A Passionate Magic Read online

  “Are you refusing to accept your bride?” she demanded of him.

  “Certainly not,” Dain answered her in a dangerously smooth voice. ”A refusal would be disobedience to the king’s direct command. Unlike your grandfather, I am no dishonest lord.”

  “You will not have a very fond wife, my lord, if you persist in disparaging her grandsire,” Emma warned.

  “Whatever made you think I want a wife who will be fond of me?” he asked. “We have wed only because King Henry insisted upon our marriage. You will obey me in all things, you will lie in my bed and accept my embraces when I am in the mood to bestow them upon you, and you will bear my children. I have no other use for you.”

  “I am trained as a chatelaine,” she said. “I have considerable skill in the healing arts. And I do believe it is only fair to tell you at once about my other abilities.”

  “I am not interested,” he interrupted her. “My mother, Lady Richenda, is chatelaine here. You will obey her as you obey me. Perhaps she can find something useful for you to do, to occupy your days. Otherwise, stay out of my way as much as possible.”

  “My lord,” Father Maynard objected, “that is no way to treat a new wife.”

  “You will please me best by remaining silent,” Dain told him with a look so fierce and cold that Emma’s heart quaked within her when she saw it.

  “My lord Dain,” Emma declared, righteous anger stirring in her bosom, “as Father Maynard has already told you, every member of our party is cold, wet, hungry, and weary. We deserve better hospitality than this. If you will not offer what is due to us, then I, as new mistress of this castle, will order what we need for our comfort. Let me remind you that you are in violation of the rules of hospitality.”

  For the second time since meeting her, Dain stared at her as if he could not believe his own ears. When he did not at once respond to her criticism, Emma looked around the hall, seeking a servant to whom she could give orders. She saw the flash of a skirt as a female dashed around a corner into the screens passage, heading toward the kitchen, perhaps in flight from the quarrel that seemed about to break into all-out warfare between lord and lady. Other than that one, vanished woman, there were only a few men-at-arms lounging about the hall, and all of them were rather pointedly ignoring their new mistress. The men-at-arms and their squires who had escorted Emma from Wroxley were either crowded at the entry or still outside in the courtyard, waiting for orders about unloading the pack-horses. Hawise, Emma’s companion, stood close behind her.

  Emma flung the damp folds of her woolen cloak back over either shoulder to free her arms. Planting her fists on her hips, she approached Dain, not stopping until she stood toe-to-toe with him.

  “If you continue to deny us proper hospitality,” she said to him, “then I and the rest of my party will leave Penruan. We did not come so far to be insulted.”

  “If you leave,” he responded, sneering at her outrage, “you will break the terms of the peace agreement your father and I promised in the king’s presence to abide by, and therefore, you will be responsible for the outbreak of hostilities between Wroxley and Penruan.”

  “It will take months for you to march an army to Wroxley,” she said. “By then, I can ride to court and tell the king how badly you have treated me and my company. What do you think King Henry will say to that?”

  “What makes you think I don’t already have an army based in Lincolnshire?” he asked.

  “That is impossible!”

  “Really? Are you foolish enough to imagine I don’t have friends?” His blue-green eyes danced with fiendish amusement. “I could name several men who are jealous of the power of the baron of Wroxley and of his close friendship with King Henry. Such men would delight in any opportunity to do harm to Gavin on his own lands.”

  “Inciting others to attack Wroxley is as much a violation of your agreement with my father as is the way you are treating me,” Emma exclaimed.

  “How would you know? Have you read the agreement?” he asked in tones of such contempt that she all but screamed her response at him.

  “Of course I read it! I read every cursed word! And every word of our marriage contract, too. Never think, my lord, that I came to Penruan ignorant of what is expected of me.”

  “You can read?” For the first time since she had entered the great hall Dain looked at her with an interest that went beyond contempt and disparagement.

  “I learned to read at an early age,’ she said, grasping at the chance to elicit some respect from him. “I can also write and count. There are a great many things I know how to do.’

  “There is only one thing you need to do here at Penruan. You are to bear me a son. We will attempt to conceive one tonight.”

  Emma considered his words as calculated to intimidate her. She wasn’t going to allow it; she was going to fight back.

  ”You will not bed me when I am cold, wet, and hungry!” she shouted at him. “Nor while my attendants are uncared-for.”

  “I grow weary of your repeated complaints,” he said.

  “If you will only have the courtesy to respond to them, the complaints will cease,” she told him.

  “Perhaps I do not care about your condition,” he said, regarding her disdainfully.

  “Perhaps you should care, my lord, if you want a healthy son from me!”

  “If not from you,” he replied, “then from some other woman. It matters not at all to me.”

  “I think it does,” she said, suddenly calm. His indifference to her was feigned; she was certain of it. “For a reason I do not yet comprehend, you wanted a granddaughter of Udo of Wroxley for your wife. You wanted it so much, in fact, that you were willing to wait years until my sister Alys was grown to womanhood before getting a child on her. You will not have to wait so long with me. That fact ought to please you, not discomfit you. Unless you are afraid of me, my lord?”

  She thought he was going to hit her. She had chosen her words deliberately, knowing no man liked to be called a coward and certain he would be angered. She watched his reaction with some surprise and dawning respect for his powers of self-control. She did not doubt his anger. It blazed in his beautiful eyes and hardened his finely boned face. On first seeing him, she had found it difficult to reconcile his handsome appearance with his fearful reputation. She did not find it difficult now.

  He did not strike her. Slowly he unclenched the fists he held close to his sides. Emma watched in amazement as his face smoothed from an expression of fury to one of bland disinterest. When he spoke his voice was soft, yet she heard the underlying danger in it.

  “You have no idea how mistaken you are about what I want.” Abruptly, he changed the subject. “How many female attendants have you brought with you?”

  “Just one, my lord, according to the terms of the agreement between you and my father. I have also an escort of twenty men-at-arms and squires, all of whom will return to Wroxley after a day or two of rest.” She did not add that the returning captain of the men-at-arms would bear the letter she intended to write to Gavin, describing her reception at Penruan. She thought Dain would understand as much without her telling him.

  “There is room for your men in the barracks,” Dain said. “I will have someone show you and your maidservant to the lord’s chamber.”

  “I will want a bath,” she said, pressing her advantage. “Also food and drink for myself and those who came with me. I assume the midday meal is over.” She looked around the great hall, noting the empty tables.

  “Order what you want,” he told her. “I will join you later, after you have rested.” There was a world of unmistakable meaning in that last sentence.

  “Do you wish me to appear at the evening meal?” she asked, willing to be conciliatory now that she had won simple hospitality for herself and her companions. “If so, I will have Hawise unpack my best gown.”

  “There will be time enough tomorrow for me to present you to my people.”

  She could not help but wonder if
he would acknowledge her as his wife at all, if she did not please him when night came.

  “I should like to meet your mother,” Emma said.

  “Lady Richenda is away from home, visiting her sister in a convent,” Dain informed her. “She will return in a week or two.” With that, he turned his back on her and walked away.

  “There goes the rudest man I have ever seen or heard,” gasped Hawise, who had been Emma’s personal maid for so long that she sometimes forgot her place in favor of defending her beloved mistress. “Nor can his mother be well mannered, if she absented herself from Penruan during the very weeks when she must have known you would arrive. If my lord Gavin were here—”

  “But he is not here,” Emma interrupted her loyal companion. “Let us make the best of our situation. It seems to me we have no other choice, for we are very far from home.”

  “It’s a good thing it’s you who came to Penruan and not Lady Alys,” Hawise said. “If little Alys were here, she’d have been weeping half an hour ago. But you will stand up to him, my lady. You will see to it that he treats us as we ought to be treated. And if he continues to be rude, you will use your magic on him.”

  “Hush,” Emma cautioned, laying a finger on Ha-wise’s lips. “We agreed not to say anything about my magical abilities until after I have decided the time is right for me to speak to my lord Dain on the subject.”

  She found herself wondering if it was going to be possible for her to talk to Dain in a rational way on any subject. When he learned she could work magic, what would his reaction be? The chill that went up her spine at the thought had nothing to do with the lack of a fire in the great hall or with the absence of a charcoal brazier when she and Hawise finally reached the lord’s chamber.

  Chapter 2

  “How cold it is,” Hawise said, looking around the lord’s chamber. “How bare and gloomy.”

  Emma did not say so aloud, but she agreed with Hawise. They had been conducted to a bedchamber well suited to a lord who lived near the end of the world on a cliff at the edge of the sea. It was a room very different from the lord’s chamber at Wroxley. Here, there were no tapestries to warm and brighten the bare gray stone walls, no rug on the floor, no chair made comfortable with thick, bright cushions.

  True, the room was large and well proportioned, and perhaps it was a more cheerful place when the sun was shining. On this day of rain and wind the shutters were securely latched over the unglazed double window that was set into a niche in the thick wall. With the shutters closed the room was a place of deep shadows made even more gloomy by the lack of comforts. Stone benches were built into each side of the window niche, where ladies might sit together to ply their needles in the light, but there were no cushions to ease the chill of the stone. Only two pieces of furniture graced the room. The head of a large bed with plain, dark brown hangings was pushed against the inner wall, and an oblong wooden clothes chest rested at the foot of the bed.

  “My lady, you will freeze in here,” Hawise protested, looking around at the chilly emptiness.

  “Lord Dain did tell me to order what I wanted,” Emma said, and proceeded to list for Hawise everything she would require. While Hawise carried her orders to the castle servants, Emma made a quick search of the other two rooms on the same level of the tower keep. The first room, which opened directly onto the staircase, held a supply of arrows and assorted other arms, all arranged close to the arrow slits, so they would be readily at hand in case of attack.

  The second, smaller room also opened onto the tower steps, and in addition it had a door connecting it to the lord’s chamber. Since it was empty, and since the window that looked out over the edge of the cliff was slightly larger than an arrow slit, Emma decided the room would serve well as a place for Hawise to sleep and as a storeroom for the belongings brought from Wroxley until they could all be unpacked.

  When Hawise returned to the lord’s chamber Emma set her to work changing the bed linens. Soon the scent of the lavender in which the sheets had been packed at Wroxley filled the room. Two of the servants whom Hawise had commandeered arrived, one carrying a brazier, the other with a scuttle full of charcoal. Immediately afterward a boy about twelve years old by the look of him, who was evidently a page, rushed in bearing a candlestick as tall as he was and an armful of fat candles that looked as if they had come from the chapel.

  “Father Maynard sent them,” the boy said, confirming Emma’s guess.

  “I’m Blake, my lady,” the boy continued, “and I am very glad to have a nice lady at Penruan. Father Maynard says you are nice. Not that Lady Richenda isn’t nice,” he added hastily. “She is a very good woman, and extremely devout, but she isn’t much fun.”

  “Please take my thanks for the candles to Father Maynard,” Emma told the boy. She knew better than to comment on his opinion of Lady Richenda.

  An hour later Emma was feeling greatly refreshed, having eaten a meal of cold meat, bread, and cheese, washed down by fresh cider. She had also enjoyed the hot bath she so much wanted. Preferring her companion to be as clean as she was, Emma offered the still-warm bathwater to Hawise to use, so she could also wash away the grime and chill of travel. The emptied tub was being carried out and Hawise, shiny faced with cleanliness and grateful to her thoughtful mistress, had retreated to her own small room to find fresh clothes for herself, when Dain stalked into the lord’s chamber.

  He stopped short, a startled expression spreading across his face as he looked from the freshly made bed with Emma’s bright green quilt from Wroxley spread atop the snowy sheets to the candle burning beside the bed, to the wide, round brazier onto which Emma was sprinkling aromatic herbs. He took a breath, preparing to speak, then stopped with a frown and a slight cough.

  “What are you doing?” Dain asked, wrinkling his nose at the fragrance.

  “Juniper and rosemary will freshen the air,” Emma answered. She stayed where she was, with the brazier standing like a sentinel between her and her husband. She told herself the trembling that suddenly threatened to overcome her was foolish. There was nothing for her to fear. Dain was a man like any other man, and she had the king’s will and her father’s stalwart strength to protect her. Women had for centuries gone to the beds of men they did not know, brought there by the contracts made by parents or guardians or rulers. It was the way marriages were arranged between nobles.

  At least she was not part of the spoils of some dreadful battle. She discounted Dain’s remarks about having friends who would attack Wroxley on his order. So long as she carried out her part of the agreement, she believed no harm would be visited upon Wroxley, and all of her beloved family would be safe.

  She reminded herself that she came willingly to this marriage, to a husband who was handsome, apparently healthy, and reasonably clean. She would grant him her innocence in order to seal the peace between him and Gavin, and she would do everything she could to give him pleasure. Mirielle had made certain that Emma was well informed about what would happen in the marriage bed, and for her stepmother’s wise advice Emma was grateful.

  Still, her actual experience with men was limited to a few hasty, stolen kisses during Christmas or May Day celebrations. She did not know how it would feel to be completely possessed by a man. Emma sensed that Dain, known as a formidable opponent in battle, was most likely a passionate lover once he was aroused. Possibly he was a violent lover. Suddenly, she recalled Hawise’s whispered gossip in the previous year about the harm done to a serving maid by one of the men-at-arms at Wroxley, and how Gavin, upon learning the story, had imprisoned the man and later sent him away to a distant island monastery where there were no women for him to attack. Surely Dain would not treat his wife so brutally. Would he?

  Emma took a long breath to calm her thoughts and her trembling limbs. She scattered the last of the herbs over the hot coals, then let her hands fall to her sides and stood there, in the circle of heat from the brazier, and waited.

  Dain approached her, skirting the brazier, and Emma t
urned a little to face him. Her hair was loose and still a bit damp from washing it. Dain’s long fingers stroked the smooth tresses from brow to ear to shoulder, a sensitive, almost gentle touch that gave rise to tender hope on Emma’s part. Perhaps he would not be rough with her. Perhaps, when they were together in his bed, Dain would lay aside the hatred he bore toward her father and treat her with kindness.

  His hand came to rest on her shoulder, and the brilliant eyes that had been searching every aspect of her face fell to her throat. Suddenly, Emma was painfully aware of being clad only in a loose linen shift, covered by the woolen shawl she had snatched up and wrapped about her shoulders for modesty’s sake while the servants carried out the buckets of bathwater and the tub. The shift was ankle-length and the long, straight sleeves reached to her wrists, yet Emma felt as if she was wearing nothing at all. The garment had a wide neckline, and one of Dain’s fingers slipped beneath the edge of the fabric. His fingertip caressed her collarbone. He tugged at the linen, pulling it across her shoulder, and then he bent his head and put his mouth on her bare skin.

  Emma went perfectly still, transfixed by the sensation of warm, soft lips on her shoulder and of a hot, moist tongue licking at her skin.

  Dain kept his mouth where it was, but his hands were busy, pulling the shawl out of her numbed grasp, dropping it on the floor.

  Still Emma could not move. Dain slowly trailed his lips along her shoulder to a spot just below her ear. Again his mouth and his tongue worked their singular magic, and Emma discovered that her ear-lobe and the area around it were both wonderfully receptive to Dain’s calculated touch.

  For what he was doing was carefully calculated. It could not be otherwise; Dain did not love her, he did not know her, and after his rude reception of his bride she believed he did not even like her, yet they must lie down together and consummate this marriage between strangers, and try to conceive a child whose existence would be the surety of lasting peace between their families.