My Lord Raven (Knights of the Royal Household)

Chapter Ten

CHAPTER TEN

Anger hammered Bran hard. He curled his cold fingers around a goblet of good Bordeaux wine and drank deeply, hoping to ease his ire. The fire in the stone fireplace spit and popped, casting a small pool of light around the hearth. He stretched his legs out toward the scant warmth and leaned back in the lord of the castle’s chair.

Long years of training had taught him to temper his emotion. His mind needed to be sharp, his hands steady, to do what he had been trained to do—kill the enemy. Whether symbolically on the tourney field or during the struggle of live combat, Bran always won. He bested his opponents, triumphant, but magnanimous in victory.

Until today.

Today, when the piercing blue eyes and the fair oval face of his betrothed overcame him, confusing him as if he were a green lad with his first love.

The mere memory of their kiss sent scorching desire coursing through his veins. He swallowed more wine, enjoying the sting of the dark liquor as it slid down his throat.

On the other side of the screen placed around him for privacy, the snores of castle folks, who had already taken to their pallets in the great hall, sounded strangely comforting. These were now his people. His responsibility.

A sharp thrill rippled through him. Tomorrow he would be wed. Tomorrow Northbridge and the surrounding demesne lands along the Severn River would be his. Property was the lifeblood of any man, and for years he had been bereft of true life. Now he would be wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. Property and heirs—offspring to carry on the only thing he had ever possessed until now—his name.

He would have all of it, if Olwen de Belleme proved as good a breeder as she was beautiful. Yet who was this maiden Edward had given him? The Queen called her quiet, childlike, a woman best suited for religious vows.

His experience had been wildly different. To him, she was an enigma, seeming rebellious, even coy. She was capable of arousing him with a hot, incautious compulsion that threatened to drive away whatever civility he possessed.

He had promised Queen Eleanor to be gentle. To go slow with his bride. But Olwen’s mutinous behavior and her claim of love for another did not sit well. Not tonight. Not when everything he wanted was so close within his grasp.

Bran finished off the wine. He wanted more, but thought better of it. He needed a clear head for the morrow. Neither drunkenness nor anger at his bride would serve his purposes. If Olwen was to be won, he must follow Eleanor’s admonition—control himself and go slow.

Frowning, Bran placed the goblet on the side table and stared into the sputtering flames until they blurred before his eyes. The death of Rothmore plagued him sorely. He had been implicated in the young lord’s death. Now his bride-to-be taunted him with the lad’s name.

Bran sat forward, clutching his cold fingers between his knees. Rothmore was dead now and so was the earl’s sister, her life snuffed out by brigands on the king’s highway. They were Olwen’s cousins. ’Twas no wonder she was upset.

He let out a slow breath. Would his wife accept him? He did not like uncertainty, but he respected the brittle edge it gave him. He felt that brittleness now, gazing into the flickering firelight, thinking about the morrow. The most important battle of his life was to come, and he had no idea how to arm himself.

“I have brought a bath,” Rhys said, rousing Bran from his reflection.

Brawny serving boys carried a large wooden tub around the screen, placing it near the hearth. Two more men carried buckets of steaming water. They emptied the contents of three buckets into the tub and sat the other one next to the fire, withdrawing when their task was complete.

“’Tis best that you wash before the morrow,” the sergeant commented, laying out clean cloths and a new set of braes.

Then Rhys sprinkled flakes of sweet woodruff into the tub and the pleasant vanilla-like aroma filled Bran’s nostrils. With a grin, he pushed to his feet. The firelight provided scant heat and only illumination, but ’twas enough for his purposes.

“You imply that my lady will refuse to wed me unless I bathe.”

“The thought crossed my mind…my lord.”

Bran’s head jerked at the formal address. His stomach tightened. “True. Tomorrow I will, in fact, become my lord . ”

“Well-deserved,” Rhys said. A smile lit his face. “And long enough in coming.”

Bran agreed with his sergeant. He knew his place, just as he knew his worth in the scheme of things in Edward’s kingdom.

Stripping off his clothing, he toyed with no false modesty. Bran stepped over the edge of the tub and sank wearily into the burning water that almost immediately pulled the tension from his back and shoulders. He took up a linen rag and soap and began to wash himself.

“Perchance you’ll have a wife’s hand to help you next time,” Rhys said with a wicked chuckle.

“Be gone, knave!” Bran waved his soapy hand, dismissing the little man, who went away laughing.

Having enough problems with control, Bran did not need a reminder of what was to take place on the morrow. His deprived flesh had memory of its own.

Anticipation gripped him. At the same time, he mulled a sense of regret—Northbridge Castle, not Castle Dinas Bran. English property, not Welsh. Was he also to have a maiden whose heart belonged to another?

Anger flared again. Bran knew how to fight for what he wanted. Yet how did he fight with the specter of a dead man? A man whose death was attributed, by some, to him?

He must look for the murderer to prove his innocence. After the wedding, he would send Rhys out to spy for news.

Now steeled with new determination, Bran stood, water sloshing down his long limbs and over the edge of the tub. The trouble with sending Rhys away was that he had to attend to himself. He reached over and lifted the bucket of water. Slowly he splashed the now tepid liquid over his body, letting it rinse the soap from the hairs on his chest and the muscles of his thighs.

His manhood stood proudly, only tempered slightly by the cooling water.

God’s teeth! He raised his gaze toward the old lord’s war shield hung in decoration high on the wall by the hearth. How could he go slowly with his supposedly quiet and gentle bride when every part of him ached to consummate his marriage as soon as yon priest spoke the wedding vows?

Catrin shoved her palm against her mouth, stifling a gasp, and jumped back from the squint, a peephole concealed by the war shield hanging near the fireplace. Had he seen her spying on him? It seemed as if he must, for those black eyes had looked her way almost as if he knew she was watching him bathe.

Her face flamed. She turned from the secret squint, feeling the heat shiver up and down her body. Fanning her cheeks with her hand, she slowly crossed Olwen’s solar, the flagstones, covered with Castilian carpet, yet cold beneath her stocking-less feet.

After compline, Meg had taken her rest and now snored softly on a pallet at the foot of the tall, canopied bed. Catrin skirted Olwen’s maid—her maid now—stopping at the side of the down-filled mattress piled high with colorful quilts and warm furs. Tomorrow night he would share this bed with her.

Bran ap Madog. The King’s Raven. The warrior she suspected of killing her brother and father. Bran, the man who called her cariad and kissed her as she’d never dreamed of being kissed.

She stared at the lord’s bed, aptly aware of its import. Heirs of Northbridge were conceived on yon bed. For years, children carrying the lord’s name came into being there. Guilt pricked her ever so briefly. When he bedded her tomorrow night, he’d consummate his marriage with an imposter. ’Twas sinful what she was about, but Catrin hastily swept that thought from her mind the same way she brushed a piece of lint from her gown.

She had honorable intentions, saving Olwen from a fate worse than death. Mayhap she would soon discover the truth about Gilbert and her father as well.

Renewed with resolve, Catrin stripped off her shift, snuffed out the lone, tallow candle, and pushing back the soft fur coverlets, crawled into the high bed. Quietly, she let down the linen hangings, muting Meg’s snores. Now she felt closed off from the world.

Sitting in darkness so heavy she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face, Catrin drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them. Love was an ephemeral emotion, too dangerous, by far. She had never been in love, nor even formerly courted, because her father had been overly protective. Now, any girlish dreams she’d harbored were of no matter.

Catrin bit her lip. Why had she baited him? Why give him the impression that Gilbert had been her lover? The words had just slipped out.

Yet her inopportune words had prepared him for her hatred. ’Twould be much easier this way. He would have no false expectations of her loving him. Would that ease his anger when he learned the truth?

She doubted it. Nothing would stay the man’s anger. Wrapped in the closeness of her private cozy cocoon, Catrin smiled grimly.

She had to make him direct his rage only at her. Not at Olwen, nor Meg. Not at the good father, who would marry them against his will.

Hugging her knees even tighter, she rested her chin on them. In the silence, in the darkness, she felt the steady rhythm of her heart and heard the slow intake of her breath. The gentle scent of lavender on the bed clothing reminded her of Olwen.

Sweet heavens, could she manage this deception? Could she become Olwen—the shy, sensible, and holy maid?

She doubted that too. Not after seeing what she had seen tonight in the firelight of the great hall.

In that personal place between her thighs, a softening began—slowly—as if it was becoming a warm pool, opening and welcoming.

Fear sharpened Catrin’s breath. She had seen men before. Heavens, she’d been raised with a younger brother. She’d watched curs coupling in the bailey. She knew what was expected of her on the morrow.

Catrin shut her eyes, suddenly dizzy. What she had not seen was the magnificence she secretly witnessed tonight, looking down on that proud stallion that was to be her husband.

Had he cast a spell on her? Standing—all of him—naked like a Celtic god? Why else did she ache in the place only he had stirred? Why else had memories of that kiss in the garden tormented her, scorching her cheeks and weakening her limbs?

Lord, help her. She pursued this deception willingly enough, but now she wondered if she weren’t the one to be deceived.

The King’s Raven had worked his magic on her—as he had on all those other women—his spoils of war, the ones he so wantonly ravished.