By Design (6 page)

He resented like hell that knowing glance. A little fury whirled in his head. “If I tell myself that, it will be because it is true. I am a mason, woman, not a knight or baron. Masons build structures. Others build the power and the world.”

“Masons are like the men who make siege machines.

They may not lift a sword, but there can be no war, and no power, without them.”

“You have an unholy anger about something far above you. Like all ignorant people, you see the world too sim ply, and voice stupid opinions too boldly.”

“I am not so ignorant and stupid that I do not know a lackey when I see one.”

Lackey
. “What you see is a man fast regretting an im pulsive act of charity and growing sore angry at being in sulted in his own house. Do not blame me for the injustice in this realm. If you think that a mason can change any of it, you are mistaken.”

“Anyone with heart and resolve can change it. Masons and farmers and even—”

“And even tilers? If you believe that, you are worse than mistaken. You are a dreamer and a fool.”

She reacted as if he had slapped her. “Better a fool than a willing victim! Better dreams that give purpose, than resignation that deadens one's will!”

She looked half mad, almost desperate. He heard accu sation in her cry, but also something else, as if she pro claimed this for her own sake rather than to insult him. Still the insult was there, and his anger rose in response.

Not a normal anger. It had been mixing with a spiking desire all during this argument.

He wanted to silence this bold, ungrateful woman who slung insults more scathing than she realized. Not with his hand or words, but with a kiss. He wanted to embrace her rebellious passion and transform it into a more immediate fire.

The image of a fevered taking entered his head while she glared at him. It did not help that the argument had made her indifferent to her nakedness. The clear view of her breasts and thighs only made his imagination more
vivid. The hot, tumultuous fantasy defeated his control in a way the physical intimacies had not. Her challenging ex pression only inflamed the urges he had been battling. He either had to reach for her and make it real, or leave.

He was angry. She didn't care.

Her head split with livid indignation. How dare he call her a fool. What did this mason know about her, and her dreams. How could he possibly understand any of it. No doubt so long as his fees were paid, there was no injustice in the world worth righting to him.

He looked at her as the silence echoed with her furious words. Looked long enough for her to realize that more than anger had set his face in its severe expression and more than fury caused those steely glints. His gaze drifted over her, and she suddenly grew alert to what he saw. She had forgotten about her nakedness in the heat of her emotions, but he had not.

He was going to reach for her. Reach in anger and de sire. She could see the impulse in those blue eyes.

Good. Then she could hit him. She wanted to. She needed to beat away the doubts to which his cruel words had given voice. Doubts that lived in her own heart, but that she kept silent lest they rob her of any reason to live.

He moved. For a breathless instant she braced herself.

He did not reach. He rose to get the last bucket from the hearth. He poured its steaming contents in to renew the bath's heat. He strode from the chamber.

She collected her emotions and calmed herself, and slid down in the water. The last bucket had made the bath wonderfully hot again, and it soothed her soul as much as her body.

She could not have really gotten its benefit if he were
still nearby, even if she had not seen his danger in those last moments. Her body may have loosened under his compresses and fingers, but in her core an awareness of him twisted and knotted the whole time he knelt behind her.

He had not reached for her, but he had wanted to. Not just at the end, but from the moment he carried her into this house. Nay, from the first time he spoke to her. It was just there, thick, like the moisture rising from the bath.

Eventually…

The water suddenly lost its warmth. A chill shook her down to her toes.

It was time to leave this house.

Pushing herself up, she tested her legs. They no longer seemed detached from her body. Carefully, she stepped out of the tub. Bending to grab the towel almost made her fall, but she snatched it up and quickly dried herself.

She could walk now. Slowly. Stiffly. She made her way over to the bench. Grasping the bench for balance, she bent for the gown.

She held up the befouled, tattered garment. It smelled. It clumped around the knot where Rhys had tied its torn skirt. Mending would not fix that, nor would another dunking in the river ever get it clean.

She had looked like a fool in it, a poor woman displaying herself in her better's rags. But it had been all she had to wear, and now she had nothing.

She needed to purchase a new garment. It would take one of her precious shillings, and she would get little more than another rag in the bargain.

That frustrated her so much that she gritted her teeth to contain it. The shillings were not for this. She did not slave in the heat merely to feed and clothe herself. She scrimped and worked for a purpose, for a dream. Only the dream stayed forever that, out of reach, no matter how
she struggled to realize it, because the need to survive kept thwarting her.

A dreamer and a fool
. Rhys's words echoed in her ears, and some of the anger returned, mixing with the frustration. She blinked back tears of resentment.

It was not foolish to dream of justice. And somehow, someday, she would make the dream real, for herself and Mark. She would find the money, enough to hire a cham pion to fight for her. She would send a brave knight to avenge the worst of it, and maybe even to give them back the lives that had been stolen from them.

She would make it right, or she would die trying.

She threw aside the towel. Turning the gown, she low ered it to step in. The firelight flickered over a few stitches of embroidery.

She stopped and stared. The fight went out of her, and a profound sadness took its place.

The tiny stitches grew and melted as her vision blurred. She had seen that decoration perfectly worked along the shoulders in a shimmering vine of ivy. The gown had been so beautiful in its unique dove color. So marvelously im practical, as befitted a wedding gown.

Now it was filthy and ragged, like the life it symbolized. Only a stroke of perverse luck had brought it with her from the marches. She had been wearing it on the night that she had left because a man's lust and vanity had turned his humor cruel.

This gown, Joan. I want you to wear this one tonight. And you will come to my bed. You will come in this gown, and remove it while I watch, and then you will kneel naked at my feet and beg for my favor
.

She heard the words again, as if they whispered in her ears. Heard them and lived them. Her breath shortened, as if a gripping fist squeezed the air from her. Tears blinded her.

Her mind grasped desperately for the life-giving dream that was all that kept her strong.

A movement broke through the sickening memory. A presence loomed beside her.

Rhys stood there, holding a long bed linen. His gaze slid down her nakedness, then up to her face. Concern en tered his blue eyes, not anger or lust.

He draped the linen around her. His arms circled her shoulders until the cloth wrapped her. They rested on her a moment, like a tentative offer of comfort. Strong arms. If she sank against them she would never fall.

He stepped away and gestured to the grey rag hanging from her hand. “You can not wear that. It is no longer fit for more than wrapping your crockery.”

“It will do for a day or two, until I purchase another.”

“You can not sleep in it. We will see what we can do with it on the morrow.”

She shook it out, and made to step in. “Nay. I will—”

“You will not. Nor will you try to walk home as you thought to try.”

“My brother…”

He pried the garment from her hand and set it aside. “Let him worry. I wager you have done so often enough when he did not return of a night. Tomorrow he will be so relieved that you are safe that he will obey you for a few days. Do not argue with me. You can not return tonight. It is too late and you need to rest.”

He did not wait for her response. He lifted her in his arms and carried her out of the kitchen.

Darkness, and stairs. She could see nothing, not even him. But she felt his arms through the drape, cradling her shoulders and knees. And she felt his chest and his breath.

He lowered her. Onto a bed. A feather bed. It had been years. … She sank into it. Her body groaned with plea sure. Then it froze as caution snapped her rigid.

A feather bed. Probably his bed.

She began to protest, but boots sounded on the boards. “Go to sleep, Joan.”

She waited until his steps grew distant. He had gone back down the stairs. The hills of feathers supported her like clouds, tempting her sorely.

Her eyes adjusted to the dim moonlight. She could see out the window. A patch of sky showed above the pointed roof of a house across the lane. A few stars spotted the blackness. They glimmered and multiplied as she grew drowsy.

Rhys emptied the bath and brushed the wet floor. He hung out the towel and his shirt. Bending to finish the job, he plucked up the gown.

In his mind, he saw her again as she had looked when he entered with the bed linen. She stood before the fire, com pletely naked, her damp tresses hanging like vines over her breasts and back. She had been incredibly lovely, and ut terly still. She had been staring at this gown as if it had sent her into a trance.

He would never forget the expression on her face. Burning anger. Quivering disdain. Not for the foul gown. For something else, in her head and heart.

She had appeared completely lost for a moment when she faced him. So lost that her nakedness had not mattered to him, any more than it did to her. The hard words they had exchanged suddenly meant nothing. He would have taken her in his arms to offer some comfort, if the moment had not passed.

He folded the gown and placed it on the bench. Cloth was very expensive. It might still be of some use to her.

He walked back up to the bedchamber. She should be
asleep by now. He doubted that she would stir for many hours.

She lay on her side with the linen wrapped under her arms, draping her in ghostly folds down to her ankles. Her drying hair spread all around her, a halo of gold catching the moonlight. She appeared like a sleeping angel.

He pulled off his boots and stretched out beside her, along the bed's edge. He had work to do in the morning, and could not afford the soreness of sleeping on the floor. She would wake long after him anyway, so sharing a bed would not frighten her. It was big enough for two, and she was dead to the world.

He was not, however. Nor was he dead to her. It took longer than it should for him to fall asleep. Having her be side him seemed oddly normal, considering that she was almost a stranger. Other women had lain there sometimes, women with whom he had greater familiarity. They had always been intrusions of sorts. Distractions, sometimes sought and sometimes not, from other, more important parts of his life. Joan did not disturb the bed like that. She balanced it, as though her weight had been designed to fit the void waiting there.

She turned in her sleep, and huddled against him like a hurt child seeking protection. Her knees pressed into the small of his back and her breath warmed his shoulder.

He did nothing to move her, or himself.

C
HAPTER
4

T
HEY STAYED CLOSE BEHIND THE PRIEST
.
The carnage that they passed made her want to retch. She kept squeezing Mark's hand to encourage him to be brave. Comforting him was all that kept her composure intact
.

They tried in vain to avoid the pools of blood. All around them soldiers were stripping the dead of weapons and clothing. Sickening sounds of celebration rang through the yard. So did the wails of other women and children who had entered the yard to claim their fallen menfolk
.

The priest paused and cried out to God. He turned to her, his expression woeful. “Joan, do not—”

“
I will see him and say a prayer over him. Stand aside
.”

He hesitated, and then moved to reveal the man that he had blocked from view
.

Her breath caught. Mark began crying. She embraced him, but did not look away
.

Her father lay there, his armor streaked with sticky reds. His helmet was gone, and a defiant expression still masked his face
.

A dark canyon slashed his throat and shoulder from where the death blow had cleaved out his life
.

His sword was not in his hand, but in its scabbard
.

The horror of it numbed her. She had seen death before, but not like this. Her mind dazed as her spirit tried to retreat
.