Chosen for the Marriage Bed. Anne O'Brien

Чтение книги онлайн.

      Ledenshall looked cold and rain-washed from the vantage point of Elizabeth’s bedchamber, with a nasty little teasing wind, but she felt no inclination to remain in her bed.

      ‘This is now my home,’ she stated firmly to the empty room.

      Weeks of rules and insistent bells had awakened her before first light. With the stir of the castle around her as the servants took up their duties for the day, and no urgent need to break her fast, Elizabeth was driven by a desire to explore. She pulled on the first gown to hand, hating the coarse material, but it was not as if she had a choice in the matter, even if the garment had curled Lady Anne’s mischievously disdainful lips. She covered it with a heavy fur-lined cloak borrowed from one of the clothes presses. Considerably shorter than Elizabeth’s own garments, barely reaching down to her ankles, yet it was fine and luxurious, better than anything she had ever possessed. Elizabeth pulled the collar close around her throat with a little shiver of pleasure at the touch of the soft fur, and would have left to begin her investigations until she remembered, with a little moue of distaste. Hurriedly she pinned a plain linen veil into place to hide her shame from the view of any interested eyes.

      For the next hour she indulged her own whims with no one to hinder or forbid. From the main family rooms in a comparatively new wing, she descended into the Great Hall, remnant of the original castle with its square keep. Here the windows were still arrow-slits, the roof timbers high above her head, the spaces vast and the draughts lethal enough to swirl the smoke and shiver the tapestries that decorated the walls.

      On to the kitchens, where, with a brief smile and a word of greeting, Elizabeth accepted the offered heel of a loaf, before climbing the outer staircase to the battlements, to look out over the bare hills and leafless trees, the muddy track leading back to Llanwardine. Her spirits lifted. By the Virgin, she would never return there! Then back down to the stables, brushing crumbs from her fingers and the damask of the cloak. The chapel. Pantries and storerooms, a rabbit-warren of corridors and doors. Aware of the glances and whispered comment from soldiers and servants who knew this inquisitive newcomer was to be their mistress.

      Richard Malinder, another early riser, watched her investigate. He saw the flutter of movement, saw her emerge from the Great Hall in a well-worn cloak which swirled some ten inches from the ground as the tall figure strode across the inner courtyard. Noted the energy, the light, confident step as the lady explored his home. Her curiosity, her quick agility as she ran up the staircase, striding around to inspect the view on all four sides. And she talked to people as she passed. The guards on duty. His steward, Master Kilpin, answered some query with a nod and a wave of his arm. The servant girls from the dairy. Anyone who crossed her path. It was as if the pale, damply reserved creature of the previous day had been reborn, a butterfly, if still a sombre one, so perhaps a moth—his lips twitched—emerging from a dull chrysalis.

      He should speak with her. He had agreed to take her in matrimony, had he not? Lord Richard had to resist a sigh after that one vivid memory of her, naked and vulnerable, wary as a wild hare before the hunting dogs. No time for regrets now. He climbed the staircase to meet his betrothed where she leaned on the stone parapet to look to the distant Welsh hills.

      Elizabeth turned quickly at the sound of his boots on stone. Solemn, her steady gaze watchful, careful, but unnervingly direct. Waiting, he realised, to gauge his mood.

      ‘You took no harm from your journey, Lady.’

      ‘No. I am quite recovered from the drenching. Thank you, my lord.’

      She said no more but stood, motionless, cautious, as he advanced. He held out his hand in invitation. Elizabeth promptly placed hers there with no sign of reluctance. Richard’s interest was caught. Perhaps she was not wary at all, simply circumspect, unwilling to give too much of herself away until she had taken his measure. Then she surprised him when she reversed their clasped hands, turning his uppermost to reveal the back of his own wrist. And touched the long red scratch gently with apologetic fingers.

      ‘I’m sorry for this.’

      His brows twitched in sardonic humour. ‘I take it the animal isn’t hidden beneath your cloak this morning.’

      ‘No.’ The corner of her mouth quirked in the faintest of responses. The deep blue of her eyes, reflecting the rich hue of the cloak, picked up a glint of gold from the weak rays of the sun.

      ‘Do I call you Beth? Or Bess?’ he asked. ‘What do your family call you?’

      ‘I am Elizabeth,’ she replied gravely.

      ‘Then Elizabeth it shall be.’ It told him much of her upbringing, that she had never been named informally with affection. ‘Do you approve?’ he asked.

      ‘Of what?’

      ‘Ledenshall.’ He gestured to their surroundings. ‘Your new home.’

      ‘Of course.’ The slightest hint of colour rose from the fur at her neckline, as if in guilt that she had been found out in some lack of courtesy. ‘You didn’t mind?’ A quick contact of eyes, as if she feared a reprimand.

      ‘Of course not. It’s your home. You’re free to enjoy it.’ A contradiction here, he realised, between confidence and vulnerability. He thought about what he wanted to say to put her at her ease, which she clearly wasn’t. ‘I’m sorry you should have had to face this ordeal alone. Your uncle should have been here to welcome you.’

      The heightened colour deepened. ‘And I am sure we can deal well enough without him, my lord. Sir John is the last person I would expect to be here to make me comfortable.’ She closed her lips firmly.

      So the tale of the estrangement between uncle and niece was true. He found Elizabeth was now looking squarely at him, head tilted, whilst Richard awaited the outcome, senses on the alert. It was not often that young women appraised him in so serious a manner, without a smile on their lips or an invitation in their eyes. She was definitely taking his measure. Her words surprised him further.

      ‘Let us be frank. We both know it, my lord. I am here as a replacement for my cousin Maude because Sir John wishes it,’ she announced gruffly. ‘And because for you the de Lacy connection would have its advantages in the March. There’s no need for pretence between us. You did not want me, I know. But I presume that Sir John was most persuasive with my dowry—my mother’s Vaughan lands, I expect. And, of course, you’ll need a Malinder heir. I shall do all in my power to oblige.’

      Well, here was plain speaking. But if her words took him aback, he hid it and answered in kind. ‘That is all true. And I warrant that my offer to take you as Lady of Ledenshall would give you far more satisfaction than the narrow life of a nun in Llanwardine. There are advantages on both sides.’

      The СКАЧАТЬ