The Protector (21 page)

His final approach was masterful. He didn't speak to Anna at all, but struck up a conversation with Christiana instead. Morvan watched his sister, who could be unbearably stupid about men sometimes, laugh and make room on the bench beside her. And then, ever so casually, with a word here and a comment there, Ian turned his attention to his real interest and began drawing her out.

He was good at this. Too good.

The crowd flowed to the tables, and with Elizabeth by his side Morvan knew that he would have to sit with her. Several tables away, Ian guided Christiana and Anna to places and sat between them.

Even as he joined the merry group at his own table, Morvan felt a surprisingly sharp anger burning. A single thought repeated like a chant in his mind.
If not me, then no one.
Although he kept forcing himself to look away, his glance always returned to the table where Ian pursued his slow seduction.

That smile came more frequently, and Anna blushed each time. On occasion Ian leaned toward her and spoke
lowly in her ear, as if the noise in the hall required it. Soon he had her laughing and coming out of her protective reserve. Finally he lifted a morsel of food to her mouth. She took it self-consciously, but the long fingers strayed in a soft caress on her lips.

Short of dragging her away and creating a spectacle, there was nothing to do, and the blade of jealousy burned hotter in Morvan's head. The feast's wine only fed his quiet fury.

Toward the end of the meal a page came to him and said that the princess wished to speak, and he joined Isabella at the high table. As a member of the household, he had known her since she was a child. He had always found her frivolous and something of a tease, and as he gave her the full attention she was due he decided that the last few years had not improved her on those counts. Except that the way she touched his hand suggested that she had moved beyond teasing. He ignored the subtle signals. He had never had any interest in this girl in that way.

His respectful demeanor began to bore Isabella, and her attention shifted. He quickly turned his head to check on Anna.

Her place and the one beside it were vacant.

Anna knew better than to be flattered, but she felt flattered anyway.

She knew the source of Ian's interest in her. The word had spread that she was an heiress headed for the convent, but an heiress nonetheless.

She had discouraged the young men who approached her, but Ian seemed to know Christiana. Then at dinner Christiana got distracted and it was just the two of them
talking. When he complimented her hair, she suddenly realized that she was being wooed for the first time in her life.

He was very handsome, and that flattered her even more. His smile was charming. She felt sure that he knew that, and that he was using it, along with his pretty words, very deliberately in this gentle game he played with her. But the game, she admitted with some surprise, possessed a seductive allure. Even though one knew all was vanity and falsehood, it still felt very nice to be called beautiful by a handsome man.

And Ian did call her beautiful—three times during the meal. A month ago she would have been disgusted at such blatant lies, but she felt clumsy and out of place this evening and she wanted, needed, to hear someone tell such lies.

She could see Morvan from her table. And the woman beside him. Ian noticed her repeatedly glance in their direction.

“She is very beautiful, isn't she?” he said.

“Aye, beautiful.” And elegant. And
small.
She looked like everything a lady was supposed to be, and she had stayed beside Morvan the entire evening, with that possessive hand on his arm.

“She is my distant relative through marriage. Her husband passed away not too long ago, but Elizabeth does not mourn her old husbands much. Their deaths leave her free, and by now very wealthy. He was her third, and as with all of them, the marriage contract chartered lands in her name.”

Beautiful, small, and wealthy. “Sir Morvan seems to be a devoted friend.”

“More than that. It is no secret, and you are bound to hear of it here at court, for with his return it is being discussed
frequently. Some years ago, between her first and second old husbands, Morvan was her lover. A great passion, to hear of it. It is assumed they did not marry only because she is barren.”

A great passion. A great love. And now he was back, and she was wealthy and free.

Something heavy and sick lodged beneath her heart. At the same time, she knew tremendous relief that she had been saved at Reading. If she had really given herself, only to be abandoned for Elizabeth when they came to Windsor, it would have been humiliating. Yet, even though it hadn't happened that way, she still tasted the devastation as if it had.

To distract herself from Morvan and Elizabeth, she let herself be drawn into Ian's game a bit more intimately. He finally suggested that they take some air in a nearby castle garden.

He slid her away from the table so deftly that even Christiana didn't notice their departure. In the ante-room Ian quickly located his cloak. After he settled it on her shoulders, his arm went around her as he guided her to a door.

The small garden had been laid out for a long stroll between hedges and growings. Stone benches were decked out for the party with cushions, and arbored shelters offered more private seating. Anna could hear soft voices that let her know they were not entirely alone.

Ian kept up a smooth conversation, asking her questions about Brittany. Partway along the garden path he drew her back the way they had come. “I will show you something interesting over here. A hearth wall flanks the garden at this end, and it is quite warm. There is a rosebush there that never dies. Sometimes it even blooms in winter.”

She knew that he was luring her toward a secluded spot for reasons besides horticulture. But his flattery had made her feel confident and even a bit bold. When he tugged her to one of the padded benches hidden in an arbor, she let herself follow him.

She expected a brief kiss and some pretty words, so his aggressive assault stunned her. He pulled her down and immobilized her shoulders with his arm. His hand held her head as he lowered his lips to hers.

The kiss was pleasant enough, but she felt oddly removed from it, like an observer watching someone else do this. She was so uninvolved that it wasn't until he stroked her breast that she realized his hand was on her body. His caress evoked surprise, but little else. She waited a moment, contemplating that. Nothing. She might have just brushed against a tree for all she experienced.

She pushed his hand off and whispered a protest. He laughed and pulled her back, holding her tightly as his mouth took hers more demandingly and his hand returned to its explorations.

She could scream, but she didn't want to create a spectacle that would embarrass Christiana. She twisted and pushed. Whenever she could get her mouth free she would protest clearly, but he'd silence her with another kiss. He was acting as if her resistance were merely a courting game.

He leaned his weight into her and laid her back on the cushions, pinning her down with his body. Fingers slid up her leg, lifting her skirt. It appeared that Ian had decided to take the quickest path to La Roche de Roald's wealth.

She sighed with exasperation. She had really tried to be
ladylike here in Windsor. She had worn gowns and acted demure. Her weapons were tucked away, and she even rode her horse with restraint. But right now she had a choice. She could either scream for help, or she could act very unladylike indeed. Whatever had repulsed Morvan probably wouldn't save her in the black night of this arbor, especially with a rich estate as the ultimate prize. In the dark, women were probably all the same to a man with an ulterior goal.

Freeing her right arm so it dangled beside the bench, she forced her mouth from his and made a display of gasping. “Could you move just a little? I can't breathe.”

He shifted, just enough. She twice swung her fist with all of her strength, hitting him below the ribs. He jerked to a sitting position, his arm over his stomach.

She jumped up from the bench and ran.

She managed about ten steps before she smacked into a chest that she knew too well.

“Where is he?” Morvan snarled, giving her shoulders a shake.

“He is gone.” She could sense Morvan peering into the darkness, but the arbor was pitch black, and if Ian would just sit still …

He didn't. He emerged toward them.

All of that trouble to avoid a spectacle, and now this.

“Sir Morvan,” Ian said coolly. “Have you decided to take some air too?”

“I warned you.”

“She is not harmed.”

Morvan grabbed her hand and began dragging her away. “I'll see you later, boy.” He pulled the cloak from her shoulders and threw it on the ground.

He hauled her out of the garden like some chastised
child. With each stumbling step, her resentment grew. In the anteroom to the hall, she dug in her heels. “I'll not return like this.”

“Nay. You are going home. You are too ignorant for this place. A lamb amidst a pack of wolves would be safer.” Still holding her hand, he threw cloaks around. By the time he found hers he had created a tremendous mess. He draped it around her shoulders, then gestured to a page and sent a message of explanation to Christiana. Silently, and with long purposeful strides that had her scampering to keep up, he pulled her toward the castle gate.

She was seething by the time they turned onto the street where Christiana lived. Her hand hurt badly, and the skirt of her gown had been ruined.

She expected him to throw her into the house and then return to Elizabeth, but he followed her and kicked the door closed behind him.

“What happened back there?” His voice was quiet. Too quiet.

He wanted to know how badly to hurt Ian. There was a limit to the damage she would let Morvan do in the name of protecting her. This wasn't Gurwant, after all.

She swept past him toward the stairs. “It is none of your concern.”

A hand grabbed her shoulder. She flew backwards, landing against the wall, pinned there by his forearm. With his other hand resting on the wall near her head, he leaned over her.

“What happened back there?”

“
Nothing
.”

“Nothing? He was after you all evening. He took you into that garden, to that arbor, and didn't even try to kiss
you? It is the only reason that damn garden was even built.”

She struggled against his hold, but in vain. “Aye, he kissed me. Is your curiosity satisfied now?”

Something dark flashed in his eyes. She smelt the wine on his breath. Too much of that, she knew, could turn men either stupid or mean. Just her luck that with him it was the latter.

His head came down to hers, and his mouth found her ear. “Did you like it? Did you lose yourself in it like you do with me?”

Icy fury spilled through her. This had nothing to do with her at all. It wasn't some threat to her safety or even her virtue that made him like this, but only his stupid male pride. He didn't want her in this way, but God forbid someone else bested him at it anyway.

She gritted her teeth against the maddening emotions that pounded through her. “Well, Morvan, it wasn't waves crashing against the rocks, but the tide came in all the same.”

His head jerked back. The dim light picked up a dangerous sparkle in his eyes. Despite her smug satisfaction at his reaction, she knew that she had made a mistake.

He brought his hand over and held her chin. She knew what he was going to do. Furiously, she struggled against him. This was ludicrous, pointless. It had nothing to do with desire or lust and everything to do with power and pride. She didn't intend to be some chess pawn in a game of male competition.

He ignored her protests and lowered his mouth to hers, then pressed a kiss on her that deepened quickly.

She expected to feel nothing, as with Ian. But she found to her horror that despite everything, despite even
the appalling way he was using her, Morvan was not Ian. Her body began betraying her. She beat back her response, pushed it away, just as she continued to try and push away his body. But he only kissed her harder, hungrier, and then turned his mouth to her neck. He moved his restraining arm down and slid it over so that his hand closed on one breast.

It was cruel mockery, and she would not let him do it. She grabbed his hair and yanked. “Nay, you
will not
. I have been manhandled enough for one night.”

He froze. She had never seen anyone so furious in her life.

“You let him touch you.”

“Aye, damn you, but then I fought him as I'm fighting you.”

She swung her fist, but he was too quick. He caught it and slammed it up onto the wall. Livid beyond reason, she pounded his shoulder with her other clenched hand. That ended up high above the other side of her head. He took both her hands in one of his and repinned them to the wall above her. Then he kissed her again.

She fought it. She gritted her teeth against the sensations. Furious with her weakness, she tightened her body against showing any reaction. But when he forced his knee high between her legs, her whole body flexed.

“Are you contented now?” She glared at him through tears of rage. “Your reputation as the greatest lover in England is safe. Even unnatural women respond to you. Are you satisfied? Will you leave now?”

“Nay. I am not and I will not.” He lifted her away from the wall and moved to close his arms around her.

It was her chance, and she took it. She kicked and pummeled and broke free. “Go to hell, Morvan!” She flew toward the stairs, barely escaping the hand reaching to grab her.

Near the top landing she ran straight into David, heading down. His clothes looked as if he had thrown them on, and he was blinking sleep from his eyes.

He looked at her, then to where Morvan followed just steps behind.

“
Damn
.” He pushed her behind him and up the stairs. “Go to your chamber and bar the door.”

“Get out of the way, David,” Morvan said.

“Nay. You will not do this in this house. You are drunk.”