The Running Vixen (14 page)

Heulwen sat up in bed and, folding her arms around her raised knees, contemplated the hanging on the wall opposite without really seeing the hunting scene it so vibrantly portrayed. It had been stitched by the same group of women who had worked on Bishop Odo’s tapestry and was worth a small fortune, or so Warrin said with his habit of setting a price on everything.

The shutters were closed against the bitter wind but she could hear it howling angrily against the cracks and hurling needles of sleet upon the shingles. Below in the main room, only the servants were present. Her father had business elsewhere, her stepmother had gone to visit the Countess of Gloucester, with whom she had a friendship of several years’ standing, and Renard and Henry were off at the horse fair.

At last she put aside the covers and sat on the edge of her bed. A stoked brazier threw out heat. Judith said that a chill was best sweated out, but only Heulwen knew she was not suffering from a chill unless it be of the soul. Tonight she was to be presented at court and tomorrow morning Warrin would formally ask Henry for his approval of their marriage - strange how a haven could become a trap in so short a space of time. Her thoughts were as stifling as the pressure of Warrin’s mouth on hers and the feel of his heavy hands on her body. The change was not in him, but in her, and was a gradual feeling, brought to its crisis by Lord Robert’s news today.

Swallowing the knot of self-pity in her throat, she picked up her undergown and tunic from the end of the bed. Behind her the door opened and then gently closed. The latch rattled home. She tucked a loose swathe of hair behind her ear and turned, thinking to find her maid. ‘Elswith, I want you to bring me - Holy Mother, what are you doing here!’ She dropped the garments. ‘Where’s Elswith?’

‘Below stairs . . .’ Adam’s voice emerged as a croak, for the short chemise she was wearing left little to the imagination, and those the most tantalising parts. ‘I told her I needed a very important private word - I didn’t realise that - Elswith said you were resting, I didn’t think that . . .’ He shut his mouth.

‘You never do!’ She snatched up her cloak and wrapped it around herself. ‘What kind of manners do you have that you could not wait below?’

‘It is not a matter of manners, Heulwen,’ he said wearily.

‘Then what is it?’

‘A matter of murder - Ralf ’s.’ He put down a leather money pouch on the coffer near the bed. ‘Payment for your bay stallion.’

‘What did you say?’ She stared at him, her eyes widening with shock.

‘Heulwen, sit down.’ He gestured to the bed, and removing his cloak, draped it across the coffer.

She remained standing. ‘The Welsh killed Ralf,’ she whispered. ‘Do you tell me otherwise?’

‘Yes, the Welsh killed him, so much is true, but Warrin de Mortimer paid them to do it.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ she said flatly.

‘I did not think that you would.’

‘Adam, if this is a ruse to blacken Warrin’s name to me it won’t - Oh!’ She cried out as he strode round the edge of the bed, grabbed her arm, and pushed her down.

‘Sit there!’ he snarled, his breath ragged and hard. ‘Stop running away and listen for once!’

She gasped at the force he had used, as if a tame dog had suddenly turned vicious, and gazed up at him, shocked by his harsh expression. With neither softening nor compassion, he told her everything his Welsh hostage had revealed, finishing bitterly, ‘Your grandfather was there, ask him if my word is not good enough.’

‘I - no Adam, you must both be mistaken . . .’ Her eyes were desolate, like a woman he had once seen when her house had burned down and she had lost everything. ‘Why would Warrin do such a thing? Is he involved in this betrayal too? I do not believe it!’

‘Then you are deluding yourself.’

‘You’ve always been quick to see wrong in Warrin!’ she lashed out, clutching at straws. ‘Perhaps he had discovered that Ralf was betraying the King’s trust. That would as easily explain things as your version.’

‘Warrin would not give a bucket of horse shit for the direction of Ralf ’s allegiance, not unless it jeopardised his own standing!’

‘Don’t shout at me,’ she said miserably, and wiped the back of her hand across her face, smearing tear streaks.

Guilt flooded through Adam at the sight of her vulnerability, and he sat down beside her on the coverlet. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said in a more controlled voice. ‘It’s just that I seem to be butting my head against a stone wall, and it’s only natural to howl at the pain.’

Heulwen surveyed the ruins of her world: Warrin was Ralf ’s murderer by proxy, and the reasons for his courtship were thus cast in a sinister light. Ralf himself was dead, and not in clean battle, but brought down in a murk of lies and intrigue. There would be no betrothal, no marriage, nothing; the trap was sprung and she was free, but at what cost? She wiped her eyes again and looked at Adam through her wet lashes. He was gazing down at his hands, his mouth set in a bleak line. Impulsively she leaned over and kissed his cheek. ‘No, Adam, the apology should be mine.’

Adam groaned and turned his head. Their lips met, and he lifted his hands to pull her against him. He knew he ought to tell her the rest of the tale, what he had requested of Henry and what Henry had demanded of him in return, but he was afraid of breaking this moment and being brusquely rebuffed. The kiss momentarily broke as they surfaced for air. Gasping, Heulwen stared at him, but if her breathing was swift, it owed less to panic than it did to desire. She had been fighting the attraction ever since his return in the early autumn, but there was no longer any need to continue the battle. Adam was to take a rich wife of Henry’s choosing, and honour no longer bound her body to Warrin - least of all to Warrin. She joined her mouth to his again, leaning into his taut, quivering body, pushing him, so that they fell backwards together across the bed.

It was wild and desperate, frantic on both sides, so hot that it immolated all reason, leaving only the touch of skin on skin and the exquisite sensations of desire aroused to an unbearable level and then released, flinging them both into oblivion.

Adam slowly revived to the sound of his own breathing. He tasted the salt of perspiration and felt beneath his lips the thundering pulse in Heulwen’s throat. Her ribcage rose and fell rapidly against his own. He lifted himself a little to look tentatively into her face. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted. She licked them as if still seeking the taste of him in a gesture so sensual that, although he had peaked, he pushed forward again into her body. She gave a small moan of pleasure and rubbed a bent thigh along his hip-bone. He touched a coil of her hair, felt it slide like silk between his fingers, and was filled with an overwhelming mixture of tenderness and guilt. ‘Heulwen,’ he murmured tentatively. ‘Heulwen, look at me.’

Her eyes opened. They were misty, still glazed with satisfaction.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to go this far . . .’

She covered his lips with the palm of her hand. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she whispered. ‘It was bound to happen, and I knew what I was doing.’

‘Then you are not angry this time?’ he asked, thinking back to the last occasion when he had kissed her and she had run from him.

Heulwen took her hand away and replaced it with her mouth in a slow, undulating kiss. ‘Only at myself for driving you too fast. It was over too soon to be fully savoured.’

Adam stared down at her, becomingly flushed and tousled beneath him, and was startled by the sensual, frank regret he saw there.

‘Does my boldness disturb you?’ She tilted him a half-teasing, half-serious look.

‘Disturb me?’ He considered the thought for a moment, and then grinned. ‘Well yes, it disturbs me a great deal, but in the sort of way I don’t mind. You have my approval to be bold as often as you like!’ His own look was half-teasing, half-serious as he lifted himself off her. Instead of reaching for his clothes, however, he lay down at her side and wound the strand of hair he held around his fingers. The bed was warm from the heat of their bodies and the piled skins and feather mattress made it as soft and comfortable as a glimpse of heaven. The room was silent except for the sound of their breathing, the tick of the charcoal settling in the brazier, and the occasional sputter of the rush dips. Outside the world howled, tearing cold fingers at the shutters, striving to prise apart their encapsulated haven.

Adam turned his back on it to fill his eyes with Heulwen’s tumbled beauty and his hand moved to stroke the swell of her breast. ‘Heulwen, would you marry me if I asked?’ His voice was mild and quiet, designed not to frighten her.

‘I thought that Henry was going to offer you the pick of several wealthy heiresses? Robert of Gloucester told me so this morning.’ Her eyes were clearer now, focusing on him as the pleasure faded to a background sensation.

‘He did, and I refused them. I asked for you instead and he consented.’

‘What do you mean?’ The strand of hair was jerked from his fingers as she raised herself on one elbow to stare at him.

‘What I said. I want you to wife. Listen Heulwen . . .’ He reached out to her as she sat up, her eyes furious.

‘Did it not occur to you to ask me first!’ she cried. The rough wool of his crumpled tunic prickled her thighs. She dragged it out from beneath her and pushed it at him.

‘I am asking you now. You cannot deny that you want me as much as I want you.’

‘That was lust, pure and simple,’ she bit out. ‘A mare will stand for any stallion if the time is right.’

Adam flung the tunic back down on the bed and grabbed her by the shoulders. She twisted in his grip. ‘Let me go,’ she spat, ‘or I’ll scream!’

‘Scream, then - have the maids discover us like this. Peal the bells, let all of Windsor know!’ But he released her and, breathing hard, sat back.

‘Adam, I won’t marry you,’ she said on a quieter but still determined note.

‘Why? And do not say it is because I’m your brother. I swallowed that one like a stewpond carp, but I’ve learned since then.’

She hid her face in her hands for a moment, then opened her palms and scooped back her tumbled hair, regarding him squarely. ‘Because,’ she said, ‘I will not be bound by holy vows to that kind of hell ever again.’

‘But you were willing to wed a turd like Warrin de Mortimer,’ he objected. ‘Perhaps I am being stupid, but I fail to see what recommends him above me?’

‘Our arrangement was one of convenience,’ Heulwen said in a shaken voice. ‘You would want more of me than I can give. Yes, my body answers yours, but such a need is fleeting. Ralf taught me that lesson too well for me ever to forget it.’

‘I am not Ralf,’ he said and leaned towards her, ‘and it is far more than a fleeting lust. That, I could have slaked anywhere.’

‘So you say now,’ she retorted bitterly and picked up her shift. ‘But what will you say in ten years’ time?’

‘If the past ten years have not altered my heart, ten years forward will not change it either.’ He touched her shoulder, slid his hand down her arm until he reached her wrist and tugged her gently against him. ‘Heulwen, I love you,’ he whispered against the hammer-beat of the pulse in her throat. ‘Marry me?’

He felt her melt under the gentle persuasion of his fingertips and stretched out his free hand to remove the shift that she held as a barrier between them. ‘Marry me,’ he said again, and sought her mouth with small, nibbling kisses.

Heulwen gasped, torn between the demands of her senses and sense itself. ‘Adam, please I . . . give me time to . . .’

Outside a maid cried a warning, the sound rising to a scream and then cut off short. Heulwen and Adam sprang apart and Adam shot to his feet. Heavy footsteps pounded up the wooden outer stairs, coming at a run, and the door crashed open upon its hinges. Wind-spun snow swirled round the threshold, and over it strode Warrin de Mortimer, his face a blizzard of furious emotions as he surveyed the scene within.

‘You misbegotten, hell-spawned son of a murdering pervert!’ he roared, and reached to his scabbard.

‘Warrin, put up that sword!’ Heulwen cried in alarm. He was blocking the doorway, their only means of escape, and he was a murderer with murder in his eyes. Pale as ice they flickered briefly to Heulwen where she sat, naked and shivering, clothed only in her hair and the shield of her crossed arms. ‘Hold your tongue, whore!’ he spat. ‘Am I supposed to believe that this is one of your foster brother’s “occasional presences” that I must by necessity tolerate?’

Adam had been sidling nearer to the bed. ‘I have the right,’ he said. ‘Heulwen has been vouchsafed to me this afternoon by the King himself.’ He arched a sardonic brow. ‘I am assuming you didn’t know?’

Warrin roared like an enraged bull and sprang. Adam flung himself sideways and the sword slashed across the pillow which Adam had managed to grab to protect himself. As the feathers snowed down, hampering Warrin’s vision, Adam dived across the room and grabbed Guyon’s shield from where it was leaning against the wall. He jammed his left arm into the leather hand-holds and tried to reach the scabbarded sword standing further along the wall.

Warrin got there first, and it was only the speed of Adam’s reflexes that saved him from being hacked open like a pig on a slaughterman’s trestle. A splinter of wood flew up from the surface of the shield and rebounded to stick like a quill in de Mortimer’s cheek. He plucked it loose and dark blood dripped down his face.

‘Do you enjoy murder?’ Adam asked, ducking another swipe of the blade. ‘A surfeit of Welsh hospitality for Ralf, and a sword through the belly for me. My Welsh hostage overheard a certain conversation between you and Davydd ap Tewdr, and was a witness to its result.’

Warrin’s guard dropped for an instant and Adam lunged, buffeting the shield boss at his face, then made a dive for the sword. The night-candle stand crashed over, and Judith’s expensive cedarwood box of tapestry silks tumbled with it. A hinge splayed and snapped, and the bright silks spilled out and were trampled underfoot.

Warrin recovered from his momentary recoil. ‘I’ll have your life for that foul slander!’ he choked, and came on fast as Adam strove to free the blade from the scabbard.