Impostress (14 page)

"Not right now." Elyn took the cup from the older woman's outstretched hand. "Thank you, Hildy," she said as the maid picked up the tray with the remains of their earlier meal, then disappeared through the doorway.

And then they were alone again.

Elyn flashed him a smile. "To us," she said, her back to the fire, her face in shadow, as she lifted her cup.

"The Lord and Lady of Penbrooke." He touched the rim of his cup to hers and they both took a drink.

"May we reign forever."

"Forever's a long time."

"Mmm. And maybe just enough for me to get my fill of you."

She smiled and his heart caught. Even in the dusky light, he saw her beauty. She buried her nose in her mazer and he drank as well, letting the sweet liquid slide down his throat. He thought fleetingly of the vials he'd found, but finished his cup and couldn't believe that she would be a part of any deception. Not when she was smiling at him so, her chin elevated a fraction, her lips twitching in amusement, her eyes shining with the secret they shared.

Before she finished her mazer, he took the cup from her fingers and set it with his on the floor. Before she could utter a word, he straightened and looked down at her upturned face. By the gods she was a beauty.

"There is much we need to discuss," he said.

"Much."

"But it can wait until morn."

"Can it?" Her smile was positively wicked.

"Oh, yes, lady." His arms surrounded her and she didn't resist, but fell readily into his embrace. He lowered his head, gently brushing his lips over hers. She let out a soft little sigh and turned her face up to his.

'Twas his undoing.

While thoughts of deception and vials and strange conversations skittered from his mind, he fastened his mouth to hers. Her lips were full and soft and tasted of wine. She gasped and he took advantage, sliding his tongue between her parted lips, bowing her back as he pulled her tight against him.

"Kelan, love," she whispered, blinking and pulling back inexplicably. "I—I cannot." Her voice caught and she looked away.

"Why?"

He noticed her swallow hard and though she tried to pull away, he held her fast.

"There is much to do."

"We have time."

Slowly he untied the ribbon holding her hair back, then leaned her over the bed. Her protests were weak and she didn't say another word as he loosened the laces of her dress. It fell over one shoulder and he worked with the ribbons of her chemise, opening the cloth, exposing her skin to him.

She sucked in her breath as he pressed his lips to the top of her breast and as he slid the dress lower, he discovered her nipple, a hard, ready button that he licked until she groaned and her arms surrounded him. He suckled, pulling hard. Her knees buckled, and they fell onto the bed. His erection was thick. Throbbing. His blood pounded with the want of her, and yet he took his time. Deliberately peeling her silky dress over her head, he kissed her, massaged her, made sure that she was ready. Her skin flushed in the firelight, her legs parted, and he quickly loosened the laces of his breeches and pushed inside her sweet, moist warmth. Dear God, he wanted to claim this woman, to make her his own, to ... for a second his concentration shattered. He felt woozy again ... like before.

Suddenly she surrounded him, her legs hooking over his waist, and he pulled her up, propping that delicious rump on bedclothes so that he could delve deeper, harder, thrusting in and out, the world fading into the shadows. Nothing seemed to matter, just that white heat between them. He heard her cry out, felt his own release, and then, in an instant, tumbled forward, losing consciousness.

* * * * *

Joseph counted again.

Thirty-nine horses.

Not
forty.

Standing on a knoll overlooking the pasture, Joseph's gaze swept the herd as he mentally clicked off each familiar animal. Lawenydd's stable boasted jennets and palfreys for everyday use; sumpter horses for heavy work; roundseys, which were usually ridden by the peasants; and, of course, the pride of the castle, the destriers. Joseph knew them all.

His jaw hardened and his eyes narrowed. He must've made a mistake. Bay, sorrel, dun, gray, black and dull brown, the horses ambled in the weak light as the sun sank lower in the sky. Snorting, they picked at the winter grass. A few newborns scampered at their dams' sides, frolicking on their spindly legs, or nudging at the mares' flanks with their noses, ready to nurse. The stallions were kept separately, tethered away from the herd. But as Joseph's gaze shifted to the field on the other side of the creek, he knew he would come up with the same damning number. One horse short.

Nonetheless, he checked again, taking into account that three horses were being used on a hunt, five by soldiers patrolling the forest, two were at the farrier's hut being reshod, four of the mares were housed in stalls while awaiting the imminent arrival of their foals, and one old stallion had pulled up lame and was hopefully recovering in yet another box. Thirty-nine.

That left the missing mare. The small, feisty jennet who always fought the bridle and, if given the opportunity, would take the bit between her teeth and ignore her rider's commands. Temperamental and fiery, the sleek bay was a small, compact animal that few of the soldiers favored. However, Lady Kiera was known to ride the bay when Garnet, her favorite, wasn't available.

Lady Kiera.
The sweetest woman in all of Lawenydd, mayhap all of Wales. Not like her sister Elyn, whom Joseph unfortunately had fallen for long ago. It was foolish to even think of her. Yet think of her he did. All too often.

Some people in the keep insisted that the eldest two of Baron Llwyd's daughters looked so much alike as to have been twins, but Joseph thought that was nonsense. Physically, aye, they resembled each other much in face and stature and, yes, even in mannerisms. But that's where the similarities ended.

Whereas Elyn was competitive, sharp-tongued, and a general pain in the arse, Kiera was much warmer. She, too, had a temper, but it was cooled by a sense of humor, and no matter what, she always had a kind word for him. Though Elyn had intrigued and attracted him as a younger man, 'twas a foolish notion on his part. Wrong.

The trouble had started when he'd turned eleven and had begun having dreams of Elyn, of taming her. Dark and sexual, the dreams had oftentimes caused him to wake up hard as granite, lying in the straw over the stalls of the stable. Alone in the hayloft, with moonlight streaming through the small window, he'd conjured up her beautiful haughty face time and time again.

Her eyes were wide and green, like the mists at dawn, her cheekbones sculpted, high and regal, her lips the color of roses in full bloom. And he'd seen her naked once, when she didn't know he was about, years ago when she and Kiera had taken off their clothes and swum in the millpond. He'd never mentioned it to a soul.

But in those long, long midnight hours alone in the hayloft, he'd remembered her white skin, dark hair, and the glimpse of a rosy nippled breast. Though he could be damned to hell for his thoughts, he'd allowed himself to imagine what it would be like to bed her, to slide between cool sheets and feel her hot body next to his.

Oh, 'twas a sin and he knew it, but his own mind was sometimes his worst enemy. What would it feel like to bed the lady? To his shame, while in the midst of his erotic musings, he'd even gone so far as to touch himself as he fantasized about her.

Afterward he'd always felt dirty and foolish, and his conscience and faith had forced him into the chapel, where turning ten shades of scarlet, he had confessed his sins to the castle priest.

Never once had Joseph mentioned Elyn's name in his confessions. He would never defile her name so, nor embarrass himself further. Not even to God.

He tried to be pious, to do God's will, though sometimes it was difficult. And he attempted to be truthful and confess his sins. He'd even owned up to the fact that it was he who had allowed Kiera to ride off on Obsidian that evening three years earlier, he who had disobeyed all reason and saddled the horse for her, promising not to tell a soul that she was borrowing her father's prized stallion. His mistake had cost the baron a priceless steed and nearly cost Kiera her life. The flogging he'd received was small punishment for his stupidity. That his own father, Orson, had not lost his job as stable master was a miracle, one Orson never let Joseph forget.

Even so, even with his attempts at piety, he'd held his tongue when it came to his feelings for Lady Elyn. And his passion for her had cooled. Now, 'twas her younger sister, the kinder of the two women, who caused his blood to heat, his stupid member to rise as sturdy as an oak tree at the most awkward of times. Christ Jesus, he was a fool.

He couldn't think of either lady now. Not with the horse missing. Squinting hard, hoping he was somehow mistaken, Joseph again studied the field only to find no sign of the temperamental mare. She was gone. Vanished. Or ... his gut tightened at the turn of his thoughts.

"Hey! Joseph! What's the matter with ye?" his father demanded. Carrying a whip rolled tightly between his fingers, Orson limped up the crooked path traversing this hillock. "We've got work to do, if ya haven't noticed. The red mare's in labor and havin' a time of it. Don't ye think ye should tend to her?"

"Aye." Joseph nodded. "I'm on my way." He hesitated, then decided his father needed to hear the bad news. "I think a horse is missing" he admitted. "Royal, the little bay with the crooked star."

"Royal's missing? What d'ye mean?" Orson asked, but his gaze was already skating over the herd while he mentally checked off those that were elsewhere. "She was here this mornin', wasn't she?"

"I don't know." Joseph rubbed the back of his neck and thought hard. "I don't think so."

"Yesterday?"

"I'm not sure."

"Ye're talkin' 'bout the ornery little jennet who kicked the carter last fall and near broke his leg?" Orson asked, disbelieving.

"Aye, Royal, as I said," Joseph snapped angrily. "She's gone. Not a trace of her." Joseph turned to look at the herd once more as if in so doing he'd spot the mare in the shadow of a taller horse.

"Are ye sure or not whether someone took her out for a ride?"

"Who?"

His father lifted a hand toward the sky. "I don't know. Anyone. The Lady Kiera, she rides her, don't she?"

"Sometimes, but not today. This morn she came to the stables and requested Garnet, as you know. But she returned her a few hours later—see there, near the tree." Joseph pointed a long finger toward the jennet in question. As if she knew she was the center of attention, Garnet lifted her head for a minute, then went back to sedately plucking grass and swishing her long tail.

"Curse it all," Orvis muttered under his breath. "How could you let this happen?"

Joseph didn't answer as his father, a tic starting beneath his eye, studied the herd. His old eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Is she not being shod at the farrier or used by a huntsman or—"

"Or what?" Joseph demanded. "I've thought about everywhere she could be and she's not there. She's missin', I'm tellin' ya."

"But who would take that one? If someone was to steal a horse, I mean."

"I didn't say she was stolen," Joseph replied, but the thought had crossed his mind.

"Well, she's gone and unless she ran off by herself, then someone took her. So where's the sense in that?" Orson motioned toward the destriers in the next field. "Now, if Rex was missin', that I'd understand. Or Falcon, there, a great one he is. But that mare." He snorted as if the thought was absurd. "Royal. Humph!" Lifting his cap, he ran stiff fingers over his near bald pate.

His voice was lower when he said, "Let's find her before the steward or his lordship himself hears of this." Orson glanced at the setting sun, and Joseph could read the older man's thoughts. Soon there would be no light by which to look for the missing horse. Damn it, the day after the union of Penbrooke and Lawenydd should not be marred by a missing horse. Settling his cap onto his head again, Joseph's father worried the handle of his whip. His tic was still trembling frantically. "Don't tell anyone. Not yet. The damned horse might turn up and then we've riled everyone up for no reason."

His old eyes met his son's and Joseph read the unspoken message in his father's gaze, the fear that he could very well lose his job this time. Or worse. Banishment was possible. They both knew it. "Now," Orson said through clenched teeth, "I'll tend to the mare in labor. You, son, find the damned jennet."

As she stood on the parapet and stared out to sea, a chill wind cut through Hildy's soul. The sky was now dark, and another day had passed without any sign of Elyn's return. But then, what made Kiera so certain that her sister would reappear? Duty? Love? Responsibility?

Bah.

Elyn was only interested in herself.

Hildy suspected the selfish woman would never show her face in Lawenydd or Penbrooke again.

A storm was brewing on the horizon. Sunlight had fast faded, hidden by roiling purplish clouds. The ships anchored in the twilight waters seemed ghostlike with their tall, skeletal spars stretching to the dark sky.

'Twas her own fault, Hildy decided, fingering the beads surrounding her neck. She should have stopped this madness. Before it got out of hand. She'd known of the trouble even before it began, for she'd seen the glint of uncompromising rebellion in Lady Elyn's eyes.

Had Hildy not expected it? Elyn had always been a willful, spoiled child. Mayhap if the lord and lady had been fortunate enough to conceive a son ... but they had not.

When she was younger, Elyn had been sent to Castle Fenn to learn the ways of running a household, to learn how to be a proper lady. But of course, that was not to be, for while she was at Fenn, Elyn had met Brock of Oak Crest.

As fate and the stones had predicted she would.

A few years older than Elyn, Brock was already a squire at the time, a roguish, wayward boy. While learning the skills and duties of a knight, he had somehow burrowed his way into Elyn's naive heart.