Told himself.
Her sparkling eyes returned to his. “Perhaps even bathe together, hmm?”
He caught his breath, heard his mother’s words again—Beware the Delilah, my son. Beware the Jezebel.
He cast off her hand. “You should not speak thus, Lady. ’Tis sinful!”
She blinked as if slapped, and as the light in her eyes fell to earth alongside her smile, whispered, “Forgive me. Oh, Lady Maude shall be disappointed. I am a lady. Truly, I am. I just…” She peeked at him from beneath her lashes. “I am pleased you wish to take me to wife, Lord Soames. You are young and handsome, and I am certain you are kind. I but wish you to be as happy with me as I am with you.”
Though his mother would not overlook her behavior, the man before her decided she could be forgiven. She was young and would mature ere they wed, and once Lady Maude was made aware of her ward’s deficiencies, she would correct them.
His betrothed lifted her chin, and he saw her eyes sparkled again, but not with joy or mischief. “You are not pleased with me, are you?”
Struggling against the impulse to pull her close and wipe away her tears, he clenched his hands at his sides. “I make allowances for your age and am confident a year hence you will be nearer a woman than a girl.”
His words offended, as evidenced by a different sort of light in those eyes, but it scattered and she said, “Much can happen in a year. Be patient, and I shall not disappoint you or Lady Maude who has been so good to me.”
The lady had been generous, fostering Laura Middleton since the age of five when her mother’s passing left the girl’s father with one female child to raise amidst six males.
“You…” She moistened her lips, and he saw they trembled. “…will not be too harsh in telling Lady Maude of my failings, will you? She will count herself responsible, and she is not. Ever I have been excitable.” A tear spilled, and she clapped a hand to her cheek as if to hide it. Another fell. “Oh, how the fluff upon the air irritates my eyes!”
Dear Lord, Lothaire silently appealed, she should not captivate so.
But she did, and he had only himself to blame when he breached the space between them and set his mouth on hers. He had kissed a few chambermaids—the extent of his carnal sin—but he was familiar enough with the intimacy to know this was different. The taste of Laura was more than pleasant. It was sweet, like the honey milk of his childhood.
It was she who ended the kiss. Dropping from her toes he had not realized he had dragged her onto, she said, “I like that, Lord Soames, but now I must prove Lady Maude has made a lady of me.”
“This is good,” he said as if he but tested her—and wished he did. How many hours must he now spend praying for forgiveness?
“My lord?”
“My lady?”
She was smiling again, though more demurely, cheeks prettily flushed. “Methinks you ought to release me.”
He lurched back. And had only a moment to miss the press of her body before what sounded like a large insect passed between their faces and skittered across the pond.
He snapped his head around, considered the rippled surface. “What was that?”
“Simon?” she called with what seemed rebuke.
Lothaire followed her gaze to the trees between pond and castle. “You think ’twas him?”
“I…” She looked sidelong at Lothaire, pressed pretty white teeth into her lower lip.
“He is gone from Owen,” he reminded her, then wondered if he erred when he recalled the slingshot looped over the young man’s belt—of note since Lothaire was fond of that childhood weapon. Though these past years of training were mostly spent mastering the sword, he was certain he could still make his mark.
“You are right, it cannot have been him,” she said. “Do you think ’twas a dragonfly?”
He studied the trees again. No movement. No sound that did not belong.
Might it have been a large insect? Possible. Regardless, it would have struck him in the temple had he not released her. “We ought to return, Lady Laura.” He stepped past her. And halted.
We are going to wed, he assured himself. She will be my wife. We will swim in the lake near Thistle Cross. Mayhap bathe together.
He peered over his shoulder and met her wary gaze. Longing to see the sparkle return to it, he reached to her.
There. So much light shone from her he felt its rays enter him. And as she slid her palm over his and worked her fingers through his, he was so warmed he discovered within him places he had not known were cold.
It was a beautiful day to fall in love. Perhaps he would.
As they walked side by side, skirts brushing chausses, brown hair caressing muscled forearm, neither saw the one who pressed his back to the bark of an ancient oak. Neither saw calloused fingers gripping straps of leather whose missile should have turned Lord Soames’s dark blond hair red…knocked him to his knees…made him cry like a boy…
Neither heard him rasp, “She is mine. Shall ever be mine. She promised!”
Chapter 1
Barony of Owen, England
April, 1163
Awaken, Laura. It is time.
She shook her head, felt the lingering caress of hair across cheeks, nose, and throat.
Open your eyes, the voice persisted.
She squeezed her lids tighter, ignored the ache of lungs that had expelled their last breath.
Do not do it for you. Do it for Clarice.
She sprang open her lids, peered at the clouded, candle-lit ceiling. It was time. Past time. But she was not yet clean.
That made her laugh, causing a bubble to burst from her lips and further distort the ceiling.
Her lungs lied. In the deepest of her, she yet had breath. And she lied. Never would she be truly clean, no matter how hard she scraped her scalp or urged her maid to scrub her flesh until so abraded pricks of blood surfaced.
A moment later, that woman appeared above—wide-eyed and disapproving.
Pushing her feet against the tub’s bottom, Laura slid up the side with a great slop of water.
Tina jumped back. “Oh milady! Ye got me skirts. Again!”
Water streaming Laura’s face and shoulders and over breasts she knew more by weight than sight, she managed one of the few smiles of which she was capable—that of apology. “I was in need of air.”
“Then ye shoulda come up sooner.” Tina snorted. “Sometimes ye worry me no end.”
Laura flicked water from her fingers, dragged a hand across her eyes. “I come up when I must.”
“As Lady Maude said, ye be a creature of the water.”
Maude. Gone six months now. Thus, Laura must awaken. For Clarice, who needed her mother now the woman she had not known was her grandmother had died. But there was something Clarice needed more—a father. Rather, a provider.