Lord of a Thousand Nights (18 page)

“He probably calculated that he would get more if he did not grasp. He did not have to go to France and join a free company in the first place. Morvan didn't, and he possessed no more than Ian as a young knight.”

“Morvan at least had the dream of reclaiming these lands, and the friendship of a king,” Christiana pointed out. “And then he had you and your estates. What was Ian to do when he left court?”

“He could have returned to his family. He did not have to become a criminal.”

“He could not return, although I know not why. And many respected knights join and lead those companies. I have seen a city plundered by knights led by a king. The victims of war do not debate the relative honor of being sacked by a royal army or besieged by a free company.”

Reyna was fascinated by this argument between two women who knew Ian better than herself. She wondered why Ian could not return to his family.

“Speak of the devil,” Anna said, staring at the garden portal where Ian had just entered. “What do you want?” she demanded.

Ian approached with a flinty spark in his dark eyes. “I would speak with Lady Reyna. It is in her interest to hear what I say. I ask that you and Christiana leave us.”

“I do not think—”

“I will speak with Sir Ian,” Reyna interrupted.

Christiana began pulling a reluctant Anna down the path.

“He has a weakness below the right ribs if you need to hit him,” Anna called before she was dragged out of the garden.

Ian faced Reyna in the sudden silence of the garden. She could tell that he was angry. She couldn't really blame him.

“What did she mean by that?” Reyna asked.

Ian began walking her back toward the shaded apple orchard. “It is an old story.”

Reyna looked up at his profile. His expression was enigmatic, but for some reason she had no trouble reading it.

“You
didn't
. Morvan's wife? Really, Ian, this is too much. Does he know?”

“He knows. That was the whole idea. He had been gone from England for several years, and brought Anna to court to meet with the king regarding her family's estates. He was only a knight in her service, but I could tell how he felt about her. I sought to make him jealous, so I wooed her.”

“Wooed hardly describes it, if she knows you have a weakness beneath your right ribs.”

“There was a woman at court who had been Morvan's lover before he left England. She was the one I was really interested in, but with his return it looked as if she would take up with him again. So I pursued the lady
he
really wanted instead.”

“Did it work?”

“Aye. He found us just after she had used her fist to fight me off. He almost killed me. But I chased the woman he wanted, and the one I wanted had become distracted by him, so I pointed out the obvious solution.”

“Which was?”

He shrugged. “We traded.”

Reyna pictured him and Morvan, years younger, Ian probably a new knight. Two men sure of their success if they exerted their considerable skills with women, dividing up how they would exert those charms.

Ian leaned against a tree trunk and folded his arms over his chest. He regarded her in a frank way that uncomfortably reminded her of that day by the river.

“You have no real choice,” he said.

“I most certainly do.”

“I will kill him tomorrow. Do not doubt that victory will be mine. Would you send him to his death over this misunderstanding? And later, when Duncan moves against Morvan, how many will suffer? This keep will be in the thick of it. Fitzwaryn people and Armstrong people, but your people nonetheless. How will the farmers fare when this region erupts with war amongst three families?”

“You are despicable. How dare you play on my sense of duty for your own ends.”

“Morvan has not bribed me with these lands, Reyna. They are mine with or without you. But if our marriage will avoid the bloodshed I describe, we will wed.”

“Very neat for everyone but me, you rogue. Do not presume to tell me how it will be, as if your will is law with me.”

He grabbed her arm and swung her around, up against the tree where he had been standing. He rested his hand above her head on the trunk and arched his body over hers. “It will be the law with you soon, and you will accept it. You are no more the perfect wife than I am the ideal husband, but still it will be so. What waits for you if you return home? The blows and neglect you may survive, Reyna, but what of the rest?”

She looked up into his face. His expression was thoughtful and determined and hard. Not a stupid man. How much had he guessed?

“What of it?” she asked.

“Your fear of darkness, Reyna. It surpasses the normal.
What did they do, lock you away at times when you were a child? In a dungeon? As a punishment?”

“A crypt. It was a crypt, below the chapel.” Even as she said it, she could smell that small, black space's dampness, hear the eternal silence, feel the hands of the dead reaching for her.

“Do you think your fear of it has been forgotten by Duncan? By Aymer?”

“I was a child then, and it is a child's fear. I am older now.”

“It may be a child's fear, but it still lives in you. Aye, you will be strong with them, until the first time they put you there again. And then you will break, as you almost did the other night at the old keep.”

She glanced away from his relentless gaze. “You are cruel. I hate you.”

He cupped her chin. “Nay, you do not hate me. You are afraid of yourself with me, but that is another thing entirely from hate.”

The memory of the passion they had shared flickered in his eyes. Her breath caught as she became horribly aware of the warmth of his hand on her face and the closeness of his body. Suddenly she felt cornered, and weak against the power of that attraction that he could summon in her at his will. The danger in him, and the way he could so easily burn away her knowledge of duty, of responsibility, of what was good and necessary, frightened her.

“I will take my chances with Duncan and Aymer,” she managed to say. “Even broken, I will at least be alive, and I may in time be able to leave them.”

He smiled. Her heart heaved. Dear lord, what a smile. It sent an unwelcome thrill to the core of her body. “Nay. You will stay and we will wed. Morvan has guaranteed
your life no matter what the judgment in your husband's death. A convent instead, he says, but it will not come to that. As your husband, I will demand trial by combat. I will not lose.”

A pitiful hope jumped in her heart. “You would fight for me? Have you changed your mind again and now think me innocent?”

“God does not truly involve himself in such trials, Reyna. I will not lose because I am skilled.”

His lack of belief in her innocence angered her, especially since he had once pretended to be her ally. But he had sought to seduce her then.

“What kind of man are you, Ian of Guilford, that you would agree to marry a murderess? And one childless after twelve years of marriage at that.”

“I am a practical man who offers you a bargain you can not resist. You do not want this marriage? Fine. In three or four years, it will be annulled. Because these lands will be English again, it will be the bishop in Carlisle whom we petition, and he does not want strife in this region either. He will accept your childless state all these years as reason, or help us find another excuse. Morvan will give you some lands, with a decent income, and there will be a house in London for you. Christiana will introduce you to the court. You can discuss philosophy to your heart's content with the learned men who follow in the King's wake. Better than Edinburgh, and more secure for you.”

He was indeed offering her a bargain it would be hard to resist. To live in that great city, independent, free to study or do whatever she wanted— the prospect instantly excited her. Vistas and possibilities jumbled in her mind. She had never been away from this region in her entire life. And his offer to fight as her champion
in a trial held far more security than counting on Duncan's protection.

There were promises that might be compromised if she agreed, but if he said the marriage would be annulled, that meant there would never really be a marriage at all.

“You promise it will be so?” she asked warily.

“Aye. In a few years you will be free of this English whoreson, and I will be able to marry an obedient, biddable woman who can give me sons. Not a real marriage, but a temporary convenience.”

“A marriage of convenience,” she mused. “That should not be too hard. I have had one of those before.”

“You agree, then?”

“I agree.”

Triumph briefly lit his hard expression. Her heart began beating harder, because she suspected that he was going to kiss her.

Instead, with a restraint appropriate under the circumstances, he pushed away from the tree and held out his hand. “Then let us go and tell the others. Your father and brother must believe you accept this of your own will. It may anger them, since for some reason they want you back. I will stay with you, however, or the ladies will. You are not to be alone with them again.”

Reyna hesitated, and then accepted his hand. If they were to wed on the morrow, the gesture was the closest they would get to a betrothal.

Chapter TWELVE

T
he wedding dinner was festive and lively. Alice outdid herself with the abundant and varied food, and Andrew produced some special Gascon wine. The hall rang with the sounds of merry company. Reyna tried not to feel guilty about all of this fuss and expense over a marriage that was not a marriage and that would last only a few years.

Ian's presence by her side only made it worse. On occasion she would find him regarding her with a hooded expression, as if he were weighing her blame in the events that put him in this situation.

He appeared more handsome than ever this day. She had seen him in the rough garments of camp life and in the armor of a warrior, but never like this. He wore a soft gray pourpoint with black embroidery and darker gray hose. The belted garment fitted his tall body beautifully and fell to mid-thigh above high black boots. Ian the courtier, she thought, glimpsing for a moment his life before France. Lean and strong and beautiful. Small wonder
that he had cut a wide swath through the ladies of Windsor and Westminster.

As the afternoon leached into evening, and the wine and ale flowed, the reason for the festivity began making couples amorous. Christiana perched affectionately on David's lap, wrapped in his arms. Morvan fed Anna a savory as though they were holding a silent, erotic conversation. The obvious love that her new friends shared with their husbands gnawed at Reyna. It caused an aching awareness of what had been lost to her own life.

She looked down her body at the rose surcoat and gown she wore. She could smell the flowers bedecking her head. She remembered another day long ago, and another wedding. The gown had not been so grand nor the dinner so lively. The men crowding that keep had been more interested in the truce being negotiated than in the child being traded. She had anticipated the wedding with soul-wrenching fear, but on that day she had waited for it impatiently, because she had met her fatherly husband and had seen the kindness and salvation he offered.

Memories and regrets overwhelmed her with a renewal of grief for Robert more intense than she had felt for a month.

A hand touched her shoulder, and Christiana spoke low in her ear. “One never knows how these things will work out. There are no footprints yet on the snow covering the field that you will cross.”

Reyna smiled at her new friend's optimism. But of course there
were
footprints, many of them, put there by people living and dead, and the freshest ones had been made by Ian and herself in the garden yesterday.

She decided it was a good time to visit with Alice and the servants outside. She extricated herself from the
unsettling company of the man she had ostensibly wed, and spent the next few hours among her old friends.

The sun was setting when a commotion stirred at the gate. Gregory hustled up into the hall and returned with Ian. They disappeared through the gate. Awhile later they returned, and the word spread that a messenger had come from Thomas Armstrong requesting the return of the ladies of Black Lyne Keep. Reyna heard Ian instruct Gregory to have one hundred men ready to ride to the border in the early morning. When he had finished he walked over to her.

“Christiana was looking for you. It is time to retire, madam.”

Reyna looked to the growing twilight. Aye, time to play out the next part of the farce. “Tell Christiana that Alice will assist me.”

He gave her a peculiar look before walking away. Alice had overheard and came huffing to her side. “Can you make all the steps, Alice?” she asked.

“Of course. You think I would let anyone else do this?”

Reyna helped Alice up the stairs. On the fifth level, Alice made to enter the solar, but Reyna guided her away.

Alice followed her into her own chamber. “Ah. You not be wanting to share the same bed that you used with Sir Robert.”

Reyna didn't answer. Alice reached for the shoulders of her surcoat and lowered them. “You are not feeling guilty or anything, are you? Some widows do when they wed again, if they had affection for their first husbands, but Robert wouldn't want you living alone.”