The Unveiling - Tamara Leigh (rooftoppers TXT) 📗

he struggled to contain the emotion that tempted him to toss her over his shoulder, he would immediately remove her from the training field.

“As for this terrible anger of yours...” She searched his face. ”...surely there is also a lesson for that?”

One he had learned long ago, and which she too often tested.

When he gave no answer, she said, “Very well, I yield. ‘Twould seem you are the better man.”

“The only man!”

She tilted her head further back, catching the sun’s light on her pretty face that no longer bore bruises. “Why are men so loath to share their pleasures with women?”

“Not all pleasures,” he bit. “Only those that are the domain of men.”

Her eyes flashed. “You have never sewn an accursed stitch, have you? Sat before a tedious loom? Wilted over endless menus? Been treated as mere chattel?” She caught her breath, and he glimpsed tears a moment before she dropped her chin.

Here, then, the root of her defiance—the knowledge that soon she would not only become a man’s possession, but the possession of Geoffrey Lavonne who would likely keep her in bruises as easily as his coin kept her in finery.

Garr’s anger faltered, but before he could claim victory over it, Annyn’s head came up and she drew a deep breath. She wrinkled her nose. “What lesson was it that told of cleanliness?” She leaned toward him and sniffed. “Ah, yes, eleven.”

Garr had had enough. As he pulled her across the training field, a cheer went up, but he disregarded those thronging the fences and walls, intent only on getting Annyn away. Unfortunately, he was far from being clear enough of mind to determine what her punishment would be.

Squire Warren appeared as they stepped from the training field and accepted the sword thrust at him.

Garr pulled Annyn over the drawbridge, bailey to bailey, and into the great hall where his mother stood so suddenly her chair toppled.

“What is this?” Isobel exclaimed. “What has she done now?”

Aye, now. No end to the mince Annyn Bretanne made of his ordered life. Indeed, regardless of her punishment, she would likely be undeterred.

He drew her up the stairs, down the corridor, and into the chamber his mother had given her. Only then did he release her, and only that he might close the door.

What in all of Christendom possessed me? Annyn wondered as Garr turned to face her. She had known it was a mistake to challenge him, but that—perhaps more than anything—had driven her to the sword. It might prove the last time she was able to make such a mistake without suffering Lavonne’s cruelty.

“My only regret,” she said, “is that it was over too soon.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “What is to be my punishment, Lord Wulfrith? Will you return me to the dark tower? Will you once more set your squires upon me? Mayhap no supper for a fortnight—ah, but I shall not be here that long, shall I?”

His eyes narrowed but when his thinned lips parted, she shook her head. “You forget lesson fourteen: be slow to make decisions of great import.”

“Annyn Bretanne!” He strode forward. “Why do you provoke me?”

“Why do you allow me?”

He turned his hands around her arms and pulled her near. “You ought to fear me.”

She did not flinch. “Regardless of what I once believed, regardless of that anger of yours that causes men to quake, regardless of the power you wield as a Wulfrith, I cannot fear you. Nay.” She shook her head. “The trainer of whelps to warriors is not the same as the man I will be made to wed.”

The fire in Garr’s eyes flickered. “You are certain of that?”

“I am.” Not that it would change anything between them. It could not. Under the threat of tears, she heard herself say, “Just one last time, I longed to embrace the thrill of owning my destiny, and for that I made a fool of myself by challenging you.” She laughed bitterly. “But think, Garr, what had I to lose?”

His hands on her eased. “I know.”

“Do you?”

His lids lowered, and when they lifted, it was her mouth he looked upon—as if he was tempted to it.

Was it desire he felt? Mere lust for not having had a woman recently? Or something more? And what of her own emotions, this longing in her breast? Was it—?

It could not be. Still, she lifted her hands between them and laid her palms to his chest. “Why did you twice kiss me?”

Slowly, he raised his gaze to hers. “I wished to.”

“Do you wish to again?”

Without hesitation, he lowered his head and Annyn felt the pleasure of his mouth on hers, his hands on her back, and his arms sweeping her against his chest.

When he trailed his mouth to her ear, she turned her face to his neck and breathed in the male scent of him, then kissed him there and tasted the salt of his perspiration. It was strange that what had offended her on the training field should now cause such a stir within her.

“Annyn,” he rasped, returning to her mouth. His lips teased and hands pushed through her hair.

In that moment, she knew what she wanted from him and what she would give him in return. It was wrong—more wrong than she dared think upon—but she wanted this memory to take with her when she left. Just this one thing and she would be as content as it was possible for one whose fate portended ill. No matter what Lavonne did to her, she would always have this.

“Feel how my heart beats.” Garr drew her hand to his chest.

She thrilled to the knocking there. “I feel it. Now teach me how ’tis between a man and woman, Garr.”

He stilled and, when she looked up, she saw regret on his face where there had been passion.

He released her and moved away. “Forgive me.”

Heart aching, she said, “Why did you stop? Because I am not beautiful?”

He turned back. “I stop because ’tis a mistake I make in touching you so. Though women are not unknown to me, I do not lie with ladies, especially those promised to another.”

She gasped. “Promised? Do you not mean enslaved?”

His face darkened. “It is what it is, Annyn. It can be no other way.”

She took a step toward him. “But it can, even if only for this day.”

“Nay. As you say that I am not Lavonne, neither am I Rowan or your uncle, pleasuring myself with a woman who belongs to another, making a harlot of her.”

His words were like a slap, and Annyn looked away so he would not know how hard he struck. Regardless of her mother’s sins, she did not wish to think of Elena in that way.

The silence stretched until Annyn found her old, bitter self. “How honorable of you, Lord Wulfrith,” she said. “Would that I had words to express my gratitude that my esteemed betrothed shall find me intact.”

He closed the distance between them and cupped her chin. “It is honorable, Annyn, and I will not be made to feel ashamed for it.”

As the child in her wished him to feel. Struck with shame of her own that, for all her seeking of God these many days, she would have committed a sin she could never cast off for memory of this man, she pulled free of his touch. “You are right,” she murmured. “What a pity more are not like you.”

Silence descended again, and Annyn felt it straight through to her soul.

This time, Garr was the one to sweep it aside. “Come,” he said, striding to the door, “you must have cloth to fashion a gown that fits.”

She could hardly breathe for the sudden turn. After all that had happened between the training field and this chamber, he wished to take her to market? “But I do not require a fitted gown.”

He looked over his shoulder. “Aye, you do—a bliaut worthy to receive the one you would have be king.”

Henry, who would be here in a sennight. Though Annyn longed to decline, she knew Garr was right. If there was any chance of saving Rowan, she must gain the duke’s favor, and that would be easier done in a gown that fit well and proclaimed her to be a lady.

She had returned, and appeared no worse for Wulfrith’s anger.

Rowan closed his eyes on the sight of Annyn following Wulfrith across the outer bailey. The clamor of half an hour earlier had drawn him to the window of his prison. Unfortunately, the din had arisen from somewhere outside the castle walls, and not until he saw Wulfrith dragging Annyn over the drawbridge into the outer bailey had he known the cause of it. Had she tried to escape?

Fearing for her as a father would a daughter, though he certainly was not and did not deserve to be, he had pounded on the door and called to the guard. His jailer came, but no matter how Rowan raged, the accursed man refused to open the door. With naught left but prayer, which he had attempted, he had returned to the window, the width of which might allow a child through but never a man.

Not that it mattered now. Annyn was well, furthering her case that Wulfrith was not one to murder an innocent young man.

The relief over her well-being threatened by the never-ending ache of Jonas’s death, Rowan watched the two step beneath the portcullis. A moment later, they were lost to sight, and he returned to pondering the conversation overheard between his jailer and a man who had brought Rowan’s dinner a few days past. Duke Henry was coming, not only to garner Wulfrith’s allegiance, but to be delivered Annyn and the one who had aided in her escape.

Though his own fate did not matter, he agonized over Annyn’s. What would Henry’s punishment be? Worse than wedding her to the one who had struck her so hard as to leave a bruise? If only there was some way for him to aid her.

There was not. Somehow, she must do it herself. But how, with Wulfrith always at her back?

Rowan almost wished the renowned trainer of knights might come to feel something for her that would cause him to help her, but lust was not enough to risk the wrath of the man who would be king. As for love, Wulfrith was not so fool. It would take a miracle to see Annyn delivered free of Henry. And from Rowan’s experience, there were no miracles laying about.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

It was not as he would have it, but that was the way of things. Nor would he have had himself be the one to stroll among the stalls with Annyn in search of cloth, especially as they did so beneath the curious regard of those who had witnessed their contest on the training field. But he would see to the task and know it was done.

“This.” He reached past the eager merchant who smelled of chewed parsley. From beneath a fold of red and white striped cloth, Garr pulled forth a vivid blue.

“Silk of Almeria,” the merchant crooned. “The finest, my lord, befitting a lady.”

Garr looked to Annyn and saw her attention was on the woods bordering Stern. As if deep in thought, she twisted the ring on her thumb. Perhaps the cloth would not be necessary. “Lady Annyn,” he clipped.

She looked around. “My lord?”

Resenting the awkward