My Lady's Guardian (8 page)

His gaze dropped down her body. Margery thought, Please let him not feel my foolish trembling.

"No, not a child," he said, his eyes returning once more to search her face. "I have lived in Europe for the last four years. I met many women, but always, in the back of my mind, I wondered about my childhood friend."

She heard the subtle sarcasm meant only for her ears. He hadn't thought of her at all. "According to you, I was more of a childhood tormentor."

Everyone laughed, and she forced her own smile.

"But that does not mean I didn't admire your spirit."

Gareth finally released her hands and she quickly sat back. She felt the prickle of perspiration on her upper lip, and she desperately wished to wipe it— and any trace of her reacdon to him—away. How humiliating to be so affected by a man who stayed with her only out of duty. She fervently wished that she hadn't thrown away her innocence, that she didn't know where such feelings could lead.

"But why return now?" Cicely asked, setting the lute aside.

Margery could see what they were doing. The twins wanted to know if he returned merely because he'd heard about the king's bequest. She held her breath, as if she, too, needed to hear the answer.

"I grew restless in France. Battles and tournaments held little allure, so it was time to find my place in life, to look for a good English girl to marry."

She felt herself blush again. Lies, all lies. As if he would ever trust anyone.

"Please, ladies, do not think I considered myself worthy of Mistress Margery." Gareth leaned forward in his chair, pitching his voice lower and looking deeply into her eyes. "But I knew I had to see you again."

Margery thought that even Anne sighed.

Though it was all an illusion, part of her clung to his words. She wished that a man would want her just for herself—not her money or status or property.

But then, Peter hadn't wanted any of that, either. He had wanted to conquer her body, to make a fool of her. Even in the spirit of make-believe, she couldn't let another man think he was seducing her so easily.

"Then how did you find me, Sir Gareth?" she asked, rather amazed at her own cool voice.

He raised one eyebrow, then sat back. "I went to London first and asked about you at court."

She thought she detected the first hint of wariness in his voice, and warmed to this game they played with the truth. "And what did they tell you?"

"That you had come here, to one of your new holdings."

"And what else?"

He looked away, and seemed almost to squirm in his chair. Was this another act? Why did she sense a deep mystery about him?

"Mistress Margery, I—"

"The truth, Sir Gareth." She wanted to laugh aloud at that.

"I heard that you are free to choose a husband."

He suddenly dropped forward on his knees, practically in her lap. Cicely and Anne shrieked and started to giggle. He took her hands, pressing his lips against her knuckles.

"Mistress Margery," he whispered, lifting his head to look into her face, so close she could feel the warmth of his body, "I freely admit I rejoiced on hearing that you are looking for a husband. Can you blame me? I am looking for a wife. I knew what kind of girl you were, and I thought I would see what kind of woman you had become." He looked

down her body, then back up. "A magnificent woman."

"And very rich," she said, her cynical smile unforced.

Gareth stiffened, searching her eyes. She pulled her hands from his, then watched as he got to his feet. He towered above her, and the twins no longer giggled as they, too, looked up at him in awe.

"You believe the worst of me?" he asked softly.

"I do not know what to believe."

"Even after everything that happened when we were children?"

"Men change." She knew that from experience. Men lied, too.

He took a step backward, and his chair almost toppled to the floor. "I shall prove to you that my intentions are honorable. What would you have me do, mistress?"

"Sir Gareth, only time will tell if you are honorable."

There was an uncomfortable silence. Gareth stood between the three women, a big man who seemed too uncivilized for lutes and singing and embroidery. When she looked up at him, she saw bonfires in the wilderness, the howl of wild animals kept at bay, the protection and warmth of a man's body through the night.

Anne cleared her throat. "Margery, would you like to play a game with me?"

She shook away such dangerous, forbidden dreams, and quickly agreed. A contest was just the thing to distract her. Anne brought out the Tables board and playing pieces, and began to set them up at the head table.

Gareth remained still, looking down on Margery, who stared at the fire, not at him. He reluctantly admired her quick wit and intelligent responses. To his surprise, he had almost enjoyed saying just enough of the truth to make her uneasy. He couldn't remember the last time he had had such a conversation with a woman.

Or the last time he had become so easily lost in a woman's eyes. When she had stared up at him, he'd felt.. .strange, remote, as if there was more beneath the surface of their shared glance.

He told himself he had simply missed the company of gentlewomen for too long.

Margery stood up without warning. Her shoulder brushed his chest; her skirts surrounded his legs. He caught her elbow, and noticed that the twins' backs were turned.

"I taught you this game," he whispered.

She was silent. He tried not to breathe, so as not to smell the scent of roses that was a part of her.

"Do you remember?"

"Did we play before a hearth?" she asked, and he could hear the hesitation in her voice. She slowly turned to look up at him.

"We lay on our stomachs."

She shook her head. "I did not remember that."

She pulled her arm away and Gareth let her go, watching as she seated herself at the table. After a moment's indecision, he moved to stand behind Lady Anne. The head table was on a raised dais, which put the Tables board at Gareth's chest, and the women's heads equal with his own.

Margery began the game. For a few minutes they played in silence, and Gareth watched her slender fingers roll the dice. He should leave the women alone, but he was amused by Margery's concentration. With lucky rolls of the dice, her skill should let her win.

She seemed to win at anything she attempted, just like her entire family. His humor faded, replaced by anger—anything was better than the memory of the hollow emptiness in his soul when he'd ridden away from her family home so long ago.

Gareth stepped up and slid onto the bench beside Lady Anne. When she was about to make a move, he said, "No, not that piece."

All three women looked at him and he shrugged.

Margery puffed out her lower lip in a pout and glanced up at him with storm-cloud blue eyes. "Why, Sir Gareth, you're not going to help me?"

"You do not need my help."

He could see why she got her way, even with her brothers. He wanted to tell her that her problems couldn't be solved with a flutter of her eyelashes— but he'd settle for watching her soundly defeated at Tables.

He boldly studied her, and not always her face. He told himself he merely wished to fluster her, but more than once his eyes lingered on the shadowy indentation between her breasts, and his thoughts were not only of anger.

He whispered suggestions in Lady Anne's ear, and soon Margery was floundering. They'd attracted a vocal audience of soldiers and knights, who were actively betting.

"Anne, you've blocked me," Margery said pleasantly, but she was almost glaring at Gareth.

There was laughter all around them, Desmond the loudest of all.

"Gareth," he called, "Don't make me lose a day's wage on Mistress Margery."

"You should have bet on Lady Anne." Gareth smiled. "I may not yet have convinced Mistress

Margery of my worthiness as her suitor, but even she cannot doubt my skills."

As everyone laughed, Margery's gaze was locked with his in a contest of wills older than any table game. Couldn't she see that her wiles were no match for his?

Yet she soon beat Anne at Tables, and the knights led her away, showering her with admiring congratuladons. Gareth put the game away, and tried not to let his frustration show.

Later in his bedchamber, Gareth set a candleholder on the table and moved to the windows. The room was dark, shadowy, with only the single candle for light. He'd asked the maids to leave his fireplace cold, since the summer nights were warm enough.

He opened the shutters and pulled back the glass window. He'd been at Hawksbury Casde for only two days, and already he was growing used to the luxury of glass in every window. Life here was making him soft.

Outside, the landscape was illuminated by a half moon, and he could see the faint traces of the descending hdlsides and wooded glens between

squares of farm fields. In the southeast, the Cotswold hills jutted toward the stars.

Margery lingered on his mind. He wasn't quite sure why he felt the need to defeat her, and why he was so disappointed that it hadn't happened. She was just a woman he was being paid to help; just an ancient oath he had sworn to a dead man.

He heard a sudden muffled clatter in the hall and he froze, listening. It wasn't repeated.

He crossed his room and opened the door to find the corridor dark, silent, empty. He walked toward Margery's bedchamber, three rooms down from his, put his ear against the door, and listened. He heard the faintest movement inside.

Could someone be with her?

Just before he touched the door latch, he heard the sound of booted feet echoing through the hall. He swore softly. It must be the patrol he'd had Desmond assign.

As two men rounded the corner, Gareth nodded to them and stepped into the garderobe. Perhaps they'd think he just didn't like to use a chamberpot.

The moment they passed, he burst into Margery's room.

Chapter 7

Margery felt sluggish, weary, as she changed into her nightclothes. She lit candles on the bed tables and mantel, hoping the cheery light would help. The fire crackled its warmth as she sank down amid the cushions scattered on the carpet.

Her head ached in dull waves. Tomorrow all her noble young visitors would arrive. Only six months ago, before her infatuation with Peter, she would have been thrilled to be the object of so much attention, to have her choice of husband. Now all she felt was discouraged. She would have to be polite yet keep her distance, wondering which of the men would be desperate enough to try to force her hand in marriage. She felt as if she had long since lost any control over her own fate. She had to come up with a solution.

The door was suddenly flung open, and Margery came up on her knees in shock to see Gareth Beaumont wielding a dagger, an angry scowl distorting his face. He slammed the door shut and gazed about the chamber. With a gasp, she scrambled to her feet, pulling her dressing gown tighter.

"Gareth, what—"

"I heard something in the hall," he said, moving farther into the room. "Did someone come in here?"

"No."

He checked behind the draperies and under the bed. He obviously didn't think her word was enough. When he approached her near the fireplace, she folded her arms below her chest and glared at him.

"Did you think I was hiding someone?" she demanded.

He slid the dagger back into his belt. "I could not be certain you were answering of your own free will."

She relented with a sigh, but continued to eye him warily. "I suppose I can understand that. Thank you for your diligence."

She waited for him to leave, but instead he studied the room, especially the cushions heaped before the fire.

"Your bedchamber is.. .frilly," he finally said.

She didn't take it as a compliment. "And you've never been in a woman's chamber before?"

He arched a brow. "I didn't say that."

"Oh, of course not." She raised both hands. "How dare I encroach upon your manliness?"

Gareth scowled. "By the saints, what are you talking about?"

"Nothing understandable, obviously." She slumped into a chair before the fire. "Never mind. A good evening to you."

He didn't leave. They were alone in her bedchamber, in the silence of the night. She should force him out the door—but she didn't. She had behaved like this before, and it had brought her nothing but trouble, yet once again she couldn't stop herself. She sat with her eyes half-closed and let herself feel the dangerous thrill of not knowing what he would do next.

He sat down in the chair beside her, and Margery held her breath. She noticed the width of his legs, the muscles that sloped and curved. As he stared into the fire, she studied his lips and the curve of his cheek. His blond hair fell forward, and she felt the urge to tuck it back.

Gareth felt like a fool. There had been no intruder, no reason for him to burst in on Margery.

There was nothing he wanted to say to her. So why had he sat down?

It could only be his physical attraction to her— and that angered him all the more. Yes, she was beautiful, with long dark hair that tumbled about her shoulders. She looked smaller, frailer in her thin nightclothes.

But all this blossoming femininity hid a spoiled, selfish heart. She and her family expected the world to bow to their demands. They used people for their own ends, just like Margery now used her beauty to keep his attention. She must know what she looked like sitting there in the firelit shadows, soft and sleepy.

He heard her sigh. She pulled her legs up beneath her and propped her chin on her hand. It had been a long time since he'd been alone with a woman. And she wore so little. The bed suddenly seemed large and conspicuous, and it was a struggle not to glance at it.

This line of thought had to stop. He tried to remember his first night away from Wellespring Castle, the cold rain that had soaked his garments and ruined his food, how desolate he'd felt. But it was all so long ago. He was a man now, and thoughts of Margery called to him.

"So..." she said in too bright a voice. "When you're not working, what do you do with yourself?"