CHAPTER SEVEN

 

Brenna watched the dark knight leave the great hall and she was more convinced than ever that his smile was too shallow, his pale eyes too full of secrets. She was glad, in a way, that Robin had let him know of her suspicions; he would know also that she would be keeping a close watch over him even if no one else did.

She finished her meal and her wine and snatched a last morsel of meat off a platter before it was taken away. Robin and Sparrow were squabbling over the details of the training practice in the morning, Eleanor had given her husband Erek a moon-eyed signal that had him begging his leave of the other knights and following her up the stairs to their chamber. Richard and Dag were engrossed in conversation, likely to do with the rosy-cheeked serving wench who kept casting long, inviting looks in their direction. The evening was winding down and as soon as the tables were emptied, pallets would be made by the fire and the sound of contented snoring would echo up to the rafters.

Brenna glanced again at the landing. The bath house was located in a cluster of outbuildings next to the kitchens and laundry. The baths themselves were huge metal tubs set into the floor, lined with wood and heated by fires fed from below. It was late enough that Renaud probably had the place to himself, was probably sinking into the hot, waist-deep water now and leaning back to savor the rolling clouds of oak-scented steam. It was the custom in some noble houses for the hostess to formally bathe an important guest, and she wondered absently what Griffyn Renaud de Verdelay would do if she appeared beside the tub, lye soap and scrub brush in hand.

Smiling at the thought of scouring away some of that bold arrogance, she made her excuses and started back toward her tower rooms. She was more tired than she cared to admit, and the notion of sinking into a soft feather mattress was too appealing to exchange for the brief pleasure it would give her to plague the Burgundian. There was one small task she did have to do first, however, and that was to see if the castle bowyer had finished the new longbow he had promised to have ready for her tonight. The one she had used today had fine balance and tremendous power in the seasoned yew, but he had been laboring for two weeks over a weapon he vowed would outstrip any thus far.

She exited the keep through the narrow stone pentice—the covered stairwell that gave access to the living quarters—and shielded her eyes against the bright glare of the bonfire blazing across the draw. She could see no lights beyond in the armoury, no hunched silhouette bending over the worktable. She would see no bow either if she ventured inside, but that did not surprise her. Old Perigord was as sly and secretive as a fox, and she would not catch the smallest glimpse of it until it was finished and ready to fit to her hand.

Some of the kitchen workers were taking a few minutes of ease after their long workday, and as Brenna walked across the draw, she veered toward the shadows, not wanting to intrude. The keen eye of one of the hostlers spied the white blur of her wimple and insisted she join them in sharing a cup a mead. This was not the usual behavior of most castle residents to their lords or their families. It was more the rule for humblies and common workers to fall fearfully silent and lower their eyes whenever their betters passed among them. The Wolf was harsh with his discipline and expected nothing less than a full day of honest work from his retainers, but there were no children dressed in rags in his demesne, no hollow-eyed peasants missing ears or hands or tongues. He was a fair and generous overlord, as were his sons and daughters in turn; he knew every man and woman by their name and would not have refused to share a tup, regardless if it was thin and sour as vinegar.

Brenna accepted the warmed mead and complimented the brewer on its sweetness. Someone took up a lute and another started to sing, and before long there were dancers circling the fire, spinning and flirting and giving thanks for the day past. The fire was hot and sent columns of flame and glowing cinders up into the night sky. Brenna watched it for a time, watched the dancers with their bare feet and loose tunics, then reached up with impatient fingers to remove her veil and wimple. She shook out the long braid of her hair and, on a further impulse, pried her poor pinched feet out of the silk slippers. Feeling considerably less constricted, she slipped away into the shadows and circled around behind the clustered row of outbuildings. Waving to one of the sentries, she climbed up to the wall-walk and leaned between two cold stone teeth of the battlements to look out over the sleeping countryside.

Sometimes, on a very clear night when there was no moon and the stars were smeared like crushed fireflies across the heavens, a faint glow could be seen in the direction of Eduard’s castle at Blois, less than thirty miles to the north and east.

There was no moon this night, but there were clouds scudding low and fast across the tops of the trees. She could taste the faint metallic dampness on the breeze, which meant there was rain heading their way, and, as if to confirm her prediction, a strong, moist gust snatched her wimple off the stone where she had rested it and sent it in a ghostly flight over the wall.

“Oh dear,” she murmured. “A dreadful shame.”

She would have sent her veil and slippers flying after it, but she could feel eyes on her and knew the sentries would be frowning, wondering what pagan madness was in her blood tonight. Sighing, she turned and let the wind ruffle her hair as she took a last overview of the keep, the bailey, the night sky above. She descended the steep stairs again and, with half an eye searching out the only lighted building in the yard, started walking back to the keep.

The enormous, muscular bulk of Margery, the castle herb woman, cut across the shadows in front of her. She was carrying her basket of oils and unguents and was clearly not in an amiable frame of mind. Her craggy features were grooved into a scowl and her ample bosoms heaved with the effort it took to climb the shallow incline toward the bath house.

Brenna’s footsteps veered of their own accord and she followed like a silent, silk-clad wraith in the woman’s wake. She heard voices inside the bath house and recognized Timkin’s even before he emerged, hiding a wide grin behind his hand. She crept closer and saw that the tubs were empty. She heard a gruff voice protesting and another, equally gruff but far more militant, voice insisting that she had not been roused out of a warm bed for naught.

Brenna tiptoed right up to the open door. Griffyn Renaud was lying facedown on a wide table, naked but for a strip of towelling draped across his buttocks. Margery’s large, gnarled hands were slapping pungent-smelling oil on his shoulders and back, prodding him when he attempted to move, pushing his head down on the padding of thick furs when he tried to tell her her services were not necessary.

Brenna folded her arms across her chest and leaned on the door jamb, enjoying the knight’s discomfort. He was big, but Margery was bigger, with arms like truncheons and a body shaped like a sturdy pavilion. She had been tending the aches and bruises of the Wardieu men longer than Brenna could remember and was proud of her work. No black-haired devil was about to order her away, not when she had received specific orders from Lord Robert!

Brenna was no stranger to the magic of oils and massages. Nor was she particularly shy or modest when it came to viewing a man’s naked body. Many a time she had joined Robin and her brothers—even Will—after a long day in the practice fields and helped them off with their armour, or listened to their boasting and bickering while they bathed. Many a time as well they had been laid out on the tables like oiled fish while she, under Margery’s eagle eyes, had pounded, pummelled, and rubbed the tightness out of their bruised muscles. And if Griffyn Renaud was anything like her brothers, the manipulations would relax him almost into a state of semi consciousness where questions were asked and answered without the faintest attempt at evasion.

Something, a stray lock of hair lifted by the wind, caused the herb woman to glance at the door, but Brenna was quick to press her finger over her mouth and shake her head. Some other wicked impulse bade her move on silent feet across the floor and wave a dismissing hand in Margery’s direction. She ignored the scowl on the woman’s face and hitched her oversleeves to sit high on her shoulders. She twisted her hair into a loose tail at the nape of her neck and bound it with the folded length of her veil, then poured a dollop of oil in her hands and rubbed them together to warm it.

Margery, meanwhile, had worked most of the muscles across his shoulders and upper arms, and his protestations had faded into muffled groans of appreciation. Pacing herself to Margery’s rhythm, Brenna nodded the older woman away and smoothly took over the massage. His face was turned to the wall, half buried in the furs, and the one eye she could just glimpse was closed, the lashes laying on his cheek like fallen wings.

She need not have worried about warming the oil in her hands first; his flesh gave off enough heat to liquefy lard. Her hands slid across the broad slabs of muscle, working the oil across the ridge of his shoulders and into the crook of his neck. She used her thumbs to push against the knots and tightness she found there, then stroked, kneaded, and manipulated each knuckle of his spine to pull out the adjoining tension. He had a terrific number of scars, she noted absently. They rippled by beneath her fingers like raised seams on a sheet of silk. Some were new, some old. Some were deep and long, and she lightened her touch as she traced their course; others were shallow and faded, crisscrossing behind the ribs as if … as if he had been lashed at some time in his youth.

“Forgive me for barking at you, Goodwife,” he murmured thickly. “I shall be in your debt forever after this night.”

Brenna lowered her chin and gave what she hoped was an admirably husky imitation of Margery’s voice. “A coin or two is thanks enough, my lord. If you think it is well earned.”

“Well earned?” He groaned again and curled his fingers into the fur. “You can have no idea how wonderful this feels.”

Brenna felt a flush warm her cheeks and invade her brow, and blamed it on the steam rising from the huge vats. “You … do not come from these parts, my lord?”

“Mmm? No. No, I do not.”

“Ahh. South, is it? I thought I heard a bit of the Gascon in you.”

“I have spent time in Castile and Aragon,” he conceded. “But I make my home in Burgundy.”

“Burgundy? A heathen place, to be sure. Have you family there, then?”

He drew a deep breath, swelling and expanding the muscles across his back. “No. No family.”

“And you earn your keep by fighting in tourneys?”

“I run a course now and then to keep my eye sharp and my lance steady.”

“You plan to fight Lord Robert, do you? Four years undefeated is he. You will have to know your business if you expect to meet him. And no faults either. No weaknesses.”

She said this as she was inspecting the extensive scarring on his left hand and forearm. She had seen a similar injury once before, in a test of truth before a church tribunal when a man had been forced to plunge his hand into a tub of boiling oil to retrieve a crucifix from the bottom. If the hand was scalded or the crucifix was not recovered, he had obviously lied; if the hand emerged unblemished, he told the truth. Either way, the flesh of the arm was usually cooked through and turned as hard as the bone before eventually rotting and cracking off.

Renaud’s arm, by comparison, still looked strong enough beneath the smooth tightness of the skin, but it carried less bulk than the right, a detriment Robin might be able to use to his advantage if they met in the lists at Gaillard.

“Your arm, sir, does it cause you much trouble?”

“Women do not usually look at my arms when I am lying naked before them.”

The blush in her cheeks grew hot enough to dry her lips, and she worked the heels of her hands into the grooves beneath his shoulder blades as a reward for his impudence. There was no give to the muscles, no corresponding grunt of pain, and she realized she would be hard-pressed to say who carried more power in their upper body—Robin or Renaud—for his back was like solid plate armour and she had not found an excess pinch of flesh anywhere.

“Lower, if you please.”

“My lord?”

“Send your magic fingers lower, if you please. My arse feels like a blister and my legs like two firesticks.”

Brenna looked down. She was at his waist now, kneading her thumbs into the dimples at the small of his back. He gave a low, throaty growl of approval as she set aside the narrow strip of towelling, and she was thankful his face was still turned away, his eyes closed against the welter of heat ebbing and flowing in her cheeks. The towel had somehow preserved a modicum of modesty on both their behalf, but without it, he was a gleaming, magnificently naked beast sprawled on a bed of fur, and she was a witless fool who had gone too far to back away.

She spread more oil and molded her hands to the shape of his buttocks. She stroked and kneaded and manipulated the marble-hard flesh until there was a fine sheen of moisture rising across her own brow, then ran her fingers lower again, sliding over the seemingly endless iron thews of his thighs and calves. When she worked her thumbs into the arches of his feet, he groaned like a dying man and shifted on the bed of furs as if it were a sexual encounter. When she started up the second leg, she saw his hands flex and curl into fists while he swore, then laughed softly and swore again.

“You will prove the end of me yet, Goodwife,” he murmured. “Is there a price I could pay to lure you away from this place?”

“Lord Randwulf is as fine a master as ever there is, sir. No price on earth could lure me away.”

“And the sons? They look an arrogant lot.”

She dug her thumbs into a pocket of nerves and was happy to hear him suck in a sharp breath. “No more arrogant than those who would mock them, my lord.”

His head, cloaked by the glossy black waves of hair, turned slightly on the furs. “Your loyalty is commendable, but what excuse do you give the daughter?”

“The daughter?”

“The hellion. She dresses like a commoner, has the manners of a fishmonger’s wife, and likely could not entice a kiss out of a man without holding him at bowshot first.”

Brenna’s mouth dropped open.

“Even then, I doubt she would know how to kiss him properly.” He added softly, “Unless, of course, she could find someone willing to teach her.”

“You, I suppose?” She realized too late that she had challenged him in her own voice, but before she could react or respond, his hand reached out and closed around her upper arm. His head came up off the furs and all she could see were the cat’s eyes, luminous gray-green glowering out from beneath the inky spill of his hair.

“Dare I ask what the game is this time, my lady?”

“N-no game,” she stammered. “I was—”

“Yes?”

“I was …”

“Asking questions.”

“Making polite conversation!”

“Spying on me?”

“Never! I was only helping Margery. She … she has a cut finger.”

He scanned the room behind her and the look on his face was so blatantly sceptical, her eyes narrowed to violet slits.

“How long have you known it was me?”

“Since you stood in the doorway and watched. Your hair, I think—” His gaze raked appreciatively over the loosely flown curls. “It smells of apples.”

“Lilacs, you dolt!” She wrenched her arm free and made a dash for the door. For such a big man he moved with shocking speed, and she was still two full steps away from making good her escape when she felt herself being scooped up in one strong arm. The other shot out and slammed the door shut behind her, and she found herself crowded into the shadows, her legs trapped between his, her arms caught and held immobile by her sides.

As hot as his skin had felt beneath her hands, his body was twice that. As strong as she had imagined all those muscles to be, they were breathtakingly forceful in driving all the air from her lungs and pinning her helplessly against the wall.

“I neglected to add foolish and reckless when I was listing your attributes,” he murmured.

His voice chilled the nape of her neck and sprayed her arms with gooseflesh. There was only one lamp in the room and it was behind him, etching his oil-slicked shoulders and arms with a thin gold rim of fire. He towered over her, his face cloaked in shadows, but so close each breath fanned her skin and sent a shocking ribbon of heat curling down her spine and puddling somewhere deep inside her.

“Let go of me,” she said, cursing the tremor in her voice. “At once.”

He was silent a long moment. She could feel the renewed heat in her face, flaring as he studied her every feature in minute detail. The steam from the tubs had nowhere to go now that the door was closed, and it swirled in hot clouds around the lamp, dampening the light even more.

“Will you please let me go,” she repeated in a stronger voice.

“Please? Now, there is a word I had not thought to hear from those lips.”

Brenna offered up a futile spate of squirming, but his hands were like iron manacles around her wrists and whatever leeway she had gained by her initial submission was lost again when his hips pushed forward to restrict her squirming.

“I could scream and bring half the castle guard down around your ears,” she warned on a hiss of breath.

“And what would they see? A woman intruding on the privacy of a man’s bath. A woman enticing a naked man to a clearly dangerous state of arousal by stroking his body with shameful expertise.”

She had avoided looking up to where she supposed his eyes to be, but she did so now and saw a faint glimmer through the shadows. “I did not intrude on your bath, nor was it my intent to arouse you.”

“In that you have failed then, my lady, as you can plainly see.”

She did not want to look down. God-a-mercy, she could feel him well enough. It should not have surprised her to discover he was big all over, and indeed, she had seen big men aroused before. But that had been from a distance, and usually from an objective point of view; sometimes with great humor, wondering at the awkwardness of carrying such a thing between the legs.

Renaud did not appear to be the least discomforted. It was she who felt the intrusion of hard, thick flesh, and where it pushed boldly between her thighs, it found all those little ribbons of heat and started spinning them together in a tight, throbbing knot.

“Shall we have the truth now?”

“The truth?”

“Did your brother send you?”

“No! No, he does not even know I am here. No one does.”

“No one? Foolish again, my lady,” he murmured, and now his mouth was close enough she could feel its warmth on her cheek. She drew back in an unconscious response, but there was nowhere to go, and when his mouth brushed her a second time, she knew it had been no accident.

Exhaling very carefully, she said, “If you let me go right now, right this minute, I promise I will not tell my brothers what has happened.”

“Nothing has happened. Yet.”

His breath was a feathery caress over her mouth, and she gave up a small shiver of apprehension. “Actually, I … I came to apologize. Yes … to apologize.”

“Really? Whatever for?”

“Why, for my behavior this afternoon, for one thing,” she said on a faint rush. “I was rude, and … and …”

“Insolent? Suspicious? Threatening?”

“I was perhaps overcautious, I might grant you.”

“How generous. You offered to kill my horse if I did not abase myself like a common dung collector before you.”

She moistened her lips and risked another glance up. “I am truly sorry for that. I would never have harmed such a superb creature. If I resorted to such a threat, it was because you … you looked a villainous and dangerous sort who might have taken callous advantage of the circumstances.”

“Villainous and dangerous? I confess I have been called both on occasion, but never at the same time.”

“In any case,” she said with a small wriggle of impatience, “you must agree that a woman on her own must take certain precautionary measures.”

“To safeguard her virginity?”

“To safeguard herself from any violation.”

“Meaning you are not a virgin?”

“Meaning,” she snapped, “it would be none of your business to know one way or the other.”

He offered up a small, dry laugh and studied her face again. It was her hair that was winning most of his attention this time. The dampness in the bath house had sent the tawny curls spraying in all directions, and where they met the moisture on her temples and throat, they were coiling into tight, dark spirals.

“What are you looking at? Why are you frowning?”

“I am looking at you. And I would not have guessed …” His voice trailed away and she looked up again, her violet eyes reflecting pinpoints of light.

“Guessed what?”

“That there was such a beautiful woman under all that mulishness, and that there might be another reason I would have cause to regret not pulling you down off of Centaur this afternoon.”

“As if you could have,” she scoffed.

He bent his head closer still. “If you believe nothing else of me, my lady, believe I could have had you on the ground, your bow and your back broken if I had wanted it.”

She had grown accustomed enough to the mist and shadow to distinguish the dark slash of his eyebrows, the straight line of his nose, the rugged squareness of his jaw with its deeply clefted chin. She watched his mouth as it formed the words, and the tightness in her belly became a series of little fluttering convulsions that flooded her limbs with heat and turned her bones to jelly. Her breath lodged with a suffocating tightness halfway up her throat, and she knew a challenge would be futile. She believed him. He could have overpowered her then, just as he could overpower her now with laughable ease.

“Who are you?” she asked in a whisper.

“No one you would truly want to know.”

“Have you come here to kill my father?”

He did not even have the grace to look surprised at the question, but he answered it simply enough. “No.”

“My brother?”

“No.”

“Would you tell me the truth if you had?”

“At this precise moment, I would probably tell you anything you wanted to know.”

Her limbs quivered noticeably as his dark head tilted forward and she felt the searching warmth of his lips on her neck.

“Wh-what are you doing?”

“Being truthful,” he murmured against her throat. “I do not want to argue with you anymore. And since you have apologized to me and I have apologized to you”—his tongue flicked languidly over the pulse beating rapidly beneath her ear—“I thought we might both take advantage of all this friendliness.”

She tried to twist away, but the movement only bared a greater expanse of tender flesh, and his mouth was there suckling a warm, moist path from the crook of her shoulder to the soft pink curl of her ear. Her breath came out in a harsh gasp and her knees started to buckle. A streak of hot, stabbing pleasure shot from the nape of her neck to her belly, obliterating nearly every other sensation between. The only one that remained was the acutely tender eagerness that suddenly sprang to fill her breasts, gathering the nipples into tight little peaks that felt as if they could pierce through the layers of silk. There was no escaping the sinfully erotic pleasure, no comparison she could make with any other experience she had had thus far in her life. There would be no salvation for her either if she did not keep a firm grip on her senses.

“I do not recollect receiving any apology from you,” she said, gasping as his tongue swirled treacherously into her ear.

“No?” He frowned and for all of two racing heartbeats she thought she had won a reprieve. With the next startled hammer blow, he raised her hands above her head and captured both wrists in one hand, freeing the other to circle her waist and support her faltering legs even as he drew her forward over the solid shaft of his flesh.

“Consider this to be it, then.”

Shocked at the explicit, thrusting incursion, Brenna tried to cry out but his mouth was there to smother the sound. He did it with a thoroughness that stripped her of whatever breath and sense she had remaining, the kiss as bold and arrogant and uncompromising as the man himself. His tongue invaded her mouth, probing deep, penetrating what few defenses she could call to hand, silencing them with a bruising force that frightened her, for it was nothing at all like the chaste, chivalrous kisses she had exchanged with ignorant abandon before.

This … possession was neither chaste nor chivalrous. He was intent on ravishing, devouring, conquering every silken recess of her mouth, and while she managed to squeak out a few shivered protests, she could not summon the strength or wit to make them sound convincing. Each lavish stroke had its erotic counterpart below as he wedged a knee between her thighs and used his flesh to chafe the growing knot of sensations she had been experiencing into a fiercely vibrant, shimmering heat. The silk of her bliaud was a feeble hindrance, sheer as a whisper, and the linen chainse hardly better. If anything, the sleek abrasion intensified the heat and friction, bringing Brenna up on her toes in an effort to ease the tightness in the cloth and stop the shameless waves of pleasure.

A tremor in the massive body indicated her efforts had had the opposite effect, for now he could—and did—slide the whole length of his flesh between her thighs. He brought his hand up from her waist and molded the palm around her breast, groaning with approval when he found her nipples hard as pebbles, straining into each stroke of his long fingers. He groaned again, thick and low, and his lips slanted even more forcefully over hers, keeping and holding her breathless until her whole body was a mass of raw, trembling sensation.

“Yield to me,” he whispered raggedly. “Yield to me and we can spend the night changing the opinions we have of one another.”

Brenna’s eyes shivered open. She was hot and dizzy, a wildness was racing through her blood, the flesh between her thighs felt swollen and distended, aching with sharp, sweet sensations that promised pleasures beyond her comprehension.

His hands were clamped around her waist, his fingers bruising in their attempt to control the desires raging through his own body. Her hands—when had he released them? When had they become tangled in the luxuriant mane of his hair? They were no less steady as she pushed … then pushed again, widening the gap between them.

“No.” She gasped. “No, I cannot do this.”

His hands tightened as he urged her lushly to and fro over the magnificence of his erection, angling himself upward so that he was, indeed, inside her if only by a silk-encased inch or two. “You can. And you want to, I can feel it.”

“No.” She shuddered and swallowed hard. “Please, let me go.”

With a small laugh, he ignored her plea and lifted her breast, holding it cupped in his palm while the heat of his mouth and breath soaked through to her skin. Brenna stiffened involuntarily against the instant, violent thrill, and somewhere inside her, the pressure built to an exquisite peak and sent a melting rush of sensation flooding through her body. Her hands came skidding down onto the hard ridge of his shoulders in a half-hearted attempt to dislodge him, but he only laughed again and started lifting the hem of her skirts.

He had most of her leg bared before she was able to recoup enough of her strength and senses to push him away and gain a moment of freedom.

“Are you mad?” She gasped. “Or simply too full of yourself to see past your own arrogance?”

“I am full of something,” he agreed blithely. “And am only too eager to share it with you.”

“I am not eager to share it with you,” she insisted, pushing against him. “Of course, you could rape me and take what you want. But then you would simply be proving my opinion of you was the right one all along. You would be proving yourself to be a man of little conscience and no honor; one who would force yourself on an unwilling woman, on the daughter of your host, on the sister of the man who took you in as a friend when others of more discriminating judgment would have shown more caution.”

He stood in the swirling rolls of steam, his body gleaming from the moisture and the oil, his hair damp and clinging to his throat and shoulders in dark streaks. The veins in his arms stood out like thin blue snakes on top of muscles that bulged and quivered with menacing fury. His erection was rampant and throbbing and nearly brought her to her knees with the first genuinely pure shiver of fear she had experienced in his presence, for she doubted a charge of rape would cause so much as a flicker of concern in the smoldering gray-green eyes. She doubted it because, even as the thought sent her cringing back against the wall, she saw his eyes narrow and his mouth curve into a hard, cynical smile.

“Go then,” he rasped. “Get out. Get out before you tempt me to show you exactly how little the words conscience and honor mean to me.”

She kept her back pressed to the wall as she started inching toward the door, only a pace or two away. Her hand fumbled blindly for the rope latch, fully expecting him to intercept her long before she found it and groped her way to freedom. But he did not. He moved with her, to be sure, and the promise was there in his eyes that if she faltered or showed the slightest hesitation, there would be no second chance.

Her hand touched the coarse jute and her fingers curled around it. With a choked cry, she jerked it open and fled into the cold night air, her bare feet flying over the rough earth, her skirt whipping up around her ankles in a froth of churning silk. A moment later she heard his laughter, deep and throaty, following her across the draw and into the covered entrance to the keep. It followed her much longer than that, even though she could no longer hear it, and kept the flames of mortification burning hot in her cheeks until she was safely inside her own bedchamber with the door firmly shut behind her.

Panting, her hands clasped over her breasts, she was relieved beyond measure to see she was alone. Helvise had been and gone, knowing her mistress rarely wanted or needed help to ready herself for bed at night. A second shocked glance found her own reflection in the mirror. The elegant, regal lady who had exited the room with such confidence and conviction was gone, and in her place stood a harridan, her hair a tangle of steamed curls, her tunic damp over one breast and ripped at the hem, as soiled along the bottom edge as the soles of her bare feet.

“Good sweet Jesu!”

Anxious hands tore off the burgundy silk and flung it to the floor. She had forgotten Helvise’s work with needle and thread to stitch the cuffs of the chainse snug to her wrists and forearms, and only managed to get the offending garment over her head and partially off her arms before she had to find the scissors and snip away the bindings. It was awkward work and she dropped the scissors twice before she ended up simply slashing the linen and ripping it over her hands. She balled the ruined garment and, feeling no sadness over the loss, tossed it onto the logs blazing in the hearth.

Naked, standing in a golden cocoon of her own hair, she watched it smolder and char on the hot coals until the edges caught and flared into blue flames. On a further thought, she snatched up the burgundy silk and tossed it into the cloud of rising cinders and black, acrid smoke as well. Helvise would probably have spitting fits come morning to find out what she had done, but Brenna did not care; she would never have worn either garment again.

In eighteen years, not one single man in the entire demesne could boast of having touched her so intimately. Griffyn Renaud had been in her life less than half a day and he had not only kissed her witless and senseless, but he had sent her fleeing to her room to burn the evidence of her own shame.

She could not dispose of him so easily, however, and, it occurred to her on a groan, he might have no qualms whatsoever in relating his version of the amusing incident in the bath house. Imagine his surprise, he would say, halfway through a most relaxing massage, when he discovered that the wickedly proficient hands ministering to his aches and bruises belonged not to Margery, the castle drab, but to one of the bold-intentioned daughters of the household!

Such extreme measures of hospitality were not unheard of where there were too many unwed daughters in a family and not enough available suitors of noble blood. Not that Brenna believed for an instant there could be a drop of anything noble or honorable flowing through the veins of Griffyn Renaud de Verdelay! From his clothes—as carefully nondescript and devoid of any crests or devices as the trappings of his horse—to his manners, from the way he had cleverly avoided answering too many questions about where he had been or what he had been doing these past years when he was supposed to have been dead … she no longer doubted he was anything better than a common mercenary. A man whose sword and soul were for simple hire. There could be no other explanation, no other reason why a knight would travel alone, without markings, without a squire, without the comfort of an open road in front of him. The fact he was bound for Château Gaillard only confirmed her suspicions. Where better for a fighting man to display his prowess and skill than at the largest, most prestigious tournament in Normandy? Where better to find a rich employer? What better boast to add to his name than an acquaintance with the son of the Black Wolf of Amboise?

Or a tawdry liaison with the daughter?

She groaned again and threw herself across the bed. That was why he had not raped her. Rape would not have curried anything but slow castration and death, whereas if she had allowed him to seduce her, he could have claimed afterward that she had flaunted herself and deliberately aroused him beyond reason, making it more of an insult to refuse her advances than to accept them.

She balled her fists and struck them on the bed, wanting to scream. The flame of her night candle flickered and went out, and she cursed as she found a taper and relit it. Staring at it, she wondered if she ought to light a second one. If the first was meant to keep the devil from slipping into the room to steal her soul while she slept, perhaps a second would keep her from dwelling on the black-haired, green-eyed demon who had already stolen her peace of mind.

Curled beneath her covers and furs, she stared unblinking at the remnants of her clothing smoldering in the fire. She did not expect to sleep a wink all night worrying about what the morning would bring, how quickly the scandal would reach Helvise’s ears, and how early the maid would come into the chamber bearing the news that her father was demanding to see her.

If only she hadn’t followed Margery into the bath house. If only she hadn’t gone to the river, hadn’t gone into the forest at all today! If only … if only … if only … !

The if onlys kept her awake until just before the first pearly streaks of dawn showed through the cracks in her shutters. And at the same moment the flame on her candle spluttered below the last hour mark, Brenna dreamed of a tall, naked knight with black hair bowing his mouth to her breast, sending a warm shiver of ecstasy rippling through her body.