhead—”
“Patricia!” The ever-gentle Brynn was shocked. “How can you say such a thing?”
“How can I? Because it’s the truth, you goose.”
“But he’s an earl!”
“Oh, and earls aren’t men? I believe we know only too well, from Finnula’s experience with the late Lord Geoffrey, that earls are men first, lords second—”
“’Tis ridiculous to suggest he didn’t tell her because he liked being held hostage by her,” Christina said, giving a tangle in Finnula’s hair a playful tug. “Perfectly ridiculous.”
Patricia had folded her arms across her chest. “Obviously he liked it, or he would have escaped.”
“He couldn’t escape,” Brynn said. “It was Finn who had him, remember. Finn would never allow a hostage to escape. That’s why Mellana asked her in the first place—”
“Oh,” wailed Mellana, from the far corner of the room to which she’d been banished by her older sisters. “’Tis all my fault!”
“’Tis true,” Patricia snapped, completely without compassion for her second youngest sibling. “’Tis your fault entirely, Mel. No one’s denying that. Imagine, spending your entire dowry on trinkets. Whoever heard of such a thing? I’m ashamed to admit I’m related to you. You just sit in that corner until we’ve figured out what we’re to do with you.”
Mellana wailed some more, and Finnula glared at her. She hadn’t yet let slip the reason behind the urgent need to replenish Mellana’s dowry, but she had already resolved that if worse came to worst, she would.
“Oh, Finnula.” Brynn was biting her lower lip worriedly. “I don’t know how to put this, but, Finnula, you and the earl didn’t…I mean, nothing…improper…occurred whilst you were traveling with him, did it?”
Finnula only scowled more deeply.
“Don’t be a goose, Brynn,” Christina advised. “The earl would never have made improper advances toward one of his own vassals.”
“He would if he intended to marry her, as he announced below,” Patricia said dryly.
“Did he, Finn?”
“Yes, Finn. Did he?”
“You can tell us, Finn. We won’t tell Robert. Did he, dear?”
Fortunately, Finnula was spared from having to make a reply by footsteps on the stairs just outside their door. Camilla burst into the room, her pretty eyes glowing. The gossip of the group, Camilla had been sent downstairs to spy upon the men, and from the look on her face, she’d heard plenty.
“Oh, Finn,” she cried, running to the bed and leaping upon it like an exuberant child, oblivious to Finnula’s prone body and her own fine silk bliaut and carefully coifed hair. “You’ll not believe what a ruckus your Lord Hugo’s making! He’s demanding that you be brought below immediately, and threatening Robert with the stockade! It’s simply too delicious!”
Finnula’s other sisters crowded round the bed.
“What did he say?”
“Does he still want to wed her?”
“Robert can’t deny him—”
“How could he wed his own father’s widow?”
“Tell us what you heard, Camilla!”
“Yes, tell us!”
Camilla held up two hands, commanding silence. A born thespian, she lowered her voice dramatically and whispered, “Well, when I got to the doorway of the gathering room, Bruce was standing there, guarding it, and he had the nerve to say, ‘Get upstairs with your sisters, woman. Your prating prate isn’t needed here,’ to which I replied—”
“No one cares what Bruce has to say,” Patricia scoffed, and then added, with a slightly apologetic smile, “Begging your pardon, Christina—”
Christina waved a dismissive hand, and Camilla continued.
“Well, Sheriff de Brissac was telling Lord Hugo about how Finnula and his father met—”
Finnula groaned and, lifting the pillow, crammed it over her head.
“Sheriff de Brissac was telling him?” Brynn was confused. “Why wasn’t Robert telling him?”
“Robert won’t speak to him. Just glowers at him over his tankard—”
“Tankard?” Brynn was shocked. “They’re drinking, at a time like this?”
“Lord Hugo himself demanded a barrel of Mel’s Brew be opened. Will you please let me finish?” Camilla was impatient to get on with her performance. “So as Sheriff de Brissac described how Lord Geoffrey came upon Finn swimming that day at the Spring of St. Elias, and how he spied upon her and became besotted with her and followed her all the way back to Stephensgate”—Finnula groaned again from beneath the pillow—“Lord Hugo grew quite red in the face, and then he said, ‘That old devil,’ about his own father, mind. Then Sheriff de Brissac told him how Robert did everything he could think of to keep Finnula from having to marry the old goat—his words, not mine—because she did nothing but weep at the prospect of such a marriage, but how nothing would dissuade the old man and how finally, Lord Geoffrey issued a feudal command, on sheepskin, no less, informing Robert that if he didn’t deliver up Finn the mill would be taken away—”
Beneath the pillow, Finnula let out a muffled groan, then kicked her bare feet against the bed until Patricia reached down impatiently and seized both her ankles.
“Keep still, you impertinent cuss. We’re listening.”
Finnula said, her words barely intelligible, since she was speaking into the feather tick, “Can’t you all go away and leave me alone?”
“No,” Patricia snapped. “Go on, Camilla.”
“Well, you could tell Lord Hugo was right shocked to hear that his father had intended to exercise his feudal rights in that respect, since he spat out all his ale, nearly hitting Matthew Fairchild in the face—”
“He didn’t!” Patricia was shocked by this unlordly behavior.
“He did. But when he recovered himself, Sheriff de Brissac assured him it was true, and that Finnula prepared for her wedding day as if it was her funeral—”
Finnula kicked her feet some more, and Camilla said, “Oh, I am sorry, Finn, I’d forgotten how much you hate to hear about that day. But the telling’s necessary this time, don’t you know. In any case, Sheriff de Brissac told how Finn and Lord Geoffrey were wed, with the whole village in attendance, and how afterward there was that feast in the manor’s great hall, and then Finnula and Lord Geoffrey went up to bed, and then—”
Finnula whipped the pillow off her head and sat up, her bliaut twisted so that much more of her chest was exposed by the low neckline of her tight bodice than was proper.
“What did Lord Hugo say then, Camilla?” Finnula demanded, seizing her sister’s slim wrist. “When the sheriff told him?”
Camilla, pleased her narration was being appreciated by at least one enraptured audience member, preened a little, smoothing her auburn curls and examining a fat diamond ring with which her winemaker husband had gifted her last week. Then, seeing that all four of her other sisters were also watching with bated breath, she clapped her hands together.
“Well! Sheriff de Brissac told how Finnula came screaming from the bedchamber, all her hair streaming down her back and looking like it was on fire—I liked that bit, about how her hair looked like fire—crying that Lord Geoffrey was dead. You should have seen Lord Hugo’s face then. White as snow, it was, and his mouth hanging open. ‘Dead?’ he repeated, and Sheriff de Brissac nodded. ‘Aye. Dead.’ And then the sheriff went on to describe how everyone ran upstairs and there was the earl stretched out on the floor, dead as a donkey, and Finnula in hysterics swearing she hadn’t laid a hand on him, and how Reginald Laroche straight off accused her of poisoning the old man, and—”
“But what did he say?” Finnula took hold of Camilla’s wrist again. “What did Lord Hugo say to that?”
“He looked the sheriff in the eye and said, in that deep voice of his—Oh, Finnula, he really is quite handsome, your Lord Hugo. And his voice is so rich and low, like thunder it sounds. It sends chills up the back of my neck—”
“Never mind that now. What did Lord Hugo say?”
“He said, ‘No one could honestly believe Finnula Crais capable of poisoning anyone, even someone as odious as my father,’ and Sheriff de Brissac said that he had always believed in your innocence, and that it was a bad thing, a very bad thing that had happened—”
“What did he mean by that?” Finnula wondered.
“La, I don’t know. But the sheriff told him that no poison was ever found and that no one else died that night, and we’d all eaten the same food, so he ruled Lord Geoffrey’s death a natural one—after all, the man was nearly sixty—”
“And your husband’s how old, Camilla?” inquired Patricia, wickedly.
Camilla glared at her. “Fie on you, Trish. Gregory’s only two score and ten—”
“What did Lord Hugo say?” Finnula hissed, through gritted teeth.
“Oh, well, he said, ‘Of course no one honestly believed Finnula would have done something like that,’ and the sheriff said that only the Laroches believed it…You remember how that bitch Isabella was going about, calling us sisters of a murdering whore and all of that?”
In the corner, Mellana made a sound, and Camilla threw her a disparaging glance.
“Oh, Mel, I don’t care if Isabella is your friend. A crueler slut never walked the earth. Remember how her father went into that rage when the sheriff wouldn’t arrest Finnula for murder? But then when Father Edward ruled that the marriage was void, on account of it never having been consummated, Laroche quit complaining, and that was the end of it. That was when Lord Hugo said a curious thing.”
“What?” Finnula’s face had gone white as the sheets beneath her. “What did he say?”
“He said, ‘You mean Finnula didn’t get her third?’ and the sheriff said, ‘The marriage was never legal,’ and Lord Hugo said, ‘Meaning that the entire estate fell to Laroche,’ and the sheriff agreed, saying, ‘You were being held in Acre, my lord, and the common belief at the time was that you were going to die there.’”
Patricia elbowed Finnula, hard. “Your Lord Hugo thinks Reginald Laroche murdered his father and tried to make it look as if you did it, so you’d go to the gibbet and he’d get the estate. Mark my words, there’ll be blood spent over this.”
Finnula glared up at her sister, rubbing the tender spot on her rib where she’d prodded her. “Ow.”
“Did you hear me?”
“I heard you. Don’t poke me there, I’ve got a bruise.”
“Lord Hugo won’t be able to prove Reginald Laroche had anything to do with Lord Geoffrey’s death, Patricia, any more than Sheriff de Brissac was ever able to,” Christina said, shaking her head. “Oh, Finn, this is nasty business—”
“What happened then?” Finnula asked Camilla, trying to keep her eagerness from showing.
“Well, then Lord Hugo said something else I didn’t understand. ‘So that’s why they m’lady her,’ and the sheriff laughed and said how Finnula took her oath to protect Lord Geoffrey’s vassals very seriously, and Lord Hugo said that it looked as if Finnula’d never stopped carrying out her duties as chatelaine to Stephensgate Manor and that it was a good thing, too, because when he married her it wouldn’t be such a dreadful change for her—”
“What?” cried Finnula.
“Which is exactly what Robert said. ‘What?’ And he came rising up out of his chair, screaming, ‘You can’t still mean to marry her!’ to which Lord Hugo replied, ‘If she’ll have me,’ and then the sheriff started to laugh again and Robert lunged across the table, like to kill His Lordship, only Bruce stopped him, and reminded him it was the earl he was speaking to, not some wandering minstrel who’d asked for his sister’s hand—”
In the corner, Mellana let out a whimper.
“And Robert said that he didn’t care, he’d see Finnula dead before he’d let her wed another Fitzstephen, since she did naught but weep for days at the prospect of marrying the first one, and that she was already upstairs weeping at the idea of marrying his son. And then, you wouldn’t have believed it, Lord Hugo threatened to have Robert thrown in the stockade for his impudence! He even called our brother an interfering pup, and then started chastising him for letting Finnula wander the countryside in braies, to which Robert replied, ‘If you think you can manage her better, my lord, you’re welcome to her!’ And Lord Hugo said, ‘Thank you very much,’ and Sheriff de Brissac straight off proposed a toast to the happy couple!”
Christina shook Finnula excitedly. “Did you hear that, Finn? Did you hear?”
Finnula nodded dazedly, then sat back, feeling limp. Well, of course he had to say he wanted to marry her, after all that! But he couldn’t possibly mean it. He was only doing it out of honor. And Finnula wouldn’t marry a man simply to assuage his sense of honor. She was going to do the right thing, and tell him it wasn’t necessary. If she was with child, she’d simply go somewhere—to a convent, she supposed. She could tell everyone she’d gone on a pilgrimage to purify her soul. Though she rather doubted anyone would believe it. And she’d have the baby, and see that it was given to some childless couple, then come straight back home.
Oh, yes, better that than a loveless marriage—
“Finnula, what is the matter with you?” Brynn shook her gently from her reverie. “Aren’t you happy, sweet? Don’t you like him?”
Finnula looked at her eldest sister grimly. “Brynn,” she said. “I thought him a stranger…a hapless knight from Caterbury, and now I learn he’s Lord Geoffrey’s son? How am I supposed to feel?” Honestly, she’d never have bedded him if she’d known! Look at the mess she was in now!
“What difference does that make?” Camilla demanded. “He’s still the loveliest man I’ve ever seen…”
“Men aren’t lovely,” scoffed Patricia.
“Well, handsome, then. Oh, Finnula, think how different it will be to be lady of Stephensgate Manor with Lord Hugo, rather than his father, at your side. Why, he’s not someone I’d begrudge a place in my bed—”
“Camilla, you are a bigger slut than Isabella Laroche,” Patricia declared.
“Finnula,” Brynn said, chewing worriedly on her lower lip. “Think on this. Was his masquerade such a heinous one? Who did it harm? No one. He seems to love you—” Finnula let out a snort. “Well, to care for you, anyway. Why else would he fight so for your hand?”
Finnula said nothing, just glared at the window, which showed that twilight had fallen outdoors. He’d fought so hard for her hand because he’d dishonored her, and he was only doing what, as her lord, he owed her. It was no less than she’d do for any serf of hers.
“’Tis true that if you wed him, there’ll be sacrifices,” Brynn began, slowly.
“Aye,” Patricia agreed. “No more leather braies.”
“No more hunting,” Camilla said.
“No more disappearing for days on end on the back of Violet,” Christina said.
Finnula was certain she died a little, just listening to them.
“But think what you’ll be getting in return,” Camilla cried, her gray eyes glittering. “Think what jewels and bliauts! Think of how lovely it will be to have servants to comb your hair and pour your bath and prepare your food! Why, you’ll be the richest woman in Stephensgate—”
“Isabella Laroche will die of envy,” Patricia said, with relish.
“Oh, you’ve got to marry him, Finn,” Camilla said. “You’ll learn to love him, honestly you will. Look at me and Gregory.”
Patricia snorted. “I’d hardly hold that up as an ideal marriage.”
“But it is. It began as a business arrangement. Gregory fell madly in love with me, and I agreed to marry him if he met certain stipulations—”
“Like that necklace?” Patricia asked, acidly.
“Why, yes,” Camilla replied, laying a hand on the ruby and pearl choker at her throat. “That was one of them. And little by little, Finnula, I’ve come to appreciate Gregory for his other qualities—”
“Like what?” Patricia laughed. “The man’s old enough to be your—”
A thunderous shout broke through their bickering. It was Robert’s voice, and he was calling, “Finnula! Finnula Crais, get down here at once!”
Finnula gazed up at her sisters with widened eyes. “Oh, no,” she cried. “Lord Hugo must have left. And now Robert’s going to wring my neck! Quick—I must slip out the window—”
Christina hurried to the small window and bent to look out into the yard. “Nay, His Lordship’s horse is still here.”
“He must want your answer to Lord Hugo’s proposal,” Brynn said. “Oh, Finnula, you must go to him.”
But Finnula only sat back against the pillows, her face a mask of rebellious obstinacy. “I shan’t,” she sniffed.
“Oh, Finn!”
But Finnula was adamant. “I’m not setting foot outside this room until that man is gone. And I mean it.”
Brynn and Camilla exchanged glances. “Finnula.” The eldest sister hesitated. “Are you quite certain nothing, er, untoward occurred whilst you were traveling with Lord Hugo?”
Finnula stared. “Why do you ask?” Did losing one’s virginity show? Finnula had detected no change in Mellana’s appearance, and she was pregnant!
“Well, it seems to me that you are unreasonably angry at him for lying to you. After all, ’twas not so strange a thing he did. Perhaps he never tells women that he is an earl, for fear ’twill make them, er, like him for his purse, and not himself—”
This sounded very like the conceited Sir Hugh—or Lord Hugo, as she now had to refer to him. How stupid, how blindly stupid she’d been! A man and his squire, returning from the Crusades, and headed for Stephensgate—of course she ought to have known it to be none other than the long-absent Lord Hugo. And then he’d changed his name just the tiniest bit—Hugo Fitzstephen to Hugh Fitzwilliam—and she still hadn’t caught on!
And the story of his brother, none other than Henry, Lord Geoffrey’s eldest and most beloved son. That was a well-known story in her village, and still she hadn’t made the connection! Oh, he must think her the dimmest wench in the shire. She had even noticed something familiar about him at the spring, but never realized that the familiarity was due to Lord Hugo’s slight resemblance to his father.
Well, he’d shown her what a silly, ignorant maid she was, and she thanked him for it. The next time she met a man, she’d be far less trusting.
“Finnula!” roared Robert, the timbre of his voice almost shaking the rafters.
“You had best go to him,” Finnula advised Brynn, “and tell him that although I am conscious of the great honor the earl has bestowed upon me, I have no intention of marrying him, and that Lord Hugo can just go home now.”
Brynn rose reluctantly. “Finnula, I think you’re making a mistake. Do not allow pride to stand in the way of your happiness—”
“Thank you for the advice,” Finnula said stiffly. “But my happiness is right here, at the millhouse.”
Sighing, Brynn left the room to deliver Finnula’s message. Patricia, who’d been pacing the small chamber, stopped in front of Mellana and said coldly, “Well, I hope you’re happy. What could you have been thinking, sending Finnula out on such a ridiculous errand? Fetch you a man to ransom. Ha! I think you’ve spent entirely too much time in the company of that slut Isabella. I intend to tell Robert not to allow you to see her anymore. What do you have to say to that?”
“I do not care.” Mellana wept into her skirt. “I never want to see her again anyway.”
“Oh, now you come to your senses. You know, it’s just fortunate for you, Mellana, that Finnula happened to kidnap a man with a sense of chivalry. Suppose she’d kidnapped someone like Reginald Laroche? Do you think she’d be entertaining marriage proposals from an earl? No, she’d have lost her maidenhead, and be with child now, probably—”
“Patricia!” Finnula cried. “Let Mel alone.”
“Well, you know ’tis true.”
Another shout rattled the house, and this time, it was accompanied by heavy footsteps on the stairs. Since the second floor of the millhouse was primarily the domain of the female Craises, they were unaccustomed to hearing masculine footsteps on the stairs, and all five of them froze, their eyes on the door.
“Finnula!”
This time, the thunderous bellowing of Finnula’s name didn’t come from their brother, Robert, but from Lord Hugo…and he appeared to be standing directly behind her bedroom door. Finnula exchanged astonished glances with her sisters, but didn’t move.
“Finnula,” Lord Hugo growled menacingly. “Will you open this door, or do I have to knock it down?”
It was Mellana who hopped up from her chair in the corner and hurried to the door, one hand over her mouth, her eyes wide with alarm. When she swung open the heavy portal to reveal a very irritated-looking Lord Hugo, she bobbed a graceful curtsy and babbled incoherently, “Oh, my lord, please don’t be angry with Finnula. ’Tis all my fault. You see, I made her do it. She didn’t want to, but I cried, and she—”
“Yes, you cry very prettily,” Lord Hugo observed dryly. “And you’re quite right, it is all your fault, you and your Jack Mallory.”
Mellana gasped, her bright blue eyes flying accusingly to Finnula, who sat still as a statue on the bed.
“You told!” Mellana cried. “Oh, Finn, how could you?”
“Aye, she did tell,” Hugo said, and Finnula did not miss the smugness in his tone. “And lucky for you she did, or you wouldn’t be receiving this right now, along with my blessings—” Lord Hugo dropped a fat purse of coins into the hands an astonished Mellana hastily extended.
“This should pay for your dowry and for a few other sundries. I suggested to Brother Robert that he find a place for your husband at the mill, since troubadouring is hardly steady work, and your Jack will need something a bit more regular, with the babe on the way—”
Mellana gasped again, and Patricia’s nostrils flared.
“Mel!” she cried, outraged. “You—”
But Lord Hugo interrupted her. “Your brother, Robert, is waiting below, Mellana—I may call you that, may I not, as we are shortly to be related? Brother Robert would like a few words with you.”
Mellana was too frightened to start weeping again. Instead, clutching the bag of coins he’d given her to her chest, she crept from the room with her head ducked. When Hugo glanced at Finnula and saw her expression, he said lightly, “Never fear. Brother Robert assured me he would never strike a pregnant woman.”
Finnula thought she’d had about as much as she could take. Scrambling from the bed, oblivious to the twisted bodice of her gown, she cried, “You blithering idiot! What did you tell Robert for? Now he’ll make her life hell!”
“Better hers than yours, Finn.” Hugo glanced at Camilla and Patricia, who, with Christina, were staring at him as if he was something that had just crawled up from the depths of the watering trough—or tumbled down from the heavens. Finnula couldn’t entirely read their expressions. But Hugo could, apparently.
“If you ladies will excuse us,” he said, bowing, “Finnula and I have some things that need discussing in private.”
“Oh, of course,” Camilla said, dipping a quick curtsy and darting toward the door. “Of course, my lord!”
“Please excuse us, my lord,” Christina breathed, moving less gracefully because of her pregnancy, but no less quickly.
Patricia was the last sister to leave, and she paused with her hand on the leather strap that served as a doorknob and looked slyly at Lord Hugo.
“Kiss her,” was Patricia’s cryptic advice. “She’ll come around.”
And then she shut the door firmly behind her.
Alone in her bedchamber with Lord Hugo, Finnula could not help feeling at a distinct disadvantage. She’d forgotten how physically intimidating the man was. Why, he had to stoop to avoid striking his head on the wooden ceiling beams, he was so tall. His massive frame seemed to take up far more room than all five of her sisters put together.
Hugo himself seemed aware of how awkward he looked in this vibrantly feminine room, and he glanced from the dried bouquets of roses hanging from the rafters to the curtains with raised eyebrows, though he said nothing. His amber gaze roved from her loosened hair to her bare feet, hesitating only at the low neckline of her dress, which, Finnula realized, only then had slipped to reveal more than was proper.
Reaching up quickly to adjust the bliaut’s bodice, her cheeks flushing hotly, Finnula snapped, “I’d have thought you’d seen enough of me to satisfy you for one day.”
Hugo’s grin was slow and suggestive. “But therein lies the rub, Finnula. I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of you. That’s why I think marriage the wisest answer—”
“Marriage?” Finnula turned away quickly, unwilling to let him see what effect his words had on her face. “I told you before I never wanted to be married again. Or weren’t you listening?”
“And I would ask why a maid so intent on avoiding marriage would behave as you have in the past day or so.”
Finnula felt the warmth in her cheeks, which only seemed to grow, rather than ebbing, and avoided his eye with even more determination. “I couldn’t help that,” she said.
“Couldn’t help what? Making love with me?”
“Aye,” she admitted shamefacedly.
“Look at me, Finnula.”
She shook her head, keeping her face averted, her gaze on the yard outside, in which Sheriff de Brissac was laughing and clapping her brothers-in-law on the shoulders.
“Would you have married Hugh Fitzwilliam?” he asked.
Would she have married that irritating knight? The surprising answer was that she might have, if he’d asked. She shrugged.
“That’s no answer.”
“’Tis all the answer I have,” Finnula snapped, turning angry eyes upon him. “I do not know. I cannot predict what might have been, any more than I can tell you what will be. But I will tell you that I will never set foot in that house again, and so a marriage between us is impossible.”
“What house? You mean Stephensgate Manor?”
“Aye,” Finnula said, and couldn’t help shuddering at the name. “The hours I spent there were the worst of my life. I swore when I was released I would never again cross that accursed threshold—”
“Finnula, I know what passed between you and my father—”
“No,” she cut him off, vehemently. “You do not know, no one knows. Your father was mad, completely mad, and thought I was your mother. Did Sheriff de Brissac not tell you that? Lord Geoffrey never called me by my name, he called me Marie. Wasn’t that your mother’s name?”
When Hugo nodded, dumbly, Finnula said, “It wasn’t me he loved at all, he didn’t even know me. But in his demented mind, I was the Lady Marie, and so he would have me, and nothing I could do or say would dissuade him—”
“Finnula,” he said, taking a step toward her, but she held up a hand, palm out, to stop him.
“I’m sorry to tell you this, but I felt it then, and I still feel that a miracle occurred to save me that night. No sooner had we stepped into His Lordship’s bedchamber than he collapsed upon the floor. I was so frightened, I did not know what to do—”
“Finnula, listen to me. We’ll lock up that room. You need never enter it again—”
But Finnula spoke like one in a daze, as if she hadn’t heard him. “I stood over him as he clutched his chest, trying to breathe. I ran for Sheriff de Brissac, praying he had not yet left the hall—but by the time I’d fetched the sheriff, Lord Geoffrey was dead.” Finnula realized that she’d begun weeping as she spoke, and stared in bemusement at a single tear that splashed upon her sleeve. “And then I was accused of—of murdering him, and Reginald Laroche wanted me hanged on the spot! Only Sheriff de Brissac wouldn’t allow it—”
This time Hugo wouldn’t let her stop him. He was across the room and at her side in one long stride. He snatched her up into his arms, crushing her to his chest and murmuring into her hair, “I know, I know. John told me all about it. But we can put that behind us, can’t we? We can forget all that and start anew. The first thing I’m going to do when I get to the manor house is dismiss Laroche, and then I’ll board up my father’s bedchamber. No one will ever enter it again, least of all you. Oh, Finnula, do not weep—”
But she couldn’t help it. She clung to him, sobbing, and despising herself for it. How could she show such weakness before him? Hadn’t her pride been wounded enough? Did she have to disgrace herself in front of the man? Wiping her eyes on her sleeve, she tried to get hold of herself, and pushed ineffectually at his chest to get him to release her.
Only Hugo wouldn’t let go. If anything, he only held on to her more tightly, saying, “Listen, Finnula. It isn’t as if anything will change. Oh, you’ll no longer live at the millhouse, but Stephensgate Manor will be yours, to do with whatever you like. And you’ll still be responsible for all my vassals. They already think of you as their lady. Wouldn’t it be better for you to be Lady Finnula in truth? You can help me return what was so wrongfully stolen from them. I need your help, you know. I’ve been away ten years. I can’t trust Laroche. I need someone to tell me how things ought to be done…”
Finnula twisted to be released from his grasp. “Ask Robert. Robert can tell you. And John de Brissac. You don’t need me—”
“But I do.” He kept his hands tight around her waist. “Forsooth, Finnula, I may not be Sir Hugh in name, but I am the same man beneath the new title. Why do you suddenly hate me so?”
“Because,” she grunted, writhing against him. “You lied to me!”
“That was before I knew who you were,” he explained. “Besides, you had a knife to my throat, remember? You couldn’t honestly expect me to tell you I was an earl when you were holding me hostage as a knight. Act your age, Finnula.”
“And you only agreed to marry me because my brother threatened to kill you—”
“I beg your pardon, Finnula, but I believe I was the one holding your brother at sword point, not the other way around. And God’s truth, I meant to have you any way I could the moment you straddled me at the spring and announced that I was your prisoner. And since marriage is the only way I can have you and still be respected by my vassals, then marriage it has to be—”
“Ha!” Finnula tried to find a way to lever an elbow into his stomach. “See, I told you so. You don’t want to marry me—”
“No man wants to marry, Finnula. There are just some women they can’t have any other way, and so it is a sacrifice willingly made in order to attain a particularly choice—”
“Ooh!” Finnula was so angry, she’d have bitten him, if she could have found a portion of him that wasn’t so hardened and muscular that she feared to break her teeth upon it. “I knew it!” she cried. “Well, I’ll have you know, there are some women who don’t care for marriage, either! And I’m one of them! I’m telling you right now that I shall make you a miserable wife. I can’t sew and I don’t know how to clean and I’m disaster in the kitchen. I shall leave the house every morning at dawn and hunt all day and return home at night muddy and tired, and I’ll look such a sight, you won’t want to come near me—”
“If that’s what you think, you are far more innocent than you led me to believe last night.” Hugo said, and grinned, and before she could draw breath for another barrage of threats, he kissed her, as her sister had advised.
Finnula squirmed in his embrace, intent upon making it clear to him that by marrying, they’d be making a horrible mistake.
But it was so difficult to remember how angry she was when his lips were on hers…especially when first one of his callused, knowing hands dipped beneath the wide neck of her gown, and then another cupped her backside, drawing her even close to him until, really, she had no choice but to wrap her arms around his neck, merely for fear of losing her balance.
Things got even worse when, with a knee, he parted her legs, thrusting an iron-hewn thigh against the crevice where her legs met. And Finnula, though she tried to resist it, could not help sighing and relaxing against him, feeling the pleasant wave of desire that passed over her as it always did when he touched her there. Fie! Had the sultan’s daughter taught him that devil’s trick?
She gave up after that, all the fight gone from her trembling limbs. She didn’t care if they married or not, so long as he kept touching her there, sending such delicious sensations through her body.
Hugo felt her surrender, and took full advantage of it. He hadn’t fought as a soldier these past ten years not to know enough to seize whatever victories came his way. Perhaps it wasn’t fair, this power he had over her, but he wasn’t about to feel any guilt over it, not while he had her exactly where he wanted her. Laying her pliant body back against the bed and lifting her skirt, he caressed with his hand now what he’d previously stroked with his thigh, eliciting soft murmurs of pleasure from Finnula, who, in some distant part of her mind, thought it a little wicked of them to be making love in her childhood bedroom.
But it didn’t seem to matter where they were when Hugo wanted her and made her want him, too.
Before she was fully aware of what Hugo was about, he’d dipped his head between her thighs, and was caressing with his mouth what he’d previously caressed with his fingers. The feel of his tongue on her most sensitive area had a poleaxing effect on Finnula. She had to grasp the quilt beneath her fingers merely to have something to hang on to as his tongue sent her into ever widening spirals of orgasmic pleasure. She was doing her best not to cry out—and alert her entire family as to what the two of them were up to—when suddenly Hugo was unlacing his braies, and that part of him which she had grown to appreciate most fondly of late sprang free from the confines of his chausses.
She gasped as he filled her. His repeated thrusts soon sent her over the edge once more, into that place she’d been only with him. Though this time she tried to be quiet about it.
When Hugo, too, found release, he collapsed atop her, and they lay in a damp pile, breathing hard and barely able to see each other in the darkening room.
Still, Hugo’s green-eyed gaze sought out hers, and he asked, panting, “Now will you marry me?”
She could barely speak, her throat was so dry from their passionate exercise. “I don’t suppose I have much of a choice,” she said.
“No. I’ll force you, if I have to. On sheepskin.”
Finnula thought about this. “I won’t give up my braies,” she said.
“Yes,” he panted. “You will, if I have to burn them.”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
“I would. And I want my emerald back.”
Finnula looked at the ceiling. “I don’t know where it is.”
“’Tis round your neck. You think I can’t feel that thing pressing into my gut?”
Finnula frowned, noting that the house seemed oddly silent. “You don’t think they heard us, do you?” she wondered anxiously.
“With you gasping like that? They probably think I was up here killing you.”
“Or that I was killing you—”
“You were the one crying, ‘Oh, yes, please—’”
Finnula gasped. “Oh, no! I wasn’t. I tried to be so still…”
“You failed. The whole village probably heard you—”
Finnula looked at him in the twilight. “You did that apurpose, didn’t you?”
“Did what?” he inquired innocently, rising and straightening his braies.
“You know.”
“No, Finnula, I don’t know. And now I suggest you start packing, because I’ll only give you this one night of reprieve. Tomorrow we wed.”
“Tomorrow!” she cried indignantly, rising to her elbows.
“Aye, tomorrow. And don’t try to run off, because I’m of a mind to flay you if you disobey me.”
“I thought you told Robert—”
“I told Robert the only man who’ll lay a hand on you from now on is me.” He leaned down and kissed her hard on the lips. “I didn’t say I’d never take you over my own knee if you were ever so unwise as to disobey me.”
Finnula considered this and decided that, overall, being taken over Hugo’s knee would not be the worst thing that had ever happened to her. Still, she thought it better not to tempt him.