Lord Of Danger Stuart, Anne (classic fiction .TXT) 📖

to say, he wanted you to…” It was the wine, she thought, that was making her stupid. Not those eyes trained so steadily on her. She took a deep drink of the golden wine. “He said you would choose one of us to marry,” she said in a rush. “I want you to choose me.”

“Why?”

A simple enough question. “Because it would kill Claire.”

“You’ve been listening to too many fairy stories, Lady Alys. I don’t eat children or maidens. Your sister would survive marriage with me quite handily.”

It shouldn’t have come as any surprise that he’d made his choice. She’d known there would be no question of who he’d want. She would simply have to change his mind.

“She’s high-strung,” Alys said. “Willful.”

“And you aren’t?”

“No!” she protested. “I’m really very meek and quietly behaved.”

“I’m not certain your brother would see it that way.”

“I would cause you no trouble,” she said rather desperately. “I would keep out of your way, I would ask no questions, I would be the perfect wife.”

“Was this your sister’s idea?” he said, sounding no more than casually interested.

“Oh, no!” Alys couldn’t keep the shock from her voice. “She would never ask me to sacrifice myself in such a way. It was entirely my own idea.”

The faint choking sound he made was almost like a laugh. “Your years in the convent have taught you well the joys of martyrdom,” he murmured. “You must have grieved leaving.”

A sudden, glorious thought came to her. “You could choose neither of us,” she said suddenly. “Why should you want to be saddled with a wife? The two of us are fairly useless. Granted, Claire’s extremely decorative, but she can be very tiresome and stubborn. And while I would promise to keep out of your way and be very, very quiet, I still might be likely to grate on your nerves.”

“You won’t escape,” he said with curious gentleness. “If your brother doesn’t marry you to me, he’ll barter the two of you to the highest bidder. You won’t be getting back to your convent, little nun.”

“I don’t like to be called ‘little,’ ” Alys said with some dignity, draining the honey-flavored wine. Which was, in itself, a mistake.

“Shall I call you ‘large’ instead?”

“I don’t like you,” she said.

“Really? So mild? I assumed you hated me.”

“Hatred is a sin.”

“Except when its object is evil. Love the good, hate the wicked, isn’t that what they taught you?”

“Are you wicked? Evil?”

“So they say.”

“What do you say?” she demanded.

“So many questions,” he murmured. “Answer one for me. Will you share my bed and lie beneath me? Will you do as I bid and pleasure me?”

He couldn’t see that she turned pale in the darkness. The wine had only increased her dizziness, and his low, insinuating words were stifling her.

“If it has to be one of us,” she said. “Yes. Let it be me.”

He leaned back, his crippled hand curled in his lap. “You’re quite brave, aren’t you?”

“No,” she said. “I’m scared to death.”

“I should tell you,” he said, leaning toward her. “You wasted your time in coming here tonight. I’d already made up my mind.”

Despair washed over her. “You won’t change it?”

“Not for all the gold in the holy land,” he said.

“My poor sister,” Alys cried.

“A pox on your poor sister,” he said mildly. “I’d already chosen you.”

It was triumph; it was disaster. It was a surfeit of powerful wine. Alys slid off the padded stool and into a longed-for oblivion, right in front of her future husband.

Simon of Navarre looked down at her, sprawled gracelessly on the floor. Her coif had slipped, her braids were coming loose, with tendrils of soft hair framing her sleeping face. Her heavy brown gown had slid part way up her legs, exposing shapely ankles and strong calves. He wondered what her breasts would be like. He wanted to find out.

Instead he sat back in his chair, lifted his cramped right hand and stretched it from its claw-like position. The pain of the original injury had been enormous, the pain of healing had been even worse. He reached for the heavy bottle of wine with his strong, scarred hand and poured himself another goblet full, his eyes resting on his sleeping bride. She would know, soon enough, that he was no more crippled than Richard’s strongest knight. She would know, when she was so enslaved by him that she would never tell.

He knew how to enslave women. He knew tricks from the far corners of the world, tricks to make a woman quiver and scream and faint from pleasure.

He was going to enjoy using them on the little brown wren who would be his wife.

Chapter Three

It wasn’t exactly the life he would have chosen for himself, if he’d been given a choice. Sir Thomas du Rhaymer considered himself a simple man, with simple needs. A plain man, a soldier, who feared God, served his lord, championed the weak, and sought justice for all. Who would have thought his life would end up such a tangled mess?

He’d been born of decent stock in the north, soon sent down to Somerset as squire to Richard the Fair. It was a golden opportunity, his father had told him. Richard the Fair was cousin to the king himself, a glorious young lord who would go far in this world and take those who served him along with him.

And indeed, throughout the rigorous years of training, when Richard was young and seemingly fair in nature as well as form, young Thomas had worshipped him, honored to serve so noble a lord. He was knighted, and he gladly took the bride Richard chose for him. Gwyneth had been beautiful, high-born, and delicate.

She had also been Richard’s leman, but Thomas had overlooked that small drawback. What he hadn’t counted on was her utter faithlessness, her hunger for any man who came within her sight.

That hunger included her husband, and for a while he’d been blinded, entranced, lost in the thrall of her sweet-scented body and rich laughter,