House of Dreams (28 page)

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Authors: Brenda Joyce

BOOK: House of Dreams
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Isabel's eyes widened. He knew something about her, and she was strangely pleased as well as even more discomfited. “Pray tell,” she said, “how you came to be alone in this world.”
His smile was lopsided. “You do know we have not been properly introduced,” he said, sweeping her a courtly bow. “Robert de Warenne, at your service, my lady, and that I do intend with all of my heart.”
Isabel stood very still, his piercing gaze on hers. “De Warenne?”
“It seems we are cousins, but very distant ones,” he said wryly. “Come.” He held out his arm.
Isabel looked at it. He had long since shed his armor, and wore a dark green velvet doublet that was narrow waisted but full sleeved over a linen shirt with Spanish embroidery winking from the collar and cuffs. His jacket was sleeveless and a paler shade of green, his hose tan. He did not wear an extremely exaggerated codpiece as some of the other men did, which somehow relieved her.
She looked at his hand. It was tanned and strong and ringless.
“I do not bite, my lady,” he said, low.
A voice inside her head told her not to go with him, that it would be more than reckless, it would be dangerous. She had no interest in a frivolous flirtation. She had no interest in a genuine friendship. She only wanted to leave Stonehill and find her rightful place in this world. Isabel gave him her hand. No one was more surprised than she.
It was dark out, and a Gypsy had begun to sing, but if anyone noticed them or paid them any attention, Isabel could not say. His hand was warm and strong and overwhelming. The last male to hold her hand had been her brother, Tom.
And suddenly, desperately, Isabel missed her brother and wished he were alive.
Isabel withdrew her hand from his. He glanced at her but did not protest as they strolled across the yard.
“My father was Sussex's favorite cousin—their fathers were brothers,” he told her in his warm, rich voice. “My father, Guy de Warenne, was rather impetuous and he involved himself with the wrong faction when I was but a child. I am afraid our late departed king decided he must pay the price of his betrayal with his head.” Robert smiled at her.
“Ouch,” Isabel said, smiling back a little in spite of herself.
“To make matters worse, Guy was a young man at the time—and he had never married.”
She looked up at his handsome face. His features were strong and manly. “Oh, I do begin to see.” Robert was a bastard.
He shrugged, as if indifferent to his illegitimacy. “My mother was a widow at the time of their affair, but when she remarried, well, she already had three legitimate brats, and I was a by-blow that could be
spared. I was only eight when Sussex accepted me into his household. That was twelve years ago.” They paused by the edge of the hill. Below them they could see the Thomson farm, and beyond that, the village and the chapel in the valley. Knee-high grass swept up against Isabel's skirts, which brushed Robert's legs.
“You have done well for yourself, then, Sir Rob. You wear the badge of the Knight of the Garter.”
He smiled as he faced her squarely. “I am tireless in my quest,” he said. “Had I not been thus, I might still be a servant in the stables at Chiswick.”
“You have fought many battles?” Her curiosity carried the day.
“Indeed I have, fair Isabel.” His gaze roved over her face. “My first taste of war was with King Henry. We took Boulogne.” His eyes never left her. “Only to have that cowardly Suffolk hand it back over to the French.” He added, “'Tis where I won my spurs.”
Isabel was rapt. “But you were but a boy.”
“I was almost your age,” he said quietly. “And are you not a woman?”
Isabel felt blinded by the intensity of his gaze. She could not move, speak, or breathe. She could not look away—and she wanted to, she did. And that tiny warning voice was there—
do not do this, do not begin to care, there is no hope, only danger …
Tom's smiling face appeared in her mind. Isabel stepped slightly aside, to put more distance between them. She was breathless. “Perhaps you might bring that fact to my uncle's attention,” she finally said.
He studied her. “Why? So he can marry you off to some powerful lord?” he asked roughly as a breeze from the sea swept up the hill.
“I am fifteen, and I cannot stay at Stonehill forever,” she said firmly. “I am my father's heir, my dowry is rich, I have much to offer the right nobleman.”
“The right nobleman,” he said, unsmiling, his jaw hard and flexed. “But not a by-blow, who has had to earn his every penny, his spurs, his single Cornish estate.” It was not a question.
Isabel almost gaped at him. Was he angry? Abruptly she turned to leave. “I must go.”
He seized her arm from behind. “Why? Because I have the courage to speak my mind?”
“You speak nonsense,” she cried, refusing to face him. He was not suitable as a prospective husband. And that would never change.
He whirled her around. “Oh, do I? I dare to be honest. And you? Your answer is to run away.”
He was right, but Isabel would never admit it. “If you wish to ask for my hand, then I suggest you speak with your benefactor.”
“I did not realize you were so determined upon your rank.”
“'Tis all I have left in the world,” Isabel said.
He stared, his face set, then did as she asked. Isabel whirled and began to stride away, back to the encampment in front of the manor, back to the house. Her instincts had been right. She should have stayed away from him in the first place.
“I leave at dawn,” he said quietly. “And we might never see one another again.”
Isabel halted in her tracks. She could not move forward, though she dearly wished to.
The roads are guarded … the council has spies even in her household
…
She heard him approach from behind. “Do not run away from me,” he said. “Isabel, I have been smitten this day, and we must talk.”
He had been smitten. And he was leaving on a mission fraught with danger, and even though he was young and strong and clever, what if he failed—what if he did not return? Isabel had learned seven years ago that there was no justice in the world. God often sanctioned terrible things. When she finally turned to look at him, it was to nod, and tears filled her eyes.
He was not for her. But surely it would not hurt to talk; she would never forgive herself if she denied him and he never returned from Maldon.
He touched her cheek. “Do not cry. Why do you weep? I am surely not the cause of your tears!”
Isabel could only cry, trying not to think about her family and Tom, trying not to think about him, but it was impossible. Her father as he strode into the hall at Romney Castle, fresh from a stag hunt, his cloak trailing mud, beaming with satisfaction, her mother rising up to greet him, her belly swollen with the babe that would be born soon after, and die just as shortly, her face alight with expectation and happiness, and Tom, on her father's heels, as dirty, grinning from ear to ear, rushing to Isabel to regale her with tales of his prowess … The memories flooded her along with the tears.
Rob pulled her against his chest and held her there. Isabel sank into
his arms. No one had held her like this, not man nor woman, in seven years. It felt so good, so perfectly right.
He stroked her hair.
Isabel clung to him, her tears slowly ceasing.
His hands slid down her back.
And for the first time in her young life, Isabel felt desire begin to awaken within her.
His mouth moved over the top of her head, the kisses soft and gentle and bare.
Isabel became still.
She was aware of his mouth on her hair, but even more aware of a huge weight that felt as if it were lifting from her actual body. And somehow her arms had slipped around his hard waist, somehow her face was buried against his strong chest. She could hear his thundering heartbeat.
Slowly Isabel looked up.
“I love you,” he said, and he lowered his mouth to hers.
The exultation was so fierce it shocked and stunned Isabel, and then she knew sheer joy, and she said, against his questing lips, “I love you as well, Robert.” And she had never meant anything more.
 
 
Sussex stared in absolute disbelief. “You what?”
Outside the manor, the sun was rising, casting a pink blush over the hills. Inside, Robert and Isabel stood side by side, not daring to hold hands.
“My lord, I wish to marry Isabel. As we are cousins, I did not think it too unseemly a request.” Robert stood ramrod-straight, eyes wide and unflinching. Beside him, Isabel began to tremble, watching her uncle turn beet red with rage.
Sussex gaped at him; then he looked at Isabel. “Be gone,” he shouted at her.
Terrified, and suddenly filled with a dreadful feeling, she quickly did as he asked, but not before she flung a blurring glance at Robert, who did not dare regard her. She grabbed her skirts and fled up the stairs, tripping in her haste. Lost in the grip of terror, beginning to panic, trying to tell herself that it would be all right, she crouched on the stairs.
Sussex paced forward and shoved his face within inches of Robert's. “Did you take her?” he demanded.
“I did not,” Robert said, two pink spots mottling his tanned face. He stood as if he wore all of his armor, stiffly at attention, unmoving.
Sussex stared, and then he visibly relaxed. “Rob,” he finally said, in a calmer tone, “you are young, and I forget what it is to be your age when a comely wench is about. But she is to marry elsewhere when the time is right, as you must know. By God! One day soon she will be a useful tool, for us both! Perhaps even in this damnable coil with Dudley.” He had been pacing; now he stopped. “And you, my lad? Have you forgotten your ambition? You have much to do if you wish to make a place for yourself in England, and I know you well know it. Or are you asudden satisfied with a damned pair of spurs?” Now Sussex was angry. “Have I raised you all of these years for naught? I must only snap my fingers to find another sergeant, Rob. That is not what I had in mind for you, and until now, that is not what you have had in mind for yourself!”
“My ambition has not waned,” Robert said stiffly. “But my heart has found its true love, my lord.”
Sussex raised both brows, stared, and burst into mocking laughter. “True love? There is no such thing. What you feel now has naught to do with anything but the cock that hangs between your legs, and I have no doubt that in a sennight or two, another comely wench will stir more feelings of true love. God's eyes! You have a service to do, my boy, and do it well. Bring back any message the princess cares to give. Heed her well, and glean carefully any conspiracies she might share with you. My future—and yours—depends on it. You shall find me at Chiswick, as I shall leave Stonehill tomorrow. Now, be gone, and no more ranting about true love.” This last was said in an utterly mocking manner, followed by brief laughter.
Isabel had covered her mouth with both hands, so as not to shriek or scream. She stood up. Robert was unmoving, his face flushed, and finally he bowed and turned away. His strides were hard as he crossed the hall, his booted steps loud, spurs clinking.
Isabel closed her eyes. Dear sweet Virgin Mary, but she had seen the hard, hard look in Rob's eyes. And it was happening again …
To love completely, ceaselessly, recklessly, and to have all destroyed and lost.
“Rob!” the earl of Sussex shouted.
Rob halted but did not turn.
“In time you will thank me for preventing you from making a very
foolish decision. Years from now, I wager upon it, you will thank me indeed.”
Robert left the hall.
Uncaring if her uncle saw, Isabel ran after him.
Robert was pulling on the dark, anonymous brown robes of a traveling friar. His own page had prepared a mount and a pack mule and was in disguise as an acolyte.
Did he intend to leave just like that? Without another word, without even a good-bye? Would he give up then, so easily? Briefly Isabel closed her eyes.
How she hated her uncle. She had hated him from the moment he had first arrived at Romney Castle, a bold and satisfied usurper.
Robert saw her, but he did not move to her. He was grim.
They clasped hands. Isabel felt the tears forming in her eyes. “What shall we do?” she whispered, his hands hard and warm and strong, covering hers. “Is this good-bye, then? After all we have said and shared?”
“No, for with us, it can never be good-bye.” His tone was low and urgent as he led her away from the house. “In spite of what we want, great matters abound, matters that are far bigger than you and I, and I must go now.”

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