Knight of Pleasure (11 page)

He tried to feel virtuous for withstanding the temptation. But what else could he do with Isobel three sheets to the wind?
Still, it was not easy with the smell of her hair in his nose and her backside jostling against him with every step of the
horse. He was hard as a rock—and desperate for some distraction.

“When I was little, I used to ride like this with my father.” Isobel’s voice had a plaintive, faraway quality. “He took me
everywhere with him.”

Stephen checked his conscience; taking advantage of her drunkenness to learn her secrets did not trouble him at all.

He took the opening she gave him. “Was it your father who disappointed you?” he asked softly. “Tell me your story, Isobel;
I want to hear it.”

She was silent so long he thought she had dozed off. When she finally spoke again, she seemed to have forgotten Stephen’s
presence altogether.

“Father told me I was to save the family…”

Isobel spoke in fits and starts, as if giving voice to only a part of her thoughts.

As she told her tale, Stephen saw her clear as day: a girl on the brink of womanhood, standing in the tall grass with a wooden
sword in her hand and laughter in her eyes. A headstrong girl, used to getting her own way.

Old Hume should have had his member cut off and fed to the pigs for lusting after such a girl. He must have been older than
her grandfather.

When her voice faded into silence, Stephen prompted her. “Your father must have had his reasons for agreeing to the marriage.”

“Hume gave him the money to buy back our lands,” she said.

So Isobel was her family’s sacrifice—her virginity sold to satisfy an old man’s lust, her happiness traded for land.

Isobel’s head rocked softly against Stephen’s chest. Since he’d get no more of her tale tonight, he turned his horse toward
the castle gates. Isobel barely stirred as he carried her up the back stairs to her chamber in the keep.

Would that useless maid never open the damned door? He rapped a second time and a third. When she finally let him in, she
giggled at the sight of Isobel, loose-limbed in his arms.

“Don’t you breathe a word of this to anyone,” he told the maid as he carried Isobel to the bed. He did not like bullying servants,
but he had to ensure the woman’s discretion. “If you do, I swear I will have that archer you’re so fond of sent to join Gloucester’s
army.”

He looked down at Isobel and felt a surge of tenderness for the girl she once was, the girl whose father broke her heart.

When he brushed his knuckles against her cheek, Isobel smiled in her sleep. How he longed to lie beside her! To enfold her
in his arms and drift to sleep with his face in her hair. To awaken to that smile in the morning and make love to her. And
then to stay in bed with her the whole day through.

The maid would leave if he told her to…

He let out a deep sigh. She was not his. And could not be.

December 1417

G
eoffrey sent word he could not join them for practice, so it would be just her and Jamie. Stephen had not come once since…
Isobel shook her head to clear it of the memory of her night of wanton drunkenness.

She sent her maid back when she reached the storeroom. Though it was not precisely proper to be alone with Jamie, he was still
a boy, to her mind.

As soon as she ducked through the low doorway, she realized her mistake. Stephen stood—quite alone—in the center of the room,
sword in his hand. He must have come early to practice on his own. Puffs of steam came from his mouth as his breath hit the
cold air. His white shirt clung to his skin.

Isobel remained by the door, her feet rooted to the ground.

“Your brother is not coming?” Stephen asked.

She shook her head. “What—what of Jamie?”

“He could not come, either,” Stephen said. “Isobel, do stop looking at me as if I were the Green Knight come to cut off your
head. I did not know your brother would not be here. Surely you know by now I would not harm you.”

She knew no such thing. He looked dangerous, casually twirling his sword. His gaze took in every inch of her.

“Come, let us begin,” he said and went to retrieve her sword from its hiding place. When she hesitated to take it from him,
he asked, “Are you afraid that without the others here, you will be unable to keep your hands off me?”

Not once had Stephen said anything to embarrass her about what happened that night at the de Lisieuxs’. Not one word, not
one veiled remark. Nothing at all to remind her of her drunkenness. Or her foolishness in following de Lisieux into his bedchamber.
Or how she begged Stephen to kiss her.

Truly, she was grateful he waited until now, when they were alone, to tease her. That did not mean she liked it.

“You have quite enough women throwing themselves at you, Stephen Carleton.” She took her sword from his outstretched hand,
whipped it through the air, and pointed it at his heart. “ ’Tis my sword, not my hands, that should worry you.”

They practiced hard. Once again she was struck by his grace and beauty with a sword. His movements were fluid and effortless
as he drew her toward him, letting her attack, but always in control.

“How many women are ‘quite enough’? ” he asked.

“What?”

“You said ‘quite enough’ threw themselves at me,” he said, all feigned innocence. “I assume you were counting.”

Stephen seemed not the least bit winded, which only added to her irritation with him.

“One may as well attempt to count the stars,” she said, attacking once more. “I prefer to devote myself to some useful purpose.
Perhaps you should try to do the same.”

He stepped into her thrust to block it. For a long moment they stood inches apart, the tension of sword pressed against sword
between them.

“To what use would you put me, fair Isobel?” Stephen asked, then waggled his eyebrows at her.

She laughed and stepped back. “You are impossible!”

“You should laugh more often.” He wiped his brow on his sleeve. “Come, let us take a rest.”

He spread his cloak on the dirt floor where they could rest their backs against sacks of grain piled high against the wall.

“Now,” he said, stretching his legs out, “will you tell me the rest of your story sober, or must I ply you with strong wine
to get it?”

Isobel closed her eyes. “I hoped I had not truly said all those things to you.”

He picked up a loose straw from the floor and twirled it between his thumb and finger. “What of your mother? Did she argue
against the marriage?”

“My mother could not be bothered to leave her prayers long enough to speak for me.” Hearing the bitterness in her voice, Isobel
pressed her lips together.

Stephen touched her arm. “It might help to speak of it.”

Would it? She never had anyone she could tell it all to. There was so much she could not share with Geoffrey, even now that
he was grown. Why did she feel she could tell Stephen now? She did not understand the reason, but she did.

“It was for her that he did it,” she said in a whisper.

Isobel watched bits of dust floating in the air as she tried to recall the laughing mother of her early childhood.

“After we lost our lands, my mother wanted to escape this life. She devoted herself to prayer, morning to night… until she
seemed to forget us altogether.”

After a time, Stephen asked, “Your father thought regaining your lands and position would restore her?”

“I knew it would not, but he would not hear me.” In her frustration, she’d screamed at him that he could increase their lands
a hundredfold and still she would not change.

“Did your mother say nothing to you about the marriage?”

The memory always lay just beneath the surface, scraps of it coming to her unexpectedly and catching her unawares. For the
first time, she tried to recall the whole of it.

She remembered her heart pounding in her ears as she ran across the field and through the castle gate.

“I found her on her knees in the castle chapel.” Chest heaving from running so hard, she stood waiting for her mother to acknowledge
her until she could stand it no longer.

“You will let him do this to me?” she asked, her voice coming out high-pitched and shaky.

When her mother’s lips continued moving in silent prayer, Isobel clenched her fists to keep from taking her mother by the
shoulders and shaking her.

Finally, her mother lifted her head and looked at Isobel. Except for the lack of expression, her face was as lovely as ever
beneath the plain headdress.

“I asked your father,” her mother said in a quiet voice, “to delay the marriage until your next birthday.”

“He would do anything—
anything
—you ask of him,” Isobel said, her fingernails digging into her palms, “and all you can ask for me is three months!”

“Your father says Lord Hume will leave you a wealthy widow. That is the most a woman can hope for in this world.”

“You could save me from this, Mother!” Isobel’s words echoed off the stone walls of the small chapel.

Her mother remained placid, hands folded in her lap.

“Can you not help me this one time?” Isobel pleaded.

Her mother turned her head and her gaze grew unfocused. “I am sorry you must pay for my sins.”

What sins did her pious mother imagine she had committed?

“Isobel.” Stephen’s voice pierced through the veil of her memories. “Take this,” he said, pressing a kerchief into her hand.

Only now did she realize tears ran unchecked down her face.

“I should not have pressed you.” Stephen rubbed his hand up and down her back, soothing her as if she were a child.

But she was determined to finish it now. “Do you want to hear the last words my mother said to me in this world?”

“Only if you want to tell me.”

“She said, ‘We women are born to suffer.’ Then she went back to her prayers.”

Isobel remembered swallowing back the sobs that threatened to overtake her and turning her back on her mother. Her breath
came in hiccups as she marched, stiff-legged, across the bailey yard. With each step, she willed herself to harden her heart.

“I did not have a choice, of course,” Isobel said to Stephen. “But I told myself I would do it for my brother—and not for
that useless, pathetic woman who was my mother.”

Stephen enfolded her in his arms. After a time he asked, “The marriage was very hard?”

She nodded against his chest. He tightened his hold; his arms felt good around her.

“You did not forgive your father.”

“I refused even to see him.” In that, at least, her husband had indulged her. The only time she saw her father during the
years of her marriage was at her mother’s funeral.

She should not let Stephen comfort her like this. But after the intimate story she shared with him, it seemed ridiculous to
fret over his being too familiar. Even his smell—horses and leather and just Stephen—comforted her.

“You deserve to be happy,” he said.

“What if de Roche is horrid?” she blurted out. “He does not want me or this marriage, or he would have come by now.”

Why, after holding self-pity at bay for so long, should she suddenly give way to it now?

“The fool does not know the prize that awaits him,” Stephen said in a soft voice. “Once he meets you, he will regret every
moment he wasted.”

She sighed and rested her head against his chest again. “My father told me not to believe in fairy tales.”

Stephen brushed a loose strand of hair from her face and kissed her forehead. “There is nothing wrong in hoping for something
rare.”

She felt his breath in her hair as he held her.

Unleashed emotion swirled inside her. She heard the change in his breathing and felt the tension grow between them. She waited,
expectant.

She nuzzled her head against his shoulder, hoping he would kiss her hair again. When he did, she sighed and lifted her face
to him. His eyes locked on hers, but he made no move to kiss her. She slid her hands up his chest and rested them on the back
of his neck.

He shook his head. “This is not wise, Isobel.”

Neither was it fair that she might spend the rest of her days married to a man whose kiss, whose every touch, was hateful
to her. “ ’Tis just a kiss, Stephen.”

“I do not think just a kiss is possible between us.”

Since the day her childhood came to a crashing end, she’d done what she should and what she must. She was sick to death of
it.

She pulled Stephen to her and pressed her mouth to his. The kiss was at once all heat and passion, tongues moving, bodies
rubbing, hands searching. When his hand covered her breast, she let her head fall back and closed her eyes. She felt the softness
of his lips, the heat of his breath on her skin, as he moved down her throat and back up again.

“What makes me want you so badly?” he breathed against her ear. “Is it that I know I cannot have you?”

But he could have her.

She had no will to stop him. Nay, she would not let him stop. When she ran her tongue across his bottom lip and slipped her
hands under his shirt, he understood the invitation. He leaned her back onto the floor. She loved the feel of his hands in
her hair, the urgency of his kisses.

She raked her fingers down his back, reveling in the feel of tight muscles beneath the cloth. When she reached his buttocks,
he groaned and pressed his hips hard against her. He held her face and covered her with kisses: her mouth, her cheeks, her
forehead, her eyelids, her temples.

All she wanted was for him to keep on kissing her, touching her. She deserved this. She needed this. They rolled and kissed
beneath the curtain of her hair. And then rolled again. His tongue was in her ear. The unexpected sensation drove away the
last bit of guilt nagging at the edge of her mind.

Her every muscle tensed as he made his way, sucking and kissing, down the side of her throat and along the edge of her gown.
She arched her back, wanting without knowing what. When his mouth found her breast through the cloth, she had her answer.