Beatrice knotted her thread and cut it. The last of her father’s shirts was mended and for now, she had nothing to do. In the fortnight since she and her family had returned to Wednesfield Castle, she had kept busy, helping her mother and her mother’s women as they worked. Looking up, she saw a patch of blue sky, a smudge of white cloud, through the high, small window of the old solar. If she sat here with idle hands, she would begin to think of things she did not want to consider.
She was not Ceci, who could read as fluently as she spoke or sing for the other women in the solar. She lowered her gaze to her mother, sitting across the room where the light was brightest while she examined Wednesfield’s accounts. “Madame, have I your leave to go?”
Her mother looked up, a question in her eyes. Whatever she saw in Beatrice’s face must have satisfied her, for she nodded. “Nan, attend Lady Manners.”
“Yes, my lady.” Nan was one of the newer maids at Wednesfield, a short girl, plump as a partridge, whose round face always looked as if it would smile at the least provocation. Beatrice liked her best of all the women attending her mother because of her cheeriness.
Half an hour later she and Nan, wearing wide-brimmed straw hats against the sun, stepped out of the house. Beatrice turned her face up to the sky and closed her eyes. Taking a deep breath, she waited, as she had waited since arriving at the castle, to feel the return of the peace she had known in childhood. It had not yet returned, it did not return now.
She opened her eyes and looked through the great gate in the curtain wall to the green world sleeping in sunshine beyond the confines of the castle. Her mother, and no doubt Nan waiting patiently a pace behind her, expected her to go to Wednesfield’s garden, planted against the walls of the house itself. She ought to go; the garden had been one of her refuges growing up.
Another more valued one had been a little place along the banks of the placid river Wednesford where a bend in the bank allowed the river to form a small pool. Sebastian, her brothers Jasper and John, and some of her father’s pages had swum there in the summers. She and Ceci would sit under the willows on the bank to watch the boys swim and wrestle and torment one another like puppies bred with fish.
Most other days she would choose the order and fertility of the garden, but today she wanted the pool. She wanted to hear the soft burble of the water as it eased past the bank, the sigh of the wind as it lifted and stirred the willow leaves. There, with the smell of water in her nose and the brush of the breeze against her skin, she might find the peace she sought.
But she could not go alone. She glanced back at Nan. “Follow me,” she said, and began walking toward the gate.
She waited for Nan to protest—any of the other maids would have, with good reason—but Nan held her tongue, even when Beatrice left the lane and began walking across the fields.
Arriving at the place under the trees, she saw that it had hardly changed. One willow had lost a branch and the stones pushing through the turf were mossier than she remembered. But the river still murmured quietly, and sun and shadow still flickered on the turf amid the tree roots as the wind stirred the leaves and branches overhead. She put out a hand and touched the nearest trunk, the bark cool and rough under her palm. Trees lining the far bank glittered as the same wind tossed their leaves.
She glanced back at Nan. The girl stood with her hands at her sides, waiting without impatience as her eyes moved from tree to turf to river and back.
“Come. Sit and talk with me,” Beatrice said. She settled herself where she knew the roots and trunk cupped a comfortable seat facing the river. Nan sat opposite her on the turf, her skirts spread on the ground around her.
Beatrice took off her hat and leaned her head against the tree, watching lozenges of sunlight pass over Nan sitting in the pool of her skirts. Sheep grazed the hillside across the river, fat as clouds as they drifted across the green turf. A breeze rippled across the pool beyond Nan and fanned Beatrice’s face, sweet with the perfume of grass and river.
Every prickling fear, every edge of doubt, regret and recrimination, every ache of sorrow faded, then disappeared, leaving silence and cool calm. Peace. Elusive, longed for, found.
They sat in silence for uncounted time. Little by little, Beatrice’s regrets crept back, but now they were not as difficult to endure. Peace had come once; surely it would come again.
A moment later two men on horseback crested the hill on the other side of the river. Beatrice sat straighter, alert and wary. While Wednesfield land was in a general way safe and no one should harm her so close to the castle, she could not be sure of her security. She narrowed her eyes and tried to see if she knew either man.
Sebastian.
She knew it was he even before she recognized the way he sat astride his mount, the particular line of his shoulders and the lift of his head. Her heart began to pound, her legs and arms tightening as she resisted the desire to leap to her feet and run away.
“That is Lord Benbury,” Nan said.
Beatrice glanced at her. “Do you know him?”
“No, but I know his man, Ned Makepeace. His father did business with mine, long ago.”
Sebastian and his servant rode forward until they were at the shore of the pool, Sebastian’s horse with its forefeet in the water. Sebastian was dressed very plainly, in doublet, bases and hose that had seen much wear. His knee-high boots, however, were new and well cared for, the fine leather glossy in the sunlight.
“Greetings, Lady Manners.”
His voice washed over her, waking the memory of how he had felt pressed against her as he caught her in her near swoon. The desire to feel him again traveled in a warm wave from breasts to belly.
“My lord.” She could think of nothing else to say.
“Wait for me. I will cross downstream and be with you in a trice.”
More than ever, she wanted to run, but not from fear. The shaking inside her was never fear. No, it was excitement almost too great to contain. What did it mean that the sight of him should stir her so? She pushed the question aside.
Within minutes he rode toward her along the river’s edge on this side, Ned trailing behind. She rose to her feet, waiting for him to ride to her side where he could overawe her with his height astride.
But he did not ride all the way to her side. When he was perhaps fifteen feet away, he halted and dismounted. For a long moment he looked at her without speaking. His gaze was thoughtful, with nothing of his former scorn and anger in it. Where had they gone? She offered look for look, half thinking that to release him from her stare would be to free him to return to his contempt of her.
“Ned. Water the horses.”
“Aye, my lord.” Ned swung out of the saddle and came forward to take the reins from Sebastian.
Had Sebastian decided he did not want Ned to witness one of their brangles? Perhaps not, but she did not want Nan to see how poorly she and Sebastian fared together. “Go with him, Nan. It would not do for him to be found, a stranger on Wednesfield land, with no Wednesfield people by.”
“Aye, my lady.”
Ned led the horses forward, passing Sebastian and Beatrice to bring them upstream. Nan joined him as he went by. Neither Beatrice nor Sebastian spoke until they were out of earshot.
“I did not expect to find you here,” Sebastian said.
“I did not expect to be here,” Beatrice replied. Alone with him, she felt his nearness too clearly and eased away from him until she felt the tree at her back. Sebastian followed, standing so close her skirt brushed the toe of his boot.
She ransacked her mind for something to say, afraid of what might come of silence between them. “Did you find your kinsmen well?”
“Well enough.” He paused, looking at her. “I asked them to attend the wedding.”
She nodded. “How many shall there be?”
“A dozen, no more.” He looked away, freeing her from his gaze. In a careful voice, as if he warned her, he said, “They are merchants.”
“Yet gently born, Sebastian,” she said. “I still remember that much.”
One corner of his mouth curled up in a rueful smile as he turned back to her. “I had forgotten how much you know of me.” There was warmth, true warmth, in his eyes as he looked at her. How could this be? What had he seen or done in the past fortnight to so change his opinion of her?
“Yes, I do know of you. And you know of me.” She shook her head. “But, if you will give me leave to say so, I do not think we truly know one another.”
His smile disappeared. “What do you mean?”
She sighed, groping for words. “Four years have passed since we could speak kindly to one another, Sebastian. I think we have both changed and are no longer the boy and girl who promised to marry one another.”
A short laugh jerked out of him. “For a certainty.” He sobered. “If we are strangers to one another, why may we not find amity? I do not wish to live at odds with you, Beatrice.”
“Nor I with you,” she replied.
“I knew you did not when you asked my pardon in London.”
Her cheeks burned at the memory, and at the memory of his refusal to give her the pardon she had asked for.
“I spoke in haste then,” he said. “I cannot trust you blindly, but I do not suspect you of dishonor.”
It was no more than she had a right to expect, but it still stung. She wanted to say, You can trust me. You can trust me because I have learned in a hard school the costs of deceit and dishonor. Looking up into his face and seeing the steadiness of his gaze, she knew he had offered all he had to give. She must be content with it.
“Very well.”
He smiled at her, the smile like a hand reaching out to her. “Then it is settled. We shall fight no more.”
She wanted to believe him, but could not. How could they leave behind so many years of dissension so simply? “If you so desire.”
Silence fell between them, heavy and still. Sun, filtering through tree limbs and leaves, fell in spangles across his face, catching in the clear blue depths of his eyes, passing over the contours of his wide, firm mouth. His smile evaporated as he stared into her eyes. Her heart turned over beneath her breastbone.
“I do so desire.” The world faded as it had in the garden in London, lost in a mist while his gaze moved over her face as if he had never seen her before. “How fair you are.” He reached out and ran his finger along the curve of her cheek. His fingertip was hot and a little rough.
Under its caress, her skin prickled and her mouth went dry. He was so close she could feel the heat of his body even through all the layers of their clothing, warm and radiant as sunlight. She waited for him to look away and resume his distance from her, the beating of her heart trembling in every inch of her body. His bright eyes were dark as a night sky, the planes of his face tight. With a jolt of fear and excitement, she recognized the look as desire.
“Let me kiss you, Beatrice.”
His low voice hummed under her skin. She nodded, unable to speak even to save her soul, and lifted her face for him. He lowered his head and kissed her, his mouth just brushing hers, his mint-sweet breath warm against her cheek. When she did not pull away, he set his mouth on hers as he might set a seal, but he touched her nowhere else. The caress of his lips, hot and gentle at once, was all that held her. If she wished, she could break free of him simply by turning her head.
But she did not want to break free. She sighed, her lips parting, opening to his kiss. His breath caught and then his tongue lightly traced the inside of her lips before slipping deeper within. The shock snapped through her, even to her fingertips, and set the world beneath her feet to spinning. Dizzy, she reached up to clutch his shoulders lest she fall. He was broad and strong under her palms, bones and sinews sturdy even through the padding of his doublet.
Sweet saints, desire. She had forgotten how it felt. The last time she had felt anything near to this had been in Sebastian’s arms, so long ago it might as well have been a hundred years.
Underneath the scents of leather and wool, horse and man, she smelled something else. Something that seemed the essence of Sebastian and went curling into the depths of her belly. She leaned toward him, hungry to be closer.
As though her touch had been enough to release him from restraint, he shifted and pressed against her from breast to hip, his mouth moving over hers, his tongue caressing hers. If she had been kissed before, if she had thought she found pleasure in kisses before, she had never known anything like this.
Hot, red darkness blinded her. Heat soaked her body as Sebastian’s arms went around her, crushing her against his strong length. Yes, oh Sebastian, yes. This was what she wanted, the touch of his mouth harder, demanding more, his hands on her waist, pulling her closer. So close, she shook with the force of his heartbeat. Her arms moved along his shoulders, her fingers diving into the soft, wavy hair at the nape of his neck, and her back arching because no matter how tightly he held her, it was not tight enough.
His hand came up to cup her jaw and the side of her face, his thumb moving in a languorous caress along her cheek. He kissed the corners of her mouth and then the edge of her jaw, the touch of his mouth feather-light yet striking her through to her bones, her flesh struck by lightning.
“Beatrice, sweet Beatrice.”
She pressed her forehead against his neck, gasping for breath, her knees useless. If he let her go she would fall. “Sebastian.”
He bent his head and kissed her shoulder, his mouth hot on her skin, while his hand trailed a path from her throat to her shoulders and then came to rest on her breast. She quivered all over, heat licking her from head to toe.
“Ah-hh. Sebastian.” She wanted more, her appetite growing, gnawing her, but her thoughts stirred sluggishly and she could not think what shape “more” would take.
“Sweetheart. Oh, yes, so sweet.” He pressed his cheek against hers, his fingers caressing the side of her breast through her bodice, pleasure burning under his fingertips. Her gasp sounded like a sob. Sebastian replied with a shuddering breath. “You are sweeter than honey.” He kissed her eyes, her nose, and then her mouth, parting her lips once more with the urgency of his kisses.
The heat and pleasure she found in his embrace was greater than anything she had ever known. He spoke truly: it was sweeter than honey. It also threatened to overwhelm her. She broke the kiss, reached up and covered his mouth with her fingertips. His mouth and tongue moved over them; she felt their touch in the depths of her belly and tears sprang to her eyes.
Oh, sweetness, such sweetness. Sebastian half lifted her; she could feel every inch of his length as if it were her own body, and he was still too far away. This is why priests warn us against sin. Because it is so sweet, such temptation. She could drown here, now, in the demands of her appetite. I never knew. I never knew how sweet the sin of lust could be . . .
Sin.
She stilled, the word reverberating in her mind.
This is sin.
Her blindness lifted, the red darkness cooling. In her mind’s eye she had a picture of herself, her clothing rumpled by the caress of a man’s hands, her mouth made red and swollen by a man’s kisses.
I am guilty of the sin of lust.
In a moment he could have his hand in her bodice and she would allow it; the moment after that he could have her on the ground with her skirt pushed up around her waist and she would welcome it.
As if she had been flung into the river, cold reason and colder anger doused the heat of her desire. She wrenched herself out of his arms, shaking in the backwash of hunger for him and disgust at herself, panting raggedly.
How quickly and easily she had slid along the old path, and with a man who had reason to doubt her honor. All he had needed to do was come upon her and ask to kiss her and she had been in his arms, allowing him to kiss and caress her with more ardor than was seemly. Worse, she wanted nothing more than to step back into his arms and let him continue, to follow the path of her desire to see where it led. To see what else he knew to raise such delight in her.
“Beatrice . . .” His voice was hoarse and the hand he stretched out to her shook. “Sweetheart.”
“No!” Backing away from him, she pressed her hand to her lips. “No. I will not behave so.”
He moved toward her. “You are my wife. You know that. There is no sin in this.”
She shook her head. “I will not be tupped in a meadow like a goose girl.” Heat and longing rolled over her. Witling that she was, in this moment she wanted him enough to lie with him anywhere he asked. Speaking as much to herself as to him, she whispered, “Even if I am your wife, I will not.”
“Bea, please.” Sebastian stepped closer, his hand within inches of her.
She looked up into his face. His eyes were still dark, his face still taut. His lips looked swollen; she wanted their touch on her mouth, her throat, her breasts. Wanted it with an edge that cut.
She stumbled on her skirt. If she stayed here a moment longer, she would take the hand he held out, take everything the look in his eyes offered. Lifting up her skirts as she had not done since childhood, she turned and ran home to Wednesfield.